Sycamore – Page 2 – Sandy Gilreath

Grits for Supper

Grits are a staple in any southern girl’s diet. We have them for breakfast sometimes, but all my life I’ve had grits at sunset more often than at sunrise.

My mother occasionally served a breakfast menu at suppertime. Usually country salt-cured ham and redeye gravy were part of that, along with grits, eggs, and exploding biscuits. (Thus the comment young Wallace made.) And we always had grits when we had fried fish for supper. Nowadays, breakfast menu items appear at supper in the form of omelets all year long. But when the weather is cool, we sometimes have the full meal with sausage or ham, eggs, biscuits, and grits.

Every time I make grits, I think of my friend Ferrelle. Ferrelle owned a wonderful cooking, kitchen, and gift shop, and served up fabulous ideas for enjoying life. We once had a conversation about grits which “upped my game”. Ferrelle’s advice included using stone ground grits (we favor the yellow ones from Nora’s Mill in Helen, GA), cooking them with chicken broth rather than water, and adding a bit of cream right before removing them from the heat. Oh, my. They are so rich and creamy. I vary the flavor by adding different cheeses at times, and cooked, crumbled bacon on top adds flavor and garnish.

Since Ferrelle retired, I rarely see her. But we keep in touch through mutual friends and Facebook. And I think of her often when I use a kitchen gadget that I bought from her, when I need a gift for someone and mourn the fact that her store is no longer around, but most especially when I cook grits.

In recent years, I’ve added a “grits and greens” casserole to my cooking repetoire, giving grits an excuse to appear at lunchtime or to go to a potluck dinner. A google search by for that title will yield many recipes, but Ferrelle’s advice will make any of those better, too.

There is a drawback to possessing this knowledge. Sometimes we see grits on a menu in a restaurant and order them. We are always, always, disappointed.

Photo notes: Since I seem to think everything should be a story in cloth, I’ve begun stitching on a Nora’s Mill bag. You see images of the front and backside. More work to be done, but I know you’re hungry, so go cook some grits.

Addendum: How could I forget fried grits? After I posted this, a friend reminded me, saying that her grandmother “would also refrigerate left over grits in a shallow pan, then dip chilled finger-sized slices in beaten egg and fry them like French toast. These, drenched in syrup and served with a patty of sausage, made a wonderful Sunday evening meal.”

I haven’t tried the French toast/syrup idea, but I have fried them similarly and served them as a side dish with grilled salmon or pork chops. At least once I prepared them similarly and served them as croutons on a salad of Spring Mix greens with goat cheese and prosciutto. A balsamic vinaigrette topped it off. It was wonderful. How could I have forgotten that?

Fruitcake

Turman Capote and I have a shared history. We had loving spinster aunts as partners in fruitcake preparation. When I taught a high-school course called the American Short Story, students’ reactions to the old-fogey ways Capote related in his A Christmas Memory were not ones of delight. But I was thrilled to revisit my childhood.

It’s the time of year when I buy things at the grocery store that I would normally never allow past my lips. Some candied fruit (I don’t even want to know how that is accomplished), a lot of sugar, butter, nuts, disposable baking pans.

This is a result of a lifelong habit of eating fruitcake at Christmastime. My mother baked the dark fruitcakes for as long as I can remember. She chopped all the fruit by hand, added nuts that either my grandmother or my Daddy had picked out of the shells, and that I had picked up from underneath the trees at home, and filled the house with a delightful smell including vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Mama made these cakes and gave them to family and friends. Her gifts were generous, a full recipe baked in a tube cake pan. They were huge! Every year the search was on to find a store selling the round tins which would hold these 5-lb treasures.

Once I was grown, I became a recipient of the heavy gift in the tin. Mama would always have ours ready to take home at Thanksgiving and we would savor the treat throughout the holidays.

Jim found a way to improve on Mama’s recipe. We would remove her foil or waxed paper wrapping, substituting cheesecloth. The cheesecloth would soak up the brandy Jim added and make the cake more moist. Yes, that’s it, moist. Once when Mama came to visit us at Christmas, I served dessert. She remarked, “This is GOOD fruitcake. Who made it?” “I made it? Are you sure?” “Well, I don’t know. This tastes much better than the one at my house.” We never confessed the alteration.

