What 'Cha Fixin'

"Reunion time is coming! The third weekend in July is fast approaching. What are you going to fix? Where are you going to stay?"

We'd met there every year now for over seventy-five years. Our forebears had helped to build that church over two hundred years ago, so it seemed fitting to help the church build a nice picnic shelter on the grounds to accommodate not only our reunion, but several others held there each summer.

This special day commemorated a clan of Coxes that traced their lineage back to 1716 when Solomon Cox migrated to Delaware, was excommunicated from the Quaker Church, then moved and settled in southwest Virginia. Folks traveled over 3,000 miles to attend the event. With six aunts, along with their spouses and kids, Grandma's house would be spilling over! Some aunts lived in the area and graciously offered their homes for the out of towners, like my family.

Coming to grandma's on Saturday was paramount though, as we all chipped in to do the special chores particular to that weekend. Grandma would have raided the flower beds and shrubs on Friday and have buckets of flowers in water just waiting for eager hands. We older girls had the joy of creating beautiful baskets of cosmos, peonies, irises, old fashioned roses, mixed with Queen Anne's lace, black eyed Susans, and chicory from the roadside. After dinner we'd all pile into cars and gingerly hold our baskets, during our pilgrimage to the family cemetery down the lane. Grandma faithfully made decorating these special graves an important family ritual. There were Great Grandma and Grandpa Blairs’, Grandma's sisters’, the greats on Granddaddy's side, and my own dear Uncle Jim's graves to consider.


There will always be a very fond spot in my heart for that lovely, old cemetery. Each year, more and more of the old-timers who made the reunion special, who held leadership positions, who sacrificed time and resources to keep the reunion going had found their resting place there.

After the graveyard run we'd all disperse to various homes to visit and share in each others lives. Grandma always made an early night of it in preparation for the big day.


And then it was Sunday. Church services were shortened, but there'd be the old glorious hymns from the Cokesbury hymnal. The tunes wafted out the open windows to serenade the folks who traveled in just for the day. Homemade tables were straining against the weight of myriad salads, fried chicken, fresh cooked vegetables from prolific country gardens, and the most delectable desserts one could ever imagine. Once the grace was given and the food line began, the whole climate of the day was swallowed up in the unrelenting attitude of savoring the delightful dishes prepared by "the best dog-gone cooks of the county!" Uncle Gib would always declare, "heaven is missing its ambrosia today, because this is the food of the gods!"

At two o'clock the business meeting and necrology service drew folks back into the open church, and then it was over until next year. Our families would reconvene at grandma's to consume leftovers before returning to their respective homes.




Being an only child, I’ve always relied on the camaraderie of the scads of cousins and the support of favored aunts and uncles who would pile in at Grandma's on the third Sunday in July. But now grandma and grandpa are gone. I figured it'd turn out this way, for they had been the glue that held the family together. I'm the oldest cousin, daughter of the oldest sister. Mom embraces that same old fashioned responsibility to be there at the reunion come what may, to support the few who continue to go. Gone are so many patriarchs. Gone are the great cooks. Now fast food boxes litter the tables. Mostly there are just a faded few who show up, trying to reignite the flame. It saddens me that folks are too busy to take time to look back, reminisce, and uphold the values of family heritage that used to mean so much. My cousins are really spread out now living in various states across the country with their families and I'm sure they treasure the golden memories of a bygone time. You certainly can't relive the past, but as memories fade and attitudes change I'm not so sure that people are better for their many losses due to the demise of the traditional family reunion.

A Cozy, Rosy Cottage

Those were the days, weren’t they? Growing up in postwar suburbia in the 1950’s was the best. Life was so uncomplicated; home meant everything.

It wasn’t that our house was all that remarkable: just a three bedroom bungalow like the many others springing up all over the newly acquired annex. Our cozy cottage with a white picket fence was sprinkled liberally with red blaze roses. Scarlet and white petunia beds flanked the concrete walk. One thing for sure, it seemed that everybody on the block strove to have the best lawn, the neatest hedge row, and the most abundant flowerbeds in those days.

Yardwork was a family affair. Once each fall, after cleaning off the garden and gathering the leaves in bushel baskets we would have a trash burning out in the back alley. The smell of burning leaves always triggers such happy memories of the neighbors coming out to chat about their families as they added their fuel to the small fire. There was such a sense of community.

No one had air conditioning, so houses were open all the time. I’ve often marveled how we would sleep with all the windows agape. Often times in the hottest months we’d even sleep with only the front screen latched. I was a latchkey child, and when I would return home from school, the key to the front door was kept over the lintel. Folks back then were just much more trusting. It surely was a gentle time.

