The Crab Chronicles

The Weird Me

Since everyone is cocooning at home at the moment and many of us [not me, I work from home] are getting bored to death, I have been seeing a lot of Facebook prompts about "getting to know you" types of lists. I confess, I find them fascinating, even if I barely know the person. So I thought I'd have some fun with one.

One of my cousins posted this: "What is something you have done that you are fairly confident you are the only person on my friends list to have
ever done?" My answer: I adopted children from Russia and Kazakhstan.

I've done a lot of unusual and/or weird things, though. Here are three related to my career as a writer.

As an 8th grader, one of my poems was published in READ magazine, a national publication. [Wikipedia: "READ Magazine was a children's classroom magazine for grades 6–10, published by Weekly Reader Corporation.^[1] It included a mix of classic and contemporary fiction and nonfiction, including plays, personal narratives, poetry, and more to help build reading comprehension and verbal skills."] I still have the magazine, somewhere. I corresponded with one of the editors, who was very encouraging about my writing, and who sent me a big box of books he thought I should read.

When I was in college, I was a member of the Zeitgeist Literary Society and we invited Allen Ginsberg to come and speak. He did it. In case you don't know, he wrote a famous poem, "Howl" basically railing against conformity. He was friends with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, pioneers of the Beat Generation. [If none of this is familiar, you need to do some research.] Anyway, Ginsberg was this really tiny little man. He read one of my poems and gave me feedback about it, which was exciting. He also came to our after party and played bongo drums and chatted with us [a bunch of UGA college kids] for hours. Refused weed or liquor, saying he didn't need it.Very cool guy.

When I was in grad school in Knoxville, I went to an autographing of books by author Rita Mae Brown at a local bookstore and got to meet her in person. Loved her work. Really admired her. Being very brash, I asked her to write in my book "To Dee Thompson, the greatest living writer since Shakespeare." She gave me a look of utter disgust after she wrote that. She didn't realize I have a very weird sense of humor. There was no time to explain it. I slunk away, clutching my book, mentally beating myself in the head with a brick because in my one and only encounter with a famous author I left her thinking I am an egotistical moron...

A few other weird things:

I always pay close attention to people's voices. I can tell you the accents of most major stars, and I can identify them by their voices without seeing their faces. I've just always found voices fascinating. Many years ago I had an interview for a paralegal job with a fairly good-sized firm here in Atlanta and one of the lawyers interviewing me had the exact same voice as Kevin Costner. I noticed it immediately. He wasn't as good looking as Costner but he was fairly attractive. I was in my 30's and still on The Great Husband Hunt. I was so distracted by Mr. Costner Voice I screwed up the interview. I could barely remember my name. It was a disaster. He walked me out to the elevator and I couldn't resist asking him "Has anyone ever told you that you have the same voice as Kevin Costner?" He said no, and looked at me like I was a nutcase.

I have always had a problem with insomnia, but over the years I have learned to 1) take Melatonin and 2) hypnotize myself to sleep. Seriously. I could give a TED Talk on strategies for getting a good night's sleep. Even so, I still occasionally sleep very badly.

My father sometimes comes to me in dreams and gives me information I can use in my waking life. He told me to adopt my son when I was pondering what to do -- and in the dream he told me Michael lost his hand due to a bullying incident. I noted it in my journal. At that time I had no idea how my son had lost his hand. Later it blew my away that Dad had relayed to me something I had no knowledge of and nobody had told me. / I've had a number of unusual experiences like that and collectively, all those fuel my belief in otherworldly phenomena, like ghosts, ESP, etc. [I tend to be highly skeptical of other people's experiences, though, unless we're talking about a close friend.]

The smell of eucalyptus makes me nauseated.

For most of my life I slept on my right side, and flipped around all night. After having some back issues about 8 years ago I trained myself to sleep on my back, perfectly still.

I've never had a pedicure, nor do I want one. The idea of someone touching my feet grosses me out.

I have never cared about fashion or trends but for years I was a Crocs-aholic. I only wore Crocs. I had about 2 dozen pairs, from the sandals to the boots. Then I became allergic to them, and had to throw them all away. Literally every pair made my feet itch horribly.

I am also allergic to every brand of contact lens solution out there.

Every time I wear the color mint green, something bad happens. Mint green is a bad luck color for me.

I always hated ketchup, my entire childhood. When I got to college I started ordering chicken fingers from a local takeout place and fell in love with the "red sauce" they always served with them which was -- you guessed it -- ketchup.

I love deep pile, luxurious wall to wall carpet. If I could afford it, every room in my house would have it except the foyer, kitchen and bathrooms.

[below, my student id from my UGA days. No wonder I always got carded when I tried to buy liquor...]

 

Talking Like Mama

I was nearly grown before I realized that my mother had her own language, and not everybody knew it. We spoke fluent mama at my house, me and my brother, from an early age. It's a very expressive language, very southern.

Let me give you an example.

In mama's language there are normal vegetables and there are vegetables of great beauty which should be praised and admired. "Ooooh look at those squashes. Aren't they beautiful?!" she will say, her voice filled with awe and wonder.

Looks like a squash to me. Whoopedy doo. I think that, but I don't say it out loud because I don't want to incur the death ray glare that says You have no idea what a beautiful thing that squash is and I am wondering if I raised you right.

Nobody wants to see that look, trust me. Mama's eyes are enormous and very very blue and they can melt lead.

