MISS FLOY AND SARGE

Floy Whitten is the town’s other writer for the County Paper; her Floy’s Flittings has its own little lattice-roses-bordered corner on the inside back page, and her regularly-printed poetry rhymes “hand” with “time” and the meter changes line to line, stanza to stanza. She leans toward flowers and trees and old times, and mostly Christian topics.

Miss Floy is newly retired from the county Welfare Department, where she worked for thirty-something years. She’s still known as the “spare-made” lady amongst the clients who came into the office, in contrast to the abundantly-contoured Mrs. Waddell, who lives way out in the country over at Expedia.

Miss Floy wears her hip-length graying hair in a beautiful upsweep reminiscent of a Gibson Girl, the soft roundness of it like a shining brioche, and the effect completed by the little round bun atop. When she works in her garden, it’s as if a beautifully-coifed woman from the Gay Nineties has suddenly donned saggy-butt jeans and an old shirt, picked up a hoe, and landed for a time amongst the bean-rows, with the sun glinting from that glorious hair.

She calls people for news from their section of the county, and will sit there with the phone tucked aside her cheek, writing down the names and places they’ve been, and if there’s been a party---she’ll put down every detail, including tablecloths and menu and the honorees’ attire.

If they haven’t been anywhere special or if they’ve just had their in-laws over for supper, she’s happy to jot down the recipes for the pot roast and Bundt cake, and print that---sitting there as serious as scripture, getting every word, every step, taking down Cream a’ Mushroom like it’s foie gras, and asking “Now do you cream the Parkay first?”

She also writes little vignettes of local interest for the REA newsletter, published every month by the Power Company, and has quite a following amongst the rural set. Her piece on the Civil War autograph book, amazingly carried by Mr. Morris Steele's great-grandfather from his injury at Shiloh all the way through incarceration at Ft. Warren, Mass., collecting autographs and messages on every page, from Generals to guards to doctors to fellow prisoners, was picked up by the Commercial Appeal and printed almost word-for-word, though they DID send their own photographer to make the pictures.

She has a happy little dog named Sarge, taken in a year ago when her sister at Moon Lake fell heir to her elderly neighbor's three Pee-kanese. The old lady hadn't been able to care for the dogs very well in her last days, and the two females cost Sis ninety dollars apiece at the vet just to have that long, clotty hair got back in order. Miss Floy took one look at that miserable, tangled mass of long blonde hair on the little boy dog and had him clipped, high and tight. Even his long flowing silky ears are squared off at the bottom like the little Dutch-Boy on the paint can, and his muscular little body, clipped close to show his stance, looks so much more like Pug than Peke, it led to her nephew's calling him a Puke. He doesn't seem to mind, and seems to REALLY like the freedom of his haircut.

Miss Floy will also shell your bushel of beans or peas and pick out your pecans, and keeps her flour and sugar and coffee in a Camistry Set.

JOURNEY

I think today should hold a lot of House-Righting and Dish-Washing and Clothes-Folding, for I’ve sadly neglected all three this week. It’s a sort of jumbled chaos downstairs, with so many things out of place, and so I’m headed off to a big I-Tunes Fest of Sense and Sensibility to entertain as I work.

Perhaps when things are a bit more serene and livable, some time out in an arbor chair, with the overhanging limbs and the hot breeze giving the proper reverence and setting to Faulkner---he’s always a Summer read, I think. You get the tastes and the sweat and the sheer overlying weight of the weather to set the stage, as well as the theme.


I may continue reading As I Lay Dying, swapping the genteel pomp of the Dashwoods, with their soft intrigues and misunderstandings and loves lost and honor-well-served, for the grim, homemade-coffin trek to bury Addie Bundren amongst her Own People.

And it's not a sad book, as you'd think---it's just a well-told journey, seen by six different sets of eyes. It’s tiny glimpses of each family member as they gather for their Mother’s last days, as they take her home to her family graveyard, told in small moments of their thoughts---tiny half-page blips, sometimes, like the eye of a camera panning a crowd and snapping this one and that for that one brief moment.

