Blind Pig & The Acorn

Gritted Bread 2

A few of you may remember me and Pap making gritted bread last year. (you can click here to read it-if you didn't see it the first time) Pap remembers 2 different ways his Mother made what she called gritted bread. The one we tried last year isn't something I'd care to try again-but since then I've wanted to try the other version Pap recalls from childhood.

Pap says this 'fresh' version of gritted bread was made at the end of the growing season-when the corn began to harden-but wasn't dried completely.  

We used a few ears of our field corn-since it's much closer to what they grew when Pap was a boy-instead of the sweet corn most of us are familiar with today.

Wild Bill had to tag along to the garden-he has a penchant for corn-or actually any thing humans have that he doesn't. Usually he steals what he can and takes it to one of his hideouts-one of which is underneath my back deck.

See the place where the kernels are missing? Pap says oldtimers called that a 'run out' and  said it was caused by lack of rain. Makes sense considering the dry summer we've had here this year.

 
Pap used Granny's grater to grate the corn. He said when he was a boy most folks had a homemade grater. Some folks used nothing more than an old can with nail holes punched in the end or side while others used more elaborate ones made from a piece of tin stretched over a board with parts of the tin tore back to form the 'graters'.

After we had about 1 1/2 cups of grated corn-Pap added 2/3 cup of plain flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 2 1/2 teaspoons of sodie (baking soda)

Pap beat 1 one egg and added it to a cup of milk

 
He then added 2 tablespoons of bacon grease-that he kept from breakfast that morning-to the milk/egg mixture

Pap poured the milk/egg/grease mixture into the flour/corn mixture and stirred it all up. Seems like he might have added a little more milk-but I can't remember for sure. Pap said the batter should be like pancake batter. He greased his spider pan-heated it-and then poured in the batter.

Pap said he should have fried it like potato cakes but since we were talking-he forgot and poured the whole pan full. Once it was browned on one side-he cut down the middle and flipped both pieces so the other side could cook.

So what did I think-I liked it! When we made the first version of gritted bread-I could only imagine eating it if I had too. But this 2nd version I liked and I could see how folks would enjoying eating it plain or with a smear of honey which is how Pap likes it.    

Have you ever had gritted bread-or even heard of it?

Tipper

p.s. I'll be selling my folkart-and talking about the Blind Pig next weekend-if you're in the Young Harris drop by and see me. On Saturday-at 2:00 you can catch the whole Blind Pig Gang pickin' and grinnin'. And if you come a little earlier on Sat.-you can see some mighty fine clogging performed by the JCCFS Cloggers.

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Sinners and Saints

See the gentleman sitting at the end of the couch-that's was Pap's Uncle Frank-my Great Uncle Frank. He died when I was in High School-but lately he's been on my mind.

Depending on who you talked too-there would have been folks who liked him a lot and folks who didn't care for him at all. He was what you might call an outlaw.

Frank served in World War II. As kids we were forever impressed he killed the Germans. We all told the tale of him fighting down a hundred machine guns at one time-and leaving the enemy in his wake. Looking back, I don't ever remember him talking about the war-I think one of my cousins made the story up for the gospel and we all went along with it.

To say Frank had a drinking problem was an understatement. I believe all his brush ups with the law were caused by it.

One morning I was outside playing when a cousin ran up to Pap and Granny's to tell me "the law is down at Papaw's and they're looking for Frank." I chased him back at break neck speed. There leaned the officer against his parked car. As he stood by the line of mailboxes he said "I've got all day to wait."

Where was Frank? As soon as he saw the law coming up the road, he went out the back door of Papaw and Mamaw's house, up through the woods, down the bank and in the back door of my Uncle's house. While the policeman stood his post, Frank sat on the couch and ate a sandwich.

Although they didn't get him that day, there were other times when they did-like the night they busted in the doors of Papaw and Mamaw's house.

Frank went back and fourth between Mamaw's, she was his sister, and one of their other sister's who lived across the mountain in Pine Log. Sometimes on weekend mornings we'd awaken to find him sitting on the front steps waiting for us to wake up-waiting for Granny to cook breakfast.

