ANNE SHIRLEY WOULD HAVE LOVED MY DRAPES

 

Who has had Miss Sandy's curtains??   You know---those heavy Laura Ashley/Rachel Ashwell chintzy-folds and loops with corner swags like Princess Diana's Weddin' sleeves?   Surely somebody knows someone, or has viewed a prospective house that gave you an itch to grab down those great dollops of fabric and go SHEER for life.

I confess to a thoughtless moment of that loopy frenzy, in the last-house-before-we-bought-this-one:   It was a tall-front-steps leading in to MORE tall steps up to kitchen and bedrooms, with a small mezzanine effect between floors, carpeted and with double windows looking out front, like where a visiting suitor might sit with his hat on his knees til he was announced.      The carpet was a pale baby blue in that 6x8, perfectly sized for a Goodwill sofa we'd acquired, and since I had a bolt of baby-blue polished cotton stashed somewhere---that's all it took.    There were Sandra Lee kits all over K-Mart and WalMart, with all the snazzy do-hickeys to bend cloth to your will, but it was a lazy Sunday afternoon, everybody was gone to the movies, and I had the neatest little stepladder . . .  

I have mentioned quite a few times my absolute ignorance with anything that requires thread.   My childhood attempts at a Sampler would get you laughed off Antiques Roadshow, and any crochet effort became a Barbie hat in nothing flat.    And I didn't CUT the stuff, just rolled the bolt out on the floor til it looked like enough.     The curtain rod was a medium-heavy one, just round enough for a few good swags, with a long floor-length pulled to one side to get the proper "puddling," and surplus enough on the top corner for stuffing in a few dozen fluff-squeezed plastic grocery bags.   No rhyme or reason, no measuring---I just poofed them out to Anne Shirley's Dream of Glory.   They were big blue melony mounds on one end, and it took me quite a time to duplicate that over-blown swag on the other, but I got some semblance of it.    

Getting the "puddle" right on the other end, a big Rosewood vase of Chris' canes on the outer end, and we had a proper sitting room to befit a very unimportant manor somewhere.  It was indeed the mimic of Carol Burnett's Po'Teer dress, in a more modest color.    I smiled every time I went up and down those stairs, and sometimes would just stand in the kitchen and LOOK.   It was stylish at the moment, and I had sculpted CLOTH in to something recognizable, if not prim.   And it was the only place in the house that never had books or magazines or Coke cans or shrugged off sweaters lying about.   And that little bit of Serenity was worth it all. 

I took the whole thing down when we moved to this house, and used the yards and yards to wrap glassware, and have no idea where that great length of blue cotton went to.    I DO, however, have a decades-old little bolt in the front coat closet---happy little teapots on a pinkish sateen.    I just KNOW it will make a perfect cover for the cushions on the park bench in the up Sitting room, come Spring.   Better late than never, and I have some new rolls of duct tape.  

                                                                                                                                                                            

ABOUT GRITS AND BISCUITS

 

One of the glories of the Southern table--a Black Skillet of Biscuits.   This one was for a brunch, with Red Beans and Rice, and graced with the "Tomato Slice" utensil brought out only for special occasions and cranberry sauce.

I just had a question from a friend on another continent, asking about grits and what's the difference in biscuits and Southern Biscuits, what are beaten biscuits and what about Hominy Grits. My answer in the "comment" section went on and on, as I am wont to do, so I just moved it here.

I don't know a lot about anybody else's biscuits, but almost all "Southern Biscuits" or Southern Style Biscuits are made by starting with a shortening---originally lard, and it's still used by purists and a lot of the new gourmet cooks. Now, Crisco is the one of choice mostly, and most cooks use Self Rising flour, even if they do add a little extra salt or leavening.

And Buttermilk is the Southern mixing-liquid, with or without "baking soda"---rare is the kitchen in the South which has not a box of Arm & Hammer in the cupboard, for biscuits and other baking, and for cleaning drains, freshening laundry, and keeping the fridge and freezer fresh and odor-free. Right in there beside the Argo Cornstarch and the can of Clabber Girl.   They're the Powdery Trinity of a Southern kitchen, right behind Onion-Bell Pepper-Celery sauteeing before the roux gets going.

Grits is a singular food, and I still think and say "Grits are" because of the plural sound. One would never speak of "a grit," but I know it should be followed by "IS," just as you would say, "Molasses is."

There's corn grits, white made with the white center of the corn, or yellow, with the whole kernel, ground more coarsely than cornmeal, which makes such velvety, wonderful cornbread.

And there's HOMINY grits, made with the "lye" or (dictionary word) nixtamalized corn. It's dried, ground, and can be advertised as Hominy Grits, the old fashioned kind.

