The Old Dixie Drive-In in Johnson City, Tennessee

Isn't this a funky little place? I just ran across this postcard on eBay.

My family used to go here when I was 8 years old or so and eat. The best part is that it was a drive-in so you could pull up to the speaker and order your meal. Like Sonic does now, but this was how they did it in the early Ice Age 60s. Of course, it's no longer there.

We sometimes went inside to eat but my sister, Robin, and I always wanted to eat in the car. And we always ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake. The burgers were HUGE! As big as your hand. That was one of the things they were noted for.

Did you have a favorite place to eat when you were young?

The Dreaded Chore - Paying Bills

Since taking over my Mother's "estate" (a term used quite loosely since it consists of one home and a small parcel of land, a couple of stock shares) I've been paying her bills each month. She normally wrote up and mailed everything on the first of each month. Always. That's one thing I rebelled about. She had all these schedules and rules. On Fridays you cook fish, on Wednesday, you had hamburgers and so on. She feeds her dog at 2:00 pm SHARP. On Mondays she dusts. Some might call it discipline but a teenage daughter called it weird. And everything still has to match. Toss together brown with black and she gets bent. And "you seriously aren't going to wear those white shoes after Labor Day, are you?" always made me smile. I still smile at the memories.

Back to paying bills. Do you think I have them ready to mail out on the first of each month like she wants me to? (A big kiss to anyone who guesses correctly.) I'm way past my teenage rebellion years so why do I not have them ready to pay on the first? It would probably make her happy if I followed her lead even in this one very small way.

--Oh, no. I just had one of those freaking a-ha moments that Oprah talks about. That's why it's sometimes good to just randomly slap the keys and see what happens. I just realized that I revert back to my childhood in an attempt to revisit that innocent time in my life. When my sister, Robin, and Daddy were still alive and we were the perfect little nuclear family in a perfect little home with perfect lives. You had to get up to change the channel on the tv, we put men on the moon, your refrigerator was a Harvest Gold. Ring a bell to anyone? Mother had bridge parties, Daddy played golf. Robin and I took dance class and went to girl scouts.

But back to the subject of negligent bill paying. I just finished writing them all up and they're ready to mail and it's the 12th of the month. This is how big girls with memories of a young girl rebel.

Susie Crocker

This is Betty Crocker's Cookbook, my favorite cookbook. Inside it is signed "Wedding Gift, 1972" and was from my Mother. When I was small I watched her cook from well-worn cookbooks with notes in the margins and spots of cake batter stuck to the pages. When I received this shiny new cookbook as a new wife I didn't imagine it would one day look like it had been used. But it does. I've taped the spine back on and I still refer to it today.

I see where one in good shape brings $130.00!

I also had this cookbook. It's probably here someplace so I'll have to dig around for it. I loved this cookbook. Robin and I enjoyed looking at the book and even trying out some of the recipes. It showed how to make everything from Ice Cream Cone Cakes and Pigs in Blankets to Cheese Dreams and Sloppy Joes. Not long before, we had made little cakes from our Easy Bake Oven, which I though tasted yummy. Absolutely yummy. Remember how they just gave you enough cake mix to make like, two tiny cakes? And you cried about it? But I digress. Looking up the cookbooks I ran across another post on this cookbook by The Boomer Chronicles.

Tell me about your first cookbook. =)

Field Of Nightmares

I am shucking some corn like a good appalachian gal for dinner and I'm always reminded of feed corn when I see ears of corn. Feed corn is tough and is what you feed your livestock.

When I lived at PeaceTree, a commune, we picked corn by the moonlight one evening. Our homegrown potatos were in abundance and we had them and tomatos for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every single day. One night we saw a nice large corn field beside the road and thought that surely no one would mind if we snagged a few ears.

Back home and hungry, mouths watering, we cooked our corn over a fire and soon realized that indeed we had gotten feed corn. Damn. Hard, dark corn kernels welded into a corncob that a pig would refuse. Pass me another baked potato.

Help Preserve Historic Sabine Hill

Family ties inspire effort to help preserve historic Sabine Hill

Lately, Harrison has been speaking out about his family's heritage, not because of pride but because he wants to preserve the family's oldest remaining home place, Sabine Hill.

The two-story Federal-style farmhouse is one of the first things a visitor coming from the west sees when approaching Elizabethton (Tennessee). The house has stood at its current location since it was built a few years after Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Taylor returned from the War of 1812.

