Part IV Although I’m just itchin’ to show you around the rest of my Grandparent’s house, at Route 2 Box 262 Metter Georgia, it is only fittin’ that you pull up a chair here in the dining room and here a few more stories. Come on… take a load off your feet and relax…..take a deep breath, kick off those city slicker shoes, turn off your cell phones or as Grandma would say…”come in, take off your hat and coat and sit a spell…we’re all peaceable”. This may have been the understatement of the century as they authored and published the manual on being peace loving people. My Daddy inherited their affinity for serenity and if a small family quarrel was brewing, he would frequently facetiously say…”anything for an argument ‘cause PEACE I DESPISE”! Lewie and Terah were married sometimes around 1909….Grandaddy was twenty eight and his lovely child bride was all of 17…… this age disparity was common in that day and time and I’m sure my Great Grandaddy Benjamin Parish wasn’t compelled to attend the matrimonials accompanied by his shotgun. His comments might be construed as chauvinistic in this day and time, but Grandaddy loved to tell that before he courted and wedded a wife, he built a house to bring her home to. He would tell us that “if you are gonna tame a bird you don’t catch the bird before you build a cage to keep it in”! I don’t think his pet bird required much taming ….they were married for 65 years and Grandma said that they never…that’s right NEVER had a cross word between them and not once did he raise his voice at her in those six and a half decades. Some of ya’ll sitting around this table today might have already blown it, but if it ain’t too late, see if you can break this record….sixty six years of love, joy, peace and you know the rest of the story, ain’t a bad lifestyle…not by a long shot . Grandaddy only attended school through 3rd grade, but his wisdom and common sense well overrode any additional book learning he would have attained had he stayed in school. He was, however, staunchly opposed to daylight saving times and quick to express that “they need to leave the time the way the Lord fixed it”! When his frail old body was about worn out, he would spend most of the day in his chair in the corner of the dining room with a couple of extra cushions to ease the pain of his broken hip (due to the lack of good medical care at that time, left him on crutches the rest of his life), with his large print Bible in his lap, and when he wasn’t reading the Word he was looking out the window, his chair aimed directly toward the family cemetery just across the blacktop. This cemetery’s first occupant was dear old Aunt Lizzie…born into slavery, she lived her last years in the house Grandaddy built for her and did her part to keep the household going. Grandaddy frequently expressed his desire to move on across the street as if highway 121 was the Jordan River, as he felt so useless in his frail old broken body. It wasn’t that he was in a hurry to leave Grandma and the rest of the family, but he had faith that there was “a better…home awaiting…in the sky Lord in the sky”, and when I got the word that he had departed this scene I wasn’t sure whether to cry or celebrate so I did a right smart of both. The last several years of his long, full life his heart rate had slowed to a methodical 28 beats per minute. His heart didn’t have to beat very fast as one doctor said that he had the largest human heart he had ever seen….I doubt that doctor ever realized that a truer statement was never spoken! But I didn’t have ya’ll over to sit around this old pine dining room table to mourn! I brought you here in hopes that you can experience in some small way this epicenter of love and peace and culinary delights….to take you back to better time when life flowed at the pace of good sorghum syrup dripping out of a spoon onto one of Grandma’s tall, proud biscuits with a dusting of flour on top. Can’t you smell the chicken frying? There will be biscuits and chicken gravy at noon sharp. Feel free to pull out your pocket knife and sneak a lump of Dixie Crystals out of the sugar bowl…Grandma ain’t lookin’! What is a true mystery is how Grandaddy and Grandma worked so hard, accomplished so much and still found many hours a day to sit in the dining room or on the breezy corner of the spacious front porch , love on and spoil grandchildren and when the rowdy, always hungry grandchildren weren’t around just sit and enjoy peace and quiet and companionable silence. For any who haven’t experienced it, companionable silence is a very different thing than “the silent treatment”! I’m telling you my friends they had no TV, no radio, no computers or internet, no magazine subscriptions (except maybe Reader’s Digest), no automatic clothes dryer, no microwave, no dishwasher (except Grandma),no air conditioner and just one large, black, wall mounted, rotary dial telephone on a party line, but they had peace and tranquility and time to sit and think….something that an amazing array of modern conveniences has somehow stolen from us today. One of Grandma’s hobbies was collecting what she considered to be funny and unusual names. The Metter Advertiser (frequently referred to as the Metter Scandalizer) was the local newspaper and as best I recall was published every Thursday. Grandaddy didn’t mess with it much as he found his large print King James a more profitable read, but although Grandma didn’t neglect her Bible, she would peruse most all of the “Scandalizer” and occasionally even a Savannah Morning News. Most days she would find a name somewhere between the birth announcements, the society page and the obituaries that she deemed worthy of a chuckle or two. When she located a suitable name, she would go to the oak sideboard and pull out a pad of paper and record the name on her list….names such as Illinois Central, Mona Lott or Pearl E. Gates. I’m sure that list has long since been thrown in the trash or a burn barrel, but I’d give a pretty penny to have it today! My how time flies! Our old friend “Scrap” Tetterton used to say….”It ain’t late ‘til the moon goes down and she ain’t riz yet”, but we’ve sat here chewing the fat ‘til bedtime and I haven’t even told you about the good southern rations that graced this table. Ya’ll be sure and come back first chance you get…I got lots more to tell you and we still gotta see the rest of the house! Maybe we’ll kill a hen or two and fix up a pot of chicken and dumplings, or fry up a mess of fresh Redfin Pike and corn dodgers. Be sure and check the pie safe on your way out….you might luck into a couple of fried peach pies or a cold pork chop.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 17:45:50 +0000