CHRISTMAS AT THE WAFFLE HOUSE

 “There’s nothing sadder in this world than to awake

Christmas morning and not be a child.” ~ Erma Bombeck

My husband, Babe suggested that we sleep in on Christmas Day. Our grown children were in South Carolina with their little ones, so St. Nick had no logical reason to drop down our Georgia chimney. We decided to sleep as long as possible since the kids were coming to visit after the live greens were wilted and the fat man had flown back to the North Pole.

Early Christmas morning as I dreamed of sugar plum fairies and stockings hung by the chimney with care, my two hungry cats turned my stomach into a pincushion. Dragging my sleep-deprived body to the kitchen, I searched the pantry for a can of non-smelly cat food. Since it was a holiday, I would treat the kitties to turkey ala Fancy Feast instead of mystery fish parts.

As I was leaving the kitchen I saw Babe sitting on the floor in front of the Christmas tree. He looked like he was in a trance.

“Whatcha doing, Babe?”

He looked at me like I had glitter for brains. “What do you think? I’m waiting to open presents.”

I sat down, leaned over and kissed him smack on his smackers. He grinned. “Can we open ‘em now,” he asked. “Can we? Huh?”

“What are you, five? All right, let’s do this thing.” My Starbucks was kicking in so I could handle pretty much anything.

Later, after expressing our gratitude for socks, ties and perfume we didn’t need, we were hungry for something out, food that didn’t need cooking in my kitchen. We got dressed and hurried to the car.

 “Where to,” Babe said playing taxi driver to his lone passenger.

 “Waffle House,” I replied. “They never close.”

The diner known to every man, woman and child South of the Gnat Line was packed, the parking lot jammed with cars, motorcycles and pickups.

A family of four got up to leave just as we arrived, so before it could be cleaned of leftover waffle crumbs, we commandeered the abandoned table.

“Cheese omelet,” I declared to Donna, the server dressed in a red T-shirt with Merry Christmas, Y’all stamped on her bosomy front. “And leave the coffee pot.”

Donna looked at me like the aforementioned brain glitter was leaking out of my ears. “Not gonna happen, Girlfriend,” she said. “Not today.”

Undaunted about that missing front tooth of hers, Donna grinned and then winked at Babe. He ordered one of everything on the menu and then winked at her.

I looked around at the assorted groups of people having Christmas breakfast at the little house of pecan waffles and enough fat fuel to power us all to Uranus and back.

Taking up two tables and hanging off the end, a group of bikers dressed in red leather were smacking on waffles, hash browns and milk. Milk?

A young mom and dad next to us were trying to keep their pajama-clad children from killing each other. My guess is that earlier Dad had said, “Let’s eat out at the place that’s open 24-7.”

Mom had replied, “You had me at eat out.”

I noticed an elderly woman seated near the back of the diner. She was wearing a red wig that didn’t fit and she was too thin. Her eyes matched her wig. She ate alone and looked sadder than anyone in the place. It broke my heart.

Donna refilled our cups, spilled some on the side. “Oops,” she chirped and Babe winked at me. There was a lot of winking going on that morning. ‘Tis the season …

Old friends stopped by our table to offer holiday wishes. It had been much too long since we had seen them, and I wondered where the time had gone.

My omelet arrived loaded with cheese and too much animal fat. Babe dug into his eggs, waffles, bacon, sausage, grits and hash browns and then asked Donna to bring him some whole-wheat toast. Go figure.

Between bites, I became more aware of pajama-clad kids and exhausted parents, evidenced by a Dad’s blood-shot eyes or a Mom’s droopy ones. I thought about when my children were that young and how we were up late on Christmas Eve searching for misplaced nuts, bolts and missing screws for all the unassembled toys from Santa.

Had it been that long ago when instead of cats jumping on my stomach, tiny hands shook me awake with, “Let’s go see what Santa Claus left!” Where had the time had gone?

We never went out for breakfast on Christmas Day when my kids were young. I made waffles and bacon and then yelled for them to put down their toys and come eat their breakfast. Family life is different now, but that’s not a bad thing.

As I looked around at all the kids in pajamas eating breakfast at the Waffle House it brought a smile to my face.

Donna, proudly showing off that Merry Christmas, Y’all T-shirt, made me happy and it made me glad to be exactly where we were that morning.

And when Babe ordered every item on the Waffle House menu and the paramedics did not need to be called, I smiled and asked him if he'd saved room for fruitcake.
He swallowed a mouthful of hash browns and said, “The Waffle House doesn’t serve fruitcake. Even on Christmas. But we’ve still got a few slices at home, don’t we?”

Hop, Hop, Hopping Around for Good Luck

How did Hoppin’ John get its name?

One theory is that it originated from the Creole name for pigeon peas, “pois a pigeon,” pronounced “pwah peeJon.” Close enough for Southerners to say Hoppin’ John from that point on.

