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This Month:
MISSISSIPPI SEEN by WALT GRAYSON
We need pictures of your past for book project
The word is spreading about all of us pitching in and putting together the ultimate Mississippi book. Everywhere we've been to speak over the past month, people have suggested a picture that they think would be perfect. I remind them to submit it themselves! This is your book in which to have your photographs published.
We're coming into a photogenic time of the year—the holidays. And that reminds me of some pictures I'd love to see. Back when we were kids spending Thanksgiving or Christmas at Grandmother's house, one of my married older cousins had a home movie camera. He shot the stew out of anything that moved. He started filming me while I was walking down the porch steps but quit when I saw what he was doing. And then I stopped walking as if he were taking snapshots. He pulled the camera down from his eye and said if I wasn't going to move he couldn't make a movie.
Grandmother was still alive then. So were all of my aunts and uncles and mom and dad. I'd love to see what we all looked like back then. I have never seen that film. I remember my cousin's family talking about it after they watched it the first time. They said instead of rewinding it, they just reversed the projector and had a big laugh when everybody on the screen walked backward and un-ate their food and un-poured pancake batter, and stuff like that.
It was fun waking up in that house on winter mornings. At daybreak, there was no heat except in the kitchen, and maybe a fire in the wood-burning heater in the dining room. Or perhaps someone had lit the gargantuan coal heater in the living room. (We used to hide behind that heater, playing hide and seek it was so big.)
The first thing you had to do in the morning was to climb out of the hole in the feather mattress you had sunk into. Then you braced yourself for the feet-sticking-to-the-floor cold. But the smell of bacon and biscuits and coffee drifting up from where Grandmother was cooking downstairs on her wood stove helped you get moving. After all these years, an unexpected whiff of wood smoke can instantly carry me back there. It's always a pleasant surprise when it happens.
The next time we visited Grandmother’s house, after she died, my uncle who lived there bragged because he had already hauled Grandmother’s stove and the wood-burning heater and the hulking coal heater out and "dumped them in a hollow over in Alabama," as he put it. I was dumbfounded. Those were icons. And then he redid the downstairs and the kitchen and bathroom and stuff. It just wasn't the same house.
By then my aunts and uncles were already passing away; now there's just one left. She's 95 years old. And some of us cousins live close enough to each other to be able to visit, but we don't. I haven't been able to convey to my modern blended family just what I had when I was growing up, and I manage to foul things up trying to recreate it for them on holidays.
So I'd like to see the old film, except no one can seem to find it anymore.
I remember something Mama told me one Christmas after everything had started changing. She said she felt homesick for places that weren't there anymore.
Got a picture of stuff like that? Submit it for the book.
For information on submitting photos for the book or to obtain a Photo Submission Form, e-mail your request to photo@epaofms.com. Or, call Jay Swindle at (601) 605-8600. Deadline for submissions is Jan. 13, 2010.
Walt Grayson is host of “Mississippi Roads” on Mississippi Public Broadcasting television and the author of two “Looking Around Mississippi” books. For ordering information, visit www.epaofms.com.
GRIN 'N' BARE IT by KAY GRAFE
Is it all about turkey?
Since Thanksgiving has been diminished by Halloween celebrations and decorations, and Turkey Day is utilized as a stepping stone to Christmas, I decided to take a survey. I asked friends how they observed Thanksgiving Day as a child. (It was set aside as a national holiday Dec. 26, 1941, and signed into law by President F. D. Roosevelt.)
I began the survey with my best friend and husband, Roy.
“My daddy and Grandpa Grafe gathered the men and boys before daybreak and went squirrel hunting while the women prepared dinner. We didn’t have turkey, but we had plenty fried and baked chicken and ham, with all the trimmings. By the time Grandma and the women made their way to the front sitting-room after kitchen duties, we’d gathered our hunting gear and were back in the woods.”
My story: Mother’s family (Tyners) didn’t go hunting on Thanksgiving Day when I was young. The clan went to her parent’s house, and the women cooked together and laughed so loud the cousins could hear them from the back pasture. Daddy Tom played checkers with his son-in-law, Grover Monroe. The cousins built hide-outs and took sides against each other. Someone always got angry and tattled.
Bertrola Byrd’s story: “My Daddy would carry me on his back for five miles to his parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner. Then a baby brother came along and I lost my spot on Daddy’s back. It made me so mad that I’d sit down on the trail and refuse to walk.”
Ruffin Graham: “We lived in Mobile and had a dairy. We closed for the day, ate Mama’s good cooking and played touch football.”
Jean Persons: “We worked picking up pecans on Thanksgiving Day. If we didn’t get them in a hurry, the squirrels would. The family stopped a few minutes and went to the house for a sandwich, then back to work.”
