Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for September, 2011

Walking the social tightrope

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 26, 2011 | 8 Comments »

I remember Granny Mac coming home from Eastern Star and saying, “I saw that Minne Lee, and she didn’t say hello, kiss my foot, ‘ner nuthin’!” Snubbed she was, snubbed! The social protocol had not been followed. She had not been acknowledged.

It was easy then to identify when one had been given the brush-off. Social etiquette was clear – in part because there were vastly fewer considerations when tiptoeing one’s way through societal folkways and mores and also because the rules were plain. You spoke politely to your friends and acquaintances. You wrote your notes. Your brought an appropriate covered dish or small gift. It was easy.

Nowadays the social guidelines are fuzzy at best and down right obscure at worst. There are an infinite number of things to consider.

Is it appropriate to send a thank you email? A thank you tweet? Maybe just a “TY” and a smiley face? Do I follow with a written note? What if I just add a few more exclamation points? It’s so tiresome to have to find a stamp.

What if your tweet or post is not replied too? Do you friends suddenly hate you? Are they ignoring you? Was it an affront not to comment on a major life event like what they had for lunch? Am I obligated to comment on everything? What if I never comment? Then I’ll be out of the feed/loop/know. Is that really all that bad?

Why was Betty’s friend request accepted and not mine? Really now…Betty? What’s wrong with me? It was probably just a glitch in the system. Maybe she meant to click on my friend/follow request and hit Betty’s by accident. Who would want to be friends with Betty anyway…her macaroni and cheese comes out of a box. Tramp.

On the proverbial flip side, am I obligated to be “friends” with more people than my just my real, live, honest-to-goodness friends? Is my boss my friend? Do I really want my boss to know all about my girls’ weekend in Destin? Or how about the creepy guy from high school/the mail room/the corner store? I don’t want to be his friend, but I don’t really want to make him mad either.

Then there are the pictures. There’s the party I wasn’t invited to but all my friends were or, conversely, I got to go to, but they didn’t! Even if I don’t post pictures, what if someone else does? Do you even always know when your picture is being taken? And why in the world did Emogene post that shot of me where I was all shiny? My God, what is she trying to do to me? I didn’t post the one of her where her bra strap was hanging out…just you wait, Emogene.

And whilst I am sure none of my dear readers are given to philandering, don’t dare be somewhere you’re not supposed to be with someone you’re not supposed to be with! You don’t have to be Brangelina nowadays to find your collective mug on the world wide web in flagrante delicto.

Births, deaths, marriage, divorce, adoption, cohabitation, break-up – happy news, sad news, no news…it’s all out there. But do you really want to find out about the death of a relative or a friend’s divorce right after reading the daily lunch specials posted by the taco truck? What if your boyfriend suddenly changes his status to “it’s complicated” when you thought you were fixing to change yours to “engaged?”

And who knew my cousin’s brother-in-law’s step-dad’s girlfriend was the leader of Republicans for Wicca? My aunt took up belly dancing? My great uncle collects dolls? Was that who I think it was on that float dressed like Carmen Miranda? Should I make mention? Ignore it? Can’t wait for Thanksgiving this year!

It really is all too much for the manners-conscious to bear. The ramifications! The slights! The provocations! Where does it all end?

Best to remember the old adage: If you can’t say something nice…stay off the internet. Oh, but you can always come sit by me.

Read Full Post »

Standing on the promises

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 18, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Nowadays, when the work day nears an end and there’s not enough time left to start another project but too much time to call it church and head to the house, we automatically turn to the computer to fill that void. We stare until our eyes burn at the glare of news, friend updates, celebrity gossip, sales. With aching heads and dulled minds we creep toward the magic hour of freedom.

How did people fill the lull of the afternoon before computers and internet and smart phones? Well, I’ll tell you what my people did.

They played music.

