Growing Up Southern: December 30, 2017

Men would gather up in my father’s grocery store around mid-morning each day and talk. It was after the morning rush and during “salesman time.” They would sit on empty nail kegs or stand around a pot-bellied stove and let the conversation drift as it might. I can still see them, on a quiet morning, as one of the group would strike a match on the stove, light a cigarette, take a long draw, and, with the exhale, begin a tale of some sort.

They would talk about the Great Depression and how bad times had been. They had survived it, obviating any need for lies or exaggerations. They talked about the lessons gained from living through hard times and how lucky their kids would be.

They talked about the Second World War. All had lived through it and some had actively served. Those who hadn’t remembered rationing, KIA notices, and their communal hatred of Adolph Hitler. Shared disasters, particularly on a world-wide scale, can have a communalizing effect.

They talked about farming, which most had done at one time in their life. Although they sometimes talked of it with a degree of nostalgia, it was obvious from their current occupations that it had not achieved a degree of fondness that would draw them into a career. Land-rich people and dirt-poor people farmed. It was time that America moved on to other dreams

They talked at times on the topic of women, although not often and then maybe in terms of one who, in the jargon of a former Navy man, had “dragged her anchor.” The moral learned from these conversations dwelt generally upon the topic of what a treasure was a virtuous and faithful wife. There were few lapses into the unseemly. My mother was behind a door leading into our kitchen. She knew, by the drop of volume in the conversation, when the subject had changed to her sex. The men knew she knew, avoided the unseemly, and concentrated on the exemplary.

They talked about prices of things and how they grew faster than salaries. The wartime economy had been good for those who stayed behind, but there was a scarcity of things to buy, so the supply and demand curve was pushing prices higher, although they didn’t express it in those terms. It was just something "the government" hadn't done anything about.

They talked about hunting and fishing in season. They talked of legendary hunting dogs, those with almost unnatural gifts for treeing, trailing, or pointing. They talked of famous fishing lakes where a man scarcely had time “to bait his hook.” They talked of taking their sons on their first fishing or hunting trip. They talked of good shots with a gun and bad ones. They talked of illegal kills that had to be sneaked out of the woods under the watchful eye of the game warden. They would even kid and joke on occasion. Those stories remained some of their favorites.

They talked of politics, but not in inflammatory terms. A president like Ike played too much golf. Truman was, to some, much too fond of the African-American segment of the population. Almost to a man, each could recite a report, usually at least third-hand, about some southern hero who had effected revenge, in some fashion, for the integration of the military. FDR, on the other hand, was a minor god. They never mentioned the name of Herbert Hoover.

They talked of religion in the most general terms. They were, to a man, proponents of the advice offered in the Gospel of Matthew: “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.” Religion was a personal experience, best carried in the heart and proven in your actions, not your speech.

But, they talked of, and never tired of laughing about, the time the so-called “sorriest man in two counties" stopped by to join in the banter. They had asked what he was doing, for he had held many jobs. He surprised them by answering “tried preaching,” and then launched into a mini-sermon about the joy of spreading the gospel, saving souls and tending the flock within the small country church where he had preached for a time.

When asked, though, why had left such fulfilling work, he had answered, “Because the sons-of-bitches wouldn’t pay me.”

They talked of jolly moments like that, and many others. Some things they talked about were more productive than others, to be sure.

But they talked. To me that was important. May we never cease doing that.

Similar but not actual scene.