Some believe it originated with a children’s game similar to musical chairs where kids hop up and down at the table, hence the name. Duh. The Grandkids from Hell love to jump up and down at the table as though they’ve swallowed Slinkies … even when it’s not New Year’s Day.

Babe claims that in Pennsylvania people eat pork and sauerkraut to clean them out in preparation for the coming year. Yuk. Homemade colonoscopies might pass as Yankee logic, but I’ll settle for kids jumping up and down at the table like Jack (on Crack) in the Box.

Believing that it will ward off bad luck, Southerners adhere to the tradition of eating pork, collards and Hoppin’ John on New Year’s. I am Southern to the bone, but I was not always a believer. I am now.

In 1960 I said to my mother, “No Hoppin’ John for me and certainly no collards. I hate greens.” So I ate no peas and rice or collards on that first day of the year over fifty years ago. Big mistake.

Mama roasted Boston Butt pork to a fair-thee-well and had her collards swimming in ham pot likker like Esther Williams. I didn’t believe for a minute that a year of good luck depended on certain veggies eaten on January first. But I never met a pig I didn’t want to take home to Mama, but after downing three pork sandwiches — my one nod to tradition — I was struck with the bellyache from hell. I thought I was dying. A stomachache was only a hint of what was to come. Had I but known, I’d have seriously considered mainlining leftover collards.

Obviously I didn’t die, but the very next day my dog blitzed a can of Alpo, looked up at me, and croaked. It is true that she was old, but her death was still a shock. I was a kid and that dog had been begging for table scraps all my life. Her high-speed exit made me think that she, too, should have eaten collards.

Susie Q was buried in the back yard. Mama and I watched and cried while passing each other the Kleenex box. Daddy was a policeman and the gravediggers were prisoners from the jailhouse. He wore a dark suit and tie and stood at the gravesite with his hands clasped in front of him. I said, “Daddy looks like a preacher,” and we laughed through our tears.

On January third, I set the kitchen on fire. I didn’t do it on purpose, it just happened. That afternoon, I’d been craving French Fries. After pouring lard in the frying pan, I realized we were slap out of potatoes. 

Forgetting that I’d turned on the burner under the lard, I grabbed my pocketbook and walked to the Piggly Wiggly for a five-pound bag of potatoes. I was dilly-dallying back home pretty much like Prissy in Gone With the Wind, when the sound of sirens stopped me. Turning the corner, I saw not one red fire truck, but three of those bad boys parked end to end in front of my house. Smoke billowed from the kitchen door and open window while neighbors gossiped and gawked on the sidewalk.

Mama’s kitchen was toast. All of the cabinets had be repainted; the new wallpaper smelled like a campfire. Mama stayed mad at me for twelve months.

I dreaded January fourth. Would it bring even more bad luck? I wondered if the calamities I’d dealt with for three days were only teasers. Turned out that’s what they were. 1960 was the longest year of my life. A new piece of bad luck pounced on me every day of that year.

Bottom line? I learned to respect traditions, why they were established in the first place and why we must honor them no matter what. These days I think nothing of hogging down Pork, collards and Hoppin’ John on New Year’s Day. In fact, I totally look forward to that particular meal.

I promised myself then that every year while my jaws can still go up and down in chew mode, I will cover my sassy southern you-know-what by gobbling me up some Hoppin’ John, collard greens, pork and even some of that boring Yankee delight, sauerkraut. All cabbages and their cousins are my BFF’s come January first.

WRAP IT UP!

“The best gifts are wrapped in love and tied with heartstrings.

In this special season of giving I invite you to join me in creating a living symbol of what Christmas is all about

By pulling together, we can build a huge Christmas tree designed and adorned by the power of love. We can trim it with people of all sizes and colors, and then light it with the brilliance of their imaginative ideas.

The gifts underneath the tree are plentiful because there is more than enough to go around.

Peace of Mind is in the large white box and Health is wrapped up in pink.

Talent is bursting from its confined package like multicolored confetti!

Faith, Hope and Love all bask in the glow of gold and silver, while a bright yellow box of Enlightenment opens up right before our eyes.

Contentment? It is packaged in many different colors and designs.

At the top of our tree, a brightly shining star illumines each gift, each life and each open door. That star is called free will.

The largest gift of all is an unfilled box of Christmas Spirit. If we put ourselves inside that box, we can fill it with food for hungry people, solutions for drug and ecology issues and freedom for those living behind walls of fear, hate, and ignorance.

Charles Dickens wrote, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

Let’s do it! Let’s wrap up that thought with love, tie it with heartstrings and place it under our tree so that everyone in the world can have a Dickens of a Christmas!

—Cappy Hall Rearick

Myles To Go Before We Eat

Myles Standish, Captain of the Mayflower, is the reason for holiday stress.

In August, he invited the Indians to a Labor Day party, got them roaring drunk so they would tell him where the wild turkeys hung out. Promising more firewater, he then conned them into teaching Pilgrim women how to grow, harvest and cook maze, squash, pumpkins, and Boston Baked Beans.

