Sword Drills and Coals of Fire

With Chico, about the age I participated in sword drills
Every once in a while I feel a little lost in space here in New York.  This is my home, and I love it, but my Tennesee upbringing tends to come out at inconvenient times.  I was talking to a woman who is a chaplain on Friday, and she commented on the difficulty of working with a colleague of another religion.  “I think he doesn’t like me because I’m a woman, but I just keep being nice to him,” she said.

I replied, “Heaping coals of fire on his head!”  She looked at me like I had lost my mind, and said, “No, no, killing with kindness.”  I agreed, somewhat abashed.  Then I came home and looked it up in the Bible.  Sure enough, Romans 12:20-21 says, “Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.”

I’m certainly no Bible scholar but I was brought up Southern Baptist in Tennessee some years ago, and Bible study was part of my youth.  We memorized verses, and many, many verses were expressions that my parents, aunts and uncles used.

“The ox is in the ditch” was one that probably seems obscure to most people.  It comes from Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan.  In his story, the religious teachers passed by an injured man who was lying by the road because it was the Sabbath, and they were forbidden by Jewish law to work on the Sabbath.  The Samaritan stopped and helped him.  Jesus seems to say in this story that human need is greater than religious law.  And he says, “Which of you will have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit on the Sabbath day, and will not pull him out?”  So in the South it came to mean, an unavoidable job that has to be done, even on a Sunday, or an excuse to do something on a Sunday.

Sword drills were another odd thing we did in Sunday school when I was a teenager.  A sword drill was a find-the-Bible-verse contest.  I was a keen competitor (I’ve always been a Type A, I’m sorry to say).  Basically you had to know the order of the books of the Bible and have fast page-flipping skills.  The competitors would stand in a circle so you couldn’t see each other’s Bibles.  The Sunday School teacher would say the book, chapter, and verse, such as “2nd Samuel, 12:1.”  The first person to find it was the winner.  One lived in dread of the obscure books of the Old Testament.  I’m not even sure how to spell Habakkuh now (woops!  just looked it up, Habakkuk).

Putting aside any religious effect on me (probably less than my parents hoped), the Bible study enriched my life with stories, poetry, and quotes I would find in literature as an adult, and expressions that added salt to the blandness of speech.  Robbing Peter to pay Paul, anyone?

Keep Calm and Carry On

Lately I’ve been seeing a flurry of posters, t-shirts and mugs emblazoned with a crown and the slogan “Keep Calm and Carry On.”  According to Wikipedia, this was a part of a “propaganda” campaign in the UK, started in 1939, to keep up morale during WWII.

This poster was to be used only in the event of an invasion, and consequently was never issued.  Here’s a website dedicated to the slogan:  http://www.keepcalmandcarryon.com/history/   It’s believed that most of the posters were pulped at the end of the war.  But a bookseller found one nearly 60 years later, and the rest is marketing history.  Now you can buy “wall art” at Target with the advertising slogan on it, not to mention mobile phone cases, tea towels and cozies at the website above.

The quintessential Britishness has its own appeal, stiff upper lip and all that, what?  But I think this campaign has taken off because the message resonates for a lot of us.  The past year was not a fun one in many ways.  The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and the middle class clung by its fingernails to a shrinking way of life.  Wars, disasters and scares shook us all.

Sometimes all we can do is keep calm and carry on.  Keep looking for a job.  Put up with disappointment and stress.  Just carry on.  And sometimes things do get better, good things come, happiness happens.  Life may never be the way it was before.  But it’s still a life.  And if we take it with a dose of irony and a side of laughter, we can carry on.

 

Another Auld Lang Syne

Ham hock and black-eyed peas, from Wikimedia
New Year’s Eve was not a big deal when I was growing up in Tennessee.  We generally went to bed early, and rarely even stayed up to watch the ball drop on TV.

New Year’s Day was the more important event.  Mother always cooked black-eyed peas with hog jowl or ham hock and made cornbread.  She put a dime in the peas, and whoever found the dime would come into money in the new year.  After my brother Gil and I shoveled out half the bowl while searching for the dime, Mother ruled that you had to eat everything you spooned out.