Mama gave a cake to anyone who she thought would like them. Only when I started following in her footsteps did I realize what a gift a fruitcake was. The time, and expense, to bake these was no small matter. A few years ago, a cousin said, “You know your Mama always made me a dark fruitcake at Christmas. I always took it. But I couldn’t stand those things.” She lowers her voice when she uttered the words “dark fruitcake,” as it she were speaking of something evil. Now that I think about it, I bet Mama realized Charlotte was unappreciative, but she was one of those people who would have been hurt had Mama not given her one.

I’ve found some shortcuts to Mama’s process. I sometime buy nuts already shelled, and bake the concoction in small foil pans. Once the cakes are cooled, they are ready to wrap for presentation to appreciative friends. I know fruitcakes are the punch lines for many jokes, and I know we are all more conscious of our diets these days, but most reactions I get to the fruitcakes I share are of the “oh, I love this – it takes me back to Christmas of my childhood” type. And when I take a plate of sliced fruitcake to social gatherings this time of year, it’s always emptied.

If your mouth is watering for a trip down memory lane, here is Mama’s recipe.

Mama’s Stirring Fruitcake
1 lb candied cherries
½ lb candied pineapple (white)
½ lb candied pineapple (green)
3 pts shelled nuts, coarsely chopped
¼ lb raisins (? cup)
1 cup sugar
½ lb butter
4 large eggs
1 cup self-rising flour
2 teaspoons vanilla flavoring
2 teaspoons almond flavoring
2 teaspoons cake spices
Cream butter and sugar, add eggs one at the time and beat well. Add flour and spices and beat well. Add fruit and nuts. Pour into a large greased pan and place in 375 degree oven (note that she found 300 degrees in her oven to be better). After baking 15 minutes, stir. Do this a total of 3 times. After 3^rd time, pack in tube cake pan and bake 15 minutes longer. Let stand in pan for 15 minutes before turning out.

My recipe notes:

I reduce the nuts to about 4 cups.

“cake spices” seem to be unavailable these days, so I use: 1 t. allspice, ½ t. nutmeg, and ½ t. cinnamon

I sometimes use 3” x 5” loaf pans to give as gifts. This recipe fills five of those. The plate pictured above the recipe shows one of those small loaf pans sliced. So the whole recipe is five of those!

Note: An internet search will yield numerous links to Truman Capote’s story, analyses of that work, and even audio files for your seasonal listening. It’s worth the time.

Spinster Sisters

Neither of them ever married. This photo was taken sometime around 1912. They were 18 and 15 at the time. Within ten years, their mother would be confined to a wheelchair, their older sister would die in childbirth, leaving two young daughters to their care.

The family was rich in acreage, but World War I and the boll weevil meant cash was in short supply, and these two women contributed financially to the household.

The older of the two earned teaching credentials, sometimes living with families in distant communities (ten miles from home) and sending money home. The younger ran the household as the orphaned nieces and younger sister grew up.

They saw women get the right to vote, lived through the Great Depression, and World War II. There were adventures, too: travel with an eccentric millionaire, letters from faraway lands, and a barnstorming adventure. Charles Lindberg did fly in Georgia, was he the pilot?

During WWII, the teacher was offered “script” as her paycheck (a promise for money from the state someday), so she traveled further to work in a naval ordinance plant. The younger worked as a switchboard operator and in so doing, connected many families to news of their beloved ones. She was the first in town to get the word that the war was over, running down the stairs of the downtown office to spread the news.

As they laid their parents to rest and saw their young charges grow up and establish lives of their own, they continued to hold their shares of the land together, hiring others to farm the land while they moved to town. They lived together until the death of the younger from breast cancer at age 49. A few years later, the older would face the same diagnosis, but her treatment would be successful. She would live her life productively until the age of 91.

These women were a big part of my childhood. From them I learned that life is to be lived fully and to be enjoyed on a daily basis. It may be hard to meet responsibilities in front of you, but complaints don’t help; just get the job done with a smile on your face.