By the middle of October, Myles was thinking, PAR-TAY!

Picture, if you will, Captain Standish reciting Julius Caesar aloud, mooning over Priscilla Alden and watching football. (Pilgrims vs. Indians).

His wife, Barbara, is in the kitchen thinking about wringing his neck instead of the fifty-pound-turkey. Overwhelmed by twenty sacks of potatoes to mash and pumpkins the size of wagon wheels, she’s not happy. The experimental spaghetti squash exploded in July and her zukes grew to the size of Labrador Retrievers. She has wheat to thrash and dough to rise and roll. The colossal turkey has eighty-five pellets in its butt, thanks to Myles who introduced firewater and firepower to the Indians.

Preparing for the first Thanksgiving feast, Barbara mutters to herself and quivers.

“Would it have killed him to ask me before he invited every Indian in the new country? I’m supposed to entertain strangers dressed in animal skins. Gimme a flippin’ break.”

Baby Lora is walking now; son Charles is into teenage angst, and young Myles is a nerd. Big Myles mostly muses.

“Husband,” Barbara shouts. “Pu-leese stop musing and get in here.”

He stomps into the dirt-floor kitchen. “Now what, Babs?”

 “What are ya, blind? I’m knee-deep in unshucked maze and pumpkins that need to be stewed. Baby Lora messed up her last clean nappy while you were mooning over Priscilla. She married somebody else, Myles. Get over it.”

The zukes are growing faster than the speed of light and the sweet potato pies are bubbling over in the oven.

Myles poses like a Fifteenth Century Mr. Clean. “Blimey! It’s Disaster City in here. Other than whining, what have you been doing, woman? Our guests are expected today. What is so difficult about preparing enough food to feed a small continent? What else would you rather be doing?”

She looks around for something sharp. “I’m hormonal, Myles, so I would rather take a nap and leave instructions for you to wake me up in 1776 in time for the Fourth of July fireworks.”

“Are you daft, woman? What is this nonsense you spout?”

She sidles over to a knife resting under a sixty-pound zucchini. A vague smile crosses Barbara’s lips as she and the knife focus on the bad-tempered, albeit intrepid Mayflower Captain.

“Myles,” Barbara croons, “Why did you invite the entire Wampanoag Nation to dinner?”

“There you go exaggerating, Babs. Dr. Phil calls that non-productive behavior.”

“Do not,” Barbara snarls, “repeat, do not speak to me about non-productive behavior. I push my tush while you sit around and muse.”

He throws up his hands. “There you go again.”

“What do you mean?” She tugs the knife out from under the seriously heavy zucchini.

“Merely a reminder that the entire nation was not invited. Only the families of Squanto, Samoset and Chief Yellow Feather.”

Barbara hides the knife within the folds of her grease-spattered skirt. “Husband, do I dare ask how many family members the savages will bring with them?”

Myles lights up a cheroot and casually blows a smoke ring. “About ninety. What? Why the long face? Is entertaining a few of my friends too much to ask? I have a colony to run, you know.”

“Ninety people? Ninety? Are you are out of your freaking gourd? Who is going to look after your wild offspring, do the laundry and cook the stinkin’ pumpkins? I’m no Martha Stewart.”

“Babs, what we have here is a failure to communicate. Now tell me, what would you rather do?”

“Seriously? I'd rather be pummeled to the ground with a 20-pound sack of flour until I pass out, that’s what I'd rather do.”

“There’s no need to get your bloomers in a bunch over a little dinner party. Chill. Call the Butterball Hot Line. They know everything there is to know about turkey stress.”

Barbara stares at him. “Maybe they’ll send us a wagontrain of cooked food with an army of servers.”

“Babs, Babs, Babs. The Butterball Hot Line is designed to get you through turkey angst, not to spoil you rotten.”

“Myles, this is a perfect time to tell you that I have a raging case of PMS, a migraine and a sharp butcher knife. I am on my last nerve and I don’t give a flying fig about the Butterball people.”

“Hey! Don’t go all nutterootie on me.”

Barbara closes her eyes and wraps her fingers around the hidden knife. In a low voice, she hisses. “Get out of my kitchen, Myles!”

The intrepid Captain Standish retreats like a cowardly lion from Barbara’s disarrayed domain and returns to his sanctuary. A quirky grin sneaks onto his lips to slowly spread across his face like warm cranberry sauce.

“Woo-Hoo. For a minute there I was afraid the old lady would bail and then who would cook that fifty-pound turkey? Certainly not me. I have a colony to run.”

Sweet Daddy Grace

When I was growing up in a small South Carolina town, my father was the local law. He started out as a flat foot and ended up as the Chief of Police. I was proud of him. In fact, I learned a lot about criminology from my dad, things he had learned while at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia and others he picked up along the way.

Once he told me that burglars invariably do two things once they have broken into a home. They use the toilet and they look in the fridge. I can’t remember if he said they ate anything, but apparently knowing the habits of a thief helped what substituted for CSI back in the day.

