Blessings of Mossy Creek

by Debra Dixon

  I’d have given a week’s pay to see her face as she tried to work out what was going on. She wouldn’t. Oh, she’d come up with the Foo Club, but she couldn’t work it any further than that. I doubted anyone but me knew that Ida had gone to Jeb’s grave to ask his blessing.

  Not for Del.

  For a small act of civil disobedience.

  The first realization relieved me. The second had me reaching for Tums and doing the math one last time.

  Ida asking for Jeb’s blessing. Ida blowing off a council meeting. Someone developing a meadow in Bailey Mill. The developer needing to bulldoze a big tree to level the site. The Sitting Tree was in Bailey Mill. Jeb Walker kissed Ida the first time under that tree.

  I knew that because one night a long time ago, I’d headed for the Sitting Tree to drown my sorrows of lost grid iron glory in a purloined six-pack and found a young widow, holding on to memories and trying to come to grips with raising a young boy alone.

  Ida wasn’t about to let the Sitting Tree go softly into that good night. Which meant I had to go talk a woman down from a tree.

  * * * *

  I hate being right. Ida’s empty car sat near the road. She hadn’t tried to drive it up to the tree. I parked behind her and grabbed the leather backpack from the seat beside me. Night wasn’t full dark yet; it was getting there. Cooling down. The rain had taken a lot of heat out of the day.

  About halfway to the tree, I thought I saw someone scurrying around the base. I heard clinking.

  Within hailing distance, I announced myself. “Settle down, Ida. It’s Amos.”

  Clank.

  “Of course it is!” Frustration rolled down the slope with her words. The lady wasn’t happy.

  I liked that. After the morning’s wake-up call in the cemetery, I’d decided that the days of our polite, subtle conversations were gone. It was time to get off the bench and in the game. I was about to put the Sunday comics in Ida’s cage and ruffle her feathers.

  When I stopped about ten feet away, she said, “I thought you’d be in uniform.”

  “Not my jurisdiction.” I’d stopped by the house on the way to grab my favorite old pair of jeans, boots, and a denim jacket. I expected the night to be long and cold; I wanted to at least be comfortable. “I thought you’d be in the tree. Or at least attached to it.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.” She gestured to the motley collection of chains intended to loop around her waist and the tree. “I haven’t quite got this figured out yet. And speaking of that! How on earth did you figure it out so fast?”

  “You pay me to figure things out, Ida. I’m the chief, remember?”

  “I’m beginning to regret that.”

  “You have not yet begun to regret that. Sit down, Ida.”

  She sputtered for a minute, but when I ignored her and grabbed a patch of ground, she sat down as well, about six inches away, eyeing the backpack as I unslung it from my shoulder.

  “Want a beer?”

  “Love one.”

  “Thought you might. Civil disobedience is thirsty work. But you’d better make it last. I only brought two.”

  I popped a top and handed it over, then grabbed one myself. Ida fiddled with the aluminum ring on the lid, twisting it off. Having it gave her something to do. She flipped the ring end over end. “If this isn’t your jurisdiction, why are you here?”

  “You’re here.”

  The ring stopped flipping. I smiled into my beer and said nothing.

  “You’re not going to try and talk me out of this?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Good.” Then she added, “Well, that’s settled.”

  It wasn’t, but I let it go and changed the subject. “This morning why’d you think I was slogging through my appointed rounds?”

  That made her laugh. She pulled her legs up to her chest and rested her arms on her knees, one hand dangling the still nearly full can. She had on jogging pants and a long sleeved sweatshirt from the reunion — complete with gypsy image and the words, Fergit hell!

  “I think you and Battle still haven’t settled your issues. Until then the cemetery’s always going to be a chore. Something you have to do because you don’t know how not to do it.”

  “That obvious?”

  “Probably not to everyone.”

  “Well, that’s comforting.”

  “Hey, I’m a full-service mayor. We aim to please.”

  “I hear Dwight’s none too pleased at the moment.”

  Ida shrugged. “He’ll forget it all when he wins his race. If I didn’t say it out loud before, you were right. We weren’t giving Dwight a chance or appreciating that someone has to be Dwight, ask the hard questions, push us.”

  “You’re welcome.” I didn’t know I was smug until the back of her hand connected with my biceps.

  “Do not sound righteous! I do not need another Jiminy Cricket chirping at me. Jeb’s already got that job.”

