angry birds and bugs: summer in the south

My parents moved twice in three years: when both my older brother and I were freshmen in college. This little trick serves to throw a wrench into the summer social life of a college student. My high school friends were all 400 miles away and so for "fun" I'd help my mom harvest beans from her garden: a garden so large we could have opened a produce stand out front. What was my dad thinking?

Beyond our property was a scrubby field and woods, home to a variety of animals and most notorious: blue jays. Aggressive and greedy, these birds have a real attitude. They used to dive-bomb our cat, and there must have been something of interest in the garden because they also dive-bombed me. One scorching hot afternoon as I bent over the bean plants in my swimsuit top, sweat pouring off me, something swooped and swooshed against my bare back. I looked up in time to see a blue jay take off beyond the garden.

I was so freaked that it took some doing for mom to coax me back to the garden. What was to stop another bird from pecking a hole in my back?

Of similar, or worse, temperament are horse flies: the blue jays of the insect world. Those same college summers, I threw away my brain and agreed to camp counseling jobs in the backwoods east of Memphis, Tennessee. This is the Mississippi Delta, were the humidity is 125% and the mosquitos, chiggers and horse flies outnumber everything and everyone. Kamp Kiwani boasted a fabulous horse camp, which attracted horse-loving girls and a healthy horse fly population. Not only do horse flies love horses, they also are attracted to water.

Each night in the bath house, I'd make sure I had my soap, shampoo, and towels in order. A washcloth was handy for whacking the horse flies, who would join us in the bath house and bite us as we showered. If you were still in your cabin, you could hear the vicitims' screams coming from the bath house. Like blue jays, horse flies are aggressive and will attack boldly, unprovoked. I detest them for this reason. Their bite hurts like heck.

And so, in the midst of our midwest heat wave, how I appreciate air conditioning. No one is making me pick beans, and I have yet to see a horse fly in my shower. Thank you, Lord!

road buddies

Do you know this place?

It's incredibly amazing!

And I made a quick stop there with my road buddies this week.

The Grove Park Inn

in Asheville, North Carolina.

If you can't stay there, at least park, walk through

the lobby, notice the fireplaces tall enough to walk into

 and see the stunning view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

In two years the Grove Park Inn will turn 100.
Might have to plan a stay.

treasures

South Carolina ...

the Palmetto state.

Islands and beaches to the east,

mountains on the western edge.

Alligators and

magnificent, historic homes.

Remains of plantations.

Marshes and tidal rivers.

Home of my two brothers, the kings of hospitality.

I rather like South Carolina.

Out on Spring Island we explored the remains of a 19th century plantation.

A wealthy man named Edwards built it and as with most plantations,

an enormous cotton crop was produced by the labor and sweat of over 300 slaves.

The plantation resembled this over 150 years ago...

And today it looks like this ...

And a passage came to mind.

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,

where moth and rust do not destroy,

and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 5:19-21

I like "treasures" ... nice stuff, new clothes, and quality bedsheets.

But still, that passage came to mind.

I hope the plantation owner stored up treasures in heaven,

that is, things that will outlast his plantation,

as well as on earth.

signs

I'm more than a little fascinated by architectural lines and signs. They're all around! The humorous and humbling, the stately and sobering. As we continue our southern spring ramble, I'm capturing signs and lines I like.

A charming little well-kept secret lies on the South Carolina coast, away from Hilton Head and Charleston. Beaufort. (Pronounce it correctly: Bew-furt) The church my brother and sis-in-love attend dates back to the 18th century, and some of the residents in the burial ground served in the revolutionary war.

Beaufort managed to escape most of the Civil War's destruction, leaving the city with street after street of magnificent homes and stately live oak trees.

Another southern gem is Greenville, South Carolina.

Here you'll find the best examples of downtown revitalization.

This pedestrian bridge replaced an old vehicle bridge, revealing the beautiful and natural falls of the Reedy River.

Any city with a baseball team is good for me.

rambling

The empty nesters are on a ramble. Taking in some beautiful scenery in the Blue Ridge mountains ... as well as relaxing and catching up with each other over some delicious food. Have a look ...

Somewhere I have a photo very similar to this one, taken on Clingman's Dome in the Smoky Mountains, over 30 years ago. I'll have to find it ...

There's no pee in pecan

As my dear hubby read the last post, he commented on "Poppy's PEE-cans." The pronunciation of this sweet little nut has been a source of disagreement in our marriage from the beginning.

The source of pecans is the south. And people in the south say pi-CAHNS. Not PIE or PEE, but a soft PI, almost a PUH. Got it?

Unbelievably, years ago I heard yet another pronunciation. Some Spanish-speaking natives pronounce pecan to rhyme with rican, as in Puerto Rican. I can almost accept that.

If I need official back-up on this (which I do not), Webster's gives the pronunciation of pecan as pi-CÄN ... not PEE-can. And defines it as "a large tree of the central and southern United States with an edible oval, thin-shelled nut." How can this be more obvious? If pecans grow in the south, then southerners should dictate how to pronounce their nut.

And to my ear, there should be no pee in pecan. Please. Nice and gentle, now: pi-CAHN. There. Isn't that better?

(While we're at it, be sure you say Appa-LATCH-ian, not the way I am sure you pronounce it if you're from around here.)

Poppy's pecans

In the year I was born, 1955, my mother's parents bought a 2-bedroom house on an averaged-sized lot in Memphis, Tennessee. It was their pride and joy, but when I study photos taken during that time, I am startled by the sparse, scrubby lot that later became their lush yard.

"Poppy and Dorothy" produced all sorts of home-raised goodies: apples and applesauce, grape preserves, tomatoes, legendarily-hot peppers, and pecans. This wouldn't be so remarkable except for the fact that they lived in the city. You'd think they had acres of land.

During the years we lived in New England, my mother squealed when the box arrived in December from her father in Memphis. She knew that it held the perfect pecans from his own trees in the backyard. Not only did he harvest them, he must have spent hours shelling them because we only received the nut meats. They were plump and sweet and divine.

I miss Poppy. And I miss his pecans.

it's all in the cornbread

Listen up, Yankees. Yesterday I made a favorite childhood holiday food, CORNBREAD DRESSING. It was always called dressing and never stuffed into a turkey. In fact, I probably never saw a stuffed turkey until I grew up. And the gummy globby stuff that comes out of turkeys just doesn't please my palate.

I realize there are countless versions of dressings and stuffings and my daughter-in-love Jenny made a very tasty one over Thanksgiving.

But this Tennessee gal is transported to my grandmother's kitchen at the slightest whiff of cornbread baking in an iron skillet. (the first, most important step in cornbread dressing.)

Not the cake-like fascimile from a Jiffy box, noooooo! Southern cornbread is best made with stone-ground cornmeal, a very little flour, egg, salt, baking soda & powder and buttermilk. Note: No sugar! After a good mixing, the batter is turned into a piping hot iron skillet laced with a little bacon grease. It SIZZLES as it's poured into the skillet and popped into a hot oven.

The dressing is then made with the crumbled cornbread, some dried white bread, a beaten egg, boiled onions & celery and so much chicken broth that the dressing resembles a floating peat bog. (My staid grandfather insisted that an egg would ruin the family dressing, however my independent-minded grandmother always put one in. I thought that was very funny.) Bake and serve.

It doesn't get any better than that.