Because of them, I am not surprised to read the ‘revelation’ that spinster does not have to be a derogatory term. In the later Middle Ages, the term spinster was first used. Then, it denoted a person who spins yarn and therefore has a marketable skill. Memories of these sisters convey the modern interpretation of” a woman who can live independently and doesn’t need a man to be happy.”

Details of quilt: A vintage photo (circa 1912) of two unmarried sisters was printed on a remnant of a vintage linen tablecloth. Hand-guided, free-motion machine quilting was used to add detail, lace collars and beading were added with hand stitching. The linen background for the photo was attached to a vintage linen log cabin quilt made from silk. A vintage cotton doily was used for the label.

Hand stitching on the piece was completed while demonstrating work at the Georgia National Fair. The quilt finishes at 16” x 20”.

My Daddy Wore Overalls

There’s something iconic about a man in overalls. To me, it means he is unpretentious, hardworking, honest. Someone with whom I would want to spend time in conversation and in hugging.

There aren’t many photos of my Daddy in overalls. Though he wore them every day to work, when he came home, his first order of business was to take a shower and change into his “knock-about clothes”, khakis and a sport shirt. That would be his uniform until bedtime. And on Sundays, a suit, or at least a sports jacket and tie.

He wore overalls when he farmed. I heard stories of his walking behind the mules and plow in his overalls and barefoot. When he left the farm to begin building houses, he added work boots to his wardrobe, but kept the overalls.

The many pockets had designated uses. The partitions in the bib held his wallet and a fat flat pencil, you know the kind wood workers used. Another held a pocket knife, used for sharpening that pencil, among other things. One of those spaces sometimes held his wristwatch if it needed protection from the task at hand.

A long pocket on the leg of the overalls held his folding carpenter’s rule and a hammer hung in the loop. He could flip that wooden rule open to just the right length for a measurement and refold it in the blink of an eye. If you don’t remember those devices, or that they are called rules, not rulers, you are a young whippersnapper. See, just thinking of overalls has me using his words.

I can smell the denim. And the sawdust embedded in the fibers. Maybe a little tobacco scent, too. And I remember how heavy they were when wet. I was a tiny little thing, but one of my jobs was hanging clothes on the line.

Maybe all that is why I was so intrigued by the man in this quilted piece. I snapped this street photo the minute I saw him. Since then, I have come to know who he is and have secured permission to use his image in my art. He, like my Daddy, is worthy of long conversations and hugs.

The quilt measures 10” x 18”. The photo is printed on vintage linen fabric, hand painted, then quilted. I used cotton thread, using hand-guided free motion quilting on my domestic machine. It is layered with raw silk, a remnant of denim, and a worn reclaimed quilt fragment. The label is a vintage cocktail napkin. (I found this one with the rooster in an antique store ramble just as I had finished this piece. Perfect!)

The photo of my Daddy holding me is one of the few I have of him wearing his overalls. I guess it’s obvious why men wearing overalls pleases me so. And, I still have that chair.

Golden Bells

Recently driving down the road, to a destination two hours south and a few decades in the past, I was playing Angel Band full blast. People in other cars could see me singing and think I’m crazy. Well, maybe, but my singing along with Emmylou is not sufficient to have me committed.

This is how I deal with sorrow. I was headed to the funeral for my cousin Wallace. So When They Ring Those Golden Bells, We Shall Rise, and Drifting Too Far are soothing sounds to my soul. Wallace loved these songs, too.

It’s been a long time since I played this collection; so long that I actually had forgotten some of the words. Jim and I both find comfort in music, and this CD and others by Alison Kraus, Ralph Stanley, and selections from O Brother Where Art Thou and Cold Mountain soundtracks have blasted away in the car on too many trips down that same road. For part of this trip we were in separate vehicles, and my solitary time is when I had the music the loudest.

As Precious Memories plays, I can hear my mother’s voice as I sat beside her in church. That song was one of her favorites and she and I thought she sounded like Emmylou does. Another album with soothing voices I sometimes play is Trio. When that plays, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and I join Emmylou to form a quartet.

The songs on those two albums brought me comfort in the drive to and from visits with my mother in the last seven years of her life. Visits when I didn’t know if she would recognize me; later visits when I was certain she would not. But the sounds she loved brought me comfort as they always had her, especially the song Who Will Sing for Me?