After Mamaw died, Frank bought a trailer and put it in the pasture down the road. He entertained other outlaws-most harmless, and drank a lot till the end of his life. Not long after he moved into the trailer Paul was riding his bicycle up and down the road when Frank hollered out the door and told him if he'd go get him a jug of water from the old spring across the road he'd pay him a dollar. Being the little rat that he was and since he knew Frank couldn't see him-Paul got the water out of the creek instead of going to the spring. A few day's later Frank offered him another dollar for a jug of water-telling Paul-and "And this time don't get it out of the creek-Go to the spring."

One Sunday night-Frank accidentally set fire to the trailer. While building a fire he got the gas and kerosene cans mixed up.

Once the trailer was engulfed he simply walked up the road to my Uncle's, went in, and had a seat. You can imagine how he looked-how he smelled. They asked him "Frank what in the world happened to you?" He told them "oh I set the house on fire."

When we arrived home from church-the blaze was huge-and the fire trucks hadn't arrived yet. I was terrified he was still in there-Granny about had to slap me I got so worked up. Later that night, after the terror was over, and the fire was out, Frank spent the night with us-I'll never forget the way Granny's blue bathroom looked when he got done taking a shower let's just say it was no longer blue.

Frank was good as gold to me, he served his country during a horrible war, he took Pap under his wing in Ohio and California, and yet somehow he was an outlaw too. That's what I've been thinking about-how most of us to one degree or another are sinners and saints at the same time-just like Uncle Frank.

Tipper

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Craftmanship And Cultivation Of Beauty - Lingering Legacies Of Early Mountaineers

Craftsmanship and Cultivation of Beauty – Lingering Legacies of Early Mountaineers

by Don Casada July, 2010

Susan and Don Casada perched on a rock wall near the Boogerman Trail area in Cataloochee Valley, NC. 

The wanderer through some of the back country of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will encounter – in areas where people once lived but haven't for some time – certain common vestiges of the former occupants.  Rock walls and chimneys are the two most readily recognized "made by hand" indications.  The old rock walls in the Boogerman Trail area of Cataloochee and the Old Settlers Trail between Greenbrier and Cosby are reflections of the care that the wall builders had not only for the wall itself, but for the land as a whole.  These walls, largely unchanged since they were constructed in the pre-Park era – and with no repairs since – aren’t just piles of rocks thrown together casually.  They were stacked with care to not only clear the areas for cultivation and other service but to make functional things of beauty.  The many chimneys still standing upright – even with the rest of the home either burned, decayed, or hauled away – are likewise a testimony to both craftsmanship and an intent to build something that would last well beyond its builder's years.

An impressive rock wall along the Old Settlers Trail, between Cosby and Greenbrier, TN.

 

Chimney along the Old Settlers Trail, between Cosby and Greenbrier, TN.
 

Particularly in the early spring, one may also notice non-native shrubs and flowers planted by early settlers that have managed to survive - in spite of the now complete tree cover and lack of attention for three-fourths of a century.  Boxwoods, yellowbells (forsythia), and daffodils are the three most common such plants.  None of them are native to North America, and all trace their American history to early colonial days.  Boxwoods, which are tolerant of moderately shady conditions, were often used on either side of a path leading to the front of a home.  On the other hand, both yellowbells and daffodils prefer plenty of sunlight.  Yet they survive in the mountains because they bloom and put out their foliage early enough in the spring to harvest sufficient energy from the sun before tree leaves obscure their heavenward view.

 

Boxwood and yellowbells, late March at an old homesite on Indian Creek, NC.

 

Late March daffodils on Noland Creek, NC.
 

There are other non-native flowers chosen to decorate the landscape by early settlers that bloom in the late spring or early summer, such as the occasional rose and day lilies.  These aren’t nearly as common as they are around both old and new homesteads outside of the Park, but have managed to persist in a few locations – such as in somewhat marshy areas around old fields where the second-growth forest has not yet fully, to use a mountain expression, “taken holt.”

 

Early June day lily in the Possum Hollow area, near Proctor and Hazel Creek, NC.
 