Another thing I learned from Daddy served to make me aware of people who came through our town as opposed to the more permanent ones that lived out their entire lives many times in the same house they were born in.

Every now and then, Daddy would come home for lunch (we called the mid-day meal dinner in those days) and say that the Gypsies had arrived and were set up on the edge of town out on Highway 301. They were traveling people with dark skin and traditionally lived by seasonal work, itinerant trade, and fortune-telling, of course. Mama loved getting her fortune told, but others in town shied away from the Gypsies for fear of being hoodwinked or “gypped.”

There was a remarkable man who claimed to be a traveling evangelist whose name I can never forget because it tickled me. Sweet Daddy Grace. When Sweet Daddy came to town it was a big deal including an entourage following behind his long black Cadillac limo. His advance team came several days ahead intent on getting folks excited about Sweet Daddy’s upcoming visit, so by the time the great man rolled into town in his limo, he owned the flock of people waiting to welcome him.

Sweet Daddy was the founder and first bishop of the predominantly African-American denomination called the United House of Prayer For All People. He was also a contemporary of Father Divine and Noble Drew Ali. At the revivals Daddy Grace begged for donations to further his ministry and the people shelled out even when it meant less food on their table. His followers lined up to hail him because they needed to believe in him.

He came to town, cleaned them out and left. A few remained loyal to him while others recognized him for what he was: a huckster who found a way to defraud poor people into thinking he was their last, best hope.

The Flim Flam Men were a bit different but not much. They used dishonest behavior in order to take money or property from whoever appeared to be a good mark. They told the mark what he needed to hear whether it was the truth or not. Daddy was always on the lookout for Flim Flam Men when they came through our town. He was a modern day Con Artist cheating or tricking people by gaining their confidence and in the end exploiting it for his own gain.

I don’t remember Snake Oil Salesmen while I was growing up although when I think of the slight of hand carnival barkers I have to wonder. According to Webster, a Snake Oil Salesman is someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods or who is a fraud, quack, or charlatan. I have a picture in my head (probably from a movie) of a man standing on the flatbed part of a truck or wagon selling snake oil he claims will cure everything from constipation to consumption. In my head I see people digging deep in their pockets for money to buy the liniment which was likely made up of turpentine and red pepper.

People back in the Forties, Fifties and Sixties and people today are not so different. We all want to believe in hope, in expectations that this year, the next few years can bring about good changes for everyone. It’s a need we share.

So when Sweet Daddy Grace comes into your living room via television and promises you a bright new future, will you believe him? Will you buy into whatever he promises because of your need to dream the dream? Or will you listen to his words critically and sensibly before hanging your hopes and your future on someone else’s ambitions?

It’s up to you. It’s always been up to you.

The Little Town with a Big Heart

What Does It Take to Make a Hero?

It takes a village.

As we reflect on another anniversary of 9/11, who among us will not be sadly reminded of that day and of the firefighters who fought and earned the title of hero?

Following 9/11, Senior Citizen Dee Matthews, a New Yorker and former DuBois, Pennsylvania resident, visited her neighborhood firehouse where seven of its members died that fateful day. Struck by the fact that the firehouse was shattered in more ways than one, Matthews prayed with the firefighters and later resolved to bring light back into NYC Engine Company 84 and Ladder 34.

Matthews called on two close friends in DuBois, Pennsylvania, Pat Stewart and Judy Hand to help her. With an anguished voice, Matthews said, “The firefighters are in mourning; they’re devastated. I know my hometown well enough to know they wouldn’t want those guys to suffer more than they already have.”

Her friends responded, “Let’s adopt them.”

On that day, via the telephone, bonded by three hundred miles of fiber optics and fueled with a commitment and love of country,  three senior women gave birth to Operation: Adopted Heroes.

Coming up with a name for the project was easy, but could they find the support needed to make a difference? The three women would soon discover that their small community was as heartbroken as so many others throughout the country. The town jumped in and became part of Operation: Adopted Heroes.

It takes a village.

Matthews’ two friends did not flinch when the opportunity to help was presented to them. Embracing the last audible words of Todd Beamer, 9/11 victim on board Flight 93, they adopted it as their mission statement. “Let’s roll,” they said to the town, and the town heard them.

Pat and Judy knocked on doors asking for donations for the families of the firefighters who had lost their lives and they were rewarded by an outpouring of generosity. Each of the seven families received sixteen hundred dollars raised by these two women.

It takes a village.

When she had visited the firehouse, Dee Matthews noted some of the chairs were past the point of comfort, so funds were solicited from individuals as well as local DuBois businesses to provide fourteen new solid oak chairs. Paint and other supplies were also bought to rehabilitate the firehouse in hopes of lifting the spirits of the men still grieving the loss of their co-workers.

A local grocery store was asked to contribute food. “The families,” said Pat, ” have children with big appetites. They need nourishment.” Enough groceries were donated to provide many nutritious meals for the families and firefighters.

