Best of all, Joy’s laughter filled my Gran’s house with a sweet happiness, and the dust from her own contentment settled around my brother with just the right weight to fend off the memories of his days on the European front. Laughter heals, it’s true. Their wedding took place that Thanksgiving.
Frank Darling and Jean Francis planned a Christmas wedding, as soon as her nursing course was over and he could walk without canes. They planned to live in Charleston where they would operate a hardware store that Frank’s father purchased soon after his son’s unfortunate plunge from Gran’s porch.
Please understand. What happened that day is never referred to as a suicide attempt. Even to this day, every time one of the males in our family gets dressed up, he will undoubtedly sigh as he ties his neckwear and retells the story of Frank’s wrenching fall at the feet of sweet Jean Francis.
I, Margaret Perrin Macy, chose to sit on the downstairs porch from then on, where I could easily be seen from the street. I knew that I would soon be old enough for my own love story. It might even happen when I turned fourteen. My daddy said I should be on the lookout for men wearing truly ugly ties.
Or Cary Grant. I would wait my whole life for Cary Grant.
If Grandpa Got Mad At Somebody, He’d Say...
“Either fish or cut bait.”
“That fool went off half-cocked.”
“He’s as worthless as a bump on a log.”
“Don’t get too big for your britches.”
“That woman’s so stingy she’ll squeeze a nickel until the buffalo hollers.”
“Don’t bite off more than you can chew.”
“That child could make a preacher cuss.”
“You’re slower than a herd of turtles.”
“That girl ain’t got the sense she was born with.”
“I’m gonna hop on you like a duck on a June bug.”
The Green Bean Casserole
by Sandra Chastain
“Southerners have a genius for psychological alchemy . . . If something intolerable simply cannot be changed, driven away or shot they will not only tolerate it but take pride in it as well.”
—Florence King, author
Tradition tells us that holidays aren’t holidays without gatherings of friends and family. In the South, that means food. It once meant calorie-laden, full-of-fat sweets, hand-delivered, often with a group singing carols. Now, based on the commercials on television, it means a gathering of friends who all bring “the green bean casserole.”
I lived in the deep South in a town where the entire community was made up of Methodist and Baptists with an odd, non-practicing Catholic thrown in. I say non-practicing because they didn’t have a church or a priest so they were forced to drive long distances or eventually give in and attend the local churches with their friends. I know this sounds odd, but remember, I’m old.
My childhood seems like a million years ago. I now live in the city where on my street alone, we have Protestants, Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists and probably other religions I don’t even know. Still, we continue the tradition of the holiday gift-exchange-dinner where the family brings food. It’s probably the only tradition that doesn’t lead to family squabbles—food. Unless you’re a hundred pounds overweight and seated next to a ninety-pound anorexic cousin who works in a fitness center.
This past holiday season, I drew Auntie Emily’s name, Auntie being the ninety-four-year old matriarch of the family. Shopping for her is like having the entire family shaking their finger at you when you take your place at our Christmas dinner table. Everyone long ago learned to shop with care for Aunt Emily because you were likely at some future date to get the gift back in return, often wrapped in the same paper.
Auntie Emily is tolerated with feigned amusement by her friends for her forgetfulness and with clinched teeth by her family for her whining. Her favorite expression is, “You’d whine too if all you had to do was sit here and look at these four walls every day.” Never mind that her niece has wrestled down auntie’s wheelchair that weighs as much as Arnold Swarzenegger, and routinely spends the entire day pushing Auntie around the mall to find a little blouse that has short sleeves and no gaudy imprints and no low neckline. There is no such thing; I know. I’m the niece.
I try to console the others by telling them, “You’d whine too, if you had outlived everybody you knew.” They don’t care. I only hope that one day I can fill Auntie’s shoes since I’m the second-oldest living member of the clan. It’s my house where we all congregate at Thanksgiving and Christmas and I’m the official hostess. During the year, each family takes Auntie for a month so that we won’t have to pay exorbitant fees for a nursing home. Since November is my Auntie month, I usually end up having her for December, too. One day I intend to whine—a lot. I just needed to get that off of my chest.
I have to give them credit, nobody refuses to take her in; the rest believe there’s money to be inherited at some point. I don’t tell them any different.
Back to the point I started to make. Who would ever expect snow and ice to incapacitate the roads around Atlanta the week before Christmas? Who’d believe that I’d have the mother of all head colds and be confined to the house? Since Auntie started the cold chain in November, she’s still here looking after me. Well, that’s what she says. To compound matters, my daughter, recently divorced, moved down the street from me. She now spends more time here than either Auntie or I are comfortable with. Auntie says she whines.
Because of my grandson, who always managed to find his Christmas gifts, my daughter decided to come to my house and, under the guise of wrapping my gifts and Auntie Emily’s gifts, she would wrap his. She’d just leave them here and for once he’d be surprised. A little window of joy in the midst of a sad divorce.
