Frigid Toes, Frigid Nose, Warm Heart

My toes are frozen. At least they feel like they are. I'm just not conditioned for this type of arctic weather. I hear it might get cold enough to either ice or snow some tonight. I hear the kids at JC Booth have been busy performing a snow dance all week. I guess that's something like a rain dance? Whatever it is, I know all children want to hear the magical words of "no school" in the morning. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

My nose is frozen, too. Kinda takes me back in time to when I was just a teenager.

We had one of those freak snowstorms in rural GA and our backyard measured 15 inches on the ground. That was the BIG time. Of course, there were seven of us kids home at the time.

Well, mama was afraid she couldn't get out to the store to lay in the supplies, so she dug a big turkey out of the freezer. There it was, just thawing away. Sometime later there was a commotion in the kitchen and we youngins' were told to stay out. No problem. I had other things on my mind.

We all enjoyed the turkey after going outside for the prerequisite snowball fight and snowman building contests. Well, except for mama and Babs. Neither one of them touched it.

Now that was a curious sight. Daddy remarked on their seemingly lack of appetite.

They started giggling. It got louder. The eyes on their heads were rolling and getting bigger.

Ok. Busted. Well, they told us that when they went into the kitchen to check on the turkey and its progress in thawing, they found our dog. And guess what the dog was doing? Yeppers, that dog had pulled the turkey off the counter and was proceeding to lick it. Guess it was a good thing Babs found her then, otherwise, I bet that dog would have started to eat it. Anyway, they just washed it and then put it in the oven to kill the rest of the germs.

Well, some of us at the table almost lost our dinner when that story was over. I learned a lesson. I know never to leave food on a counter when there's a dog in the house!

Speaking of laying in supplies, do you think the stores are full of people today buying all the perishables? I've never figured out why the threat of ice or snow makes everyone rush out to buy milk and eggs. Just think-- if you lose power--- you lose the ability to maintain the fridge. Anyway, it's not like we're going into a deep freeze and not going to be able to go and purchase that milk in the next day or so.

My warm heart just has to welcome Miz Vul to our front porch. I hear tell you're gonna drop by and have some stimulating conversation with Miss Faye and me. We always have room for one more on our porch, but don't ask me to share my fan in the summertime.

Gotta go right now. Gotta go to the store and buy something. I just know I'll get stuck in my house and not be able to get out for at least an hour when I have that uncontrollable urge for popcorn and my daily juleps. Girls have to be prepared for such emergencies.

Miss Etta

Can't Get There From Here

I grew up in rural Georgia. Now there are some folks who say Fayette County is rural, but where I grew up was RURAL. I did live in town, with all of the other 396 residents. Yes, we had less than 400 people in town. Now the dogs and horses did put us up around 500, but I'm told you can't count them.

One memory I have is a car stopping for directions. That was actually rare. Cars stopping by accident in town were few and far between. We did have the one main road in town and the state highway was up at the corner. (Down the road was the other direction.) You see, we weren't even on the state map.

The town was full of beautiful old antebellum homes. Our home was the exception. It was brick, but on the site of an old antebellum home. The old house had burned down and the doctor who owned the house wanted his next home not to be able to burn to the ground. So it was brick, thick brick. And there were doors to the outside from every room in the house except the dining room and the bathroom. Guests were always confused on which door to knock on. And, then, we had to run around to see which door had someone standing outside it.

Oh, here I go, rambling on again.

Anyway, one day, a car stopped up at the corner and asked how to get to another town in the county. Hmm. Well, you just couldn't get there from where we were. We told the man, "You can't get there from here. You have to go to another town and start there." You would have thought we had grown extra heads or something.

It was really quite logical. You really couldn't get there from here. You really did have to go to another town and pick up another highway and then find a small unmarked road and follow it to an even smaller one road town. We tried to explain it the best we could. I imagine he did go to the other town and start over on his quest.

Going to Newnan on Friday was just like that for me. I was looking for the newer movie house and had gotten my directions from the computer. Roads have sprung up out of nowhere and houses are everywhere over there now. It's like a real city. Anyway, I faithfully followed the directions taking Lower Fayetteville Rd. I never saw the next five turns mentioned. They weren't there. In other words, I couldn't get there from here.

I did wind up seeing the name of the road that the movie house is on, so I took a guess and turned on it. Lucky for me, I turned the correct way. Needless to say, coming home, I used the main roads. There was no way I was gonna get lost and have to ask for directions. I'm sure I would have heard echoes in my head. " You can't get there from here."

Now the question remains. Where can't you get?

Have a good day, Miss Faye.

Miss Etta