Pleasures of Life

Hail the Tomato

The indispensible veggie/fruit/berry

By Michael Smith

Garden-fresh tomatoes will soon play center stage at Sandhills farmers markets. The things purporting to be tomatoes that we’ve endured all winter look like a picture. But then they also taste like a picture.

You say “tumahtoe,” I say “toomaydo,” the French and Spanish say “tomate,” Dutch say “tomaat,” and Italians say “pomodoro.” Whatever, those luscious little veggies soon will find their way onto our plates and delight our palates. Tomatoes are not just good, nay, they’re good for you. They’re chock-full of vitamins and stuff like lycopene, an antioxidant that is good for the heart and effective against certain cancers.

Americans love tomatoes. According to the USDA, the average American eats 23 pounds of tomatoes each year. And a Google search reveals that 93 percent of American gardeners grow tomatoes in their yards.

Did I say luscious “little veggies?” Should I have said luscious little fruits? Doesn’t matter to me and probably not to you. But back in the day, it did matter to the United States Supreme Court.

On May 10, 1893, the Supreme Court decided that tomatoes are vegetables. Case closed. That, despite the fact that, botanically, fruits — say, tomatoes, for example — surround their seed(s) with fleshy material. Vegetables don’t. (Bet you’re already wondering about seedless grapes, seedless watermelons, and seedless oranges.) The Supremes found that dictionaries did not sufficiently settle the question so, as it’s wont to do, the court decided the issue using the “common language of the people.” Most folks say tomatoes are vegetables.

Phytologists might have a word or two to contribute to that. They study plants and to them, tomatoes are more nearly a berry. New Jersey sides with the Supremes. There, the tomato is the state vegetable. In Ohio it’s the state fruit. Arkansas covers all bases. There the tomato is both the state fruit and state vegetable.

Moving right along, Americans grow tomatoes as annual plants, but they are actually perennials. They still grow wild in the Andes mountains. Actually, you can nurse the plants through the winter and plant them again next spring.

Tomatoes have an interesting history. One source traces them to the early Aztecs, circa 700 A.D. But by the time Spanish explorers began ripping off South America, tomatoes were pervasive and enjoyed by natives there as a food staple. They grew wild and they were also cultivated for food. In addition, they were regarded as an aphrodisiac, which probably had most to do with why tomatoes were sent back to Europe, along with everything else of value.

Once there, the French apparently took the aphrodisiac business to heart. They called the tomato pomme d’ amore or “apple of love.” Tomatoes were also embraced as part of the Spanish diet. Upper-class Brits took a pass on the things while lower-class Brits ate tomatoes with gusto. One theory about that is that the rich folks ate off pewter flatware with a high lead content. Tomato acid caused the lead to mix into the food and lead poisoning led to bad results. Poor people used wooden plates.

A more probable explanation for literate rich Brits eschewing tomatoes is that the tomato plant closely resembles the nightshade plant which is, in fact, poison and can even be fatal. Fast-forward to America’s Colonies. Tomatoes got off to a very slow start. Apparently, the nightshade/poison fiction came over with the Pilgrims. And the apple of love business was definitely not a hit with the Puritans. None of that “hot tomato” stuff.

High-profile dudes like Thomas Jefferson, Col. Robert Gibbon Johnson, and Joseph Campbell popularized tomatoes and ensured their place in our culture. Jefferson grew them in his garden and promoted their use in cooking. Johnson, as late as 1830, had the temerity to eat the things on the steps of a local courthouse, where folks lined up to watch him die. And in 1897, Campbell began marketing condensed tomato soup. Now, would Campbell Soup do you wrong?

Given the popularity of the tomato, a body might think America would be the largest tomato producer. Not so, it’s China. America’s second. In America, Florida grows the most fresh tomatoes, while California processes the most tomatoes used in soups, sauces, salsas, salads, ketchup and multitudes of similar commodities.

Tomatoes are not just garden-variety, either. In fact, there are a whopping 10,000 varieties of the vegetables, uh, fruits, uh, berries. And they come in red, pink, purple, black, yellow and even white. So there’s something for everybody.

Tomatoes are spacey. That’s right,  according to NASA.gov, 600,000 tomato seeds traveled to the International Space Station and back. As part of the “Tomatosphere Project,” students in Canadian classrooms are using the seeds to grow plants and compare them with plants from seeds that didn’t get to go to space.

