Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Admittedly, I spend way much more of my time around the four-legged sort of kid than the two-legged sort.

But sometimes they just take my breath away, and I have to take a picture.

Over on Feministe today, I have an essay about Growing up Appalachian.

Today’s images were supplied by friend Laura Wallis in Charleston who provided photos and stories for the Wet Coconut Cake FPF. She is a very talented food pornographer.

Fried Green Tomatoes are one of the most beloved of southern foods. They are a special item only available when the tomatoes are green and on the vine. Choose fresh home grown green tomatoes if they are available. The tartness of the tomato is what makes these lovely slices of heaven so special. The heat releases both sweetness and tartness.

I should say a word about the term “frying” in Southern food culture. We are not deep frying in vats of oil. Fried chicken, fried green tomatoes, fried okra…all of these are pan fried. We put oil in the bottom of the pan so it just coats and then do our frying. Fried chicken uses an additional step of steaming the chicken with the lid on the frying pan. Foods fried in this manner are laid out on paper towels to absorb any excess grease after they are done.

For true authenticity, use bacon fat, but vegetable oil has long been used since most of us threw away our “grease jars” and are no longer eating bacon daily. The taste of bacon does lend itself rather well to these, though.

I do hope you will try these if you aren’t familiar with them. They are a wonderful addition to a brunch menu and can be fancied up if you like with sprigs of fresh parsley and sweet basil.

And yes…I really did work on the movie. I even sat in Fannie Flagg’s chair, just to do it. I think I was hoping some of those successful and good writer cooties would rub off on me.

The polished, final draft of this story has been accepted for publication. In keeping with the SMB's policy, this rough has been removed.

I will provide linkage where you may purchase the magazine or read the story in its final draft form on publication.

The day had dawned with the startling blue of a clear mid-August mountain sky. There was no breeze and the air was hazy. Days like this, everything seemed out of focus. You could barely make out Hall’s Top Mountain rising just over the treeline. The haze made everything fuzzy and soft.

But there was something different today and Mizz Emmy seemed to sense it with that extra sharpness that some pregnant women have. She saw a bird that morning she’d never seen before fishing in the creek. It looked like a cowbird with a feathery white beard. No birds sang and the crickets were strangely silent. Summer was usually a noisy time in the mountains. You noticed it because the winter was so silent. So silent that you longed for the summer days that were filled with the sounds of exploding life. Then, just as the winter days and the ice and snow seemed more than a body could bear, the frogsong started and you knew the whip-or-wills wouldn’t be far behind.

Mizz Emmy sat on the wide front porch of the blue house on the little hill by Big Creek fanning herself. She took a long drink of icy cold spring water just brought up from the spring house. Her oldest girl had just put the two-year old twins down to nap with the one year old. So this was a rare opportunity to rest.

Lord, she thought, the heat were about to kilt her. Mid -August sure did seem the dog days.

A handsome field of burley tobacco stretched out across the road and she admired the broad leaves starting to turn the color of a gold pocket watch. Nothin' much purtier than that color she thought dreamily. In a few days it would be about time to gather the children and go stake the tobacco. Hopefully she could sit this one out, she thought, as the baby kicked her from her insides. This baby, her sixteenth, was about ready to come into the world.

She leaned back in her porch rocker and dozed for a bit, her belly straining the fabric of her cotton house dress.

“Rider, coming! Rider, coming!”, came the shout from down the road where her Jimmy was fishing by the old wooden foot log. His shouting jolted her out of her doze and she rocked herself a few times to get herself out of the chair. She braced her hands on the small of her back and waited.

She could hear the sound of the horse coming fast. It was the waltz-like cadence of a racking horse moving swiftly and efficiently. She saw her Jimmy running fast on bare feet coming around the curve and the rider followed soon after and passed him.

The big racking horse came to a jarring halt in front of Mizz Emmy. She recognized the boy who had been running messages up from Hartford all summer.

“Hey, Jason…what news?”

“Storm comin’ Mizz Emmy. Big storm!” The boy panted out breathlessly.

Mizz Emmy cocked her head and knitted her brow. It wasn’t like they didn’t have storms all the time here.

Jason seemed to sense her puzzlement.

“No! Mizz Emmy …H’it’s one’s real bad. They sents me up to warn you’un’s on the creek. It’s a big ‘Cane, Mizz Emmy. And it’s headed this way!”

Her Jimmy finally made it up to the porch. He bent over and rested his hands on the knees of his overalls and panted.

“Did ja hear, Mama?” He panted out. “Big, big storm comin’…hail and rain!”

Emmy looked up into the clear blue and strangely quiet sky. Then out at the vulnerable tobacco crop. It didn’t seem possible that such a thing could happen.

“Jason,” she said, “You git along…I know you have more stops to make up the 15th. I need’s to figure out what to do.”