I've known ALL these people, especially in my childhood, when the old times still lingered and the old ways were still the norm---the sitting-up-all-night, the wakes and the singing, the gathering of the men in the stomped-down yard, passing bottles and time with a quick wrist-swipe at each, whilst the women tended to things in the house.

I can remember four all-night-sit-up-with-the-deads in my own home of my childhood---the shining metal caskets were wheeled in through the front door, through the vestibule arch, and parked square-ways right in front of the big double-windows of the living room like a new piano. Quiet voices, bowls of potato salad set down on the kitchen counter by kind neighbors, the scent of bouquets of garden-cut blooms set head and foot of the casket, the pile of hats on the hall bench, as the men removed them to honor the house and the dead, passing by on the way to the kitchen for a cold drink. For the first time, I was allowed to click the lock on my bathroom door for my bedtime bath, and I wore the new nylon robe from two Christmases ago, for the five steps to my room.

Even the names in the book are notional and obscurely odd: Anse, the shirking, whining father, and Cash who builds the coffin in full view and sound of his Mother’s bedroom window, and Jewel-who’s-a-man and Dewey Dell the only daughter, and Darl and small Vardaman, whose name is at least recognizable as a small town in my state.

They are of their age, of the wagon-and-horse, of the overalls-and-sweat and dipper-and-bucket age, pondering or mutely accepting or cursing the fate which set them in such a hard place, in such times.

And I’ll go out into the quiet breeze, sitting with a pitcher of well-iced tea, reading in the afternoon, knowing these grim, enduring people, smelling the scents of their journey and their trials---remembering it, being FROM it, but not OF it. Not any more.

PEAK OF THE WEEK

It’s an old Southern custom for folks of younger generations to address their elders by their first names, with Miss and Mr. appended, no matter what their marital status.


Miss Laura Beth Upchurch (mid-sixties, widowed in her forties) drives over to Miss Ardyth May Jessup’s (mid-eighties, also widowed, just in the last few years) house every Wednesday. She “takes care of” Miss Ardyth May two other days during the week---Mondays, when she changes the linens and gets her into the tub on that big white chair, as well as doing the week’s other laundry, dusting and righting the area around her big auto-chair in the den, with its surroundings of uplifting books, pens, newspapers, spare eyeglasses, big-drink thermos mug (filled with ice water and emptied three times every day), Tums, a box of Kleenex and the big roll of Charmin set on the lid of the adjacent potty-chair. There's also the days-of-the-week-sectioned box of carefully-counted-out medicines which goes with Miss Ardyth everywhere---even to the bathroom, whether she is to take a pill or not. It rides in a little cushioned basket inside the basket of her walker.


Fridays, Miss Laura Beth gives Miss Ardyth another good tub bath, and washes her little dandelion fluff of sparse white hair, getting ready for the weekend and church-if-she-can-make-it.


But Wednesdays---Wednesdays are the days that Miss Laura Beth and Miss Ardyth May drive to The Walmart. It’s THE DAY. They would not miss it, and have driven over through rainstorms, a very alarming water-over-the-road moment once last year, and even an unprecedented ice storm, in which the roads were almost impassable, and the few customers in the store were waited on by the manager and his wife when nobody else could get to work. Worse than the trip through the slick roads, however, was the absence of Miss Ardyth's customary Corn Dog---SHE got there; why would an 18-Wheeler have trouble?

The two ladies sometimes also take a short stroll through Goodwill, for it’s on their way, and Wednesdays flaunt the fading, flappy banner: SENIOR DAY WEDNESDAYS 30% OFF. They go there first, for what if there were something really good and they MISSED it?


They make their way up and down the aisles---Miss Laura Beth at a pretty good clip toward the “Plus Boutique” to finger the poly-pants and floral blouses, flipping them out neatly like small bedsheets against her bosom and hips in front to check for size. Miss Ardyth May clops her walker through the purses and craft items, looking for gifts for her grown children---mostly picture frames, for those catch her eye every time, and she already has two boxes of them in the guest room closet, sandwiched like books between single-torn sheets of Bounty. The two dozen purses ranged above, each noosed around a coathanger, hang like tiny sides of beef in their cool gloom, awaiting a holiday.