Often that glare happens when she says the word VULGAR. When I was three years old I knew the meaning of that word. Didn't stop me from picking my nose, but I knew it was vulgar. I just didn't care. [Because I have always disdained being ladylike, I have grown immune to Mama pointing out my vulgar language, vulgar makeup, vulgar shirt that doesn't fully cover my fanny, etc.] It's still a word you rarely hear any more, although there is a very funny lady comedian from Knoxville Tennessee who uses it, Leanne Morgan, and it's hilarious when she says it.

If one is preparing to do something Mama might say "He's fixin' to get married" or "I'm fixin' to run to the store." Of course, once one is at the Piggly Wiggly, one grabs a buggy, for the groceries. [I love the word "groceries" because it reminds me of my dad. He always said "If that ain't good, grits ain't groceries!"]

Of course, Mama always frowned when Dad said "ain't." We were taught not to say it. ["It sounds trashy!"]

Some people have good manners, and Mama would say they were Raised Right. Others, who act ugly, were clearly not Raised Right.

left, a photo of my grandparents, a camellia, and an adorable napkin commemorating Mama-speak; you can order it or dishtowels, totes, aprons, etc. at my friend Stacy's website Down South House and Home. 

Little girls are supposed to be precious. That means they act ladylike. Of course, they aren't always precious. I could only attain that honorific when asleep. I was stubborn and bossy and came into the world with HOT MESS practically stamped on my forehead. As a toddler, I liked to run around the house nekkid and eat Purina dog food. I got through that phase pretty quick but not before ruining a dinner party.. [below right, my grandmother and some of her siblings - including several precious girls]

FAT PEOPLE

In Mama's world there are at least three kinds of fat.

"Well look at her! She's a big girl," is Mama-speak for She could lose a few..

"Oh my word. She is gobby fat," means she is REALLY FAT. [BTW "fat" has two syllables, as in Fay-ut.]

"Look at her. She used to be so cute and now she is HAWG FAT. [In other words, it takes a committee to get her into her blue jeans]

 

RICH PEOPLE

There are several different kinds of wealth, in Mama's world. Her maternal grandfather Robert E. Butler was rich. He owned a number of businesses in Cobb County and he set all his sons up in car dealerships at a time when cars were new technology. My grandmother grew up in a world of servants and privilege. They were RICH, the Butlers.

They were not, however, BIG RICH. Bill Gates is Big Rich.

above, one of Grandaddy's businesses, Butler Marble Works [side note: by The Great Depression the Butlers were not rich any more]

UGLY

This is a word that has two meanings. It could pertain to behavior, as in "When we get to Memaw's house you better not act ugly or I'll tan your hide."

Ugly could also describe people. Dad heard a comedian say once "Beauty may be skin deep but ugly goes to the bone." Thereafter, Bone Ugly was heard occasionally.

EXTRA R's

I don't know where she heard it, but Mama has always said "warsh" instead of "wash."

She also says "Chicargo" instead of "Chicago."

In 8th grade health class I missed making 100 on a test because I spelled the word "cholesterol" wrong. My parents both pronounced it "Chloresterol." I was flabbergasted to discover it doesn't, in fact, have two R's in it.

 

I hope you've enjoyed the lesson in how to speak like Mama. If your mama has her own language please leave me a comment below.

Housecleaning Hacks for Lazy People

When I was a kid my father insisted we clean our rooms periodically, and I had no problem with that. My dad loved all things military so our rooms had to pass inspection before we could play or do anything else, usually on a Saturday.

I would zip around and throw dirty clothes and clutter under the bad, in the closet, stuffed into drawers, etc. Dad would open the door, see a room that looked neat as a pin, and I was good to go. Thank God he didn't run his finger over the tabletops or open the closet door.

My brother would be in his room, patiently cleaning out each dresser drawer, making sure the clothes were folded precisely. The bed would be unmade, dust and clutter everywhere, but those dresser drawers would look awesome.

I thought of that last weekend when Michael and I got back from the beach. My brother had already left. I had left a "To Do" list in case he got bored caretaking for Elva, which isn't a full-time job. He didn't do anything on the list. He did all my son's laundry, which was very nice. He also cleaned out my freezer. So Mike has clean clothes, my freezer looks amazingly beautiful, and Mom and Lola are fine and dandy, but the rest of the house...

When I lived alone my condo was always neat as a pin. I was an obsessively neat person by then, even to the point of dusting fairly often. I did serious cleaning up every Saturday. Took about 20 minutes. Now, years later, I live with an 85 year old lady, my 23 year old son, and a slightly incontinent Basset Hound. My house is never clean. I gave up on that long ago. I settle for a "doesn't stink / doesn't look like a hoarder house" level of cleanliness.

However, I have come up with some housecleaning tips that work, if you are ok with my level of clean...

 

1) GET A DOG! If you have kids that spill food a lot, a dog is your best friend. You will never clean up food off the floor again. If you get an acrobatic dog like Lola, she will keep the kitchen counters clean, too, with her 19 inch reptilian tongue...

2) PAY YOUR KIDS! Kids really don't like cleaning, typically, but if you will take what you would normally pay a maid, reduce it by 50-80%, and offer that amount to your kids, you will be amazed. I wanted some floors mopped before we went on vacation, and the hall bathroom upstairs cleaned, and my son did it for far less than any of the maid services I contacted would have charged. At 23, he always wants beer money.