The boy set the horse off at a punishing clip, splashing across the creek.

Mizz Emmy grabbed Jimmy and gave him a little shake. “Listen here, I need you to git your Daddy and bring him down here. Tell him what’s goin’ on and to gather the stakes from the barn. I’m going to call in everyone and we got to get that ‘baccy staked now. We’ll like to lose the whole crop if we don’t.”

Jimmy nodded and took off running up to the north pasture where he knew his Daddy was working on the cow pond.

Mizz Emmy lumbered into the house and grabbed her rifle. She stood on the porch and shot the three blasts that signified “Trouble! Come quickly!” Then she sat down to wait.

Her oldest daughter came out at the sounds of the gunfire.

“What is it, Mamma?” She said. “Do I need to fetch Granny?”

“No child,” Emmy said, “We need to stake the tobacco. There’s a storm comin’.”

Her daughter frowned. “I’ll get changed.” She said, and went back into the house to put her dungarees on.

“Little One,” Emmy said to her belly, “Looks like you are going to need to wait a while longer.”

Soon her entire clan was gathered around her. With the nine children ages six to fifteen, plus herself and her husband, they would have a work crew of eleven. This should be enough to get the tobacco staked before night fall.

The family set off to work. It was tiring, back-breaking labor, driving the stakes in, then wrapping the leaves around the stalks with twine. The nicotine from the raw leaves seeped through their hands and made everyone headachey. But the family pulled together swiftly and surely, driven on by the specter of the oncoming disaster.

They were about midway through the field when the sky started to change. Everyone tried to pick up the pace, even little six year old Jimmy. But Emmy could feel herself slowing down with the weight of her belly making her back scream in pain. Yet she kept going.

The thunder started sounding in the distance when the field was three-quarters staked. It was about that time that Emmy straightened up and felt her water break. She staggered slightly and two of her daughters rushed to her side.

“Momma!” One of them cried. The two girls hovered and little Jimmy stood by nervously watching.

Emmy grabbed a piece of burlap and laid it on the ground. She hunkered down and the newborn girl just seemed to slide right out of her like an otter on a snowbank. The lightning flashed with menace and lit up the baby girl in an eerie glow.

Mizz Emmy picked up the baby and put her to her breast, tucking the small snippet of life inside her dress.

“Jimmy?”

“Yes, ma’am?” The child answered in a soft voice.

“What you reckon this storm is called? Did he tell you?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jimmy said. “He said h’it were named ‘Camille’.”

“Well, then. Looks like this one already come with a name. This is your little sister.”

Camille.

Miss Emmy finished staking the row she was working on, before going in the house to lie down and wait out the storm.

(Hurricane Camille hit in mid-August, 1969. It was credited with 259 deaths, mostly in the Southern Appalachian region where she caused torrential flooding.) Please read the companion piece to this story on Feministe called "What it was like...".

There was a bit of a breeze that day, but not much. The sunlight filtered through the giant giant chestnut trees, their broad leaves creating patterns in the shade of the morning. It was the sort of day that if you lay on your back in the forest and looked up, you could see the dust motes swirling like angels in the light. But there would be a storm coming soon. You could feel that on the air too, and smell the coming lightning.

Sadie was digging new potatoes when she heard the hoof beats and the muffled sound of male voices coming up the holler. She stood and cocked her head like a doe seeing a flash of white in the wood. She ran to the garden gate, brushing the soil from her hands on her skirts and grabbed her rifle from where it rested there by the fence.

The riders had come again to Raven’s Branch. She was certain of it.

“June Bug!” She called out to her sister who was sweeping the dirt of the yard. “Git your gun!”

In the darkening days following the Civil War, ragtag bands of marauders had cut a swath through the mountain hollers robbing and killing. They came in broad daylight and sometimes in darkness. They came for the children, murdering them before their mothers. Though the war had ended, they hadn’t had their fill of blood quite yet.

Her own man had yet to return from the war and she often times wondered if he would ever come back. It weren’t no matter to her. She’d kept the farm going through the long years, scraping together enough food and game to feed the family. She’d likely continue to do the same, even if he came home.

Sadie’s five-year old nephew was playing on the porch of the cabin. His feet were grimy with coal dust. He looked up at his mother in alarm as she emerged with a shotgun from the cabin.

“Ransom! Git over here now.” Sadie said, with an edge of desperation in her voice.

The child scurried to obey. She hissed to him, “You don’t make a sound or I’ll whup you…You hear? Do you?”

The little boy trembled and nodded, his lip quivering.

Sadie gathered the child up and stuffed him under her skirts and stood rock solid at the steps to the cabin, stony-faced as the ragged band rode up. June Bug took her place at her side. She pushed a strand of hair from her face and glared fiercely.

