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.