3) THROW A PARTY! Yes, you will need to spend a little $$ on food but if you're like me, and party guests are coming in a hour, you will be AMAZED at how your dirty, cluttered house will be suddenly transformed. Embarrassment is a great motivator. It will help if you drink an energy drink or big cup of coffee before starting your beat-the-clock cleaning. Just don't hide clutter so well that you have no idea where you put it later... BTDT

below, the refreshment table at Mom's 80th birthday party a few years ago

4) DE-CLUTTER! Yes, if something doesn't bring you joy or you are done making payments on it, throw a big yard sale and get rid of it. OR sell it on Facebook. A lot of folks I know are turning away from e-bay and embracing Facebook, where you can sell anything.

5) MOVE! Yes, this is a drastic step, but when you are faced with paying someone to move all your crap, you'll be amazed at how you suddenly are motivated to buy heavy duty garbage bags and take a few runs to Goodwill. Then you have to clean the house to show it to potential buyers, or clean the apartment so you can get your deposit back.

me at the beach condo last week-

this photo has nothing to do with this post, just thought you might be curious to see what I look like. Why I wasn't positioned with the ocean behind me, I don't know...

 

Fitting In

I spent most of my childhood thinking that one day, if I did everything right, I might just be able to Fit In. Normal never applied to me but I saw that as an embarrassment. Fitting In was the goal.

I will just say right here and now that I never Fit In.

When we moved from Augusta to Knoxville in 1971 I was in the third grade and I was put into a classroom of really smart kids, all of whom were on the accelerated track. Keeping up in school was scary. I didn't know my multiplication tables yet. I didn't wear cute hair ribbons. The other kids said "You talk funny!"

I was painfully shy in school. At home, I wasn't shy at all. In fact, I was a Hot Mess -- talking, yelling, asking a million questions, jumping on beds and turning cartwheels and demanding my brother play with me and mama teach me to cook.

I was also extremely independent and stubborn.

Mom said she offered to potty train me when I was 2 or 3, and I refused, saying "Show me what to do and I will train myself." She put a stack of panties in my room, explained what to do, and I actually did train myself. My father used to laugh and say my favorite phrase was "I'D RATHER DO IT MYSELF!"

I did not ever want to be obedient and go along with what everyone wanted me to do, but my parents usually got me to behave.

School was a foreign place, however. School was a place where my personality scared the other kids. My size scared them. They didn't know what to make of me, I'm sure.

I would have thrived in a Montessori school, where I could learn at my own pace. Unfortunately, Dad didn't go along with that idea, probably for financial reasons.

"Normal" kids actually scared me into shyness because I must have sensed that I was not normal. I wasn't ever destined to Fit In. The fact that I grew very fast from birth to age 10 was problematic. I was always taller than the other kids, and chubby. I always looked like a kid that had been held back and was older than the other kids. I looked out of place.

Left - photos made shortly after we moved into our house in Knoxville.

Many years would pass before I would realize that the fact that I didn't fit in was actually a blessing. It forced me to entertain myself, and the way I did that was by becoming a voracious reader. Books were my ticket out of my mundane (and often uncomfortable) life. I had a lot of good influences pushing me towards books. Both my parents loved to read. My brother loved to read.

Finding good books to read was the family obsession. I remember going to the library and getting grocery sacks full of books so that everyone would have something to read for the next week. I read the entire children's section of the Appleby Branch Library in Augusta and the Farragut branch library in Knoxville.

The fact that I always had my nose in a book didn't endear me to my peers, however. In fact, I'm sure they thought I was just weird.

I made no close friends in 3rd or 4th grades. In 5th grade I finally made one friend at school, and we were friends all through middle school. Then in 10th grade my friend became obsessed with boys and I didn't, and we had a big fight and that ended our friendship. My friend had only a sister, and she had no idea what boys were really like. I tried to explain to her how mean and dirty and weird boys were, how icky it was to share a bathroom with my brother, etc. and she just thought I was weird. [And no, I'm not gay.]

Teenage hormones are wicked. I had them as bad as anyone else, but I trained myself to bury myself in books and ignore anything unpleasant. Unlike some of my peers I wasn't prancing around in short shorts and high-heeled Candies, looking for a date. I also wasn't the opposite, a Christian Kid -- a member of Young Life. I didn't go to the ginormous Presbyterian church in Knoxville where are the popular kids attended. Talking about Jesus and being "saved" made me really uncomfortable because that wasn't done in my church, the Episcopal Church.

I say all this to demonstrate that we need to identify and nurture kids who don't Fit In, and get them around peers who are on their same intellectual and emotional level. I was really smart and most of my peers were just normal kids. Some were smart, like me, but the girls usually didn't let on. Girls are taught early not to appear to be smarter than boys. I can remember my grandmother telling me to let boys win sometimes when we played games. They never let me win at kickball or 4 square, so why should I play dumb and let them win, I wondered? Besides, I enjoyed beating them at games.

I remember in 6th grade there was a core group of super smart kids that were always singled out by my social studies teacher, and I longed to be in that group. They were all boys. We would play games in class and I would almost beat those smart boys but usually they clobbered me. One of those boys went on to become a doctor and two of them became engineers, just FYI.

If I had been able to take advanced classes that would have been great. I never qualified for those in high school because I am terrible at taking standardized tests. Huge test anxiety. I also suck at math. True Nerds and Geeks are usually good at all subjects. Not me.