Here’s one for the books: The Guinness Book of World Records says between May 2005 and April 2006, a tomato “tree” grown in the Walt Disney World Resort greenhouse produced over 32,000 tomatoes in the first 16 months after it was planted. That scored the record for the most tomatoes in a single year. And here’s another: The heaviest tomato on record was produced in 2013 in Oklahoma. Weight — 7 pounds and 12 ounces. Put that in perspective by considering that the average tomato weighs a mere 4 ounces. Finally, Guinness says the world’s tallest tomato plant was 65 feet, grown in 2000 in Lancashire, United Kingdom.

All right, I promise this is the last one. There’s this little place called Buñol, which is a province of Valencia, Spain. Each year on the last Wednesday of August between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., as many as 50,000 visitors from everywhere on Earth gather in Buñol for the “La Tomatina” food fight festival. On average, those nuts unleash 243,000 pounds of tomatoes at everything that moves and everything that doesn’t move. Hey, whatever rings your bell.  PS

Michael Smith lives in Talamore, Southern Pines, with his wife, Judee. They moved here in 2017 and wish they had moved here years earlier.

A Perfect Match

Don’t judge a foot by its cover

By Beth MacDonald

One of life’s goals should be to make friends whose stories are more interesting than your own. Kate is one of mine. She’s a rock star, not a figurative one, a literal one. She has traveled the world, partied with amazing people. She is a beautiful soul, a singer, songwriter, insanely funny and has the kind of looks most women dream of having. One day at lunch over Bloody Marys, we heard her on the radio. “Can you believe they are playing this garbage?” she said. I feel blessed beyond belief to be surrounded by compelling and intelligent people who brighten my days and color my world with their wisdom and grace. So, when Kate told me I was an interesting friend, I almost choked on my frittata.

Some days I think the most interesting thing about me is my sock collection. I have socks with artwork on them. I wore them to the Louvre thinking I was “dressing for the occasion.” I have socks with a monorail on them that I wear to Walt Disney World. Some of my socks depict women at work and have pithy, feminist quips. Some socks are more vulgar. I wear those to meetings with people I find less, let’s say, agreeable. I have found that my socks are a way to recognize the world’s kinder souls, odd as that may be.

I think I have an interesting life. I am a lucky woman. Mason, my husband, is kind, and one of the smartest people I know. He never talks about himself, but has far more interesting stories than I ever will. Most people don’t give him the chance to tell them. They look at his tattoos and beard and probably think he’s not much for intellect. He doesn’t mind being underestimated. We have been friends for almost two decades, and married for four years. Both of our previous marriages ended at “Till death do us part,” making us an unusual pair — young, remarried, widow and widower. We have an unbreakable trust in each other, having been through “the worst.” 

I recently made the mistake of leaving Mason unsupervised with my socks. I don’t pair my socks when I do the laundry; they stay in a pile in the laundry room. That drives Mason to the brink of insanity. He likes to have a certain order to socks. He actually numbers his. When I need my socks I just go to “the pile” and pick out what I need and go about my business. If I’m in a hurry, I don’t even match them. I just grab and go. That makes Mason even crazier. While I was gone, he seriously contemplated getting rid of “the pile.” I’m still shocked he confessed this to me. My socks are as sacred as his OCD.

“I didn’t throw them away,” he said as if that somehow made the conspiracy less brazen. “It’s proof of my love.” I was still in shock, trying to keep from plotting revenge for a crime that wasn’t even committed. My poor precious endangered socks.

“You wanted to!”

“I have your name tattooed on my hand, in a rose. I’m not throwing your socks away.”

“My name should be tattooed in a sock, not a rose,” I said, my voice still an octave above calm.

Mason sighed. “There are no cool songs about sock tattoos.”

“Kate will write me one.” The whole scene played out in my head. I would call Kate and ask her to write me a raspy-voiced rock ballad about a sock tattoo and how no one should ever look down on socks with disdain. Brilliant!

Mason was saying something but I wasn’t listening. I think it was about his OCD and suggestions about how to organize my socks properly. He didn’t get it. My socks were organized. I knew that my right monorail sock was in the bottom drawer upstairs and the left one was in the basket hanging over the edge, near the handle.

Since even the kind can backslide, soon he may be able to find a reminder on iTunes.  PS

Beth MacDonald is a Southern Pines suburban misadventurer that likes to make words up. She loves to travel with her family, read everything she can, and shop locally for her socks.

Well-Spoken

At the English-Speaking Union, learning is a lifelong mission

By Joyce Reehling

Sometimes I am lucky enough to stumble into a very good thing. Upon leaving Connecticut we knew that one of the things we would miss most would be the exceptional speakers we went to hear at Fairfield University Open Visions Forum.

The proximity to New York and even Washington, D.C., plus very healthy funding by donors and businesses brought truly great personalities from every possible walk of life. Nothing quite like it was here, or so I thought.