Now, with the house and property in the hands of a developer, Harrison hopes that the house will be saved.

"I am disturbed by what is happening to our country," Harrison said as he sees more and more of the nation’s history destroyed for the sake of development."

"This house and so much of Elizabethton was a real seed bed for our nation's history. From King's Mountain to the Watauga settlements. You start naming wars and there has been a Taylor in every one of them."


link

Right behind this house is the house I lived in from age 7 - 17 (and now own). There have been rumors for several years about razing it to the ground for developers to build on. Recently at a City Hall meeting, our neighbors in Golf Course Acres were able to strike down a developer's request to spot-zone the land (the house and 5 acres) for businesses and/or apartments. But he will be able to build the maximum amount of houses allowed. 15, I believe they said.

My childhood friend, Debbie, lived there along with her 5 brothers and Mother and Father. This was a working farm with chickens, pigs, cows, horses, bees. It was Debbie who taught me to ride horses. We rode her horse, Champ, all over the place, including alongside the golf course and we built jumps for him and carried supplies for our picnics on him. We also rode their pigs, drank milk straight from the cow teats and all other kinds of fun stuff you do on a farm as a small girl.

I definitely don't want to see this house go but the issue has always been money. We need money for restoration and nobody could raise it.

What's That You're Wearing?

Robin left behind a lot of old colognes/perfumes. I walk by the perfume tray and I choose something for a quick trip in the way-back machine.

I bought more cologne in the 80s than in any other decade. Remember how decadent it was then? Or was that just me? Some of the most popular ones were Giorgio (I just spritzed some on that Robin had) and Gloria Vanderbilt and Halston. What else? Oh, Opium and Poison were big, too. But oh so heavy.

I like aromatic scents and oils, but j'adore cologne and bath powder and stuff, too. (I'm feeling frenchy since I spritzed on the Giorgio.)

In the early 90s Robin discovered Karl Lagerfeld's Sun Moon & Stars and I still wear the cologne and body lotion sometimes. We both liked it and I think of her when I wear it. I really love how a scent can take you back to an earlier memory. Do you think of anything when you small baby powder? Oranges? Fresh-cut grass?

The older I get the more I feel like the answer to the universe is found in our mind with sights, scents, memories, feelings etc. Certainly not in our skin suit. Did anyone see that Robin Williams movie, What Dreams May Come? I think that's what they were trying to say, or at least that's what I got from it. I haven't put it all together yet, but I think I'm on the right path. xoxo

link

Colts Win!

Congratulations, Colts! That was a good Superbowl game last night. I was in Tennessee watching it with Mother. All of Tennessee was pulling for Peyton Manning and the Colts. (He played college football at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville)

With both my parents being avid sports fans, it was hard not to get swept up in the fun. I have great memories of family events where we watched a game on tv or were fortunate to attend.

I saw a guy on tv spiking a watermelon which reminded me of doing it when I was younger. I thought everyone had heard of spiking watermelons. But my Father hadn't. We were having some kind of outdoor family gathering and my sister and I saw the watermelon and knew what had to be done. So she plugged a hole in it and I began pouring a fifth of vodka into the watermelon. Daddy ran outside and began freaking out.

"What in the hell are you doing?"

Us, smiling, "Spiking the watermelon, Daddy. What's wrong?"

"You're doing what?" he asked

And we explained to him the whys and wherefores. This man who had several cocktails each week and had a healthy nightlife had never even heard of this before.

Before long there was nothing left but flies buzzing around the discarded rind and a good time was had by all.

Ellinor Village

leaving up for me to keep track of Ellinor Village in Daytona Beach, Florida.

this is a repeat of a much loved memory I want to resurrect today...

Easter Reflections

My first Easter memories involve my sister (2 years younger) and I when we were quite small. There was the anticipation of buying a fancy, new Easter dress, with new crisp white cotton gloves. And, equally important, fancy, new shoes to match.

I still remember a favorite pair of pink patent leather shoes with bows that I'd rub together, even during church, just to hear them squeak. If we'd fuss and whine a little extra, we might get a new handbag or hat with matching grosgrain ribbon that would hang down our back. And, who knows? I might even paint my stubby, chewed-to-the-nub fingernails for the occasion.