When I reflect on home I am very thankful for the sensory images that mark the memories. Didn’t the light play games in the 1960’s? I loved how the afternoon radiance danced upon the white clapboards of the front porch: casting its rosy glow on everything. Astonished, I would go outside with hands uplifted; trying to capture some of the ruby-light on my fair skin… so magical it now infiltrates my dreams.

In 1962 dad bought my mother a console stereo. I remember the deal included twenty long playing albums. From that day on the home was filled with wonderful music ranging from 101 Strings, to Ferrante & Teicher, to the Brazilian duo of Los Trabajaros on their Latin guitars. Sitting on the porch in the evenings as the melodious strings wafted upon the air was a favored pastime. Music had become my daily staple. Without it, home seemed cold and unwelcoming.

There are certain smells that have always reminded me of my childhood. My mother ever a fabulous cook has always had dinner on the table by six o’clock come what may. One of my favorites, though, was her home baked ham. We had it most Sundays so she was busily basting and baking on Saturday. The sweet aroma of fruit glazed, succulent ham spiced with its hint of savory mustard, cooling on the rack in the kitchen fair drove me to distraction. Its scent lingering throughout house coupled with fresh baked bread on Sunday still causes my watering taste buds to cavort in anticipation. Oops, I almost forgot to mention the pineapple upside down cakes. No Sunday dinner was complete without those delectable treasures of mother’s culinary expertise. Mom made these delicious confections in a black wrought iron skillet each Sunday morning and turned them out on a platter to cool while we went to church. No cake was safe as pineapple rings or cherries were stealthily filched by prying fingers.

It seems that 1962 was a red letter year at our house. The Early American craze was rampant. Mom and dad both would spend every weekend refinishing the primitive heirlooms they had raided from their ancestral homes: coffee mill, churn, flax wheel, cradle… all to furnish the new addition we had added on to the back of the house. The back porch had been enclosed and opened up to create a country kitchen complete with a huge colonial style fireplace. Mother designed it to include a raised hearth and a wrought iron swing arm that held a large black iron kettle she kept water in to humidify the house. We were seldom without a crackling fire from autumn to spring. Dad loved to cook over the fireplace. Aluminum wrapped ears of corn, and potatoes tasted much better when cooked in the glowing coals on the hearth.

Yes, life was sweet then, made all the sweeter by the family life that centered in and around that cozy, rose covered home on Vermont Avenue.

Cougar was King

Cougar Was King

As usual, Cougar was sprawled out, half in the window sill, half dangling off the ledge. As morning sun cast its brilliant beams upon his tawny coat, he actually lived up to his name. He was wildcat, lazing on the rocky outcrop. Even his mewling purr, so deep, so resonant, could send shivers down an unsuspecting wayfarer. Yes, Cougar had an aura of aloofness, a regal grandeur in his carriage. Every graceful sinew bore the expression of vigilance… the wary hunter, purposeful and proud. Anyone who might see him now, so relaxed, serene, would wonder what he might be thinking. What would have him purring so rapturously? Was he surveying his high domain, demonstrating his prowess o’er his entire kingdom?

‘Nibbles ‘n Bites, Nibbles ‘n Bites, makes a cat shiver with joy ‘n delight! Do I hear the box a- shakin’? Oh, my tum-tum is a- quakin’ for Nibbles ‘n Bites, Nibbles ‘n Bites!’

“Cougar, Cougar, here kitty, kitty, kitty.” Muffled thumps sounded as padded feet sprang down off the ledge and ample-bodied feline scurried across the room, out the door, and down the stairs.

‘My girl, I’m a-comin’, make way for me, I’m almost there! Is my bowl ready? Do I get to lap up some cream, today? Oh, pullleeeze, let there be cream!!’ There was my girl, standing in the kitchen with outstretched arms, smiling, so glad to see me. ‘Out of my way, out of my way!' But it was too late.

Scooping him up into her arms, she started for the basement door. Speaking soothing words, she wrapped him in a large towel, hugging him like a new born babe. Lovingly nuzzling him to her breast, she called his name in sweet tones, as she nonchalantly carried him down the basement stairs. He returned his own heart felt gestures rubbing his furry face against her cheek. Then they were there… the laundry room. Before Cougar quite knew what to expect, he saw that the woman and man were standing there, too. ‘Uh, oh’! Not quite so happy memories suddenly started to rain upon him. ‘Gotta git away, gotta git awaaaay!’ as he tried to scramble out of the entrapping encumbrance. ‘Blast, this heavy towel!’