And then they go to The Walmart, making their way in past the Greeter, checking the buggies for a full-plastic flap on the baby-seat and four good wheels. Those things MATTER.They stop immediately in the Ladies Room, where Miss Laura helps Miss Ardyth in and out and helps her freshen up after.


They stroll a bit, looking for the perky yellow face, checking out ranks of shampoos, over-the-counter medications, the nine TV screens all blaring Price Is Right---the varying quality and reception causing Bob Barker’s tan to range from George Hamilton to Boo Radley.



They shop a bit, pick up the things on their list, then head for the Garden Department, where they seat themselves in the comfortable chairs ringed round a wrought-iron patio table. They have quite a few sets to choose from, but these chairs are THEIRS--the chairs are a taupey-beige woven sling with black wrought iron---very elegant and strong. It’s where they sit every week, whilst customers pass by and speak and perhaps stop for a hug or a chat.



Miss Ardyth Mae is a retired music teacher, and her pupils some of the most faithful admirers one could wish---every Walmart visit is occasion of bright, happy exclamations of “Miss ARDYTH MAAAAY!! Is that YOU, you Sweet Thing? I’m so glad to SEEEEE you!” as she smiles from her nylon-webbing throne, receiving her subjects in the most regal manner.


Along about noon, Miss Laura is dispatched to the snack bar. She orders Miss Ardyth’s customary Corn Dog and Diet Coke and her own small cheese pizza, no sauce---a nod to her own IBS. They set out their lunch and eat daintily, still keeping watch for approaching friends and visitors. Every passerby is greeted, either with fond recognition, a friendly “Hello,” or a cool nod, for they know everyone in town.


Occasionally other ladies in their age ranges will join them, setting up shop for a long afternoon of conversation and banter; the news of the county is thoroughly sifted and discussed, as are church happenings, Club bulletins, social occasions and thorough reviews of newcomers and gossip and the latest family news.


They're an odd little bunch, these Ladies of Wednesday, these merchandise-squatters with big purses and slow, graceful speech; it's as if they have no homes, or are exceedingly wealthy, having rented out an entire floor for their private party. And the store manager would no more mention it to them, or worse---their children---than he would fly.

With the makeup of the group, there are fits and starts to the conversations, as first one then another has to be excused to the Ladies, and then she has to be "caught up" on what she missed.



Around four, they all start gathering up their things to head home. They’ve gone out for the day, lunched with friends, swapped recipes, gossip and crochet patterns, and have had quite as good a time as a much-younger martini-lunch crowd in Manolos. They all head home, refreshed and fulfilled, replete with a week's shopping and social obligations and need-to-know all at once.


Wednesdays at The Walmart Social Club---there’s one near you.

COOKIN' SOUTHERN

It’s a Southern thing, I suppose, of my generation, that we just naturally learned how to plant, harvest, cook and serve almost anything that went onto our tables, and our cuisine is of the homey sort, mostly---pots set to simmer early in the day, to avoid the heat of those sun-blasted afternoons. Baking was done early or late---way late, in the furtive hours when the house was silent and the air conditioning pouring out cold air to combat the oven’s Vulcanic glow.

We’ve also branched out, a bit, from the little church cookbooks and the Campbell’s casseroles, delightedly devouring plates of kibbeh and dolmas and mole at the various little family restaurants which sprang up in our small towns. We eagerly awaited the Tamale Man’s bell, as he strode the streets and favored certain corners with his fragrant cart. He dispensed who-knows-what in those rustly shucks of masa and mysterious tomato-tinted middles, and we scarfed them up as eagerly as kids and candy.

