Appalachian Word of the Week -- WASPERS

WASPERS nest

This week I’m going to talk about one of the nasty and painful critters that left its mark on me way too many times during my childhood. WASPERS.

WASPERS are not to be confused with honey bees, yeller jackets, bumbly bees, hornets, or mud daubers. These rascals build their paper-thin nests almost anywhere and can get quite testy if they're disturbed.

I learned it the hard way one summer when I attempted to replace a broken croquet mallet stick with a different one. The mallet was stuck tight and refused to unscrew. I got this great idea to use the side of the coal house to knock it loose.

A WASPERS nest, minus the WASPERS

To set this up, I had my hair in dog ears. Dog ears are like pigtails, but not braided. That means I had a part (or bare scalp) in the middle and hair pulled up into my dog ears on each side. At about eleven years of age, my thought process had not fully developed when I started whacking that stick on the coal house.

Before I knew what was happening, the entire nest of WASPERS swarmed me and commenced to stinging. They got me down the part between my dog ears, on my bare arms, and on my face. I commenced to screaming bloody murder for my mom.

She looked out the back door at me jumping around and screaming to high heaven and grabbed the fly swatter. She didn’t use it to swat the WASPERS away from me. She used it to swat them ON ME! She swatted me so hard, I swear she hurt more than the WASPERS. She wouldn’t let me go into the house, either, until every one of them WASPERS was dead or gone.

I swelled up like a red strawberry. Mom had to pick out the stingers left behind when she walloped the WASPS right off their back ends. I hurt from the part in my hair to my ankles. One great big one got me in the fleshy part under my arm and wouldn't let go. I still have the shadow of a scar from that rascal. That night I had to soak in a tub of cool water with baking soda, trying to get rid of the venom. It took several days for the pain to turn to itching. I also kept my hair in those dog ears until my scalp healed enough to brush my hair again.

Nope, WASPERS are not a happy memory of my childhood. I learned a valuable lesson, though. Don’t whack on anything that might house a WASPERS nest inside. They have a nasty disposition. 

Did you get stung by WASPERS when you were young? Do you still remember the pain?

TWEETABLES

Appalachian Word of the Week - WASPERS (Click here to Tweet)

Don’t whack on anything that might house a WASPERS nest inside. (Click here to Tweet)

Appalachian Word of the Week -- 'MATERS

Green, red, and yellow 'maters from the garden

I start to drool when I think about this week’s Word of the Week. ‘MATERS were an important part of our diet when I grew up.

Nothing could compete with going out to the garden in summer and picking a big, red ‘MATER off the vine and eating it right then and there, warmed by the summer’s sun. The juice dripped down your chin and ran from your hand to your elbow. But we didn’t care. That ‘MATER was a small taste of heaven.

Fresh 'maters with salt as a snack

If we had a tad of patience, we’d wait until we got the salt shaker. But, a good ole ripe ‘MATER didn’t need salt.

Some ‘MATERS didn’t make it in the garden long enough to turn red. We picked ‘em while they were still green, sliced ‘em up, rolled them in a mixture of flour and meal, and fried them up in our iron skillet. The fragrance of a frying green ‘MATER was enough to drive you crazy while you waited. I admit, some of my ‘MATERS never make it to a supper dish.

Fried green 'maters

‘MATERS were sometimes about all we had to eat. Many a time, I had a ‘MATER sandwich, with mayo, on white Bunny bread for my lunch.

But, if we were living high on the hog, there was nothing like adding a slice of fried baloney to that sandwich. Or, maybe a hamburger patty for supper time.

Yellow 'maters

Daddy also grew yellow ‘MATERS in our garden. They had a sweet, mellow flavor that I enjoyed eating by themselves, with a sprinkling of salt on top.

Unfortunately, ‘MATERS don’t grow in the winter in Appalachia. But, our ancestors figured out a solution for that problem. They canned them. You couldn’t eat them sliced or fresh from the plant, but those jars of gorgeous red ‘MATERS were always available to pop the lid and add to your supper spread. We ate them heated up, all by themselves, with a touch of salt and pepper. Or, if we were lucky, Mom added them to our macaroni and cheese.

‘MATERS you get from the grocery store can’t compare to a sun-kissed ‘MATER grown in your own backyard, in the rich black soil of Appalachia. If you’ve never had one, I hope you get to have the pleasure before you die. Surely, God will have ‘MATERS growing in heaven for us. That’s another incentive for accepting Christ as your Savior so you can enjoy all the glorious pleasures God created for us. If you grew up Appalachian, you got to experience a few more of those heavenly pleasures on earth than most other folks.

