Republicans. What is your problem? Get out of my uterus. Get out of my doctor’s office. Get out of my child’s doctor’s office. Why are white men without medical degrees making medical decisions for me and my family, without the input of medical doctors, and with the input of a book written thousands of years ago? That is nuts.
Abortion.
Children in restaurants.
Death penalty.
Don’t call it Hotlanta!
Earlier this year, i was listening to Rollie and Tiller chatting at the table while I was fixing dinner. They spoke the same word at the same time:
Rollie said, “Jinx! You owe me a soda!”
Me, aghast: “Rollie! Where did you hear that? You sound like a Yankee! We don’t say, ‘soda!’ We say, ‘Coke!’ It’s “Jinx, you owe me a Coke!”
R. shrugs, then: “That’s not what we say at school. . . “
Don’t even get me started on the other things they don’t do at school. . . but that’s a different post.
So, this Atlantic article quickly caught my eye: “Do you say ‘pop,’ ‘soda,’ or ‘Coke?’ Which sports team do you call your own?”
Coke. Braves.
Let’s just say that I’m endlessly fascinated by regional differences in the United States. Partly because I am just naturally interested in the evolution of dialect; the crazy idioms and sayings in the South are continually charming and interesting to me. I think it may have roots in those first days living in Fairport, New York. We moved there from Alpharetta, Georgia, the summer after I finished first grade. I thought I was moving to New York City. In the 70s, I think this meant to me that everyone listened to Blondie, and had switchblades and you would get mugged if you weren’t careful. have started with the ridicule and ribbing I received when we I thought that my “southerness” was under fire as a kid, with all the people I grew up with in Atlanta whose parents weren’t Southerners. However, it has really hit home since having kids. But with my own kids, it seems almost NONE of their friends’ parents are Southern. For the most part, I think we are more similar than different, but there are some glaring differences in the way we think, and the way we do things. Coke versus Pop and Soda is just a symptom of something much larger. In Atlanta, home of Coca Cola, so much of what is Southern has been lost; What is left is just kitsch. One has to seek out things that are authentically Southern in Atlanta, and wade through a lot of stuff that is simply someone’s idea of what is Southern. That being said, it only takes a short drive to find the authentic once again.
Another interesting read for me was Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers.
Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers
The book generally deals with “outliers” – those who excel or are most successful, the high achievers of the world. But there was one chapter that dealt with The Culture of Honor. We read it in my book club, and it was interesting to me that two of us were fascinated by this chapter, because it mirrored our backgrounds. We are both Southerners, although i am from Atlanta, and she is from small-town Virginia. Those of other backgrounds found it interesting, but it didn’t seem to strike as much of a chord with them.
I’m such a nerd about this subject that I am currently reading this:
Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America
From Library Journal
This cultural history explains the European settlement of the United States as voluntary migrations from four English cultural centers. Families of zealous, literate Puritan yeomen and artisans from urbanized East Anglia established a religious community in Massachusetts (1629-40); royalist cavaliers headed by Sir William Berkeley and young, male indentured servants from the south and west of England built a highly stratified agrarian way of life in Virginia (1640-70); egalitarian Quakers of modest social standing from the North Midlands resettled in the Delaware Valley and promoted a social pluralism (1675-1715); and, in by far the largest migration (1717-75), poor borderland families of English, Scots, and Irish fled a violent environment to seek a better life in a similarly uncertain American backcountry. These four cultures, reflected in regional patterns of language, architecture, literacy, dress, sport, social structure, religious beliefs, and familial ways, persisted in the American settlements. The final chapter shows the significance of these regional cultures for American history up to the present.
– David Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
I’m still reading the first “folkway,” about the Puritans. Fascinating reading. Just last night, I read out loud to Todd the portion about a man in 1700’s New Haven, Connecticut. This unfortunate man was missing an eye. He worked for a family that owned a pig. The pig gave birth to piglet with only one eye. The people of New Haven were so appalled by sexual deviation that they hanged this man, because obviously, he had participated in Bestiality, procreating with the pig to create an eyeless piglet!
You can’t make stuff like that up. Fascinating! I am sure I will become insufferable upon reading the “folkways” section that deals with those who settled in the American back country from war torn English, Scots, and Irish borders. Todd, consider yourself warned.
