TORTOISE CHEF

 

PAXTON PREPARES US A NICE WALDORF SALAD FOR LUNCH.  

OLD TRUCKS

 The door of an old truck reaches higher on your face than a car door, and the creak/thunk of open and close have a more important sound, the way a bass guitar outranks everything onstage.   As the dusty heat of truck air grabs you and lifts you in, you settle into a waft of old motor oil and sometimes old ashtrays, with the whiff of good honest sweat, yesterday’s KFC, and a lingering reminder of whichever ole Dawg goes along for the ride.

 

A heat-crisped, flutter-edged checkbook and several topless Bics wedged down into the seat-corners are a must, as well as a few empty Dr. Pepper bottles rolling the “flow-boards,” countless coffee-ringed cups---bought and “from home,” various tools and weapons, and at least one greasy seed-cap hanging from a rack-post beside the well-oiled 410 and a .22.

 

 Old trucks don’t take off or peel off or even start off like their younger counterparts; they Ease Off, with a dignified rattle and huff, much like arthritic turtles hearing rabbit snores.  The words “ease off” have already entered the vocabulary of many a farmer, trucker, and any other owners of trucks in general.   My Alabama brother-in-law hardly ever goes anywhere, or goes home from where he's been---he just says “I think I’ll ease off down to WalMart,” or “I better ease off home,” and is away with barely a whisper.

 

The aura of a well-used truck is of the dust of gravel roads and plowed fields, the dried coffee-rings of countless planting dawns and chaff-filled midnights, of cargo too varied to name, of gun oil and accumulated paper and worn seats and grimy handprints and scuffed, buttery leather and the boot-scars of a thousand harvest days.

 

Some may hold relics of past Saturday nights’ gatherings in an empty field or down by the gravel-pit, with a few sun-bleached Bud bottles rolling out their days in the truck-bed beside a ratty old blanket and an empty Coleman, testament to 2 a.m. dancing to four radios at once, blaring Kenny and Johnny and Garth into the late-night air, as boots and sandals and bare feet raised more dust into the circle of headlights than a midnight combine.

 

There should be a joke about “Where’s the one clean spot in an old Pickup?”  The answer would be just THERE, where the countless shirt sleeves and bare arms and occasionally the fur of a happy, lolling old dog with the wind in his face have polished the resting-spot in the middle of the open driver’s-side window to the sheen of a well-loved Camaro. 

 

If there’s ever an Anthropology course in Pickup Ephemera, I’m signing right up.  Old Trucks are Rolling History.

THERE AND BACK AGAIN : ROCK CONCERT

Returning to the world after such a long absence feels unreal, somehow, like floating in space---vaster and more unfamiliar---empty and hollow, and then in stages and bits, like the re-entry of astronauts---kind of a great faith in They'll Get You Home, then an exhilarating burst of acceleration UPWARD in the takeoff (many, many thanks to Ground Control at lifeandlinda for her fabulous guidance and support), with a long float of How to Start and then just bracing for the final re-entry, hoping the seat doesn't catch fire in the descent.

All the absence and all the real ABSENCES have been long and difficult, but just the possibility that there was a chance to return always hovered there, right on the lip of the horizon.   Many, many things to tell, little to report, so I went to some of the musings of the Long Nights and Empty Days and found a little piece I wrote long ago, when Sweetpea was very young, and our days spent in such lively, lovely imaginary places and with such friends as are rare and strange.   I'm glad to be back, just for this one moment to have a place to emerge.   This is from my endless WORD shelves,  verbatim as it hit the page way back then.    If there's ever anyone to peek in, after so long a time away, Welcome!

Back in the hothot days of Summer, far back into the TIME BEFORE, when school was out and Sweetpea and I were mostly confined downstairs where it was COOL, we ranged our imaginations far and wide for fun stuff to do.  One day she brought an immense case of LITTLES, collected over several years of occasions and holidays, and we had all sorts of indoor “outings” with the tiny folk.
 
One day whilst waiting for our pedicures to dry (my first EVER, and it consisted of her painting my toenails with a vibrant shade of pink as she sang several songs from FROZEN to keep the temperature down), we just laid out all the wee beings and she devised a great gathering for a Rock Concert.   There was quite the audience of big-eyed fans, with more species of plastic than Noah could have dreamt.
 
