Memories - grace grits and gardening

Love Shack baby!

February 14, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

Nana was born on Valentine’s Day. How perfect! The day of love and happiness. Growing up, the Valentine’s Day parties in elementary school with the cute little cards and yummy cupcakes were all secondary to Nana’s Valentine’s Day Birthday. We eagerly showered her with homemade cards, candy, a cake and presents – along with an off key rendition of Happy Birthday.

When Nana and Papa Creecy moved to Keiser from the home place, they bought the brick house next door to the Grahams. I thought it was the prettiest house in Keiser. It had a very cool finished-out attic which became our hideout. Staci and I played with our barbies there and listened to music during bunkin’ parties. There was no furniture in the attic, other than an oversized bright yellow wooden rocker. The house must have been built around that rocker – it was there when they bought it. And it was part of the deal when my mother sold it, after they died. The attic stairs were super steep and small – a secret little stairwell – that chair wasn’t going anywhere. The Mystery of the Attic Chair… I’m sure had Nancy Drew known, she would have solved the puzzle. I bet it’s still there.

In junior high, the attic became the site of many, many games of 7 Minutes in Heaven…Keiser,Arkansas-Style. Our version was really more a combination of Spin the Bottle and Thirty Seconds in the Closet. We all sat in a big circle surrounding a coke bottle in the center. We turned the overhead light off – probably because we were too embarrassed to see ourselves. Understandably, this drove Nana crazy. She would flip the switch at the bottom of the stairs and yell up to the attic space, “Taaaaaaaalya!!!” We would all giggle, “Oh sorry!” like we had no idea how that light turned itself off, wait a couple of minutes, and flip the switch again from upstairs. She couldn’t (or wouldn’t) climb those steep stairs, and we knew it. We took turns spinning the bottle, and the person the bottle landed on was the lucky recipient of a few seconds in the attic closet, in the shadows.

We spent lots of weekend nights up there – our little group of friends – Becky, Anita, Trina, Craig, Graham, Judy, Charles M, Timmy and others I’m sure. It was far from heavenly, but it was the closest we had been. It was fun and different and exciting at a time when we were innocent and full of teenage curiosity. No one spoke of what went on after a turn in that closet, but I doubt there are any big secrets. Timmy was always cute and nervous in that dark closet. He was funny, but shy. A turn with Craig was like 7 minutes of Botox. He nearly ate our lips off. Ruth was likely starving him – he was always in trouble with his mom… He definitely would have been punished had she known about Nana’s attic. We each kissed everyone eventually – we didn’t care which boy it landed on. They were all like our brothers… That game of thirty seconds in the closet was our important entre into dating and eventually true love.

I’m sure young teens today have outgrown Spin the Bottle. They are too busy texting and living in an online world.

Norfork Lake

Nana was much like Lucy Ricardo – funny, always laughing and typically into some type of mischief. I think Annabelle the Schnauzer must take after her…She was strong and faithful – at church every time the doors were open. She was loved by all – including all the kids up in the attic. Even though she was sick for much of her life – brain surgery in her 20s, leukemia in her 60s and a terrible headache nearly every day in between, Nana always had a beautiful smile on her face. And something funny to say. She never tried to be funny. She just was. Everyone who came into contact with her was better for it, and I miss her every day. Of course my mother has turned into her, so she isn’t really ever very far away.

I love this quote from Oscar Wilde…”All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his.”

Happy Valentine’s Day & Happy Birthday Nana!

xoxo

talya

Musical Pairings:

The B52s, “Love Shack”

Rick Springfield, “Jessie’s Girl”

Jamey Johnson, “In Color”

A long, long time ago, I can still remember…

February 7, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

February 3, 1959. Every year at this time, we pause to reflect and remember the sad, cold, day the music suddenly died.

Buddy Holly, only a year and a half into his promising career (he opened for Elvis in 1955!), was top billing on a 24 day tour through the Midwest with the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens. On an early morning flight flown by a very young pilot, the music died in an Iowa cornfield in a blizzard. Holly was 22 years old. His bass player, Waylon Jennings, was scheduled to fly on that plane, but he gave his seat up to the Big Bopper who was under the weather. His guitarist, Tommy Allsup, flipped a coin with Valens for the last seat. Valens ‘won’. This turn of events and the short musical career of Holly impacted music worldwide. In ways we can’t imagine.