The towel was firmly affixed about him; he could get no leverage, his plight was futile. He was trapped! No escape was offered. He was doomed, and he knew it. Yes, he’d been here before; he knew what to expect.

The water was warm, invasive, overpowering him? ‘Never! I could make one last scramble and make a dash for the stairs, but, no, too many hands!’ Trapped like a rat, he succumbed. ‘No!... Not the white bottle!.... Pphhbbbteh!’

The dreaded, medicinal fluid seeped down over his sopping head, while so many hands were rubbing, and scrubbing, and working it in. He knew it was time to submit, just get it over with and sooner or later it would be all behind him. And then the water was flooding over him again. His eyes closed tight while those hands rubbed briskly, scrubbing his fur this way and that... finally it was over. ‘Whew’ time to breathe and then, oh yes, here came the towel. ‘Blessed towel.’

Now his girl was bundling him back up the stairs all snug and warm, right into her room, all the while rubbing him vigorously. There were the soothing tones again...soothing tones, brisk rubbing…somehow the two just never seemed to go together in Cougar’s way of thinking. And then he was free.
“There you go, kitty, all clean, no more fleas, pretty kitty.”

‘Purty, kitty,…humph,’ without a backward glance the once proud feline who’d ruled the ledge with royal demeanor slunk across the room. All wet, his fur matted together in small clumps as water trickled down his legs into the spaces between his toes, he’d shake one foot and then the other, as he made his way with uncertainty to a place of obscurity under the bedside night table. So undone was he, that he trembled, not from the cold, but from the indignity of it all. With a miserable scowl of disdain he settled down for a good licking. He knew it would take at least an hour of determined preening to begin to resemble the once proud creature that was Cougar, King of all he surveyed!

Proverbs 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Back Down a Winding Country Lane

Don’t you wish you could go back to another time- another place? For me, I always wanted to return to Granny’s house. Oh, the bricks and mortar are still standing along a country byway. Actually, more cars today travel that crooked stretch of highway than ever did before, when I with my parents crept along the winding road, singing, “Over the River and Through the Woods…” to visit dear old Granny.

Oh, I’ve taken my daughter down there just to show her where Granny lived, and Amanda always asked me to tell over and over again the stories I loved to tell. Amanda has nothing in her modern life to associate with a bygone time like going down to spend the weekend in a small country farmhouse. How I wanted to share the experience of gathering around the wood-burning stove in the parlor on a blustery Christmas Eve, when carolers really stopped in for steaming hot, mulled cider and gingerbread.


Then I’d crawl into bed with Granny; snuggling in beside her warmth under a mountain of home woven, woolen quilts. I really don’t think I’ve slept so safe and sound ever since.

Now, not everything was so great about spending the night at her house. She did have running water, but the outhouse beaconed you for your goodnight visit. I hated to make my evening trek down the creaking, wooden steps and over the uneven ground in the dark. No flashlight ever invented could shed enough light to ward off the spooky things that go bump on a hoary autumn’s eve. On very cold nights the chamber potty under the bed called my name.
But, again, oh, how I wished my sweet Amanda could associate this with me. She’ll never know- really know how it was.


I’ll never forget awakening the next morning in an empty bed to the delicious aromas wafting through the door; but, the room was so frigid when I peeked out from under the covers. I’ll never forget counting to three, jumping out of bed, and dashing for the kitchen and its toasty coziness produced by a double wood cook stove. Granny would already have a pan of homemade biscuits browning in the oven, a pot of sausage gravy stirring on top, and coffee perking on the stove. She invariably prepared enough food for an army, and everyone ate like there was no tomorrow!

But the best part of going was to be with dear Granny herself-so unpretentious. What you saw was what you got. Never one to put on airs, all she could ever think of was how to love on you and make you more comfortable. You could never eat enough, rest enough, and have enough of anything. She was always offering you more. She never sat and wanted to be waited on, but was always up trying to wait on you. She tirelessly set about serving and loving on her family. For dinner she unfailingly offered fried chicken and roast pork. Dessert always consisted of a triple layered coconut cake, a deep dish apple pie made from the fruit she dried the previous autumn, and my favorite- applesauce cake with caramel icing. No one has ever mastered that cake like she did. Oh, how I’d love a slice right this minute!

Amanda never knew Granny. She died when she turned eighty-six, the year before Amanda was born. My daughter had wonderful grandparents, who slathered her with every good blessing and love untold just like grandparents love to do, Just as I long to do when my grand kiddies come along. But there was never anyone quite like dear, sweet Granny and going to visit her in her small country home on the very winding lane of my youth.