The dining table, still laden from a trip to Sam’s, the orchid greenhouse, and a farm stand, as well as several usefuls from the past week which hadn’t been returned to their proper places, was the venue, with all the boxes from the Sam’s trip improvised into auditorium seats and stage.   Small creatures mobbed the gates as the taciturn ticket-lady (the only one of the littles who is simply a blue dress on a dress-form, thus her unflappable demeanor), quietly and calmly ushered everybody in.   It took quite some time, as this event stretched from clearing-after-breakfast to well past lunchtime.  One thing which took quite A While was transporting the audience a bus-full at a time.  
 
The bus happened to be a much-opened BandAid box, with all the attendant dents and wonky angles, but it was red-and-white and rectangular, so all specs met.    The participants were loaded on, one at a time, with a slip and fall now and again, as they tried to keep their collective balance on top of the slick box as it was driven by hovering hand like a matchbox car, for trip after trip from loading dock to door, perhaps six or eight folks at a time for what seemed hours. 
 
Nobody got restive, nobody complained (well, maybe a cautionary buzz or two from the bee and the butterfly when they had to squeeze past the frog family to get to their seats), but all in all, they were quite well behaved for a rock crowd.  A few re-plays of Joe Cocker’s FEELIN’ ALL RIGHT from the Bose, a lot of sashays around the floor for the bus driver/host/deejay and me, and a Good Time was had. And have you ever seen a centipede DANCE??  Whoa!
 
Moire non, 
   

THIS'LL BE JES' FINE

Miss Beatha Crow lives with her married sister and HER husband.   Miss Beatha is not at all what the old folks used to refer to as “a little bit slow,” for she went all the way through high school, but her ways of looking at things and her painful timidness causes folks to Look At Her Funny, and sometimes to remark amongst themselves about her “ways.”

AND she rides a tricycle---one of those big three-wheeler bike things with sturdy baskets fore and aft that her Brother-in-Law took in trade for working on ole Mrs. Prather’s car.   It had been Mrs. P’s own vehicle for getting around town when Mr. P. went on his conventions and his fishing trips to the coast.  They had but the one big old Packard from marriage on, and she still drove it to this day, thanks to the gifted touch of Truman to keep it, as Mr. P. had often remarked, “in good trim.”

Mrs. P. had never got the hang of riding a bike even if she’d had one.  Some kinda ear fever when she was little just played hob with her balance where bikes were concerned, and so she did all her grocery shopping and dry cleaning and drugstore errands on that big blue trike.   And so did Miss Beatha, as long as I lived down there.  

And so it happened that Miss Beatha parked Big Blue out in the front shade on the grassy edge of the big shallow “rain ditch” which ran in front of all the houses on Mammaw’s side of the street.   She took a metal bowl and a paper sack out of the basket, walked down the culvert path. and headed up the porch steps, her shadow leading a bit with that impressive straw hat.

"Come on in, Miss Beatha!” called Mammaw, sighting her first from her place at the noon dinner table.   Miss Beatha scratched the old screendoor open, squinted toward the voice, and stepped in.

“How yew, Miss Beatha?” asked both my Grands in unison.

Miss Beatha tugged loose the chin-tie blue grosgrain and removed her wide hat, fanning her red face and stirring the air for a yard around with the faint scents of line laundry and the smear of Mum visible in her sleeveless dress.  

“Ah’m TARD, Y’all!  Ah been arnin’ all mornin’.”

They talked for a bit about the heat, agreeing this Summer was hotter’n most, and that brought Miss Beatha to her mission: 

“I come to borry some ice, if you can spare it.   We both plumb forgot to boil up the tea til a minute ago, and our two trays won’t near cool it 'fore Sledge comes home for his dinner.”

“Can I fix you a glass now?” asked Mammaw.   “He was just saying what good red tea it is today.   We just finished our dinner---can we offer you a bite?  The okry turned out right good this time”

“Much obliged,” Miss Beatha exhaled in one breath as she sat.   “That okry looks mighty good and we-uz just gonna have some Vy-eenie sarsages and a termater sandwidge, we been so busy turnin’ out the house for Glow-rya’s visit.”

I looked up from pouring her a glass of tea in the kitchen, and I know my eight-year-old eyes grew big and round under my Heidi braids, but I knew good and well that somebody in that house woulda snatched me bald-headed if I’d’a made mention of anything anybody did that wasn’t “nice”---not to her face, anyway. 