Geez. I have no idea where I’m going with this; Truly the most incoherent post ever. I am like Ashley Wilkes, sadly pining for a lost way of life that is Gone With the Wind. And let’s be frank – I certainly don’t hold up the south as some glorious, shining example of high culture or enlightenment. I am not proud of its bloody, racist history, it’s illiteracy, and it’s crazy ass religious fervor. And I’m sure as hell not complaining about living near Bagel Palace, or about having the world’s menu just outside my doorstep on Buford Highway. But, I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Being a Southerner often informs who I am in many parts of my life. I’m all for separation of church and state, but yet, I feel that I understand why Christians, and southern Christians in particular, feel persecuted. (I know I am gonna get reamed for this one, but i do sympathize with them.) It makes my blood boil when I read national articles about the American South that seem so misguided and ill-informed. I cringe at depictions of Southerner in film and on TV.
I often wonder if people from other regions feel that dire need to know where they came from, and to hold on to it’s ways of life. Why is that so important to me as a Southerner? Because it is vanishing? Because so many people would like to see it change? Is it because my brother-in-law thinks that my sister and I aren’t really Southern because we grew up in Atlanta? It is true. I don’t have longstanding roots in Atlanta. Daddy left Savannah, and Mama left Chattanooga. I didn’t live in some house, much less town, that all four of my grandparents lived in, and their parents, too. And sometimes I wonder if I am missing a piece of the puzzle that truly does make one Southern.
But I know, too, that some things are intangible, and that you can take a girl out of a place, but she is still a product of those who raised her, and the places that informed them. I guess I just want to hold on to who I am, and where I came from. That “where” might not even be a geographical place as much as an attitude, and a deference for certain ways that things ought to be done. And I want some of those same things that make me Southern to inform my children – I want them to be proud of where they came from, to have a deeper understanding of their backgrounds than what they see in media.
And damn it, I want them to write Thank You notes, love friend green tomatoes and boiled peanut, and say “Yes M’am,” and “Jinx, you owe me a Coke!”
Course, my Grandma probably wished that I would say, “Co’Cola.”
So, where are you from? Coke, Pop, or Soda? And what baseball team do you pull for? I’m genuinely curious.
She just sat down with her fluffy feather pen and said, “Mama? How do you spell ‘adventures?'”
The AJC (Atlanta Journal Consitution, for those who don’t live in Atlanta) is reporting that the recent Dekalb County Schools fiscal audit shows evidence of wrongdoing: DeKalb school audit shows office cuts not made.
I know. I complain a lot about the ineptitude of our county school administration and the majority of those serving on our Board of Education. But this last one is just ludicrous, and frankly, I’m taking the side KPMG (who performed the forensic audit) over the word of these bozos running the show at Dekalb County School District.
That’s just the thing, though, isn’t it? They aren’t cute clowns, committing small cute misdemeanors. Make no mistake about it – These people are criminals. They stole 49 Million dollars from Dekalb County taxpayers over a 2 year period. $49,000,000. That’s SIX (6!!!) zeros, people. When is Dekalb County, all of Dekalb County, going to stand up and protest the fact that this continues to be unaddressed by our county prosecutors? Our state prosecutors? At what point do we as taxpayers stand up for the children of the county, and for ourselves, and say enough is enough?
I was a late bloomer. No, I don’t mean one day i went from ugly duckling to beautiful swan. . . I mean I didn’t get my period until I was 13. Late 13. Like, only two months until my 14th birthday. Other girls I knew I had gotten theirs in some cases years before me. I thought I was a freak. I still played Barbies with my little sister sometimes.
Other girls started getting theirs in middle school, mostly in 6th or 7th grade, as I recall, although I do also recall one unfortunate girl who started hers in 5th grade wearing light-colored pants. I didn’t know until later what had even happened to her; I just thought she was, like, really sick. She also started growing boobs – the Holy Grail of puberty. I kept on waiting and waiting on those. Nothing, not even in college. I never got those until i graduated college, got a job, and started driving everywhere instead of walking or riding a bike. I gained weight, and now I have fat boobs, which are not the same thing as real, honest-to-goodness puberty boobs.
