On Grandma's Porch

by Deborah Smith

  “I hate to ask,” Daughter said, “but what are you going to do with a rope? I know I threatened to kill him, but a hanging on Christmas Eve might be a bit more than I had in mind.”

  “We tie it around his waist to keep him from sliding off the roof. Do that first, then we’ll pour this ice cream salt on the roof and see if he can get to the bedroom.”

  And tie the apron around his head so he can cover his eyes,” his mother directed. It took a couple of false starts but he eventually made his way to the bedroom window.

  “Cover your eyes. Don’t you dare look at those presents,” his mother yelled.

  “I’m not looking.”

  “Is the window open?” I asked.

  “It seems to be stuck,” he yelled, slamming his hand, or maybe it was his head, against the house. Then silence. “It’s open. I’m going in.”

  “Make sure your eyes are covered good,” his mother said. “And just head straight for the door.”

  “How can I see where I’m going if my eyes are covered?”

  “Just do it,” Daughter said. “The door is straight ahead.”

  It took too long, but eventually the door opened and Grandson wiped the lotion off his shoulders with his apron, gave his mother a kiss on the cheek and walked innocently down the stairs, dragging the clothesline behind. “I’m going to check on my casserole,” he said.

  As it turned out, we cleaned the kitchen, put out the reindeer feed bags and went to bed. When the power went out after midnight everybody gathered in the den in front of the fireplace. We recited The Night Before Christmas with some interesting adaptations by Grandson. “Twas the night before Christmas, Santa’s reindeers came. They slid on the roof and turned up lame. None of the children were stirring; they were . . .”

  A limb fell across the deck, setting off the wind chimes.

  “That was the reindeer,” Granddaughter said the next morning. “Just think what memories we’re making. Fudge, my brother almost falling off the roof, an ice storm that left us without power, and pouring our main dish into a cast iron skillet.”

  We didn’t brown the French fried onions, but the green bean casserole was so good that we all voted to have one every year. “And I’ll cook it,” grandson. “I’ll bring the green bean casserole. You think that’s where they got their idea for the commercial?”

  I smiled. We did make memories. In the years to come, when anybody tells the story of the Christmas when the presents got locked behind closed doors, the thing everyone will remember most is the green bean casserole.

  Now Y’all Be Polite, You Hear?

  “She’s as cute as a bug.”

  “She’s as pretty as a speckled pup.”

  “He’s about half a bubble off plumb.”

  “His face would stop a clock.”

  “He looks like something the cat dragged in.”

  “She’s lower than dirt.”

  “He’s colder than a banker’s heart.”

  Liberal Redneck Babe

  by Debra Leigh Smith

  “People will miss that it once meant something to be Southern or Midwestern. It doesn’t mean much now, except for the climate. The question, ‘Where are you from?’ doesn’t lead to anything odd or interesting. They live somewhere near a Gap store, and what else do you need to know?”

  —Garrison Keillor, author, radio host

  Like my grandma and her grandma before her, I’m a real Southerner. Sixth generation, at least. Oh, okay, we’ve got one branch of Indiana Yankees in the family tree, but they’re from southern Indiana, which is nearly the same as being from northern Kentucky. And I’m a real liberal—or maybe I’ll start calling myself a progressive, if the liberal Democrats don’t get their act together pretty soon. And I’m a real babe. I’d post a picture but my hot babe-ness might make your eyes burn.

  I’m writing this piece to give FoNoSo’s (Folks Not Southern) some helpful insights into the mind of us SoFo (Southern Folks). The FoNoSo still seem to think we SoFo live in tarpaper shacks and marry our cousins. Just for the record: I haven’t got a cousin handsome enough or rich enough for me to be that interested. Not even a third cousin twice removed. With his own four-door pick-up truck. And a lifetime pass to the Daytona 500.

  And I live in a house. A real house. With air conditioning. And carpet. And I don’t have any hound dogs under the front porch. Although I did crawl under there one time when I was staining the floorboards, and I have to tell you, there’s something real peaceful about the smell of cool red clay.

  Make me a candle scented with Eau de Red Clay, and I’ll buy it. That’s my kind of aromatherapy.

