His Mother’s Crazy and Other Reasons Why He is the Way He is
Monday 08.28.06I used to tell folks that I was going to write a book and that I had the title already figured out: “My Mother’s Southern and Other Reasons Why I Am the Way I Am.” Not that it’s my mother’s fault, but I often find myself answering questions by reason of “Well, my mother’s southern.” Such as:
- from a friend in high school: “Why do you talk so politely on the phone? No one else asks, ‘Hello, this is Dren. May I please speak to so&so? I just say, ‘Is so&so there?”” I have excellent phone skills because my mother is Southern.
- from friends in grade school: “Why do you say ‘yes ma’am’ or ‘no, sir’?” I have been bred to show proper respect for elders because my mother’s Southern.
- from a co-worker: “Isn’t it pronounced PEE-can?” Heavens, NO! It’s peh-CAHN, just as any child raised by a southerner knows.
- black eyed peas at New Years? No, I don’t eat them, but I know that they are required – southern.
- knowing which brutish Yankee prisons held which gentleman Confederate prisoners (such as Wilkes Berrywine Rainwater who had to walk all the way home from the *worst* prison up in New York down to Georgia – I’m sure it was uphill both ways), this is part of normal conversation just like what the price of watermelon is down at the Piggly Wiggly (but that’s mostly due to the southern mother’s southern uncle).
- visits to relatives include both the living and the dead.
- being able to say Piggly Wiggly without giggling . . . well, I’m still working on that.
I’ve wondered what sorts of reasons JJ will give for reasons why he does things the way he does. He must have all cups at all times. He really likes chunky oatmeal with cottage cheese and bananas in it. He dances for Verizon commercials. He’d rather go to Safeway than the nursery lately.
This morning I was attacked by fruit flies: we’ve had a steady drip of them in the kitchen, and just as I think I’ve killed them all, another one pops up. The easiest way to smoosh them is to clap them into my hands – they’re fat and fly slow. As I finished up my morning round of clapping death, I looked behind me to see JJ – moving strangely around the kitchen, contorting into a position, and clapping a few times. Getting up, moving elsewhere, posing, and clapping while muttering noises cranky noises, then looking at me as though to make sure he was doing it right because obviously at this time of day we clap and growl.
I can name some of my behaviors on the fact that my mother’s southern; my poor kid’s just going to have to say, “I am the way I am because my mom’s crazy.” And that’s just not quite as quaint . . . but he should be able to write a bestseller by the time he’s ten.
I ain’t from the South, but my grandfather in Texas grows Pecans. Yeah, I know how to say it the right way. And, you can put pecans in just about anything to make it better. That is, if you like pecans. Or nuts in general. Which I don’t. I didn’t each much of grandpa’s cookin’…
Are the people who say pee-can the same folks who say willa-met (Willamette)?
I thought Black Eyed Peas was a music group… hmmm…
Piggly Wiggly Giggly. You gotta laugh at that. For some time, I thought that Pig ‘n’ Whistle and Piggly Wiggly must be the same place, but one was more of a nickname for t’other. ‘course, I never asked which was which.
Lastly, and this is obvious to anyone who’s been anywhere: if it ain’t Southern, it ain’t BBQ. My time in Memphis has been spent between work and BBQ joints: Rendevous, Steamboat, Corky’s, Interstate, Old Style, Neely’s, Leonard’s … just to name a couple.
Michael still gets freaked out by the cemetery visits whenever we visit all of my mom’s family in Georgia. He DOES NOT GET why we always have to take pictures with the gravestones each time too. I dunno, we just do. Weird. He does LOVE the sweet tea though.
We used to get a dollar for every collard green and a penny for every black-eyed pea on New Years, much more financially lucrative than the tooth-fairy, depending how many slimy collards you can suck down.
And even though my mom lost her southern accent somewhere along the way, she still says we “might could” do something and tells me to “cut off” the lights. And you can always tell if she’s talking to GA on the phone, cuz the accent comes back.
Oh, Alan, you make me laugh. Or giggle: whatever floats your boat. So are you ruling out KC BBQ? Cause I’ve tasted some, and it’s not all that bad.
I’m sad to say, but, Heidi, when you said “might could” and “cut off,” I thought: well, what’s different about that? Oh, the things that have been engrained that I don’t even know about! And, ah, the Southern interest with the grave: up North, if you get mad, you stop talking to them or maybe cut them out of your will; down South, you kick them out of the family plot.
Erm… does KC have pork? Cuz if it ain’t pork, it can hardly be called BBQ either. Ribs and pulled… sauce drippin’…
You know, I forgot to mention slaw. Because slaw in the south is so much better than the watered-down mayonaisy stuff they pass off around here. It’s gotta be much more zippy, more mustard… It’s now 8:30am and I’m already hungry.