My friend Ed who is African-American has an additional tradition, eating collard greens on New Year’s Day.  The black-eyed peas are coins, he says, and the greens are folding money.

Many cultures believe in having pork on New Year’s Day.  Pork represents fat, plenty, and thus prosperity.  Maybe that’s where I’ve been going wrong–I guess turkey kielbasa doesn’t count!

Another custom in our part of the South held that the first person to cross your threshhold (come in your front door) on New Year’s Day should be a man, preferably a tall, dark-haired man, in order to have good luck in the new year.  Apparently this comes from Scottish tradition, and is called “first-footing.”  The Scots start at midnight on New Year’s Eve and go visit during the next several days, bringing small gifts that signify plenty like Scotch whiskey or treats.

I’ve had many New Year’s Eves that were pretty decadent.  New Year’s Day usually involved recovery and watching the Rose Parade on TV.  This year I plan to stay home and celebrate quietly.  But I will have black-eyed peas, cornbread, and some kind of pork.  And I plan to find a dark-haired man to cross my doorstep.  My neighbor Bob comes to mind.  It’s time for all the good luck I can get!

A safe New Year’s Eve to all, and a prosperous, healthy and Happy New Year!

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Like about one-third of the country, I’m traveling for the Christmas holiday.  So I’m taking a break from the blog for a bit, not wanting to monopolize my brother-in-law’s computer or laboriously post from the iPod Touch.  I want to experience Christmas with my family, not record it.

Before I go, however, I want to make a shout-out to last December in New York and New Jersey.  Mercifully, I put that disaster out of my mind until time to travel this year.  I got out before the storm came last year, but I couldn’t get back home.  Flying on Continental miles, I was at the bottom of the list for rescheduled flights and would have had to wait over a week to get back to New York.  So I rented a car and drove back from Ohio.  I stood in line with three other people who were doing the same.

The drive was not unpleasant, although the roads still had some ice in the mountains of Pennsylvania.  I sang along with the radio and my iPod, and stopped about once every hour or so.  Things got eerie once I got to New Jersey.  It was dark, and mountains of snow dwarfed the highways.  I got to Newark Airport, turned in the rental car, and took a shuttle van to the parking lot where I’d left my car.

The van driver stopped where I remembered my car was parked.  The plowed snow had made tunnels over the smaller cars.  My little yellow Hyundai Tiburon was buried to the roof.  The driver immediately pulled out a shovel and dug out my car.  I gave him $20 and thanked him profusely.  Left to myself, I’d have had to wait for spring to thaw it out.

So I’m hoping this year will not provide adventures.  I’m looking for quiet times with my sister’s family, sitting by their fireplace.  Best wishes to everyone for happy holidays, and more to come later on!

 

Recipe: Original Red Velvet Cake

Red velvet cake was not part of my holiday tradition in middle Tennessee.  My mother made blackberry jam cake every year, and I’d never heard of red velvet cake until Ron made it for my Christmas party here in New York.  After he died, Linda graciously assumed the mantle and has made red velvet cake every year since for the party.

It’s really a chocolate pound cake with cream cheese frosting.  What makes it red is a ton of food coloring.  Linda has tried everything from beet juice to all-natural coloring, but nothing gets that lurid red except regular food coloring.  If the thought of Red Food Dye #whatever bothers you, just use one bottle instead of two.

This recipe is a little retro–I think it dates from the ’60s if not earlier.  Now that red velvet cake and cupcakes are popular, I’m sure there are many variations.  But this is the one I know and love.  Happy Christmas from me, and a shout-out to the memory of Ron.

Red Velvet Pound Cake

3 cups cake flour

1/2 cup cocoa

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Sift together the dry ingredients.

Then mix:

3 cups sugar

5 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1-ounce bottles of red food coloring

1/2 cup Crisco

1/2 lb. butter

1 cup milk

Mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.  Bake in a tube pan 1 1/2 hours at 300 degrees.