So I didn't fit in with the "normal" kids and I couldn't get into the Geeky subgroups of Really Smart Kids. Most of the Geeky boys wanted nothing to do with me, probably because they were distracted by my enormous boobs. Additionally, I was short and chubby. In high school, suddenly all the kids had hit growth spurts and I had stopped growing, so I was short.

There's another issue. If you are a short woman with big boobs nobody is going to look at you and think you have a very high IQ. Add to that a name ["Dee"] which sounds like a nickname, or the name of a very old cashier at the Piggly Wiggly, and the chances of Fitting In dwindle to zero. For a while in elementary school I asked people to call me "Cordelia" -- the name of the grandmother who I was named for -- but that wasn't my ticket to social stardom. The other kids just thought it was weird. They also didn't understand that my name "Dee" was a diminutive of hers. That phase didn't last long.

There were days when I desperately wished my name were something normal like Susan, Karen, Kimberly, or Amy.

left - me in about 4th grade, already with boobs

I'm also pretty sure some of the girls in high school were jealous of my rack.

Some boys were quite rude about the boobage. A cute boy on the swim team who had never spoken to me before sat next to me on the bus going to a swim meet one day and told me a knock knock joke.

"Knock knock" he said to me.

"Who's there?" I answered casually, trying to hide my excitement that he would actually speak to me.

"Emerson," he responded, grinning.

"Emerson who?" I answered.

"Emerson big boobs you got there!" he chortled.

I was astounded by that sort of crudeness, and angry that he didn't see any of my smartness, or talent at swimming or singing or writing. Nope, he just saw boobs.

 

I think today it's a lot easier to be outside the norm. Kids today might wear earrings in their eyebrows or clothes that don't match and not suffer socially because of it.

Here's to all of us who didn't Fit In, whether because of being bigger than our peers, or smarter, or having bigger boobs, or for whatever reason. We can still lead happy lives, and find other misfits to hang out with. I'm living proof...

 

Really Stupid Stuff I've Done

A friend of mine on Facebook just posted a little essay about his high school years and I read that and wracked my brain trying to recall him in high school. I don't. Of course, he was a year or two ahead of me and I don't even recall everyone in my own class. There were more than 500 of us just in my year. It was a zoo.

He was a Cool Kid, however.

I was NOT a Cool Kid. I was not even in the same zip code as those kids. The fact that a former Cool Kid is willing to be Facebook friends with a Hopeless Nerd like myself is a testament to the power of Facebook, I suppose. Facebook is a social media haven for the over-50 crowd. (Apparently the youngsters prefer Instagram and Snapchat, or so I'm told.)

Anyway, as I told my son recently, the greatest source of frustration for many parents is that we remember all the stupid stuff we did when we were young and we desperately want to pass along the painful lessons we learned so our own kids won't do the SAME stupid stuff.

But life doesn't work that way, I'm sorry to say.

So here, in no particular order, are some of the really stupid things I did when I was young. You see, even though I was a Hopeless Nerd, I didn't hang out with any kids who had much more sense than I did. No, I mostly hung out with anyone who was nice to me. I was an honorary member of many cliques but a leader in none.

FAST AND CURIOUS -- When I was a Freshman in high school at Farragut, I was on the staff of The Crow's Nest, the school newspaper. I went with a girl named Connie and another student whose name escapes me to deliver the newspaper to the printer in Lenoir City, just down the road. Connie thought it would be fun on the way back to do 100 mph on a 4 lane road. It's a miracle we weren't killed.

THE THRILL HILL GANG -- There was a road that ran somewhere behind West Town Mall that was very hilly and we liked to drive down it going as fast as possible. By "we" I mean myself tagging along with my older brother and his crazy friends. We also liked to blow up mailboxes, and drink Boone's Farm wine. One time there was a farting contest that involved aerosol cans, and.... I'll just let you figure out the rest. I was a tomboy and I liked being "one of the guys." I always threatened to tell Mom and Dad if Bruce didn't let me go along. One thing he wouldn't do is let me tag along when he and his buddy Jim would go over to the Dixie Lee Drive In and watch movies hiding in the bushes, so they didn't have to pay.

THE MILK CRATE BANDITS -- Skip ahead to my college years. I was a Freshman at a small college near Knoxville and it was a Baptist school, filled with very proper and religious Baptist Youth. I did not hang out with those kids. I hung out with the Wild Girls whose parents sent them to that strict little religious school in hopes of reforming them. It didn't work. I was not in any way a Wild Girl, but they were a lot more fun to hang out with than the prim and proper girls. One night, out of boredom, it was decided we would steal milk crates from a local dairy. Plastic milk crates were very popular in dorm rooms. I never moved so fast as I did stealing those plastic boxes from behind that dairy. I got in the car, it sped off, and my heart started racing. I pictured the look on my father's face if he had to come bail me out of jail, and I nearly threw up. That was the first and last time I ever stole anything.

SMOKING - I started smoking when I was a Freshman in college, because it was one of the few things I could do to rebel. We weren't supposed to drink, smoke, or dance. Every Friday night those of us Freshmen girls who didn't have dates would gather in someone's room, smoke, pass around a bottle of some sort of booze, put on records, and dance. I didn't start seriously smoking until a few years later, after I had graduated, but it was a bad habit for 15 years, alas. Now I don't smoke, drink, or dance...