Once in the church for Wallace’s service, more music was part of the goodbye. A first-time experience for me was a lonesome harmonica playing. That, and the later solo were nice, but I missed the Bethel Boys, a foursome of local men who have harmonized at several farewells in my hometown. In answer to Emmylou’s question above, the Bethel Boys (and the entire congregation) sang for my mother.

We buried a lot of knowledge today. Wallace knew where everyone was buried, who owned which plots in the cemetery, which family owned what farm and who had owned it before them. In recent years, a visit to Wallace might include a ride around the county. Wallace would narrate a rolling history lesson with detours to check every neighbor’s crops. He knew who lived in this house or that, who built the house and when, whose dog bit someone in the yard, who had been arrested.

I had learned to take a list of questions and a recorder on some visits. But I’m already wondering what questions will come up this week that Wallace could have answered.

One of the preachers said that “Wallace lived 87 years and I don’t know that he ever made anyone mad except Miz Dot.” I’m sure that’s correct. And, I don’t think he ever said no when someone asked for help with anything.

The next generation has asked for some “Wallace stories.” Here are a couple:

When he was a lad, Wallace stayed with my parents for a few days, maybe his mother was sick, I’m not sure why. At breakfast one morning, he remarked, “Aunt Cleo, your biscuits taste alright, but you shore can’t sop syrup with ‘em.” My Daddy quoted that line over many years, always with a twinkle in his eye.

When I was a child, my bicycle broke. I don’t know how that happened – I don’t remember a crash. Daddy’s suggestion was that I ride a unicycle. But since the pedals were on one portion and the seat on the other, that wasn’t going to work. Wallace had added welding to his list of skills needed on the farm. He reattached the two halves of my bike and I was a happy little girl. Wheels, whee, freedom!

A fine honest man, a community leader, a foster father to many children, one shining example of humility, integrity, compassion, is no longer with us. In the far off great forever, beyond the shining river, they are ringing golden bells for Wallace.

Photo: Wallace as a boy, maybe about the age of the “sopping syrup” remark. Circa 1937.

Bee Still my Heart

I see that today has been designated as National Honey Bee Day, begun to increase community awareness of beekeeping in the U.S. Such a holiday is a perfect excuse to share a few pieces of fiber art with a beekeeping theme.

After I sold my childhood home to Billy, a former colleague of my Daddy, I received a treasured package. Billy was doing some remodeling and found two of my Daddy’s high school science lab books behind the walls of a closet. His graduation from Sycamore High School was in 1932, so the Biology and Physical Science lab manuals predate that.

I never knew my Daddy could draw, but in these books I found his drawings of crawfish, birds, fish, chemistry lab equipment, and BEES. I was excited to find his handwriting, which looked exactly like it did later in life, but the drawings were a wonderful surprise. I scanned some of the images and printed them on parchment paper and framed them as Christmas gifts for family members, but the lab on the bees got special treatment.

I printed those two pages on commercially prepared fabric for printing, then used those as the background for appliquéd bee skeps, vines, leaves, berries, and bees. Cotton was used for the vines and leaves, beehives are a woven cotton, berries are made with silk ribbon, and the bees are appliquéd from felted wool. The quilting is hand guided free motion on a domestic sewing machine. Each piece of this pair finishes at 12” x 15”. In keeping with the school theme, I entitled this pair Beekeeping 101.

This reconnection with my Daddy’s history with bees spurred me to stitch several more quilts with bees and beehives. I modified a pattern from Maggie Bonanomi to create Beauty and the Bees in wool. The background is commercially handdyed and felted black wool. All the appliqué pieces are felted wool from recycled clothing, mine and Goodwill’s. The pink berries and tendrils are machine couched with my free motion couching foot, one of the most fun-to-use tools in my toolbox!

Still busy as a bee, I wanted a colony on blue. So I created a simple design using a single bee skep, and used needleturn appliqué on the Blackbird Design fabric that looks like a cross stitch sampler. I return to that fabric frequently, in different colorways, because it adds another layer of interest to any quilt while paying tribute to another one of my needlework loves – cross stitch. A section of this piece appears in the banner at the top of the page.