Not long after the girl-in-5th-grade-red bottom/white pants mystery illness occurred, my mom handed me a book that she said was from the doctor. It was brown, paperback, not very thick, and for the life of me, I cannot remember the name of it. I wish I could, because it actually explained just about everything to me about intercourse. It was something along the lines of “Everything a 12-Year-Old Should Know About Puberty” or something like that. To this day, I have not discussed sex much with my mom. As a straight female, I do not remember that book having anything about homosexuality in it. I doubt it did. Today, I assume there are books that explain all of that, and if there aren’t my kids have been raised in such a way that they would probably ask why not? At the time, that didn’t bother me – I was more concerned with the fact that it had no photographs, only drawings. So, i still had no idea what a penis looked like. NO IDEA. Boy, was I in for a rude awakening when I finally saw one. I mean, the drawings were pretty detailed, but still.
I digress. This is about my period. The one I didn’t get until I was almost fourteen. Oh. Did I mention it finally came on Thanksgiving day, 1985? Oh, did I miss that little detail?
Thanksgivings growing up were pretty much all the same time. A few days before, my mom and sister and I would drive up to get Grandma Smith from Chattanooga, or she might hitch a ride down with someone in the family coming our way. Sometimes, she took the Greyhound bus. I still remember going to pick her up at the greyhound station in downtown Atlanta. This was when parents still seemed nervous about going downtown. “You know, it isn’t safe.” I’m not sure what Grandma did on those bus trips, but I remember you could smoke on the buses, i think, so she definitely smoked, and knowing her, she probably had a bottle of Early Times or Old Crow in her pocketbook. If I recall correctly – because I didn’t drink then, so didn’t take much notice – Grandma did not need mixers. She and Aunt Dot both had a predilection for making friends with fencepost, no matter how sketchy said fencepost might be, and so I can only imagine that she probably ended up smoking and drinking on that Greyhound bus, and was probably three sheets to the wind by the time she got off the bus at the Atlanta station at 11:00 am.
So, Grandma Smith was already usually with us, and Grandma and Pop would usually drive up the day before or day of Thanksgiving. (I think at that point, they usually came the day before.) That little truck would pull in the driveway, and out would jump chaos. My Grandma Palmer’s hugs were not for the faint of heart. She would hop out, and run right over to you, give a “hooo-WEEE!” (I will have to recreate this sound for you in person for you to get the full effect.) And then she’d hug you so hard you thought your eyes were gonna pop out, and god help you if you’d just eaten. While hugging you, she’d lay a big, long, loud kiss on your cheek and then you’d have to remember to wipe the lipstick (grandma always meticulously applied and reapplied her bright red or pink lipstick) off later, because Mama and Daddy said it wasn’t polite to wipe it in front of her. I remember being excited to see them all, but perhaps a little too cool for school by the time I was 13 or so. I was probably plotting how I could eat and then get out to play with Karen next door as soon as possible. At that age, we were pretty much inseparable.
So, this is not a woe-is-me post. Just thinking about how hard it is to be a parent whether you stay at home or not, but also how different the stay at home vs. going to work experiences are. I’ve done both. Both are so hard, but for very different reasons.
This is the first year that we didn’t even attempt to finish Literary Guild. For those who don’t know what Lit Guild is, it’s basically a voluntary reading group at school. (Unlike Accelerated Reader, which is required.) Literary Guild gives a reading list for every grade to the kids who sign up for it, and the kids have all year to read the books on the list. They have to take a test on each book to prove they’ve read it.
There are categories of books to read. You might have to read two Dr. Seuss books, or two Caldecott winners, or a biography, etc. The purpose behind the program, a noble purpose,is to introduce young readers to books they might not usually pick up. There are also different difficulty levels, (indicated by the numbers) to challenge readers. Personally, i found that for my kids, who are strong readers, that these books weren’t very challenging, but I did feel that they were still learning about new ideas and worlds they hadn’t read about before, so I didn’t really have a problem with that. I mean, I didn’t exactly find Twilight a challenging read, but I enjoyed the hell out of it.
Literary guild books are in the school library and in the county library. It doesn’t cost anything. But kids can only check out books from the school library at certain times during the week, and before or after school (7am -7:50 or 2:20 to about 3pm.) A parent can take their child to the county library to check out books (and can put those books on hold) during public library hours.
So, if you are a stay at home mom, you can take your kids before or after school to check out books.
