On Grandma's Porch

by Deborah Smith

  I felt torn for a moment. On the one hand, here was the man who’d embarrassed and belittled me now getting a taste of his own medicine. On the other hand, the people making fun of him were no friends of mine and they hadn’t even asked if we were hurt.

  Buddy found not his pants but the oversize Confederate flag and wrapped it around his sagging boxer shorts. Someone in the group of amused onlookers, said, “That’s about all that stupid flag’s fit for. When will these idiot Southerners get some sense?”

  “We’re hoping you can give us some, sir, when you build your plant here.” That was Rufus Purcell’s voice.

  To hear Yankees making fun of the South and a Southerner agreeing with them was too much. Torn no longer, I knew what I had to do. I stripped off my shirt and gave it to Mr. Adams in exchange for the flag. I tucked it under one arm like a flabby football and sprinted toward the club house and its flag poles. I heard shouts of confusion and alarm from the merrymakers as I passed them, and when I looked back I saw a few were chasing me. I was younger and fitter than they were, but I was also weighed down by waterlogged clothes. I kicked out of my squishy sneakers and ran faster.

  I had a cushion of about fifty yards when I reached the flag poles and stopped at the one that flew the country club’s pennant. I had just enough time to haul it down and run up the Confederate flag before Purcell and a sheriff’s deputy reached me. Deciding not to argue with the law, I backed away and watched as the chairman brought the battle flag down and threw it on the ground. I saw bursts of light from a camera’s flash, but I was too angry to notice who was taking pictures. The deputy was unhappy with me but even more so with Purcell, who was screaming at him.

  “You’ve got to arrest those two! They deliberately disrupted an important event, like those streakers at big football games. That old one there, he was all but streaking, standing there in his underwear.”

  “Honest, deputy,” I said. “We were just going to hold the flag out the door and let it wave when something happened to the engine and we had to make an emergency landing.”

  Buddy, who’d reached me by then, followed my lead. “That’s right, deputy. That was a heck of a piloting job the boy did. I thought he did good not to crash and kill us both, the way that engine quit up there. You ought to give him a medal.”

  Since the deputy had no evidence we were lying and since no one on the ground was hurt, he charged me with misdemeanor destruction of property for the damage to the country club’s grass. That done, he drove us back to the airport so Buddy could get his car and I could arrange to get the Cub from the pond.

  While I waited for my clothes to dry, a newspaper reporter arrived and fired questions at me about what happened. As we talked, she said Purcell had invited her to the country club to get quotes and take photos of the Right Tech fete. Her sly smile told me her article might not be the one Purcell wanted.

  It wasn’t. In a prominent box on page one, the article was anything but happy-talk. Instead, it exposed for public review the sweet deal the commissioners offered Right Tech, the Saturday event’s cost to the taxpayers and what happened when Buddy and I became accidental party crashers. The story even quoted what the onlookers said as Buddy stood pants-less in the water. The accompanying color photograph showed Purcell standing on the Confederate flag with his spiked golf shoes.

  After that, Purcell did his best to avoid cameras for the rest of his abbreviated term. Within two months, a coalition of enraged voters, Yankees and Southerners alike, killed the deal with Right Tech and booted Purcell and the rest of the commissioners out of office in a recall drive.

  The day after the recall, Buddy came by the airport and handed me a check for two thousand dollars.

  “What—what’s this for? You shouldn’t do this.”

  “I can do what I want with my own money. Think of that as seed for Jo Beth’s dance school and for helping you with your expenses here. I wish it could be more. I owe you a lot, and I like to pay my debts. And for Pete’s sake, quit calling me ‘Buddy.’ Call me ‘Pa’ or something. Now how about coming down to the lawn-care center and helping me tote fertilizer bags?”

  I followed him out the door and stopped, remembering something.

  “What are you standing there for?”

  “Pa, you think that place sells wild violets? I think I’d like to plant a few.”

