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<\/a><\/p>\nI thought about my grandmother while planting our small fall garden last weekend. I thought about all the things that I learned from her as a boy and all the things that I wish that I had learned from her before she was gone. Photo by Brad Dye<\/p>\n
Edge\u2019s writing and personal story resonate with truths like this: \u201cMississippi is hard on a soul.\u00a0 Mississippi is just plain hard for many.\u00a0 It\u2019s a broken place in the slow and fitful act of mending.\u00a0 That\u2019s why it feels like home.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve long felt that my first book should be a memoir.\u00a0 In truth, that\u2019s what most of this column has been over these past six years.\u00a0 Edge\u2019s words about home and going home gave me an even stronger nudge toward what I feel that I need to write.<\/p>\n
Describing his own personal homecoming, Edge says that \u201c\u2026I thought about the price men pay when we go back home with new ideas about our past.\u201d\u00a0 Since reading those words, I\u2019ve had that thought in mind each time that I sit down at my writing desk.\u00a0 I can\u2019t let it go.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019ve also thought a lot about an aphorism quoted by Bill Ferris in the book \u201cWhen an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how I managed to miss this African proverb over the years, but I\u2019ve pondered it daily since reading it.<\/p>\n
Sunday morning as I sat outside drinking my morning coffee and enjoying the brisk wind that was ushering in a fall cold front, I considered how many times I had sat on the same dirt listening to Pop tell stories.<\/p>\n
Before the farm was our home, it was our hunting and fishing camp for many years.\u00a0 \u201cThe Little House,\u201d (now Nana\u2019s house) and \u201cThe Big House\u201d (now our house) served as our family camp houses for every season\u2014duck, deer, turkey, squirrel and rabbit.<\/p>\n
The houses also played host for family holidays like Thanksgiving, as well as getaway spots for spring breaks and other school holidays when the kids were small.\u00a0 They still often play host to those family holiday events, only now as our homes.<\/p>\n
Sitting there Sunday, all the things that Pop had taught me about deer, duck and turkey hunting, and, more importantly, about how to be a husband and a father ran through my mind.\u00a0 I wish that I could listen to him tell those stories again.<\/p>\n
The morning prior, I had a similar \u201cwish\u201d as I harvested the last of my tomatoes and bell peppers, cleaned out those vines and plants, and transitioned our small summer garden to fall.\u00a0 After turning the soil, removing the old roots, and mixing in fresh compost, I arranged cabbage, lettuce and collards in the raised bed.<\/p>\n
Afterwards as I stood to admire my handiwork, I pictured my grandmother\u2019s garden.\u00a0 I spent a lot of time in that garden during my visits to Mamaw Jewel\u2019s as a boy, and fall was always my favorite.<\/p>\n
I loved the smell of the soil on a cool evening and the smell of fresh picked greens and turnips.\u00a0 I loved those smells almost as much as I loved the smell of the greens cooking on Mamaw\u2019s stove.\u00a0 However, all these smells paled in comparison to the taste of the greens and her freshly buttered cornbread.<\/p>\n
Watching her cook was like watching an artist at work, an artist who worked in the mediums of cast iron and lard.\u00a0 Although I suppose that I was too young at the time to concern myself with learning those recipes, I sure wish that I had.\u00a0 I wish I had watched her and listened more closely.<\/p>\n
When we moved to the farm, we found several kitchen \u201ctreasures\u201d from prior generations, treasures that included two cast iron skillets from G\u2019s grandmother Frances and a wooden rolling pin from her great-grandmother \u201cMama Hull.\u201d<\/p>\n
I love using those skillets, feeling their well-seasoned patina and knowing they belonged to our family.\u00a0 I wish that cast iron could talk.\u00a0 I wish it could reveal the ingredients and secrets of past family recipes.\u00a0 I wish that G\u2019s grandmother Mimi\u2019s skillet, now in Nana\u2019s kitchen at the Little House, could tell me just how she fried her chicken, no doubt the best I\u2019ve ever had.<\/p>\n
Sadly, the combination of the flour, spices and herbs that she used, and her techniques and methods will remain a mystery.\u00a0 Cast iron skillets can\u2019t talk, though they can certainly pass along a little seasoning from the past.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll always treasure the skillets, as well as the hands that used them; and I\u2019ll always live with the regret that I didn\u2019t take more time to listen and learn from the \u201clibraries\u201d in my life while they were alive.\u00a0 Time truly is our greatest treasure and our most valuable currency, however, that realization only comes with time\u2019s passing.<\/p>\n
Thomas Wolfe, who wrote \u201cYou Can\u2019t Go Home Again,\u201d took his inspiration from writer Ella Winter who had once told him, \u201cDon\u2019t you know you can\u2019t go home again?\u201d<\/p>\n
I understand the sentiment, however, Edge\u2019s book reinforced within me the notion that you can return home, and in that coming and going, you are forever changed.<\/p>\n
Until next time, here\u2019s to collard greens fresh from a fall garden, to cornbread fresh from a cast iron skillet, to the men and women, the Pops and Mamaws, who shaped us into who we are, and here\u2019s to seeing you out there in our great outdoors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI wish I could listen to him again.\u00a0 I wish I had listened to her more.\u201d I\u2019ve been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-522484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115424189023238402","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}