Then I saw that one of my favorite people, Thomas Jefferson, would be speaking in Pinehurst (in the guise of Bill Barker from Colonial Williamsburg), and off I went to get tickets-except that he was coming to the English-Speaking Union, members only. Who the heck were they?

I first feared that it would be folks who thought only English should be spoken in our country, but that is not the case. Nor is it a “dining club for the elite,” as some have said, even though they dine together.

No, E-SU has a history, and a deep and abiding set of principles and purposes.

Sir Evelyn Wrench founded this international education charity in 1918 with the aim of bringing together people from different cultures and languages to find a way to build skills, confidence and communication. The intention was to use a common language, English, to further knowledge, understanding and peace and to provide these skills in a non-political and non-sectarian way.

In 1957, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II became the royal patron and E-SU received a royal charter. Princess Ann took over from Prince Phillip and serves as the present patron.

All very nice as far as that goes for those of us in “the Colonies,” but the real job of our E-SU here in the States and around the world is to foster the learning of English as a tool for those who come from elsewhere, as well as our own students.

I came for the speakers and have stayed for the real work of E-SU, helping middle school teachers and students thrive in debate training throughout their school years as E-SU has fostered — along with their schools — strong teams in several schools across Moore County. They enter our annual competition and may go on to further debates nationally.

We also sponsor and present the annual Shakespeare competition, where high school students study Shakespeare and perform a sonnet and a monologue from his plays.

These skills give young students insight, skill and the ability to study, listen well and present themselves in a public format. No matter what technology does for us, everyone needs to garner these skills, find like-minded folks and continue our learning path all through our lives.

At its headquarters in New York City, English in Action puts people together who can assist new learners in both language and cultural understanding, helping them find the assets they need to turn their lives into productive and exciting ones here while learning to speak English. Whether by choice or fleeing war, whether young or old, these people need help learning English and American culture. E-SU in NYC does that because we believe that common language is essential.

Learning skills to become an American with English are not vastly different from the skills children need to leave home and find their way in the world. Language, listening, communicating clearly and being able to define what you believe and who you are are the things I think E-SU does for new arrivals and for our kids right here at home.

The Luard Morse Scholarships help students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities study at a British university for a semester. The Walter Hines Page Scholarship offers British and Argentine teachers a chance to explore and exchange educational ideas in America.

E-SU also offers extra training in the UK for an array of courses to help bolster teachers and their constant need to be refreshed and reinvigorated for the task of teaching.

As to the “dinner club” thing, yes, it is true that we gather for dinner or lunch, but the real purpose is for us to learn from a series of speakers we bring to Pinehurst or have on our own front door step. In the past, we have hosted some gifted writers like Lynne Olson, who wrote the New York Times best-seller Citizens of London, and Craig Johnson, who writes the wonderful Longmire series of stories of law in the wilds of present day Wyoming.

We gather for international speakers as well, like Dieter Dettke, an expert on European security and Euro-Russian relations; Hodding Carter, journalist and a former spokesman for the U.S. State Department during our hostage crisis in the 1970s; and Capt. Carl Newman (now retired), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Deputy Director for Aircraft Operations, who did 14 years of hurricane hunter flights in one of the world’s premiere research aircraft. These are a sampling, a very few, of the men and women who come to help us be lifelong learners.

A charity that focuses on making learning a keystone of life, keeping English as a gateway to knowledge and communication without destroying other languages or cultures, and above all supporting our teachers and students, that is what the English-Speaking Union turns out to be.

And now, many months of the year Darling Husband and I hear fine speakers while we support our devotion to learning. The funds raised by our Sandhills branch plant deep roots right here and in the world.  PS

Learn more about E-SU and its programs for students and teachers by emailing sandhills@esuusa.org. 

Joyce Reehling is a frequent contributor and good friend of PineStraw.

Green with Envy

Doing St. Paddy’s Day the Southern way

By Tom Allen

You are what your ancestors ate. And drank. Sometimes.

Credit English forebears for my fish and chips hankering. Hot tea, too. But a recent Ancestry.com search shows a wee bit o’ green pulsing through my veins. Therefore the Irish branch on my family tree should support corned beef and cabbage. But no. A split decision. I love cabbage. Ditto potatoes and soda bread slathered with Kerrygold butter.  But, even on St. Patrick’s Day, I can’t stomach corned beef. Maybe that’s because nobody in Ireland eats the Americanized permutation, which replaced bacon — too expensive for poor Irish immigrants.

Funny thing is, I’m a deeply rooted Southerner who doesn’t appreciate a thick Better Boy tomato slice on white bread, made mushier with mayo. Duke’s, of course.  “Unheard of,” some folks say.  “Treason,” others sneer.  My reply?  “Sorry, it’s a texture thing.”

