grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Piggott Arkansas -The Breakfast Table at Downtown Inn

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The Downtown Inn B&B
Piggott, Arkansas
Everyone brings something different to the table. Literally. For the past week we have gathered each morning around the antique table in the dining room at the Downtown Inn in Piggott, Arkansas.  We came to the writer’s retreat from various places with different levels of writing experience, assorted backgrounds and unique viewpoints. We leave as friends.

Brenda, our amicable host, provides an amazing breakfast each morning – scrambled eggs with bacon, breakfast casseroles and breads, fresh fruit with cream, biscuits and gravy, hot coffee and orange juice – something different every day. She wears a red toile apron and is the organized sister who makes certain we start each day with the most important meal. And a prayer. And a laugh. In only one week, we are a family.  

Brenda
We discuss the prior day’s writings, our plans for the next day and the train that runs beside the Inn, so near the bed vibrates like a New Madrid earthquake several times each night. The whistles disrupt sleep, but less so as the week passes. Brenda says a first timer guest reports the train passed by “twenty-two times in the night” but a few days later only twice. We acclimate. 
Families don’t eat together anymore, not regularly. When I think about the conversations we have had over a few days at the table in Piggott with complete strangers, I realize all the conversations missed not eating as a family because of working late or soccer practice or Dancing with the Stars. 
I’ve met seven wonderful ladies this week at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Creative Writer’s Retreat along with a few good men. Each person brought something a little different to share. I will miss these ladies and the uninterrupted time I’ve had to write. 
Today is our last day. Tomorrow I return to eating power bars for breakfast. We came to the table as strangers. We leave as friends. 
talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Pat, Dorothy, Me, Judy (standing), Mary (pink curlers)

Our Painted House

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laugh lines?
Until you paint every nook and cranny of a house, repairing cracks and spackling hundreds of nail holes in the most peculiar places, I don’t think you really get to know her. Standing on a rickety ladder looking at the top of the never-before-painted dusty door moldings or lying on the kitchen floor painting the floor trim underneath the built-in shelving, you become pretty cozy with one another. Until then, I’m not sure you can really claim her.
We’ve painted every square inch inside our Munger Place home. And because of this, we can confirm there are no square inches in this house. Her floors slope and creak and doors shift from time to time resulting in the reappearance of certain hairline cracks. Like wrinkles. After 102 years, she’s allowed. 
Years ago, I worked with a strange girl who bought a 60’s ranch style home near Ft. Worth. Once she was settled into the home with her furniture and children arranged to her liking, only then did she paint around the furniture. The trim behind the couch was stained dark brown but on either side the trim was white.  If a chair was slightly budged from position, the dark trim behind it would shine like a rotten spot. HOW did she sleep at night? I could barely even go inside, just knowing this. 
When my mother turned 40, she decided to paint the outside of our home in Arkansas. After years and years of living in a boring white house, she thought it was high time for a color change – beige. Willing to tackle the project single-handedly, she explained her plan to Daddy who was completely against it. He felt sure she would get one side painted and quit. He feared her painting work ethic would be much like her cotton-chopping work ethic. The Tate girls weren’t his best cotton choppers. 
She ignored his advice, didn’t mention it again, and patiently waited a few weeks until he started picking cotton. Now, if you weren’t raised on a cotton farm, you may not be aware of the delicate art of picking cotton. When the bolls burst open, there are only a few weeks to harvest before the yields begin to decline. So there’s no lollygagging around during this time. No sleeping or eating, no laughing or vacation days, no television watching or smiling. It’s an amazing race against Mother Nature, and not for the light-hearted. To keep things interesting, this all happens just at that time when vast tropical storms are lined up back to back in the Gulf of Mexico.
Daddy left the house before daylight and dragged home well after dark. And he worked 7 days a week until all the cotton was out. The first day he started picking, Momma started painting. High up on a ladder, she painted the eaves, the side, around the windows, all day every day. She cleaned up or hid all evidence before he lugged himself home late each night, dog-tired. She collapsed each night as exhausted as he, sore and achy. For a couple of weeks he unknowingly snored in a two-toned house. The next morning, she started back again right after he left. She too was in a race. 
Tate Farm House
aka BAT cave
Perfectly timing the entire project, she was finishing her last day of painting on his last day of picking. And that’s the day he decided to come home for lunch. Driving into the driveway, he saw her atop a ladder painting the last section of the house. He must have been shocked. He must have laughed to himself. The entire house was a different color. And the shutters were brown. She washed her hands, made him a sandwich, and he never said a word about it. Ever.
While he was busy picking cotton, he had no idea what had been going on under his roof. Of course, he never really did.
talya
Musical Pairings
Johnny Cash, “I Never Picked Cotton”
Miranda Lambert, “The House that Built Me”

Don’t change a thing and you will go far.

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May is graduation time. As graduation announcements begin to roll in, I think back to my own high school graduation. Rivercrest High School, Class of 1980. Just yesterday to me. As a high school senior, the last looooonnng year drags and anticipation builds up to that all important moment when you walk across the stage to receive your much deserved diploma, trying to smile for the camera while balancing that ill-fitting mortarboard hat.
I remember thinking that hat was going to fall off my head, plus it was squishing my carefully feathered bangs totally flattening my hair which I had curled loosely on hot rollers. It was rocking the Farrah ‘do when I left the house until Mrs. Meadows adjusted it, securing it to my skull with bobby pins. Just give me my diploma so I can start my life, please.
Yesterday, with my life in full swing, I attempted to make a dent in our disorganized garage. In the bottom of a storage crate, I ran across my senior year Memories book. And that was the end of my garage cleaning project. Wiping the cover clean of dust bunnies, I immediately plopped down on the dirty floor of the garage to relive a bit of 1980. 