THE CONDOM CAR -- I was out of college and working my first job when a friend and I decided to prank a guy friend who was on a date. We found his car parked outside a restaurant where he was on a date with a very snobby rich girl we couldn't stand. We had taken an entire box of condoms and pulled them out of the packets and stretched them to look "used" and draped them all over his nice car. It looked horrible. Then we hid and watched his reaction when he came out after dinner. I should have had more sense by then, but I obviously didn't.

HILLBILLY GOLF -- I was in my early 20's and some friends and I got stoned and drove to Gatlinburg and played miniature golf at a course on a mountainside, called Hillbilly Golf. We thought we were hilarious. We laughed so hard that other golfers looked at us askance. I don't think any of us ever managed to hit the ball in the hole on the first try - we whacked the balls, giggled, whacked them some more, giggled some more. Amazing we weren't carted off to the loony bin.

HOT TUB VOMIT MACHINE -- I went to a party at my parents' next door neighbor's house when I was house-sitting for Mom and Dad. I was drinking beer that afternoon. Mom and Dad lived on Melton Hill Lake. The hostess served us a big shrimp salad for dinner. She was not a good cook, so I decided to drink some more to wash it down. Then she pulled out a bottle of decent champagne so I switched to that. At some point we were all in the pool, after dinner. I decided to get up and wander around the very large deck, and I came across the hot tub. I leaned over to feel of the water and see how hot it was and fell in. Let me tell you this: if you are drunk and you fall into a vat of boiling water, you are very miserable. I was screaming and screaming but nobody came to help me get out because the stereo was playing very loud music. I finally managed to haul myself out, then I went back to my parents' house and spent a while in the bathroom, vomiting up everything I had eaten for several days. That was the last time I got drunk. I was cured. I still shudder at even the mention of a "hot tub." That was about 30 years ago.

Amazing I survived those years without being incarcerated, maimed, or permanently disfigured...

below, a rare photo of me from 1978, age 16, cutting the cake at my cousin's wedding...

 

We Were Tough

Hey Millennials! Yes, you, Sweetheart. Stop texting for a second and READ. Here are a some facts to blow your minds!

1) We didn't have "play dates" - we knocked on our friend's door and asked their mama if they could play. If they couldn't, we went to the next house.

2) If broccoli was on the table at dinner time, you ate it. Mama didn't make you a special organic gluten-free nut-free souffle of helicopter parenting nutritional wholesomeness. You ate your vegetables, period. [If you didn't eat it, you risked a butt whooping.]

3) If you played sports, you didn't have to be an Olympic trainee. Mediocrity was not punished. You could semi-suck at hitting or kicking the ball, without seeing a daddy lose his mind on the sidelines.

4) School supplies? Paper and pencils. Maybe a new binder and a big pink eraser to chew on. $10 at most.

5) We came home from school and took off our good school clothes and put on play clothes. Wearing school clothes and getting them dirty playing kickball? Watch out. Possible butt whooping on the horizon, when Daddy got home.

6) Hand-me-downs from siblings and cousins were just fine. No kids demanded name brand designer anything. Your mama went to K-mart, you got 2 new outfits, and you were set for the year.

7) We took our gym clothes to school in a plastic bag Mama got from a store for free, not a $150 gym bag. ["Gym clothes" were tee shirts and shorts, and tennis shoes that usually came from K-Mart. I wore only Keds until 7th grade.]

8) We didn't play games on phones. Oh, unless you mean making prank calls, in the good old days before caller ID. It was delightful to call drugstores and ask "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?!?" When they said yes, we screamed "You BETTER LET HIM OUT!" Slamming down that indestructible phone receiver was sooooo satisfying.

9) If you made a bad grade at school it was YOUR fault, not the teacher's fault.You might get a butt whooping but your teacher wasn't to blame.

10) We got bored sometimes and Mom and Dad didn't give a rat's ass. They were not there to entertain us. "Go find something to do or I'll give you something to do!" was guaranteed to make you get your behind out of their sight right quick.

11) We had chores. Before age 10, I could clean the house and prepare a simple meal. At age 8 many of us we were making up beds, running the vacuum, maybe even washing dishes, or drying them. Nobody called social services.

12) Birthday parties were a big deal if you got to go to a child's house and play pin the tail on the donkey. There were no elaborate outings to Chuckie Cheese or McDonald's, with swag for each attendee. If you got a cake at the roller skating rink it was a Big Deal.

13) We drank out of garden hoses. I had never seen bottled water until I was in my mid 20's.

14) If the dog got run over we buried him in the backyard and possibly had a funeral. Nobody contacted a Pet Crematorium or had bereavement counseling.

15) We were taught to address grownups with respect. In the South, we had to say M'am or Sir, and failing to do so was a punishable offense.

16) Good manners were drilled into us. We were not allowed to "talk back" or be disrespectful to grownups. We weren't allowed to interrupt grownup conversations.In fact, I heard "Children will not speak unless they are spoken to," many times. [In contrast, I had dinner with an acquaintance a few years ago who let his 9 year old dominate the conversation during dinner, and his father said, beaming with pride, "Doesn't he have a marvelous vocabulary?! I don't want to stifle his expression." I never ate dinner with them again.]

17) When I was a kid we weren't allowed to bother folks. If we pitched a fit in a store or restaurant we were taken outside, and we were lucky if we got a lecture instead of a paddling.