Leprechauns aside, March 17 marks the feast day of Ireland’s beloved patron saint.  In Ireland, until later in the 20th century, the day was more religious than raucous.  While family and faith are important to the celebration, pubs and parades now mark the occasion as well.  An estimated 33 million pints of Guinness are downed in that 24-hour period.

In America, St. Patrick’s Day is a one-day deal, but the Emerald Isle spends several days tipping its hat to the good fellow credited with Christianizing the island nation and driving out those legendary snakes.  According to a friend with Irish roots, lots of folks wear green, even live shamrocks, but pinching is purely American.  Pinch an Irishman who’s not wearing green and you’re liable to catch a left hook.

As for Irish food, colcannon, not corned beef, is a St. Patrick’s Day staple.  The mixture of creamy mashed potatoes and cabbage or kale is served with bacon, a combination that makes me smile.  But who whips up colcannon around here?

I’m a foodie traditionalist.  Therein lies the pickle.  Give me Hoppin’ John on New Year’s Day, burgers and dogs on July 4, turkey from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  But what’s a Southern boy, with a bit of Irish ancestry, supposed to eat on St. Paddy’s Day?  If not corned beef, perhaps a pork option honoring those frugal Irish immigrants who gave up their pricey bacon?  Try cured and fried.  Make mine country ham, sliced paper thin and seared in an iron skillet.  Perfect, I say, with a plate of steamed cabbage.  Pair with some buttermilk biscuits, spread with Kerrygold butter, of course, and dig into a fine pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Speaking of pickles, St. Patrick’s Day always falls during Lent, a season when some abstain from meat on Fridays.  Last year, the feast fell on a Friday.  Fortunately, some bishops in communities with large Irish-American populations relaxed the rule, granting one-day dispensations, so the faithful didn’t have to choose between sinning and nibbling on their beloved corned beef.

No such pickle this year, since St. Patrick’s Day falls on Saturday.  So simmer a pot of cabbage. Load up that slow cooker with a slab of corned beef brisket, or, if you’re like me, fry up some slices of North Carolina’s WayCo country ham.  Don a bit of green, offer a word of thanks for good souls like Patrick, then sit down to a salty feast that’s sure to keep those Irish eyes smiling.  Erin go bragh!

Tom Allen is minister of education at First Baptist Church, Southern Pines. 

Sacred Spaces

Across life — and death — the places where we connect

By Tom Allen

What makes a place sacred is often a matter of experience and memory.

Our daughter married this summer, in a historic Raleigh church, repurposed earlier as a bluegrass venue, then restored, once again, as a church. The founding congregation moved to a suburban location in 2001. Religious-themed, Tiffany-styled stained glass windows traveled with them. Simpler patterns remained. When a developer purchased the building, he filled the empty spaces with stained glass fitting a more secular venue — a colonial-era vineyard, a maestro conducting a symphony.

When a new congregation purchased the building, they set out to restore the space to its original intent as a house of worship. Some rooms were left open for artists’ displays. The church also agreed the sanctuary could be used occasionally for concerts. They’ve done an amazing amount of work in a short time — updating antiquated HVAC systems, refinishing hardwood floors, and preserving decades-old pews. Finding a new home for the current windows and replacing them with stained glass depictions of the faith is planned but costly.

So when I walked Hannah down the aisle on August 19, instead of depictions of the Good Shepherd or the Christmas story, a couple, straight out of Colonial Williamsburg, was strolling through a vineyard. Above a wooden cross a conductor raised his baton, ready to give the downbeat. Although some of the visuals seemed to contradict the setting, the day, we all agreed, was a high and holy occasion, a pull-out-all-the-stops celebration with lots of grand memories.

For many, a church, a synagogue, a temple, is sacred space. The words and rituals echoing there connect people to something beyond themselves, something transcendent, mysterious, yet something very real. Babies are baptized, vows are spoken, the sick are anointed, the dead are remembered. Some spaces house relics and saintly figures. Holy books, altars, and tables become enshrined. Whether an upright piano donated in memory of a dear granny or the tomb of a beloved saint buried for centuries in an undercroft, crypts and crevices enhance the sacredness of these spaces. Westminster Abbey, a simple rural sanctuary or an outdoor chapel canopied by oaks — all places where sacred spaces abound.

But people need not enter a temple or church to feel the holiness. The delivery rooms where my children were born, occasions that took my breath away, became sacred places. The room in a nursing center, where I held my parents’ hands as they breathed their last, was just as sacred as the churches where I embraced a belief that something was beyond those final breaths.