OH, and beaten biscuits---I've made them. Once. Just as an experiment on a lazy Saturday morning. They're like a cross amongst a Ritz cracker and a dog biscuit and a Communion Wafer---the really hard, tough kind found in Baptist churches, which, if they weren't tiny enough to get back there and crunch between your back teeth, would do some serious dental damage. Or hang out like a mint until they melt sometime between Lord's Supper and "Just As I Am."

I had a recipe once for a cake, from way in the day before mixers. You were supposed to beat it for six hours with a wooden spoon---I cannot fathom what form or sentient life the mass must be expected to assume from all that brutal activity.   The recipe even had the audacity to urge bringing in the children, and letting them take an hour or two.   Unh unh. Not me. Just smacking that biscuit dough "til elastic" with the rolling pin one time was enough for me. And nobody would eat 'em, anyway.

Grits and how to eat them have caused more family dis-harmony than politics---butter or not; sugar or not; gravy or shrimp or syrup on top.

I cook the plain old Quaker Grits, right off the grocery shelf in the round cardboard cylinder---the cook-it kind. Those crinkly packets which dump dusty powder into the bowl and change to part-mush, part-crunch under the boiling water---not spoken of in polite company.   And a gift of the Gucci kind of grits from an Artisan Grist Mill on occasion is quite welcome, and enjoyed respectfully and with gusto. 

The pot simmers for a bit whilst the bacon and eggs cook; a big pat of butter is scraped off the knife into the pot, left to melt, and stirred in just before ladling a good hot serving onto everybody's plate. Then it's every man for himself---treat 'em as you will. No censure from me.

Be sure and run an inch or two of warm water into the empty pot and replace the lid til time to do the dishes, or you'll be chipping spackle off that thing for a week.

Jeff Foxworthy says that every single garbage can in the South has one fork with white stone between the tines, that somebody gave up on. And if the Egyptians had had grits instead of mortar, there'd be a whole townful of pyramids.

MY FUNNY VALENTINE

                                           Valentine Roses, 2017

The Fourth of this month marked FORTY YEARS since Chris and I met, one misty night at a little redneck Holiday Inn in Mississippi.  (I do it an injustice---it was the FIRST FRANCHISED Holiday Inn in the world, opened in 1954--the second one after the original MotherShip in Memphis) but it was still boots-and-jeans all the way.   I'd been a widow for fifteen years, and never considered that there might be someone special out there.   WAY before the Internet became such a Meeting Place, we met through the small-town version of that---in a much simpler way, a more innocent time---through a sweet little newspaperish magazine available in grocery stores, quick-marts and fillin' stations. Ours was called "Tradewinds" and spanned several states, I think; you could find lily bulbs, hound pups, parts for your '58 Fairlane, recipes, and nice people to chat with or meet.

A week or so after New Year’s Eve, 1985 into 86, five of us "girls" who went out together on occasion went to dinner---one brought a copy of the little newsprint-paper magazine, and we all dared each other to answer one ad. I chose Chris, and I think it was because of the sweet way he mentioned his children, his love of reading, and his intentionally stating that he didn't watch football on TV that caught my eye, and they’ve all held true all these years.

You wrote a letter, put it in an envelope, sealed it, and wrote the number of your choice on the front. That envelope went into a bigger envelope with three dollars, and was addressed to the paper. They sorted everybody to the right place, and a few days later, he called.

We chatted for probably two hours, and suddenly it hit me---I was sitting there on my bed like a teenager, forgetting that I was WAY late to pick DS#2 up at the bus-stop. I threw down the phone and FLEW, meeting him probably three miles toward home, walking that old blacktop road. I'd said, "I'll call you BACK!!" as I dashed for the door, but when I returned, I realized HE had called ME and I didn't know his number. He called back within a few minutes, and we talked til WAY late---somebody cooked supper, but it wasn't me.

We talked on the phone for a couple of weeks, and on Feb. 4, he would be calling on some clients close to my town, so we arranged to meet. I would not let a stranger come to my home, and I didn’t want him to know where I lived, so we met at the lounge at the local Holiday Inn where I knew several of the employees.

That brave soul walked into a redneck bar where he didn’t know anyone, carrying a long-stemmed red rose.

We had been talking for maybe fifteen minutes, when in strolled my two sons, who stood towering over him at the table. They swapped the new pickup for my big old car, to go pick up some friends, and since THEY had met him, scads of people had seen us together, and I had gone to high school or football games with half the police department, I figured I was probably safe. So we went to his room and talked until four a.m.