Early mountain settlers led lives that involved serious struggles just to make do. One could offer an argument that the rock walls and chimneys are essentially functional in nature, and that the craftsmanship and care that accompanied their construction served a practical purpose in those struggles. But the fact that they took time to cultivate things of frivolous beauty – that is, if beauty could ever be expressed as frivolity – is another matter altogether, and a very telling one.

Popularized writings of the early 1900s virtually ignored these virtues of craftsmanship and appreciation of beauty that clearly prevailed in the lives of many living in the Southern Appalachians.  Perhaps that is because those attributes, unlike the stereotypes painted of backward and moonshine-centric lives, weren’t marketable.  Two cases in point are Our Southern Highlandersby Horace Kephart and The Carolina Mountains by Margaret Morley.  It might be noted here that the view of marketability being a principal factor in the misleading characterizations is neither original nor new. Judge Felix Alley, in his Random Thoughts and Musings of a Mountaineer, published in 1941, took Kephart and – as he referred to her – “Miss Margaret Morley, of Boston” to task, observing that they “write to be interesting and not to tell the truth; their primary object, with respect to what they say about our mountaineers being, to write books that would sell in the North.”

Judge Alley wielded, to employ a Biblical metaphor that I trust would meet with his approval, a razor-sharp two-edged sword with which he divided asunder. (1)

But we are indeed fortunate that our forebears wrote their own stories that directly contradict Kephart and Morley – preserved not in the pages of books sold from shelves in chic urban settings, but in rock-solid and living, blooming testimonies scattered throughout these Great Smoky Mountains even today.

An anecdote

In mid-May of this year (2010), after finishing supper and cleaning the dishes dirtied by myself and my 100 year-old father, Commodore Casada, I left the house, drove from Bryson City out the "Road to Nowhere" and parked adjacent to the bridge over Noland Creek, with the intent of walking up the trail – maybe as far as Mill Creek and back before dark.

Dusk was a-coming, it was overcast, and I wasn’t carrying a flashlight or headlamp like I do when taking all-day hikes. While I wanted to just enjoy the surroundings on a pleasant spring evening, a bit of light exercise was also part of the plan, so I put my feet in high gear.  For me, high gear is about four miles an hour on an easy-to-walk trail like that along lower Noland Creek (the section I was on is actually a well-maintained gravel road).

I've walked this section of Noland Creek many times, stretching back to around 1960, but have been over it several dozen times in just the last few years.  However, one of the lessons I’ve learned from much tromping around in the Smokies is that, no matter how many times you’ve passed before, close attention is often rewarded by noting something of interest that you’d missed previously.  In part, that is due to changes over both seasons and years, but equally important is the fact that there is much to see that simply goes unseen.  Slowing down helps out a great deal in that regard, but the fading light and interest in exercise were overriding parts of the equation on this particular day. 

In spite of the relatively good clip at which I was walking, about a mile along the way my eye was attracted to what appeared to be a couple of bright yellow flowers about 20 yards down below the trail. It was too late in the year for daffodils at this elevation, so that thought was discarded immediately.  During the preceding couple of weeks, I'd spent considerable time looking for yellow lady slippers (with very modest success).  With the combination of distance, light, and the fact that I wasn’t wearing glasses, I couldn’t tell exactly what I was seeing.  But the recent searching that I’d done for the rare yellow lady slippers overrode the logic that this was not the sort of place they were likely to grow and that it was getting late in the season for them.  I just knew that what I saw was the right color and height for lady slippers.  Setting aside the thought that this area looked like prime snake territory – in fact, I recalled seeing a rattlesnake at this exact spot a few years back – I dropped down off the trail and waded through the spring’s growth - only to find that it wasn't a lady slipper at all but a yellow iris.  Initially, I was quite disappointed, since the iris was not a native plant, and I really had my heart set on a yellow lady slipper.

But after a bit of reflection, my disappointment changed first to intrigue and then appreciation.  Here was a truly gorgeous flower – but one that normally doesn't fare well in shady environs and unlike the yellowbells and daffodils, doesn't come out early enough to beat most of the tree leaves.  Yet here it was, still tenaciously blooming after more than 75 years unattended.  While I took a photo with my point-and-shoot camera that evening, the lack of light and the fact that I wasn’t carrying a tripod made for low quality.  So I went back a couple of days later when the light was better and grabbed a better shot. 