Amanda South: “Our family tradition after we had a huge Thanksgiving dinner was go to Grafe’s Tree Farm and pick out our Christmas tree.”
I didn’t know Amanda back then, but Roy had a few early birds that came for trees on Thanksgiving afternoon.
Suzanne White’s: “I lived in Greenville, S.C. My parents had a carved wooden box and we placed notes inside throughout the year. Each person wrote what worried them at the moment. On Thanksgiving Day we read the notes and knew we were distressed the day they were written. Those worries had vanished, and we praised God for His graciousness.”
I asked others who gave wonderful stories, and though I didn’t write them, each family always had a prayer of thanksgiving before dinner.
Historically, the first Thanksgiving ceremony took place on Sept. 8, 1565, when 600 Spanish settlers landed in St Augustine, Fla.—not a harvest ceremony. Also, near El Paso, Texas, an expedition party conducted a mass celebration of thanksgiving on April 30, 1598.
In 1619 the Colony of Virginia, (established in 1607) 20 miles upstream from Jamestown, specified in its charter to conduct an annual Thanksgiving service to Almighty God. Charles City County, one of the oldest in the U.S., is located along the James River. The horrific Indian fight (now where Berkeley Plantation is located) was the traditional home of the Harrison family—one of the first families of Virginia. To this day the site has an annual Thanksgiving event. George W. Bush gave his official Thanksgiving address there in 2007.
The modern Thanksgiving holiday traces its origin from 1621 where Plymouth settlers held a harvest feast—with the help of the Wampanoag tribe who taught the Pilgrims to grow corn and catch eel. Squanto, their Indian interpreter, had learned English as a slave in Europe. Not to be confused with the Puritans, who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony (current-day Boston) in 1628 and had different religious beliefs.
Pilgrims thanked God for their harvest and for freedom in all segments of their new life, especially religious freedom.
I pray you have a horn of plenty and may God continue to grant our nation religious freedom.
Love,
Kay
Write Kay at 2142 Fig Farm Rd., Lucedale, MS 39452 or e-mail kaygrafe@bellsouth.net.
SOUTHERN GARDENING by NORMAN WINTER
Chinese pistache rocks from coast to coast
Its fiery yellow, orange and red colors make the Chinese pistache one of the prettiest trees this fall. From coast to coast, horticulturists sing the praises of this tree, and if you plant one or an informal cluster, you, too, will join the chorus.
The Chinese pistache is cold hardy, and it is related to the West Coast nut-producing pistachio tree. It has a pinnate leaf texture similar to its relative, the sumac, and equally stunning fall color, and it comes on a tree that is basically indestructible. When ice or wind storms wreak havoc in neighborhoods, you’ll find this tree the ever-stalwart performer.
The Chinese pistache is small in stature, forming a spreading, umbrella-like canopy, and it reaches a mature size of 40 to 50 feet tall and 30 feet wide. Most of us can count on 30 to 35 feet, which is a great size for today’s urban landscapes.
I am regularly asked about fast-growing species of trees, but how fast a tree grows should not be your highest criteria. If you choose the Chinese pistache, you will get a tree that is long-lived and durable, yet often grows 2 to 3 feet a year.
Fall is a terrific time to plant trees. To grow yours, choose a site in full sun and set out nursery-grown plants in well-drained, moist, fertile soil. Dig the hole three to five times as wide as the root ball but no deeper, so the top of the root ball can be even with the soil profile.
Should you have to wait until next summer to plant, form a 4-inch berm outside the root ball area. This berm should be able to hold 5 gallons of water. After planting, water deeply and apply mulch. Remove the berm after the first year.
The Chinese pistache is native to western China, and this drought-tolerant tree is recommended even in places like New Mexico and Arizona. When selecting your location, remember that it does not like wet winter feet, so choose a site that drains well. It is cold hardy from zones 6 through 9, meaning that from St. Louis to Orlando, gardeners can relish the dark green leaves that become a blaze of fall color.
The Chinese pistache can look a little leggy or lanky in its early years, but it turns from the ugly duckling into the beautiful swan with a nice oval shape.
Container-grown trees rarely require staking. In the second year, prune lanky-looking branches to encourage branch development. Feed in late winter with an 8-8-8 fertilizer, applying 1 pound per 100 square feet of planted area. This is the area from the trunk to just outside the canopy.
The trees are dioecious, meaning they are male or female, but most likely you will not know what you are buying. Both are good. Male trees grow slightly faster and female trees produce an inedible cluster of berries that can be used for decoration. Most horticulturists concur that the male offers the best form and structure.
The Chinese pistache is being widely used for beautification from city and college landscapes to medians. Get in the loop and use them at your home, too..
Norman Winter is an MSU Extension horticulturist at the Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center in Raymond, Miss. His Southern Gardening columns are available at www.msucares.com. |
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