Homecomin’ Day…. With All the Fixin’s

There are certain days throughout any year that just sorta mark the passage of time.  They become signals of what time of year it is.  Birthdays are like that.  Christmas and Easter are certainly like that, signaling mid-winter and spring.  There’s another day around these parts that is always like that to me… Memorial Day (or Homecomin’) at the church.  This is a day when we memorialize all the members of the church that have passed over the past year, we decorate every single grave in the cemetery with flowers, and end with a cover-dish meal afterward

The preparation began several days before, as the last of the flowers were harvested from all around the yards in all the sundry flowerbeds.  Those were put in buckets of water to let them soak.  Mom and Grandmother would get out the flower pots to do the flower arrangements in and clean them from last year (and a whole year of storage).  The Saturday before Memorial Day is when all the final preparations were done.  Flower arrangements were done, one for every grave of a family member in the cemetery.  Food was prepared for taking the next day.  Picnic baskets and the like were all found in storage, cleaned out, and prepared for the next day’s use.  Clothes were chosen for the coming day and any ironing needed was taken care of.  It was a day full of preparations of one sort or another.

The Memorial Day service was always followed by a cover-dish lunch.  Back in the day, we didn’t have a Fellowship Hall to hold such events.  The men folk would stretch chicken wire supported by short poles between two big maple trees in the church yard.  Come-alongs (wenches) were used to apply tension to the soon-to-be table, and the poles were straightened to support the table about every 10 feet or so.  White tablecloths would be spread the length of that “table” on Sunday morning.  What a beautiful sight it was to see those tablecloths gently fluttering in the breeze as family after family brought picnic baskets, boxes and crates and put their contribution to a feast to end all feasts out on the table.  Then the baskets and boxes were neatly stacked underneath.  Years later, sawhorses and plywood was used to create the tables, then covered with white paper tablecloths.  Nowadays, we have the luxury of a Fellowship Hall where tables can be laid, along with places to sit for the folks.  It was (and is) one of the grandest buffets I’ve ever seen… and the smells wafting from those picnic baskets and boxes were enough to drive ya crazy. 

Memorial Day was when we got to see cousins that we hadn’t seen in awhile, and there seemed to always be relatives there that we’d never met before.  Mom would always introduce us, and hugs were expected as we met Great Aunt Somebody or Other that we had never seen before.  This was almost always followed by “Goodness gracious, Jus’ look how you’ve grown!”, then ending with a tale about when we were babies or some such thing.  Us kids were never really interested, but we always knew we had a part to play in the howdy’s and carrying’s on of that day, so we stood and weathered all the hugs and cheek pinches, smiling when we thought we were supposed to and acting all interested.  (My Dad always made a big deal out of us kids behaving… so we knew what was expected at these sorts of thing.)

The church is always filled to the brim at the Memorial Day service.  Some years it’s a “come early or you don’t get a seat” sort of thing… mostly nowadays it’s just a full house.  There’s always a guest speaker that Sunday (usually a preacher we’ve had in the past at some point), but first there’s the memorials.  The names are read of each church member that passed since last Memorial Day, and a candle is lit in their memory.  Songs are sung, prayers are prayed and the sermon is preached.  It’s a solemn time of remembering, but a joyous time as well, as families come together and friends from far away come home again. 

After the benediction, we all adjourn to prepare for the cover-dish lunch.  This is when the smells start making your stomach growl…. Homemade fried chicken, green beans, peas, corn, ham biscuits, and pickles of all sorts… every vegetable you can think of…. Casseroles of every kind, Jello molds and “the pink stuff” (a Jello and fruit concoction)…. And plates of sliced tomatoes and deviled eggs.  Off to one side is always the dessert table.  Us kids would always cruise this section to see what the choices would be this year, and there was never a shortage…. Chess pies, lemon pies, chocolate pies, every sort of cake and cobbler you could think of, brownies, and sometimes even fudge.  The rule was, however, that we had to clean our plate before going to the dessert table to pick out our the best part of the entire meal.  Grown-ups would take this time to visit and catch up with those they hadn’t seen in awhile, and us kids always played or went walking in the cemetery to look at all the old headstones. 

After the lunch was over, it was time to pack up, share some leftovers with others, say good-byes until next year, and head home.  Usually, though, some of the cousins would come over to Grandmother’s house (next door) and we’d visit and play some more, while the men folk gathered at the card table and played Rook, and the women folk would gather somewhere to discuss recipes, the latest news of the family, and other such things.  Us kids were always made to change out of our Sunday Clothes into our “ever’day clothes”, and went to play in the yard. 

It was always a day to look forward to!  It was a time to remember those gone before us…. and it marked the beginning of Fall.  Soon the leaves would fall, the last of the harvests would be brought in, and frost would once again blanket the yards and fields.  Memorial Day became part of a larger “clock” that marked the years, kept us close to family (even if they lived far away), and was part of the rhythm that we came to know.

Some memories are unforgettable,

remaining ever vivid, and heartwarming.