Her plan to send him to a friend’s house while she wrapped presents was foiled by the unexpected prediction of an ice storm, so both grandchildren, my daughter and the two coughing and sniffling senior members of the family ended up in my house while my daughter was trying to wrap presents in one of the upstairs bedrooms.
Now, my grandson isn’t dumb, except when he wants to be, because he figured out right away what she was doing. One knock after another drove his mama crazy and turned him into a conniving kid determined to find a way to spy on his loot. Finally, his mama sent him downstairs to help with the cooking, with the promise that if he’d help me, she’d let him open one present early.
Thanks, daughter.
“MeMaw, what do I have to cook?” he asked, not bothering to hide his dismay.
“Nothing! Why don’t you just watch?”
“Nope, if I’m helping, I’m helping.”
Well, I have a certain mean streak in me that kicks in every now and then. For the almost fifty years I’ve cooked I’ve served the same basics every Christmas, not necessarily a Christmas menu but one that everyone would actually eat: Turkey, dressing, giblet gravy, mashed potatoes, English peas and cranberry sauce. This year, after watching endless commercials on television, I decided to go wild and make my first green bean casserole.
To my grandson’s question, I answered triumphantly, “Green bean casserole.”
“Yuck!” said my grandson.
“Yuck!” said my granddaughter.
“It’s your choice,” I said.
“Can’t do it, Granny, I’ll make fudge.”
“Too late,” I responded. “Your sister just used the last of the chocolate morsels.”
Grandson thought about it for a moment then, in his best hip-hop move, caught his crotch and heisted up the jeans that were threatening to slide down his rear. “All right, bring on the green beans,” he said.
Auntie grinned. I grinned. “First, we have to outfit you in cooking armor.” I pulled out an apron, one embroidered by Auntie in her youth. Her tiny stitches outlined a lady wearing a
long skirt covered with flowers. The trim finished the bib and ended at the ties that circled the neck.
“I’m not wearing this,” my grandson announced, shaking his head.
“Suit yourself,” I agreed, standing back and eying his white Abercrombie and Fitch hoodie. “But, your hoodie may turn green. Look at your sister.”
He glanced over at his sister and the apron she was wearing, smeared with chocolate. “I’ll just take off the hoodie.”
“Smart choice,” I said. “But you still wear the apron.”
He shrugged, fastened the tabs behind his neck and tied the sash. “So, what do I do? Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Don’t know. First we have to get the recipe. It’s on the back of the French onion soup box.” I turned it around. “Get two cans of green beans out of the pantry.”
“Where?”
“On the shelf.”
“Which shelf?”
Did I tell you he’s thirteen? Well he is. “Look at your apron. The shelf is about rosebud high.”
“Whee, I was afraid you were going to say something . . . improper, MeMaw.” He compared the design on the apron to the shelves and reached in, retrieving two cans of green beans. “What now?”
“First, you open the beans.”
He took the can and turned it curiously. “Where’s the tab?”
“No tab. Use the can opener.”
“And that would be where?”
“In the cabinet. Just a minute, I’ll show you.” I wiped off the counter, opened the cabinet door and pulled out the opener. By time, grandson had disappeared. “Where’d he go?”
Granddaughter didn’t have to answer. I heard Daughter upstairs screaming. “Get out of here. You are not going to see these presents.”
“But I’m helping with the cooking like you said,” Grandson protested. “I just need to know where the can opener is.”
“Ask your grandmother. And close that door and don’t open it until you’re done.”
Grandson returned to the kitchen. “How long is this gonna take, MeMaw?”
Did I tell you he’s thirteen? “However long it takes, Grandson,” I answer.
That’s when we heard a peppering sound on the deck just beyond the table where we were working. “What’s that?” Granddaughter asked.
I was afraid I knew. I slid open the glass door and the sound grew louder. When a piece of ice jumped into the breakfast room, I announced, “It’s hail and sleet.”
“Ah,” Granddaughter moaned. “Why couldn’t it be snow? Wouldn’t snow be wonderful for Christmas? We could pull the Christmas tree out on the deck and turn on the lights. They’re indoor-outdoor lights. I saw the mark on the plug. It would be beautiful.”
“It would,” I said, a tinge of worry creasing my brow. Atlanta doesn’t get much snow and ice but when we do, it’s a mess. It’s beautiful, all right. The huge oaks put on a glistening cover of ice and the magnolias and nandina berries look like Christmas decorations. The pine trees are spectacular, wearing divinity icing with silver sprinkles, until they start to snap and fall across power lines.
No power was the last thing we needed on Christmas Day. I am luckier than most, having a huge fireplace and a set of antique, wrought-iron cooking pots that I’d actually learned to use in past power outages.
“Let’s get the cooking done,” I said, “if you’re going to leave something out for Santa.” And pray that the ice and sleet stops, I added silently.
“What next?” Grandson said, impatiently.
I demonstrated how to use the electric can opener and Grandson learned there was more than one way to open a can.
“Remember the first time we left something out for Santa’s reindeer?” Granddaughter mused.