 

Iris in bloom in mid-May on Noland Creek
 

The area where the iris grew was far from a prime location for a mountain home. Yes, there’s a weak spring and Noland Creek itself nearby, and a couple of acres of moderately flat land, but beyond that, the land quickly becomes as steep as a horse’s face.  So it is a virtual certainty that the lives lived there were hardscrabble indeed. Yet the difficulties and challenges were not enough to dominate them to the point that they wouldn’t take time to plant and cultivate these beautiful iris.  Perhaps the fact that the iris still survive and bloom is because the plants took on some of the characteristics of those who planted them – enduring under difficult circumstances, and doing so with a great and beautiful spirit.

The people who settled in these mountains had to be tough as nails and sharp as tacks to endure.  But all the while, their lives were much, much more than just survival, a fact borne out time and time again all throughout the hills and hollers. We are truly blessed to be their heirs.

(1) Hebrews 4:12

-------------------------------------

I hope you enjoyed Don's thoughts as much as I did. Neat to think some of the beauty those early mountaineers shaded their lives with-can still be seen today. I think they'd be mighty proud that a few folks like Don-take the time to appreciate what they lined their lives with all those years ago.

Be sure to leave Don a comment-and I'll make sure he reads it.

Tipper

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Spiders

Everyone's afraid of something-when I was growing up it was spiders for me. I couldn't stand them. Almost every time I saw one I'd take off running and screaming.

During late summer giant spiders would build their webs in the eaves of Pap and Granny's house-they especially seemed to like the corners. I dreaded walking by the webs when I was sent to the clothesline by Granny. On more than one occasion I'd feel the string of the clothespin bag on my back and swear it was a spider-I carried on so-usually somebody came out to see what in the world was going on.

As you can see from this photo-Chatter inherited my fear. This time of the year-it's hard to hike without walking through spiderwebs-Chatter makes sure she isn't in front but sometimes that isn't enough to calm her fears.

The same kind of big spiders that wove their webs in the corners of Pap's house-now weave around my house. 

Folks around here call them writing spiders. An old wives tales says the person's name the spider 'writes' will soon die. Another one advises you should never speak someone's name near a writing spider-cause you might give them the idea for their next web and hasten the person's passing.

Appalachia is full of folklore about spiders-and their webs. Like:

• If you wish to thrive leave spiders alive
• If you get too close to a spider-and it counts your teeth-you'll die (seems whoever came up with this one was afraid of spiders too)
• If you see a spider on your clothes it means good luck (maybe I shouldn't have run from all those spiders as a kid)
• You should go around a spider's web-cause if you tear it down you'll for sure have bad luck
• Spider webs will stop bleeding if applied to a wound
• Eat a wadded up spider web to relieve asthma
• Stuff a spider web down into a cavity to ease a tooth ache

Soon after I had the girls I overcame my fear of spiders. The Deer Hunter and Pap built our house while I was pregnant with the girls-we moved into the house 3 days before I had them in the month September. As soon as cold weather arrived-all the bugs and spiders that had taken up residence inside the walls, cracks, and crevices began to come out. Each morning I'd awaken to a new group of intruders to do away with. One day I saw the biggest spider I had ever seen in the top of our closet-too frightened to do anything about it I called Pap to come kill it-by the time he got up here it was gone. For days I worried about that stupid big spider getting on me or my baby girls-but I determined I'd never be to scared to take care of a spider by myself again.

What about you-scared of spiders?

Tipper 

p.s. Be sure to drop back by tomorrow for a fantastic guest post by Don Casada-I promise you'll enjoy it.

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How Hot Is It At Your House?

Western NC, along with other areas throughout the country, has been experiencing a record breaking heat wave this summer. The high temps recorded during the month of June broke records around the world. And for Western NC the heatwave has continued during the month of July as well.

I grew up with no air conditioning-most of the cars Pap had didn't even have it. When The Deer Hunter and I were first married-it was several years before we could afford to have a heat/air pump installed.

Over the years of having air in the house-and in our cars-I've become what Pap calls 'soft'. Meaning I can not take the heat! Even though I know I used to manage just fine-now it just bothers me.