Now, I think I’m going to fry up some green ‘MATERS for lunch. How do you like your ‘MATERS best? Have any special memories of eating ‘MATERS? Share them with us.

TWEETABLES TO SHARE ON TWITTER

Surely, God will have ‘MATERS growing in heaven for us. (Click here to Tweet this post)

The juice dripped down your chin and ran from your hand to your elbow. (Click her to Tweet)

Here's a few more photos of 'MATERS to make you drool.

Appalachian Word of the Week -- SPARKIN'

Last week we talked about the divan (sofa, couch). This week we learn what often happened on the old family divan – SPARKIN’.

The family divan where you do your SPARKIN'

A lot of SPARKIN’ goes on in Appalachia. It usually starts in the early teens. In my day, most of the SPARKIN’ took place right on the divan. Or the front porch swing. Parents preferred keeping all the SPARKIN’ within eyesight of an adult.

So, what is SPARKIN’?

 It’s the Appalachian term for dating.

A great place for SPARKIN'

There was nothing as awkward as sitting with your “date” and surrounded by family members. I recall not much was said by the couple in the early stages. What does a boy say to a girl when her daddy or mama is sitting right there and there’s a shotgun leaning up against the wall?

In the mountains, there wasn’t much going on to take your date outside the girl’s home. An occasional dance, a ballgame, or a family movie at the theater (saved for much later in the process, since they’d be together in the dark) didn’t provide many opportunities and cost money. The couple either got over the awkward stage or decided it wasn’t worth it and moved on to somebody else.

However, if the attraction was strong enough and the boy and girl persevered, they usually managed to take their SPARKIN’ out of sight of the family (remember, family in Appalachia includes every inhabitant of the hollers and mountainsides). If you get caught SPARKIN’ by anybody in the county, your mama will know before you get home. Heaven forbid if that SPARKIN’ includes touching or kissing.

SPARKIN’ is a necessary inconvenience and weeds out a lot of undesirable couplings. After all, you marry the family, not just the boy or girl. So, you’d better be on good terms.

SPARKIN' is not only for the young

By the way, SPARKIN’ isn’t limited to the young’uns. There’s still some SPARKIN’ going on until death comes a-knockin’.

My mom used to tell me stories about the old folks in her Highrise Apartment building and the Senior Center. The SPARKIN’ part was still alive and well. However, she told me from her own experiences, that life is too short to waste too much time sitting around being uncomfortable with a man who bored her closer to death than she was ready for.

The pickins are even slimmer when you’re older, too. They would either up and die on her or she couldn’t handle their toothless grins or their inability to drive her to the next biggest town for lunch and some shopping.

So, did you go SPARKIN’ when you were young? Do you have a funny story? Do you find yourself in your old age SPARKIN’ again? Is it any more fun than it was when you were young?

A couple of Tweetables

A lot of SPARKIN’ goes on in Appalachia. (Click to Tweet)

There’s still some SPARKIN’ going on until death comes a-knockin’ (Click to Tweet)

Appalachian Word of the Week -- DIVAN

My aunts and my mom

 Whether you call it a DIVAN (pronounced DYE-VAN, with a flat “i” sound, couch, sofa, or even davenport, this week’s word is the center of an Appalachian family.

It’s where people meet, eat, talk, watch TV, nap, or fight.

Also, when you grow up and leave your mountain home, it’s where you sleep when you come back for a visit. That could be a contributing factor why your visits are short and far between.

After years of service to the family and friends as the main piece of furniture in the living room, the divan then often gets relegated to the front porch for its second life.

Granny's siblings

As the divan ages, it often gets covered with a quilt or a crocheted afghan whipped up by Mama or Granny. It may or may not contain the same colors as the original fabric on the DIVAN. At least it covers up the now threadbare spots and stains of spilled food and coal dust that have made the original fabric unsightly.

No matter how old, uncomfortable, or downright ugly your DIVAN became, it meant home to your family. It’s where you learned to walk by holding on. It’s also where you first went sparkin’ when you were a teen. You also held your first baby on that DIVAN.

 

Mom and my niece at Easter

At my age, I tend to sink into the DIVAN and need a bit of assistance getting pulled out of the drooping cushions.

What did your family call the DIVAN? Do you have any special – or hilarious – memories of yours?

Here are some more photos of DIVANs through my family's history.

