{"id":726,"date":"2021-08-29T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-29T04:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=726"},"modified":"2021-08-30T00:02:54","modified_gmt":"2021-08-30T04:02:54","slug":"yall-come","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=726","title":{"rendered":"YA\u2019LL COME!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Junkins Family Waving Goodbye to Visitors<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My latest book, HALLEY, awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction, awarded the Moonbeam Silver Medal for Young Adult Fiction, and awarded the 2016 Frank Yerby Award for Fiction. Available at: NewSouth Books: www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley and Amazon.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was a child in the mountains of North Georgia, people like us had no telephones, so when you wanted to visit folks\u2014especially relatives\u2014you just loaded up the family in the car or truck, along with maybe a dog or two, and went.\u00a0\u00a0Heck, calling would have given prospective hosts a warning\u2014a chance to leave town.\u00a0\u00a0Forewarned, my overworked mother might\u2019ve done exactly that. Summer weekends (when most of these visits occurred) she was tired from working all week at the mill.\u00a0\u00a0Without modern conveniences, cooking just for family was hard enough without adding in eight or ten visitors.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However dismayed she might be, Mama always rose to the demands of Southern hospitality. Her smile was in place by the time she reached the front porch.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWell, look who\u2019s showed up! Good to see you.\u00a0\u00a0Come on in and set a spell.\u00a0\u00a0Have you had any dinner (or breakfast or supper)?\u00a0\u00a0Mama felt required to ask, even if we had just cleaned the kitchen from our own meal.\u00a0\u00a0If the visitors said they\u2019d eaten before leaving home, Mama felt compelled to offer again \u2014and again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daddy was even more insistent.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be a bit of trouble.\u00a0\u00a0Ain\u2019t nobody going to say I let company go hungry.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By this time one of the men in the group would allow that he could always find room for a few of Nell\u2019s biscuits. That was the signal for Mama to say, \u201cFaye, go light up the kerosene stove and draw me a fresh bucket of water.\u201d Several of my siblings would be sent to gather corn, okra, tomatoes, or squash from the garden.\u00a0\u00a0There was always\u00a0something ready for harvest.\u00a0\u00a0Daddy might make a run to a nearby store for meat\u2014chicken, if we were flush, Spam, if times were lean. Since we had no refrigerator, we couldn\u2019t keep fresh meat on hand.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the younger kids ran and played, and the men set up straight back chairs on the porch or\u00a0\u00a0beneath a shade tree, the women got busy in the kitchen. While supposedly riding herd on the younger kids, I drifted from the talk of births, deaths, and other family gossip to where the men discussed who was laid off from work, who had gotten into a knock-down, drag-out fight, and the fine details of overhauling a motor.\u00a0\u00a0Sometimes they passed a bottle around and told stories in low-pitched voices too indistinct to make out.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally the meal was ready.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m sure my siblings and I had never read a book on table etiquette, but we had been well-trained in Southern table hospitality.\u00a0\u00a0The first rule was that we could not take a helping of meat until guests had been served.\u00a0\u00a0Then, no second helpings until guests got theirs.\u00a0\u00a0Breaking the rules meant a hickory switching after company departed. Actually, there were a host of other infractions that could incur a switching penalty when visitors were barely on the road home.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things began to wind down after the meal\u2014unless the guests planned to spend the night\u2014and hospitality required that hosts urge, or even\u00a0beg\u00a0them to stay. \u201c\u201dDon\u2019t go,\u201d my mother would say.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWe can make pallets for the young\u2019uns.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My father always joined in even more wholeheartedly.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cYou just now got here.\u00a0\u00a0What\u2019s your hurry?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After this, came the departure, in which the visitors insisted that their hosts go home with them. \u201cYou ain\u2019t been to our house in a coon\u2019s age.\u00a0\u00a0Why don\u2019t ya\u2019ll load up and go with us?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Aunt Hilda, a German war bride who was new to our customs, actually accepted the invitation, much to the shock of the departing guests.\u00a0\u00a0My Grandmother Junkins who was one of the few relatives who refused to go through much of the ritual, managed to stop Hilda.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cSet down,\u201d she ordered Hilda.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cYou ain\u2019t going nowhere.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At last, the requirements of southern hospitality had been observed and the last of the visitors and their dogs had loaded up.\u00a0\u00a0As the motor rumbled to life and the vehicle began to move, Daddy would call, \u201cYa\u2019ll come back, now that you know the way.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still smiling and waving, Mama would heave a big sigh and mutter, \u201cThank God they didn\u2019t stay for supper.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My latest book, HALLEY, awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction, awarded the Moonbeam Silver Medal for Young Adult Fiction, and awarded the 2016 Frank Yerby Award for Fiction. Available at: NewSouth Books: www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley and Amazon. When I was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=726"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":731,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions\/731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}