  A Baby Boomer Remembers The Early 1970s

  In the car, parents opened the little side window next to the big window even when it was cold, to let out their cigarette or cigar smoke.

  Very few people thought cigarettes were really bad for you.

  If you wanted air-conditioning in your car, you rolled down the window— with a hand crank.

  There were no leaf blowers. If you wanted leaves and pine straw off the roof, sidewalk, and driveway, you got out a broom and a rake.

  The Zulu Krewe tossed real coconuts during Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

  A martini was composed of gin, dry vermouth, and an olive. The only question was whether you wanted it shaken or stirred.

  Appliances came in Harvest Gold, Avocado, and Brown, and people thought those colors were pretty.

  Running around barefoot in the yard led inevitably to stepping on a toad or two.

  Kids played outside all the time.

  Spare tires were full-sized.

  Department store doors didn’t open automatically.

  Cars didn’t have seatbelts or special seats for kids.

  In the years between the black rotary dial phone and the touch tone cordless, people would buy long, curly extension lines so they could hold on to the receiver and move freely in their kitchens while chatting on the phone. More often than not, you’d get tangled up in the long cord.

  There was no choice involved in the hot lunch menu at school. You ate the butter beans and chicken-fried steak or you went hungry.

  Teachers used a blackboard and chalk, not a whiteboard and dry eraser.

  —Maureen Hardegree, The Good Son

  Miss Lila’s Hat

  by Betty Cordell

  “The biggest myth about Southern women is that we are frail types—fainting on our sofas . . . nobody where I grew up ever acted like that. We were about as fragile as coal trucks.”

  —Lee Smith, author

  The very first time I saw Miss Lila, I knew she would change my life. I was fifteen and had taken a summer job as the receptionist for the Evansville Daily Courier while Mrs. Mavis Tompkins was out having her fourth baby. My daddy insisted that I “put myself to good use” that summer. That meant I couldn’t spend all my time at the Donnellys’ pool; I had to work. I was proud of myself for getting the receptionist job. I figured it would be a lot more fun than babysitting or helping my mother and Hattie shell butterbeans or field peas for canning. But I was bored. Not much happened in Evansville, Georgia. Even less in the summer. After three weeks on the job, staring at the phone and willing it to ring, I was ready for something else. Then, the door opened and Miss Lila walked in.

  At two-thirty on Monday afternoon, June 17, 1957, I looked up and saw an enormous, navy, wide-brimmed hat perched at a jaunty angle on the head of a woman who looked like a movie star straight out of one of my Modern Screen magazines. She wore a fancy navy suit with a longish, straight skirt and a jacket that fit at the waist then flared out, just like the suits I’d envied on models in Vogue. A red silk rose was pinned to the lapel and matched the red roses encircling the crown of her hat as well as her long, red fingernails and her red, shiny lips. Perfect eyebrows arched over green eyes and rosy pink cheeks set in a perfect oval face with perfect high cheekbones. I couldn’t guess her age. She appeared timeless.

  She smiled at me and I realized that while I’d been gawking at her, I’d missed what she’d said.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Would you tell Mr. Woolsey
that Miss Lila Cole is here to see him?” She spoke in cultured tones unlike any I was used to. I knew she just had to be from New York City or some other exciting, romantic place.

  “Y-yes, ma’am,” I stammered, my cheeks hot with embarrassment. I got up from my desk and went to Mr. Woolsey’s door, then caught myself and turned back. I’d been so fascinated I hadn’t even asked her to have a seat. She’d taken one, anyway, so I went ahead and knocked on Mr. Woolsey’s door.

  “Come in,” he called out.

  I stepped inside his office and told him a Miss Lila Cole wanted to see him.

  “Who?” he asked in a loud voice. I felt a moment of panic. Was Mr. Woolsey, who could sometimes be a bit gruff, going to refuse to see my newly chosen idol?

  “Mr. Woolsey,” I said, “Miss Lila must have something real important to see you about. I mean, she’s all dressed up and everything.”