High school band students boxed up the supplies to be delivered in a trailer packed with the new chairs and other items. “Operation Adopted Heroes: We will never forget” was painted on the side of that trailer.

It takes a village.

“We will never forget” were not empty words. Folks in Dubois, Pennsylvania support their commitment even today by remaining in close contact with their adopted heroes and the families of the fallen.

When the 2001 Christmas holiday approached, Matthews, Stewart and Hand discussed what they might do for the families. “This will be such a sad Christmas for them,” Judy said. “We need to let them know we’re still thinking of them.”

They appealed once more to their friends and neighbors and again the response was, “Let’s roll!”

After phoning all of the 911 widows to determine what their fifteen children liked, disliked, needed or wanted for Christmas, they gathered toys and clothes contributed by folks eager to help. Local high school students wrapped the gifts to be taken to the families before Christmas.

A group of seniors in town made cotton throws for each of the widows, hand embroidered with the victim’s name on each one. Quilts, made by the Chat and Sew Quilters Club were donated for the firehouse cots; fruit baskets and hams were given by a local grocery store.

Stewart and Hand, accompanied by DuBois firefighters, were met by the FDNY group at the George Washington Bridge and upon arrival at the firehouse joined Dee Matthews and her mother. Together they hand-delivered the gifts to the firehouse and to the families of their adopted heroes.

They could have sent them by UPS but they didn’t; they drove three hundred miles to present the gifts in person. They showed up because that’s what heroes deserve.

Twenty-four adopted heroes of NYC Engine Company 84 and Ladder 34 were later honored at a DuBois community parade, complete with fire trucks (of course), banners, balloons and cheering crowds on both sides of the parade route streets. The senior women responsible for the project headed up the parade holding a huge banner.

It takes a village.

Captain Luongo and Captain Depew of Ladder Company No. 84 both spoke:

“It’s one thing to put stuff in a box and send it, but you people came to our little house and we had a day together. Family tradition is part of the reason firefighters go above and beyond,” Captain Depew said. “What you did helped us work through a difficult period. Knowing we had your support made it a little easier. You will always be welcome at our house.”

Three truly remarkable senior women found it intolerable to do nothing when faced with our national grief and sadness. Because of an ongoing commitment to a firehouse three hundred miles away, a community was transformed into the little town with a big heart and it made heroes of them all.

Sometimes it takes a village.

Author’s Note:

Dee Matthews has since died but she showed us all how even one person can make a difference.

Ode to the Cowboys

Cowboys like smoky old pool rooms, clear mountain mornings, little warm puppies, children, and girls of the night. Them that don't know him won't like him and them that do won't know how to take him. ~ verse from "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys"

I’ve been thinking a lot about cowboy movie heroes. I remember going to the movies every Saturday and with only one trip to the bathroom, staying there until Mama or Daddy picked me up.

A Saturday matinee cost ten cents for kids under twelve, a candy bar was a nickel and a bag of popcorn, a dime. I showed up every Saturday unless I had chicken pox, measles or mumps. My folks loved it because the show started at noon and lasted until 5 o’clock. The matinees my brother and I usually attended featured cowboy stars like Rocky Lane, The Durango Kid, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Johnny Mack Brown, Rex Allen, Lash LaRue and Tom Mix.

My hometown of Orangeburg, South Carolina boasted two movie theaters, the Carolina and the Edisto. For a mere 10 cents, we saw a newsreel, cartoons, a chapter from a serial, a short subject with Laurel and Hardy, sometimes a documentary, and then, best of all, the feature.

I was allowed to spend an entire quarter so I bought a Tootsie Roll since it could last me until I went to college. I bought candy, a large bag of popcorn, a large Coke and that took care of my quarter.

After finding a seat, I settled in for an afternoon of magic. I watched Movietone News and that fool rooster crowing his head off, and then footage of the President or the war or something current. A glimpse of the latest Paris fashion was shown and maybe a candid visit with Betty Grable, Bette Davis or Errol Flynn. During most of the newsreel portion, however, I talked and giggled with my friends.

Then it was Looney Toons: Donald Duck and Tweety Bird. After cartoons came a comedy featuring Ma and Pa Kettle or The Three Stooges, and then it was time for a continuing serial like Buck Rogers (my brothers fave) or the one I liked best, Blondie. (With the exception of Bubblehead Blondie, there was a serious lack of serial heroines although much later in the century TV soap operas would make up for the deficit.)

In cowboy movies, the good guys always prevailed and got the girl; the bad guys always got caught. After the gunfights were over, our hero stood next to the bar in a cowboy saloon drinking sarsaparilla with his sidekick, someone like Smiley Burnett who talked funny.

My brother and his friends booed and hissed if and when a cowboy kissed someone other than his mother or his horse.

Every now and then a cowboy gave a live performance at the Carolina Theater. I had a crush on Lash LaRue who cracked his whip, KAPOW! and made my eyes grow as big as salad plates. He was one slick, sexy dude dressed head-to-toe all in black, a good guy even though he never wore a white hat.

