GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

A Rememberamble for Saturday, September 06, 2025 ..... Yesterday was a not a classic scorcher, but it was hot compared to the previous few days. There were a few clouds that came up late in the day and some spots around here got some fairly heavy rains, we did not. Of course we expect ups and downs in out temps in all seasons. Situated as we are, directly north of the Gulf of Mexico, and relatively close to the Atlantic Ocean less than one hundred miles away.

With weather systems coming generally from our west, except when tropically influenced systems come to us from the east-south-east, we see many twists and turns during a weather-year. I was walking with the boyz yesterday evening, or as my daddy would say, "yesterdy eenern," as we passed some chinaberry saplings sprouting from a cutoff chinaberry stump, I thought of the many, many times my brothers and I would cut them for fishing poles, rig them up from mama's tackle box with hook, line, and sinker.

Then we would get a cork from the small, brown-paper bag that never went empty. I guess mama kept an eye out for when we ran low and replenished them. We dug worms, harvested a tree-full of "tawba" worms or caught crickets. Those brown crickets were the best bait of all. To find them, all we had to do was to lift up those dry patches of thatch from when the grass had been mowed, especially where it was bushhogged, and there were often several abiding beneath it. These efforts were for going to the creek.

I feel sorry for kids today, that never know the pleasure of creek fishing. Back then most creeks ran year'round, in fact most creeks had beds of mussels, that is almost unheard of today. The tannic acid from the tree roots that darkened the water to a "tea-bag brown," and sweetened the water, gave those little creek fish a great flavor. As I have said here before, I always thought of our creek fishing as catching a "Noah's Ark," of small fish, a couple of little bass (we called them trout, back then), bream, redbreasts, shellcrackers, warmouth, stumpknockers, redeyes, and usually some small "cats of various denominations."

We really did catch such a variety of fish, and none were too small, we kept them, we cleaned them and mama cooked'em. We ALL ate'm! A platter stocked with a menagerie of small creek fish, mama's hushpuppies and a pot of yellow grits was a feast for us. Dessert following a supper of fried fish, grits and corn dodgers as we said, was usually some cane syrup poured into my plate and sopped with dodgers. Well, actually dodgers were crumbly compared to biscuits, so they were technically not used to sop syrup, but were crumbled with a fork and stirred in and then eaten with the fork.

I know I have said this many times, we loved fried mullet, and cold leftover mullet were a great breakfast, cold from the fridge, the meat pulled from the bones, and mashed into cane syrup and eaten, often with cold butter and sour cream stirred in. I realize many of you find that combination revolting, but it was so very good. We, like most of our rural Georgia ancestors, loved cane syrup, as well as sweet potatoes, and yep, I did like cold, leftover, sweet potatoes mashed up in syrup. It is a tradition dating to early Mesopotamia to lament upon the subject of pork sausage, and how they did not taste as good as they used to.

Think about that, for thousands of years, pork sausage has gotten worse in taste, and it still tastes so very good, (but not as good as when I was young), so can you imagine how wonderful it tasted back in the days when Eve's snake handling got the couple booted from the Garden, and they had to raise hogs and chickens and eat them. I'm sure they took it for granted that it was fantastic, but even better in the days there ancestors might have lived in, had they had ancestors. Almost confused myself with that train of thought!

Okay that reminds me of something that has dang near been talked to death here on GF&FL, over the years, and that is how wonderful it was not very long ago, for kids and adults also, to poke a hole in biscuits with their finger and fill them with cane syrup. You know it is my job to think of everything, so here is my wry observation on the subject of those syrup filled biscuits: if that was so good...and yes it was...why doesn't anyone make and eat them anymore?

Not once in my years of discussions with folks about how great those syrup biscuits were, not one soul who waxed lyrical on the topic has ever said, "we loved them, and as a matter of fact we fixed some for breakfast last week." I challenge someone to bring biscuits to the Gathering, just for that purpose and I will furnish the cane syrup. Seriously. The Gathering/Story Revival is a week from today! We will have a very good day, as we always have. I would love to see you there. Oh, by the way, lil Merle will be at the Gathering, but not babee Conway,

I vowed last time to not do that to him again. He is 100% Chihuahua, and afraid of crowds regardless of how kindly disposed they are to him. He is scared and I can't do that to him. Lil Merle knows no strangers, he knows everyone loves him, and wants to thank each of you personally. The bigger the crowd, the better for lil Merle. Okay, let me ease on out of here without waking up the boyz, and remember we love y'all and appreciate your faithfulness here. What an amazing group of people y'all are. Numbers 6: 24-26 KJV ..... we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me