Sweet Thoughts

Excuse me, Ma’am. Do you carry buttermilk?

I’m standing in the middle of menswear, so this was an odd inquiry. But, since I shop as well as work here, I had a quick answer.

Sure do. Over in dairy.

As she wheeled her way toward groceries, I went back to my folding and thought of my Grandpa.

Doesn’t everyone think of their Grandfather when they are asked about buttermilk?

No?

Oh.

Folding shirts and repackaging boxer shorts is therapeutic in a way. It keeps your hands busy and lets your mind wander.

So you’re welcome to wander with me for awhile if you have a mind to.

Lester Otis has been gone 12 years or so now, but through the course of his 80 years whenever he wanted a glass of milk he always asked specifically for ‘sweet’ milk-lest Granny bring him buttermilk by mistake. It didn’t matter that there hadn’t been a drop of the stuff in house for years, Grampa asked for ‘sweet’ milk.

He’d have a glass with supper and then for a snack later in the evening he’d take leftover cornbread (which was prepared everyday) and crumble it up in a big glass of ‘sweet’ milk and eat it with a spoon. This is seriously good eatin’, Yu’ns.

I kid you not.

Grampa also chewed tobacco. He chewed on the sly. He’d take Bubby and me fishing ‘down to the spill-way’ and we’d stop in the store and get a rope. We were, of course, sworn to secrecy. While we fished, he’d cut a big chaw off his rope and then without closing his knife, he’d pick up a tree branch and start carving a walking stick out of it.

I still have one of my Grampa’s walking sticks.

I got a bee sting one summer and he spit tobacco juice on it. It stopped stinging. Immediately. I stopped gagging. Eventually.

He didn’t smoke much. Granny was the big cigarette smoker, but he would blow cigarette smoke in my ear whenever I had an earache. Immediately after this, he would warm up a teaspoon of ‘sweet’ oil with Granny’s lighter and then pour it in my ear.

He also made up the word ‘Horsefeathers’.

Oh yes he did!

This is a great word to use instead of Bulls#@t.

Grampa, let Bubby and me go to the café and loaf with you this morning. I promise we’ll be quiet.

Horsefeathers!

Lester Honey, He said the check was in the mail.

He’s full of Horsefeathers!

See?

When I got older I realized there was an old movie with that word as the title.

Sigh.


That’s when I made the discovery.

My Grandfather knew Graucho Marx! Isn’t that the coolest?

One hot, sticky Arkansas night, we were outside fighting mosquitoes and trying to stay cool. Gramps was whittling, I was reading, Granny was watering her flowers, and Bubby had made a make-shift squirt gun out of an empty mustard bottle. He was busy drowning ants.

Grampa made some covert motions to Bubby.

Granny was bent over in her flower bed. Her ample backside hiked in the air. Bubby took his mustard bottle squirt gun and squeezed a stream of cold water right up Granny’s housedress.

Good times.

She screamed like the hounds of hell were after her and chased Bubby around the yard with her hose.

Grampa just sat there laughing and shaking his head.

Now, Son. Why’d you wanna go and do a thing like that for? You shouldn’t pester your Granny like that.

He was an ornery cuss.

…and right now I just miss him like crazy. I’ve got that little hard knot in the middle of my throat.

He drank ‘sweet milk’.
He ate ‘redneck cereal’.
He spat on us.
He got us into trouble.

He coined the word ‘Horsefeathers’.

…and you’ll never convince me otherwise.