The Beehive on Blue was made to fit an oval frame (8″ x 10″) I found somewhere. That’s a shape I love and find those frames hard to leave in the store. So one came home with me, got a coat of chalk paint, and holds my quilt. It is honored with the presence of an original drawing of a bee by my art instructor and friend, Mark Ballard.

Fifty-Two Tuesdays has a block with a beeskep on linen. There’s one in Fifty-Two Wednesdays, and I’ve used this motif in a series of beginning appliqué classes. I’m certain it will reappear many times. I sometimes find interesting bee buttons or charms that need a home in a textile hive.

My Daddy, the beekeeper, would have been surprised that those lab manuals were still around, I think. He built this house in 1946, after having owned at least two farms, then living in another house in town. so why did he keep science lab manuals for fourteen years? I know if he could see my fabric beehives, he would pretend to think they were silly, printing his workbook pages and sewing on them. But secretly he would be pleased. As I think he would be pleased that I treasure such wonderful memories of those glorious mornings checking the beehives with him.

Note: more details about Beauty and the Bees and working with wool are here.

Porch Swings

porch swing When I was a little girl, I loved to take a book and an old quilt and head for the swing in our backyard. While there, I traveled to faraway lands and met some interesting characters. Though there were plenty of interesting characters in Sycamore, the people I met in the pages of library books took me on journeys through forests, big cities, and westward. (I’m remembering, Girl of the Limberlost, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Jubilee Trail, all books I read several times over).

When I heard Meryl Streep deliver the line, “I’ve been a mental traveler,” in her role as Isak Dinesen in Out of Africa, I identified completely. I devoured so many library books, especially in the summer reading program, that I worried about what I would do when I had read all the books. My husband and children were amused by this revelation until they saw the tiny building that had housed my childhood world of literature.

Now I no longer fear reading all the books. I fear not having time to read all the wonderful stories I want to read. I fear not remembering which titles I have read. I fear wasting time reading bad writing.

I do appreciate instant access to, if not all the books, many more books than I can read, in the palm of my hand. Yes, I love my shelves of books, I love visiting the public library (I spent some time there yesterday) but I also love reading on my iPad. I can browse new titles, read reviews, perhaps check out the author’s website, and download sample pages or an entire book without ever leaving home.

Sunday afternoon was cool enough to spend quite a while in the swing. With the overhead fan adding to the natural breeze, and the sound of the sprinkler and the occasional bird calling in the background, I was transported to dreamland. I was reading, then dozing. But in the half-here/half-there consciousness for which Sunday afternoons are famous, I realized that I was living a dream. In a swing. On my front porch. On a summer afternoon. With a breeze, a book, and a lawn sprinkler.

Simple pleasures are the best.

Dimestore

Sandy1969

Lee Smith is one of my favorite Southern writers. I just bought her memoir and can’t wait to start reading it. I love her writing, I love memoirs, I love the South. So I know it will be a treasured experience to read her story. More than that, the title suggests that I might identify with some of her experiences.

My first job as a teenager was in a dimestore. Oh, I had earned money at home for various special chores. Like Truman Capote, I picked up pecans in the fall of the year. (Some grammarians would rather read that I gathered pecans, but that’s not what we said in Sycamore. Furthermore, as you read it, think pea-cans, to get the sound of the word right in your mind.) If you’ve ever read his “A Christmas Memory,” you can get an idea of the experience of fruitcake baking that took place at our house. I even had a spinster aunt to guide me as Capote did.

And, there was a day picking cotton (probably a couple of hours) at Uncle Hal’s field, and a day in the tobacco barn (also Uncle Hal’s). My Daddy had given up farming for building by the time I was born, but he realized the experience of field labor would be soon forgotten and that I should have those memories. He was right on both counts. Of course.

Oh, my job at the dimestore.

The year I turned fifteen, I was eligible to get a work permit and get a job. My mother took me to the school superintendent’s office to complete the appropriate paperwork. I recall Mr. Royal counseling me that, “this should not interfere with your schoolwork, of course.” Well, of course; it wouldn’t. I was the class nerd before nerd was a word. Nothing came before my schoolwork.