And there was more than one of him, with the Saturday route delineated and adhered to like the Blue Line---ours was a big, bustly guy, past middle age, whose as-white-as-Clorox-could-make-it-between-spills chef’s jacket and glistening ebony cheeks were a welcome sight as he hauled tins and boxes and coffee cans and trays out of the depths of that white steamer. We embraced the exotic and the spicy and the new, adopting the latugie and ravioli of our Italian neighbors, and The Good Church Ladies vying with each other to follow Mrs. Kowalski’s recipe perfectly and set down the most beautiful golden varnishes onto the table at Second Saturday Church Suppers.

And the little Chinese places---Oh, Those!!! We eagerly gobbled all sorts of wonderful new flavors---soy and sesame and anise and all the crisp delights of bamboo shoots and water chestnuts and bean sprouts, as well as the glories of "our" little flappy-screen cafe's General's Chicken and the most sublime Fried Rice in the history of Time. We always said that if we ever struck our fortune, we'd just build the famly a house beside us, support them all their days, and get them to cook for us every day.

But of our own recipes, aside from fried chicken and perhaps the shrimp-and-grits flurry of several years ago, there's still a whole big world out there, uneducated and unenlightened to the sumptuous dishes of the Southern Table. There are palates which never tasted hushpuppies straight from the big black fishcamp pot, eyes which never beheld a Red Velvet cake or a golden-meringue-topped ‘nanner puddin straight from the oven in its oblong Pyrex, vanilla wafers standing proudly like soldiers against the sides. There is somewhere, I'm sure, a dear soul deprived of the tongue-curling scent of REAL barbecue, the smoke rising from the crusty rungs of that pit like praise to Heaven.

Whole nations go through life without biscuits and molasses, or a glimpse of that crusty-topped baked corn coming steaming out of the oven in its own black skillet, the same skillet which every day turns out fried chicken and okra and catfish to make an emperor swoon. Lives are lived, inventions patented, work done, educations sought and achieved, music composed and books written, all by people whose own lives would be changed and enhanced by mere introduction to the wonderful, rich heritage which is the Southern Kitchen.

Our Southern roots are ingrained, but we are more and more every day being inundated and saturated with all the wonderful cuisines from all around the world, the sushi and the greens and wok-cooking and tagine-cooking and so many luscious amalgams and mixtures and spices and grains---it seems selfish not to share and keep sharing the glorious table spread by Southern cooks, no matter what their locale.

MISS LUCY

Miss Lucy is a Louisiana institution, like the powdered sugar on your shoes at Café du Monde and the century-simmered LSU/Ole Miss rivalry. She was raised in the good ole Cajun Cookin’ tradition, with homage paid to the Kitchen Trinity in every dish save that Strawberry Thing.

She’s a petite woman, looking much like a cross between Diane Keeton and Loretta Lynn, and quite attractive behind those 80’s glasses, which she pushes up almost as often as she stirs a pot. And stir, she does!!! I’m USED to Southern Cookin’ and except for the great wonderment at all the carbs and grease, the only thing which perturbs me about her cooking is the way she shows off her wonderful non-stick cookware, then drowns out her dialogue with loud, metal-utensil skritches and scrapes of the pot through every recipe.

I used to watch her on RFD TV, somewhere between the cattle auctions and the HeeHaw re-runs, and stepping into her kitchen, across the counter from those pots and pans redolent of simmering peppers and onions and seafood and lots of seasonings, is a step into another kind of cuisine entirely. She is so welcoming and homey, you’re time-transported to childhood and feel as if you’re sitting there watching your favorite aunt cook supper for the family---you wanna get up and start setting the table and pouring the tea.

I cook with butter; my many recipes involving Philly caused me to be christened Goddess of Lily-Gilding on a very well-known cooking website, and Heaven help me---I’ve put a can of Campbell’s Cream Of into more casseroles and gravies than you can shake a spoon at, but Oh, My!!!

The constitution of those dishes on her dashing red stove must be that of wall-spackle; by the third ingredient, that big spoon just stands there upright until she returns with yet another richly-thick item to add.