1st GRADE LEVEL (Blue) 2012-2013 – Evansdale Literary Guild
Italicized Books are in the school library only. 1 updated 8/26/2012
Authors – Brett: Select One:
Annie and the Wild Animals (2.7)
Comet’s Nine Lives (4.0)
Gingerbread Baby (3.5)
Hat (2.6)
Hedgie’s Surprise (3.5)
Town Mouse, Country Mouse (4.0)
Authors – Henkes: Select One:
Birds (2.1)
Chester’s Way (3.4)
Chrysanthemum (3.3)
Julius, the Baby of the World (3.0)
Lilly’s Big Day (3.6)
Old Bear (2.1)
Owen (2.4)
Weekend with Wendell (2.7)
Authors – Hoff: Select One:
Bernard on His Own (2.8)
Captain Cat (2.2)
Chester (1.9)
Danny and the Dinosaur (2.3)
Horse in Harry’s Room (2.3)
Mrs. Brice’s Mice (2.3)
Oliver (2.1)
Sammy the Seal (2.0)
Authors – Keats: Select One:
Apt. 3 (2.6)
Dreams (1.5)
Goggles! (1.8)
John Henry: an American Legend (3.4)
Letter to Amy (2.4)
Peter’s Chair (1.8)
Snowy Day (2.5)
Whistle for Willie (2.5)
Authors – Mollel: Select One.
Big Boy (3.3)
My Rows and Piles of Coins (3.8)
Orphan Boy (3.9)
Rhinos for Lunch and Elephants for Supper! (3.8)
Subira Subira (3.9)
To Dinner, For Dinner (4.0)
Authors – Munsch: Select One:
Alligator Baby (3.3)
Love You Forever (3.4)
Moira’s Birthday (2.0)
More Pies (3.2)
Mortimer (3.3)
Paper Bag Princess (3.8)
Up, Up, Down (2.1)
Authors – Seuss: Select One:
Bartholomew and the Oobleck (3.2)
Cat in the Hat (2.1)
Cat in the Hat Comes Back (2.1)
Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book (4.0)
Fox in Socks (2.1)
Green Eggs and Ham (1.5)
Horton Hears a Who! (3.3)
If I Ran the Circus (3.9)
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (1.7)
Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories (3.3)
Authors – Steig: Select One:
Amazing Bone (3.9)
Brave Irene (3.9)
Doctor De Soto (3.6)
Shrek! (3.9))
Toby, Where Are You? (0.8)
Toby, Who Are You? (1.9)
When Everybody Wore A Hat (2.7)
Authors – Willems: Select One:
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (0.9)
Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay up Late! (1.1)
Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was
Extinct (2.5)
Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale (1.6)
Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity
(2.4)
Leonardo, the Terrible Monster (2.3)
Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed (2.8)
1st GRADE LEVEL (Blue) 2012-2013 – Evansdale Literary Guild
Italicized Books are in the school library only. 2 updated 8/26/2012
Biography: Select One:
Abe Lincoln’s Hat (2.6) Brenner
Flag for Our Country (3.3) Spencer
Happy Birthday, America (2.8) Osborne
How Many Days To America? A Thanksgiving
Story (3.1) Bunting
Martin’s Big Words (3.4) Rappaport
Picture Book of Helen Keller (3.5) Adler
Story of Johnny Appleseed (3.9) Aliki
What If You’d Been at Jamestown? (2.8) Keller
Caldecott Medals and Honors: Select Three:
Arrow to the Sun (2.7) McDermott
Child’s Calendar (3.6) Updike
Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type (2.3) Cronin
Coming on Home Soon (2.9) Woodson
Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever (3.4)
Frazee
Ella Sarah Gets Dressed (2.6) Chodos-Irvine.
