grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Knock knock…

By

Who’s there?
Girl.
Girl who?
Girl Who Drives With Lead FOOT!
I managed to go thirty years without a ticket and now I seem to be supplying all the little speed traps in Oklahoma and Arkansas with donuts and coffee. Much like the popular adopt-a-highway program… Go ahead and put me down to sponsor Atoka and Augusta.

I collect tickets in each state like my mother collects shot glasses. 

I need to stay put.
To avoid the constant highway construction between Memphis and Little Rock, I thought I would be OhSoClever and take Highway 64 from Marion to Bald Knob. As if the names themselves don’t imply this, there’s not much between here and there. Earle, Parkin, Wynne, little towns with one stop light surrounded by cotton fields begging to be picked. Towns with old water towers begging to be climbed. Towns with empty roads begging to be drag-raced.

Towns where they grow giant junior high girl basketball players. We Keiser Yellow Jackets have first hand knowledge.

Towns with bored yet overly zealous cops.
When you take the back roads to avoid interstate construction delays and instead spend an extra thirty minutes on the side of a ditch enjoying a speeding ticket delay, the advantage quickly evaporates.
When you have Texas tags, the cop seems extra snarky. 

Lady, do you have any recent moving violations?
Ummm, maybe…. (probably not the best answer but I was smiling)
WHAT? (not smiling)
Well, I got a ticket last month in Oklahoma, but the officer said it wouldn’t go on my record.

(I was trying my best to show him I was wearing a Razorback t-shirt… IF you know what I mean.) 

Rudely, he never noticed. Too much fire spewing from his evil eyeballs.

Turns out the good sooners in Oklahoma didn’t report my ticket, which is probably why I’m not in the Augusta, Arkansas jailhouse trying to make bail. I quickly did the mental math and realized maybe I should slow down.
Later, on the other side of Texarkana, I came upon a fatal car accident with Care Flight, bodies strewn about the road, and an SUV in a tree. Perhaps my ticket was a good thing.
leadfoot
Musical Pairings:

the grass grows

By

Yesterday I parked in Daddy’s parking spot. The place where he always parked his dusty farm truck, not in the carport but along the gravel road beside the field. Grass now grows through the gravel, nearly covering it. I guess he really isn’t coming back.

I still expect to see him dragging through the back door for supper, hungry yet too exhausted to eat, his jeans hanging loose and tired. I still hear him grumble about the rain shower today. Such terrible timing during cotton harvest…
On the porch, wheat from his last harvest still fills a vase. Eighteen years later.
At the Corral diner in Keiser … Are you Thomas Tate’s girl? I remember seeing your daddy drive up and down the road in front of my house at Coleman Lateral. Seems like I saw his truck ten times a day when they were pickin’ cotton… He’s been gone a long time, hasn’t he?
Yes ma’am.
In eighteen years, most everything changes.

The tree Daddy planted my senior year of high school soars over the back yard. Only a twig at the time, he transplanted it from the banks of Little River.

Grass now grows through the gravel, nearly covering his parking spot. 
I still feel the same. 
talya
Musical Pairings:

I Miss You a Little, John Michael Montgomery

Queen for a Day

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Queen for a DayThere is nothing like a fake bejeweled crown to bring out the claws and money clips. The Halloween Carnival in Keiser, Arkansas was THE fall event of the school year. The anticipated crowning of the Halloween King and Queen rooted the dirty farmers out of the fields during cotton harvest, the most holiest of seasons. Devious PTA wannabe queen-mothers administered full blown campaigns for their prospective royal children.Mississippi County drama at its finest.
Each class had nominees selected by classmates, but only one couple could win. I know this may be  rather shocking in today’s every-single-kid-gets-a-trophy-no-kid-gets-left-behind world. But that’s how things worked back then. The winner was selected based on funds raised for the PTA. Pure greed. Cut throat, not popular vote.One winner, a bunch of losers and no pizza party afterward. Greatness.
In second grade, Craig Barnett and I were nominated as Halloween King and Queen. Our families were friends, our dads farmed side by side, often even vacationing together. So I knew Craig pretty well and was fairly certain he had cooties. He likely felt the same about me.

To raise money for our class, we sold chocolate chip cookies and caramel apples after school and peddled homemade cupcakes to the folks who attended the live auction near our home at Cottonwood Corner. This became our full time job for weeks and weeks. Halloween child slavery.

Keiser School

One of our biggest fundraisers was a rummage sale in downtown Keiser, hosted by our crazed mothers. Ms. Barnett, the quintessential schemer, could always pull a rabbit from her hat. Or from Clide’s hat (Craig’s dad). She lured in hordes of shoppers by hanging her mink stole and Clide’s expensive mohair jacket front and center. These luxury items were well overpriced so no one would actually buy them, but displayed perfectly to attract the nosy townsfolk. This was the talk of our little town, and Clide Barnett was none too happy. Especially since he was seen wearing the camel coat at the country club the weekend before.
 Queen and King of Halloween
My second grade class raised an impressive amount of money by 1969 standards. Craig and I were crowned Halloween King and Queen of Keiser Elementary School. Draped with a velvet robe and an armful of flowers, I still remember how those giant white mums smelled. The crown, constructed of white cardboard, silver glitter and Elmer’s glue, was the envy of all.I now realize after the money was tallied, the final selection was made based on whose parents and grandparents threw the most extra money in the PTA pot at the last minute. We both came from families of natural born gamblers, so we were auctioned off like prized cattle. A farmer frenzy.Forty + years later, Craig and I are still bonded by that coronation.

talya

Musical Pairings:
Queen – Tie Your Mother Down


 

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

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