  Anyhow, if you’re a FoNoSo, you need to learn all you can about the South. The real South. Not the one you see on TV and in the movies. Except for Fried Green Tomatoes and Driving Miss Daisy and Steel Magnolias, which all deserved Oscars, in my opinion. Anyhow, the real South. Prepare yourself.

  Why? Because the Census Bureau says by 2030 the South will have 41 million more people than it does now! And that means 17 new electoral votes. And that means in 2032, when the AmFo (American Folk) elect a President, Southerners will control 190 out of 270 electoral votes, which is a flat-out majority. Friends, we SoFo will get to pick the President. We will rule.

  I am hereby nominating Trisha Yearwood for President. Garth Brooks can be First Lady.

  All we gotta do is wait about twenty-five years.

  In the meantime, here’s some SoFo perspective on important subjects. Meaning ones I like.

  Down at my church, The Barbecue Tabernacle, our youth minister, the young Reverend Sissy Loretta (named thus because she was conceived at a midnight drive-in show of Coal Miner’s Daughter, which is also one of my favorite SoFo movies), the young Reverend Sissy Loretta (family name: Steinburg) warns us against the evils of false prophets, psychics, tarot cards, astrology columns, I-Ching, and any novel Oprah ever recommended on TV.

  It’s not that the young reverend sees the devil at work in any of the above, but just that, according to her, a belief in fortune-telling and depressing books can only be overcome via excessive imbibing of either Jack Daniels or home-grown dope, vices the young reverend discourages, especially since she got out of rehab.

  I, myself, respectfully disagree. I enjoy a good dose of idjit prophecy and psychic-ness. It’s better than a Stephen King book and a Pat Robertson show combined. So I regularly visit a website where folks can register their visions and predictions. Reading their posts is more fun that watching my cat, The Paw, shred a roll of toilet paper. I have observed and catalogued several main species of The Psychically Gifted:

  The Being-Of-Light Woman: She floats onto the message boards and tells everybody what her spirit guides are saying. They’re usually saying “California is going to disappear into the ocean. Run like hell.” The ruination of California is a favorite topic of The Psychically Gifted. I mean, come on, it’s a no-brainer. You don’t have to have The Touch to figure out that California is bound to fall in the ocean one day. I mean really. As my beloved paternal granny, aka Granny Waddles, aka State Prison No. 73846-1, used to say, “Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn ever’ once in a while.”

  But I digress. Other types of The Psychically Gifted are:

  Rapture Boy: “Jesus is coming. The signs are falling into place. Florida never had a bad hurricane before last year. I saw an image of the Anti-Christ on a piece of bologna. He looks like a cross between ZZ Top and that guy who played The Hulk. Oh, and by the way, California is going to disappear into the ocean. Amen.”

  Science Psychic: “My ears ring right before every major earthquake or volcano. Also before each new Will Ferrell movie. I keep a log book of Ear Ringings complete with spread sheets detailing Duration, Pitch, and Volume. My ears say California is going to disappear into the ocean.”

  Vision Master: “I s
ee messages in cloud formations. Yesterday it was an angel. Last month I saw the number 2. Around Christmas I saw Frosty the Snowman. California is going to disappear into the ocean.”

  I think we see a collective theme and a message here, don’t we? If you live in California, don’t talk to your spirit guides, do read the U.S. Weather Service’s history of Florida hurricanes, have your ears checked by a good doctor, and don’t look at clouds.

  Oh, and move eastwards. Soon.

  Yours truly has not been a teenager for at least an epoch. Hell, there were hippies and dinosaurs at my senior prom. About the most horrifyingly idjit-dumb thing we did back then was sneak smokes and sip stale beer and pass around a lurid underground paperback about a girl who liked to get licked. I had never read such a thing before, and I was purely grossed out. My opinions on the virtues of getting licked have changed considerably since then. Boy howdy.

  I’m sure all the parents thought my generation was going straight to hell. Every set of parents in every generation since the beginning of time has thought their teenagers were going to hell. You can look up what the ancient Greeks had to say on the subject. “These kids today just want to build Trojan Horses and party at the Olympics. They’re going to Hades.” Yep.

  So I know it’s not fair to say this. But what’s the fun of being grown-up and boring if you can’t pick on teenagers? Now I gotta say: THESE KIDS TODAY ARE GOING TO HELL.