Sunday School during Easter was spent making crosses from pop-sicle sticks and yarn. And writing John 3:16 in glue on construction paper, then sprinkling glitter on it, to proudly display in the Church's main hall. And after church, the obligatory eggs-tra-ordinary egg hunt. A perfect Easter indeed. With all the trimmings a little girl could possibly want except...

But I never did get a blue (or pink, or orange, or green) chick for Easter.

A local grocery store sold colored baby chicks in a pen with heat lamps during the Easter season. They had been dyed different colors and we'd all have our favorite one picked out. All the kids begged their parents for a blue (or pink, or orange, or green) chick at Easter. But I never knew anyone who actually got one. Animal rights activists may take a dim view of dyed chicks nowadays.

I recently ran across one of those old Easter photos while cleaning out my grandmother's things. Probably one of the last ones that featured us in parent-bought Easter finery. Robin and I were posed for posterity in my grandmother's yard and were about 14 and 16 years old at the time. Smirks firmly planted across our smart-aleck faces tell you this is the last time you'll get dresses on these two tomboy teens who'd rather be in our blue jeans fielding grounders.

I'm still in Tennessee and am just back from taking Mother dear to church. Then I walked the dog which is done probably 4 x's a day and has helped me to trim down another 10 lbs or so.

What a beautiful day. The golfer's are out in full force and I see one foursome hoping their tee shot doesn't go into the pond here on 14. Later in the day, the course gets louder as the coolers on the carts get emptier. This back yard has so many memories and golf figures into many of them in some capacity. Did I ever tell you about camping out on the golf course?

I also strolled around the grounds at the Covered Bridge this morning. But I can't deny that the devil is sitting on my shoulder and saying... "Isn't there something else you could be doing?" I've just never done my hometown so straight but I'll do fine.

(The link above has so many beautiful shots of this small quaint Tennessee town.)

If I've not visited with you lately, please don't feel slighted. I've not visited with anyone at all as I've not been online much this week.

After a half a pot of coffee and half a box of Kleenex I'm beginning to join the living. I think.

I have come down with ANOTHER cold. That makes 2 since I've been at Mother's. Before that, I couldn't tell you when I've had a cold. But I'm outdoors a lot now. No matter the weather.

I have to walk the dog and take him outside to the bathroom. He has a gigantic bathroom now. The whole world. I don't just take him in the front yard then we're done. Oh no. We go all over.

The property meets with the 14th hole on the city's only Golf Course. If no one's coming down the fairway, we walk out to the pond and up to the 15th tee on the cart path. We occasionally find a stray golf ball. (When I was young, we'd snag golf balls and run a stand to sell them back to the golfers. We sold koolaid with real glasses and brought them home on horseback to wash them.)

My childhood home, as you can see, really brings out the memories. [sniffle, sniffle.. blow, blow .. cough, cough] Oh, I could tell you so much more about the golf course. Another time. Maybe.

Back to walking the dog... My next door neighbor, Penny, usually is taking her dog, Rogie, out each morning around the same time. We say hello, both standing there holding leashes with our darlings on the end. Bleary-eyed and wild-haired, usually with our pjs on and a coat over us.

"How's your Dad doing, Penny?" I'll ask.
"He's doing better. How's your Mother?"

Her home once rang with children's laughter and bikes and swingsets and now they've grown and moved on and she's back home taking care of her Father (she's an RN). So we have a great deal in common.

That's all the 'thrills a minute' from my little corner of the world.

My beautiful sister, Robin, lost her long, brave fight with cancer on Thanksgiving morning @ 6:00am. Her funeral is tomorrow. There are so many loving memories I'll always hold dear, but my heart is beyond broken.

Lunch At The Blue Circle

In high school, we'd leave campus for lunch and drive to the Blue Circle, the local 24-hour diner. Using most of my lunch money for cigarettes, I'd have just enough left over for french fries. The short,fat, crinkly ones served up in a small cardboard tray. A quick dash of salt, a squirt of catsup, and I had enough fuel to get through the day.

Hazel brought over the fries if you sat in a booth. "Here you go, sweetheart," she'd say to everyone. She was 70-ish, with dyed blue-black hair teased up higher than her meringue pies. I never saw her without her face on. Fake eyelashes, cherry red nail polish, and if you had a mind to, you could certainly carve out your initials in her makeup.

This establishment holds so many wonderful memories and is sacred ground for so many people. It was one of the top cruising spots in town. You drove down Elk Avenue and turned into the Blue Circle, and then drove around it to see who you could see, And let yourself be seen, too.

