Monthly Archives: August 2013

This weekend, we traveled to Danville, Kentucky, for a celebratory pig roast down on my sister ‘n’ her honey’s farmlet. Indeed, they have much to celebrate, and there were lots and lots of us there to help them–by raising a glass (or few) and by picking apart this mahogany beauty.

Just as my mother and I were about to collect our pickins onto our plates, we both started to smile and tell the same memory of our Uncle Lee!

No visit with our family in Kinston, NC, was complete without at least one trip to King’s BBQ. Their Eastern NC vinegar sauce cannot be matched. And to dine there with Uncle Lee was so joyfully horrific that you just didn’t know whether to sit right up next to him or hide under the table.

Because he picked out the pig’s eyes and popped ’em in his mouth! Every time!

He’d start talking about the eyes on the drive there. And he’d roll his own eyes in anticipation. And he’d get in line and say how he was hoping nobody else got the eyes first. And oh-my-lord he’d reach right over and POP POP them into his mouth! And he’d roll those eyeballs around in his cheeks with great and disgusting drama, then GULP.

And then he’d insist on giving you a big ol’ smacker-kiss on your cheek. EEEWWWWW Uncle Lee!

Guess what I finally realized? When I was about 30 years old?

They were grapes.

We call them Gingerisms, the little word-twists and expressions that spring from our daughter’s lips every so often. I just love the little seed of truth in each of them, don’t you? Here are a few favorites…

Underbrella

Drenchcoat

Pitch red (she thought “pitch” meant “very,” as in “her face turned pitch red)

Came apart at the hip (when she and her girlhood best friend drifted apart in high school)

Dreadmill

Pannycakes (she was little, and that’s what the nursery rhyme said)

The other day, I we got two darling thank-you notes from two terrific kids, who had just enjoyed a few days at our lake house with their parents and grandparents. I was extra tickled to read a genuine Gingerism in one of the notes!

This young writer has manners and style!

Tonight is the last night of the 2013 Perseid Meteor Shower, which reminds me of this sweet, funny story.

As you know, we have a place on a lake, in a remote spot in the Wabash Valley. So the stargazing is pretty wonderful, even on a regular night. I love to drag quilts onto the driveway and feel the warmth of the blacktop on my back. Sometimes all of us line up, shoulder to shoulder, and we recite what we can remember about the dippers ‘n’ bears, Orion, and the North Star. We debate jet versus planet. And we catch our collective breath when we see a shooting star. I think almost all of us make a wish, because it gets really quiet for a few seconds. Why not make a wish? What’s to lose but the magic?

On one such occasion, it was just nine-year-old Mikey and me watching the stars out on the warm blacktop. Mikey’s grandma and grandpa were nearby, at the campfire, with the rest of the grownups.

“Do you believe in extraterrestrials?” I asked Mikey.

“Um, yeah,” he admitted. “I got a book from the library about creatures from outer space. I like to read all about ’em.”

“Well, I just think it is more fun to believe in them than not to believe in them,” I said.

“If you lose a library book at my school, it costs $4.00,” continued Mikey. “I think I’m going to lose this one.”