At Mama’s office, along about three o’clock in the afternoon when the last customer had gone, the mail had been taken to the post office, and the phone quit ringing, she and Barbara, her secretary, would pull out their instruments – Mama, the fiddle, and Barbara, the accordion – and commence to playing all the good, old hymns that make you happy to be a child of God.

The old, brown weathered hymnal they played from had dispatched a message of hope to generations of world-weary souls for whom the prospect of cities of gold far outweighed the prospect of another day hauling logs out of the woods and to the mill.

♫ I will meet you in the morning by the bright river side, when all sorrow has drifted away… ♪

Barbara could play anything on the piano or the accordion, you only had to hum a few bars and her long fingers would fly over the keys and fill in your off-key gaps with all the right notes, plus a few embellishments to get you in the spirit.

♫ Precious memories, unseen angels, sent from somewhere to my soul… ♪

Mama, fiddle tucked under her chin and toe tapping time, would draw the bow over the strings releasing the melodies she’d known by heart since childhood. Mama knows every word to every song ever written, no matter how obscure.

♫ As I travel through this pilgrim land, there is a friend who walks with me. Leads me safely through the sinking sand… ♪

"Fiddler" by Audrey

Sometimes Old Man Snookum Wally, a shade-tree mechanic from Okwaukee, would drop by with his guitar or fiddle to play a few songs with them. Once he brought me an old guitar he’d found at a flea market and showed me how to play a few chords. I still have it.

♫ I once was lost in sin, but Jesus took me in, and then a little light from heaven filled my soul… ♪

Claude Platt lived about a block away. Every day, he’d drive over and park in front of the office, go across the street to see what was happening at the police station and then come over to catch up on the latest news, shadowed every step of the way by his big old redbone hound, Skafer. He didn’t play, but he’d clap his gnarled, prize-fighter hands and chime in on the low parts.

♫ Love lifted me (even me), love lifted me (even me). When nothing else could help, love lifted me… ♪

When five o’clock rolled around, the instruments went back into their cases, the lights were turned off, the door locked against the night. And we all headed to our homes, the lingering refrains of faith guiding our way.

Read Full Post »

Steam Table Etiquette

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on September 13, 2011 | 2 Comments »

One of the most miraculous inventions ever is the steam table. For those of you not familiar with this giant of gastronomical gadgets, let me explain. The steam table is a long, stainless steel contraption filled with hot water to keep bins of food warm, palatable, and at the ready for the hungry throngs who will pass before its sneeze guard, stomachs rumbling and mouths watering.

What you may not realize is that the steam table commands certain etiquette. There is a method to the madness of providing an endless array of all things fried, casseroled, breaded, broiled, baked, oh…and, of course, steamed. Some establishments are fairly rigid in their expectations that you adhere to the protocol, such as Niki’s West, where an ordering faux pas might just get you passed over, and some are more lax, such as Ted’s, where the nice ladies behind the buffet seem endlessly patient, but you should nonetheless always be on your best.

What, you may wonder to yourself, does etiquette have to do with a steam table? A lot, actually. There are rules – sometimes written, sometimes just understood – but rules at any rate that must be adhered to in order to maintain the integrity and the function of the steam table.