Apparently I was a big time scrapbooker before scrapbooking was in vogue as every single page of the book was completely filled with thoughts, pictures, and newspaper and magazine clippings. Or maybe I was just bored to death. Flipping through the pages I realized I had unearthed a time capsule. It looked as if it might have been living in the bottom of a locker at Rivercrest for the past thirty-two years. Or buried in the field beside the school parking lot where my little yellow corvette accidentally threw gravel peeling out for the last time.

As I read through the pages, I was struck by how fortunate I am to still be friends with many of my classmates and teachers. 
It was the year the Rivercrest Colts beat the rival Osceola Seminoles 9-6 on November 2, 1979, at home. I know because I wrote all about it. It’s recorded in ink for all of eternity, in my handwriting, probably with a Bic pen, and backed up with a newspaper clipping of the same. Back then, before Rivercrest dominated every sport throughout the entire state of Arkansas, Osceola always beat us, SoThisWasBIG. We had a great baseball team too, also walloping the Seminoles 14-3 to win Regionals.  It still makes me happy.
Tim Hardin
It was the year my classmate Tim Allen (from Dyess not Hollywood) and I won our three-legged race during intermurals, but he received a broken arm and I got 6 stitches in my chin for our efforts. That gym floor was slick in sock feet. We were unable to compete in the final heat.

According to my anthology, Billy Joel and Pink Floyd were my favorite musical artists, and my preferred television shows were Dallas, SNL, Three’s Company (RIP John Ritter) and Dukes of Hazzard. Movies = Grease, Halloween (the original one) and The Jerk. Reflecting on this, I think these are all good choices still.

I loved Hang Ten and Chic clothing, Candies shoes and Jontue perfume. I have pictures of these logos plastered on the “Gradfad” page…And an Arkansas Razorback banner – why did I not attend the University of Arkansas?
News From Planet Earth
On the “News From Planet Earth” page, I glued headlines of the Persian Gulf Crisis, Khomeini, Teheran, the Crisis in Iran. So basically nothing has changed. There was also the headline “Did Elvis Die From Drug Abuse?” Really? Was society debating this during in 1980? Everyone knows Elvis is still alive living in Arizona… 
2 pages dedicated to the race track???
The fact that I devoted two entire pages to the horse races speaks to my obvious gambling problem. There wasn’t a “horse race page” in the book, but I surely made room including losing tickets and season guest passes and a detailed diary of the entire weekend with the Barnetts. I’m certain my comprehensive account of the events would hold up in federal court should I be required to testify for some reason. And so my journal begins with, “We left for Hot Springs on Wednesday, April 2, 1980. This was during our Easter vacation. Clyde Barnett left at 7:00 am, Daddy left at 8:10 am, Mrs. Barnett, Bob and Bill left at 3:30 and Momma, Staci, Craig and I followed after that. We had 4 vehicles up there.” According to my specifics, “Craig and I placed all our bets together, betting $66.00 and losing $69.00 by the end of day one, winning $58.20 by the end of the 3rd race on day two but losing $12.70 by day’s end. On the 3rd day in the 9th race (the Fantasy Stakes) Craig bet $5 across the board on Bold ‘n Determined, Staci bet $5 to show on Honest & True and I bet $5.00 on Satin Ribera. All 3 horses came in, and I was ahead $20 at day’s end”. SERIOUSLY!? I kept track of all this. Did my parents not realize I had a gambling problem at an early age? I was insane and destined to be a bookie but ended up a banker – a close second I suppose.
Not surprisingly, I have a list of every single graduation gift I received. Unlike the popular gift of cash or gift card for today’s grad, most people gave actual presents in 1980. Like towels or picture frames or a Cross pen set or 2 pairs of bikini panties.…Yes. 2 pairs of bikini panties from a family in Keiser who shall remain nameless. Apparently I didn’t think it was one bit odd at the time, because I proudly listed it in my book.  I wonder if this was their standard gift to all Keiser grads? Did BeckyJudyNormaAnitaCarrieMary receive this as well?  (I swear this is true. And no, it wasn’t from the Barnetts.)

Lots of classmates wrote little messages in my book. Everyone proudly signed their name with “class of 80”. It was a very good year. Next time I go home I may bury this valuable cache of historic information in front of the school by the brick wall where the Future Business Leaders take yearbook pictures. Hundreds of years from now, new emerging civilizations will discover it and wish they had it so great. And they will wonder what the hell kind of gift bikini panties were for graduation…

Happy Graduation!


talya


Musical Pairing:



Excerpts of friend comments from my Memory book:


“Without you failing your test too, I could have never made it.” darla h.

“I’ll never forget the first time I saw you in biology, stuck-up, but now you are a great friend.” tim a.

“I didn’t get to know you like I wanted to know you, but what I know is good.” clay w.

“You are a great friend and a great person and very great looking with a great personality and a great singing voice.” joe a.

“We’ve had great times together and I’m sure there will be more to come.” craig b.

“Let’s keep in touch and don’t let your feet stick to the Murr Theatre.” becky p.

“Don’t change a thing and you will go far daughter.” tim h. 

Kelsey – Class of 2007
Threw hat in the air…

Tate – Class of 2011
Balancing that hat

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!