RANDOMONDAY #8 SOUTHERNISMS

Idioms seldom found North of the Mason/Dixon Line:


I Wishta gosh.....................I do sincerely hope.

I hopeta shout....................It's the absolute Truth, or: I couldn’t agree more.

Hind Wheels of Destruction...My first MIL’s description of either a messy house or the looks of a lady whose grooming left something to be desired.

Omtombow........................I am speaking of . . .

Hissy fit............................Angry outburst ranging from actual hissing at the object of wrath, when others may overhear, to screeching, plate-throwing tantrum. Usually indulged in by females, but a Good Ole Boy, who has witnessed these all his life, may surprise you with quite a creditable one of his own, on occasion. Such as being on a charter boat and having the marlin get clean away. With his new $700 Star Chair rod. For plates, substitute beer cans, ice chests, life preservers, and a brand new watch, flung off his wrist by accident in the frenzy of his fit.

Screamin’ heenie................Ditto, but starts out full-blown, without any of the hissy buildup.

Slick over cloudy.................Raining and gonna get worse.

Come up a wind..................Started to storm.

Commenceta rainin’.............Began to rain, especially spoken by someone WAY out in the field when the storm started.

Takin’ on............................Crying or wailing or gnashing teeth.

Makin' over.........................Differs from Takin' on in that it refers to fawning or flattering over someone or something, like excessive cooing at a baby or admiring Darla Faye's unfortunate new hairdo.

Don’t let on........................Do not dare speak of what I just told you.

Dog in the fight...................An interest beyond curiosity in whatever’s happening. If the proceedings will affect you personally, you can complain, speak up, or sue. Otherwise, shut up about it.

Lit a shuck.........................Ran fast, usually AWAY from something. Paralleled by bat-outa-Hell.

Puttin’ on the dawg.............Putting on airs; dressing, entertaining, or purchasing beyond your means.

Puttin’ the big pot in the little one....Entertaining a big crowd.

Might could........................Perhaps I’ll be able to.

Ditten GO to......................Did not mean to.

My favorite is a personal one, from something that really happened back in the 70’s:

My Mother told of an afternoon visit from a nearby neighbor’s maid, on her way home from work. She described the woman, already known to all of us, as “like somebody who never did anything right in her life.” I think that was a little bit mean, for Effie was kind and cheerful, with a deep belief in the healing properties of Vicks’ Salve, alkyrub and Rev. Ike.

She always smelled of the Vicks, Summer and Winter, and just passing her in the grocery store would clear your sinuses right up.

And her employer regaled Mother often with the tales of the carefully-saved ones and fives, wrinkled and probably a little bit sweaty from safekeeping in her brassiere, which she sent off to Rev. Ike of the Golden Throne and the red velvet TV studio, in exchange for amulets, water from Lourdes, from the Jordan, or both, and microscopic wooden bits and rocks, said to be from holy places, and endowed with curative powers and wish-granting magic.

“Miz Bee,” she said, as Mother opened the door. “Is it all right if I get those grapefruit hulls from your can back there?” with a gesture out toward the alley through which came the big wheezy garbage trucks.

“Sure, Effie, but they’re in there with all the trash and coffee grounds and stuff. Surely you don’t want to use those,” said Mother, who had enjoyed many a bit of candied citrus peel from my kitchen, and whose mind could encompass no other earthly use for the throwaways.

“Yes, Ma’am, I’d like to have them,” she replied. “It don’t matter if they’re messy.”

“But Effie,” persisted Mother, “why would you ever want those?”

“Oh, Ma’am,” Effie said. “They just make such NICE garbage.”

FIRST DAY OF SUMMER

This is “FIRST DAY OF SUMMER” and I don’t think it’s celebrated very widely in the South. We don't do much to actively COURT the heat, so to speak or honor the inferno days. We don't even speak well of it, except to say that the sun is good for the crops. And I don’t remember any special parties, except once on this day, I catered a MidSummer Night’s Dream party, all herbs and lace and fairy things, on the date. And to me, it was NOT MidSummer---it was the first day, but Oh, Well.

Several years ago we were in England on this date, and were sadly informed by our tour guide that we would not be able to take the promised trip to Stonehenge, because the roads had been shut down. (He DID mention that if you were a practicing Druid, you would be given admittance, but he could assure neither our safety, our virtue nor a return of the bus to pick us up on the morrow).

We took a LONG and winding way around the site, and as he and the driver (who lived just there, and took one night off to go home to his family) mapped out a little-known route, and we took it. It led us deeper and deeper (in the literal sense---the roadsides grew higher and higher, as we rode through a narrow by-way which had been carved into a miles-of-trench by countless centuries of carts and wagons, with no forethought to modern vehicles, and looking out the windows put you face-to-face with dirt. One turn was hair-pin and hair-raising, as I looked down from my far-back-seat perch, with the almost-archaelogical-dig strata going past the windows on both sides of my three-directions view, and the other vehicle inches from my face as they skillfully negotiated the passage.

When we came back out of that deep road, the fields stretched for miles, and they were absolutely teeming with people, though an entire alien race could have landed in Salisbury plain right then, and would have easily blended right in. It was like the crowds converging on the Superbowl---long lines in the lanes and paths, costumes and characters from Yoda to Spock to Frodo and friends. Everyone seemed to be carrying a cooler or a bedroll or a musical instrument, and a whole flock of bongo players, drums shouldered and keeping up a steady rhythm, passed us as we crept along like an aquarium-on-wheels amongst the walking crowd.

