A tree with many branches hanging from it's trunk.

You Know You’re in the South When….


 

A person sitting on the ground in front of water. You order iced tea and your server responds, “Sweet or unsweet?

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.A stranger strikes up a conversation with you at the produce counter and you don’t look for the manager.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.It’s hard to find parking in the church parking lot on Sunday.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

The ONLY dressing is cornbread dressing.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

 

The  “ballgame” means football.

 

 

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.Mama is a force to be reckoned with.

 

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

Men look forward all year to a weekend on a freezing lake in an outrageous contraption hoping to bag a duck or two.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

If you visit, you have to eat.

 

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.And family is forever.

 

 

 

 

A group of people standing around a table with food.

Southern Cookin’


Southerners love to cook.  Especially we love those community gatherings where everyone brings their favorite dish and we all sample “just a bite” of everyone’s.  My earliest memories of thisA person sitting on the ground in front of water. were “Dinner on the Ground,” and it literally was on the ground.  Thinking about it now, I’m amazed we kept the kids from stumbling into the spread – and maybe we didn’t..

I have such  wonderful memories of that food – and no matter how many times I try recreating their recipes, they just don’t comeA person sitting on the ground in front of water. out the same.  Uncle Henry’s fried chicken,  Miss Nina’s coconut cake,
Miss Ethel’s peach cobbler, Aunt Minnie’s A person sitting on the ground in front of water.chicken and dumplings,  Miss Edna’s buttermilk biscuits, and of course, Aunt Annie’s fabled deviled eggs.

Eventually we graduated to folding tables and chairs and finally to a real Fellowship Hall equipped with all the modern conveniences.  Much more comfortable but in nostalgic moods, I wonder if we were better off in those days.  We were blissfully unaware of the dangers of sugar, gluten, lactose, saturated fat, cholesterol, and vegetarians were, well, just weird.  There was no guilt associated with a hamburger and a coke for lunch.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

We had no idea the trouble we were in.

My rational self remembers  how it was   to lose relatives to diet-related disease, especially  heart disease and  diabetes.  These could be  devastating for a family, since health insurance  was essentially non-existent in those days; health care  was pay-as-you-go.

Southerners will always   love our  community food get-togethers, although today we make at least a token effort to prepare healthful food .  However, if  the occasional slice of coconut cake happened  to sneak in, well.. just a bite couldn’t hurt.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

 

A woman in white dress posing on red background.

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN SMOKING WAS COOL?

 

 

I would definitely not light up after dinner  in my  favorite restaurant these days, but there was a time when..A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

Smoking was a rite of passage, a symbol of sophistication.  Movie stars smoked: James Dean, Elvis, Kathryn Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Marilyn Monroe,  Bob Hope, Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day, to name a few.  Smoke rose along the edge of the TV screen from  Edward R. Murrow’s ashtray as he delivered the evening news.   Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson smoked.  Doctors, including  the Surgeon General, smoked.   EvenA person sitting on the ground in front of water. Fred Flintstone smoked!  Cigarettes dominated the advertising market and heavily supported prime time TV, sponsoring  such popular family  programs as    “I Love Lucy,”  “I’ve Got a Secret,” and “The Adams Family.   All, among many others, brought to us by the cigarette industry.  In this vintage Philip Morris commercial, Lucy tells us “how to keep your man happy” by choosing the right cigarette.

Click here to view.

Most  men, including my father and uncles,  in the small Louisiana community where I grew up smoked.  Sundays after church would find them clustered on the steps or under a nearby tree, hastily lighting up or stoking pipes, although it was considered immoral by A person sitting on the ground in front of water.some,  and especially on church property.  However, it was more or less accepted as a good man’s reward for bringing the family to church.  There was no debate, however, on the subject of smoking for women.   It

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.
A pack of cigarettes in 1957 cost about $1.75.

was “trashy” and everyone knew it. I never smoked until years after leaving home and then never, ever, in the presence of a family member.   The only woman I knew who was able to escape the ire of the community for  flaunting the “smoking ban” for women was my wonderfully eccentric Aunt Ivalee.  But then, she was from New Orleans…

 I began smoking in earnest in grad school.  And I loved it.   I loved it all.  The ambience,  the romance  of it,  that special camaraderie among smokers.  I loved blowing smoke rings.   I loved a cigarette with a cup of coffee after dinner.  I loved the  way it made me feel.  And it didn’t hurt that it helped me keep the weight off.  And after all, I  could always quit…whenever I was ready.

