www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Sunday Drives

I was thinking earlier today of Sundays gone by, spanning my childhood from my earliest memories up to the time I left for college - and even occasionally afterwards - where my certain members of my family and I would drive through the countryside of West Georgia and East Alabama, revisiting old family homesteads, sometimes from more than a century ago, and exploring new areas as well.

In short, the typical Southern "Sunday drive."

Sometimes these drives would be with my immediate family over to visit the "Alabama cousins" and my great-grandmother (still living at 96). From that hometown base, a few family members would often ride with my great-grandmother around the countryside as she would point out houses of family and friends, and even my great-grandmother's country summer house. A few hours could pass by in what seemed to be a much shorter period of time.

This sort of this is still somewhat common - though increasingly so, I believe - in some parts of the South, where families have lived in the same 50 mile-or-so radius for a century or even two. Every old house was owned by someone you knew.

Looking back now, I greatly value these memories. I now appreciate what a truly "spiritual" experience it was for me, and in my mind a perfect was to glorify God on a Sunday. To be around the people who love you the most, and to see the beauty of God's creation in the countryside and in the company of those closest to you is a wonderful way to appreciate the majesty of God.

Anyway, on this Sunday, I recalled these memories and thanked God for the opportunity to experience what I believe is experienced by fewer and fewer people as the years go by and we become an increasingly mobile and transient society, and places like this in the South are populated by newly-arrived out-of-staters who have no historical connection to an area. As my great-grandmother is now almost completely bid-ridden and nearing the end of her life (despite healthy vital signs), I also realize how lucky I was to be old enough to converse with three of my great-grandparents about their childhood in the rural, early-twentieth century Deep South, and to have access to firsthand accounts of a society that is quickly fading away.

I wonder if any of you have similar "Sunday" stories to share.

Alexis

For a number of years I have sometimes had the privilege of serving as a mentor to a first year Seminarian.

In the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America all first year Seminarians are assigned to a nearby congregation in a field education program called "Teaching Parish." They spend the morning assisting in the liturgy and attending the education programs of the parish, then share Sunday dinner with a family in the congregation, then finally meet for an hour or so with their mentor Pastor.

One of the best parts of being a mentor is that usually the families hosting the Sunday meal invite me and my wife as well; and these are some of the finest Pennsylvania Dutch cooks in the region.

It is always fun to watch the "hog maw test"; when a Seminarian from the south or west coast encounters that delicacy for the first time. If they ask for seconds of the potato/onion/sausage mixture baked in a cleaned pig's stomach then we know that they will assimilate just about anywhere!

Alexis, my friend and brother,

What a wonderful memory. Such 'Sunday drives' were also a part of life in the Northeast (and, elsewhere as well).

You've caused me to think back to many and to fondly remember those who have gone before - my Uncles Bill, Bob, Tommy, and Eddie, and my oldest cousin, Willy, the chauffeurs, and the commentators, my Grandmother, and Aunts Kay, Claire, May, Claudine, and Lil, as well as the captive audiences - me, my sister, and various cousins.

Willy's sage advice - 'watch for telephone lines, as long as you see those, you're never lost' - worked until I was an adult and visited Amish country in Pennsylvania .

High-power tension line structures were 'Union suits' - for their resemblence to long underwear frozen stiff on a clothesline in Winter.

Aunt May, insisting that she could drive and steering into a ditch when Uncle Bill let her try to prove it on a wide, perfectly straight, deserted country road. Grandma, proving she could, as she successfully steered and braked the car while Uncle Bill pushed it back onto the road.

Stopping to grab a few apples from a tree overhanging the road, after the farmer in the nearby field waved his hand in a gesture that was unmistakably 'sure' and shook his head affirmatively in response to an inquiring look from us.

Picking pussy willows and cat-tails from the edges of a swamp to be taken home and used to decorate the house.

Buying and eating warm, greasy, delicious donuts from a bakery, before there was a Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks on every corner. Enjoying a cone bought from an ice cream stand - before Dairy Queens. Reaching into the ice-cold water to retrieve a bottle of one's favorite tonic from the Coca-Cola ice chest at a little store out in the country and maybe getting to buy some penny candy - that actually cost a penny.

Making the Sign of the Cross on one's forehead when passing a church (and being reminded to look for a cross on the steeple, after doing so when passing a Protestant church). Crossing oneself and whispering an ejaculatory prayer for the departed when passing a cemetery - any cemetery.

Counting cows and horses, and speculating on the breeds. Rescuing a lost kitten from a roadside in the middle of nowhere.

Being first to spot an out-of-state plate. Spotting trucks from the companies for which Willie and Uncles Bob, Bill, and Tommy drove. Being kissed by tractor-trailers.

Leaning out the window and holding a flashlight to help keep out of the ditch on the shoulder when the fog was so thick that it was the only way to keep driving. Or. more exciting - because you could pretend you were a policeman - being allowed to aim a car-mounted spot (Uncle Bob's cars always had those, until he got his Edsel) for the same purpose. Later, doing the same with a hand-held spot when Uncle Tommy first bought one that plugged into the car's cigarette lighter; he considered it a miracle of technology, which he loved.

