Old Southern expressions, trips, songs and moms
There was never a time we got into the car, as did many of you, when moms wouldn’t take over the road trip and make up fun games, great expressions, feed us treats, keep our minds off “are we there yet”, be entertaining and teach us all fun sayings, poems, songs and southern expressions. That was pretty much standard operating procedure as we learned and grew up riding and traveling to the grandmothers, aunts and uncles or maybe Wimberly for that once in a lifetime dude ranch week, or Colorado or Yellowstone. The long trips required pillows and coloring books!
As we rode for miles, we searched the skies. If you were the lucky one to spot a flock of either flying or scavenging buzzards that took to flight, you were the one that got to count.…”one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a letter, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a story that’s never been told, eight for a wish, nine for a kiss, ten for a bird you might have missed!” Mom always told us that you could predict your future by counting as many buzzards as you could see. However, if there was only one, we would have to pull the car off the road to wait until another one came into view as we never wanted “sorrow”! And, to this day, every time I see a bunch of buzzards it is imperative that they are counted…heaven forbid I would let mom down! No doubt she chuckles in Heaven every time she hears me recite her sayings.
One of my friends told me she never counted buzzards cause that was totally revolting, but counted crows instead saying…”one crow for malice, two for mirth, three for a funeral, four for birth, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a story that should never be told, eight for Heaven, nine for Hell, ten to the Devil wherever he may dwell!” Kinda similar. Guess all moms grew up doing the same mom stuff!
As we learned our A, B, C’s and nursery rhymes, mom made a song out of it and pushed us to say or sing it faster and faster. After you sang the alphabet in a very predictable strong beat, you had to sing a nursery rhyme in the same beat, then the next person would have to follow suit with the alphabet and a different rhyme. The one that couldn’t remember any more nursery rhymes was the loser!
As we rode along, we would occasionally encounter a trailer, or pick up truck or big 18-wheeler loaded with hay. To this day, the saying remains the same… “hay cart, hay cart, grant me my wish”! At times we would just come up with an impromptu expression, like “I wish for an ice cream cone” but if I were the lucky one to see the hay being transported to wherever, I would say a prayer to myself, probably about my then boyfriend!!
Sometimes from the back seat I would see her hold out her left hand, palm up, and lick her right thumb and put it into the palm of her left hand, then make a clinched fist with her right hand, thumb up and forcefully hit the right fist into the palm of her still open left hand. If there was more than “one” in a field, each would get a fist bump “stamp”, and counted out loud. “What cha doin’ mom?” She was “stamping” gray horses, and maybe they were mules since they all looked alike to me.
If you didn’t “stamp” a gray horse, you would have “really bad luck for a really long time”!! Consequently, it was a practice that we all followed religiously!
Frequently we had to scout for different state license plates. The first one that saw it could claim the state and write it in his new trip tablet. If you saw it second, you better not say anything or cause a fight, as that was totally unacceptable. Going across the US you could spot lots of different plates and the more on your tablet the bigger the prize at the end of the line. Plus, while you looked for plates and 18-wheelers were passing by, you always had to try to make them blow their air horns as you signaled an up and down motion with your arm (like doing a one armed pull up!) We got such a kick out of watching the truckers and they probably liked being awakened from the monotony of the highway.
The Louisiana cousins were always singing when we got to ride with them. Their mom and my mom were sisters and we all knew some of the same old expressions and songs. Their daddy was the head of the Poultry Science Department at LSU and they were all about chickens. In fact, they were always singing and talking about chickens….chickens everything and everywhere! Even their favorite song was chickens…“we had a little chicken, and it wouldn’t lay an egg, so we poured hot water up and down his legs, the little chicken hollered and the little chicken begged and the little chicken laid me a hard-boiled egg. Thanks to the boiled egg, spittoon.” To this day there is no rhyme or reason for that ending, but that’s what they said!
When we would get rowdy, no matter if it was in the car or the grocery store, the favorite expression or poem that we could count on hearing was, “a wise old owl sat on an oak, the more he saw, the less he spoke, the less he spoke the more he heard, PLEASE why can’t you be like that wise old bird?”….and, that “look” always followed!!
When your palm itched, it was a sign that you would have money crossing your palm that day. If you dropped a fork or utensil it was said “oops, somebody’s coming with a hole in their britches”!
Another friend said her mom always recited the same poem from a book printed in 1922, whether they were traveling or at home just reading. It became totally embedded in her soul and she recited it so many times during her life that her husband even picked it up. At an appropriate time, he recited it back to her, beginning to end, eloquently! …..“The woodpecker pecked out a little round hole, and made him a house in the telephone pole. One day when I watched he poked out his head, and he had on a hood and a collar of red. When the streams of rain pour out of the sky, and the sparkles of lightning go flashing by, and the big, big wheels of thunder roll, he can snuggle back into the telephone pole.”
Although her husband reminded her multiple times that wood pecker’s don’t peck holes in creosote telephone poles, it shocked her to think her husband was listening that closely to her poem, as he never seemed to hear anything else in 20 years!!
Once while riding in the new “pink” 1957 roomy Chevy station wagon, mom started singing about socks. When you can remember a song for so many years, it must have made a big impact on a kid, or been important or possibly funny at the time! She sang, ”Black socks they never get dirty, the longer you wear them the blacker they get. Sometimes I think about laundry but something inside me says don’t wash them yet!”
Another favorite song was about playing in the band, and maybe that’s why both my brother and I decided to do so.
“When Pasquali was a playing in the band, he forgot that he was taught to watch the leader’s hand, when the band began, Pasquali ran for he had played his piece without the band!”
Mom was a great teacher in fact she was actually an English teacher and substitute for several years. She was always challenging us to memorize stories and poems which would be recited at appropriate times, sometimes at school. (My poor Godmother got to hear them all as we practiced as if it was an audition!) And, mom continued to teach us as we sang two different songs with all the books of the Old and New Testament in the Bible.
Moms grew up in the wake of the depression and had to invent or make up things to keep them busy and entertained. Nobody had any money so creativity was a must. They made up expressions, they made up stories and games.
They made mud pies in the back yard with Granny’s flour and mud! They cut out paper dolls from the Sear’s or Montgomery Ward catalogues and dresses from sheets of wallpaper. They named their paper dolls after famous silent movie stars…like Greta Garbo and Douglas Fairbanks. They played “jacks and hopscotch”. And, they taught us kids a simple wonderful way of life with old sayings, expressions and kindness toward all people.
Ah yes, those were the days of pillows, coloring books, stories, car trips, poems, songs and wonderful mom memories!