My heroes have now all gone up to that big roundup in the sky, but I can't forget the good times I experienced on Saturdays for twenty-five cents.

                                          An Ode to Cowboys

I miss ol' Hopalong Cassidy. I coulda sworn I saw him yestiddy. 

I ’spose I must be wrong, ’Cause I heard his git-along-song

When he pranced off on his horse into history.

Buster Crabbe made Westerns, too. You remember him, at least you ought to.

He was a white hat cowboy in his prime,

He could turn his horse round on a dime.

But with a name like Buster Crabbe, he had to.

Will someone tell me where did Lash Larue go

With that black hat of his cocked real low?

When he snapped that bullwhip my stomach did a flop-flip.

His smile was mighty sexy, also.

Do you ever ponder about Tom Mix and 

wonder how he did those gun tricks? 

He was quickest on the draw, could shoot holes in a straw,

Then use 'em over again for toothpicks.

Where oh where could all my heroes be?

Those matinee cowboys I so loved to see. 

I ‘spose I could be wrong,

But did I hear their git-along-song

When Calvin Klein pranced into history?

The Town That Time Forgot

Several years ago while living in Coastal Georgia, hot flashes and global warming took control of the upwardly moving saturation of my body. That’s when my husband Babe and I began looking for a summer getaway in the mountains. It took a while to find the right town with just the right character (and characters), but finally our search paid off when a Saluda blip appeared on our personal radar screen.

Laying claim to a main thoroughfare not much longer than a football field, shops and restaurants line up on one side of the street. A defunct set of railroad tracks stands sentry between the business side and children playing outdoors on swing sets and monkey bars in the town’s well-used playground. Squeals of their laughter can be heard even when it snows. I love that sound.

Weekends often bring strangers to our midst, curious to find out how a town the size of ours has survived the onslaught of high tech as it heads toward the isolation of all people everywhere. The visitors receive friendly smiles of welcome and easy chatter, but it is difficult for any of us to portray Saluda in mere words.

“We believe Saluda is a special place,” it might be said to a stranger. Or, “Saluda is like a modern-day Brigadoon —definitely magical.”

Indeed, none of the residents have lived here for over two hundred years as in the mythical Brigadoon, but Saluda has no problem claiming to be the town time forgot. That, in itself makes it a haven for throwbacks who still remember how things used to be back in the day.

In Saluda it is rare to see people in restaurants texting the person seated across the table from them. They talk to each other using real words. I once even witnessed a boldly snatching a smart phone away from her child. “This is called real time. Get used to it,” she admonished. Good for her!

Saluda people don’t do a lot of texting because they would rather have conversations. They still speak and spell the language learned in grammar school and they don’t care what’s going on in the Silicon Valley. Saluda people don’t give a hoot about fiber optics; they don’t allow electronics to rule their lives, inhibit their conversations or steal their humanity.

Friendly folks chat with each other while munching on an old fashioned hamburger, hot dog or a made from scratch milkshake served up in a large metal ice cream shaker.

When visitors wander into one of our local cafés, it’s not unusual for them to be invited to sit for a spell. That's when a local might tell him about all the new grandbabies born the week before or give an update on the Historical Society project. The stranger learns about the kind of produce sold at the Friday tailgate market. “The veggies are terrific this year,” he will hear. “Best doggone corn and tomatoes since 1945.”

There could be a report on the Saluda Dog Society’s recent fundraiser when enough money was donated to build a new shelter. Information might be shared that local thespians plan to perform, “It’s a Wonderful Life” during the month of December.

A tear or two will grace the eyes of an older resident when he reports, “It’s official. A community barbeque will be held in the park annually with all proceeds going to the Wounded Warriors Project. God Bless America.”

Saluda folks still use Ma Bell to ask about a friend’s son serving in the Middle East and they still phone each when they just feel like saying, “Hey, how’s your mama and ‘em?”

They support the lonely veteran struggling to adjust to a life without legs. They sit in church next to the widow who feels abandoned since the love of her life can no longer be by her side. They attend town meetings; they donate blood to the Red Cross and they always, always vote.

Saluda people figured out a long time ago that when we care and nurture each other we make a difference.

It took us a few years to settle permanently in this magical place that is not Brigadoon but comes pretty darn close. What took us so long?

Brigadoon, Brigadoon, blooming under sable skies.

Brigadoon, Brigadoon, there my heart forever lies.

Let the world grow cold around us, let the heavens cry above!

Brigadoon, Brigadoon, in thy valley, there'll be love!

Rocky Bottom

The cold, black Edisto River snakes through the small southern town where my brother and I grew up. There was a cove in the river floored with pebbles and that is where we learned to swim. Warm and familiar, we cut our teeth on those stones, and it was the place to which we returned when we were no longer children ... if only in our hearts.

When our swim teacher was much younger she trained for the Olympics. Imagine our delight when she accepted the Red Cross’s offer to become the official Edisto River Swim Instructor. Kids in our town proudly sported a lifesaver patch earned by diving off platforms and swimming against the strong current. It was a rite of passage.