I’ve looked up her Crawfish Etouffee recipe, and the one online is not QUITE the recipe I watched her make one cold evening several years ago (before we got this new-fangled TV system which looks DOWN on country matters like the folks in 5-7-9 look at me). That pot grew and grew, from the two sticks of melted oleo to saute the peppers and onions, and start the “light roux” with some flour, to the can of Campbell’s, the blocks of Philly (scritch becoming scrape as she tried to incorporate all that paste) and then the seasonings and a coupla pounds of picked-out crawfish tails.

And she’s no wilting lily, herself---she goes out to those big metal buildings on the ponds--- those gifts to the local economy and lots of rural families; she walks in where those ladies are picking that meat, puts on her own apron and hairnet, and sits right down. You can tell a cook who knows her ingredients---and knows where they come from. She’d no more quail at dressing game or gutting a fish than she would at putting on those waist-waders and manning the nets.

I like her; I wish I could still get her program---I’ve poked fun and shown her to the family and we’ve laughed at all the folderol, but good cookin’ comes out of that kitchen, and that’s what counts. And if you broke your leg, she’d be at your door with a 9x13 of Shrimp and Cornbread Dressin’ before the plaster cast had set.

I’d love to taste some of the food which comes from her cheery red kitchen; I know it would taste good. And rich. And spicy. I’ve just wondered if maybe instead of headin’ down there to try, it might save time to just throw some creamcheese, Campbell’s and a pound of butter in the blender, and just mainline the calories.

CHOCK-LITTT CAAAAAAKE

A remembrance not my own, just written down from memories of long talks over coffee with an Aunt in Alabama.

I’ve known only two people in my life who didn’t like chocolate. One was a bit strange in other ways, as well, and the other came by her dislike honestly.

One of the Aunts on Chris’ side married very young---she was fifteen and her husband nineteen when they ran away and got hitched---they had been forbidden to see each other until she was sixteen, and it finally got the best of them. So, when all the younguns got all dressed up in sheets and charcoal-smudge whiskers and GrandDad’s oldest clothes on that still-warm Halloween night, they dressed up, too. She had worn clothes-under-clothes for several days, sneaking them out into the barn and stashing a couple of outfits and her best dress and shoes in a pillowcase beneath some old stuff stored out there.

On Halloween, she put on a long gingham skirt and and one of her Daddy’s old shirts over a dress, crammed her stockings and her Bible into her purse, and then “went walking” with the rest of the young people of the community. They were, indeed, of the soap-your-windows era, along with the tip-the-outhouse and some skylarking young gents were known to have opened the front door of a rival’s house and turned two pigs and a turkey in on his Mama’s best India rug.

Aunt Birdie Mae met her sweetheart down the road and they set out on his horse for the next county where he had kin, and where they had visited the church, and knew the preacher. So they were married the next day, staying with his kinfolks for a while, then coming home to a very cold reception from her family.

One of his married brothers had just finished building a new little house for himself and his own bride, and they asked the newlyweds if they’d like to stay with them for a bit until things cooled down. And they did, with nothing but his steady job and the clothes she had carried from home, and apparently they lived on there for quite a little time, for the main part of the story occurred on over in the hot Summer down there in Grand Bay.

The two young women got along pretty well, with the division of labor around the house and yard and milking-barn divided about 70/30, Aunt B said, in favor of the hostess. Aunt B did most of the cooking, all of the kitchen work, a lot of the animal-tending and the milking, whilst her sister-in-law quilted and tatted and made clothes all the Winter through.

Then, in the Spring, the menfolks plowed up the garden plot, and Aunt B. planted and hoed it, then canned everything that wasn’t needed for the three-meals-a-day for the four of them. It got hotter and hotter, she said (and I believe her, for we’ve lived in southern Alabama, too) and the canning seemed to stretch on forever.

The BIL and SIL would go to town almost every Saturday afternoon from the farm, getting the week’s staples such as coffee and sugar and tea, and perhaps some fabric for a new dress, and they’d spend the time visiting up and down the streets with friends and shopkeepers, always stopping at the drugstore, where they’d have a cold Cherry Phospate, sitting on those high fountain-stools and crunching that real cracked ice til the last sliver was gone.