The investment in black fabric alone must have swelled the coffers of quite a few merchants, and the makeup and the music---it was like a specially-arranged performance, and we not only had ringside seats, we moved along, and caught forty more rings of that many-ring circus. We passed through a small village, and apparently no one was looking out as we crossed one of a pair of bridges. When the guide spoke over the microphone: “A pair of Naiads bathing to your right,” the stampede back down the aisle rocked the bus and landed two gentlemen almost in my lap. And indeed, there had been two ladies, beautiful young ones, both absolutely naked, pouring water from the little stream over each other.

I think the guide and I were the only ones who caught a glimpse---everyone else was either running to get a look or dodging elbows and flying feet.

And then, from far, far away---the golden shapes in the sunlight emerged, swimming into view almost through a haze; we took pictures through the windows, as the lime-vested gentlemen waved us to keep going and the foot-dust like the Flight from Egypt filled the air.

I think I’ll remember that most because we didn’t get to stop and get out and look closely; the far remove keeps that mystical, magical place ever as a mirage, a picture in a Baedeker, a cover silhouette on the journal I carried to record the days of my trip. And the mystique has probably grown in the remembering, to even greater size and import than it would have had we stood and looked at it a while, like tourists gazing on a church.

We caught glimpses, we saw outlines, we saw the glow of sun on the spires, and we saw the great procession of those faithful to something older than memory, older than time. That’s an unforgettable impression, and seeing it only through glass left the thought that perhaps it was a mirage or our imaginations, or visible only for a moment, like Brigadoon.

HAPPY FATHERS' DAY

I wish each and every one of you a Happy Fathers' Day and a Happy First Day of Summer!!

OLD POSTS

Several people have mentioned that they are going to go all the way back to November and "start from the beginning." I'm pleased and flattered that so many of you take an interest. I love reading the comments, and if anyone cares to comment on any post, no matter how far back, this magic machine notifies me by e-mail, and I'll certainly read and respond.

Nothing is really in any chronological frame, and except for the chapters about the "Family Forest," there are no chapter numbers---but that can be read in any order, as well. The Capote post was the first of those, because from that picture of him with his time-worn aunt (who was most likely younger than I am now), I just took off on a tangent, bringing in who knows how many long-ago relatives.

Thank you all for your kind interest and the lovely words. I especially love the memories you relate, of things and places and times in your own lives that you're reminded of. It's a privilege to evoke such memories and an honor to share in them.

rachel

SYLVIA SATURDAY

Yesterday, I mentioned my total illiteracy (perhaps that should be illimagery) as to posting photos. I'd read the tutorials, clicked and clacked and browsed, and just could not seem to make the pictures appear in the little screen where the words live.
And a new friend, RobinfromCA,

http://weareflyingnow.blogspot.com/2009/06/cloche-party-and-award-time.html

kindly commented here and gave me the easy-guide-to-life, so I think there's hope yet. I started out at Cindy's house, http://romantichome.blogspot.com/ which is just delightfully romantic, and went on to other links.

The theme yesterday was "Cloches" and the lovely things you could display in and under them. There were little vignettes and scenes and seashells and flowers and perfume bottles and all sorts of small still-lifes, enchanting as the view into a big sugar Easter Egg. I strolled around people's parlors, bedrooms---bathrooms, even, taking in the beautiful arrangements and pale colors and the soothe of the neatness of them. And I wanted those. I wanted ALL of those, the IDEA of them, and the ACTUAL of them, in their frozen, pristine glory; they bespeak a serenity and an artist's hand and most of all, a tidy milieu that escapes my capabilities.
And the cloches themselves---they've been accumulated and acquired at antiques stores, after their lives of nestling a fragrant serving of cepes sous cloche, whisked dramatically away by a gloved hand to release the aromas a minute. Or perhaps they harbored a bird's nest in a small boy's room, dutifully dusted day after day by the upstairs maid, as the boy grew to man and the nest grew limp with the sag of Time, and the whole thing sold, nest and all, with the thump of the auction hammer. The whole morning, as I came back and looked in, was a Martha Stewart Dream of Heaven.
The only thing in my house remotely approaching such hermetic tableaux is on the pass-through from kitchen to breakfast area---a plain old Wal-Mart cakedome which has been home for several years to my little dollhouse kitchen. The three small white plastic appliances, along with a tiny buffet with one reluctantly-sliding drawer, are all that's left of my childhood's playthings. They lay still and abandoned for many years, wrapped in Kleenex and snugged into a box in my parents' big closet, until I found them while rummaging for a proper tie for Daddy to wear to my Mother's funeral.

I'd spied the pale blue of the box-bottom in a stack above my head, and, with a little frisson of recognition---the small flowers which dotted the lid of my teenage stationery box. Heavy, it was, as I got the step-stool from the kitchen to reach it down. And inside, the Blue Willow teaset long lost and longed for, asked about, given up on. The cups and saucers and small pot and its two cohorts were heavy in the bottom, with the tray and four small plates, each piece wrapped in yellowing tissue. Two of the cups still held the dreg-stains of dolltea in the bottom, and though I've dusted all the outsides, I cannot bring myself to wash those cups, to send down the drain those last vestiges of my long-ago self.

And the little white kitchen---I try to recall the dollhouse, and cannot. I DO know the kitchen was an unnatural PINK, painted in the dead of night with my Mother's nail polish.  And I remember the meals and parties I cooked in that kitchen, my imaginings soaring beyond any magical teaparty as I worked. And so I have it. The magic of childhood remains, mingled with a bit of reality. Guests look and say "Awwwww!" and then look again. Then they laugh.

Click on picture for a front-row seat; these are so close you'll get a crick in your neck:



And a clearer look, sans cloche:




As my friend Keetha says, "Just keepin' it real."