Buddy Holly’s records influenced both John Lennon and George Harrison. The cover of the first Rollin Stones’ single released in the United States was the cover of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away”. And if Waylon Jennings had been on that plane??? My life would have been decidedly different. I was raised on Willie and Waylon…

In the early seventies, my sister and I practiced cheers and cartwheels for hours at a time in the front yard with the radio blaring. American Pie was our favorite cartwheel and herkie practicing song. We sang it off key and loudly as we ran from one end of the yard to the other trying to get up the speed and nerve to flip. We didn’t really understand the song’s meaning —most of the phrases were mysterious, almost like a riddle. And back then we couldn’t google the lyrics or press the back button on the iPod, we had to wait until the next time it played on the radio. Fortunately it was regularly played.

Bye-Bye Miss American Pie. We liked pie. Papa Homer made the best fried peach pies! And, we loved the Miss America pageant, so therefore it was a good song. One of the highlights of the year was watching the Miss America pageant with Nana. We stayed up late, each picked our favorite contestant, cheered like crazy for Miss Arkansas even though she rarely won, and fell asleep on the floor right before it was over.

Drove My Chevy to the Levee. We knew all about driving ‘chevys to the levees’. Daddy drove a chevy. It always smelled dusty inside, from driving up and down the turnrows. And we lived only a couple of miles from the Mississippi River. A huge levee kept our mighty river in check. We often drove over the levee in Osceola or Wilson just to make sure the river was still there.

Drinking Whiskey and Rye. My sister and I knew what ‘drinking whiskey’ was. Daddy had a whole liquor cabinet full of the stuff. I wasn’t so sure about what rye was though…

And While the King was Looking Down. Obviously the King was Elvis. Everyone knew that. We drove by Graceland all the time. We practically knew Elvis.

Helter Skelter in a Summer Swelter. – Okay this was where the song started to get a little freaky. Charles Manson had murdered that poor Sharon Tate. SameLastNameAsUs!! That was a little too close to home for me. The song was reeeaaalllly long, and I thought Mr. McLean could have left this part out altogether.

A Generation Lost in Space. Easy peesy. We saw the moon landing at school. In first grade. Plus, my mother nearly got us kicked out of the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis for taking a picture of the moon rock. They tried to take her camera but she wasn’t about to let that happen. It was embarrassing, and on my birthday… Just this once, couldn’t she not draw attention to us?

No Angel Born in Hell Could Break that Satan’s Spell. Well that was scary. I was a good little Baptist girl. No one had to explain the devil to me.

The last verse was just plain sad. The tempo was slower, and I wanted to cry when I thought about how the music wouldn’t play. But overall, it was the best song I’d ever heard. It gave me much to think about while practicing my cartwheels.

Grace Grits and Gardening

Musical Pairing:

Don McLean, American Pie

You Want Fries with that Trophy? Mais Oui!

February 4, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

There is a hot new book out that has American moms in a tizzy. I overheard a brief discussion about this book on GMA yesterday morning, while trying to shape my eyebrows. Pamela Druckerman, an American living in Paris, wrote Bringing Up Bébé to help American mothers raise their children the French way. After observing her French counterparts, she felt they excelled over the American moms who tended to spoil their babies. The discussion nearly turned into a cat fight while I was still on my first cup of French roast.

Now, I haven’t read this book nor shall I (unless dog training tips are included). I’ve brought up my kids as best I could. My nest is newly, happily empty. No more rainy Friday nights for me, sitting on the those hard bleachers dreaming of top shelf Mambo Taxis at Mi Cocina. So far, my bébés are productive, independent and happy young adults (knock-on-wood), and I managed to accomplish this child-rearing feat having never visited Versailles and with only two years of high school French, merci beaucoup.

Madame Nutt

Madame Nutt was my French teacher. We all loved her and the class. When I walked into that classroom everyday, I was no longer boring Talya Tate. I was Brigette. Madame Nutt gave each of us a French name. This would undoubtedly help us master the language and be one with the culture. I adored my name. So French! Brigette Tate. Like Brigette Bardot. Ooo-la-la! It had a certain je ne sais quoi to it, as if my mother may have been a French socialite and my father a handsome Englishman. In my imaginary perfect French existence, they met on holiday in Toulouse, fell madly in love and lived happily ever after. In reality, they were high school sweethearts from Keiser, Arkansas. She was the daughter of a cotton farmer, and he worked his way through college shooting pool. They married, had a baby girl, and thought up the strangest name to ever come out of Mississippi County in 1962 – – – Talya. Beer may have been involved.

