Ethyl relates : an egg traordinary story.

I once heard the story of this elderly couple who liked to go out to breakfast at least once a week, and they always chose a restaurant that had a daily special. They noticed this particular restaurant advertised a special with two eggs, biscuits, gravy and sausage or bacon for $3.99. They both decided they would get the special but the wife did not like eggs so she asked the waitress if she could just leave the eggs off her plate.
"Well, in that case I will have to charge you $5.99 since that will be a special order".
"Well, in that case, I will have the eggs", the old lady said.
"And how would you like them", the waitress asked.
"Raw and in the shell", she said.
And then she took her two eggs home and baked a cake.
Sometimes it just takes a little ingenuity, but most obstacles can turn out to our benefit if we just take a little time and figure out a way around our problems.

My daddy used to tell this story, and he swore it was true, of an old man he knew from Tishomingo county who had never eaten in a restaurant before. On a certain trip they stopped at a restaurant for breakfast. The waitress asked him how he liked his eggs.
"Oh, I like them fine", he said.
"No, no sir, I mean how do you like them cooked", she asked.
"Oh, I like them a whole lot better that way", he replied.

I can't help but wonder who the first person was who said 'I think I will eat what comes out of this chicken's rear end'. Such thought perplexing questions confront us every day.

Aborigine Wisdom

The advice the old Australian Aborigine gave to his young son was be careful what kind of sticks you throw at people. The just might be boomerangs.

Ethyl comments: stereotypes

Contrary to what some people who live above the Mason-Dixon line may think, it is possible to find people in Mississippi who have a full set of teeth in good condition, the ability to articulate an entire sentence in one mouthful, and wonder of wonders, the vast majority of them can even read and write more than their own name. Ninety seven percent of the homes even have indoor plumbing. So what if some of those homes are double wides. Most of them are situated on beautiful lots with actual trees where you can wake up in the morning and hear the birds sing, not concrete paved lots with crummy apartment buildings. And don't fall out at this revelation, but we even have paved roads to drive on. We don't all live in one room log shacks or smoke corncob pipes, or set on our front porches in rocking chairs waiting to see who the next stranger is coming up the road.

So what if we like our food fried. Fried squash, fried okra, fried green tomatoes, fried chicken, fried pork chops. Any idiot knows everything taste better fried. You can eat just about anything if you fry it first. Any day of the week we can take a little flour and a little buttermilk and some lard and make the best biscuits you ever put in your mouth. We southerners figured out a long time ago how to take virtually nothing and make a meal that taste so good you want to write home about it.

Which brings me to my next grip. Whenever we have any type of natural disaster down here, and may I add, in the spring that is quite often during tornado season, those dudes from the national news agencies come south to interview a 'typical' southerner. And almost always the person they pick will be a woman with three strands of hair pulled up on top of her head in a little knot, a butt the size of New Hampshire, two teeth in front, wearing brogans and a dirty apron.

"Mam, could you tell me what happened".

"Well, I ben arning all day and I was so tared that I decided to mosey on out on the front porch and look for a cher to sat in and then I seed it coming across the field over yonder. Yes sir re, it was a full blown tornadey and it was heding stright toward Lou Ellar's house and all I could think of was she's got my tater salat bowl".

"Thank you very much, mam. And that is the latest news from the tiny town of Tishomingo, Mississippi. We are on the scene here in this tiny town and you have just heard this report from one of their local citizens".

I always wonder how long they had to scour the countryside to find that one 'perfect candidate' to interview. After all, they would never want to let anything get in the way of their preconceived notions about the south.

Ethyl comments: Gardening

When you grow up in the deep South you just naturally have a need to grow things. Don't question it, it is just born in you. In the movie 'Steel Magnolias', Ouiser shows up at the beauty shop with a sack of tomatoes she had grown and tries to give them away. She comments she can't stand tomatoes, never eats them herself, and when some one asked her why she grows them, she replies she is an old southern woman and that is what old southern women do. "Dig around in the dirt and grow things".
Who ever wrote that screen play had a very good knowledge of the south.
I live in the city now. Have for over thirty years. But every spring the urge arises in me to plant a garden. So I improvise. This year I planted ten potatoes in my little postage stamp size plot and I have one tomato plant in a large pot on my deck. Add to that a little patch of garlic, some chives, mint, and lemon basil and you just about have a complete list of my agricultural endeavors..
Early this spring I went to Lowe's and paid ten dollars for a tomato plant. I figure I will have to be able to gather tomatoes until fall to recoup my investment, but never mind that. It just satisfied my need to grow something. In a large pot I deposited top soil which I had bought, fertilizer, and mulch for the top, and then my prized tomato plant. After that it was a matter of carefully watering and keeping the bugs off and watching and waiting.
I have discovered a fool proof way to get my tomatoes to ripen. After going through all the above steps in planting and watering, you check every day to see if any of the young fruit has turned that delectable shade of red, and after a few weeks of faithfully checking and patiently waiting, you decide to go on vacation, during which time your tomatoes will ripen, fall off the plant onto the ground and rot. At that point your quest will be complete. Believe me, I have tried this method and it works every time.