He had arranged the two chairs so that we sat facing each other almost knee to knee, and we talked all about our families and faith and friends, our home life, our lives and what we liked to read, and all sorts of get-to-know you stuff. He even had a bottle of wine stuck in ice in the sink, and he’d been to WalMart for two pretty glasses---I didn’t have the heart to tell him I HATE wine, so I sort of held the glass and sipped at it til it was warm and even more unappetizing.

The funniest part is---he also dislikes wine, and just thought it was the nice thing to do---have a glass of wine with a lady. We both choked it down, just to impress the other, I guess. Never again.

Then, when I simply HAD to go home, he walked me to the truck, and I couldn’t crank it---had never tried; we had just bought it that Christmas, and I’d never driven it. So Chris had to drive me home anyway, after all those stranger-precautions I took. And we were married that Summer---short courtship.

One funny coincidence was that one of my friends at work, seeing how well my experience turned out, placed his own ad, and met a lovely young woman whom he brought as his date to our wedding. She had answered Chris’ ad as well, but they did not get together because we had already met.

I still get chills at the "maybe not" of the whole thing, but he says it would have happened somehow. He subscribes to the theory that he'd have stopped to fix my flat tire, or some such happenstance. And we marvel often at the people we love, and the people we’ve met and had a part in shaping THEIR lives a bit, and they ours, as well as the Grandbabies who might be totally different people had we not met on that foggy night in February.

Life pays forward, and the far-reaching things we set in motion would astound us. For example, if we had not met, I would never have moved here, DS2 would never have come here and met the lovely young woman he married, their daughter would not be graduating this May, and another daughter would not have met her husband and added three more to the Family Tree.   How many lives have been changed and influenced by that misty night that we met and talked to 4 a.m.    We had thirty-four wonderful years together, all begun because of that one little magical magazine. 

SMALL BRIGHT MEMORIES

 

FROM EXACTLY ELEVEN YEARS AGO: 

 LAWN TEA 2-12-2015  I woke to the downstairs Party Room in full colorful array this morning; Chris takes great pleasure in keeping my love of any kind of colorful lighting fresh and new often. Thinking of Childhood Valentines:  

Wasn’t that an innocent, sweet time of our lives---before we reached even the lacy-card stage, unless we got into our Mamas’ treasured stashes of paper doilies, saved for Bridge Club sandwich trays and for displaying neat rows of Individual Iced Cakes for visits from the Exalted Grand Matron?   Those small flappy bits of three-colour primary frippery we passed around amongst ourselves were an annual treat; the buying and the making and the careful lettering and the giving were all small parts of a rite as old and as little understood as Love.   And our own childish bits of the ritual were taken as seriously as the two-handed meek offerings of any time-worn creed.

We saved, we shopped, we clipped and glued---those knobby glass bottles with the crusty rubber tops slid across edges and doilies and tabs, and the still-drying gobs and telltale smears of mucilage were a lovable part of the whole. Errant bits of paper, ribbon, lace caught up in the sticky mess have come down the years as dear additions to those eagerly-proffered, gladly-accepted creations from-and-of-the-heart.

We didn’t understand it yet---just our own little corner of the “Like” and “Looking at” world of the primary grades reflected in those three primary colours of the shoddy small Valentines we could afford.  But we were IN IT---Oh, Yes. 

We coveted those small slips of esteem as we did an Add-a-Pearl or an A on a report card---they MATTERED in some uncountable way.  They were the votes in a gaudy ballot-box of approval, though it was unheard of to leave off anyone from your list.

I’d carefully laid each little paper inside the pages of my Arithmetic book---the wider of my two textbooks, for safekeeping in my book satchel.   All the way home, we’d pause and take out a few for more admiration.   When I arrived home, Mother was out at her Missionary Society Meeting, and so I excitedly took them over to show to Mrs. P, who was sitting out on her porch.  

We walked out into the sunshine for better effect, and I laid them out, one by one, on the fenders and hood of Mr. Shug’s Jeep as we admired them again.  She'd read the front, then look at the name on the back, and now and then ask something like, "Now, is THAT Miz Eller Freeman's Grand-Boweh?"   Then, instead of stepping into my house and setting them down, I stacked them carefully, and laid them just inside the open back of the Jeep to pick up as I passed going home.

I can’t remember why we went into the house, but when I came out,  the Jeep was gone, and with it my beloved stash of Valentines.  I went running out the drive, looking everywhere, and turned onto the blacktop road which led to the big river-bend where he went fishing.   Way up ahead, I spotted a few colourful flutters on the road, and found three or four, much the worse for having been run over.  They had great punches from the rocks, and the imprints of tires, and I can remember the searching on and on with the tears running down my face, looking and picking up the few which I could find.  I went on and on, following the bayou, and could see several floating on the green water like lily pads.   I didn't dare step out into the swamp to retrieve them, and so they were lost to me as if they'd sunk. 