Brigette, Georgine and Suzette
Rivercrest H.S. 1978
French Club
“Embrassez-moi je parle français”

French class knocked me down a notch. It was my first ever class that wasn’t easy. It came with homework and included practice labs. For heaven sakes, it wasn’t even taught in English! I learned pronto that I would never speak French. I was not good at it. No matter how much I repeated “Où est la bibliothèque?” wearing those awkward headphones that messed up my feathered wings, I was NOT going to be Brigette, and I would never find the bibliothèque speaking this clumsy language! I knew that I would not receive the French award at the year end assembly. And the thing is, my mother made no assurance to the contrary – no efforts to boost my fragile ego – nor did she march up to the school in protest, demanding each classmate receive at least a participation certificate. Oh Non. It was a fact of life. Some people are better at certain things than others. Some people are just meant to speak Arkansan, with a touch of sarcasm. And that’s ok. This is how we should teach our children. It’s the good old-fashioned way to bring up bébé.

Today, every single kid gets a two foot trophy on the 4-year-old soccer team for simply buying a cheap shirt and bringing snacks. Seriously, can a kid not make it home from the Saturday sunrise soccer game without a berry razzle boo blitz fruit roll-up and an apple juice box? And then afterward, the harried parents are peer-pressured into driving to Ci-Ci’s Pizza for lunch with the entire team afterwards – plus all extended family members. Like it’s a major celebration. Is this really a good thing? Wouldn’t it be better to just take a water bottle from home, eat a turkey sandwich afterward, and read a book?

Growing up, we ate what was served, and it was never pizza. It was cooked at home and sometimes grown in our garden. We actually liked what was served. Except on liver night – that was our only night to opt out. Today’s kids negotiate, holding their breath until they receive chicken nuggets, french fries and diet Coke. Do we really think diet Coke is a good choice for kids with developing growth plates? My husband nearly killed himself one night running all around Dallas trying to get the exact freaking fast food demanded for a 5th grade sleepover. One kid would only eat hamburgers from Burger King, and one would eat pizza but only cheese and only from Pizza Hut, not Pizza Inn. I’m sure these 5th graders have a closet full of soccer trophies in their dorm rooms.

Being a parent is the hardest job in the world whether you are bringing up bébé in Paris, France or Paris, Arkansas. I’m thankful to have reached this stage of my life without having been reported to child welfare for ignoring my son’s broken foot for an entire week. I really thought it was a sprain. I’m relieved the pressure of learning spelling words is in the rearview mirror. There are way more outside influences and choices. My sister and I learned to take turns watching our favorite shows – they came on at the same time on different channels…. We couldn’t DVR five reality shows a night, pause the program to run in the kitchen to get more potato chips, re-wind if we fell asleep, or watch it later online at school. We had one television, one “clicker” and 4 channels – ABC(8), NBC(5), CBS(3) and PBS(13). When the electricity went out – and it did, ALOT, – we just sat in the dark and flat missed our favorite show. Or went to bed.

Is it really any wonder these soccer “stars” graduate from college, expecting their 4 bed/4.5bath/3 car garage starter McMansion to come complete with a theatre room and first time homeowner rebate from Uncle Sam? With no money down. It’s the American Dream. And they will need this dream to compensate for the shock of not going off 1st in the NFL draft, or the disappointment in not marrying a supermodel…. or not becoming a supermodel.

I don’t know if I’ll ever travel to France. I’m a homebody. I prefer to sleep in my bed in my own home. It’s just too much trouble to travel now that everyone is a potential terrorist. And honestly, I have way too many gels and liquids to travel much farther than Little Rock. But I might consider it for a trophy of some sort. Or a blue ribbon. Or to eat real creme brûlée. Bien sur!

Merci,

Brigette Tate

P.S. Becky Parks’ French name was Suzette. I think Norma Stracener’s was Georgine, but no one could confirm. How does one forget her French name???

Musical Pairings:
Patti LaBelle, “Lady Marmalade” 🙂