Besides being an all night diner, it was also a drive-in restaurant. You talked into a speaker box to order and your food was delivered on a tray that hooked onto your rolled-down car window.

I'm smiling now as I'm reminded of the first double date I had. We'd gone to a movie and stopped by the Blue Circle Drive-In for a late snack. I was with Earl something or other. Oh, what's his name? Very cute and played basketball? And the other couple with us was Cathy something and...

Well, it was a long time ago and as long as it still makes me smile, right?

As I enter the driveway to the family home the memories begin to embrace me. Each Christmas Day I go back home to Tennessee to enjoy a turkey dinner with my Mother and sister. It's the one meal a year I get to have with real china and crystal and silver. After dinner I mosey over to the card table that's set up full of home made goodies. Shortbread cookies, marshmallow fudge, poundcake fruitcake, and more.

After dinner, we retire to the living room and pass out gifts. My Mother takes her usual seat. The white leather chair my Dad once occupied during this ceremonious occasion remains empty nearby; looming like a monument still honoring his presence in the family.

On the floor in front of the most beautifully decorated Christmas tree, Robin sits and digs for wrapped packages. She passes them around the room and we ooooh and aaaaah with satisfaction. Hugs and smiles display all around and soon we spread out and move to more comfortable settings to try on or play with our gifts. I may take a stroll on the golf course out back, walk the family dog, or take a nap in my old room. By evening, we gather to look through old photographs and watch old family films.

Much later when all is quiet, I will go to my father's closet, slide his suits down the rod and smell the clothes that still wait there. I see familiar sweaters I had bought him and a hat or pair of shoes that were his favorites. It's the one place I always go to be near him. Suits, sweaters and dress shirts still hang in their individual bags. Some don't. I push my face into the fabrics and breath in deeply, hoping for signs of his scent I found soon after he'd left us.

Nothing but tweed and herringbone. Starch and leather. I'm comforted nonetheless. I exhale as I close up the closet with a satisfied sense of purpose. Thankful for this odd connection we have together. I'll keep it close to my heart for another year.

I didn't really realize I had so many good luck trinkets until I stopped and actually counted them all. Cleaning out my backpack, I saw a moon and stars painted ball that jingles when it moves and rolls around; a crystal my son gave me about 15 years ago for Mother's Day; and a sterling silver pendant with a mustard seed Robin gave me. These items are always with me. Always. I've just never really thought that much about it before, but I suppose I am superstitious if I carry these things for intended peace and harmony. But superstitious doesn't really seem to fit quite right. Do you know what I'm trying to say? Do I? heh heh...Seriously, though, they bring me much comfort, but is it as simple as that? I remember my Father always carried a buckeye in his pocket. Always.

**Edited to add: May 26 - Looking around my desk I see my favorite miniature sock monkey velcro-ed onto my monitor, and a sweet clay faerie I've had for 25 years!

Do you have charms, beads, amulets, good luck items you carry with you?

Below is a favorite Easter memory repeat I wrote about Robin and I. Coincidentally, she wrote an Easter memory on her website yesterday. Most spare internet time will be spent working on Robin's new template. Happy Easter to those friends who celebrate Easter. And a Happy Sunday to those who don't!

Easter Reflections
My first Easter memories involve my sister (2 years younger) and I when we were quite small. There was the anticipation of buying a fancy, new Easter dress, with crisp white cotton gloves. And, equally important, fancy, new shoes to match.

I still remember a favorite pair of pink patent leather shoes with bows that I'd rub together, even during solemnly quiet church service , just to hear them squeak. If we'd fuss and whine a little extra, we might get a new handbag or hat with matching grossgrain ribbon that hung down our back. And I might get to paint my stubby, chewed-to-the-nub fingernails for the occasion as well.

Sunday School during the Easter season was spent making crosses from pop-sicle sticks and yarn. And writing Bible verse John 3:16 in glue on construction paper, then sprinkling glitter on it, to proudly display in the Church's main hall. After church, the obligatory eggs-traordinary Easter egg hunt. Right after a huge ham spread at Grandmother's house. Pictures snapped all around. A perfect Easter indeed. With all the trimmings a little girl could possibly want.

But I never did get a blue (or pink, or orange, or green) chick for Easter.

