10.05.06

Category: dribblings

last week i was painting for strangers (which is pretty rare for me), but they were actually the parents of someone i’ve painted for before. so they weren’t, you know, just complete strangers, i guess. anyway, the mother-in-law of the parents lived in a house way out in the backyard, we’re talking lower 40 here. hee.

so the old lady, we’ll call her “Alice” because that was probably her name, was the one to let me into the people’s house because they were at work and she was old and had nowhere else to be. i had to work that job for 3 days, so everyday i’d get to see Alice for long periods of time. she, being an old southern lady, would not let me skip lunch. and every day she’d make me a chicken salad sandwich with all kinds of goodies. except one day she gave me a ziploc full of what i think were nacho flavored pork rinds…and i’m not a fried pork skin kinda gal. still the thought was very sweet. she even gave me a jar of some muscadine preserves she had made! and while i’m not a fan of muscadines or muscadine wine…the jam is AWESOME!

well, she was the coolest old lady. first of all, she had a voice like the creepy old guy from Family Guy, but not so much with the whistled Ss. just kinda high pitched and a really southern accent which was long and drawn out and quite charming. she would say things like, “ah hope ah’m not hinderin’ you.” she hung around and talked a lot probably because she doesn’t get to see a lot of people during the day although she seemed to get around pretty well.

so i started asking her questions about where she grew up and about her childhood. well! she lit up! she pulled up a chair in the room i was working in and started telling me all these stories about growing up in the country back in the “good ol’ days”. it was like talking to a Foxfire book! it was so much fun. in fact, i’m supposed to paint for those people again in november, and i can’t wait to hang out with Alice again.

i even wrote her a thank you note (people love getting mail) for telling me her stories and for feeding me. she really made an impression on me. in fact, next time i paint there i wish i could take you with me so you could listen too. EVERYONE should listen to the stories of an old southern lady. do you know an old southern lady? go ask her questions! ask her about christmas when she was a girl. ask her about rabid dogs. (mad dogs were a HUGE deal back then, i mean, they’d be pretty serious now, but they’re kinda few and far between these days.) ask her about cathead biscuits. ask her about sorghum syrup and if they made their own. be sure to pronounce it “sahgum” or she may not know what you’re talking about. hee.

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