  “Does he approve of this?” I didn’t need to explain. This was the big tree looming over us and the yards of chain in front of us.

  She patted the tree. “Most definitely. Too many memories here. For the whole town. In Memphis, everyone has a story of how they met Elvis or has a cousin who met Elvis. In Mossy Creek everyone has a story about this old lady. Chopping her down would be criminal.”

  “I thought maybe this was a little more personal. That for once this was for Ida and not the town.”

  Even through the dark, I knew the moment she remembered I was probably one of only a few people in Mossy Creek who’d ever seen her cry. She went still. “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Oh. Ida, if the tree goes, your life is still here. It doesn’t disappear with the tree. You don’t have to stop being that Ida.”

  When she didn’t answer, I figured I might as well confess something. It was only fair. “You know something else? This morning I thought you were asking Jeb’s blessing on Del.” I drained the rest of my beer. “I didn’t like that.”

  That startled her. Or maybe made her more wary. “Why?”

  I looked at her sideways. “Ida, I think it’s time we stopped pretending that you’re the mayor and I’m the chief. Or that that’s all we are.”

  A speechless Ida Hamilton Walker is a sight to behold. I don’t know that I could make out terror in the dark, but I do think Ida was shaking in her boots. I’d put some cards on the table and crossed that line. Now she was going to have to hold or fold.

  I took the beer can from her and drained the last bit onto the ground before putting both cans in my pack, fishing out my flashlight, and heaving myself up. “If you ask me, Ida, you’ve got some thinking to do and this tree’s an excellent place to do it.”

  Three steps away and I heard her say, “I asked Jeb about Del a long time ago.”

  Without turning, I asked, “What’d he say?”

  “Nothing.”

  I didn’t react outwardly, but my heart hit one hard beat. I turned around and tried to sound sincere. “Too bad for Del. Seemed like such a good fit, too. Good man. Right age.”

  “Bingo.” Ida thought that would settle everything. Poor woman. I’d come prepared.

  I took a second to sling the pack more comfortably over my shoulder. “I heard something interesting on CNN Health News the other day.” She saw the trap yawning in front of her. “They say forty-five’s the new thirty. Let me see . . .” I pretended to do math in my head. “That’d put you at just about the right age for me.”

  Without waiting for an answer I walked away, but over my shoulder I told her, “I’ll be back tomorrow morning, Ida. And if you’re still here protecting that tree, we’re going to have that talk. So you’d best decide if you want to hang on to the past enough to risk looking at the future.”

  * * * *

  I didn’t expect Ida to be there the next morning.

  I hate it when I’m right.

  She wasn’t there, but she certainly hadn’t abandoned the tree. Oh, no. Not Ida. Her cohorts in cr
ime surrounded the tree, and judging from their positions, I’d say the Foo Club was chained to it as well. Nail Delgado flashed me a peace sign. Wolfman waved. And the girl between them pointed to her sign. “Free the Sitting Tree.”

  I suspected they would.

  The Mossy Creek Gazette

  215 Main Street • Mossy Creek, Georgia

  From the Desk of Katie Bell, Business Manager

  Lady Victoria Salter Stanhope

  The Cliffs, Seaward Road

  St. Ives, Cornwall TR37PJ

  United Kingdom

  Dear Vick:

  See what I mean about crying and smiling at the same time? All in all, it’s been a good autumn, and I consider my Blessings Of Mossy Creek columns a success. Maybe I’ll ask Sue Ora to nominate them for next year’s newspaper awards.

  As for me, it’s time to settle in for the holidays and the winter ahead. But don’t you worry — I’m not resting on my award-winning laurels. I’m already on the trail of some old melodramas and the new ones, too. In the meantime, you didn’t think I’d forget to send you some more of Win Allen’s Bubba Rice recipes, did you? After all, what would a long, cold winter be like without a taste of Mossy Creek to keep the world warm?

  Until next time,

  Katie

  RECIPES FROM BUBBA RICE

  Bubba’s Pork Tenderloin

  A lesson in the manly Southern art of barbeque technique . Okay, you’ve all heard my rants about the fact that pork is barbeque, everything else is just grilled, right? The key here is low temperature over a charcoal grill. You can use a gas grill. Just don’t tell me about it, okay?