But now I was legal. On Saturdays, I reported to Elrod’s Five and Dime on Main Street in Ashburn. I guess I worked from 9:00 until 5:00, I don’t recall the exact hours. I do recall the pay. It was $5.00 and change. Literally. Cash. In a small manila envelope.

There were three of us teenagers working; the manager, and another adult full-time employee. Carl lifted all the heavy boxes, swept the oiled wood floors with sweeping compound, and helped with serving customers. Carolyn and I offered assistance to customers, kept shelves filled with reserves from beneath the old wooden counters, and watched for shoplifters.

Saturday was a busy day; there wasn’t much time for small talk, But, in the quiet times, I learned to bond with co-workers. We did not know each other so had nothing in common other than this experience. We learned from our customers, too. A wide range of society came through those doors, and the dimestore sold everything from toys to tools. There were clothing items for children and underwear for adults. The first time a customer asked for “step-ins,” I replied that we didn’t carry those. Carolyn had to translate for me. Oh. I taught her the difference in a wrench and screwdriver.

We sold bulk candy, learning to scoop from the bins and weigh on a scale now sold in antique stores. We mixed the sticky syrup that went into making “slushies” when they were new. Dare I say that we did not wash our hands frequently, and there were no plastic gloves? It was a simpler time.

We wrapped Christmas packages with the stern manager watching over our shoulder to ensure that the paper didn’t overlap too much and that we didn’t use too much scotch tape. The paper was quite thin, and tearing it was wasteful, too, so we learned to be fast and careful and frugal. There were no boxes or gift bags, so some oddly shaped packages required some creative thinking. The paper curling ribbon was final flourish. Today, even though I have wired ribbon on hand to decorate my packages, I keep some paper curling ribbon on hand.

I worked at Elrod’s on Saturdays, some weekdays in the summer, and during Christmas holidays for the last three years of high school. In the last year, the business relocated to a more modern building. I guess it was more comfortable; being air-conditioned and having slick tile floors. But it never seemed the same. The old building, the theatre next door, and the railroad track across the street were all part of the ambiance. That theatre sold the world’s greatest french fries. To this day, if I am served extraordinarily good, greasy, salty fries made from freshly sliced potatoes, I remember the ones Carl would go get for all of us at mealtime.

Now I guess it’s time to travel down Lee Smith’s memory lane with her Dimestore.

Photo: If Carl, Carolyn, and I were working teens these days, we would have numerous group selfies, I’m sure. But the best I can do here is a blurry scanned image of myself during those years. Yes, I made the dress.

Whistle of Home

train jg photo Some part of my soul goes home every time I hear a train whistle.

I grew up near a railroad track parallel to US highway 41 in south Georgia. I now live near a railroad track near US highway 41 in middle Georgia. A lot has changed about me, the highway, and the sound of the trains. But the constant is that the rumble of a train on the tracks, the predictable ‘two longs, short, long’ blast of the horn brings a smile to my face. Every time.

My parents brought me home from the hospital and put me in a crib less than fifty yards from the railroad track. Yes, I’m still a sound sleeper. I grew up waving to engineers as the train came by, counting cars, learning something about motion and direction and the hauling of goods and people.

There were passenger cars, flatbeds hauling pulpwood and granite headed south, tanker cars, box cars with freight and hobos, and stacks of automobiles headed north. Occasionally the train stopped in front of our house. Occasionally a hobo would come to the door looking for work, or food, or both. Once the engineer came to the door and borrowed some of my mother’s clothesline to make a repair. A coupling had come uncoupled, so that train pulled away with two cars attached with a makeshift linkage. My mother often wondered how far her clothesline traveled. And, forever after, we made do with two rows of clothes drying instead of three.

And, cabooses. There were really red cabooses at the end of every train. With a conductor who wore a striped cap and sometimes stood on the porch and waved. Recently, we have begun stopping at every retired caboose we see and Jim snaps a photo of me onboard (or trying to get onboard if there are “crazy women should not climb on the train” signs).

My nephew Woody explored the inside of a caboose when he was about six years old. He was visiting with us and announced over the suppertable that “there’s a lot of room in those little cars.” My mother was horrified, my Daddy tried to hide his smirk, as we learned that the train had stopped and Woody had climbed aboard for a look-see.