Remember? I remembered. It was right after the divorce and the children were pretty much living with me while Daughter got things straightened out. I’d found a pattern in a children’s magazine to make feeding baskets for Santa’s reindeer. To distract the children I suggested that we make feed bags for each reindeer. That was also the year of that song about grandma getting run over by a reindeer. In our house, it was the year that Auntie repaired the star on the Christmas tree—with her head.
I glanced through the dining room to the living room where this year’s Christmas tree was a thing of true glory. It was just as spectacular a year ago when Grandson helped decorate, until the Christmas star refused to twinkle. I’d stepped into the kitchen to take a tray of cookies out of the oven when he decided to pull up one of my dining room chairs and remove the star. That was the moment when Baby, Auntie’s new cat, decided to chase Rosie, Granddaughter’s elderly Peke-a-Pom—that would be a mixed Pekingese and Pomeranian.
There was nothing malicious in the chase except when it turned around and the dog chased the cat and the cat decided to climb the Christmas tree, by way of Grandson’s leg. The upshot was the tree crashed, pushing Grandson off the chair and conking Auntie in the head with the star. It immediately started to twinkle.
Granddaughter went on with the story about the reindeer bags and how they were empty the next morning. But the deer dropped one, ripped it with their hooves and spread the birdseed and oatmeal all over the deck.
Grandson shook his head. “I can’t believe you fell for that.”
Granddaughter came over, hugged me and whispered, “I believed.” Then went on, “You know, MeMaw, no matter where I go, or whatever happens, your house will always be home. We’re going to make Christmas goodies every year, forever.”
“I hope so,” I said, thinking how young she was and how things change as life interferes. “I call this the best kind of tradition.”
She leaned back and looked up at me. “No, it’s called ‘making memories.’”
I covered the choking feeling in my throat with a snappy reply. “If we get iced-in, that’ll be a memory,” I said and brushed the frosting of sugar from her long, dark hair. “Tell you what, you’d better get back to stirring. It looks like your candy is about ready to pour up.”
“Yes ma’am.” She clicked her heels and gave a snappy salute.
“Grandson, let’s get this casserole going. Where’s your cream of mushroom soup? Open the cans while I get our baking pan.” I was blabbering as I covered my emotional reaction to my granddaughter’s comment about making memories.
“Oh, boy, tabs.” Grandson pulled the first tab and made a face at what was in the can. “It looks rotten.”
“It’s not rotten.”
He pulled the second. “This one, too.”
“It’s not rotten, that’s the way it is supposed to look. Let’s empty the beans and the soup into the baking pan, along with the milk and a little pepper.”
Grandson followed my instructions until I got to a “little” pepper. I just took the container and gave it a couple of good shakes.
He leaned over and smelled the mixture. “Yuck!” he said.
“Now, we cook it for thirty minutes. Then we’ll cover them with French fried onions and cook them some more.”
“You’re going to ruin those onions by putting them in that?” He nodded his head at the pan I was sliding into the oven.
“I am, and you’re going to love them tomorrow.”
“If we’re eating them tomorrow, why are you cooking them tonight?”
“Because I’m going to have the turkey and dressing in the oven tomorrow.”
“So, are we done here?” Grandson asked.
I nodded and watched him tear out of the kitchen and up the steps. Sleet was coating the porch now and the tree limbs as well. If this went on much longer we’d definitely have trouble.
Upstairs, I heard my daughter yelling. “You go down those steps. I’m locking this door and you’d better not try to get in again.” The door slammed and I
won’t repeat the word Daughter said, not in front of you, dear reader.
“Now look what you made me do. Mom! I’m gonna kill your grandson on Christmas Eve!”
“You’d better go,” Granddaughter said. “This might be the time when Mom means it.”
Upstairs, Daughter and Grandson stood in the hall studying the bedroom door, the locked-on-the-inside bedroom door. Bloodshed was eminent. I studied the situation. We were on the second floor but there was only one door into the room. The two windows were locked, or they were supposed to be. Since the room was just above the roof to the carport, I had to constantly reprimand Grandson and his friends for climbing out and stargazing. At least that’s what they said. I’m certain it had nothing to do with the female classmate that lived next door. Dare I suggest it?
I did.
“What about this? Do you think you can squeeze through the bathroom window onto the roof?”
He nodded, smiling broadly. “Sure.”
He couldn’t. When I stripped off the apron and his tee shirt, his eyes opened wide. “What are you doing?”
“I’m spreading lotion on you so you’ll slide through.”
“But I’ll freeze.”
“Just pretend you’re a popsicle that’s started to melt.”
“Do it!” Mom said. “Then if the window happens to be open, you can come in and open the door.”
“With a shove from the rear and a little twist, he went through. “Be careful,” I started to say as he stepped out onto the roof and began to slide. Only a quick move allowed him to catch the window and his mother to grab him. “Hold on. I’ll get a rope.”
I dashed down the stairs and grabbed the clothesline coiled up on a nail by the kitchen door and the box of ice cream salt under the cabinet. Back up the stairs I flew. Rudolph couldn’t have been more graceful.
On Grandma's Porch Page 12
