TELL ME WHAT I SAY

There’s such a rich, interesting history to a lot of southern words---different meanings, different inflections, different heritage. That piece of paper you get from the state or county for fishing or hunting is a PER-mit to permit you to participate.



INTERNET PHOTOS
A croaker sack/Kroger sack (depending on where you shop, I suppose) is usually a kind of burlap bag, but could range from a cottonsack to a feed sack. This term is seldom used to refer to a sure-nuff paper grocery bag for shaking up that frying chicken with all that flour and seasonings, but that same bag could be called a poke, a la Miss Loretty’s brown paper trousseau luggage in Coal Miner’s Daughter.

A deep freeze keeps your food frozen; a Frigidaire keeps it cool, and you pay for those items from your pocketbook. You might tote that stuff home and wrap it in loomnum foil (also pronounced faw-ul) or Saran, clean your clothes in a washing machine with water from the hot water heater, and sprinkle-down a load of laundry for ironing.

To close a window, you might pull down the sash; you go to church to hear the message, and to partake of The Lord’s Supper. Your meals are called breakfast, dinner and supper, and might include a mess a greens, a pot of snap beans seasoned with a little hand of fatback,

and a pone of bread:

A duster is the light robe a lady might wear to cook breakfast, and her bedroom slippers might be called house shoes or, if they slide between the toes, thongs. But with all the beach-house rentals and the trips to Florida, the word “flipflops” is catching on fast.

A firefly is a lightning bug, a frog is sometimes called a hop-toad, and a grub in a hole in the ground is a doodle-bug, fished for by many a squatting, dusty small person with a ball of spit-moistened dirt on a broomstraw.
Try your hand at translating a few from what I call my Mason/Dixonary:

Cho-cho

Nabs

Crawdad

Locus’

Git-fiddle

Hammerjack

Spicket

Slopjar

Lightbread

Sweetmilk

Settee

Galluses

Gettin’ your beauty struck

Beauty shop
Piddlin’

Doo-hickey
Snake Doctor

Translations will be posted on Tuesday, 24th.

SUMMER DAY

After yesterday's post with its Faulkner-solemn tones, I thought we needed something Happy, something Light---Friday Frivols and the beginning to a good weekend. I went to my Journal for some of the quotes I've enjoyed and picked up recently---they're all about comfort and Summer and Home:

The hum of bees is the Voice of the Garden. Elizabeth Lawrence

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. Annie Dillard


What a ripping little house this---everything so handy.Dear Friend Ratty, Wind in the Willows




And in the same vein, Mole’s just-before-slumber thoughts on his cozy old house:

It was good to think he had this to come back to, this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.---Wind in the Willows

Nothing in the world matches sundried bedding for a good night's sleep. My Friend Sparrowgrass

My friend Kim is a Constant Reader, and does a lot of book reviews. Hers are not of the stern sort, and though she’s VERY smart, they are never, like so many, phrased more to show her knowledge and wit rather than the worth of the book. Instead, they let you know her take on the tome in a gentle, guiding way, and she’s never steered me wrong.

Miss Julia is funny and smart and the other characters are wonderful. I love that Miss Julia has standards and values, but that she doesn't let them get in the way of loving good folks. Kim, in GoodReads


Tea-drinking is a cheerful habit to cultivate, as each cup gently shifts fatigue, lifts the spirits and brightens the brainbox. Helen Simpson in The Ritz Book of Afternoon Tea.

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living evey minute with love, grace, and gratitude.
Denis Waitley

I dust a bit...I am at this moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.Ignatius J. Riley---John Kennedy Toole---A Confederacy of Dunces

Those sowing seed with tears will reap even with a joyful cry. The one who without fail goes forth, even weeping, carrying along a bagful of seed, will without fail come in with a joyful cry, carrying along his sheaves---Psalm 126:5,6

Lucy Vanel, of Lucy’s Kitchen Notebook, on her Alpengarten---her potager:

Wind blows across the pasture and seed from unruly weeds try to reclaim their old home each week. When we arrive on Friday night the feeling is usually a little bit like facing the sink full of dirty dishes after a raucous dinner party. Will the weeding ever end? Then we set to work, and in short time, tugging up this and that, prying the spiraling fingers of savage wild growth away, we are satisfied.

On the dying of the day in a Seattle Summer:With each day, the light stays a bit longer, as though too lazy to leave at anything but a slow crawl.Molly Wizenberg of Orangette

I wish you all a sun-drenched, satisfying day, of bee-hum, happiness, grace, with a quiet moment for a cup of tea, a friend, a good book.

