MASON-DIXONARY --- TAKE

Take, Taking also connotes receiving something you pay for, usually in a scheduled manner.   You can “take the paper,” or a magazine, or even milk and eggs from a farmer who regularly sets aside or delivers your requested order.

You can also “Take Out After” anybody runnin’ away with said goods before you have a chance to get them in off the porch.

Takin’ On can range from weeping to moaning to gnashing of teeth, and is a form of grief, or of self-pity, often occasioned by Taking On too much to do or to see to or to complete.

Takin’ Up With is striking up more than a passing acquaintance, and often refers to arrangements not to your benefit, as in Takin’ Up with the Wrong Crowd, or with a No-Count Triflin’ fella.   More polite vernacular for Shackin’---if things have got that far.

Takin’ Over---stepping right in like you own the place, like Miss Ocella Black at most Civic Club meetin’s---Rules of Order know not her name.

Takin’ Up For---defending

Takin’ Offense is one of the lesser-desired Takes, for there are just SOME people who live to be offended.   They look for it to happen, and by some hook or crook, it usually does.    Some folks, you can just look at ‘em wrong, and there’s trouble.

Takin’ It Out On---that’s misplacing your anger or dismay or hurt onto the wrong outlet---when you’ve overheard someone criticizing your shoes/hair/ housekeeping/child-raisin’ you might go home and take it out on your husband, who hasn’t a CLUE what’s the matter with you.

The Take---profit from certain ventures, such as concession stands, charity events, carnival receipts.

Take Off---run away abruptly, sometimes with time to pack a bag.   "She didn't say a WORD; she just Took Off."    Slightly more educated than RUNN OFT.

Takin’ To---also expressed as Takin’ a Likin’ To---now THAT’S a good feeling---when someone just Takes to you, or you Take To them.   It’s an immediate cordiality, a feeling of happiness in their presence, a good result of a meeting.   It can lead to lifelong friendship, good family relations, and sometimes, True Love.

ICE CREAM SUNDAY

Etsy image

Chambliss Strong was a woman who knew her strengths; she was a widow-woman with four little chirrun, and she made their living in the Fifties by doing two things she did really well:  Ice Cream and Chitlins, but never at the same time---all things had their season.

 She cooked for folks, right there in her own kitchen.     In Summer, she took orders for makin’s of boiled custard for ice cream, and she “took milk and cream” from the Reids, whose several cows, in conjunction with the hens, furnished all of Mrs. Reid’s butter-and-egg money for clothing her family and providing little extras like tablets and pencils and toys for the little ones, and a now-and-then trip to the picture show in the next-town-over.

Chambliss ordered many gallons of milk-with-cream and many dozens of eggs for each Thursday during the warm months.   She bought the milk raw, because she was gonna cook it anyway; and homogenized---unh-unh.   She wanted that big float of fresh cream on top, unskimmed and so rich you could stand a spoon in it.  

image:  Homesteading Today

The milk cost sixty cents a gallon, the eggs, three cents apiece, and the sugar, eight cents a pound---two cups being  a pound.    If the folks wanted add-ins like fresh peaches or strawberries or bananas, they could mash ‘em up and stir them in to their own taste, right there at home, before they started up the freezer.  

Chambliss spent all day Friday and Saturday at the stove, paddle-stirring the big pots of custard, one by one, as the mixture heated, began to rise a little thread of steam, then was scrupulously bottom-scrape-stirred for a few moments, to prevent sticking or burning.   She’d lift the paddle, cast a practiced eye on the liquid adhering, and then draw a clean finger through the silky coat.   If the line stayed parted like the Red Sea, the custard was ready; if it ran back together like covering the pursuers---it took a minute or two more.

A stack of twenty-five-pound bags of Domino were a bright golden light in her store-room, and when it was time for the chirrun to walk around to Mr. Jake’s with the little wagon for more, she rotated the on-the-floor supply to put the oldest on top.   So there in the house, she had all her ingredients, ready and waiting, when she got up on Friday morning.

Why, sometimes, she bought more vanilla from the Watkins man than The Busy Bee Caffay, world-famous for their pies, and Sturgeon’s Touch of Elegance Bakery, put together.   