Of course with the heat comes the colorful saying about how hot it is-you know like 'hotter than Hades' or 'hotter than the hinges of hell'.

 

'hot as a frying pan', 'hot enough to fry an egg',

 

One of my favorites- 'hotter than a 2 dollar pistol'. Another one I like-'hotter than a little red wagon' who knows what that one is supposed to mean.

We spent the last few days with Miss Cindy. While we were there-her car air went out-and worse the air in the house quit working. At 8 in the morning-it was 86 degrees inside the house. Yes Pap is right I've become soft-with temps in the 80s inside the house-I was longing for home and my heat pump.

So how hot is it at your house? What is your favorite hotter than saying?

Tipper

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Ever Feed A Grasshopper?

During the summer it's hard to walk through the yard without flushing out grasshoppers. I found the one above in a 5 gallon bucket-he was missing a leg-but other than that seemed to be in good condition.

I couldn't resist seeing if he was hungry. When I was little I liked to catch grasshoppers and feed them blades of grass.

He made short work of the grass. This summer my mind has been on grasshoppers a lot. You see-at one time-I was Queen of the Grasshoppers.

Well at least I was to this guy. He was Pap and Granny's first grandchild. He made me an Aunt for the first time. Actually, in his eyes I was Auntie Titter the Grasshopper Queen-and that made me feel like the world was indeed a wonderful place.

I'm not sure if I was the first person who taught him about grasshoppers-how you could feed them grass-how you could let one hop from arm to arm if you were quick-how sometimes grasshoppers spit tobacco juice on the tips of your fingers. But I do know, once he became obsessed with catching grasshoppers I was his go to person-cause Auntie Titter the Grasshopper Queen could catch grasshoppers like no one else.

The photo above shows why my mind has been on grasshoppers this summer. See that's him on the left. Just a short month from now he'll be heading for the Campus of Yale where he'll step into the world of adulthood. I just hope he never forgets the Grasshopper Queen-cause I know I won't.

Ever feed a grasshopper?

Tipper

p.s. If you want to learn how to make Grasshopper Chairs-go here.
 
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Treasure Hunting For Old Bottles

Last fall, a friend told me about an old dump she'd found around her place. I thanked her and added it to the list of things I needed to do-thinking it would be a perfect place to explore on one of those bright sunny days that January sometimes gives us as a gift-and hey surely after the first of the year I'd have more time for the trip.

I made the mistake of telling Chitter and Chatter about the offer-and they hounded me unrelentingly about going until one cold fall day I caved to their pleas.

Arriving at dusky dark on the damp evening-we felt like we'd entered another world-or maybe like we'd slipped through a portal to the past. Soon after we stomped through the broom sage and brittle saw briers we realized we'd hit pay dirt. 

The glass items were just strewn through the woods surrounding a small creek-it was like doing a trash pick up along a highway. Without a doubt the easiest dumpster diving we've ever done.

The old home place has been deserted for years-most of it's outbuildings are crumbling around the perimeter of a falling down house. As I studied the area-I realized what we were plundering wasn't a dump. There is no way the folks who lived there would have thrown their trash a stone's throw away from the back porch in the creek.

Noticing an old satellite for the first time since arriving-I figured it out. I'm betting someone bought the old place after the original owners were gone-and took the indecent liberty of cleaning those out buildings of their saved treasures by dumping it all near the creek. Maybe they thought they'd eventually get around to picking it up-but for whatever reason they fled the scene leaving the trash or treasures (depending on how you look at it) behind.

As the girls continued their hunt-I crossed the creek and began walking down what I soon realized was an old road. Farther in the woods-it was beyond dusky dark. I cut down the side of the old road bed and headed back to the dump site. I could see the remains of an old fence. I looked down at my feet and realized I was standing directly in front of the old gate-it lay where it had fallen-almost rotted away camouflaged by leaves.

We picked up stuff until it was too dark to see-all the while talking of the people who used the items. We wondered if it was the little lady of the house or the man who used the snuff jars-we wondered what the lady had canned in the ball canning jars-we wondered if she was sad when she broke the jade green saucer or if a child broke it and hid it to keep her from knowing.

