My Nanny had a colorful vocabulary. She didn't swear often (and when she did she usually apologized beforehand so you could brace yourself), but she did have many expressions she liked to use.
One of her favorites was "Well I'll be John Brown!" She typically said this when she was amazed or impressed with something. When I called her my sophomore year of high school to tell her I was the only 10th grader to have made the yearbook staff, her reply was "Well I'll be John Brown! That's wundaful, dahlin'!" Not sure which John Brown she was referring to or why he was always so amazed, but I will always remember that as one of my grandmother's favorite, most-used expressions.
Another of her favorites was one she used when she thought we were making things up. If she didn't believe something we were telling her, she'd say "Kiss my foot," or, the full expression, "Well, anybody believes that can kiss my foot." If she truly thought that what we were saying was ridiculous, she'd follow it with "...and I don't see any feet going up."
How I miss that fine southern lady!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
The flooded creek
I grew up in a huge neighborhood. There were about 400 houses, and probably at least that many kids. It took two whole school buses to bring all the kids in our neighborhood home from elementary school -- just to our neighborhood.
In the center of our neighborhood was the recreation area. We had a pool and tennis courts, and a big park with play equipment. And running through the center of that park was a creek. There were two bridges that crossed the creek so you could get from one side of the park to the other, and there was also a pipe that crossed it.
One spring day after a lot of heavy rain, that creek flooded.
And that pipe made a magnificent waterfall.
It took probably about 2.4 seconds for all of us kids to get home from school, change into old clothes, and jump into that creek to splash and play and pretend we were riding the rapids of some huge river as opposed to a little old neighborhood creek. Someone rigged a rope to a nearby tree and we took turns swinging out over the water and letting go. There were probably 100 kids in the creek that day, and tons of parents sitting on the sidelines, taking pictures and holding towels and bringing snacks. We were out there for hours.
It was an impromptu block party, where all the kids were laughing and splashing and having fun while their parents caught up with all the neighbors on what was going on in everyone's lives.
What happened to neighborhoods like that?
In the center of our neighborhood was the recreation area. We had a pool and tennis courts, and a big park with play equipment. And running through the center of that park was a creek. There were two bridges that crossed the creek so you could get from one side of the park to the other, and there was also a pipe that crossed it.
One spring day after a lot of heavy rain, that creek flooded.
And that pipe made a magnificent waterfall.
It took probably about 2.4 seconds for all of us kids to get home from school, change into old clothes, and jump into that creek to splash and play and pretend we were riding the rapids of some huge river as opposed to a little old neighborhood creek. Someone rigged a rope to a nearby tree and we took turns swinging out over the water and letting go. There were probably 100 kids in the creek that day, and tons of parents sitting on the sidelines, taking pictures and holding towels and bringing snacks. We were out there for hours.
It was an impromptu block party, where all the kids were laughing and splashing and having fun while their parents caught up with all the neighbors on what was going on in everyone's lives.
What happened to neighborhoods like that?
Saturday, February 21, 2009
"What is the little good ride?" you may ask
The "little good ride" is a game my dad, his brother Tim, and his cousin Mike used to play at their grandmother's house when they were growing up in the south in the 1950s. They would go to the linen closet and pull out all of the spare pillows and blankets, pile them up high, then climb to the top, slide down, and declare, "THAT was a little good ride!" Not a good little ride, but a little good ride.
As a 21st-century mother, life is moving at a faster pace for my children than it did for my father's generation, or even for my generation. We have so many conveniences and so much technology available to us that because things are faster and easier, the world expects more and more of us. It's odd that because we've advanced so much in the last 50 years, we now have less time than we did before.
Despite growing up in this modern, fast-paced world, I want my children to have some of those experiences of days gone by. I want them to learn to appreciate produce when it's locally grown and harvested at its peak, rather than eating strawberries in October because somewhere in this world, they're being grown and shipped to us. I want them to know what it's like to sleep in a southern home that was designed to allow drafts to pass through and cool it in the summer before there was air conditioning widely available. I want them to camp out in the backyard and sleep on screened porches and play catch-and-release with lightning bugs. They need to learn to shell peas and snap beans and make Nanny's fried cornbread.
I know that I cannot change the world and make it simple and safe like it used to be. But I hope that I can help my children appreciate what they've been given in this wide world, and that I can help them appreciate their roots while looking ahead to their futures.
This blog is about the past...memories of my grandparents growing up in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as my father's stories from the 1950s and 1960s. It's about my childhood growing up in the late 1970s and 1980s. It's also about the present, as it will be peppered with stories of my own children taking place in the here and now. And it's about the future...laying the groundwork for what is yet to be.
Thanks for stopping by.
As a 21st-century mother, life is moving at a faster pace for my children than it did for my father's generation, or even for my generation. We have so many conveniences and so much technology available to us that because things are faster and easier, the world expects more and more of us. It's odd that because we've advanced so much in the last 50 years, we now have less time than we did before.
Despite growing up in this modern, fast-paced world, I want my children to have some of those experiences of days gone by. I want them to learn to appreciate produce when it's locally grown and harvested at its peak, rather than eating strawberries in October because somewhere in this world, they're being grown and shipped to us. I want them to know what it's like to sleep in a southern home that was designed to allow drafts to pass through and cool it in the summer before there was air conditioning widely available. I want them to camp out in the backyard and sleep on screened porches and play catch-and-release with lightning bugs. They need to learn to shell peas and snap beans and make Nanny's fried cornbread.
I know that I cannot change the world and make it simple and safe like it used to be. But I hope that I can help my children appreciate what they've been given in this wide world, and that I can help them appreciate their roots while looking ahead to their futures.
This blog is about the past...memories of my grandparents growing up in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as my father's stories from the 1950s and 1960s. It's about my childhood growing up in the late 1970s and 1980s. It's also about the present, as it will be peppered with stories of my own children taking place in the here and now. And it's about the future...laying the groundwork for what is yet to be.
Thanks for stopping by.
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