And Mr. Koger's big black truck, weighted down with the fifty-pound blocks of ice, made a stop both on the morning route, and the afternoon, to keep the chilling tubs arctic cold.

She’d start on Friday mornings, before the kids woke, and have two or more pots done before they came in for their breakfast.     Each gallon took eight egg yolks, three cups of sugar, with a third-of-a-cup of flour and a dash of salt mixed into the dry sugar, then two quarts of milk and a quart of cream.  

  Chambliss had the motions and the order of things down to a personal science---mix flour and sugar while heating the milk gently in the big pot; beat eggs into the f/s mixture and stir in a little of the milk.   Quick-stir the little mixture into the now-scalded milk, then onto the fire for the paddle-cooking and finger-tracking.   The cream and good glug of fragrant vanilla went in last, after the whole thing came off the fire.

 She strained the custard, cooled it a bit, then funnel-poured it into the cleaned milk jugs, and set each jug into the  waiting tub of icy water out in the shade, where the fresh cold gallons of milk had stood. Folks knew the time of their turn, and would pick up the jugs all day---they were all the same vanilla custard---bringing back their clean jugs from the last order.  

Once one of the Jenkins boys, careless and slouchy and eager to be off with his friends, delivered home one of Chambliss' fresh gallons of milk in his hurry, and at church the next morning, you could still see the red mark on his ear from his Mama's pinch as she sent him scurrying back for the right jug.

The scrupulous scrubbing and scalding of pots and the sanitizing of the returned jugs had their place in the order of the day, as well---Chambliss didn't trust anybody's dish-washing or sanitizing but her own---who KNEW if they’d just given that jug a peremptory rinse to get the skimmin’s out.

Chambliss charged a dollar-and-a-half a gallon for that ice cream, only going up to a dollar-seventy-five when Mrs. Reid had to increase the costs of milk and eggs, and folks lined up for a niche in the Ice Cream Customer list---some of the ladies prized their places in her clientele as closely as their Standing Appointments at the Swirl-a-Curl, and guarded both accordingly.    Even invitations to parties sometimes included the words, “Chambliss’s Ice Cream,” and even if not printed on, the mention was sure to guarantee a good attendance.

Her business from April to the first touch of Fall kept her own children in tablets and pencils and school clothes, and her cakes and three-days-available to cook for showers and teas and Missionary Society gatherings and such provided them a modest living, almost without her having to leave home.  

Every time she’d take a warm jug of the creamy mixture out to the tub, Chambliss would wring out a clean washrag in the icy water and wash her face and the back of her neck.    And some days, after the ten-or-twelve hours of boiling heat in that confined kitchen, and after the children were all asleep, she’d go out into the seclusion of her dark back yard and stand in one of the tubs, pouring pitcher after pitcher over her head and down her tired body, before she went inside for her bath.   She always Cloroxed the tub thoroughly  afterwards---her fastidious nature and sense of fair play wouldn’t allow for anything else.

With the coming of Fall, the drawing-in caused all those old hand-cranks and churn models to be cleaned up and retired to sheds and garages.    Then came Chitlin’ Time, and that’s another story.



NEW VOCABULARY

Our conversations reflect small new changes lately, simply from the odd little pronunciations and word-stringings of the child who graces our lives and house so often, and  whose own vocabulary is astonishing.   And like several other little memorables from my own children’s childhoods, they’ve become a part of the family speech patterns.

When she’s hungry, “My Tummy’s Ringing!”

She usually sits on her feet at the table, or kneels in her chair, and once in a restaurant, she shifted her position and got a surprised little grimace on her face.    “My feet are sprinkling!” she said, as we rubbed the pins and needles away.    She's harking back too her Daddy at that age.   He took a drink of a new soft drink and said, "This Ginger Ale tastes like your foot's asleep!"

She and her dog spent the night with us last night, and this morning, the two of them were sitting on Caro’s bed.   GrandDog has taken quite a shine to Caro, and tries to sit beside or ON her at every opportunity, squeezing out even the little girl she’s guarded tooth and nail since her birth.

