“Oh dear,” Mother said from the top of the back stairs. She’d obviously seen Mrs. Bishop running and had stepped out to see what was going on.
Dad looked up at her. Mother’s face tightened almost imperceptibly, then she nodded. “Of course. The Caruthers aren’t arriving until tomorrow, anyway.”
Beaming with hospitality, Dad turned back to Mrs. Bishop. “Tell them to come on over here. We’ll throw a few more hamburgers on the fire and figure something out. You’re welcome to stay, too, if you can.”
“Are you kidding? I have eighteen guests at my house, waiting for something to eat. I have to go!”
Dad nodded patiently. “I understand. You go right ahead then, but please send the Rutherfords—ahhh, looks as if they followed you here. Good.”
Dad moved to greet the family of eight.
I felt nothing but relief. The Rutherfords had a daughter my age among their six children. I hadn’t seen Amy in several years, but that didn’t matter. It was someone to mitigate the presence of Doofus-Head.
The Rutherfords blended into the crowd—like ages seeking like ages. Just before we sat down to supper, eleven other unexpected guests arrived. Mr. Milam came with his five children in tow. His wife had died two years earlier of cancer, Mr. and Mrs. Harrold brought their two children, and an elderly couple named Rippey had to eat hot dogs because there were no more hamburgers left.
It took Mother until midnight to figure out where to put everyone and get us all settled for the night. Dad and the adult men scrounged the neighborhood for cots and air mattresses. Luckily, they found enough for the thirty-eight people we housed on that Friday night.
The next morning, the flood continued. The Caruthers arrived around ten to find our house over-flowing. By suppertime on Saturday, three more families showed up on our doorstep unannounced, plus the Widow Allredge. That made thirty-six unexpected boarders over and above the eighteen we had been expecting. With the four of us, there were fifty-eight people needing a place to sleep.
Being a kid, of course, I didn’t add all this up until later. Still, even I knew it was impossible.
Luckily for my father’s wallet and my mother’s kitchen (and sanity), we didn’t have to feed that many. The church was holding what amounted to a non-stop buffet starting at noon on Saturday and lasting through breakfast on Monday. Doughnuts and biscuits and fruit gradually disappeared, making way for sandwiches and chips and cookies, which changed late in the afternoon to tables and tables of culinary delights brought by the current church families, including a vast variety of the fried chicken I coveted. There was an official starting time for each meal, of course, with a blessing given after announcements and scripture. But there were so many mouths to feed that there was a constant line going down at least one side of the picnic tables set up for the occasion.
I’ll never forget that weekend. It was like a huge, never-ending dinner-on-the-grounds. Hundreds of people were there. Most brought lawn chairs and sat in groups talking and eating. Games were organized for the children by some of the more active adults. Back in those days, adults rarely participated in anything more athletic than a bowling or softball league.
Among those hundreds of people, at least half were children, so I was having a blast. I only caught occasional glimpses of my parents and didn’t see my sister Nona at all.
Until late that afternoon, when Amy Rutherford and I wandered into the church basement to cool off in the air conditioning. Mother and Nona stood in the doorway to the large adult classroom, looking in.
Mother brightened as she spied us. “Martha, good. You and Amy run get Jesse James and as many of his friends as you can. I need at least four strong men.”
“Which Jesse James?” I asked.
“Oh, right. There are two. I suppose either one will do, but I was thinking about the younger one. Jerry’s brother, not his father.”
“Yes, ma’am!” I spun to obey orders when she stopped me.
“Martha!”
I halted. “Yes, ma’am?”
“After you find Jesse, go find your father and tell him to beg, borrow or steal at least twenty more cots.”
“Dad would steal?!!”
Mother rolled her eyes. “It’s just an expression. Go on now.”
“On my way. Com’on, Amy!”
After completing our missions, Amy and I wandered back. Mother was in her element, a general marshalling the troops. She had Jesse and his friends removing the chairs and tables from the two largest Sunday School rooms. When Dad arrived with only three more cots, he and Mother had a heated discussion about what to do.
I listened in. When the obvious wasn’t occurring to them, I tugged on Dad’s rolled-up cotton sleeve. “Dad?”
He glanced down. “Not now, Martha, we’re—”
“What about the pads on the pews upstairs?” I asked before he could dismiss me entirely.
Dad and Mother looked at each other in surprise.
“I can’t believe we forgot about the pews!” Mother exclaimed.
The church had installed red velvet pads on all the pews the past winter. All the best churches were doing it.
“Out of the mouths of babes . . .” Dad said. It was one of his favorite Bible quotes. I never really understood it, and always bristled at being called a baby.
Mother kissed me soundly. “Thank you for being brilliant!”
“How are we going to do this, Lu?” Dad asked. “They’re detachable, but some members might object to us placing brand new pads on a concrete floor.”
“Wooden pews would be a much more comfortable base to sleep on than concrete floors, anyway. On the other hand, some might to object to bedding down guests in the sanctuary. And they’ll have to be the kids. Those pews aren’t wide enough for most adults.”