  “Very well,” he said, “Send her in.” I breathed a sigh of relief and showed her into his office.

  Try as I may, for the next twenty minutes, all I could hear from behind Mr. Woolsey’s door was low murmurings. Even when the phone rang, all I did was pick it up and put it back down again so I wouldn’t miss a chance to hear a single word.

  When the door finally opened, Mr. Woolsey wore a really big smile. He stood back and motioned for Miss Lila to precede him through the doorway.

  “Allow me to escort you to your office,” he said, extending his hand to point the way. “I hope it will be to your liking.”

  I blinked in surprise. I’d never seen Mr. Woolsey act or talk like that before—I mean, like he was a butler or something.

  “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Woolsey,” Miss Lila replied. “I’m sure whatever you provide will be quite satisfactory.”

  I loved the smooth, honeyed sound of her voice.

  Mr. Woolsey led her down the hallway to the first office on the right.

  My heart skipped a beat. My heroine was going to work at the newspaper office!

  When I went home that day, I searched through my mother’s closet. The only hat I found remotely similar to Miss Lila’s had a brim about half the width of hers. I tried it on and angled it on the side of my head. It fell off. I pushed my wiry, dishwater blond curls up into the crown and tried it again, but the hat sort of floated on top of my bunched-up hair. How did she do it? Since we were going to be working together, maybe she’d tell me. My summer job had just gotten a whole lot better.

  Miss Lila began as the society editor. Up until then, I didn’t know Evansville had a society. She started out reporting on the various bridge groups that met in town. I don’t know how she found out who met when, but she always managed to drop by. The next day her column told the whole town about the delicious desserts served and how pretty the home of the hostess was and what she was wearing. Funny thing is, those groups started out serving cheese and crackers and wearing plain old house dresses and, after only a few weeks, they were wearing their Sunday best and serving pineapple upside down cake. The ladies in town soon caught on to the fact that Miss Lila had a major sweet tooth and her most enthusiastic compliments were reserved for scrumptious desserts. Before long, hostesses were branching out into English trifles, chocolate soufflés, strawberry tortes, and crème brulee. Miss Lila had a way of inspiring people.

  Within her first month, Miss Lila got a second column: Miss Lila’s Literary Corner. In this column, she gave critiques of classics and books nobody had ever heard of which meant that our local lending library had to order them because of all the requests. Not long after that, Miss Lila yielded to the requests of several ladies in town and agreed to form a book club to discuss the books she critiqued. Occasionally, some men came along, too. Personally, I think they were more curious about Miss Lila than interested in the books.

  Miss Lila had made my summer job so interesting that I was unwilling to give it up when school started back. Miss Mavis and I worked out an arrangement that suited us both: She would work every day until three o’clock, then I would come in after school and stay the rest of the day. This worked out great. Miss Mavis could spend more time with her children and I could still be around Miss Lila and keep up with what was going on in town.

  At Miss Lila’s urging, I tried to read all the books she critiqued and attend the book club meetings, unless I had a test at school the next day. Funny how so many of the books she critiqued that year were also on my reading list for school. So, my grades didn’t suffer from me having a job. In fact, they improved. And every time I reported a grade of “A” to Miss Lila, she’d say, “Bravo, Caroline. I knew you could do it.”

  After several months, Miss Lila added still another column to her list, Couture Corner, in which she described the latest fashions in New York and Paris and sometimes included her own sketches. My mother and her friends rushed to the two really good seamstresses in town, Mrs. Richards and Mrs. Walker, to get dresses made to look as much like Miss Lila’s sketches as possible.

  Between my mother and Mrs. McCall, our local telephone operator, I kept on top of what people were saying in town. I was flattered when Mrs. McCall began checking with me to find out what interesting things Miss Lila was going to have in her columns. After I’d satisfied her curiosity, she’d tell me what she’d heard people talking about. Most of the phones in Evansville were on party lines, so none of us could help overhearing a little of this and a little of that whenever we picked up the phone and found the line occupied. My girlfriends and I sometimes entertained ourselves at spend-the-night parties by listening in to a lot more on a party line than we should have.

