DIFFERENT PATHS TO THE SAME RESULT!

New Restaurant in town....what draws you there?

Oftentimes it's a word of mouth recommendation or an article in Mid-South magazine or Memphis Magazine.

These days it is likely an on-line review. Think YELP!

This time it was an eye-catching, memory jogging name seen as I drove by the SW corner of Poplar and Mendenhall. Southhall Cafe.

The name took me back to my hometown where our neighbors, the Southalls,  two-doors down from 2211 intrigued us by their reclusiveness. Brother, Buddy, & his chum, Barry Coleman, would climb the tree at the front corner of the yard and "spy" for hours hoping to catch a glimpse of the "old" couple. (They were probably in their 60s but they "aged" in our stories by the day.) Winslow and I would try to peek in windows or look over the fence, when we traversed the alley between my home, and her street that bordered the back of their yard. Oh, how our imaginations would run wild.

Those flashbacks were what drew me to the restaurant as a "must" restaurant to visit when my brother and his wife Charlotte visited us this week from Louisville.

The nostalgia may have gotten us there but the delicious food and wait staff will be the reason we return.

THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES!

While I'm pausing to ponder this entry, you can click the link back to Thankful Thursday- Serene Sunday, 12/20/18 entry as I finally added pix.
Vintage signs take me back to "gentler times"---times at Dang-Dang's grocery in downtown Clarksville. The colorful metal bread sign that hung on the Commerce St. screen door entry---not sure if it was Colonial, Little Miss Sunshine, or Tastee Bread??? But.....as the door slammed, Dang-Dang could look up from the back meat counter and greet each customer, most by name.

More memorable than the bread sign was the Coke one that hung above the red metal coke chest where we could put our nickel in and retrieve our 6 oz, bottle of coke by dragging it to the end of the the "rails" and opening it with the bottle opener on the front. 

I would have to stand on tiptoes unless the stool was handy. Ice Cold Coca-Cola---always the "pause that refreshes." 

More later---I have to keep pausing for "life."

CHOOSE: NOSTALGIA, A REPRISE

A reprisal is usually musical but last Thursday....it became a resumption of an activity.
Waxing nostalgic.

Elnora and I ended ended up wandering around the square in Collierville and decided to peep in the log cabin on the green. That's what resumed my nostalgic recall and ramblings.
Nora is the perfect person to accompany on the memory journey because she's known us for years and is well acquainted with my mother. She didn't mind standing by the furniture that stoked my memory. A pie safe. 
The hinged doors on the front had those tin plates with punched holes just like on Mother's pie safe!

A few differences----most pie safes were located in kitchens and used to store pies or bread and other perishables. Ours was in the "backroom." It didn't hold pies or any kind of food items. 
Instead, our pie safe at 2211 held the crispest linens in town---tightly folded and ironed. Sheets and pillow slips, (as Mother called them) dried on a clothes line. 

Precious memories to share with a precious person---recalling God's goodness from days gone by and "all of His doings and musing on the works of His hand" in our shared lives. (Psalm 143:5)

CHOOSE: TO WAX NOSTALGIC

Does waxing nostalgic occur more as one ages. Certainly more years = more memories. But...it seems that "medicare" folks, in their fascination with the past, tend to "go there" more often,  than others of the younger generations. Gen-Xers and Millennials tend not to waste time "going there" in a contemplative mode, as they are too busy "living."

It isn't regretting and complaining that "life ain't what it used to be." Waxing nostalgic is an emotional journey that remembers experiences and times that gave texture to one's life.
It's like inhaling a mixture of love and sadness---a wistfulness of sorts. Event photos, cards and letters seem to breathe sadness into words as one recalls and shares her past.

Just walking by these fragrant gardenias, given to me yesterday by my dear friend Janice H., had me choosing to wax nostalgic. First my thoughts went back to my childhood days with Mama Davenport, my spiritual mentor. Then, I remembered the big gardenia bush behind our MSU faculty housing on Central where we lived when Buddy was 5 and Josh was born. All those memories shared with hubby.
Not totally painful---but a sort of bittersweet  longing.  Not necessarily a longing to return, but to remember. How special it is when one with whom you share your life has shared some of those memories. Roots and continuity of a shared relationship are such a bond.
As it says in Job 12:12, "wisdom is with aged men and with long life is understanding." When people age together, there's such a strength that results from shared understanding. "Til death do you part" altar promise.