I know a couple in their 80s who have walked the same path, weather permitting, every afternoon since they retired. She is stooped. He holds her hand. The path has grown shorter and the walk takes longer, but that trail is, for them, a sacred and holy space.

Places of horror can be sacred as well. Sites of the unfathomable — Ground Zero in Manhattan, Dachau, Auschwitz, the Killing Fields of Cambodia — these places, where innocents were slaughtered, become shrines to the sanctity of life and the hope that “never again” will prevail.

You probably have personal sacred places, beyond walls and steeples. The space might be the chair where loved ones used to sit, a car they drove, a garden they once tended, a kitchen table where life was shared, or a grave that confirms that they lived and loved and mattered.

Sometimes I fear we’ve lost our capacity to see wonder where true wonder lies, to see the sacred in the everyday, the holy in the mundane. Perhaps the story of the first Christmas — the birth of a baby in a cow stall — reminds us all, whether we embrace the story as our own or not, that beauty and wonder often come to us simply, quietly and in the most unexpected times and places.

For one and all, may these days be merry and bright, blessed with peace and graced with wonder. And may you find a place, a time, or just a moment, that simply takes your breath away.  PS

Tom Allen is minister of education at First Baptist Church, Southern Pines.

 

Hey, Toss Me a Packa Nabs

Good things can come in small packages

By Tom Allen

Occasionally, my wife’s Georgia family observes Thanksgiving another day that week, depending on when everyone arrives. One year, halfway to Georgia and close to lunchtime, our mini-van pulled up to a gas pump. A memorable and moveable Thanksgiving feast found the four of us, dining in a convenience store. The menu included the contents of our cooler — chicken salad and Dr. Pepper — along with grapes, pretzel sticks and the Southern go-to snack, Nabs.

If the word “nab” conjures peanut butter sandwiched between orange crackers, chances are you’ve lived below the Mason-Dixon line. The Southern snack has become a staple for mill workers and attorneys alike. Throw a pack into a kid’s bookbag. Toss one to a hunting buddy. Nabs travel well in a golf cart. Lunch? Bedtime? Tear open a pack of Nabs with your front teeth. Wash down with a diet Mountain Dew. That’ll tide you over till supper or you’ll sleep guilt free. Be forewarned — orange cracker crumbs leave sticky evidence. Nibble with caution.

Nabisco (short for National Biscuit Company), known for good eats like saltines and Oreos, introduced its Peanut Butter Sandwich Packet in 1924. “Nabs” soon appeared at soda fountains, filling stations, and vending machines. Fifty years later, Nabisco discontinued production but Lance, a Charlotte snack company, had been cranking out its own version of the salty wafer since 1915.

In 1913, Phillip Lance loaned a customer a few bucks. The fellow paid up with 500 pounds of peanuts, which the inventive Lance roasted and sold for a nickel a bag. Those roasted goobers made money for the entrepreneur. Two years later, when Mrs. Lance and her daughters spread peanut butter between two crackers, the Lance “Nab” was birthed.

Speaking of birth, my wife lived off Nabs while pregnant with our first child. When waves of morning sickness rolled in, Lance came to the rescue. A pack of Toast Chee kept things stable until lunch. I can imagine a prescription: “Eat one cracker every hour, for six hours, with sips of ginger ale.”

Cracker competition was fierce, maybe not on the same level as Duke’s and Hellmann’s, but folks definitely had a preference. Tom’s Foods, another Charlotte-based snack company, had their own brand of the salty snack wafer. By acquiring Tom’s in 2005, Lance cornered the market on peanut butter crackers. The most popular brand is marketed as Toast Chee but most folks simply refer to the iconic Southern snack as “Nabs.” Nip Chee, with a cheddar center, is my favorite.

Snack cracker customers want options, so Lance introduced Toasty — real peanut butter (is there any other kind?) spread between two round buttery crackers. Grape jelly eventually entered the mix — a Toasty PB & J. Lance squared up their rectangular soup and salad staple, Captain’s Wafer, and glued it together with a layer of cream cheese and chives. Voilà! A cracker fit for high tea. Today, a Captain’s Choice variety Pack features the cracker with peanut butter and honey, a grilled cheese-flavored spread and jalapeño cheddar.

For a bit more sweetness (and an elegant scalloped edge) consider Nekot, a sugary wafer spread with peanut butter or lemon cream. A buddy who worked as a Lance driver confirmed the correct pronunciation — “knee-cot.” Urban legend has it that Lance approached the maker of a popular cookie, the Token, and asked to make a peanut butter version. The company declined. Lance made the cookie anyway, reversing the spelling. While Toast Chee goes well with a Coke or Dr. Pepper, the more substantial Nekot dunks nicely in a cuppa joe.