Aunt B., seldom invited on these trips, would stay home on the place, week after week. And every Saturday, she’d pray for the couple to just get gone for a little while, just a breather from the constant companionship, so she could wash her hair and dry it in the sunshine of the yard, and sit in the swing in the shade a bit without a pan of peas to shell in her lap. The noon dinner dishes done, the floor swept, the shoes polished for church in the morning, and a bit of respite in sight, she hoped.

BIL would pull the buggy up to the yard, while SIL checked her hat in the mirror, then she’d walk out onto the porch. Aunt B. would watch her go, relief almost overtaking the fervent prayer that she’d just GO, and then it would come:

Every week without fail, SIL would stop on the porch and turn, or she’d get all the way up the step into the buggy, settle onto the seat, turn to Aunt B., tuck her head coyly, and say, "Chock-littt CAAAAAAKE, Birrrrdie,” in the most annoying voice in the universe. She’d blink her eyelashes beseechingly, with a little smile that knew she couldn’t be refused, since they were so beholden to her and her husband for the roof over their heads.

And so, Aunt B. would plod into the kitchen, get out the bowls and the spoons and the sugar and the Hershey’s can, throw some more wood into that already-glowing woodstove, and start mixing batter and frosting. I can only imagine that sometimes she didn’t plod. I like to think that some days she'd bang things around some---stove-lids and sifters, or yell out what she REALLY wanted to say in the stillness of that empty hot kitchen, or even have to go all the way out in the yard to get those cakepans and spoons from where she’d hurled them.

But she made that cake, every blessed Saturday that they lived there. She worked in that stifling kitchen every week, baking the layers and cooling and frosting, heating the whole house past bearing in that Summer sun, doing her part to help with their upkeep.

And I never DID see Aunt B. eat chocolate---not once.

GLORIA'S BIRTHDAY

Image from the Internet

My childhood friend Gloria lived in a creaky-board old house, around-a-block-and-down-the-block from Mammaw’s house---in exactly the same place on that block. But it could have been in another town or another country, compared to Mammaw’s neat yard full of flowers and brick edgings and that huge, bountiful garden out back which supplied three families’ freezers.

Gloria’s house was a ratty old thing, much bigger than Mammaw’s---good thing, for Mammaw’s three-room shotgun did well to house the four of them (and I STILL don’t know where they all slept). And Gloria had five brothers, to whom could have been laid the broken windows, the hangy-down screendoors, the screens like rump-sprung skirts, flappy-cornered on the big three-sides porch, and the absolutely naked yard all around---foot-stomped and body-slammed every day of the week.

In the Summer, the boys all slept on pallets on that porch, under those huge old trees for the cool of the night, and I don’t know how they lived through it---the screens were dark-rust blankety things, so stretched and so clogged with grime that they sucked in and out like old curtains whenever the wind blew. They were certainly not attached to the rims in enough places to foil the hordes of mosquitoes which inhabited that yard from dusk til dawn.

They lived just down the street from the “flowin’ well” and we loved to go down there and let the coldcold water run over our bare feet after we’d sorta rinsed our hands enough to cup them full of that wonderful water and get a good long drink. The “well” was an artesian flow, from a big curved red pipe, gushing out onto an area of flat pavers laid so you could walk up and fill a jug or a bucket. And in my childhood, quite a few people still did “go get water” every morning and night, up to and including for dishwashing and their baths.

The flat stones were slick and mossy in places, with the onslaught of the water making the little growth of green wave and sway like the face-fur of a dog in a car window. I’d sit on the low brick wall, watching the hypnotic dance of the green stuff, thinking how it looked like the seaweed in movies we’d seen, trancing myself into being underwater, swimming down deep.

We’d dare each other to walk the bricks, clinging tight with our toes to the slick surfaces, trying to make it past the slippery outskirts, treacherous with moss, to take one quick leap without our feet sliding out from under us, and to land in the drier grass past the ledge.

