I always rolled my eyes when I heard my parents and grandparents talk about the “good ole days.”  They talked fondly about having to use outhouses in the freezing cold, and walking three miles to school every morning.  What’s up with that?  It’s like the grass was always greener during the Great Depression.  Whew!  That was way before air conditioning.  No, thank you.  But now that I am a parent and grandparent, I find myself doing the same thing, especially when I get together with my siblings and cousins.  How we idolize those magical days of our past!  Maybe the reason the good ole days are so nostalgic to us is because we are only able to touch them again in our memories.

I say I miss those days,  but when I think about it, they weren’t all so wonderful– at least not when I lived them the first time.  Good ole days are always better re-lived that first lived.  When nostalgia hits me, my mind especially takes me back to those birthdays and big days we spent at Mama Sims’ house.  There were two birthdays that were more important to us than those belonging to Washington or Lincoln– Mama Sims’ birthday, and Little Grandmaw’s birthday.

Mama Sims was my grandmother– my dad’s mom.  She was the queen mother of the family– the high and exalted one.  Little Grandmaw was her mother.  She was scary!  Born in 1869 (four years after Lee surrendered at Appomattox), Rhoda Jenkins was a shriveled up little lady who always sat in a rocking chair next to the gas heater with snuff juice leaking out of her mouth.  She held a spit can in one bony hand and a walking cane in the other.  When I would come anywhere near her she would tap me on the bottom with her cane and say, “Ya daddy ain’t no count” and then chuckle.  How creepy was that to a five year old!  But we always celebrated her birthday with a massive meal and birthday cake.  It’s where I probably first heard the family sing “Happy Birthday.”

Ancient relatives with names like “Uncle Theodore and Aunt Eddie, Uncle Garrett, Uncle John William, Uncle Buren” and of course, “Aunt Eunice” all swarmed around Mama Sims’ house on Little Grandmaw’s birthday.  Aunt Eunice was Mama Sims’ only sister.  I always felt sorry for her.  She was tall, lanky, and had the body mass of a pencil.  She was married to Uncle Arthur, whom I remember as a really slow mover who wheezed a lot.  Aunt Eunice amazed me at how she could carry on a full conversation with a cigarette bobbing up and down between her skinny lips.  I can see her now, sitting there folded up like an umbrella in the corner of the kitchen, just puffing away.

Mama Sims’ spent most of her time in the back of the house– near her kitchen– as far from one of the front doors as could be.  Still, her doors were never locked except at night.  So when any family member dropped by Mama Sims’ house during the day, there was only one proper way to enter.  Don’t knock.  Just open the door and give the secret password.  You’d get an immediate response. Here it is:  (click on the arrow.)

 

Being one of thirteen cousins who ALL gathered at least once or twice annually at Mama Sims’ house was actually the survival of the fittest!   I was grandchild and cousin number 10, and always  faced the risk of being trampled by the hungry cousin-brood seconds after the amen was sounded at dinner.  (Note:  In the rural South, “dinner” was not at night.  Dinner was the big meal around noontime.  “Supper” denoted the leftovers that were served in the evening.  “Lunch” only happened at school– in the lunchroom.)  An adult would yell, “OK, children, only put on your plate what you’re going to put in your stomach.”   That was usually Aunt Gail.  She was loud and made great rules, but didn’t have the heart to enforce them.  Within a few minutes we’d hear her whisper to one of us, “You go ahead and get whatever you want, darlin’.  There’s plenty to go around.”  And there always was.

Besides the abundant meats and vegetables, there were always certain things on Mama Sims’ table that intrigued and delighted me as a kid.  Celery stuffed with pimento cheese was a staple, and of course pickled peaches, sweet gherkins, and candied crab apple rings– all on the same tray.  Those apple rings were dripping with a sweet red food coloring that would stain a shirt permanently.  Mom always preferred that I stay away from them, but I never did.  They were so nasty good.  And the desserts!  Oh boy!  I remember fried peach pies, sweet potato custard, lemon pie, cobbler, and Mama Sims’ famous chocolate pie– all with homemade love baked in.  It was special.  And we all knew that Mama Sims had also stocked the ice box with a “Co-cola” for each of the grandkids.

The “big day” at Mama Sims’ house was whenever Uncle Bremon and Aunt Marie came for their annual summer visit.  It was the only time we got to see our three cousins (grandchildren 2, 8, and 9) who had come from living in exotic places like Charleston, South Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida.  Whoa!  The rest of us were holed up within a forty mile radius of Mama Sims’ house–  and eight of us were within a two mile radius!  When 2, 8, and 9 arrived, we caught up on all things cool.  And Bremon’s kids just didn’t drawl like the rest of us.

Birthdays and big days at Mama Sims’ house are pleasant to remember now, but were often painful in real time.  Cousin 2, a girl, often got invited to kind-of play football with cousins 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, all boys.  It started off with fun, but usually resulted some kind of injury with plenty of tears and blame to go around. Aunt Ginny would have to “tear up” at least one of their bottoms regularly, just to keep order.  Strangely, there was an iron water spigot sticking two feet out of the ground right in the middle of Mama Sims’ front yard football field!  Injury was bound to happen, and usually did.  Someone got impaled regularly, but could also get a quick swig of water between plays if need be.  The football cousins were all decent athletes, but only cousin 6 actually got to play football at Auburn.

Cousins 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 were all too young to play football with them, so we played elsewhere.  Cousins  9, 10, and 11 often played on the back steps of Mama Sims’ house, or in the creepy dark curtain lined hallway leading to the back bathroom.  Usually 9 and 11 got in an argument and had to be separated.  Cousin 11 was good at tattling, and often got us all in trouble.  Cousin 9 was terrified of a haunted clock in Little Grandmaw’s bedroom that sounded every hour, and cousin 12 feared the brass alligator nut-cracker, with which cousins 1, 3, 4, and especially 7 regularly tormented him.

Cousin 1 was everyone’s hero– once rescuing me from the roof of my house when I was terrified to climb down.  Cousins 3 and 4 were twins– one was a star athlete, and the other supplied us with all the live snakes and frogs we could ever want.  Cousin 8 was the handsome one among the guys– bright eyes, white smile, and a Florida tan.  Cousin 5 was my incredible brother and my defender from all enemies, foreign, domestic, and kin.  Cousin 7 kept us all laughing, and still does.  Cousin 13 always lamented that Mama Sims added a country twanged “r” to the end of her name.

A big day summer tradition was when Uncle Led cut watermelon in the back yard, and everyone sat out under the pecan tree and ate melon and spit seeds.  And then at night the cousins played kick the can in the dark until we were all exhausted, fighting mad, and delirious.

Ah, the good ole days at Mama Sims’ house, where birthdays and big days gave us memories to hold on to.

By God’s grace, all the cousins 1 through 13 are still around, and no one enjoys sharing family memories more than we do.  We were all blessed to grow up in a loving, close, God fearing family.  I write so we can remember and be grateful.

So to all of us– Duane, Susan, Alan, Robert, Mike, Lee, Steve, Butch, Debbie, Me, Nanda, Gary and Donna–   may we never forget the birthdays and big days we shared at Mama Sims’ house.

 

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:                                                                                                                                                                                         A time to be born and a time to die…                                                                                                                         A time to weep and a time to laugh,  a time to mourn and a time to dance,…
A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,                                                                                       A time to remember and a time to forget… 

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”    Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, 4-6, 11.