Dad bristled at that. “If any members do object, they won’t for long. There is nothing sacred about the sanctuary. Besides, it’s called a sanctuary for a reason. Just as the inn sheltered our Lord in his time of need, so will we shelter our brethren who are in need of a place to sleep!”
He punctuated his comments with a finger pointed skyward. Like most preachers, Dad tended to get a bit dramatic when his passions were aroused.
And so the sanctuary became a dormitory for a couple of nights. I slept on the third pew with Amy. The boys slept in the back. Mrs. Martin slept on a cot at the front of the sanctuary to watch over the girls. Mr. Martin slept at the back with the boys.
The only real problem was the lack of showers. In those days, church bathrooms had no baths. And we certainly didn’t have a gymnasium with accompanying locker rooms like so many do these days. No, back then, a church was solely a church. Gymnasiums were only at high schools, colleges and the occasional community center.
I tried to offer what I thought was a good solution to the problem. I suggested that the children bathe in the baptistery.
Needless to say, I was not thanked for my brilliance this time. Even my father was appalled at my lack of respect. Since I’d been baptized in the Santa Fe River in Florida with alligators and snakes and fish and frogs and no telling what other critters, I didn’t understand the distinction. And to tell the truth, I think that most of my father’s reaction was for the benefit of church members within earshot. A lot of what I was allowed and not allowed to do as a child was dictated by the possible disapproval of church members. I resented that fact as a child, but now I understand that every occupation has its own restrictions.
One good thing came out of the bathroom situation. Because all the dormitory residents had to use the shower in our house across the street and use was limited to the capacity of the hot water heater, I didn’t have to take a bath until Monday evening. Not that Mother knew, of course. I simply lost myself in the shower shuffle.
Saturday night’s supper at the church was followed by a
homemade ice cream party. There must’ve been fifty churns going. The old-fashioned kind with rock salt and store-bought ice and hand churning. Nothing electric back then.
As I always did at home, I took a turn at churning the vanilla ice cream that my mother always made. After a few minutes of the monotonous activity, I looked up to see Jerry James and Mark Grady whispering together and pointing at me. I stuck my tongue out at them, but didn’t scare them away. As I sat fuming, I decided the best defense was a good offense, so when Mr. Rutherford relieved me at the churn, I called to Amy and a couple more of our friends and we chased them into the woods at the back of the church. I pulled my female troop to a halt with a victorious whoop.
That’s when I heard Mark call from somewhere in the trees, “Jerry loves Martha! Jerry loves Martha!”
Mortified, I turned to my giggling friends and vehemently denied any romantic involvement with a boy.
I couldn’t help thinking about Mark’s words during down times that night and through the next day. This was the first inkling I had of the heretofore disgusting feelings I’d observed between men and women. Because I couldn’t understand those feelings, I dismissed them all as crazy and dismissed any notion that I might one day feel the same. Not that I had any feelings other than abhorrence for that slime ball, Jerry James.
Still, it was as if the first gray light of a romantic dawn had seeped into my awareness.
It worried me.
All that evening as the children settled down on our pews and the next day during the church service and celebration, I caught Jerry looking at me. Then something startling occurred to me. He hadn’t denied Mark’s accusation.
By Sunday afternoon, I had to escape.
My favorite place in the entire world at that stage of my life was a small quarry lake hidden in about a hundred acres of woods that stretched away from the church. As soon as I could slip away, I disappeared into those woods and followed a familiar path. Just as I reached its granite edge, I realized I wasn’t alone. Spinning, I spied the outlaw. He wasn’t even trying to hide.
The fear that had been niggling at me for the past twenty-four hours rushed in.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I said with more bravado than I felt.
He shrugged. “I dunno. All that wasn’t fun anymore,” he waved a hand back toward the church. “I thought maybe . . . I dunno . . . I’d see what you’re doing.”
“I came here to be alone. I don’t need any—”
“Jesse said they used to pick blackberries somewhere back in here. Think maybe we could find some?”
I straightened, distracted by one of my favorite things in the whole wide world—blackberries. Nona and I usually picked them in the early summer so Mother could make blackberry cobbler. We hadn’t picked any yet this year because we’d been too absorbed with the church reunion.
“They’re this way,” I called as I started running deeper into the wood. “I hope the birds didn’t get them all.”
Five minutes later we found the bushes, still laden with very ripe berries. We started picking.
“Oww!” I stuck my bleeding finger in my mouth.
“Oww, oww, oww!” Jerry did the same thing.
Our eyes met and we laughed.
“Now I remember. Nona and I always wear gloves and long sleeves to pick them.”
We did manage to carefully pick a few, and ate those. We weren’t too serious about it, however, because we were both still full from the enormous bounty at the dinner-on-the-grounds.
I asked Jerry questions about Huntsville, where the Jameses lived, and we talked about how we felt about going into the seventh grade.
We talked as we meandered back to the festivities. We were having a pretty good time, actually.
Then, suddenly, when we were only a few yards away from seeing the church, the outlaw leaned over and kissed me—smack dab on the mouth. It was so quick, I didn’t know what he was doing. Then he sprang away and disappeared.