I will never forget the day I was learning the Dead Man’s Float. It was in the roped off kid's section, the official dividing line between safety and peril. Beyond the ropes, deeper water rumbled past on its way to the Atlantic Ocean.

I was under water when a whistle shriek made me jerk my head up in time to see the swim teacher plunging over a barrel and diving headfirst into the deep water, slicing it with first one muscular arm and then the other.

She was clad in a black Catalina swimsuit designed to make her look skinny and a black bathing cap giving her the appearance of a loggerhead turtle as she cut through the water like the Gold Medalist to which she had once aspired.

She headed downriver toward a small, black child struggling to keep his head above water. As soon as his limp hand disappeared into the blackness for what could have been forever, she caught up with him and grabbed his little body before it floated out of sight.

She pulled him out of the river, placed him on the muddy banks and proceeded to give the child mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. When enough water squirted from the little boy's mouth to put out a grass fire, I let go of the breath I had been holding in.

It all happened quickly, but the moment was captured in my mind where it has remained as a permanent snapshot, a defining moment leaving me with a lifelong, formidable respect for that cold-hearted river. A child’s near-fatal drowning was valid testimony that the river was a killer in disguise but our swim instructor an unbiased heroine who did what she was born to do.

The people in my small Southern town, as well as my experiences there, nurtured and shaped me into the person I was born to be. Even today, it continues to suckle me and will do so all the days of my life.

While it may be true that Rocky Bottom was only a shallow area of the Edisto River, over the course of my life it became a touchstone in my soul that could take me home.

Scrappy and Boo Sanford, the brother and sister who narrate the stories of Rocky Bottom, are fictional entities of my imagination. If any of the people places or events seem even remotely familiar to the reader, it may be because many small southern towns are made up of people who love football, fried chicken, barbeque and ancestors. That pretty much describes the folks who season my made-up town of Greenburg, South Carolina.

DURING

I tossed and turned before finally getting out of bed and padding softly to the kitchen for a glass of water. A light was on in the breakfast room and I wondered who besides me was having a hard time sleeping.

Daddy was sitting alone at the kitchen table in front of what was left of a bottle of Jack Daniels. His shoulders were slumped, his head bent.

I stood back, shielded by the night shadows. A part of me wanted to put my arms around the man who had been my hero and who any fool could see needed comforting. But I was young and ignorant of adult pain, so I remained in the shadows.

I felt his sadness and it hurt me, but something big had happened to me on that long, horrible day, something unexpected and still very raw. A new piece of me had reared its head from the cocoon existence of self-absorbed adolescence and this new feeling compelled me to keep still.

When six hundred black college students publicly opposed the status quo, it changed everything for me. If, years later I wrote my life story, I would be obliged to say, “That day in the Square is when everything I had ever believed shifted.”

They had marched in silence knowing they would be taunted and sneered at by intolerant, frightened white people. Prepared to suffer physical abuse or God knows what, they kept on because they believed in their cause. I caught only a measure of their passion, but it was provocative and I was determined to protect a smattering of the transfused spirit I had stolen from them.

I would no longer be a naive young girl when, through a different set of eyes, I was able to be more generous in my judgment of Daddy’s involvement that fateful day. Generosity of spirit came easily when I thought of the students, however. I had sensed the courage it took for them to demand a better way of life for themselves and their people, but Daddy’s participation in it was harder to understand. He had followed orders instead of his innate sense of fairness.

And therein lies the rub.

In my mind’s eye, I can see Daddy giving the order to use fire hoses on those students. It makes me sad to remember, but I can do it. The thing is, he is long dead and I am left with only a pocketful of memories of the man who was once my hero.

Other people can do the blaming, the criticizing. Let them. I choose to remember him as a human being. I choose to keep the vision of my father as he sat alone at the kitchen table in the middle of the night weeping for having played a part in man’s inhumanity to man.

That image is enough to remind me that we are all fallible. Even parents.

AFTER

It has been a long time since I witnessed first hand a not so peaceful protest demonstration in my hometown, a long time since my unintentional comeuppance. A long time since the day my perception of the world shifted.

Now when I catch myself gazing through the windows of my past, I find it difficult to understand how I could ever have gone along with a myopic community that patently ignored the basic rights of too many of its own.

It shames me that I never questioned the existence of separate drinking fountains and toilet facilities. I was aware that black children were relegated to swim in the river away from where we swam and played, but it was not until years later that I challenged the injustice. I, like many Southerners, accepted the status quo and it will forever be my cross to bear.

I know times change, issues change, and sometimes even people change. Diversity makes our lives sing and not ding. But needed change, whether domestic or far-reaching, must be purged from the predilection of ideas and beliefs handed down from parent to child. To be effective, it must claw away at the marrow of our primal souls.