The next day when I came home from school, there was a brand-fresh unopened pack, just like the one I’d so carefully lettered and “sent” awaiting me, from Mr. Shug, who felt really bad about scattering my Valentines “from here to Sunday,” my Mother said.  A little balm for the loss, and every year at this time, I think of that sweet man, sputtering heedless down that bumpy road, trailing a little contrail of colourful cards like Love Propaganda---scattering my childish dreams into the wind.

And now I'm remembering another sweetest man---the one who remembered EVERY Valentine's Day, every birthday and holiday and Just Because It's Tuesday for all the thirty-four years we were blessed to have together.   He lit up my world, and I'll never stop missing his happy presence.  

SWEETHEARTS AREN'T JUST CANDY

Young and sweet and innocent as these small images are, this must have been an ADULT Valentine, or at least meant for teenagers, when I was of the send-one-to-every-person-in-your-class age.  If we first, second, third graders had come to school with such a racy message in hand, ready to stash it in the big red box covered just that week by our busy hands in construction paper and streamers of crinkly red crepe, we, as well as the object of our momentary affection, would have been teased beyond bearing.   It was absolutely NOT DONE to verge into romantic territory at our tender ages, despite the heart-strings of the holiday.  You'd have been hearing about tree-sitting and K-I-S-S-I-N-G til the cows came home.

sOur little twenty-for-a-quarter packs of the small bright die-cut sentiments were painstakingly chosen for just the right person, though the lack of variety at Leon’s Drugstore limited us all to buying identical crinkly red cellophane packages, with perhaps five designs total. They came in small swinging rectangles, hung from the neat hooks on the SUNDRIES aisle which at other seasons might have held corn pads or cards of needles, and the Valentines were cushioned in a thin grey cardboard frame, like the cut-off bottom of a small cheap box.  The whole thing was sealed in a thick, almost indestructible sheet of cellophane impervious to most fingers and even our blunt-nosed scissors, though we were not above employing a quick nip with two eye-teeth to start a little slit for tearing.

I assume there was an unwritten law that you HAD to write out your Valentines the night before, for I cannot remember any earlier contact save for the buying, though I was known to lay them out like a gaudy game of Solitaire on my bed in the days before, choosing the receivers by pattern or poem or whim.   I was also not above putting an unobtrusive small penciled number on the back, with a corresponding name on a line in my notebook, until I could make that final important decision.  I hope that I remembered to erase all those furtive numbers, for I fear that more than one of us knew that trick.

We’d carry our carefully-lettered little flaps of colour up to that big fancy box, inserting them one or two at a time into the slot in the top with everyone avidly looking on, hoping for a flash of their own names to appear as a card was slid into the box, or for the glimpse of a secret crush, revealed to all as the card disappeared between the ruffly overlay of the mail-slot.

Occasionally one or two of us would have had a splurge at the Ben Franklin two towns over, and might just have lucked onto a little cardboard platter from another company, with quite different pictures and quotes inside the red cello cover.  But most usually, when the giver-outer of the Valentines stood reading off the names, and we’d go forward and receive our mail, it was more like dealing out a big stack from a four-card deck, as the little sailor dog and the bird in the tree appeared over and over, interspersed with small Shirley Temple clones and windmills and mice.   But oh, the heart-pounding moments as you waited, heard your name, stepped forward with a trembly hand outstretched, and received another of the showy little slips.  I never looked at mine til the calling had finished and the teacher took off the lid to see if any errant Valentines might still be caught inside.   I’d made sure that every single one of mine was safely clutched to my front like a nervous gambler, with the white side hidden so no one could see who did and didn’t send me one. 

Being limited to twenty when there were sometimes twenty-five people in our class was no problem either, for quite a few of us girls would make special ones for a few good friends, all festooned in hand-cut little hearts still bearing the center-crease from the folding-to-cut, and with perhaps a little slip of a ribbon bow or some of that squiggle-ribbon which curled when you pulled the scissors blade down the length of it.   So we never truly left out anyone, despite the limit on “bought” cards, and I can remember only perhaps two girls who went around the room asking cattily, “And how many did YOU get” or crowing “Eye got Twenty-NINE!” when we all know perfectly well there were not even that many people in the class, and the handwriting looked mighty similar on at least five of them (and similar to HERS, at that).

Oh, for something so anticipated and pleasurable and fraught with delighted dread as those little cheap, primary-colored bits of childhood. Weren’t we innocent?  Weren’t we small?   I know I’m smiling.