Ethyl comments on Freedom Hills

There was an area in Northwestern Alabama that the locals referred to as Freedom Hills. It consisted of a great many hills and valleys and winding country roads, and unless you knew exactly where you were going you were bound to get terribly turned around and completely lost. It got it's name from the fact that during Prohibition in the nineteen thirties the local moonshiners made their whiskey there. Once they withdrew into those hills and hollows it were almost impossible for the government 'revenuers' to locate them. By the way, the term moonshine is derived from the fact the men who made contraband whiskey usually did it at night, by the light of the moon.
There were many tales of moonshiners and revenuers that came out of those hills. One I like to recall was the story of the government agent who was driving a model T Ford in the hills and had a flat tire. No problem. He got out his spare, changed his tire and continued. Every thing was fine until the bumpy, uneven road blew out his spare. Nothing to do but take the tire and roll it and look for a service station. After he had walked about ten miles without seeing a soul he came upon a dilapidated shack and an old county woman sitting on the front porch.
"Mam," he said, "can you tell me how far it is to the nearest service station".
She studied the stranger and finally she said, "I reckon it be about twenty five miles as the crow flies".
Totally exasperated, he sighed and said, "Well, how far would you calculate it being for a man walking and rolling a tire".
My daddy used to tell the story, and he swore it was true, of the government agent who came upon this little country shack and a little boy about nine playing in the front yard.
Approaching the young lad, he asked, "Where's your pa".
"Oh", he said, "he's off up yonder in the woods at the still".
"Do you know how to find your way up there".
"Yeah".
"Well, I'll give you a dollar if you'll take me up there".
"OK", the young man replied. "Give me my dollar".
Oh, you don't understand", said the agent. "I'll give you your dollar when we get back".
"Nah sir", drawled the boy, "you give me my dollar now, cause you ain't coming back".
Such were the stories that came out of Freedom Hills.

Ethyl remembers: The family cemetery

It's funny the things you can find in your life to be proud of, to boast about having, that make you feel special. Some people are so proud of their homes, others their cars, some their children. When I was growing up, I was proud of the fact my family had their own cemetery. If that seems a strange thing to be proud of, there was a reason.
My mother's family had been on their land for at least four generations when I came along. Down the long driveway, around the bend in the road, and up the hill from their house was the family cemetery. When Mama was growing up, her grandparents lived just down the road a bit, her aunts and uncles also had houses and home places all around. When my grandfather was a boy of ten, the family had moved from Alabama to Mississippi in a covered wagon with all their worldly possessions and their several children. Grandpa said he had walked along side the wagon and horses on the long trek to their new home, a trip that had involved several weeks and many miles. There were several acres in the original holdings and as the children grew up and established their own families, they simply divided off acreage and built homes of their own. The cemetery came about out of necessity as they lost certain family members in death.
On hot summer Sunday afternoons when I grew tired of all the heat and the front porch gossip, I would walk up the hill to the cemetery. The graves were shaded by huge oak trees that had stood a long time and grown quite massive. It was always cool and quite there and I loved to read the headstones of so many of my ancestors who had lived before me and wonder what they were like. As I think back on those visits to that little cemetery, it amazes me how much you can contemplate life in a place that is all about death. It was amazing to me how many babies had died and been laid to rest there. My mother had lost a little sister to diphtheria when she was four years old. Mama often told the story of her sudden and tragic death. She had gone to her mother, my grandmother, three days before and asked her to please cook some egg custard. Grandma had several chores that day she felt just couldn't be put off so she told her she would do it the next day. The next day the little girl started running a fever, and then the day after that she slipped into a coma and died. According to my mother, grandma grieved the rest of her life over the fact she had not cooked the custard. Those were the days before antibiotics and death came swiftly and often, especially due to early childhood diseases. It reminded me of Solomon's words in Ecclesiastes, 'don't say the former days were better than these'.
One of the tombstones that never failed to catch my attention was that of my mother's older sister. She had died on her birthday, the day she turned twenty one. The small baby that she had just given birth to was buried at her feet. She had gone to a community social event when she was fourteen, and before the night was over she ran off and got married. In the next seven years before her death she had given birth to three live children and then the small one that had caused her death. My mother said Grandpa hitched his horses to the wagon and went down to the riverbottom where she had been living, collected her pine box coffin and brought her home to their hillside to be buried. The three babies who were living, the oldest of which was six, were scattered off between different relatives to be raised.
I could read the information on her headstone and remember the story my mother had told me, but in no way could I grasp the tremendous amount of pain that must have existed in that family the day they brought her frail body home in a wooden box. Solomon was right. The generation that exist today has little knowledge of the ones that came before, and other than some information on a head stone, we could very well forget they ever existed at all.
I always felt proud of the fact I could trace my roots back to the little cemetery on the hill. After I moved to Memphis and certain funeral homes would call and try to sell me a cemetery plot, I would always proudly tell them we had our own. In a way it reminded me of the snobby Boston blue blood who used to boast to her society friends about her lineage. One day one of her friends said to her, "next you will be telling me your ancestors were on the Mayflower". "Oh my, goodness no. My people had their own boat", she said. I could proudly say my people had their own cemetery.