Visiting cemeteries and pulling grass and weeds from the gravestones of family and friends buried there. Running into other family members there.

Stopping at the homes of 'distant' (to us kids, at least) relatives or old family friends (some from the same Donegal village as my grandparents) - often elderly, unmarried ladies whose houses had those soft, musty smells of old clothes and books, combined with powder and a delicate perfume, where we'd each be warmly greeted ('oh my, you're Isabel and Connie's boy'), hugged tightly, held at arm's length and viewed with an eye as to how much one had grown, and then fed scones or cookies with a cold glass of milk. Sitting quietly on the edge of the horsehair couch while news was exchanged as to the well-being (or lack of same) of various other kith and kin.

Picking up a farmer trudging down a long dirt road and being allowed to sit in the open trunk, so he could have a seat in the car - despite his protestations that his overalls were dusty or mud-spattered. Going out of our way (although we often had 'no way' - just were meandering) to drop him off and being thanked with a peck basket of tomatoes or apples for our kindness.

Sitting at a railroad crossing, counting the passing cars (the real trick being to keep count of how many of each type - boxcar, tanker, etc - there were) and waving to the brakeman on the caboose.

Stopping into a small country church to light a candle and say a prayer - because, in those days, church doors were always unlocked without concerns of vandalism or desecration.

Stopping at the sight of a merry-ferry, to enjoy a ride for a nickel.

Many years,

Neil, who still tries to do some of these same things with his children

Reading what I just wrote - I realize that I best offer a couple of translations and an explanation for the younger among us.

Being 'kissed' by a tractor-trailer is the flashing of the trailer's rear lights as a truck driver's way of saying 'thanks' to you for having flashed high beams, first to acknowledge that it's safe to pass you (you're not going to speed up and leave him out there in the other lane -especially on a 2-lane road) and, second, to alert him, after passing, that the truck is far enough ahead to safely pull back into the lane. They're courtesies that one learned in those days if one grew up in a family of truckers (and which are still observed today by some drivers and many long-haul truckers).

'Tonic' is soda or pop or soda pop to those 'forriners' who never lived in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, southern Maine, or in Connecticut or Vermont along their borders with Massachusetts.

Until probably about the late '60s, early '70s, it was uncommon to see crosses on the steeples of churches other than those which were Catholic (Latin or Eastern), Orthodox, PNCC, high-church Episcopalian, or high-church Lutheran, and in many parts of the country - the Northeast being one - it was usually pretty safe to presume that a church with a steeple-mounted cross was Catholic.

A 'merry-ferry' was and is (tho not often seen now) a traveling carnival of sorts - a tiny one - usually consisting of no more than a carousel (merry) and ferris wheel (ferry). Occasionally there might also be a couple of 'Hampton umbrella rides' - kiddie rides that folded up into two facing semi-circles mounted on a wheeled base. A merry-ferry could set up and break down in no more than a couple of hours. It would often have a single joint - food stand - selling peanuts, popcorn, cotton candy, and maybe bottled cold drinks, and sometimes there was a wheel of fortune to amuse the adults. It would set up on a vacant lot or field.

Many years,

Neil, who's never had the pleasure of trying 'hog maw'

A bit similar to haggis; in fact, last year at the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns this Pennsylvania Dutchman decided to buy a can of haggis filling on line...then I bought a cleaned hog maw from a local butcher, put the tinned haggis in the stomach and baked it several hours. Never thought I could acquire a taste for the "souncy dish", but I did.

'Tonic' is soda or pop or soda pop to those 'forriners' who never lived in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, southern Maine, or in Connecticut or Vermont along their borders with Massachusetts

Neil, asking for a "tonic" in California around '66 got me a bottle of Vitalis...

James, my brother,

LOL, no problem believing that. In 1968 in TX, I got handed a bottle of something that was apparently the local version of Father John's Medicine (an old-time health elixer, for the non-Bay Staters among us).

Father Thomas,

I suspected hog maw might be a cousin of haggis, another treat that I've long resisted.

Many years,

Neil

In Texas,pop is called "soda water",at least in the Houston area,where I served my first parish 1977-83.Our Sunday drives there took us to the small towns west of Houston,which had been settled by Czechs.We would buy their kovbasa/kielbasa for Pascha.
I spent two years at a private Boys School in New Hampshire,where pop was indeed called "tonic".I never heard it being called that in Vermont,where I grew up,but we lived in Western Vermont,near the New York border.

Bless, Father Al,

I loved those little Czech and Polish towns down in TX.

Many years,

Neil

Down here in Georgia, it's all called "coke" ...

"What kind of coke you want?"

"Dr Pepper"

"Aight then.."

As a kid, I remember the old-timers calling sodas "dopes." Later, I assumed it hearkened back to the days when they actually had cocaine in them. Despite having Scottish ancestors on both sides of my mother's family, haggis is something I have managed to avoid.