  With the launch of Cuisine for Company, Miss Lila’s columns comprised a full page of the Evansville Daily Courier. Mr. Woolsey boasted that his readership had never been so high. The consensus in town—I’m not sure who coined the phrase—was that Miss Lila was a Renaissance woman. She seemed to know something about everything—food, clothes, books, music. The only thing she didn’t volunteer information about was herself. Once, when I asked her where she was from, she replied, “Well, my dear Caroline, a Miss Lila Cole doesn’t originate in only one place. The entire, fascinating world is my pied-à-terre.” I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but thought maybe it meant she’d traveled a lot.

  Whatever the occasion, Miss Lila was never without a hat. She reminded me of Miss Hedda Hopper, the renowned Hollywood gossip columnist known for her hats. But to me, Miss Lila was even more glamorous than Miss Hopper. Miss Lila looked like she belonged in a fashion magazine or in the movies. I was enchanted by everything about her. I even kept a list of the hats she wore and figured she had at least twenty.

  Whether reporting a wedding reception or a pancake supper, Miss Lila would sweep into a gathering, her wheel-sized headwear bouncing. At times, I held my breath, expecting to see the hat go cart-wheeling across the room at any moment. At the Evansville Fourth of July picnic I stared in awe when, in spite of a sudden breeze that sent baseball caps and sun hats flying, Miss Lila’s umbrella topping managed to stay anchored in place. I guiltily began to relish the idea of one day seeing what her hair looked like underneath those headdresses.

  I pitied the bride who sought to be the center of attention on her special day! When Miss Lila arrived, and, to be certain, her presence was an honor earnestly sought, everyone’s attention was attracted to her.

  She was unlike anyone I’d ever known—unlike anyone anybody in the whole town had ever known. The idea of her doing ordinary things like removing her hat and changing into pajamas at night or relaxing in slacks or even putting on a bathing suit seemed impossible to imagine. Every day she appeared in her “costume” just as she had the day before.

  I wanted to be just like her. No . . . that’s not true. I wanted to be her. And I wasn’t the only one. My girlfriends and I talked about her all the time. She was so refined, so cultured, so learned, so perfect in every way—clothes, na
ils, make-up. We all thought she was wonderful—well, all of us except one; but I didn’t believe for a minute an ugly story Martha Jean Cranston told about Miss Lila, even though she said she’d heard it from her mother. Martha Jean’s mother was just jealous and nobody believed it, anyway.

  Miss Lila was very kind to me. “Now, Caroline Crabtree,” she would say, “you’re the daughter of the only dentist in Evansville and prominence brings with it responsibility. People look up to you as an example.” Then, she would urge me to read more books and learn to say diphthongs, which she called the bane of the Southern speaker, and to set my sights on either a noble career or a noble husband. She didn’t seem to think a woman could have both. I thought about that a lot. I’d never had anybody talk to me the way she did.

  If Miss Lila had any flaws at all, I might mention that she was a tiny bit inclined to exaggerate. In fact, sometimes her columns seemed a little like one of the novels she critiqued for Miss Lila’s Literary Corner. She loved a good story and if the one she was reporting seemed a tad boring, she spiced it up with a few “extras.” From time to time, Mr. Woolsey was forced to smooth a few feathers when the “extras” in a story became more than the subjects of that story could tolerate.

  My receptionist job included answering the phone, so I knew who got upset about what. After a brief conversation, Mr. Woolsey would tell me to ask Miss Lila if she would mind stopping by his office when she had the time. Of course, she found the time right away and after a few minutes behind the closed door, Mr. Woolsey, smiling and treating her like a member of royalty, would show her out and escort her back down the hall to her office.

  However, the last incident involving Miss Lila’s exaggerations caused such an unexpected outcome, Evansville became famous. Our little town was featured in newspaper stories and on television everywhere in the state of Georgia—all because of Miss Lila.