  1. Always keep the line moving. No matter how interesting your companions’ gossip may be, no matter how much you want to know what happened on Young and the Restless, do not become so enthralled in conversation that you fail to move ahead with the line. The people behind you will become restless, start coughing and shuffling in a veiled attempt to snap you out of your oblivion, and eventually will give you an exasperated tap or nudge. The beauty of the steam table, you see, aside from its ability to provide about a million delicious choices at any given time, is its efficiency. Do not, for any reason, no matter what Wanda did at the bridal shower after mimosas and before petit fours, fail to keep the line moving ever forward.
  2. Plan ahead. A menu will always be posted, somewhere. It is your mission to find said menu and make your choices. If you are lucky, like at Niki’s, there will be a menu and the line will make several passes in front of the steam table. You should take this opportunity to assess the menu items. When you get to the trays, however, your decision must be made. When you are acknowledged, do not waver. Do not stammer. Proclaim your choices in a clear and concise manner, and then refer to Rule 1. Your plate will find you on down the line when it is ready for you.
  3. Children do not get to choose. Refer to Rule 2 and discuss the menu options with your child ahead of time. The steam table does not constitute window shopping for food. This is no time for a “teachable moment.” Furthermore, all the choices will break a child down faster than the prize counter at Chuck E. Cheese’s. No one wants to be in line behind you and little Bitsy when y’all get into a standoff because you want her to have broccoli and all she wants is macaroni and cheese. God forbid it escalates to the point where she throws herself to the floor in a hissy fit. Avoid the embarrassment, the reproachful glances, the raised eyebrows. Tell her what she wants ahead of time, get it for her, and keep that line moving!
  4. Get off the phone. The people behind the counter have been there since the early morning. They are hot. They are harried. They will be standing there long after you have finished your coconut pie and third glass of tea. They deserve your attention and respect. Get off the phone and give it to them. Nothing on that phone is so important you can’t take a break to order your meat and three. If it is life or death, you shouldn’t be standing in line at the steam table anyway.
  5. Make sure you are dressed appropriately.If you wish to worship at the Altar of Steam, you must dress for the occasion. Now no one

    Sign in the entryway at Niki's West

    expects you to don your full Sunday-going-to-meeting attire just to get lunch, but you are, after all, out in public and should be suitably clad. I defer to Niki’s again for their bold statement on the proper attire. Please refer to the photo. Take it to heart. Cover what should be covered, make sure your ‘do is done, and head on out for some finger-licken’ good lunch!

  6.  Don’t forget to tip. You may think that since you had to stand in line and carry your own plate, you don’t have to tip. My friend, you thought wrong. The nice lady who had unloaded your tray, kept your glass full, removed your detritus, and fetched you pepper sauce and extra butter is every bit as deserving of a tip as anyone. Be generous. Be more than generous.

The steam table – a Southern institution, a wondrous creation, a meat-and-three miracle. By following just a few itty, bitty rules, common courtesy really, you too can revel all up in it. Just remember to save a slice of pie for me!

Read Full Post »

Tomorrow is another day

Posted in Uncategorized on September 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

History is both a blessing and a burden to the Southerner.

We cling to our traditions like a lifeline. We pass down heirlooms and recipes from generation to generation. We tell tales of our ancestors both heroic and hapless. Many of us carry the names of those who came before. We reenact. We recount. We remember.

But there are things that I don’t wish to remember. I don’t wish to remember days of bigotry and hatred. I don’t wish to remember the years Daddy was away from us in the Navy, Mama sad and worried. I don’t wish remember friends taken from us too early. I don’t wish to remember families irreparably broken.

And I don’t wish to remember the morning ten years ago when I sat holding my baby son watching the world as we knew it crumble in to piles of twisted metal and ash. I don’t wish to remember the sight of people jumping from smoky windows, children crying for missing parents, the wounded bleeding in the streets.

Lest you think me hard-hearted or callous, let me say this: The reason that I don’t wish to remember is not because I don’t wish to honor those whose lives were taken and given. I do. Not because I deny lessons that are well-learned from the past. I believe knowledge it power. It is because I wish these things had never happened so that they would not have wound up housed in my psyche. It is because some things are just too bad and painful to recall.

I wish that the world was a peaceful place. I wish that people did what they were supposed to do. I wish the young were as immortal as they feel and the old would never leave us. I wish my son would only have memories of an idyllic, red wagon childhood.

However, like all of my Southern brethren and, I imagine, my sisters and brothers worldwide, I am burdened by history and the inability to change it. Burdened by memories of things that happened before I was even born. Burdened by distant folkways. Burdened by stereotype.

But I am also blessed. I count those many blessings and name them one by one every day. Family, friends, humor, and love. Forgiveness, tolerance, calm, and stability. Home, hearth, education, and luck. The ability to create new memories, and, in my own small way, change the world just a teeny, tiny little bit.