In recent years, Lance introduced new bold flavors, something for the not-so-faint of tongue. Smokehouse Cheddar and Buffalo Ranch find their way into everything from quilted lunch bags to tackle boxes. A whole grain snack cracker was produced for the health-conscious. Packaging advertises protein grams and proudly declares “No Trans Fats.” Lance’s newest offering, the PowerBreak, boasts 12 grams of protein, boosted by peanut butter and a granola-based cracker.

Holiday trips to Georgia remain a family tradition. A Ford Explorer replaced the minivan. One daughter is married, the other in college. But the next time we take a road trip, if someone hankers for a nosh, I’ll toss ‘em a pack of Nabs. Thankfully, variety packs offer something for everyone.

Is biscuits and gravy or pumpkin spice latte the next snack cracker coming down the line? I hope not. Let Cracker Barrel do the biscuits and gravy thing. Leave pumpkin spice lattes to Starbucks. In this season of gratitude, give me family and a traditional meal with all the fixin’s. Just don’t be surprised, when the pigskin rivalries begin, if you find me tearing open a pack of Nip Chee, then dozing off with a happy stomach, a content soul . . . and orange, salty fingers.  PS

Tom Allen is minister of education at First Baptist Church, Southern Pines.

Sunday Lessons

In the loving hands of a remarkable grandmother

By Kathleen Causey

The black cat clock sat directly above the living room chair where my grandmother wove the rag rugs she sold all over the country. Its large eyes clicked back and forth in time with the swishing tail, mesmerizing my little sister with its quirkiness. I watched my grandmother’s hands, bent in strange ways from my own, twisting the multi-colored satin blanket binding with amazing speed and spinning tales in a soft voice without dropping a stitch.

Hattie Mae Cochran wasn’t my blood relative. I inherited her at age 7 when my mother married her son. This would be my mother’s third marriage and his as well. The union brought a boatload of half-brothers and stepsisters, and it was never comfortable explaining the relationships of our family. The best part of the deal was inheriting Grandma Cochran. She didn’t have her mother’s Cherokee dark looks, but was fair-haired, light skinned and small in stature, with the patience to explain why her strong-minded son demanded so much from his children.

After church on Sunday our extended family met at Grandma’s house. We would stop and pick up the bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and she would have the veggies ready, covered and sitting in their bowls on the back of the stove. In the summers, we followed her down the garden rows helping to hold the basket as she picked ripened tomatoes and cukes for our lunch. In the winters when it was too chilly to play outside, I would squeeze in at her feet with my siblings and cousins in her tiny living room and hear the stories of her life — how they built their cabin too close to a rattlesnake den in Wilkes County and the snakes would try to crawl up through the cracks in the floor in the winter; how, come spring, they moved the cabin farther up the ridge; how they used newspaper to fill the cracks to stop the freezing wind from blowing through. Her fingers stopped only to hand us a needle to thread as she filled our imaginations.

My stepfather, with his Elvis Presley good looks, ran a strict house, demanding perfection and routine, and never spared the rod. Grandma was my savior. I spent weekends with her, bravely following her down into the cellar with my arms filled with Mason jars as she used a stick to clear the spider webs away from our path. She taught me how to make bread and butter pickles; how to put up beans; how to use my fingers to cut in the butter to make biscuits; how to make a flaky crust for her wonderful lemon meringue pie. Grandma made lacy, intricate doilies; crocheted afghans and quilted like a magician. On special weekends, she allowed me to hunt through her private quilt collection she kept in the closet of the guest room. One hangs on a ladder rung in my dining room. The circles of material were from colorful scraps of dresses and shirts. It took months to finish and she couldn’t bear to sell it, or give it away until it became mine.

I overheard my parents say that the year my Grandma gives up her garden will be her last. When that spring came and she said she wouldn’t be planting, my heart was heavy with the grief of what was to be. I am a grandmother now, and though this woman has long left this world, her voice is with me. She is there with each pie crust I make, with each tomato I pick, with each stitch I sew.  As summer comes and the earth starts to warm, I look at my own hands and how they are changing with time, and I hope one day my granddaughters will sit and ask why my fingers are crooked and bent; and perhaps they will listen patiently as the tail of the clock swishes and the eyes click back and forth.  PS

Kathleen Causey lives and golfs in Seven Lakes, North Carolina, volunteers at the Sandhills Woman’s Exchange, and knows way more about cyber security than your average grandmother.

M & M

The sweetness of life

By Joyce Reehling

All people have a little Sesame Street in their lives. The letter M is big for me.