My hometown is no longer the small, sheltered place where my brother and I were acquainted with every backyard and all the Chinaberry trees within a six-block radius. We knew all the kids, their parents and most of their aunts and uncles. We knew no strangers then.

Some landmarks are left, but they become fewer in number as time marches on. The big clock in front of The First National Bank still stands. The statue of the Confederate Soldier that once stood proudly in the town square, however, has been taken down. In its place, a patchwork quilt of multi-colored azaleas now covers the area each spring as a gentle reminder that beauty can be found in diversity. The tired old Civil War fought and refought long after Appomattox has lost some ground.

Schools I attended for twelve of my young years managed to survive the unrest and subsequent rebellion of the turbulent Sixties. They have since been rebuilt, renamed and revitalized. I don’t recognize them today.

When I return, I don’t know where to go. There are no remembered haunts where I might bump into old friends; no special gathering places where I pigged out on hot dogs and hamburgers and shag danced till I dropped. There are no familiar places left for me go.

The river bridge is still there, rotten to the core and condemned to die as slowly as so many other worn out traditions. The kid area with its green water barrels disappeared long ago. The wooden platforms off which both children and dogs loved to jump, no longer exist.

Rocky Bottom itself was dredged and done away with more than twenty years ago for some harebrained, probably bureaucratic reason. The shallow area floored with tiny pebbles where hundreds of kids learned how to dogpaddle is no longer available to any children, black or white.

The thing that remains pretty much the same is the Edisto River itself. It is still swift and deadly, and it still moves toward an inevitable end. That frightening, black body of water grasps and holds onto bits and pieces of remembered childhoods, the carefree days so many of us spent down at Rocky Bottom.

Scout’s Honor

Honor: honesty and integrity in one’s beliefs and actions. — BSA Pledge

Lt. General E.G. “Buck” Shuler is Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Mighty Eighth Museum and he is my childhood friend. I am a captive audience as the General leads us on a tour of the museum, speaks of significant fighter planes or points to a photo of a celebrated WWII Ace. My friend wears a crown of white hair these days, but it only takes a blink for me to remember him as the redheaded boy he was when we were kids.

At fifteen, maybe sixteen-years-old, Buck’s tall, lanky body is erect. He holds his chin high as the Scout Master pins a red, white and blue BSA medal over my his heart. Having earned his twenty-first merit badge, he is being elevated to Eagle Scout, future leader, a man who will one day make a difference in the world.

The expressions I see on the faces of his parents reflect the pride they feel in their son’s early accomplishments. They know how difficult it was for him to earn merit badges while juggling schoolwork, football and an active student’s social life. They raised their son to be unafraid of challenges gave him a caring heart and are proud of their endowments.

Someone in the group behind me sneezes and I am quickly brought back to the here and now as my old friend tells us about the gallant Mighty Eighth aviators who have served our country since I was two-years-old. Proud and happy to credit his compatriots, Buck pointedly shies away from mentioning his own, not insignificant contributions.

Buck Shuler, outstanding graduate of The Citadel and former Commander of the Eighth Air Force, was first a Boy Scout. It occurs to me that his early training cemented and honed his sense of commitment. Perhaps his early training brought him to leadership positions at The Citadel and then continued to guide him toward an illustrious military career. For sure, the BSA Motto remained with him as a reminder to do his best, to do his duty to God and country and to help others.

This former Boy Scout flew 107 combat missions over North Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam and Laos while I was tucking two baby boys safely into bed each night. My son’s first day in kindergarten occurred the day Buck was deployed to Taegu Air Base, South Korea in answer to the USS Pueblo crisis.

In summer, my children and I meandered the South Carolina beaches in search of shark’s teeth while my friend flew F-4C combat support missions in the Korean demilitarized zone. He defended my family and me while I looked for shells, went to parties and took freedom for granted.

I remained safe at home reading books or nagging my husband for squeezing the toothpaste tube in the middle while General Shuler initiated the first air attack on Saddam Hussein in the Persian Gulf.

Because of his strong determination, strength of character and knowledge, it is now possible for people who have taken peace for granted in the past — people like me — to honor the brave men and women who serve in our stead.

General Buck Shuler would be the last one to say that he was a key player in the formation of the Mighty Eighth Air Museum, but he was. And he took on that responsibility even after retiring from the Air Force. He did so for one reason: to honor those who did not take peace for granted.

My friend deserved the Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster he received, the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal with five Oak Leaf Clusters, and his Air Force Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster. He more than earned the Republic of Korea’s Order of National Security Merit Cheonsu Medal, as well as thirteen other decorations and ribbons.

If, however, all of the medals, citations and awards presented to this honorable man should somehow disappear never to be seen again by the naked eye, I suspect one badge would remain stamped forever on his brain. That would be a red, white and blue BSA Eagle Scout medal, pinned over his heart in 1952, faded from his many years of service. Because of his early training, other future leaders have learned from him what it means to make a difference in the world.

I salute General E. G. “Buck” Shuler, Eagle Scout, who still soars like an eagle. Scout’s Honor.