GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

A REMEMBERAMBLE FOR OCTOBER 07, 2025

Tippin' my hat to you, top of the morning and all that tommyrot, as the Brits might say. This picture of me is one of my few favorites, although it does show how very bad my skin is, and I have beard dandruff on my shirt I should have brushed off before it was taken. It is sort of like that Cromwellian command, "paint me, warts and all." The lavender sky is a bit much, but se la vie, and que sera, sera. I enjoy thinking about food, and then I like to write about it, then eat it.

I was, as daddy would say, "studying on it," meaning he was pondering it, and I was thinking of how we in the south use cornmeal on fish and even some seafood where non-southerners use flour. We eat freshwater fish with cornmeal coating, but we like saltwater fish if it is floured instead. Can you imagine using flour to coat bream, shellcrackers, redfin pike, bass, catfish or the others we catch? I recall the first "real shrimp," as we called them, as opposed to breaded frozen ones, us kids ever had.

Daddy was on the board of directors, of the Central Bank and Jack Bazemore worked at the bank and he and daddy were friends. They lived in Swainsboro, but owned a cabin at Bennett's Landing on the Ogeechee, and fairly often the Bazemores and their kids had us to their cabin for a fish fry, and then the next would be at our house. Daddy and Mr. Bazemore enjoyed a toddy and fried the fish and hushpuppies outside on their respective gas cookers.

It was at Bennett's Landing at a fish fry where we had our first "real shrimp." Along with the fish, daddy had bought a few pounds of fresh Georgia shrimp to cook along with the fish that night. He had them peeled and deveined, and the tales removed at Mr. Wilkes' fish market. They did those shrimp like the bream, salt and peppered them, and coated them with cornmeal, and fried the livin' *h*t out of them. They were right chewy! We were "ignernt" younguns and assumed this was how "real shrimp," were cooked.

We loved them, we had sound teeth and strong jaws back then. Liberal doses of ketchup sort'a lubricated them and we "chawed and chawed," to get them "swollowable." They cooked some another time, just the same, and they were "just as good," as that initial batch. The next time we ever had "real shrimp," was at a seafood place somewhere, and us boys all ordered shrimp platters. When the waitress brought them out, they still had tails, and that was about as surprising to me if they had brought daddy's fried fish with the heads on them.

We assumed they left the tails on as handles to hold them so you did not drop them in the ketchup when dunking'em in it. One of us mentioned they had coated them in flour, so we decided they must have run slap out of cornmeal. It was also obvious that they had not cooked them near long enough, they were soft and damp. I reckoned city folks just were not old time, hardened shrimp eaters like us, and had no idea just what to do with them.

Mr. Bazemore was killed in an accident, and that was really the last man daddy ever really befriended and allowed us to be sociable with the families. Speaking of Bennett's Landing, on the Great Ogeechee River, which is only fifteen miles from Garfield, just over in Jenkins County. the road to it is a bit unusual. It is off of the Old Savannah Road, on a dirt road that ends at the landing on the river, where there is a small community of river homes and cabins clustered together there.

Years ago, when the power lines were to be run along the dirt road to carry electric service to the community there, the landowners on either side refused to give an easement for power poles and lines to be run on their s

ide of the dirt road. So, the power poles run down the center of the road. I will add a photograph of that dirt road. I will wind this up in a moment, but I had a term on my mind that is so rarely used these days, that few will know its meaning as it pertains to a trade. Folks used to do a heap more trading years ago than now, folks want cash these days. Back when trading was an everyday thing, the term "boot," was often spoken and associated with a trade. What it means is, if you are going to trade one thing to another person, and your item to trade is worth more than the item you are trading for, you would have them "throw in some boot." Boot was money or other thing of value that brought the value of both side's trade closer in line. Have you ever demanded boot in a trade? It is an old term that was once commonly used, but is dying on the vine today. I hope you enjoyed the visit this morning as much as I have. I thank you. God bless.

..... Numbers 6: 24-26 KJV

..... we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me