As I recounted yesterday’s trip to the JugFest in Knoxville, GA, I realized there was a train theme. We collect southern folk pottery, and seeing all the new work was certainly a thrill, especially that of Shelby West. But the non-clay purchases I made seem to all be related. There is the crow, Heckle, made from a gear, a pair of pliers, and a railroad spike. There are earrings which are hammered, fold-formed, and enameled pewter. The artist’s anvil is made from a piece of rail from a train track. And, we shot the requisite photo on the retired caboose in downtown Roberta.

During the forty-something years I lived out of earshot of a train, I never lost my love of their sounds. Thankfully, I’m married to a man who loves them too. Though I do recall on the first night he spent at my parents’ house (in the same bedroom I first slept), he woke me at 3:00 a.m., sitting straight up in bed and exclaiming, “what is THAT?” My reply, “what is what?” revealed that I heard nothing out of the ordinary. Once awake, I realized the shaking of the house, and in fact, the very earth beneath, was nothing but the train.

Over the years, we have both delighted in finding a B & B near the railroad tracks. When weather conditions were right, we could hear a distant train when living in our first home together. The sound of the whistle at night came to mean peace to Jim, as it always had to me.

The proximity of the railroad was a plus for us when deciding to buy this house. Shortly after moving here, we were returning home from a trip with friends and we stopped to get lunch in a small town. Jim and I heard a faraway whistle and shared a smile across the group, knowing only we appreciated the sound – and realizing how we had missed hearing that during the week away from home.

Photos: Jim Gilreath’s photo of the Nancy Hanks steam locomotive in Gordon, Ga. Fall, 2015.

train play paducah Sandra Dee playing on the caboose in Paducah, Ky. Spring, 2016.

Mother’s Day Memories

Cleo 1951 On this Hallmark day when so many people feel guilty if they don’t visit their mothers, or buy them flowers, or take them out to eat with 40,000 of their closest friends waiting in line to eat at a restaurant, I’m thinking of calmer Mother’s Days.

When I was growing up, we observed the holiday with a gift for the Mothers in our lives. Sometimes, I bought my mother something. My Daddy would take me shopping to select something for her. I cringe when I remember some of the choices I made – but she displayed the horrible treasure anyway. And, I still have a ragged sheet of paper on which I wrote her a poem. I think I was about ten years old at the time. I recall hiding in the closet to secretly write it when I was supposed to be vacuuming the house. She scolded me for dawdling at my task, but all was forgiven when she read the poem on Sunday morning. I found it in her belongings after her death 46 years later and it’s tattered state leads me to believe she read it and reread it a few times.

We always wore corsages to church on Mother’s Day. The only time I recall Mama spending money at the florist was for a funeral, or for Mother’s Day. Mama wore a white corsage (because her mother was dead, she explained; none of this “passed away” language at our house) and I wore a red carnation. We always bought an orchid for Aunt Nellie (the spinster great-aunt who lived next door and who had “raised” Mama after she was orphaned at the age of four. “Orphaned” was Mama’s word, too.) I was a bit perplexed because the orchid wasn’t exactly white, but in Mama’s world, it worked. Since Aunt Nellie attended a different church from ours, we made a visit to her house on that Sunday morning to pin on her corsage before her departure.

When Granny (my paternal grandmother, Ollie Jane) lived with us, she wore a white corsage to church, too. Now that I think of this, I realize how important that corsage was to my mother – and I wonder, did I take care of that EVERY year after I left home? I know I did if I was there to visit and go to church with them on that day, and I do recall phoning the florist in our hometown and having a corsage delivered some years. I hope I didn’t forget any time, but I know if I did, I was forgiven.

There were occasions when I couldn’t get home for Mother’s Day. I remember Mama saying, “It doesn’t matter to me. Any day you come visit can be Mother’s Day. It doesn’t have to be when everyone else thinks it is.” I still felt guilty about it, though.

Now that I’m a mother, I do understand. Sometimes other things come up. The last thing I want my children to feel on Mother’s Day (or any day) is guilt if they have lives to live. I know they love me. And, any day they visit is Mother’s Day to me!

The photo is of my mother in 1951, the year I was born. The photo was taken by her father, a professional portrait photographer, and was hand tinted by her sister.

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