The two women watched as the men skittered their horses to a halt in the dirt, causing dust to fog the air.

The leader of the band sat his gaunt horse easily. His clothing was ragged and you could barely discern the blue gray of his tattered uniform.

“Woman. Where be your menfolk!”

“Ain’t no menfolk here.” She said. “You’uns can just move along. I ain’t got no bidness with you’uns.”

He looked at her with cold dead eyes. She tightened her grasp on the rifle and pointed it menacingly at him. Her sister followed suit.

Her eyes were cold and narrow. She stood solidly but did not try to move. Ransom had his pudgy arms wrapped tightly around her legs and his small body was plastered against her. She could feel the contours of his face, crumpling against her thigh as he stifled a whimper.

“Well, ma’am, it don’t seem right, us coming all the way up here to see you and not leavin’ with nothin’.”

He spat into the dry dust.

June Bug’s hands were shaking as she held her shotgun.

“Easy there, Junie, “ Sadie said. “You know that there thing has a hair trigger.”

Sadie, herself, spat into the dust and managed a grin like a feral she-wolf.

“Lookit!” She said. “There be a ham in the smokehouse. Why don’t you’uns take that and go on.”

The lean man looked at her narrowly. Then he nodded at one of his men, who dismounted and headed toward the smokehouse.

They all waited tensely. June Bug cut her eyes at her sister. Neither woman was sure how much longer little Ransom could stay still under Sadie’s skirts, like a fawn in the forest.

The man came back lugging a big joint of cured meat. He slung it over the pommel of his saddle and mounted up.

The leader touched his fingers to his cap and nodded at Sadie, in a mockery of courtliness. Then the group turned their horses and galloped down the path into the woods.

Sadie and June Bug stood stock still until they disappeared and they could no longer hear the horses and the laughter of the men.

Then June Bug lay her shotgun down and burst into tears. She pulled Ransom from his aunt’s voluminous skirts and drew him into her arms. She rocked him to comfort herself as much as she did so to comfort him.

Tears made muddy streaks down her face as she looked at her sister and said, “You didn’t tell me you had no ham? Where’d you git that from?”

Sadie lifted her rifle and sighted high into a chestnut tree. She shot, bringing down a fox squirrel with a clean head shot. It fell, lifeless in the dust.

“Oh. That were from the last time they’uns showed up here.” She said.

Then Sadie turned to her little nephew and said.

“Ransom! What don’t you go git that there squirrel for auntie and I’ll make us some biscuits!”

The companion essay to this ficlet is up on Feministe. It's called, "An American Brigadoon".

I've been very kindly invited to guest blog this week by Jill Filipovic over on Femimiste.

I’ll be using this opportunity to write about a subject very dear to me, Appalachian women.

One of the problems and one of the blessings that I’ve faced in the gathering of my stories has been that they are, for the most part gathered from women. This is because I am a woman myself, and there are still very strict rules regarding how women and men interact in this culture. I owe a huge debt to Friend Scott, who has been able to gather stories from the men folk that they might not tell to me.

I think what has consistently struck me about the Appalachian women is their tenacity and strength. These women are not feminists. They would be insulted to be called such. But at their core is a resolve and a resourcefulness that we could learn much from. They are action-based and dynamic. The adversity they face in their day to day living is staggering at times to the outsider. Much has been made of their poverty and lack of education by scholars and many people have difficulty seeing beyond this deficit. I will say to you that there are different kinds of wealth in this world and different kinds of “smart”.

I was talking to my friend one day and she was telling me about the Vista volunteers who came up here in droves during the 1960’s. They came here to teach people various life skills.

“So what did they show you?” I asked.

“Well, they showed us how to make mattresses, can and built outhouses.”

I thought about this for a minute.

“Ummm…but didn’t y’all already know how to do that? I mean, you’ve been living up here forever!” I said.

She smiled at me gently. “Oh yes. We knew how to do that.”

Talk about teaching your grandma how to suck eggs.

Another curious example of this was the teaching of “Forestry” in the schools here. They taught kids how to recognize and name different trees. This is a culture that lives in a forest environment. I have yet to meet a ten year old who couldn’t tell the difference between a red and “piss” oak.

So, there is indeed a paternalistic attitude that has been directed at the Appalachian people from the outside for quite a long time. It’s very easy to fall back on these stereotypes, unfortunately.

I’m hoping during this week to show from a women’s perspective how women deal with real life and hardship here. I’ll be alternately entertaining with fiction pieces based on some of the stories I’ve gathered about Appalachian women. If there is a story here, there will be an essay over on Feministe. You’ll have to go there to read the companion article.

As per usual...I'll be writing from the seat of my pants.


...Plus...I love their header...cause I was once a little girl with a big gun. And I'm all about girls with guns.