18) Going to movies was a big deal - you went to the theater, and had to behave yourself. It cost $1.50 - $3. That was a big treat. Even decades later I can tell you what everyone got: Mom got Junior Mints, Brother got Milk Duds, Dad got a huge tub of buttered popcorn, and I ate some popcorn and 1 or 2 Milk Duds for dessert.

19) We said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning at school. Nobody complained. Nobody took a knee or sat it out. By the time I was 8 I also could sing America the Beautiful, My Country Tis of Thee, and It's a Grand Old Flag.

20) Most of us were taken to church (or temple) on a regular basis, and we wore church clothes, clothes we couldn't get dirty.There were no live bands or people wearing blue jeans. Afterwards, you had Sunday Dinner -- fried chicken, biscuits, green beans, jello salad, chocolate cake. Then you sat around and spent the afternoon digesting, and made sure the front room was tidy in case somebody dropped by.

21) We had a black and white TV until I was 8, and we only got 2 channels clearly. Then we got a ginormous color TV when we moved to Tennessee, and we had 3 channels. I was in hog heaven. The phrase "Shut off that TV and GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY!" was often heard, however.

 

I didn't realize until I was a grownup that my parents were stricter than most about some things. We always had to drink a glass of milk at dinner. Always. We were taught to shake hands and look people in the eye when we met them. When we went out to dinner my brother and I had to wear "school clothes" or "church clothes" and behave ourselves, even if we just went to the S&S Cafeteria. We had to use a knife and fork properly, and keep our elbows off the table when we ate.

I was taught basic sewing by Mom and basic car maintenance by Dad.

And so on.

You know what? I am glad I grew up when I did. I doubt little girls today could make a decent mud pie, sew on a button, or use a dipstick properly...

 

Above, me at my brother's 6th birthday party. As a toddler, I often chose nudity on hot days. Nobody cared. Mom would slap some Sea & Ski [sunscreen] on me if it was a sunny day, but she was considered weirdly overprotective...

Angry Old Men

Years ago there was a movie called 12 Angry Men. I only vaguely remember it but I am betting the men were all over 50. I have observed in my life that most men over fifty, or perhaps sixty, get angry a lot.

Think of Clint Eastwood, who once was a real hottie, and now personifies the GET OFF MY LAWN brand of angry old guys.

My father died at 65. For the last few years of his life he was angry all.the.time. Not angry at the usual culprits -- politics, religion, sports. No, he was angry about random stuff. For instance, after he retired he got angry because Mom and I refused to be barked at like his secretaries.

He got angry if he couldn't find something at the grocery store.

He was very angry at feminism, particularly Sally Field. I never figured that one out, except I guessed maybe he saw a photo from the movie Norma Rae, the one where she's holding a sign that says "UNION." Dad hated unions and feminists.

If you mentioned the words "Jane Fonda" to him he would have a conniption fit right in front of you. I tried to tease him about it once and he had a DEFCON 4 Mega Conniption that I think caused a small earthquake on the opposite side of the world. 

Full disclosure: I was [and still am] a feminist. I'm not an angry "I hate all men" type of feminist, just a garden variety one, advocating for things like women getting paid the same as men for doing the same job.

My brother, who is turning sixty this year, is already deep into Angry Old Man territory.

He often decides that something I have told him is nonsense. He recently said to me, "We're not Cherokee at all." This despite my actual knowledge that one of our maternal great-great-grandmothers was, in fact, half Cherokee.

On a recent visit I heard: "There's nothing wrong with your shoulder, Dee."

Years ago I was told by a doctor that I was born missing a bone in my shoulder, a birth defect which makes it impossible for me to do big things like swing a tennis racquet or throw a bowling ball with any accuracy. I can type really well but that involves my fingers a lot more than my shoulders. I can also play the piano, cook, etc. Just don't ask me to throw or hit a baseball -- ironic, since my grandfather Bob Hasty was a major league baseball player.

One day about a year ago my brother opined that all the companies with the DNA tests were ripoffs, just making stuff up. "They get all that spit and they throw it away and just make up stuff and tell you a few weeks later. It's just a ripoff," he scoffed.

"Then how did they know Michael is part Mongolian?" I pointed out. "His name is Michael Thompson. How did they pick Mongolia, a country right next door to Northern Kazakhstan, where he was born?" Brother had no answer to that. He allowed maybe, just maybe, he was mistaken.

For Christmas last year, Mom gave him a 23andMe DNA test kit.

He has a lot of German in him. I'll just let that sink in.

I have a theory about Angry Old Men.

I think they are angry because they are getting old. Men usually have big egos about their ability to make a fire, mow a lawn in 90 degree heat, grill a perfect steak, choose a good stock to buy, etc. Those types of things are part of the Man Code.

[Ever notice men have to deal with a Man Card but women don't have a Woman Card? We are blessed to be cardless.]

Just to be clear, the Man Code doesn't involve stuff like making a perfect souffle or accessorizing. It involves macho accomplishments. It's also about being physically strong.

Getting up 3 times a night to pee is not part of the Man Code but it's part of being an old man.

Trimming the hair growing out of your nose and ears is also part of being an old man.

I truly think some men get angry because they know they are sliding closer to something they cannot control: death.

Now, I know some guys who totally aren't angry. They are, in fact, delightful. My friend David Moore who is head of the Historic Oakland Foundation is never angry and obnoxious. He works at a cemetery, though. He's made his peace with death.

I also have a cousin who is a pastor at a Presbyterian church, and he's a few years older than me. He's the most mellow, non-angry guy I know.