And what Miss Beatha was doing was so far outa my ken that’s a pure-D wonder I didn’t pour that whole Bless-ed pitcher in her glass.   She’d sat right down in the blank spot at the kitchen table, reached over, and drug Grandpa’s plate in front of her, dirty knife and fork and all.   She helped herself to a big spoon of the Crowders, scraped up a good-size rattle of okra and crispins from the platter, and speared several slices of dripping red tomato onto the plate.   She picked up his used fork easy as Amen and started to eat, as Mammaw came to herself and said, “Bring Miss Beatha a fresh set a’ silverware!”  

“Nome, Miz Evert,” she mumbled as she chewed.  “This’ll be jes’ fine!”

And Mammaw, equally amazed and touched by her easy acceptance of what was offered and her quick-to-the-point hunger at the humble fare---well, those two ladies started talking a mile a minute and me still justa cranin’ from over at the sink, wondering at the ways of grown folks, and if Mrs. Little just sat there waiting for her own tea til Miss Beatha came home.     

 

FAIRY CLOTHESLINE

HELLO FROM FAR AGO AND LONG AWAY!!    It's been such a long time since I could tend all the intricacies of my blog, and even the little needfuls, like posting pictures, or "Post" itself eluded me for a while.    We've just been perking along, with small and large adventures and mishaps and peaceful moments and scary health and a whole tub of Love at every turn.

Sis and my dear Brother in Law are here for a visit, flitting about across the country in their tiny perfect home that puts Mole's House to shame in its cunning wee perfection and comforts and fun.   We've sorted through wonderful pictures from a past far beyond us, with crumbles of yellowed newsprint floating down upon the table like golden snow as we read of past accomplishments, passings, parties, weddings, and inconsequential small happenings like a four-year-old's birthday party in 1958, down to the color of the candles on the cake. 

And she has put to rights all the workings of this wonderful machine which connects us to so many friends, so much knowledge and learning, and so much joy in the colors and thoughts of friends as they share their lives each day.     I sit in the porch shade most afternoons, letting my small tortoise Paxton wander around the sunny lawn, grazing here and there, nipping at clover, turning back to my voice when she nears the sidewalk.   She is such a sweet little companion, if a creature who cozies up to your feet in hopes of broccoli or grapes can be said to be companionable, and I find myself just sitting there with my phone, jotting things into the little Notebook section.

Little snips and bits float somewhere out there, with a small rhyme, a group of Southern sayings, a recipe that will make a cake if you measure everything in a yogurt cup, and other inconsequential little doings and sayings that seemed fairly important at the time, I'm sure.    One of the pages is another post in my great Love Affair with Fairies, and I've borrowed one of Janie's incomparable photos from Southern Lagniappe to illustrate the Fairy Clothesline.    Look at it, beautiful in its lush purple sway, with the fat blossoms flourishing  in the suns of Southern eons.   Look again.   Is what you see really what there IS?   Just IMAGINE . . . .

Down the stream beneath the trees, the Fairies wash their clothes with ease;

A tiny spell, a bit of soap, which smells of charms and flowers and hope,

Then to the clothesline draping wide, where all the garments fey are dried.

And scarce a happen-byer knows, that what they’re gazing on is clothes. 

Each purple swag holds dresses fine, as tiny blouses, pants entwine,

To pass for flowers or stems of grapes, they fool on-lookers with their shapes

Of fulsome fruitness, flowery blooms, instead of treasures from fey looms,

All stitched with moonbeams, needles gold, and gossen strands too fine to hold. 

The wardrobes wee, of fragile cloths, with iridescent dust from moths

And drops from dew and minnow shine, spread gleaming high upon the line.

The purples, royals, and the pinks, of dahlia’s tears and lovers’ inks

In dyepots stirred with spell-whirled spoons, and hung to dry beneath Milk moons. 

The sea and sky lend fairest hues, and rainbow’s BIV spins varied blues,

Whilst trees and arbors, lushest dells contribute to the greening swells

Which spread across the lines for strength, in lush profusion length by length.

And yellow, orange,  palest peach, all ride the breeze just out of reach 

Of all save those whose provenance enables them to join the dance

Of garments magical and twee, of ribbons pressed on cricket’s knee,

Of robes and circlets, orbs, tiaras, entitling them for all tomorrows,

To wear the magic, shining bright, and yet, still be immune from sight.

From my dear friend, Myrea Pettit