  One night I was sitting on my faux-leather couch drinking some cheap Wal-Mart chardonnay, with The Paw and my faithful dog, Urp The Seismic Farter, piled up beside me, whilst I watched Aaron Brown on CNN. (A side note: Aaron Brown is HOT. Why they replaced him with that Anderson Cooper, I’ll never understand. Anderson’s okay and all, but with that white hair he looks like Peter Graves in Mission Impossible. I keep expecting smoke to waft out of his lapel mike while a little voice warns “This tape will self-destruct in five seconds.” But Aaron Brown, well, he’s the kind of man a gal can take to the family Easter reunion without worrying that he’ll piss on himself when the uncles pull out their deer rifles and start skeet shooting with the leftover marzipan bunnies. But enough about that . . .)

  Anyhow, I was sitting on the couch with The Paw and Urp, watching Aaron on CNN, and he did a segment on Teenage Authors. Mainly about one skanky-looking, potty-mouthed New York girl who’s sold her torrid “real life of teenagers” novel to a big publisher, and it’s come out and done real well, selling 30,000 copies in hardcover. Apparently, this torrid-tales-of-real-teens genre is a hit with real teens. Sort of the “likes to get licked” genre for the new century.

  The books are full of nasty talk, jaw-dropping sex, drugs, and creepy sociopathic habits like carving your boyfriend’s initials into your forearm. Wow. Self-mutilation as a hobby. Never thought of that, back when I was riding my pet velociraptor up a dirt road to catch the school bus. How are these idjit girls gonna explain the I heart Darryl scar at a job interview? Once you whittle stuff into your skin about the only career you can hope for is being a prison guard at Abu Ghirab or a back-up dancer for Brittany Spears. Eeee-yew.

  Skanky Girl Author had gnawed-off looking hair the color of a bleached jonquil and enough liner around her eyes to qualify for Egyptian mummy-hood. She looked like a scrawny raccoon that’s just finished chemo. As best I could tell, she’s headed for one of those fancy east-coast colleges where the professors spell women with a y instead of an e and everybody wears camouflage thong underwear over pierced body parts and everybody openly admits they like to get licked. Dear Gawd.

  Skanky Teenage Precocious Girl Author opined that “everybody” did the kind of creepy stuff she wrote about in her book. I always like it when “everybody” gets blamed for being as messed-up as your own self. Damn, I got to talk to my teenage second cousins and ask to see their body carvings. I don’t think they have any, though one or two probably daydream about cutting I heart Dale Earnhardt Junior on a thigh.

  Guess they’re not “everybody,” meaning they don’t live in Manhattan and think they know what the rest of the world is all about.

  What really fried my grits about Skanky Teenage Author was how her nasty inclinations are tolerated by her parents, who looked like lame-ass, upper-class idjits during the interview. They sat there blinking nervously and trying not to blush for birthing a blonde, foul-mouthed raccoon-girl. “We try to tone her down,” they claimed. “But we just have to learn to tolerate her language. It’s the way people talk now.”

  Not in my neck of the woods, they don’t. At least not in front of their parents or other elders. Not unless they want to find themselves gettin’ up out of a corner with their mouth slapped sideways like a stroke patient after a shot of Novocain.

  Dear Gawd. Somebody call those British nanny women. Send a whole herd of ’em to Manhattan. Tell ’em to teach skanky upper-class teenagers how to behave. And don’t let those teenagers write books! Isn’t it bad enough that diet doctors and politicians and Paris Hilton get to write books? Do we want our young folks to sink to that level?

  Or better yet, send those teenagers down South here. I got a pack of beefy-armed, hymn-singing aunts who’ll cut some hickory switches and raise some hell on their camouflage-thonged behinds.

  Talk about getting something licked.

  One night the hubbie and I (I’ll call him “Chewbacca” from hence forth, since he’s big, growly, sweet, loves Star Wars and has a cold nose). Anyhow, me and Chewbacca went to see a movie, Crash. It made us feel all smart and mature and whatever because most of the films we’d been to lately featured kung fu or fart jokes, or both. There was no kung fu in Crash. There was a fart joke, but at least it was important to the story.