Caro had explained that Matt was territorial, and when I arrived upstairs, Caro said, "Tell Ganjin what Matt is.”   Knowing her breed already, and getting all her facts together, Sweetpea exclaimed, “She’s a Rat Territorier!”

As she and Chris left for a breakfast date, she gave me a hug and whispered her new in-the-ear phrase.   I have no idea what it IS, or if someone told it to her,  if it’s Fairy Language or a concoction from her own clickety brain, so eerily like my own.

She’ll say, “I need to tell you something,”

You bend low, and she’ll tell you, barely uttering the sounds, as you strain to make sense of the words.  

And in the smallest, crispest whisper between those tiny white teeth, she breathes, “Swede, Butter-Bead.”

So, whatever it means, whatever import it holds, I’ll wish a Swede Butter-Bead day to everybody, with no foot sprinkles, and something delicious when your tummy rings.

PENNY DRINK

We’ve been making just gallons of Crystal Light, mostly Tangerine/Orange and Fruit Punch flavors, and Chris’ favorite:   Peach Mango Tea.   Both call to mind the endless Kool-Aid pitchers of childhood Summers.    There was also a drink-mix packet of the time which sold for a penny, unlike its ritzier kin in the 5-cent pack.    We called it Penny Drink, and I don’t recall ever making any at our house, but drank it often at parties and picnics and just at a friend’s house on a hot afternoon.   It was small, as I remember, flat and thin and about the size of the Knox Gelatin envelope, and may have made only a quart.

The stuff calls to mind such a day in the Fifties---sleepy Southern town, hot as blazes, with the heat from the sidewalks to blister your soles through your shoes, and the sun itself to crackle the tiny hairs on your cheeks into a tickly mask.

None of us had air-conditioning yet, and so we think now that perhaps we just didn’t “feel” the heat.   Yes, we DID.   I can remember the scratchy Sunday dress---pale blue voile, quickly aproned-over at home while we got dinner on the table and did the dishes, and worn back out into the two-o’clock blast of the day.   We went to church in full regalia, looking much like the ladies who square-dance today on outdoor stages at the Fair.

The coolish prickles of perspiration beneath all those seams and darts and nylony fabric added to the discomfort, but what the heck.   It’s WHAT YOU WORE.   A Sunday dress, on a Sunday afternoon (the tale of a trip to the lake in such a yellow, stiff outfit with petticoats is past bearing, even in the remembrance).

And I think I was probably wearing a little makeup by then---RealSilk, if I remember correctly, for a stern, deep-voiced, no-nonsense older woman was the Representative, and she made monthly calls on my Mother, who heartily resented being “put on the spot” by the confident flourish of the big caseful of products and the pushy old lady, but felt obligated to buy at least something.   And so my face was also probably covered in a film of Natural or Nude, adding to the discomfort factor.

And stockin’s---who ever heard of a Sunday dress without STOCKIN’S?   And since we were probably going straight on to the five-thirty Youth Gathering and BTU, then Evening Church---we wore those confining clothes ALL DAY, until the walk home after Just as I Am and the final handshake.   I was usually stepping out of my shoes on the porch, and would have kicked them off sooner and walked the sidewalk home barefoot, if those pesky hose hadn’t been so fragile.   And removing them in plain sight, dark or not, on the street---I’d as soon have mooned the preacher.

One particular Sunday, I’d been invited to come spend the afternoon with my friend at her strange “apartment” in an old converted storage-locker building---she had two new records.   There were four or five apartments the length of the old block-building, with the front doors opening right out onto the town sidewalk.   The little front-door areas outside every place but hers were filled with rattly chairs, a rump-sprung old couch, some coffee-cans of struggling flowers, and a gaggle of kids and lounging old folks.  

But her house had a pink front door, a welcome mat, and one pretty black wrought-iron stand, with a pot of pink petunias, all put there by Lynne herself, in a desperate attempt to better at least the appearance of her surroundings.

The inside was made of however-the-storage-rooms had originally been, with a windowless kitchen, and her own room with a big curtain stretched over the doorless archway.   We sat on her bed and listened to her new 45’s, and I remember helping her glue the tee-ninecy black corners into the equally-black pages of a big heavy scrapbook. 