And may the light linger, linger, til you slumber in your comfortable bed, hushed with the quiet end of a good day.

rachel

JOURNEY

I think today should hold a lot of House-Righting and Dish-Washing and Clothes-Folding, for I’ve sadly neglected all three this week. It’s a sort of jumbled chaos downstairs, with so many things out of place, and so I’m headed off to a big I-Tunes Fest of Sense and Sensibility to entertain as I work.

Perhaps when things are a bit more serene and livable, some time out in an arbor chair, with the overhanging limbs and the hot breeze giving the proper reverence and setting to Faulkner (he’s always a Summer read, I think. You get the tastes and the sweat and the sheer overlying weight of the weather to set the stage, as well as the theme), I may continue reading As I Lay Dying, swapping the genteel pomp of the Dashwoods, with their soft intrigues and loves lost and misunderstandings and honor-well-served, for the grim, homemade-coffin trek to bury Addie Bundren amongst her Own People.

And it's not a sad book, as you'd think---it's just a well-told journey, seen by six different sets of eyes. It’s tiny glimpses of each family member as they gather for their Mother’s last days, as they take her home to her family graveyard, told in small moments of their thoughts---tiny half-page blips, sometimes, like the eye of a camera panning a crowd and snapping this one and that for one brief glance.

I've known ALL these people, especially in my childhood, when the old times still lingered and the old ways were still the norm---the sitting-up-all-night, the wakes and the singing, the gathering of the men in the stomped-down yard, passing bottles and time with a quick wrist-swipe at both whilst the women tended to things in the house.

I can remember four all-night-sit-up-with-the-deads in the house of my childhood---the shining metal caskets were wheeled in through the front door, through the vestibule arch, and parked square-ways right in front of the big double-windows of the living room like a new piano. Quiet voices, bowls of potato salad set down on the kitchen counter by kind neighbors, the scent of bouquets of garden-cut blooms set head and foot of the casket, the pile of hats on the hall bench, as the men removed them to honor the house and the dead, passing by on the way to the kitchen for a cold drink. For the first time, I was allowed to click the lock on my bathroom door for my bedtime bath, and I wore the new nylon duster from two Christmases ago over my gown for the five steps to my room, where I closed myself in, listening late to the soft murmurs in the house.

Even the names in this book are notional and obscurely odd: Anse, the shirking, whining father and Cash who builds the coffin in full view and sound of his Mother’s bedroom window; Jewel-who’s-a-man and Dewey Dell the only daughter and Darl and small Vardaman, whose name is the only one I've ever heard as a person's name, and at least recognizable as a town in my state.

They are of their age, of the wagon-and-horse, of the overalls-and-sweat and dipper-and-bucket age, pondering or mutely accepting or cursing the fate which set them in such a hard place, in such times.

And I’ll go out into the quiet breeze, sitting with a pitcher of well-iced tea, frivolously reading in the afternoon, but from a background of knowing these grim, enduring people, smelling the scents of their journey and their trials---remembering it, being FROM it, but not OF it. Not any more.

FAIR NIGHT

We three went a-Fairin’ last night, to very happy results---the first Fair for our Baby Girl since that HOT afternoon when she was not-quite-one. That one was spent alternately pushing the stroller and wiping her little face and arms with a bathcloth wrung out in the little ice-chest, for we were in company of visitors, and just sought out shade and cool as we could.

This time, she’s almost three, and talked about it for days before---we were very fortunate in waiting-for-Monday, for the air was so cool and pleasant, and the night drew on clear and starry---we could see the crescent-moon, Venus, and a glowing contrail in the sapphire sky, even above the garish midway.

Our goals were simple: See the piggies and lambs, and ride the merry-go-round. And we did, with several little side-treks into buildings---once for a case of raspberry honey for our Fair-Going friends. That was late in the trip, and the heavy box of jars took Sweetpea’s place in the little pink folding stroller we picked up at Target on our way.

So we went to the Piggie-Barn, and saw the brand-new babies, born end of July. Little pigs can be some of the most charming small creatures---the pink ones are the pinkest there is, with the gleam of their silvery little pelts giving them a pearly cast. They just look so CLEAN---not quite presaging the muck to come.


photos from the internet
We went on to the lamb barn, and strolled our way through the maze of blacks and whites and grays, tiny bleating fluff on stilts, big just-shorn slick ones sporting a tat assortment to joy the heart of Miss Kat von d, and one kneeling wise old golden one, prototype of sheep-in-film, with the curly coat and the eyes old as time. Our Girl petted and stroked and reached out to several, talking to them in soft tones.

And then we happened upon a lovely bit of lagniappe: the Percheron judging. These beautiful sculptures of walking black satin were primped within inches of their lives---silver chains and harnesses and manes clipped and banded in little stiff sheaves standing proud as a Roman helmet. They were just gorgeous, stepping high and proud, pulling their carriages and sulkies and one bright circus wagon, parading down the street into the arena to the judges.