Mom and nephew ready for Halloween

My first birthday

My uncle's wife on their fancy DIVAN

Mom, not looking thrilled to have her photo taken

Me, being comforted by a friend's friends

An old family photo

Son taking a nap

Some things never change

Appalachian Word of the Week -- WHATTY-NOTTIES

Whether you call them WHATTY-NOTTIES or whatnots, trinkets, collectibles or even chachkies, every Appalachian home seems to have a generous supply.

A WHATTY-NOTTY is any item you stick on a shelf, in a cabinet, in the corner, on a table, or anywhere else you can find a spot large enough to stuff it and it has no purpose than to sit there and collect dust.

I will never forget my mother getting out on Friday and Saturday mornings to scrounge up and down the hollers to find yard sales so she could acquire more of her precious WHATTY-NOTTIES. No stop was complete unless she found a new treasure. The good news is that they rarely cost more than 25 cents. Although, I did see her spending much more for a particularly fabulous find. Fabulous in her eyes, that is.

One of the benefits of always having a huge supply of WHATTY-NOTTIES is that you have available pickings for a quick gift for a friend or relative.

Whenever we visited Great Aunt Mamie in Lafollette, Tennessee, Mom had to work her way through the house searching for just the right WHATTY-NOTTY to take to her as a gift. From the looks of Aunt Mamie’s house, she had a lot of visitors.

In Mom’s latter years, she attempted to filter out some of the less loved WHATTY-NOTTIES from her minuscule apartment. Problem is, just as she gifted twenty or thirty WHATTY-NOTTIES to friends, or took them to the senior center to be used as Bingo prizes, she would have the opportunity to visit a yard sale or flea market and the shelves would bulge again.

I don’t know if it’s a regional thing that Appalachian women must fill their homes with items most people consider ugly, senseless, and worthless or if it’s a result of being in an economically depressed area. Of course, it could be because women need “things” to feel worthwhile.

Whatever the reason, WHATTY-NOTTIES are here to stay.

Including the WHATTY-NOTTIES we think will increase in value some day...

Why, even some of our favorite restaurants decorate every available spot with WHATTY-NOTTIES, too.

Cracker Barrel

The Bubble Room on Sanibel Island

The Bubble Room on Sanibel Island

I hate to admit it, but I have a “few” WHATTY-NOTTIES in my house as well. However, I have a rule. It only stays if I can sell it to buy food or if I love it so much it makes me smile when I look at it.

So, how many WHATTY-NOTTIES have taken over your house? What’s your favorite? And which one is so ugly you don’t know why you haven’t thrown it away. I would love to see your photos!

TWEETABLE
#Appalachian word of the week - Whatty Notty - @karennolanbell (click to tweet)

Appalachian Word of the Week -- CRAWDAD HOLE

This week's word is CRAWDAD HOLE. If you grew up in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky, you probably know what a crawdad is. You also know about crawdad holes.

Photo courtesy of my friend, Corinne Milwee Farley

Crawdad

Crawdad Hole

CRAWDAD HOLES can be dangerous as you walk around. At least they are surrounded by mounds of mud balls to warn you. But, they certainly make the yard look unsightly. That's why my dad was constantly warring with the CRAWDADS.

He poured carbide into the holes and added hot water. It worked for a while. As the carbide started bubbling, the CRAWDAD would fly out of the hole to escape. However, Dad was waiting for them with his hoe. That CRAWDAD was no longer a problem.

I wrote a story about a CRAWDAD HOLE incident when I was a kid. I'll share it with you now.

THE CRAWDAD HOLE

            I closed my eyes and screamed until my four-year-old voice bounced off the mountains. In mere seconds, my mom, still in her robe and with pin curls crowning her head, and my dad, his face partially covered in fluffy mounds of shaving cream and with a razor in his hand flung open the screen door and ran across the porch. My mom twirled me around. I suppose she expected to find blood spilling onto the steps. Finding none, they shouted in unison, “What’s wrong?”

            “A snake!” I pointed at the concrete step just below where I stood and squeezed my eyes shut, perhaps thinking it couldn’t see me if I couldn’t see it.

These are the steps where I saw the snake

            Heaving a sigh and shaking his head, Dad said, “There’s no snake there.”

            Opening one eye, I gasped in disbelief. There was no snake. I looked at each of the eight steps and then into the yard beyond and could see no snake. “It was there. I saw it. It was all curled up in a pile.

            Mom said, “Ehhhh, It was probably a worm,” and turned to go back inside the house.

            “No, it wasn’t a worm. It was sticking its tongue out at me. Worms don’t have tongues.” I placed one hand on my hip and tilted my chin in the air, sure of my superior knowledge.