Icing:

1 8 oz. package cream cheese

1 box powdered sugar

1 stick butter

1 cup pecans (small pieces)

2 tablespoons vanilla

P.S.  I got the photo from Wikimedia for a “Southern red velvet cake.”  I never think to take a picture of Linda’s–too busy eating!

Bring Back “The Homecoming”

I’m making a pitch for resurrecting an older TV Christmas special, “The Homecoming.”  Do you remember it?  This is the special that became the basis for the series, “The Waltons.”

The great thing about the special was, it was darker, funnier and less heartwarming than the series became.  Viewers really saw the widespread poverty of the Depression and the desperation that drove their daddy to work many long miles away in order to bring home food and presents for that large family.

The mother was played by Patricia Neal.  She was harsh and loving, fearful and strong, less pretty, more rawboned and real than Michael Learned, who played the role in the series.

As these dark days of winter roll in and aftermath of the Great Recession refuses to go away, I find myself thinking about how my parents and grandparents endured poverty and hard, manual labor during the Great Depression, and how their lives did not change for the better until World War II brought factory work and higher-paying jobs.  I think how hard they worked so my sisters, brother and I could go to college and have more comfortable lives.

Things may not have always worked out as they hoped.  But I never had to hoe tobacco or eat biscuits and sawmill gravy for dinner because I couldn’t afford meat.  “The Homecoming” is a gem in its own right, but I love it all the more because it takes the viewer inside a world my parents knew–a world I hope I will never have to know personally.  Good night, John Boy!

Here’s a link to part of the special on YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOlyKeEqEkg

 

Showing Up and Being There

Last year's table (not so different this year)

Showing up is 80% of life.–Woody Allen

Do you ever feel like you spend most of your time showing up, without really being there?  By “being there,” I mean paying attention, being involved, feeling and enjoying that particular moment, not racing ahead in your mind to the next thing to be done.

The first time I realized someone else felt that way was years ago when I first saw “Annie Hall,” which I still think is Woody Allen’s best movie (although “Midnight in Paris” is a contender as well).  The scene where Annie and the character Woody plays are in bed, and at the same time she’s sitting on top of the bureau observing–I thought, “That’s it!”

Journalists and novelists are like that, I think, and photographers as well.  Have you ever spent so much of an event taking photos that you don’t really take part in what’s going on?  I have boxes and boxes of old-style physical photos I took in countries all over the world when I was traveling with Ron and on my own.  I look at them now and think, where was that?  What was I doing?  What was I feeling?  The camera becomes a way to create distance and put up a wall.  I think psychologists call it “compartmentalizing.”

I’ve gotten somewhat better at “being there” over the years.  Yoga class helps a lot.  I used to smirk when the teacher said, “Be here now,” but now I know the teacher means “Stop your mind from running in circles and feel where you are and how you are moving.”  Easier said that done, but it can be learned.

I think Twitter is yet another way to not be here, and texting can be as well.  Have you ever wanted to strangle a teenager who is sitting right next to you, not listening or participating in what’s going on, and texting as fast as they can to a friend?  How about the dad who can’t put down his Blackberry or iPhone?  Is every email that important?

Sorry to be such a curmudgeon.  I’ve been guilty of all the above at one time or another.  But it came home to me that being there, really being there, can be fun sometimes.  One of my friends brought his guitar to the party I gave the other night and lyrics to Christmas carols and songs.  We all sang and laughed and banged rhythm instruments for hours.  And I didn’t even realize until the next day that I didn’t get out my camera or my phone and take any pictures of the group and the party.  I was too busy having a good time!

That’s really a good way to “be here now.”

We’re Having a Party

Tomorrow I have my Christmas party.  I’ve had one ever since I moved to my present location in 1996.  It’s less elaborate now than in my earlier years, but still involves decorating for Christmas, 10-12 friends, and more food than any of us need.