Stunned, I watched him run away. I didn’t know what to do. I certainly wasn’t going to run after him.
My fingers touched my lips, which stung from the unaccustomed pressure. My first kiss.
A smile crept across my face. It wasn’t so bad.
I didn’t see Jerry again, except in a crowd. He acted as if nothing had happened, and so did I.
We spent another night on the church pews, then everyone left the next morning.
The Taylors were the last to leave. As they pulled away, Dad called, “Y’all come!”
I turned to my parents. “You know, if y’all would stop saying, ‘Y’all come,’ maybe they’d stop coming.”
Dad chuckled and wrapped his arm around Mother’s waist as they walked into the house.
My parents never stopped saying, “Y’all come!” and people never stopped coming.
Dinner on the Grounds
The authors of ON GRANDMA’S PORCH hope you will enjoy the following tastes of down-home cooking from family kitchens across the South.
Forgotten Cookies
Ellen Birkett Morris
Homeplace
Ingredients:
2 egg whites, at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup M&Ms or semi-sweet chocolate morsels (depending on your preference)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet or line it with foil. Beat egg whites with cream of tartar, salt and vanilla in medium bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar, one tablespoon at a time, beating 4 to 5 minutes or until stiff peaks form, mixture is glossy and sugar is dissolved. Fold in M&Ms or chocolate chips. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto the cookie sheet. Place in oven. Turn off oven, and leave cookies inside overnight with the oven door closed.
Daddy’s Saturday Steak
Debra Leigh Smith
Listening for Daddy
Ingredients:
1/3 cup soy sauce
1-1/2 to 2 pounds flank steak
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
Garlic powder to taste
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
Using a fork, tenderize the steak on both sides. Sprinkle garlic powder on both sides. Mix Worcestershire, soy sauce, and oil. Lay steak in dish and drench with mixture. Let it marinate in the fridge for a minimum of eight hours. Turn steak often to make sure the marinade soaks all the way through. Grill over coals. 5 to 10 minutes for medium rare. Slice thin, across the grain. Serves 4 to 6.
Green Bean Casserole
Sandra Chastain
The Green Bean Casserole
5 minutes to prepare - 30 minutes to bake
Ingredients:
Mix 3/4 cup milk
1/8 tsp. pepper
1 10-3/4 oz. can cream of mushroom soup
2 (14.5 oz.) cans cup green beans. (drain the beans)
1 tablespoon pimento (for color)
2/3 cup of canned french fried onions
Set oven temperature at 350’.
Mix all ingredients except 2/3 cup french fried onions in a 1-1/2 qt. casserole dish.
Cook 30 min. or until bubbly. Stir. Spread onions on top and cook 5 more minutes until onions are golden colored.
Grandma’s Corn Pudding
Susan Sipal
Grandma’s Cupboard
I thought about submitting Grandma’s biscuit recipe as her biscuits are mentioned in my story, Grandma’s Cupboards. Trouble is—there is no recipe, and I’ve never been able to duplicate anything but bricks. So I settled for her corn pudding, which even I can’t mess up . . . well, almost. Sunday dinner wasn’t Sunday dinner at Grandma’s without her famous corn pudding on the table. Tho
ugh my uncle will never let me forget the time I was helping Grandma and used salt instead of sugar! But as she kept them both in Mason jars, it was an easy mistake.
Ingredients:
1 pint frozen corn, defrosted
2 tablespoon sugar (a bit more if you like sweeter)
2 tablespoon flour
2 eggs
1/2 stick butter
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Preheat oven to 350. Mix sugar and flour thoroughly, then add eggs and corn. Melt 1/2 the butter in a square 8-1/2 x 8-1/2 inch casserole dish to cover bottom. Add enough milk to the corn mixture until thin. Add salt, pepper and the rest of the melted butter. Pour into the casserole dish and bake at 350 for 45 mins. to 1 hour or until firm in the center.
SoFo ‘Mater Biscuit
Debra Leigh Smith
Liberal Redneck Babe
Make yourself some biscuit dough. Or buy yourself some biscuit dough at the grocery store. Jazz it up by poking some chopped jalapeño peppers into the dough. Or some onion. Or garlic gloves. Or shredded cheese. Or anything else you figure tastes good mixed with biscuit dough. Except M & Ms. Those won’t work. Especially the peanut ones.
Bake the biscuits. If you can’t figure out how to do this on your own, get on the computer and Google “Idjit” and see if a picture of you pops up.
Slice your biscuit into a top part and a bottom part. Not all the way through, only NoFoSo’s do that! Leave a biscuit hinge on one side. If you do it right, it’ll look like a Muppet mouth or a Ms. Pac Man. Stick some sliced tomato inside. On top of the ‘mater slice, put some sliced cheddar cheese. Some fried bacon. Some sliced ham. Some fried chicken nuggets. Some fried egg. Not all at once! Back off, it’s gonna blow!
Lu Evelyn Townsend’s Sunday Barbequed Pork Chops
Martha Crockett
Y’all Come
On Grandma's Porch Page 24