Happy Birthday, Natalie
As the “house guest” of Dr. Cayce Lawrence and his wife Natalie, I’m learning the southern idiom. Natalie has very little southern accent. However, she can slip in and out of several different southern dialects because of her academic background as a linguistic major, to bust her Yankee friend and as she claims that although she was born and bred in Memphis, she was conceived in California. I’m sure that last point has something to with being old enough to know cool aura of the Summer of Love and wanting some tiny piece of it despite being a mere child and living in the city of Elvis the King.
Natalie has assured me that I have no hope of ever reaching the status of corset synched southern belle yet my education in the genteel south continues. Several places in Memphis claim to have the best barbeque. I sampled two contenders Central Barbeque and the One and Only with Payne’s on the list for this week. (The Red, White and Que in Kearny can hold it’s own, be sure to see them on Diners, Drive Ins and Dive this fall.) Fried green tomatoes are a must. ( Who can even say that without hearing Kathy Bates say, “I’m older and I’ve got more insurance.”) There is also comeback sauce which complements the fried green tomatoes and resembles russian dressing. Pimento cheese is nothing more than cream cheese that has been relentlessly tortured to no benefit whatsoever. In addition I’ve been admonished not to be ugly -with a look over her reading glasses when I beat her to getting a little bit snarky.
Oh no. It’s game on when she hits my culturally Irish wit. I must persist until Natalie gives me the lower voice version of “bless your heart,” indicating that I‘m a pain in the ass. Needless to say Natalie has advised more than once me not to speak and reveal my Yankee self.
Cayce was doing the Fedex Rockin’ Ride to Oxford, one of the Bike MS rides. He left the car at the starting point, Byhalia High School in Mississippi. It is about halfway to Oxford.
I didn’t plug in Waze until we exited Rt 78. We were going the wrong way on Rt 309 and it was a while before I could turn around.
Waze directed me make a left onto St. Paul Road and another left on to Matta Road which looked like a narrow gravel path. I hesitated but Natalie said go ahead. It was a slight incline with wild grass on either side widening to a horseshoe neighborhood of number of old pickups carelessly abandoned by a few open porched houses.
The names of at least a dozen movies came to mind as if on flashcards. As I approached the center of the horseshoe a small barefoot child with only one strap of his overalls buttoned appeared on the front porch. The flashcard played the famous banjo music from Deliverance.
“Don’t slow down, don’t stop,” said Natalie in one of her southern dialects. “If we do have to stop you are not to speak, do you understand. I’ve seen this eerie movie set enough times to know that it wouldn’t turn out well for a lady driving a rented Toyota Corolla with New York plates. Was Thelma and Louise like this?
The whole event would be a mere scrap on the cutting floor. “Well, bless your heart,” Natalie was using a different southern dialect but tone was more even noting the shared unpleasantness.
If I stuck around here long enough I might could master the southern speech ways. Doubt it.