Goin' Down to Mama's

Why I Love Mississippi: Reason #947

Alas, I think Hurricane Katrina might've taken this sign with her, but it was there when Granny and I made our first trip to Biloxi. At first, she didn't want to go inside because of the "python snake." She was afraid it might get loose. But the thrill of cheap merchandise overcame her snake-a-phobia, and she managed to find a SHOPPING CART in a souvenir shop. We were there for two hours. She bought Mama a coastal-themed spoon rest. So Reason to Love Mississippi #947: They are capable of anticipating all my beach-shopping needs: Python? Check. Hermit crabs? Check. Discount towels? Check, check, check. Plus they showed Granny a real good time.

 

Road Trips with Granny

I was cleaning out an old desk yesterday when I ran across a packet of pictures from one of my road trips with Granny. I love this one, taken in Biloxi, Mississippi. She was in her eighties. (Note the long, dark hair. She told me once about a man asking her if she dyed her hair, and she replied, "It's the color I was born with.") Our trips started the day she had some wicked cancer surgery. We were all scared to death, and as they wheeled her to the operating room, she reached out from her gurney, grabbed my arm, and said, "If I live, I want a road trip." I promised her that if she could just live through the next two hours, I'd take her anywhere she wanted to go. She picked Key West. By car. From Birmingham.

Roadside Wisdom

Sequoia Tomato

Okay, all you expert tomato growers, I need some advice. I have a little patch of tomatoes by my deck, and they're blooming and fruiting up a storm. And then I have these, virtually bloomless, Sequoia Tomatoes. They're in a sunny flowerbed (though not quite as sunny as the deckside 'maters). I started them from seeds, but the seed tray was out on the deck when all the tornadic activity happened back in April, so my carefully labeled heirloom seedlings floated around and shuffled around. I have no idea what these are. I gave several mystery seedlings to my mother and put a few in this container. Once again, I seem to have planted tomato seeds and produced a shade tree . . .

Communion

I'm thinking today about Communion—and communion. Our church is having Lord's Supper this morning, so I've been playing some of those great old hymns on my keyboard—"Were You There," "Blessed Assurance" . . .

I probably should've practiced last night, but I went to a surprise birthday party for one of my oldest and dearest friends, Sarah. We've been friends since third grade. (That's us with her cousin, Timothy—another dear friend—at our high school graduation, approximately 100 years ago:) Now Sarah has four kids (who planned the aforementioned party), and I think she called me from Labor & Delivery with each birth. It started with her oldest. I was about to leave for Atlanta, on the hunt for my first real job, when the phone rang: "I knew you were going out of town," she said, "and I didn't want you to leave without knowing I just had a baby!" After that, it became sort of a tradition. One time we talked while she was in labor. 

Fred Mertz Moment

I am not a tightwad. Just ask my husband, who pays the AmEx bill. But I do have my threshold, that point at which a price tag seems to me so outrageous that I must stand up and be counted. I took my very first trip to New York with a college buddy, Anne, who wisely suggested that we visit FAO Schwarz. Roaming through that toy-shopper's paradise, I stumbled onto a beautiful life-sized stuffed horse. (FYI for those of you who grew up in Lower Shelby, like me, I'm talking toys, not taxidermy.) About the time I was figuring out how to get it onto the plane home, I flipped over the price tag: $2500. At that moment, I completely forgot that I was in a crowded store in New York City. I exclaimed, in a very loud voice—the one Southerners usually reserve for what my friend Will calls porch fightin': "Twenty-five hundred dollars?!! You could buy a live one for that—and feed it!!" And then from behind me, in a very New York accent, came this response: "Not up heah, dahling."

Going to a Better Place

Overheard in a hospital waiting room:

Speaker 1: "Our anesthesiologist is a Christian. He says one day we're all going to a better place."

Speaker 2: "I don't know if I'd want my anesthesiologist thinking about going to a better place."

Daddy Says: "Wha'd they say?"

The year before Dave and I married, I had the opportunity to live and work in London for three weeks on a corporate exchange program. A normal person would've been thrilled, but I hate to fly, I had never been away from Dave that long, and I have a tendency to get homesick after a few days away. Still, even I knew this was a huge gift that I couldn't pass up. I waited till a family vacation to break the news to Daddy.We were walking along Orange Beach together, looking out at the Gulf, when I brought it up:

Me: "Well, Daddy, I've got some news. They want to send me to London for three weeks."

Daddy (without missing a beat): "Wha'd they say when you told 'em you weren't going?"

Of course, I did work up my courage and go. And once he saw how torn I was, Daddy became a real trooper and actually nudged me to England. The same thing happened again, when I was about to fly home from another work trip to Utah.  (What is it with me, planes, and life moments?) I had a semi- panic attack about that flight and called home. Daddy—who hates the thought of me on a plane—somehow managed to sound as cool as a cucumber and convinced me that coming home at 35,000 feet is the most normal thing in the world. Why, millions of people do it every day.

So thanks, June Bug, for all those times you've had to work up your courage to give me mine. Happy Father's Day!

Best Summertime Spots

Where were the magical summertime spots of your childhood? The ones you couldn't wait to get to on a hot July day? The ones you remember in such a special way that you don't even know—or care—any more if your memories are entirely accurate? For me, those spots were "the backwater"—the marinas around Pell City, Alabama—Aunt Vivian's spring, and of course PCB—Panama City Beach. But the summer spot pictured here is also special, for a different reason. It's Wyatt's Lake, "Lakeview," and it was THE place to be when my parents were teenagers. My Aunt Vera and Uncle Adam owned it, and it was right across a county blacktop from the house where my grandmother grew up. (You can see the house to the right of that big tree in the background.) By the time I was old enough to remember it, Lakeview had begun to fade. Its glory days were almost over. But still, I remember the covered porch overlooking the water and the steps that led right down into the lake. I remember the skating rink and the boardwalk with the swing and the trolley, sort of a rope swing which "the big kids" would ride from a high platform down to the water and drop down into the lake. The skating rink burned down when I was in high school or college. And the lake is dry and overgrown now. But still . . . sometimes when I visit my parents, I drive by there. And I can picture it as it was on one of those summer days way back when. I can hear the water splashing and the teenagers giggling and the sound of footsteps on the old boards of that waterfront porch. And I'm suddenly thirsty for a Co-Cola. [Special thanks to my cousin Jimmy Wyatt for these photos.]

Where Do Babies Come From?

Just got back from a family wedding in St. Louis and found out TWO of our nieces are having babies—and soon. Says my brother-in-law, Grandpa Jim: "Uh-oh. Did I forget to tell you that?" Babies on the way made me dig up this picture of Mama, from her baby shower (with yours truly on the way.) One time when we were kids, my younger cousin Stanley asked our grandmother, "Hey, Grandme, where do babies come from?" She never looked up from the book she was reading. "I don't know," she said flatly. "But you had eight kids!" Stanley insisted. "You've got to know!" Still, she never looked up. "From the hospital," she said—and we knew that was the end of the discussion. So if you parents out there are wondering how to explain the facts of life to your children . . . there you go. Speak with authority and refuse to get entangled in the details.