On July 12, 1957, the Surgeon General issued the first official, and greatly understated, warning about the harmful effects of smoking.   Seven years later, the American Cancer Society released a slightly stronger warning.  However neither acknowledged the compelling evidence of the link between lung cancer being suppressed by the tabacco industry.   A virtual war ensued over the next three decades between health care advocates and the powerful Tobacco Institute.   Eventually  health advocates won an uneasy peace, taxes were levied, warning labels required, and smoking rates declined, as more and smokers attempted to kick the habit.   But  what no one knew then,  was that the power of the nicotine addition is comparable to  that of heroin, and for most people,  more powerful than alcohol.

I eventually quit smoking in the 80s,  my resolve being fortified by the  growing public disfavor of smoking.  Secondary smoke had been implicated in lung cancer and  growing number of restaurants restricted smoking to designated areas.   Some airlines banned smoking on flights less than two hours and by 1990 all smoking on airlines was banned.

But breaking the nicotine habit turned out to be far more difficult than I had imagined.   A few days (or hours) after gathering my resolve, throwing all my cigarettes in the trash, out the window, giving them away, etc.,  would find me scrounging for cigarettes under sofa cushions,  jacket pockets, even trash cans.  Those humiliating experiences gave me a new understanding of  the power of addiction and compassion for those under its spell.

Today, with all the knowledge at hand about the harmful effects of cigarettes, smoking would seem to be a game-stopper.  However, about 15% of adults and sadly,  20% of teenagers, are smokers today.  I  would like to think that if my rebellious teenage self had known what I know now about smoking,  she  would have exercised the good  judgment not to light up.   But, sadly, good judgment  seems to be something we learn by making mistakes, assuming  we live through them.

Click here to view a history of the effects of smoking on health.

 

 

 

 

 

Hold fast to what is good (1)


I began my morning walk with Jake and Jesse burdened with the troubles of our world; the famine in Africa, the injustice visited on children in wars,  petty politics, corporate greed; all being paraded in rapid fire across the TV screen on the morning news.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

The rustle of the wind through the tall pines, the sun sparkling on whitecaps on the lake,  the mallard ducks floating serenely on gentle waves,  the lush perfume  of jasmine on the fence and gardenia by the garden gate – none penetrated my mood.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.Jake and Jesse strained on their leads pulling me behind them down the path like an overloaded dogsled.  I had no appetite for bringing them to heel, dimly aware that  allowing them to pull on the lead  meant more work for me in retraining.  If not for their insistent  pacing back and forth to the door when it was time for their walk, I would have bagged it  altogether.

As we started  up  the hill, a golf cart came into view heading toward us, the driver braking when he saw us.  I didn’t recognize them, but it was clearly a grandfather out with a morning ride with his two granddaughters; perhaps four or five years old.  Of course, they wanted to “pet the puppies” and PawPaw was OK with it, so over they came, squatting down to eye level,  tentative little fingers touching furry black ears and and quickly pulling back with giggles and shrieks of glee.

“Look, he LIKEs me, PawPaw,”  the oldest said as Jesse licked her finger.

“Likes me too!” from the younger.

After five minutes or so of playful chatter and pleasantries,  Grampa decided it was time to go home before Mom got worried.

“Well, you know what?” the oldest asked, swinging into the cart.

“What?” I answered.

“You can come visit me sometime. And bring the puppies!”

“I will!” I answered.

The grandfather turned the cart around and headed up the hill.  My  earlier foggy malaise slowly dissipated  as  I watched the happy little trio, the  girls chatting away and pointing out various points of interest to their grandfather as only small children can,  a squirrel, a bird perched on a high limb, a lizard, wildflowers,  until they rounded the last curve and disappeared up the hill.A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

Yes.  There IS that.

It is important to remember that in our troubled, broken, scary world, there are still grandfathers taking grandchildren for a ride on a beautiful spring morning.    That is good.

And what I learned in Sunday School is as true today as it was then:   “Hold Fast To What Is Good.” (1)  Don’t ignore the pain, the trouble, but hold onto the good.  With all your might.   That is what will get us through.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.(1) 1Thessalonians 5:21

A woman sitting on top of a wooden bench.

Why am I here?


In her latter years, my mother used to ask that a lot.  I never knew what  to say, so I usually said something trite like “We still need you here.”  At which she would click her tongue against her teeth the way she did when I disagreed with her politics.