            “Ehhhhh, if there was one, it’s gone now.” Shaving cream dripped off Dad’s chin and plopped on the floorboards.

            “What if it bites me?”

            Dad sighed and walked down the steps, dressed in his shorts, wife-beater t-shirt, and bare flat feet to check it out. He knew I would never step into the yard if there was a possibility of a snake lying in wait. I stood on the steps and watched as he looked behind the concrete stoop and then peered into the crawdad holes that flanked the homemade flagstone walkway. Crawdads were a constant nuisance in our yard. Heaping piles of mud balls surrounded each hole that made them unsightly as well as a danger for anyone walking across the yard. The prescribed remedy was to drop some carbide rocks into each hole and follow that with boiling water. When it started bubbling up, the crawdad would either come out of the hole or die inside.

            “Well, Gert, just to make sure, why don’t you go put a pot of water on to boil and we’ll pour some down these crawdad holes. It coulda gone down one of them. What’d that snake look like, Karen?”

            “It was big and black and yellow stripied and was all curled up and sticking its pink tongue out at me.”

            “Sounds like a garter snake.”

            I stood on the porch and kept my eyes peeled for the snake as Dad went inside to finish shaving his face and Mom boiled some water. I didn’t want it coming after me, but I sure wanted to prove to Mom and Dad that I really saw a snake. It didn’t matter what kind of snake—it was a snake.

            Mom finally pushed open the screen door with her rump and maneuvered the oversized pot she used for canning, steaming with hot water, across the porch and down the steps.

            “Get out of the way, Karen. Don’t trip me with this water.” My petite mother grunted as she poured a little water into each hole. She stood back and looked at each one to see if a snake came out. Nothing happened. She was about to give up when my dad came back outside and suggested she pour the rest of it into the biggest hole right next to the bottom step. She leaned her five-foot-tall body nearly down to the hole and poured.

She was right about in the same spot when she poured the hot water into the CRAWDAD HOLE

            Just as the final dregs flowed into the hole, and her face was about twelve inches from it, the snake flew straight up out of the hole and into her face. She screamed as she jumped backward and flung the pot across the yard. Actually, we all screamed. I’m not quite sure what happened after that. There was a lot of screaming and confusion as that big pot continued to bounce across the yard and mom jumped up and down flailing. Dad grabbed the hoe leaning up against the porch and ran after the snake, chopping it into tiny pieces. I guess he wanted to make sure that little worm was dead.

Did you grow up with CRAWDAD HOLES in your yard? Ever find any snakes inside?

Appalachian Word of the Week – SLOP JAR

Last week I shared my experiences with the OUTHOUSE in my childhood home of Harlan County, Kentucky. This week I’ll share my acquaintance with the SLOP JAR.

During my visits to relatives’ homes where indoor plumbing had not been introduced yet, the only choices for relieving yourself were visiting the outhouse or the SLOP JAR. The SLOP JAR was preferred by young children and the infirmed. Of course, adults sometimes preferred the SLOP JAR on severe weather days or at night. Outhouses were not a pleasant place to visit in the dark. Actually, they weren’t pleasant to visit on a lovely, sunny day either.

My grandmothers provided a white granite enamelware stock pot for their SLOP JAR.

Some fancier households provided a more decorative CHAMBER POT for their household. No matter what they called it or how pretty it looked, it smelled the same.

Whichever type of SLOP JAR your hostess offered, it was not a fun experience.

I will never forget the cold winter nights when I stayed at my Granny’s house. Since she only had a fire going in the pot-bellied stove in the front room, the heat didn’t make it back to the bedrooms. I climbed into the cold bed and Granny piled quilt after quilt on top of me to keep me warm.

Those quilts were so heavy I couldn’t move at all. In the middle of the night, when nature called, I had to get desperate before I would attempt to slide out from under those quilts and run to the SLOP JAR.

Man, oh man, those ceramic metal pots were COLD! I hurried as fast as possible and then started the process of trying to slide myself back under those quilts. At least I worked up a sweat in the process.

These days, as an old woman with mobility issues, I would never be able to adequately utilize the SLOP JAR. Even if I got down to it, I would never get up again. Today, I would have to have a SLOP JAR CHAIR.

Funny, but it sort of resembles the chair I had parked next to my hospital bed when I was hooked up to monitors for heart failure and they gave me huge doses of diuretics to remove the fluid around my heart.

We definitely have it good these days with indoor plumbing, electricity, and heat. There’s always something to be thankful for and to be joyful about.

Have you ever had to use a SLOP JAR? What were your experiences? I’d love to hear your stories.