We made our way to the Merry-go-Round, talking all the time of riding Princess, the horse who would be waiting especially for US. She’d not be pink, we didn’t think, but a nice rosy shade, with pretty decorations and a nice smile. And she was. She was all of that, and there was not a huge crowd, so after we stepped up onto that big round floor and made our way through snorting steeds, prancing palfreys, high-stepping horses and other garish mounts, there she was---right ahead, in the center row, just waiting for us.

We got all ready, with the rider sitting firmly in the saddle, holding the pole, and me with my arms firmly around her. And it’s a good thing---that was the fastest carousel in the history of Barnum. I’m telling you, we whirled like a whirlwind, charging around that stationary track, holding on for dear life---too much G-force to wave at Chris, who was grinning and waving from the sidelines.

We squealed “YEEEEE-HAW!” and patted the brave Princess, who was giving us one great ride. And she WON! She came in ahead of every horse on there. Good Girl.

Chris had said he’d like to take Sweetpea on the BIG Ferris Wheel---not MY idea, but he’s so careful and comforting with all the little ones, she was rarin’ to go. Even after she saw the immensity of the thing stretching WAY up into that night sky---she pranced herself right up that ramp and headed for the gondola. And away and up they went---almost first on, so they had the longest ride of all, as the wheel would go for a moment, then stop for the next two cars to load at the bottom.

I followed them around with my eyes, and that whole long series of round and round, my heart rode in Car #2.

Back to the carousel, which hadn’t slowed a bit; we climbed aboard and took our chances on that gaudy centrifuge once again; Princess was patiently awaiting us. This time, we tried to raise our hands to wave at Chris, but it was hard work. Our Girl’s little pink cheeks were so pink, and her eyes shining, as she smiled BIG and shouted at me, “Ganner’s my very, very, VERY, VERY Best Brother!”

She’s had very little contact with the concept of brothers, until she interacted with the Grands at the beach , and a boy sibling is still a bit of a mystery.

She was getting tired when we left the Fair about ten, and so she was occupying the stroller as we took that LONG trek back out to the parking lot. I had put the box of honey and two jars of our own into the big bookbag I carried the necessaries in. Trudging up and down all the stroller-ramps got dicey, with the bag handles cutting into one shoulder after the other, as I kept brushing Chris off, for he was seeing to Our Girl's transport.

I stopped, reached into the bag, padded my shoulder, and unashamedly walked out of the Indiana State Fair wearing one bright pink, Princess-emblazoned Pull-Up Epaulette.

PEACH PIE

I DID manage to get a pie in the oven yesterday afternoon---the peaches had had a little hermetic meditation under a big cakedome since Friday afternoon, and were at that perfect moment, when you take a chance on giving them the gentlest squeeze-with-all-five. I’m glad they were ready, for we all know that those fingerprints will injure and mar, and then they’ll show up beneath the skin after the peach DOES ripen.

The pictures are not the best---I’d scalded and peeled and got most of the way through getting the meat off the seed, when I remembered to go get the camera. And then, with such a sticky sweet mess to play in, there was a lot of hand-washing and drying and grabbing the camera and the light was not very good in the afternoon kitchen, and my photo skills are sketchy, at best.

So, between sticky and amateur, these are the dubious best of the bunch:

Cutting up the peaches:




Midway through, I realized I'd underestimated the amount of peaches---I made one of the small gratin dishes for Caro---her WW recipe with Splenda, and a little top crumble made of a bit of oatmeal, a bit of Splenda, one little crushed package of Lorna Doones, with a teaspoon of water to make it clump for scattering. Then I had to go get out a pie plate for the other one.

Rolling the crust with Mammaw’s old (new) rolling pin---she always called it the New One because it was a gift to her way late in life. It has a long metal shaft with the two handles loose enough for the roller to roll while you keep a good grip. She thought it the neatest invention, and talked about it to all her friends.

After all those years of use, it now has one unpredictable, sassy handle which hops right off the pin and leaves you going cattywonkus off onto the counter, when you meant to go straight ahead. It puts a little challenge into the rolling, for you have to keep in step. It’s kinda like all of us, I think---doing its best, but then there’s a sudden flat tire or a banana peel . . .

I’d said something yesterday about a rustic pie, and peaches certainly lend themselves to that kind of pastry---they just snuggle right in, pouring out those delicious juicy runnels into the plate and over the crust. Chris likes a lot of crust in his serving, and though it's the exact amount of crust for one pie, folding the excess over makes it just like he likes it. This one was brushed with a milk/egg white glaze, then scattered with a little Turbinado.

And the center, still bubbling from the oven---couldn’t you just DIVE right in?

We had not-quite-elegant cuts of the pie with scoops of Blue Bunny Vanilla after our burgers last night---as tasty as if it had been beautiful.