I think men who don't fear death aren't angry.

Look, everyone gets old. As Bette Davis once said "Old age ain't for sissies."

I don't like a lot of things about getting older, like having to shave chin hairs, never sleeping through the night any more, and wondering why my hair always looks weird. Getting old is not fun.

However, it's better than the alternative. Any time I wake up on this side of the dirt is a good day.

I try to be patient with Angry Old Men, even my brother. I also love to prove to him he's wrong. [It's the best part of my job as a Little Sister.]

Excuse me while I go get an x-ray of my shoulder, just for fun...

If You're Raised Right You'll Be Sweet

I was thinking today how much my mother and grandmother influenced how I talk, and how often I say things I heard them say. They influenced me in every way, but particularly in regard to my speech patterns and language.

Memaw used to say “That’ll come back and bite you,” talking about something bad you’ve done that will boomerang on you – a/k/a bad karma. (A more old-fashioned way to say the same thing is “You reap what you sow.”)

Memaw also liked to say “It’s just as easy to love a rich man as it is a poor one.” HINT HINT DEE (LOL)

When I was a child I was never allowed to say “Shut up.” It was rude. I could say “Hush” like my mother did, as in “Hush crying, we’re fixing to go to the movies.”

Or -- “Hush up. Nobody needs to hear that sass.”

“You better hush crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about.” [Mom actually never said that, just Dad.]

Being smart-mouthed and using backtalk were strictly forbidden. Example: “You better hush up that backtalk or you’ll have to go cut me a switch.”

"Cut me a switch" meant I was fixing to get a spanking.

Everything and everyone had a category.

Memaw rated females on different degrees of attractiveness. The highest accolades were “perfectly beautiful” or “she looks like a movie actress.”

An unattractive girl? “She has a sweet face.”

I wish I had a nickel for every time I was told “You be sweet, you hear?” or something like “Y’all be sweet to Miz Jones, she’s been down in the back.”

There are varying degrees of rich, in my mother’s world. There’s “well off” – which could mean a lot of things but it hints at only modest wealth. Similarly, “He’s got some money,” means he doesn’t have to worry about paying bills but he’s not Big Rich. The highest wealth designation is “Big Rich” – reserved for someone like Warren Buffet or Bill Gates. Of course, there’s always New Rich – new money, only worthy of disdain.

Fatness is another important source of colloquialisms, at least in my house. My grandmother thought no woman should ever go out in public without wearing a corset or a girdle, so she had a lot to say about weight.

In my house growing up, there were two categories: regular fat and Hog Fat. Someone who was Hog Fat might need farm equipment to get up out of a chair. Regular fat people just huffed and puffed a bit going up the stairs, maybe because they drank too many co colas.

 “Skinny as a snake,” is one I heard in East Tennessee. Mom occasionally says “She’s just skin and bones.”

There are really no colorful expressions for medium-sized people, only the very fat or the very thin. Medium people are boring, I suppose.

I am always fixing to do something. Fixing to go to the store. Fixing to eat. I also say “fix” instead of “cook” oftentimes, something I never thought about until a friend from California pointed it out – like any Southerner, I say things like “I’m fixing grits and eggs for breakfast.”

I love to exaggerate, like all southerners. My daughter pointed out years ago my overuse of “Big Ol” as in, “Here’s a Big Ol mess the dog made, dang it.” Or "I have a Big Ol headache."

A very important designation in the south is whether or not someone was Raised Right. Here are some ways to tell:

• If he’s sweet to his mama, goes to church, loves baseball or college football and has good manners he was Raised Right.
• If she can’t cook, never goes to church, always has bra straps peeking out and cusses too much she was NOT Raised Right.
• If a child doesn’t interrupt grownups, has good table manners, says M’am and Sir, and is sweet to younger kids he is likely being Raised Right.
• If a man holds a door open for a female, helps her in and out of the car, won’t let her carry something heavy, and never forgets Mother’s Day, he was Raised Right.
• If a young women has multiple face piercings, thinks you can cook biscuits in a microwave, and has never read the bible, she was not Raised Right.
• If a man can’t hold his liquor, never heard of Earl Scruggs, or he drinks unsweetened tea, he wasn’t Raised Right.
• Whether regular or Hog Fat, if a woman’s behind jiggles obviously when she walks, she was not Raised Right. It’s okay to have a Swing On Your Back Porch, but jiggling buttocks are just plain scandalous, if you’re over 50. (People my son’s age never express an opinion on jiggling, likely because the girls all jiggle around in yoga pants…)
• If you are not southern you are exempt from these designations. There is little or no chance you were Raised Right, Bless Your Heart.

One of my favorite Christmas gifts was an apron from Down South House and Home that says Raised Right. My friend Stacy has so many cute dishtowels, tote bags, and more, with colorful southern sayings on them. Check out all her darling things.

I need to sign off and go fix lunch. Y’all be sweet.

Thanksgiving Ideas for Those Who Don't Cook

I love to cook. My mom and brother love to cook. So does my son. We are a family that cooks. When there's a potluck, we enjoy figuring out what delicious dish to take. My brother memorized our family pecan pie recipe years ago.

Not everyone cooks, however. 

I remember a female attorney I worked for bragging how she couldn't cook a thing. I always thought that was such a shame, since she had two little boys. Poor kids ate a lot of sandwiches and cereal, she admitted. Lots of takeout. 

I digressed. 