So I hope that you will forgive me and not think me weak when I say that today I must summon a fictional heroine and her mantra to combat the sad memories that I cannot help but have. I shan’t think about them today. I will think about them tomorrow, for tomorrow is another day.

Read Full Post »

What the possum loves

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on September 10, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Husband is haunted. Haunted by possums.

In college, he lived with several roommates and a couple of cats in an old, rambling house near Shoal Creek. For a while, he had suspected that a little visitor had found its way to the gravy train through the hole in the pantry floor – a visitor the cats weren’t willing to tangle with. One afternoon, Husband came home after class and heard a little noise coming from the pantry. A possum! Bellied up to the kibble buffet!

When the critter realized that Husband had a bead on him, he did what possums do. Played dead. Not fooled by this ruse, Husband grabbed a broomstick and commenced to chasing the intruder out of his house! The beast only ran further in toward Husband’s room, which gave him the opportunity to grab his shotgun. With the broom and a lot of cussing, he managed to chase the animal out the door where it ran up a tree, Husband hot on its furry little heels.

"Playing Possum" Photo from Wikipedia

But as he ran down from the porch, Husband twisted his ankle, nearly breaking it. Looking up, he saw the possum watching him from a hole in the tree, smirking. Just then a loud, old clunker drove by and BOOM!! No more possum. That weekend, Husband limped all over Atlanta for the SEC Championship game, the possum still with him in every painful step.

Now, nearly twenty years later, the curse is upon him again. Lately, in the evenings, if we turn on the porch light we’ve seen a furry, white bullet go shooting down the front steps while our old yella cat cowers in the bushes. Well, this morning, Husband went out to put the trash in the garbage can and, lo and behold, reckon what was holed up down in the bottom of the bin? Mr. Possum. Husband, calmed (somewhat) by age and experience and not wanting to risk another grievous injury or arrest for firing a gun within the city limits, flung the can across the driveway and turned the water hose on the little squatter, which is one of the few ways to rouse a possum from the “dead.”

Now the thing is hemmed up under our deck, waiting for dark to make its escape into the woods. Or will it. I’ll bet it will be right back on our porch tonight. You see, there is something that the possum cannot resist. It is more alluring than a pheromone, more seductive than a pretty girl possum, it’s siren song undeniable.

What is this obsession? Cat food. Delicious, nutritious, and free for the taking on every porch where cats are fed.

A notorious loner and scavenger, this possum will do as any other drifter will. Once the free vittles are removed, he’ll move on down the line to the next town where the grass is greener and kibble is crunchier. And our feline friend Flash will just have to adjust to the dinner bell ringing a little earlier.

The curse is hereby lifted.

Read Full Post »

What evah will ah do? Where evah shall ah go?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Tropical Storm Lee blew through yesterday taking with it our power and all of our concomitant conveniences – lights, television, and coffee pot on the most base level; laptops, cell phones, and Angry Birds on a frivolous level.

I have found that I can live without all of these things, and that sometimes I actually relish the quietude that comes from not having electronic gadgets incessantly beeping, humming, and squawking in the background turning my attention from loftier pursuits like, oh…reading (a real paper book at that!). Last night, in fact, Husband, Sonny, and I all sat on the porch listening to the wind, talking and joking, and just generally enjoying the evening. If I had had a bushel of pink-eye purple-hull peas, it might has well have been Granny’s porch in 1972, Hee Haw over, everyone on the porch, rocking, shelling, and listening for a whippoorwill.

But alas, it is not.

It is 2011, and the morning brought little else than more rain and the drone of my neighbor’s generator. Sonny and I made our way through the limbs and debris to Chick-fil-a for breakfast along with everyone else in Hoover, Alabama. Every plug had been commandeered. DSs, phones, laptops all sucking up precious power to hold in reserve for later in the day when [gasp, choke, heave] we still might not have power, not to see by, cook with, or bathe with, mind you, but to power our games and computers and movie players!

