Smokey Mountain Breakdown

I didn't get a post in yesterday since the storms came before I got to it and then it was too late.

At least we have some rain with today's storms. We really need it, much more than we need the dry lightning that takes out the phones. Tomorrow is market day and I will no doubt be short tempered and cranky at having to give up so much of my day to shopping and bill paying. Then the slew of tri-monthly doctor visit in K-town at UT. I will be mostly cranky for the rest of the week.

Betty Goat is looking more and more pregnant and like she's going to pop soon. She should be the first to go as we approach this mid summer kidding season.

I had a nice visit with my friend on Sunday and she spoke more about the custom of the "pie supper" that I heard about from Red. I just started to describe how they met and her eyes lit up and she said, "Oh , yes! That's a pie supper!"

They would also auction off walks. The young ladies of the community would offer up pies and the prize of a walk for auction. Sometimes they would auction off box lunches. It was how they raised money for school supplies and such.

One time, right after she was married and her husband was away in Korea, she and her sisters attended a pie supper. Betty asked them not to put up a pie for her, since she was now a happily married woman. Evidently her sisters went ahead and offered not only a pie, but also a walk with her

The gentleman who bought both her walk and her pie had just returned from the service on leave. She told the gentleman that she was now married and he could just take that pie and walk himself.

He was heartbroken. "But, you can't be married already! How did that happen!"

She smiled sadly at him and walked away.

What can I say? You snooze, you lose.

She also told me some bits about school lunches during those days. I'd already talked a bit about those in the article about the biscuits. Everyone took their lunch and it was a biscuit sandwich of some sort. Mainly because the weren't eating the squishy white bread the rest of us were eating. It was usually a chicken or ham or sausage biscuit of some sort. She says that was the case for everyone she went to school with.

On some special days, they would all bring in some food item. A bunch of carrots, some potatoes, cabbage or onions. They did have a little shed attached to the schoolroom where a wood cook stove was kept. On those days, the teacher would cook up a big pot of soup for the children with whatever they brought in. They would have the soup probably with cornbread.

I was immediately reminded of "The Stone Soup" story that was one of my favorites from childhood. It feels like an Appalachian stone soup tale, doesn't it? I shall probably have to write it, don't you think?