Maybe its okay to "go there," either alone or with with another who has shared that  adventure....but not to stay there. Continuous dwelling in the  past could border on a disorder but the occasional "look back" can refresh one's today.

A refreshing reminder to celebrate moments and keep stocking up memories for future times of choosing to wax nostalgic.

"Creativi-TEA"

Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. (Luke 12:27, NIV)

Today is May 1. 

Growing up in Kentucky, the first week of May had most folks looking forward to Derby parties because those thoroughbreds ran at Churchill Downs (and still do run) that first weekend. I, on the other hand, was looking "under" the leaves of my Mayapple plants to see if those little white flowers were there yet. 

Along with a few Jack-in-the Pulpit, Dutchman's breeches, red columbine, trillium and a Johnny Jump-up, I had scads of mayapple. All my wildflowers grew among the roots of the big tree in our back yard, that bordered the Madduxes' side, at 2211 South Virginia Street 

At age 10, I had a wildflower garden and I loved it. I guess that's why, to this day, I can remember those strange names ---nothing botanically correct, just what Mother and Mama Davenport called them. 

Those memories always seem to come flooding back this time of year......tho I have to travel to the Dixon Gardens to "look" for my little white flowers under those umbrella plants---and later the little green apples tucked in under those leaves. There's nothing like a garden to allow one to marvel at the handiwork of a creative God. 

Nowadays, I realize that the "mul-TEA-plying" of my "scads" of mayapples was His doing. A creative "doing" that allowed underground runners to produce plants for a very young gardener's joy----His creativi-TEA, not my horticulture prowess. 

"God saw that it was good" (Genesis 1:12) and I did too!!!

Waxing Nostalgic

8/29/12 Heating up the lady peas. That’s all I was doing. Yet, looking at that little pot had all those summer memories flooding back. And just maybe favorably increasing in size because that’s often what happens when one has those "rear view mirror recollections" from childhood.

This, however, was not one of favorable distortion---it’s just favorable. A vivid memory of Mama Davenport sitting on her front porch cradling a white enamel pot with the red trim in her apron-covered lap. Shelling peas. Nowadays we give them all kinds of names from purple hulls and pink eyes to cream peas and zippers. To Mama they were ordinary peas. Field peas with snaps. She would include those snaps because those small underdeveloped ones added flavor to the pot. If she couldn’t shell them, she just threw those small pods right into her pot.

Many baby-boomers have such memories. Mine go beyond the peas and to the small-framed woman, who was not only my grandmother but also my spiritual mentor---a word she probably never even heard. Scooping those peas from the bushel at her feet and shelling them was not easy for Mama D. because she had such crippling arthritis. It didn’t stop her. Perseverance. It permeated every facet of her life. Continuance in a marriage that was not always easy. Sitting alone in a pew, if children or grandchildren weren’t around to accompany her. If Dang-Dang wouldn’t drive us to church, she would take me by the hand and we’d walk. No complaint---just resolve. A woman who “kept the faith.” A role model for me.

In earlier years of marriage, I bought my ½ - 1 bushel of peas to shell, just like Mama did. Though many of hers came from a neighbor “down the road a piece.” Nowadays, mine come from the farmer’s market, already shelled, by those big commercial shelling machines, located right behind the vendors.

And no matter what I choose---white crowders or zippers, purple hulls or pink eyes, shirt and britches or lady peas, they all taste like home. A good reason to wax nostalgic.

Childhood Memories

10/2/10 What I remember most from childhood gives me a clue to what was important to me as a child. Then my remembrances give me insight into things that are probably going to be lasting memories for both my children and grandchildren.
I grew up playing with a Terri Lee doll whose clothes I bought hanging from a peg board type display at the top of the stairs in the 2nd floor toy department at Cayce-Yost. I didn’t have a lot of doll clothes, possibly due to economic constraints, and I remember the big deal of going shopping with Mother to buy a doll outfit or accessories. She probably guided my selections but I was the one to make the final choice for Terri Lee’s wardrobe. (BTW, Terri Lee wasn’t a personal name but the name given to all dolls in that line---long before Barbie was ever heard of) Outfits I chose were much like the ones I was wearing at that time---no elegant evening gowns or grown-up clothes would have even been offered.