What was she asking, I wondered.  Did she still dream of unrealized ambitions in her nineties?   I always found the question unsettling and frankly, a little annoying.A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

But now that there are many more birthdays behind than before me, I think I get it.  I think she was reflecting over her long life and trying to make sense of it.  And I find myself doing the same.    What has my life meant?  At the finish line, will I be able to say I have   “fought the good fight” ?    Did I miss my “calling,” my high purpose?  The olympic swimmer,  the nuns of Calcutta, the Nobel Laureate, the musical prodigy;  they had a calling, didn’t they?  A custom made life-suit,  into which they fit perfectly.   Their one true path.  Is there one for me?

In my early life, I was sure of it.    My life would be exciting, full of high purpose, awe-inspiring.   Unlike my mother’s.  Especially, not like my mother’s.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.Mind you, my mother  was not a slacker. She was a strong and intelligent woman; a school teacher, an avid reader, a seamstress and amazing gardener.   She make great chicken and dumplings and rhubarb pie. She survived two husbands and lived independently for 92+ of her 93 years.

But.  She never wrote a book, climbed a mountain, ran a corporation (or a marathon)  or held public office.  For most of her life she lived in the same community.  To my impatient, arrogant 18-year-old eyes, her life looked mundane,  aimless, pointless even.  Not mine, I vowed.  I would  set goals for myself and go about achieving them.  Simple as that.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.But it didn’t quite work out that way.  My path took unexpected twists and  turns.   It  didn’t  lead steadily  to a noble destination, but instead  wound  through brambles, tangled ravines and rocky boulders.  I ran, I  stumbled,  I climbed, I  tripped,  I fell and I recovered,  with varying degrees of grace.

Admittedly, on its surface,  my life looks radically different from that of my mother.  I left home at an early age, attended  universities in distant states,  managed a demanding career,  travelled the world; accumulated a modicum of recognition for my work.  But at its core,  like my mother’s, my life was made of the usual stuff;  education, career, marriage, children, retirement.   And my path, like hers, was not the work of destiny, but the result of choices.

And  my path has  led me…. here. Not to a mountaintop and not to a swamp.  As it did my mother.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

It’s tempting to  fall for the “one true thing”  pitch.  The idea that  we are  entitled to  the one true love, the one perfect career, the one true happily-ever-after is very appealing.   And perhaps it is true for some.   But my life didn’t  come with a blueprint; I made choices, sometimes wisely, sometimes foolishly, that in the aggregate defined my path.  I wasn’t always sure of my choices,  and  they didn’t always lead to the mountaintop.

If I could answer my mother  now, I would reassure her that she didn’t miss her calling.  Like me, she simply made choices that led her to her destination.   And  at the end of the day, it was not our accomplishments, as my teenage self thought,  but the accumulation of our everyday thoughts and actions that defined us. Both of us.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

 

 

A painting of a woman and rabbit on wood.

The Easter Bunny


As a child, I remember thinking it was weird that the Easter Bunny  brought eggs.  And exasperating that no one else thought that was a bit strange.  Being the person in the family responsible for snatching
eggs  from beneath cranky setting hens, I knew for sure where eggs came from.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.Turns out, though,  there really is a logical explanation for the egg-bearing  bunny.   According to Wikipedia, German Lutherans  apparently established the tradition of the “Easter Hare.”
But far from the cuddly bunny with big pink ears, the original Easter bunny (after all these were not only Lutherans, but GERMAN Lutherans) was actually a stern judge-bunny, dispensing his coveted eggs only to those children who had been good over the Lenten season.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.And as for the eggs, early churches abstained from them during Lent.  And lacking refrigeration, the only way to keep them from spoiling was to boil them so they could eat them  after the fast was ended.  And  they probably decorated them as part of the celebration.  So that explains a lot.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

But   I still find an Easter bunny (especially a chocolate one)  distracting to the Easter message of resurrection and hope.   I don’t think the idea of the Easter bunny is harmful to children; I just think it shortchanges  them  because it misses the life-giving  Easter message of hope; the gift of new beginnings,

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.

I don’t have fond memories of the annual  Easter egg hunt, where my basket always needed help from the Sunday School teacher.  In retrospect, I know this was because of my uncorrected myopia, but still, I think I would have preferred to learn about the Easter Lily.A person sitting on the ground in front of water.