  Anyhow, Crash is a real good movie, it nearly had Chewbacca in tears a couple of times and made me start nodding like an old woman in the Amen corner at church. It’s about a bunch of people in Los Angeles, all different races and sexes and places of national origin, and how they deal with other folks’ racism as well as their own. I get so happy I want to squeal whenever I find a movie or book that shows people other than SoFo’s being dumb, prejudiced, ignorant, etc. Because usually we SoFo’s are the first stereotype Hollywood hauls out to play the villain. Don’t even get me started about that.

  Crash was an excellent film, specially since it featured Ludicris, the rapper, who is from my neck of the woods and is proving he can act up a storm. All in all, it was a good night at the movies, except for one horrifying thing:

  They showed a preview of coming attractions, and I found out Adam Sandler was starring in a re-make of that 1970s classic, that Burt Reynolds tour de force, another of my most-favorite SoFo films, The Longest Yard.

  Adam. Sandler. Adam Sandler. Adam Sandler.

  Oh. My. Gawd.

  Hollywood, have you got no shame whatsoever?

  The Longest Yard is a classic SoFo redneck movie, right up there with Walking Tall. Burt Reynolds still had most of his own real hair then, and he was a box office star of the first magnitude. The movie had everything you could want: drama, comedy, football, and convicts, (sort of like my family’s reunions). Burt was sexy, funny, tragic, cute, did his own stunts, and his face looked real, not like now. Now he’s got that Bad Drag Queen Plastic Surgery Look. But back in the 1970s, when he had his original skin, he was Hot Grits, boy howdy.

  My whole family went to see The Longest Yard at the drive-in. My daddy cried when Burt’s sidekick got burnt up in the jail cell. My mama chortled at Bernadette Peter’s big hair. We cheered at the end when . . . well, I don’t want to ruin the ending for those of you who haven’t seen it on DVD. But it’s a three-hand clapper. A classic. A pure, redneck-storytelling classic. That’s what the original movie was.

  I nearly choked on my nachos when I saw smarmy, smirky, flabby Adam Sandler in the previews of the new version. He’s not even a SoFo! Chewbacca had to hold me back. I had an urge to find out where the producers
lived and slap him like yesterday’s wash. They had dishonored the original’s sacred heritage of ball-bearing Southern macho-hood.

  But it gets more awful.

  There was Burt. In the previews. In the re-make. Burt, the object of my youthful lust, playing an old man. Doing something you’d call a cameo, I guess, or maybe “a formaldehyded bit part,” to put it politely, playing the convict football team’s crusty old con coach, or some such thing. All I know is I had to cover my eyes against his diva-tight plastic surgery and shorty-short hair plugs and that dull-eyed grimace that says he knows he wouldn’t have to take shitty roles now if only he’d acted in more classy movies instead of all those Smokey and the Bandit sequels.

  Surely he knows that he’s not turning out to be Clint Eastwood in his golden years. I mean, Clint transformed his jokey he-man career into a serious elder-hood as a director, but Burt’s gonna end up on Hollywood Squares, if he hasn’t already. (I don’t know ’cause I quit watching the Squares after Paul Lynde died. I mean, what was the point after that?)

  It just breaks my heart to watch Burt picking up celebrity crumbs dropped by idjits like Sandler. I may have to swear off remakes of the SoFo classics from now on.

  All I can do is pray some smart moviemaker will yet save the day and cast Burt in the premium parts he was born to play: Rhett Butler: The Grandpa Years or, just as good, a bio-pic of Ted Turner.

  Some pointy-snouted academics done gone and researched barbecue, and they’ve got the smoky-bones gall to say that Memphis, Tennessee is the center of the barbecue universe.

  Anathema! Or as we say down at my church, The Barbecue Tabernacle, Porcine Heresy!

  My mama, better known by her Cherokee Name, Stands With A Martini, my mama and me went up to Memphis once and, hearing that the local barbecue was so good it’d make a Shriner burp, we headed for a famous BBQ restaurant there in town.

  It had the right look for good BBQ, I’ll give it that much. Lots of stuffed jack-a-lopes on the walls, pictures of Merle Haggard and Bear Bryant, old china plates with state seals on ’em, and the usual narrow, hard-assed pine booths that make fat people look like biscuit dough shoehorned into matchboxes.