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Heat Struck
Heat Struck
It might get up to 95 degrees today--the bank digital readout by the road yesterday read 98 degrees at 2pm. I hate hot humid weather, but that's what ya get in deep south Mississippi. I was raised in a shack in the middle of a cornfield, and we didn't even have a fan when I was growing up (or indoor plumbing either, but that's another story.)
Mama would can tomatoes in the summertime and get so hot her face would be beet red. All us kids were running around with nothing but drawers on, sweat running off our heads. Grandma never owned a fan or air conditioner either. She would sit on the "gallery" that's what she called her front porch--and fan herself with a cardboard fan with a picture of Jesus on it.
Grandma would get up before daylight and feed her chickens and drink coffee and fry slices of cornbread for breakfast. Then you'd see her at daybreak sweeping the hard packed dirt of her front yard before it got too hot. Every sprig of grass was pulled up. That was the fashion back then--a hard packed dirt yard swept clean with a "bresh broom."
Then she'd sit in her rocker on the gallery and fan with that Jesus fan and smoke her pipe. She and grandpa had raised ten children--she deserved whatever peace and quiet she found. On Saturday night, she'd listen to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio and drink a whiskey toddy, rocking with enjoyment as she listened to Ernest Tubb, and Kitty Wells and a song about the Titanic going down. Lord knows I loved that old woman with her high cheekbones and gray plait of hair pinned up in back.
She lived to be 98 years old but her hair never turned white, it was always gray, with a musky smell. My oldest daughter's hair smells just like that, even freshly washed. That Choctaw blood is strong. Oh granny--if I could see you again for one minute, to tell you how much I love you, because we didn't say things like that back then. This heat must be getting to me, so I'll say...
Bye y'all, susil
posted on June 24, 2008 6:59 AM ()
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