Girl Summers

[Typepad is doing maintenance over this holiday weekend, so excuse me if anything looks crazy. :) I'm very pleased with their services and excited about the new goodies sure to come after the maintenance.]

I'm scrambling to tie up a few loose ends so that I can cook up a little somethin somethin come Monday. At this time of year, I always get teary-eyed because growing up, my uncle Dave used to have a slamming fireworks celebration every year. I'm talking slamming like he planned all year for it and I seldom see commercial light displays that compare. I had two aunts who lived a block away and there was an elementary school across the street (Lincoln, you know every black neighborhood had a Lincoln school back in the day...and a Martin Luther King Jr road! LOL). Folks would bring lawn chairs and everything. He'd have stuff from Indiana, Kentucky, everywhere. (This was in Springfield, Ohio).

And food? Well, I didn't come by my er, statuesque-ness for nothing. The folks in my family can cook. (Though my mother didn't let us eat sugar except for holidays, so my little brother would be sure to eat himself sick every time). My aunt Charlene would make stuff I've never seen since like rhubarb pie ("What is that pink celery stuff? It's pretty good?") and my aunt Barb (Dave's wife and my mother's sister) would have snap peas and white corn from her garden, fresh flowers from her back yard. Both of them have passed now, but every time I see a green tomato, I think of Uncle Dave snapping one off the vine and frying it in cornmeal for a sandwich with Miracle Whip. (It sounds nasty, but it was good, y'all!)

We'd catch lightning bugs and race from one end of the block to the next. (One thousand one...one thousand tw--Go!) Those were the days when time went slow and sweet. Like honey. All my cousins were the finest brothers in town (and the girls some fine sistahs) and everybody would come out to see. My grandmother was sure to be holding court at a picnic table, all while pulling my hair back into place. (Come here a minute, girl. Somebody give me a brush...) Times when my cousins lined the lawn with afros shaped like halos and backs straight as the sky. Good times.

I wrote a poem 'bout it a few years ago. I cried a minute ago reading it again. It goes like this...

Girl Summers by Marilynn Griffith

We ran moonlit races

on the Fourth of July.

I ate fried green tomatoes

and rhubarb pie.

There was Blue Magic pressing oil

Pony beads and tin foil

Rake picks and sauna suits

Pressing combs and stolen fruit

We took caravan trips

In big Chevrolets

I heard eight-track tapes

And made macramé

Honey skin and Afro Sheen

Bread with pork chops in between

Porch stoops and fireflies

Wrinkled hands and golden eyes

We ran moonlit races

On the Fourth of July

I grew ten feet deep

And one mile high

Copyright 2002

Comments

[Heather Tipton]

Girl, you changed your header up there!! I love it!

[Camy Tang]

Mmmmmm fried green tomatoes. Nice new look.
Cams

I grew ten feet deep and one mile high just reading that. Thanks for another lovely post.