Once we were home-we couldn't resist spreading out the loot to see what we'd found-even though by that point we had to use the garage flood light to see our bounty. (yes that is a deer skull in the picture-leave it to my girls to find a skull and bring it home-I haven't a clue where it is now-I shudder to think it may be under their beds-yikes)

The girls took their favorite finds inside and we put the rest of our treasures back in their boxes and set them under the porch steps-where they stayed until about 2 weeks ago. A Blind Pig reader emailed me to say she wished I'd go on another treasure hunting trip-that gave me the jump start I needed to get the jars and bottles cleaned up.

I was tickled to remember we had found 7 snuff jars-although I dropped one and broke it-the rest cleaned up good. I shared some pictures of the bottles on my facebook page the other day-and someone said-what I want to know it what will you do with it all?

2 of the ball jars now have blackberry jelly in them-the large round squaty jars now hold art supplies-the snuff jars found a home in my drinking glass cabinet-and the rest have been added to our ever growing collection of old bottles.

My favorite find of the trip-was the little glass above-its about as tall as one of the snuff jars-but much thinner. I suppose it was a jelly jar-now it sits by my bathroom sink.

When we go treasure hunting-the best thing is finding old items that haven't been broken-but coming in a close second-is the feeling we get digging through the stuff. As we wonder aloud about a certain piece it seems to give voice to the person who owned it in the first place. And when we carry our treasure home-we carry those voices with us. 

I guess I'm saying the true treasure-is having the voices of men who wore overalls and women who wore aprons lining the shelves of my home.

Tipper 

p.s. If you're new to the Blind Pig and would like to see some of our past trips you can check out:

Dumpster Diving In Appalachia and Treasure Hunting In Appalachia - A Touch Of The Past
 
 
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Come Go Home With Me

There is just something about Summer that makes you want to visit-whether it's walking to the neighbors house or taking a road trip to see family or friends who live in another town. Maybe it's the warm weather-the longer days-or maybe it's cause our parents were taught the tradition of visiting in the summer by their parents. 

Recently, a dear sweet lady, told me how as a child her family would walk over the mountains from Swain County to visit their family who lived in the Cades Cove area. Why she guessed it must have been at least 20 miles. Someone said-well how long did you stay when you went? She said they stayed at least a week after walking that far. 

I was telling Paul about her family walking all that way to visit with their family-me and him got to talking about all the ways folks say goodbye. Two 'goodbyes' that we've heard all our lives- "Come go home with me" (said by the folks who are leaving) and "You ought to just spend the night" (said by the folks who you've been visiting with).

As is often the case-me and Paul got pretty silly thinking about all the times we heard folks say those things when we were kids out visiting with Pap and Granny or folks were visiting us. We began to ponder on what would have happened if Pap and Granny had said "sure we'll spend the night find us all a bed" or "well it is midnight but yes we'll all go home with you-kids put your shoes on!"

A little mischievous of me-but I'd like to go back to one of those late night pickin and grinnin sessions where the men wanted to talk a little longer-the kids wanted to run wild outside in the dark a little longer-but all the women wanted to go home and the woman of the house most definitely wanted all the rowdy kids to GO HOME. When the parting goodbye of '"yall ought to just spend the night" was said, usually by the husband, I'd say YES WE'LL ALL SPEND THE NIGHT-then I'd work on convincing them ALL to stay. Just once I'd like to have pulled it off.

Although I know we never did stay when it was offered-in some cases folks did take the hosts up on their offer. One local family, that's quite large, said it was common for their families to spend the night with each other-even though they didn't live very far from one another. When I asked where everyone slept-they said they laid cross ways on the bed-so more people would fit that way.

"We'll see ya" is without a doubt the most common form of goodbye used in my part of Appalachia. At some point during my teenage years 'we'll see ya' got on my last nerve. I got to where-when I heard it-I wanted to say 'no you will not see me!!!' All these years later-hearing someone say 'we'll see ya' doesn't bother me one bit-must have been my superior teenage brain that it bothered.

So how do you say goodbye?