One year Gloria had a party on her birthday. I was nine, and the day is marked for me, for I never knew her to have one before, and I was the only guest. I was at Mammaw’s for the weekend, having arrived on Friday after school, and she came over and invited me on Saturday morning. Like a kid, I thought nothing of the short notice, and Mammaw got out her pocketbook and gave me a little money out of her old black snap-top change-purse.. My heart lifted when she pulled several dollars out of that tiny stronghold, but she fished around down in there and handed me four quarters, one by one.

I went to Aunt Lou’s store and pondered my choices; socks were a possibility, as were underwear in those days---we thought nothing of wrapping up a pretty pair of panties for a girlfriend’s present, and since the boxes almost always looked the same as handkerchief boxes, a discreet word to the honoree, and she’d hold up the box, say who it was from with a smile, and to the laughter of all boys present, and then slide the unopened box under her chair.

A little glass bottle, much like those in the big grocery spice-racks today, with a foil-wrapped stick of Zia cologne inside was a popular gift---I can still smell the acrid-sweet of those, as well as hear the little muffled cloomp as you shook the bottle in your hand. There was also the choice of a nylon “neck-scarf”—a foot-square scrap of nylon, mostly solid, but sometimes in checks; we all had several colors, and wore them tied off to the side of our necks, kinda like cowboys, but WAY chic.

I finally settled on a little year-diary with a tiny lock and a poodle-charm on the keychain. I appeared at the appointed time, expecting to see a table with the crinkly white paper tablecloth with HAPPY BIRTHDAY around the edges, and a balloon or two flanking the cake-with-pink-roses, which was all I had ever seen for a girl’s birthday. (Except, of course, for the cakes made and decorated at home with a set of grocery-store letters in those hanging packages, those squeezed-out-tiny-points of rock-hard icing, spelling out Happy Birthday, with a few matching candle-holders which didn’t fit any candle known to man). Those were mostly for boys, in awful color combinations like yellow and brown, and featuring rocket ships or lassos.

The cake sat on the same old bird-spattered, faded-to-gray wood picnic table we sat at most afternoons (well-scrubbed and hosed down earlier, with the dirt still damp beneath our feet). It was a “bought cake” all right, but it was an odd little thing.

Aunt Lou’s shelves always held a half-dozen or so of those---white cake, which you could plainly see through the cellophane, for they were like you’d made a LONG loaf cake,with frosting between the two layers and all around top and sides, and cut it into six-inch sections, with two cut sides naked.

There were no games or contests, unless you counted her brothers’ whooping dashes around the yard, or their swinging all up into the trees, or wrestling each other in that damp dirt.We just talked for a while at the table, sitting on those splintery planks attached to the X of the table-legs. There were no candles, but we sang, and then she took the cellophane off the cake, cut it lengthwise in half, and those each into four slices. She deftly placed the slices on eight plates, DARED her brothers to touch them, and opened the two little square cartons of “ice milk” with their dark green cardboard sides. It was fifteen cents a carton, I remember, for Mammaw might send me around the block for one now and then, to divide amongst us three for an after-supper treat.

She cut the cartons open, then sliced each little block into four. When she’d placed the first block on a plate, she directed one of the boys to “take that to Mama,” and he disappeared into the house with it. We all then ate our cake and ice cream and talked a bit around the table before the boys dived back into yelling fists-and-elbows action, I suppose showing off for the party guest.

I remember every moment of that party, as if it’s a movie I’ve watched so many times I can repeat the dialogue. My most vivid memory of it, though, is when Gloria’s Mama finally came outside; she’d stood holding the screendoor open for a moment, just framed there in her faded loose dress, then came gingerly down the steps toward us.

She collapsed into the big faded-red lawn chair, and said she hoped I’d enjoyed Gloria’s party. I said I really had, and was glad I was there that weekend. She sat, feet outstretched, regarding her immensely-swollen feet and ankles, and said, “She just told me about it this mornin’ and I wish she’d have give me more notice. I coulda cooked up some chicken-backs or somethin’.”

The simple resignation and acceptance and open-handed generosity in those words have haunted me for decades.