“We just had to get some charge for little Johnny’s DS and the laptop! I mean, what would he do if he didn’t have his movies and games?” one mother exclaimed to me in frustration.

Uh…read? Talk? Play cards? Draw a picture? Make a s’more? Not stare sullenly and blankly at that piece of plastic as if it holds all the secrets of the universe? Shucks, I just don’t know…

I think I could manage, but, despite my best efforts to enjoy a day mercifully free of technology, I did have to accomplish a few things for work which required wifi. Dang that wifi! Why can’t we just call people on the phone anymore? There must be emails and confirmations and blah blah blah.…all up in the cloud and such.

Well, evidently everyone in Hoover left the Chick-fil-a and drove straight to the library. People were circling their fellow patrons like vultures waiting to pounce on plug carrion! The earbuds, the phones, the laptops, the pads and pods – every available outlet looked like the snaky head of Medusa for all the wires streaming forth. Most everyone was tuned in and turned on to some sort of contraption, including, unfortunately and to my penultimate chagrin, me.

I, for one, am ready to give up my cords and wires for a little while longer. I have enjoyed being unplugged and unavailable. I have enjoyed conversing with Husband and crocheting by candlelight. So even when Alabama Power works their magic, I may pretend one evening that it is 1972 all over again, and Hee Haw is over, and I have a bushel of peas to shell and head out to the porch for some silence.

Read Full Post »

“Never wear cheap shoes” and other Labor Day advice

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 5, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Granny as a young woman at the old home place

On this Labor Day, I find my thoughts turning to one of the hardest working people I ever knew, Granny, who gave me many pieces of valuable advice regarding work and working. She told me to take business classes in college. As a teenage aspiring artist, I naturally rebelled against the idea but did it anyway and have been glad I did more times than I can count. She told me that you can get away with wearing cheap clothes, but you can’t wear cheap shoes because your feet have to support you all your life. Again, as I stood behind a counter for ten hours a day, I realized she was right. Granny told me that one should never talk about money, politics, or religion when in the company of businessmen (or business women, as the case may be). Time and time again, I have seen just how true this admonition was while witnessing deals made and lost based on issues that had nothing to do with the work.

Granny strongly objected to the term “redneck” being used to describe the shiftless, slow-witted, fast-living, White trash stereotype for natives of the South. Born in 1903 to a farmer and a school teacher and the oldest of four children, Granny knew what it was to work, to farm, to sew, to can, to build everything you needed to subsist. To her, the possession of a red neck signified back-breaking work performed bent over, neck exposed to the sun, necessary to further the well-being, if not the very survival, of one’s family. The farmer, the mechanic, the shipbuilder, the roughneck, the logger – all rednecks, all respectable, honest laborers. For the indolent, however, she had no tolerance.

Granny in the 1960s

I remember Granny once telling me, in reference to her two sisters, “Eunice was the smart one, Lois was the beautiful one, but me…I just had to work hard all my life.” And work she did, all the way up from teaching school when she was sixteen years old to owning the bank in our town. And once she was in a position to, Granny supported others who wanted to work whether it be through a loan from the bank or with her advice and counsel. All she expected in return was for the recipients to work as hard as she did, but the bar had been set sky-high. She was respected and respectful, she was smart but not condescending, she was stern but not hard-hearted, and she was years ahead of her time as a working woman in a male-dominated world but always a perfect lady.

Unlike Granny, I had the benefit of a college education, a different era, and modern technology and conveniences. But thanks to Granny, I learned that being a woman is no excuse for not being successful, I learned to be brave enough to speak my mind,  I learned that if you treat your counterparts, no matter what their station, with respect and dignity, they will return the favor, and I learned that an honest day’s labor, whether it be digging a ditch, washing a dish, or running a company, is always honorable and to be commended.

Read Full Post »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 228 other followers