  The gentle bend and snap of the black-and-white Kodak pictures into those perfectly-aligned spaces punctuated the afternoon’s fan-whirr and the distant mute of the Gospel music on her Mother’s kitchen radio competing with the strains of Elvis on the little brown turntable with a big spool for adapter.

The whole house smelled of the rich chicken broth simmering on the stove, making a redolent sauna of the humid heat of the house, with the musky, sage-y scent of an incongruous Thanksgiving permeating even MY clothes by the end of the afternoon.

Her Mama called us to come help her get the table ready for the five-o’clock dinner---we laid three places on that silver-gray formica, slick as flat mother-of-pearl, and arrayed with a tall red coffeecan of clean steel silverware, bottles of ketchup and Tabasco, a little silver snuffcan sprouting a bristly brush of toothpicks, the little bottle of BB-size saccharine tablets, and a stack of wrinkly one-ply napkins under a spoon.   There were only three places, for I was forbidden to eat at any friend’s house, and we were leaving, but her GrandDaddy made the third.  Her Daddy was there, but like most Daddies of the time, an almost invisible presence behind the Sunday paper.

 Grandpa had always lived with them, mostly staying in his room with a ballgame on the radio, or out at the town’s one picnic table-in-the-shade, just across the street, with a Perry Mason or Horatio Hornblower from the library, or strolling round to the Mayor’s office, with the always-full bench of his khaki-clad friends with galluses and hats and desultory discussions between whittle-and-spit.

I watched, fascinated, as Mrs. Waters used a big slotted flat utensil to remove scoop after scoop of chicken-backs from the pot, then strained the whole pot of broth through the big colander into a pan.    She picked through, removing the tiny separated bones, putting all the whole sections onto a platter for everyone to pick over for leavings, then wrapped the debris in a section of newspaper before putting it into the brown paper grocery bag lining the garbage can.

On the linoleum counter, she scattered great handfuls of flour, and removed a round of dumplin’ dough from the fridge, sectioning it neatly into four pieces with a big knife, then rolling each crawly flap thin and pliable.   Great cuts of the knife all around the big circle, and handful after handful of the little squares into the simmering pot, where they disappeared into the goldy-gray depths.   I could see tiny shards of transparent onion, small chips of carrot, a smile or two of sliced celery dancing at the top of the boil, as she rolled and sliced, rolled and sliced.

We got ice into the glasses, as she told Lynne, “Go see what flavor Penny-Drink Papa wants,” and when she returned, we made the grape, measuring the sugar by eye with a coffeecup, and stirring the violently-purple liquid in a big old battered silvery pitcher with the ice-catcher.  

We set wide soupbowls at each place, cut the black skillet of cornbread into wedges, and the big pot of dumplin’s was set onto a towel on the table.

I can’t reconcile the sugary drink with the bottle of saccharine, but since Papa got to choose the flavor, I suppose he drank some.    Lynne and I freshened up our lipstick, gave a quick touch to our hair, and headed out for the Youth meeting, where the Good Church Ladies always served a few refreshments to get us through two hours of church til we could get home to our suppers.  

And the frosty pitcher of that ersatz Kool-Aid seemed like the most refreshing spot in the Universe.

I've been Goggling several variations of "Penny Drink," "One Cent"  "Powder Drink Mixes 1950s" and hope that someone remembers the real name of that tiny packet of powder-for-a-penny.

BUBBLES AND SPARKLES AND FISH, OH, MY!

We enjoyed the parade yesterday a.m.---it was a true hometown affair, with policemen on motorcycles doing figure eights right in front of us, several firetrucks, lots of scouts and dance studios, quite a few church floats, several bands, and myriad vehicles plastered with election posters, with the face-for-the-name waving from the car, or walking behind, scattering candy and shaking hands.    One lady stood alone in the back of a small pickup, up to her knees in a tide of Tootsie-Pops, ladling them  out over the side with her hands like bailing a boat.

Just as the band in Desert Camo stopped in front of us and struck up The Stars and Stripes Forever, blasting it out into the crowd, there was a great rumble from the sky, and two enormous planes flew low overhead, huge black bird-shapes against the sky, disappearing into the West.    Just heart-stopping and tear-bringing, as such a moment often is, and the thrill and the frisson of awe and pride as that blast of sound roared overhead---unforgettable.