March and May are the birth months of two of my favorite people, nieces born three years apart. Darling Husband and I decided not to become parents, but being an auntie and an uncle is a perfect fit. In March of ’93 my sister, Mandy, gave birth to her first child. Her husband, Scott, was pale as Mandy struggled with a difficult labor and a strange ob/gyn who seemed to think that unlimited hours of hell were a good idea. Sara came into this world after a C-section when both she and Mandy were worn down and close to danger points.

There was this beautiful little girl with a head full of dark hair, destined to go blonde in a blink. She was a big baby and easy to find in the nursery window, gorgeous and delightful. Mandy was exhausted and Scott was amazed by it all. I could not get enough of her, not even when she went into the dreaded colic that lasted eight weeks. The crying was heart-wrenching, as if she was in the tortures of the damned. My mom, who lived nearby, pitched in, helping for days on end, lifting some of the load off the new mommy. March had always been the birthday month of “the twins” — my sister and me — but now it became Sara’s month and my joy.

Three years later the news came that Mandy and Scott were pregnant again, and this time Mandy honored me with a request to be with her at the hospital. Scott traveled a great deal for work and was worried he couldn’t guarantee he’d be there in time for the May delivery. I was overjoyed and arrived several days prior to the expected date.

Mandy went into a tailspin of frenetic nesting, possessed with the notion of washing floors and cleaning gutters and such crazy things. I understand that is not unusual but one does have limits. I said in no uncertain terms that if she wanted a floor scrubbed that I would do it for her and that she was not to drop to her knees on any pretext. Instead, off we went to find a coat for 3-year-old Sara.

While Mandy and Sara prowled the aisles of BonTon I was looking at baby clothes for the fun of it — although I swear by consignment clothes, since no baby wears anything long enough to warrant new clothes for the next one. All of a sudden I hear my name called in a plaintive moan. Mandy had gone down on one knee to button up Sara’s coat-to-be and could not rise again. Like an Amish barn raising, with a little force and a lot of comforting, up she came.

The next morning we got up at 5 a.m. and went to the maternity wing. Thus began a day of walking the halls, Mandy’s grip nearly breaking my arm as I steadied her, to help labor do what labor does.

Monitors were attached to her belly and the wait began. Bless his heart, Scott made it. He walked in around noon, having driven for many hours to get there. Feeling a bit peckish, he decided to go to the hospital dining area and returned a half hour later to announce that they had great burgers and a fantastic view of the Susquehanna River. The only thing missing was the toothpick. I saw a look on Mandy’s face I had never seen before, a quiet kind of rage. A look with a strength of focus that would make a NASA astronaut seem flaky. A look that was the very definition of why handgun legislation is contemplated.

Around 3:30 all hell broke loose, nurses running in, a doctor suddenly breaking the foot of the bed down, and in minutes Emma’s head was visible. With one push out came those little shoulders, followed quickly by her whole self. Scottie and I burst into cartoon tears, the kind that fly straight out of your eyes. All we could say was: “Emma is here. Emma is here.” Joy filled the room.

She was passed to Mandy, then Scott and then me. May joined March. Twenty-one years later we are attending her college graduation. In May.  PS

Joyce Reehling is a frequent contributor and good friend of PineStraw.

Pieces that Speak

There are real stories in stuff

By Joyce Reehling

I walk around our house and hear stories quietly recounting themselves. Everything we own can tell a tale, and we should remember and share it around the dinner table. The real story.

Sometimes we dress up the story about how our “beloved” aunt left us this bowl when, in fact, she was a grouchy old thing that no one liked being around and the best part was the bowl. Tell that story.

Or the rickety, reassembled chair that once collapsed into laughter and pieces under the weight of a friend nicknamed Porky. Tell that story.

Or my little pine, drop leaf table. It sits in our den where it looks as if it doesn’t belong because it is so plain, casual and seldom used. It was the first piece of real furniture that I bought in New York for my very small apartment. I also bought two chairs which are long gone (not, however, casualties of Porky), but I can’t part with this table. I remember seeing it in a small shop on the Upper West Side one Saturday morning. I wasn’t in a show at the time so I had a Saturday to myself. I bought this table and managed to wrestle it home on my own once they had taped it up so it wouldn’t flop open every other step. Most of my life in New York I lived on the fourth floor of a walk-up but luckily, then, I Iived in an elevator building. Instant dining area! A real table and chairs.

I imagined dinners with a friend or, perhaps, a man who would be madly in love with me eating my snappy dinners. But that almost never happened because I worked in the theater and no one else wants to eat at 4:30 in the afternoon to be settled by show time. But I love that table. I look at it and feel younger. I am still, under the drop leafs, that 20-something girl walking excitedly down the street building a real life with a table.