Tipper

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Thunder And Lightning

 
We've been having thunderstorms of the evening for the last few days. Today's was a good one. Usually the worst storms seem to hit the lower section of our county-and frequently we miss out on the worst aspects of thunder storms. A little after 1:00 I started hearing thunder-by the time I needed to leave to pick up the girls-I could tell Murphy was getting a real storm-it was barely sprinkling at my house. By the time I pulled onto the main highway the rain started in heavy and soon turned to hail. This storm was mostly made up of heavy rain and unbelievable lightning-everywhere I looked I could see it parting the sky.

As I drove into Murphy, the rain eased up-but the lightning kept up it's frantic pace. As I pulled around the back of the school to take my usual place in the parent pick up line-I see 2 people dumping trash in the dumpster behind the school. I'm thinking who is crazy enough to be out in this storm? As I got closer I was horrified to see one of them was my daughter! I rolled down the window and shouted for them to get back in the school! Turns out they were trying to do a good deed and help someone who wasn't feeling well-so it was hard for me to be mad about that-but Chatter did get a speech on the dangers of lightning on the ride home. After I settled down a bit-I thought to myself-I sound like Granny. The thought reminded me of a post I did the year I first started blogging-it fit my frantic storm filled afternoon so well-I thought I'd share it with you again:

Lightning Strikes and Granny

When my brothers and I were growing up, Granny had all kinds of admonitions about storms, specifically about lightning.

According to Granny you can't take a shower, talk on the phone or run water when it is lightning. You also can't flush the potty or stand by a window.

And, at all costs, Granny said you should have shoes on-real shoes-even in the house-because if you don't it will draw lightning.

Granny had so many warnings about lightning that my younger brother and I started making up our own. Like-don't stand on one foot and open the frig it will attract lightning.

Or don't cross your right arm over your left arm while crossing your left leg over your right leg because it will attract lightning (obnoxious I know).

Silly or not Granny lives by her "lightning rules" and if you happen to be with her in a storm she'll make sure you do too.

I was trying to think of folklore relating to thunderstorms-all I came up with was:

~Thunder-is the noise God makes as he rearranges his furniture

~If it's raining when the Sun is shinning-it means the Devil is beating his wife.

Got any old wives tales about storms? Did anyone ever admonition you about lightning the way Granny did us?

Tipper 

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One Potato Two Potato Three Potato Four

 
Did you ever use the counting potatoes method for picking who was 'it' in a game? As kids we used it to tell us who was going to be the seeker while the rest of us hid, to tell us who was going to be blindfolded for an always dangerous game of blind mans bluff (some parent would usually scream-"you're going to put an eye out")-or even for something as tame as hide the key.

 
The choosing rhyme consists of everyone who's playing standing in a circle with their fists out-then one person begins counting by hitting their fists on everyone else's-1 potato 2 potato 3 potato 4 potato 5 potato 6 potato 7 potato-then instead of going on to 8 the fist they hit after 7 was 'or'. The person whose fist was 'or' would place the 'or' fist behind their back-and the counting would start back at 1. Whoever was left with a fist in the circle would be 'it' for the game.

Sometimes we used 'big potatoes' instead of making 2 fists-each person laced their hands together to make one 'big potato' and the counting went the same way. Big potatoes were especially useful if there were lots of kids playing the game or you were in a hurry to get on with the game-as in one more game before Granny called me home.

A few weeks ago, a friend and I were talking about counting by potatoes to see who was going to be it-I hadn't thought about counting potatoes in years. That night-I started thinking how kids today have so much to entertain them-how the old games we played are out of style. Just out of curiosity-I thought I'd ask the girls if they knew about potato counting.

 
I called Chitter to me and said "if I say 1 potato 2 potato 3 potato 4 do you know what I'm talking about?" She said she thought I was crazy and left me standing in the kitchen. Later in the evening, I was sitting on the couch when Chatter came and sat down beside me. I ask her the same question. She said "what?" So I explained it again-even giving her the hint-it's said when a bunch of kids are standing together in a circle. Chatter said "Momma I don't know what you're talking about. All I know is I like to dig them and I like to eat them." Too cute uh?

So how about you-remember counting potatoes?

Tipper

p.s. When the girls posed for the pictures I used above-Chitter said "Seriously, is this all you had to do when you were little?" I told her she didn't know what she was missing.

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