But that’s part of the holiday spirit–fun, and excess, and not being prudent or circumspect.  I’m baking a pecan pie, and tomorrow a tomato-ricotta tart.  I have smoked salmon, shrimp, cheeses, vegetables, and pate.  And, needless to say, lots of wine and other drinks.

My friends are bringing appetizers and desserts.  The real treat, however, is that one of them brings his guitar and we sing Christmas carols and Beatles songs.  Okay, it may sound hokey, but we love it.  How many chances do we all get to sing out loud?  When do we get to laugh, and tell stories, and dance?

My cat is exiled to the basement until the food is gone (he can’t be trusted).  Then he comes up and socializes, too.  Even he feels how warm and fun it is.

It’s not that all inhibitions are loose.  That’s not it at all.  It’s that we love and trust one another, and this is a party where we feel warm and happy together.  I love it.  And I’ll do it as long as I can.

Peace out, my friends, and may you all have a happy party in your immediate future.

Decorating the Tree

My mother had a yard sale at our house on the farm before she sold the house and moved to an apartment in town, some years after Daddy died.  She was tired and ill, and there was very little she held on to other than her clothes and her china and crystal.

I came to help out, and ended up hauling stuff back home with me that I couldn’t bear to be sold.  My sister Sherrie was there, and she spotted all the Christmas ornaments and lights, heaped on the ground.  Mother had kept the ornaments my sisters had given her, but had dumped all the balls and lights.

“Look at this,” Sherrie said.  “These lights are older than you are.”  She was right–I remembered them.  The bulbs were plastic or glass and shaped like birds or stars.  Sherrie always claimed the yellow bird sang to her from the top of the tree one Christmas.  I took the string, as well as a string of the original Bubble Lights.  Both strings were the kind that, if one bulb goes out, the string goes out, so you had go around the tree tightening and replacing bulbs until the string came back on again.

Those lights went to Atlanta with me, and then on to New York.  I haven’t used them for several years.  I bought one of those pre-lit artificial trees that looks more like a bottle brush than anything else a few years ago.  When I load it down with ornaments it doesn’t look too ghastly.

But this time of year I remember searching over the farm for a cedar tree without a fork in the top.  The first year after Daddy died, Mother and I went out into the fields with an ax, determined to have a Christmas no matter how awful we felt.  We found a big, lovely cedar, round and full.  It was all we could do to cut it down and drag it back to the house.

We put it in the garage and went to set it in a bucket of water so it could soak up some before it went in the tree stand.  The tree was about six inches too tall for the garage ceiling, which meant it was more than a foot too tall for the house.  Mother looked like she was going to burst into tears.

Then the phone rang.  Uncle Floyd called to see what was going on.  Mother told him our problem.  He showed up 15 minutes later and sawed off the bottom of the tree to the correct height.  So we had Christmas after all, using those bird lights, the Bubble Lights and all the other strings we had.

A Beautiful Day

Here we are on Black Friday, having survived the feasting and football of Thanksgiving Day.  I’m not participating in the shopping frenzy this year.  I can’t stand crowds and pushing, and my gift-giving this year is limited.  So I have a radical proposal:  Let’s all just enjoy a beautiful day, especially if you don’t have to work today.

The sky is blue.  The last of the leaves are still clinging to the trees, golden, orange, red and brown.  Ignore the Christmas decorations and stay away from retail stores with jarring music and radio stations playing endless Christmas carols.

It’s still autumn.  It’s not too cold in most of the country.  Take a walk in your neighborhood or a park and relish the last of fall.  Eat leftover turkey and dressing — I love dressing, and this is the only time of year I have it.  DON’T WATCH CHRISTMAS SPECIALS.  If you spot a wild turkey, tell it it’s lucky to be on the loose.  Try to figure out which birds are still here and if your favorites have migrated.  I’ve been looking for the mockingbirds, and I think they have gone south.

Watch old movies with family and friends.  Play silly games with family and friends.  Stroke your cat, pet your dog, hug anyone you feel like.  Let’s give autumn one more day before the holiday madness begins.  Forget about Black Friday!