Ethyl comments on 'The Beverly Hillbillies'

In the early sixties when 'The Beverly Hillbillies' began to air on national television, some people in the rural south took umbrage at the show's portrayal of southern people. I remember one day after the first episode aired on Wednesday night in our time zone, one of my fellow classmates quoting her father as saying, 'that's just city people making fun of country people'. Never the less, I loved the show and it never failed to make me laugh. Since I have grown up and have been watching the reruns I've often thought about my classmate's remarks.
It's true Jed Clampett was portrayed as ignorant and backward when it came to big city ways. It could truly be said about him and his family they were fish out of water, so to speak, when it came to Beverly Hills culture, but old Jed was never betrayed as stupid. Some people just don't seem to understand the difference between ignorant and stupid. An ignorant person may be devoid of knowledge of certain things, whereas a stupid person doesn't have the ability to assimilate said knowledge. In watching the show as it replayed over the years, I've come to appreciate just how shrew old Jed was. He was able to see through con men who desired his money and it could be said Jed was never one to be bought and sold or complimented into giving away his integrity. He always freely gave to those who were truly needy and deserved a helping hand, but he was always able to see the true intentions of the lazy and shiftless who just wanted a hand out.
When it came to qualities of the heart, Jed was far above the rest. He was hard working, honest to a fault, loyal to friends and family, generous beyond words. You never heard Jed utter a profanity. His most frequent outburst when he began to grasp a new idea or principal was 'whee doggies'. He demanded respect from his children and if he didn't get it, he took steps to insure the next time he would. It's true he is portrayed as wearing old worn out clothes and a hat that has seen it's better days, but Granny always insisted those clothes as well as that enormous house were clean and well scrubbed down, even if it involved back breaking work.
One thing that was a regular comical line on the show was the food the Clampetts ate. But in all truthfulness, meat is meat and food is food. It's true I wouldn't relish eating an owl's egg, but in fact an egg is an egg. What would make a chicken egg so much better? They are both birds. One is cultivated for it produce, the other is wild, but in fact one would differ very little from the other. Isn't there something to be said of making the most of what we have. Of being able to improvise and using what is at hand to keep our families alive. When it comes to the critters they ate, isn't what is acceptable mostly a matter of culture. In some cultures the people eat their dogs. Although the thought is revolting to the vast majority of us, those same people might gag at the thought of eating a filthy swine who had been rolling in the mud and eating whatever it could put in its' mouth the day before.
On the other hand, the city people of Beverly Hills are often portrayed as lazy, greedy, money hungry, social climbing, arrogant snobs with the inability to do anything for themselves and even needing a paid servant to hand them their pants in the morning.
I have often thought of the comment made by my fellow student's father and in reflecting on his comment asked myself which is more important. The qualities one has developed inside, in the secret person of the heart, or what one eats for food or wears on the outside. It seems to me in this particular instance, the southern people on this show were portrayed as being the heroes, the solid citizens, the best of the lot. And why on earth would anyone ever take offence at that.