- Joseph B. Wirthlin -

Where, Exactly, is Over Yonder?!!?

My Grandmother and Granddaddy lived within hollerin’ distance of us.  There was only a big field between the two houses.  We could stand in the back yard and holler at them to say hi, or get a short message to them.  My cousins lived just a hop, skip and a jump from us (at the bottom of the hill), and our church was just over yonder a ways (down at the end of the road, more or less).  We had other cousins that lived “so far out that they have to pump in sunshine”.  They lived “on the back side of never”, “way out in the boonies”.  “You’ll think you’re lost” more than once, if you try to get there.  We live “out past the country line” (in the rural South), “just a hoot n’ a holler” out past the fork in the road where Payne’s Store usta be. 

We Southerners have our own unique ways of defining space as it pertains to where a place is located.  Some are unique phrases only heard in the South, and some are directions based on where commonly known landmarks are… well common to those in the area anyway.  We understand the directions, but those not familiar with these “special explanations” are often left more confused than before they asked.  Of course, in today’s world of GPS’s on every phone, it’s not as big a deal as it used to be, but back in the day, folks either knew where places were, asked for directions, or had a glove box fulla maps for one place or another. 

When using the word “yonder”, we usually accompany that with the pointing of a finger so that the general direction is known (even though pointing isn’t considered to be polite).  “Way down yonder” (or “way up yonder”) is a considerably longer distance than just “over yonder”.   The down and up sometimes equate to compass directions but not necessarily so.  “Out past the country line” just meant that it was out past the point where city dwelling switched over to wide fields and country houses surrounded by gardens and pastures.  “Just a stone’s throw away” is a shorter distance than “a hop, skip, and a jump” usually, but is generally assumed to be much longer than what one could actually throw a rock.  When I was a kid, and first heard the expression “a stone’s throw away”, I thought that meant that I needed to go out in the field and throw rocks ‘til I had a pretty good idea of how far that was.  I was pretty good at throwing rocks (and softballs and such) back in the day, so it might have been a pretty good distance.   Turns out, that wudn’t it at all. 

Then there are the directions that are dependent on landmarks of one kind or another.  Stop and ask a Southerner (we’ll call him JimBob) for directions around here and you’d hear something like this:  “Go down that road ‘til you come to a fork where the crooked silo sits.  It’s just about to fall over.  You can’t miss it.  If you come to the Shell station, you’ve gone too far.  Or is it a Citgo?  Yeah, I think it’s a Citgo nowadays.  Just a piece down that road you’ll see that old barn that looks like it’s smilin’ at ya.  Past that is the church.  When you go past the graveyard, take the second left.  The Jenkins’ house is on the right down that way.  There’ll be a row of scrawny pine trees right next to the house.  Should see a broke Chevy pickup in the front yard, up on blocks.  Charlie’s been workin’ on that thang lately. “  The conversation will likely go on from there as he tells you about how he was helping Charlie the other day and they had to end up rebuilding the carburetor, or some such thingamajig.  Hope you turned the car off before you asked directions because JimBob is liable to be awhile before he winds down.  Directions are more of a stream of consciousness sort of thing with us Southern Folk, rather than step by step instructions.  There’s a special skill in listening to those sorts of directions and then actually being able to follow them afterward.  Most folks make the mistake of trying to repeat those directions back to make sure they got them right.  What’s sure to ensue is that good ol’ JimBob is going to have thought of a “better way” to get you there by that time, and will be only too glad to share that with you. 

Here’s something else you should know… be aware of what you’re asking for if you go up to a whole group of Southerners and ask for directions… or if you’re just visiting with folks and happen to mention that you don’t know a good way to get to “somewhere”.    Each will have his/her own way of getting there, and are all too willing to tell you just why their way is better than someone else’s.  And don’t even try to tell them that you just go whichever way Google Maps tells you to go because the given assumption is that there’s no way that Google, or any other map/GPS service, knows ALL the cut-through back country roads that will save you ever so much time if only you’d pay attention to what they are telling you.  “Besides, the countryside is so pretty this time of year.”  If you find that you’ve stumbled into this situation, it’s best to just listen and nod, then thank them all for sharing their wisdom.  For heaven sake, don’t try to repeat what they told ya, or you may never git home. 

So whether you’re goin’ down the road a piece, takin’ a ride over yonder, or visiting Great Aunt Sally that you haven’t seen in a coon’s age… you might want to rely on your GPS… unless you’ve got time to c’mon in and sat a spell, have a glass of sweet tea, and we’ll all tell ya the best way to git there frum here.

Fer now, I gotta skedaddle.  Me ‘n’ Mama ‘n’ nem are goin’ to the Grill.  It’s just down the road a piece, out past the church.  You know where the road dips down into that “kiss me quick”?  Well it’s on past that a little bit.  Kain’t miss it.  Did you know that the church put up a new play ground a week or so ago?  It looks real nice.  Coulda used more shade trees near it though……………

 

Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?!!