A Taste of the Real South
So yesterday I wrote about the activities that took place in Virginia (swimming, boating)…essentially stuff that you could do in any part of the country. What I didn’t mention were the distinctly southern aspects of the trip.
First…the food. Seriously, it doesn’t end. Randy’s mother takes southern hospitality to the extreme and is constantly offering you food. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was trying to kill me slowly with all of the carbs and oils and artery-clogging goodness being presented to me.
In just 5 days of our trip she baked me two cakes (both triple cream or something….truly decadent), baked macaroni and cheese, burgers, and grilled steak. When she wasn’t preparing food for me, she was offering me food (M&M’s, cookies, chips, cheesecake, lemon pound cake). In fact, I don’t think 5 minutes would pass while we were inside the house where she didn’t offer me something. I could be in the middle of eating the cake and she’d say “Can I get you something else? Do you want some cookies?”.
And it doesn’t stop with her. Her sister, Enid, offered to bring me a piece of caked as I was still eating lunch. She came back with two pieces (one cheescake, the other that triple cream thing). Did I mention daily mac-and-cheese?
Then there’s Randy’s father – who prepared home-made London Broil beef jerky. Since he saw that I liked it he presented us with a whole new batch to bring home with us on our last day.
Then there are the guns. Yes, plural. Within minutes of picking us up, Randy’s father told us about a shoot-out that took place at the end of his street a few nights earlier (just what I need to hear). But since guns seem to be such a day-to-day thing down there, he didn’t bother calling the police until the next morning when he found the casings on the street. Seriously? If I heard a gun up here I’d be on the phone before the smoke could clear (don’t guns produce smoke?)
And there was the ever-present gun over the sink in the kitchen (a revolver? I don’t know the terminology). But the most unsettling part took place on the last day. The previous year, his father pulled out a rifle and sat by the kitchen window waiting for ground hogs. This year, as Randy and I packed up on the last day, his father pulled out the rifle, opened the kitchen window, and shot a groundhog strolling around the back yard.
I think it was only the second time in my life where I heard a gun go off. And I don’t like it. It seriously, seriously, seriuosly is unsettling to me to be in such close proximity to guns. And I find it even more disturbing that this all takes place in a dense residential neighborhood (think Quincy or Swampscott). But it seems to unphase everybody else. Then again, Randy’s father’s neighbor was murdered last summer just after my last visit. And the other neighbor’s kids are in jail. I guess it’s just what they know (and expect?).
I think I prefer living in what Randy calls my “little bubble” up here in Massachusetts. Let’s just hope gunfire never pops that bubble.
3 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Gun fire can be anywhere, dont kid yourself. Arlington, somerville, Cambridge, all over Boston. It happens daily I am sure. We just dont know about it.
I agree its not the life for me but I know my dad and hes not going to change. And speaking of, I have told my dad many times he should not be firing a gun at home. He will get caught one day and will pay for it I bet.
And how is it that anyone can get a concealed permit (mom, dad, ennis, enid, hell half of Roanoke I think all have them). Damn us liberals who want to control guns and get them out of peoples hands. I dont have a problem with hunters, I have a problem that everyone can get them and use them illegally.
And that “revolver” is what we call a pistol.
I think that next time you visit you need to go out to the woods and shoot so you can try it. I grew up with guns, They can be very safe if you know how to handle them. Im not saying shoot and kill or find dinner, I am saying a target in the woods without others. Maybe you will feel a little more comfortable with them being in my families life (comfortable, maybe not accepting).
Oh, I know guns exist up here. I mentioned that this was the second time I heard gunfire, the first time was in college living in my dorm (near the Mission Hill projects in Boston). That was Charles Stuart (the white guy who killed his wife and blamed an innocent black man).
I’m sure there has been gunfire in Arlington. But it’s the exception, not the norm. Like I said, I’ve not been to your father’s yet without seeing guns, hearing stories involving guns, and now hearing a gun go off in the next room.
I’m definitely not against guns for hunting. In fact, I accept that it’s needed to prevent over-population of certain animals. But that doesn’t mean it’s an activity I want to participate in.
Time and place for everything.
You (and Randy) should go see Winter’s Bone. Great movie set in deep South, very authentic and superb acting. BTW I’ve shot a gun once, handgun, in the country where I grew up – it felt great! But I wouldn’t own a gun for a number of reasons….