Not everyone invited to a Thanksgiving feast should take food. If you can't cook, don't try. You don't want your family to suffer.

When my dad died a friend of mom's brought a bunch of food to the house the next day. My brother and I thanked her profusely. As soon as her car was out of the driveway the debate started. Should we eat it? [NO! She was a terrible cook.] Should we give it to others in the family? [NO! They were suffering enough already.] Should we give it to neighbors? [NO! We liked the neighbors.] Feed it to the dog? [NO! We didn't want to make the dog sick.] Compost? [NO! Mom and Dad didn't have a compost heap.] It went in the trash.

So if you cannot cook and you have to contribute something, volunteer to bring sodas and ice, or paper plates and cutlery, or napkins. Volunteer to do cleanup duty. Offer to decorate the table -- and get on Pinterest, fast.

Offer to bring the pies. Most grocery stores offer ready-made pumpkin and pecan pies, or there are Edwards pies in the freezer section.

Even better, go to Honeybaked Ham and pick up a couple of lbs. of ham and/or turkey, or an entire ham. Or go to a local place like we have here, Matthews, and pick up food made skillfully by professionals. 

Don't try to learn to cook, though. Not when the pressure is on, like that.

It's a day to give thanks, not fight over the bottle of Tums. 

The Demise of English?

I have stopped counting the number of times I have seen ungrammatical memes on Facebook, or posts or Tweets that use improper English. Somehow, half of the world never learned the difference between "your" and "you're." Comma splices? No problemo. Sentence fragments?! Adorable!

Most people have no clue about The Horrors of Bad English. I see grammar mistakes and they leap off the page and slap me upside the head and make me want to scream. 

So how did I go from being the child who audibly groaned when asked to diagram a sentence in 6th grade to an adult who cannot tolerate bad grammar or the horror of a misplaced comma?

English was my bugaboo as a small child. I much preferred numbers. Numbers are straightforward and simple -- at least before you have to start learning Algebra. Arithmetic -- now that's where I could shine. In fourth grade a friend of mine taught me how to do math in my head, and I became a whiz at that. I see numbers in my head and it's much easier for me to calculate, say, 25% off, than it is for my son. 

I was reminded the other day of the endless, torturous hours learning to diagram sentences when I saw a funny meme about it. 

Here's a fun fact: I had the same English teacher all 4 years of middle school except for 7th grade. Sometime after I went on to high school she stopped teaching English, and for the last 30+ years she has only taught middle school social studies. I don't think I drove her away -- I think it was her disgust at how bad most of her students were at diagramming sentences.

I still remember the torture of sitting there in her classroom, diagramming sentences. I can still pick out the subject and verb in any sentence, and all dependent and independent clauses, though -- blindfolded and under heavy anesthesia just for fun. 

Seriously. 

I mean, I literally cringe when I see nouns and verbs disagreeing in a sentence. [I am a bit perturbed by the overuse of the word "literally" these days...]

English was not always uniform, or rigid. Spelling was fast and loose until the last hundred years or so.

If you look at the history of the English language you learn a lot about gumbo. Yep, English is like the gumbo of languages -- a whole lot of other folks threw in words that became part of English. Now it's a tasty stew, delightful to native English speakers, not always palatable to those trying to learn it. 

English is composed of a lot of appropriated words.

The Vikings gave us these: run, husband, egg, knife. 

The French gave us these: fruit, people, liberty. 

"Spanish also had an influence on American English (and subsequently British English), with words like canyon, ranch,stampede and vigilante being examples of Spanish words that entered English through the settlement of the American West."

I could write a book about all the words we took from other languages, but who would read it?!

Spelling is also a bugaboo for many people. It's easy for me. I rarely mess up spelling. 

All these are fun little facts about English but what I started to write about here was the fact that English is also like Rodney Dangerfield these days, not getting any respect. 

Kids are not being drilled in grammar and punctuation and usage the way we were, long long ago. Heck, the kids don't even have to write in cursive. They are being spared the torture. Is it because everything typed nowadays is on a computer and spell check and grammar check are taking the place of actually knowing that stuff?!? Horrors!

Let me tell you a scary thing, kids: those green lines under your sentences? They ain't always correct. The computer isn't always right. 

Plus, it's like I was telling my student the other day, he can use spell check and every other crutch under the sun right up until he's writing that crucial essay on a standardized test, and then... OOPS. You think college recruiters care about nouns and verbs agreeing?!? Um, YES. Yes, they do. They don't want graduates who cannot write a decent paragraph.

We tend to just look the other way when someone cannot write well, and the world is poorer for it.

I worked for an attorney once who was HORRIBLE at writing and I used to try and correct everything she wrote before it went out, to spare her embarrassment. I wasn't always successful -- she produced such a huge volume of work sometimes I wouldn't keep up. She paid so little attention to proper English that it never occurred to her that opposing attorneys were sneering at her lack of skills -- I guess if you're oblivious to your own bad English you don't understand why anyone would denigrate you for idiotic errors. Most attorneys are good or even great wordsmiths, however. 

I read stories all the time that were published on the internet [okay, some of them were clickbait, but entertaining anyway, so don't judge] and the English in those stories is appalling. Sentences are horribly awkward. 

I hope one day students will once again actually CARE about writing proper English, but I am not holding my breath. 

Folks like my mom, who have beautiful handwriting (in cursive!) and who value proper English and know how to actually use a paper dictionary are a dying breed, much to my sadness.