We came home for quick cold turkey sandwiches, cucumbers in sour cream, and the just-made sweet dill slices from  the day before, and just relaxed for a bit.

Since Chris was going to grill the burgers, and everything was lying ready to hand, and since Caro was tending to the onions and lettuce and dessert, I just kept saying during the day,   “I’m just going to make the beans and slice some tomatoes.”

“And scrub and bake the potatoes,”    “And make up the topping for the potatoes,”   “I’d better go ahead and make the tea,”   “This bag with plates and cups and silverware is ready to go upstairs,”  “The cloths need to go outside,” and so on, all through the “lazy” afternoon, as I went to each little chore soon as I thought of it.    Doing nothing can plumb wear you out.

DS came over and he and Chris planted some more tomatoes, and tinkered with the garage door, and Chris got the patio all blown and neat and the tables set up.

Then our girls arrived, and the guys blew up the new little pool---a googly-eyed fish with built-in-sprayer,

Later, they blew bubbles as Sweetpea chased and caught, chased and swatted, chased and giggled. 

 I think of some moments like soap bubbles---beautiful and ethereal, and disappearing at a touch, and it’s often possible to see the scatter of Fairy-dust lingering in the air as the hand completes the arc:

And in this next picture, the big hazy circle like the ghost-of-a-CD is an out-of-focus bubble, a kinda metaphor for the way I tell things sometimes---through Google-Goggles and soapsuds shine.

You KNOW that though I gloss things and though I like to linger on the bright and cheerful and the little birds that dress us in the morning, usually the REAL is hunkering there, just out of camera line:

The back-door table, repository at this minute of two quiver-chairs, ready for carrying to the fireworks, two leftover flower pots which will probably still be there at Halloween, a half-full water bottle, a big purple jug---gallon of extra bubble stuff---several bottles of bug spray, the box containing all the cups and pots and ribbons for festooning the Tree Cup Tree soon, the dog baggies, what looks like a can of charcoal starter, and a big ole Styrofoam ROLL TIDE cooler from the last time Chris brought back Alabama Hoop Cheese.  (March, maybe?)

We DID, however have a lovely, smooth, leaf-free spot, with two big round tables on the patio---one for serving, one for eating, though almost all the dishes of food made their way onto the table where the six of us sat.

One MUNCH shot---Chris’ half-pound burger, with tomato, slices of Vidalia, and slices of dill-Havarti, drooping down like a little tablecloth.   He’s a mayo-and ketchup-man, and NONE of us will touch his knife---give him a jar of Blue Plate, and he could mookey up every knife, spreader, saber and sword in the kingdom.

And you'll notice the patriotic tablecloth---Easter Eggs.  The drawer to the big ole wicker dresser was stuck, and I was afraid I'd pull the whole front off of it, so I took what I could get.  Well, THERE IS some Red and Blue in there.  And White.

Sweetpea and her Mama had made a plate of blueberry muffins, and so we admired them, but were too full to eat one, so she went around the table with ONE in her hand, doling out teensy thumb-and-finger bites like a little sweet Communion as we all sampled.

THEN THE FIREWORKS.   Huge crowd, and we could not BELIEVE all of the odd, impatient folks grabbing up chairs, kids and coolers and filing past us to get to the parking lot a mere ten minutes after it started.     I have a word for all of those TYPE AAA in-a-hurry-people who got up to fold their tents and steal away to the parking lot before it was half over:

YOU MISSED THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FINALE IN HISTORY!

It was glorious and sparkly and like great bursts of jewels scattered into the heavens---the colors were iridescent and pure and sheer beauty falling and winking out, just as other even more beautiful twinkles and sparkles soared up to cover their place.   It wasn't just the regular powder or combinations or whatever we're used to---it was like great shimmering handfuls of actual precious-stones-in-sunlight, cascading and fading and being renewed.   It went on and on, with the sky never vacant of shimmer and shine and every color there is.

I’ve never seen any lovelier display, and I’m sure we all just sat there with goofy expressions of sheer delight on our faces.   IT WAS GLORIOUS.