I hang on with great joy to a funny little pitcher and sugar bowl that my maternal grandfather bought when he was quite young and forced to go to work to support his mom and sisters after his father died. He bought this silver-plated set to give to his mother — a true young Southern gentleman living in Richmond, making a gesture meant to uplift a sad and grieving soul. Their de minimis value means nothing. It is the thought of this boy, my grandfather, doing without to give this gift. His love resides with me each and every day. When I polish these pieces my heart glows from his generosity. O’Henry could not have done better.

We buy houses around a dining table. Ours is from Darling Husband’s side of the family. His maternal grandfather, Ferruccio Vitale, an Italian immigrant and a renowned landscape architect until the crash of ‘29, brought with him some amazing furniture. The table is the one D.H. ate family dinners around as a boy. And his mother sat at it when she was a child, too.

It is almost one plank of wood, some trim and some inlay; the legs are two large pedestals with deep acanthus leaf carvings. It takes a basketball team to move it. We believe it to be Florentine, unquestionably unique. Its eight regal chairs match it the way the planets match the sun. Dinners, debates, tears and laughs have spilled over this wood. Great food, great wine and culinary failures have flowed across it. It tells all those stories. Ferruccio must know how we love it so. It defines our house.

I have, among our many paintings, one by our friend Chipp Well, of the moon setting over a pond. It not only keeps Chipp alive in our hearts but on any day when the world is too hard to bear, the news too sad to take, that moon shining on the pond can bring my blood pressure right down. Even a melancholy moon promises another day.

The cups from the Orient Express are crying out for some tea so that I might see the Alps and feel the crisp air. Ask and I will tell the story.  PS

Joyce Reehling is a frequent contributor and good friend of PineStraw.

The Santini Brothers Gene

If you have to ask, you probably don’t have it

By Joyce Reehling

Most people will look at a space, say a living room, and either like it or not. If they like it the way it is, it stays that way . . . forever or nearly forever. I, however, come from a line of women on both sides of my family who have what I call the Santini Brothers gene. When we were growing up there was a moving company called the Santini Brothers, so my dad used that name to refer to my mother’s never-ending desire to change things around in the house. One day the living room was arranged in one way, come home from school and it was another way altogether. The dining room became the den and then flipped back again. Don’t even get me started on curtains.

Science has not been able to isolate this gene but the anecdotal evidence supplied almost entirely by wives, mothers or female lab partners is overwhelming. Though not unheard of, men seldom have it unless they are very lucky and very arts minded. Those of us with the Santini Brothers gene walk through a space and just “feel” something is off, something is not right. Could it be the placement of the lamp? The chair? Maybe if I just switch those two paintings. Most men walk through a space and see the kitchen door.

And then there is the advanced case of the gene when nothing will do but everything in the room must go. No, not out and buy more, but out of this space and into another. I recently switched my living room for the dinning room. No longer as young as I once was, I hired two wonderful guys to come and help me — my Southern Santinis, gentlemen who have a keen eye for how to move things and how to place them correctly. These were no “wham-bam-you’re-moved-ma’am” laborers. Rugs were centered. A 200-year-old dining table from my husband’s grandfather — with six heavy chairs and a sideboard — all got shifted seamlessly and safely, proof that there is art in all trades.

For the cost of a glass of wine, two pals came over that night and we re-hung all the art from the picture molding. We had to restring some of the paintings to adjust for different hanging heights but we accomplished in a little under two bottles what would normally take one person three days.

The odd little tweak here and there can make your space seem new without all the bother of picking up and moving to a new house. Our eyes get so used to what we have that we stop seeing our own world. By switching a few things around we start to see all of it in a new light.

Moving the paintings highlighted what I loved but no longer really saw. Some of them were not hung to their best advantage. Others just needed a little more space around them or to be paired with an aesthetic pal, something that highlighted both.

The next part is where my husband comes home from a trip and sees the change. We had discussed the possibility of trying this but I know he needs to see the deed done before he can relax with it. My husband would hot glue the world in place if left unsupervised. He has no Santini Brothers gene at all.

Many years ago, I devised a rule that saves our sanity in the face of change. It is called the Three Day Rule. Either of us can change anything we want and the other person has to live with it for three days before saying, “put it back.” It has saved us from icy glances, bitten tongues and ill humor and to tell you the truth the “put it back” option has yet to be exercised.

The Santini Brothers gene can give everyone a new lease on life. Change. Try it.  PS

Joyce Reehling is a frequent contributor and good friend of PineStraw.