I played with Terri Lee for years, hiding behind the big upright piano when most of my friends had “given up” playing with dolls. Yet, as special as the doll was to me, what was even more special was my mother collecting wooden crates from Dixon’s grocery and using the wood to make Terri Lee doll furniture and painting it pink, just for me.

Mother also subscribed to McCall’s magazine in the ‘50s and the biggest treat for me was the Betsy McCall paper doll page. Mother would cut them out for me with her special hair scissors and show me how to bend the tabs so they would stay on better. She also took the thin cardboard backing out of her hosiery packages and used it to cut out a Betsy-shaped figure. Gluing the paper Betsy on with her Sobo glue created a sturdier paper doll. Then we’d have a tea party with Betsy. My favorite cut-outs for her were the one from the weddings and the tea party. Maybe that’s where my love of a "cuppa" first started.

So what do these childhood memories say to me? It’s relational things that are important to kids. Not money, but time. It’s hearing them and guiding them and enjoying them. All that takes time.
To date, I only have grandsons so the doll memories are not shared (another grandbaby due in 8 weeks, so who knows) but the teatime is shared, along with the lesson that they, my grandsons, important. I love sharing part of who I am with them as they share what’s special to them with me. Who knows, maybe one day they will take their daughters (if girls are ever produced in our family) to tea at the Ritz and recount the days that they "took" tea with their "Shug."

Daffodils

3/31/09 "Daffodils"

Remember the Wordsworth poem when the poet “wandered lonely as a cloud” and came upon a “crowd…of golden daffodils?” They were fluttering and dancing (natch!) in the breeze---it seemed like 10,000 as those daffodils “tossed their heads in sprightly dance.”
Even the dancing waves couldn’t out do the daffodils.

My mother loved daffodils. Even as a youngster I knew when spring was coming because of the crocus, grape hyacinths and daffodils that began to bloom around our steps and walkways and how that thrilled Mother’s heart. I tried to add to that joy once by “raiding” Dr. Dade’s yard of his award winning King Alfred’s and proudly presenting these prize daffodils to her. The chagrin on her face was a big clue that my procurement, though well intended, was VERY inappropriate. “Young lady, you will take these back to Dr. Dade right this minute and tell him you’re sorry! Never take something that doesn’t belong to you. Do you understand me?” Not sure of her exact words, I just know that she didn’t monkey around with soothing my ego or worry about damaging my psyche----I just knew I’d better not ever do that again.

As I said, Mother loved daffodils. Actually, she, as her mother, (Mama Davenport) loved all flowers. It seemed we always had fresh flowers at 2211 South Virginia. I never remember her running out to the nursery to buy bulbs or plants----certainly no Lowe’s garden centers back then. I just remember that she exchanged Sweet William, pinks and other “slips” (plant cuttings) with her friends, especially those in the Tuesday Club. So, I grew up with hollyhocks as tall as I was, a cutting garden that produced baby’s breath, and a mom tolerant of a daughter with a brown thumb. My only interest was in wildflowers--may apple, trilliums and jack-in- the-pulpit, so she helped me nurture those under the big “messy” mulberry tree.

Last Sunday when we were in Kentucky, Larry drove Daddy and me out to Riverside Cemetery to “visit” Mother. The afternoon was gray and chilly almost dreary---not like the sunny mornings I spent watching Mother tend her flowers those many years ago. Even though there were limbs and scattered blossoms and even overturned pots that had been strewn about from the recent storm and hail, my focus was elsewhere. I saw two clumps of daffodils BLOOMING at Mother’s grave---the grave of a mother who put a houseful of love and family, friends, fun and fresh flowers “in her dash." (Remember the importance of that dash on one's gravestone----the only part of life a person controls!)
“Her children rise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.” (Proverbs 31:28)

Mildred Davenport Adams
12/10/22 - 8/13/01

These were not 10,000 golden daffodils as Wordsworth had seen, or any as spectacular as Dr. Dade’s, but these white daffodils were from MY yard----Mother thought green and white were cool and serene and were the only colors she ever had in the planters along the walkways at the front of our house. I had dug those bulbs last fall from around my front walk and carefully carried them to Kentucky to plant on either end of her headstone---just hoping they would make it. They did. Fresh flowers just like she likes----

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. (Wordsworth, 1804)