A local grocery store sold colored baby chicks in a pen with heat lamps during the Easter season. They had been dyed different colors and we'd all have our favorite one picked out. All the kids begged their parents for a blue (or pink, or orange, or green) chick at Easter. But I never really knew anyone who actually got one. PETA and other animal rights activists might take a dim view of dyed baby chicks nowadays.

I recently ran across one of those old Easter photos while cleaning out my grandmother's old photos. Probably one of the last ones that featured us in all our Easter finery. Robin and I were posed for posterity in my grandmother's yard and we were about 14 and 16 years old at the time. Smirks firmly planted across our smart-aleck faces tell you this is the last time you'll get dresses on these two tomboys who'd rather be in blue jeans fielding grounders.

Arnold Palmer played his last Masters game yesterday. It was his 50th one. Throngs of his fans always follow him on the course and are known affectionately as Arnie's Army. No matter where you are on the course the applause follows him as each ball is played out. I followed him at the GGO in Greensboro, NC, as a 14 year old tomboy with my father. It was one way to feel closer to my Father because he loved to play golf and using my Mother's clubs, he taught me how to play at an early age. Our back yard connected to the 14th hole at the local Golf Course.

My Father's passed on now; it's been 14 years he's been gone. But once after making 'a hole in one', his clubhouse got him an Arnold Palmer signed ball mounted on an engraved wooden plaque and an ashtray. They're still on the table by his old leather chair. He was probably more proud of his golf achievements than anything he accomplished in the business world.

When I see my Father in my minds eye now, I see him sitting in his leather chair, feet up on the ottoman. Other images I have of him are him in a tux, getting ready to go to some function, sipping on a gin and tonic, perfectly coiffed and creased. Or driving a golf cart, in la Coste shirt and saddle oxford golf cleats; leaping out beside his ball on the fairway, a mere second before the cart came to a complete stop. (The way every cart driver does.) Or shaving in the mornings in a still-steamy bathroom, then splashing on after shave, while standing at the sink in his boxers and tee shirt. Then he'd take out a freshly laundered and starched shirt. Ripping off the plastic, I'd sometimes put my arms in the long, flat sleeves and pry them open from the starch for him.

Many times it still aches to think of him for long. Today I find it comforting to "see" him.

Pecan Logs - Only 10 More Miles to Stuckeys! And pralines, peanut brittle, and souveniers. Seeing a Stuckey's roadside sign takes me back to a most innocent time in my life. I always wanted one of those shabby looking cheesy, carved-face coconuts. When I was a child, Stuckeys was almost the only place to get lunch, gas, and take a bathroom break on the roads thru Georgia and Florida when we traveled to Miami and Fort Lauderdale each year. My sister and I sat in the back seat and yelled out when we saw the signs along the highway telling our Father how many more miles to the next Stuckey's. Even if we'd just pulled out of one, we'd carry on so much he'd sometimes pull right in to the next one. I'm sure he was hoping we'd take a nap and not notice any more signs or we'd never make our destination. The more I think about it, I could really go for one of those pecan logs right about now. Did you have a special place you always stopped at on trips?

Little Tables, Big Memories
Did you ever sit at the "little table" for family dinners? Or the "children's table"?
A dozen or so grandkids would squeeze around a little homemade table at Big Mom's house. We'd lift up the plastic poinsettia tablecloth and try to carve our names in the many layers of aqua-painted surface with forks and fingernails. The "little table" was pushed against the bathroom door which was good if you had to go in a hurry and not so good if Uncle Billy had to go in a hurry.

But the first "little table" was at Cousin Ethel's in Johnson City, TN. It was a dark wooden fold-out card table in the family room and four children gathered around it waiting to be served. We'd peer into the kitchen where the adults sat at the "Big" table. A shiny aluminum and red laminated set. Mother would seat us girls and tuck napkins into our collars.

My teen cousin, Brenda, got to sit at the big table. But everything she did was cool. She played a new song for us on her record player, "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes", and I admired her jewelry box that's very opening made the ballerina inside twirl and dance while the music box played. Brenda wore lipstick, rolled her hair, and knew all the latest dances. She wore capri pants and mohair sweaters that featured her pointy boobs. When would I get pointy boobs? (bra-makers would later learn how to 'lift and separate')

Family tables steeped in love and tradition have a lot of history and now from the cook's vantage point, I find all those "little tables" have many big stories to tell.