Granny Brown was a Davis.
Uncle
David and Uncle Norman are her brothers. They both shrimped.
Aunt Marcel
is her sister. Aunt Marcel was married to Captain Ed Parker, who seine-fished the
Friendship. All Brenda's brothers fished with Captain Ed, and so did Owen and Balder.
Captain Ed is dead.
Aunt Marcel is 91 years old, and bedridden.
But Granny Brown lived to be 89, and both of her brothers, David and Norman, are
alive. Uncle David is senile. Uncle Norman is sharp as a tack. His nickname as
a youth was Cow Dab.
* * *
Gerald came in last night from Slidell. He bought some scamp, which I deep-fried,
on the back porch. Brenda made a salad of vine-ripe tomatoes, cucumbers, and Vidalia
onions, with mayonnaise.
Our neighbor, Jodie, came over and ate with us,
and stayed, while we told stories. She grew up across the street.
Brenda
and Gerald and David are sitting on the porch this morning, drinking coffee and telling
stories. David came over because he knew Gerald would have a bottle.
Lowell
is coming, soon. To make sure David doesn't get drunk.
Gerald and David and Lowell are Brenda's brothers. We're buying the old
home place from them, and Janice, Brenda's sister.
We'll probably see Janice
at the community center, at noon, where the food is.
Janice has had the operation
stapling her stomach.
Brenda doesn't try to make sure Janice doesn't overeat.
* * *
Tropical Storm Arlene is in the Gulf of Mexico. All it has meant to us so
far is light, but steady, rain.
There's a picking shed out back we can repair
to, if there are too many smokers to pick inside.
Usually, Owen and Balder attend the family reunion, and provide the music,
but this year Owen is on the road with David Davis and the Warrior River Boys and
Balder is on the road with Dread Clampitt. I don't know how many pickers will come
from out of town without Owen and Balder as a draw.
As the old people die
off, the food gets more and more instant and processed. Younger women aren't going
to fry crab backs and make a hoecake and crab gravy. They're going to pick up a
bucket of Col. Sanders fried chicken.
They're going to say, "I don't
like fruitcake," rather than shell pecans from October to Christmas.
Gastronomy
has sunk into a desuetude.
* * *
I don't know if Suzette will be there or not. Potter's band, the Crooked
Island (Crooked Smilin') String Band used to supply the music, with Owen and Balder
sitting in.
After Potter died, she came to see the boys, but she might not show up, today.
She and I are the Brown family in-laws. Well, she's a common law in-law. Well,
we're the Brown family outlaws.
We moved from Delray Beach to Panama City
when Owen was in the 10th grade and Balder was in the 7th grade, so they could pick
with Brenda's brothers, be around family, tell stories, eat mullet and grouper and
scamp, shrimp and oysters and blue crab, scallops, and it was that way, when they
were in high school, but now Delray Beach is moving here, with its traffic, congestion,
noises, faster pace, rudeness, higher prices, strip stores, malls, fast food, pretensions,
one might even say ridiculous, or sad pretensions.
They spent summers with
Potter and Suzette, at different times, and Balder lived with Suzette after Potter
died, and before he moved into the trailer in Grayton Beach.