  Ingredients:

  2 pounds pork tenderloin

  1 cup apple cider vinegar

  2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

  2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice (orange juice works well, too)

  1 tsp. lemon pepper

  1 tsp. garlic powder

  1 tsp. finely chopped fresh cilantro

  Dipping sauce

  1/2 cup soy sauce

  1/2 cup chopped red onion

  2 cloves garlic, minced

  1 tsp. fresh ginger root, minced

  1 tbsp. sugar

  1/2 tbsp. red wine vinegar

  2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

  Preparation:

  Mix the apple cider vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice, cilantro, lemon pepper and garlic powder and pour over the pork tenderloins in a large plastic freezer bag and seal. Marinate for the hour that it takes your charcoal fire to get ready for cooking (around 275 degrees). Place the tenderloins on the grill. Do not put them directly over the coals for the first hour. Turn after 30 minutes, and again 30 minutes later. After the second turn, place the tenderloins over the coals. Turn again after 15 minutes and cook for another 15 minutes, then remove. Total cooking time should be around 90 minutes. About 15 minutes after removing the tenderloins from the grill, slice into medallions about 1/2” inch thick.

  Dipping sauce preparation:

  Combine the ingredients in a blender or food processor and puree for 30 seconds. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Pour about half the sauce over the tenderloin slices and save the rest for dipping.

  Dressed-up Mashed Potatoes

  A fun variation on the twice-baked potato . . .

  Ingredients:

  6 large red potatoes

  8 ounces of fresh sour cream

  1 bunch of green onions

  6 strips of bacon

  4 tbsp. butter

  Preparation:

  Peel and slice the potatoes and boil until fork tender, then drain well. Fry the bacon until crisp and save the drippings. Chop the green onions and sauté in the bacon drippings. Mash the potatoes, then add the remaining ingredients and blend well. Once blended, I usually use a hand mixer to smooth it out (I know that some of you consider it a sacrilege to use a mixer on mashed potatoes, but it gives it a much better consistency, so get over it, okay?). Spoon the mixture into a large casserole dish and bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Serves 6

  Bubba’s Dump Cake

  Okay, I know there’s at least ten different punch lines to that one, but really . . .

  Ingredients:

  One 24.5 ounce can of cling peaches in heavy syrup

  1/2 cup blueberries

  1/2 cup chopped pecans

  1 package yellow cake mix (you pick the brand)

  1/2 cup butter, melted

  Preparation:

  In a 9 x 13 inch pan, mix the peaches and the blueberries. Sprinkle the dry cake mix over the fruit, then stir lightly. Sprinkle with chopped pecans, then drizzle the top with the melted butter. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until golden brown on top.

  Now, aren’t you ashamed for what you were thinking when you heard the name?

  Serves 12

  Mossy Creek Summer Salad

  A nice, cool treat for a summer meal . . . and easy, too.

  Ingredients:

  2 cucumbers

  2 ripe avocados

  1 medium sized red onion

  8 ounces Newman’s Own Family Recipe Italian dressing

  Preparation:

  Peel and slice the cucumbers. Halve, pit, peel and dice the avocados. Thin slice and quarter the onion. Combine all the prepared ingredients into a large salad bowl and toss with the Newman’s Own dressing. Take my advice on this one . . . don’t try substituting your store brand dressing for the Newman’s Own. It just won’t be the same salad without it.

  Some hints on preparation . . .

  Here’s a neat trick on how to pit an avocado. Slice the avocado lengthwise and twist the two halves to separate. Take the half that has the pit and place it in on a cutting board. Using a heavy knife, make a light chopping motion into the pit, then turn the knife blade (clockwise, counter clockwise, it really doesn’t matter). The pit will turn with the knife blade and come out easily. Much easier than trying to scoop that sucker out with a spoon, huh?

  Serves 6-8

  The Mossy Creek Storytelling Club

  (In order of appearance)

  Martha Shields Harry Rutherford

  Berta Platas Argelia Rodriguez, Ezekial Straley

  Susan Goggins John Wesley McCready

  Virginia Ellis Michael Conners, Jasmine Beleau

  Nancy Bainbridge, Patty English

  Gayle Trent Sugar Jean Cole

  Lillian Richey Trisha Peavy Cecil

  Martha Kirkland Polly Varner

  Rita Herron Shirley Stancil

  Karen White Sammie Louise Pritchard

  Missy Tippens Mark and Amelia Phillips

  Chloe Mitchell Isaac and Nancy Daniel

  Sandra Chastain Katie Bell

  Hank, Casey & Li Hai Kui Blackshear

  Debra Dixon Amos Royden