Glorious Flight (2.6) Provensen
Hey Al (2.1) Yorinks
Hondo & Fabian (1.2) McCarty
Joseph Had a Little Overcoat (1.7) Taback
Just Me (2.6) Ets
Kitten’s First Full Moon (2.3) Henkes
May I Bring a Friend? (2.7) de Regniers
The Spider and the Fly (4.8) Howitt
Stray Dog (1.7.) Simont
When Sophie Gets Angry—Really, Really, Angry
(1.4) Bang
Zen Shorts (2.9) Muth
Classic Animal Stories: Select Two:
Bear Feels Scared (2.3) Wilson
Curious George Visits the Zoo (2.6) Rey
Elmer (3.2) McKee
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (2.7) Numeroff
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (4.6) Waber
Olivia (2.0) Falconer
Once Upon a Banana Armstrong
Oscar Otter (2.6) Benchley
Rainbow Fish (3.3) Pfister
Stanley’s Party (2.7) Bailey
Story of Little Babaji (3.9) Bannerman
Turkey for Thanksgiving (2.5) Bunting
Verdi (3.4) Cannon
Very Hungry Caterpillar (2.9) Carle
Wemberly Worried (2.7) Henkes
Widget (1.5) McFarland
Who is Coming? (0.6) McKissack
Classic Children’s Literature: Select One:
Boxcar Children (3.9) Warner
Caps For Sale (3.1) Slobodkina
Corduroy (3.5) Freeman
Guess How Much I Love You (2.8) McBratney
Little Engine That Could (3.5) Piper
Madeline (3.1) Bemelmans
Teeny Tiny Woman (2.4) O’Connor
There’s an Alligator Under My Bed (2.1) Mayer
There’s a Nightmare in My Closet (2.3) Mayer
Family and Friendship: Select Two:
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good,
Very Bad Day (3.7) Viorst
Angel Baby (1.5) Cummings
Bedtime For Frances (2.7) Hoban
Bink and Gollie (2.5) DiCamillo
Fly Away Home (2.7) Bunting
Freckle Juice (3.1) Blume
Frog and Toad are Friends (2.9) Lobel
Gus And Grandpa (2.5) Mills
Horrible Harry In Room 2B (3.2) Kline
Ira Sleeps Over (2.2) Waber
Jazz Baby (1.2) Wheeler
Ling & Ting: Not Exactly the Same! (1.8) Lin
Littles (3.3) Peterson
Milton the Early Riser (1.2) Kraus
New Shoes for Silvia (2.8) Hurwitz
Night Tree (3.3) Bunting
Play Ball, Amelia Bedelia (2.3) Parish
Ruby in Her Own Time (2.1) Emmett
1st GRADE LEVEL (Blue) 2012-2013 – Evansdale Literary Guild
Italicized Books are in the school library only. 3 updated 8/26/2012
Folk And Fairy Tales: Select Two:
And The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon (2.6)
Stevens/Crummel
Beware of the Bears! (3.0) MacDonald
Boy Who Cried Wolf! (2.8) Schecter
Goldilocks and the Three Bears (3.1) Marshall
Humpty Dumpty Egg-Splodes (2.9) O’Malley
Just in Case: A Trickster Tale and Spanish Alphabet
Book (2.3) Morales
Owl and the Pussycat (2.5) Lear
Red Riding Hood (3.2) Marshall
Three Billy Goats Gruff (3.0) Galdone
Tortoise and the Hare (3.4) Stevens.
True Story of the 3 Little Pigs (3.0)
Scieszka
General Fiction: Select Two:
Dear Mrs. Larue: Letters From Obedience School
(3.6) Teague
Dinosaurs Before Dark (2.6) Osborne
Dinosaur Garden (0.7) Donnelly
Do You Know What I’ll Do? ( 1.9) Zolotow
Emily’s Art (2.7) Catalanotto
Fire Truck (1.8) Sis
Flower Garden (2.2) Bunting
Good Night, Good Knight (2.1) Thomas
Hooway For Wodney Wat (3.1) Lester
How to Heal a Broken Wing Graham
Hurricane City (3.3) Weeks
Komodo! (1.8) Sis
Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of
Anything (3.5) Williams
Lucy’s Picture ( 2.9) Moon
Magic Pumpkin (3.0) Martin/Archambault
Stinky (1.5) Davis
When the Wind Stops (3.2) Zolotow
Science and Nature: Select Two:
Bears Are Curious (2.1) Milton
Biggest, Strongest, Fastest (2.3) Jenkins
Dinosaur Babies (2.1) Penner
Dinosaur Days (2.6) Milton
Dolphins! (2.8) Bokoske
Emperor Lays An Egg (4.0) Guiberson
Fireflies! (3.2) Brinckloe
Fossils Tell Of Long Ago (3.6) Aliki
Hello, Bumblebee Bat (1.9) Lunde
Hungry, Hungry Sharks (2.8) Cole
Quicksand Book (2.8) De Paola
Red-Eyed Tree Frog (1.3) Cowley
Vulture View (1.1) Sayre
Whales: The Gentle Giants (2.8) Milton
What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? (3.0)
Jenkins
Yearly Georgia Children’s Picture Storybook
Award Nominees: Select Any Two:
2009
I Ain’t Gonna Paint No More! Beaumont
Papá and Me (1.7) Dorros
Mr. George Baker (2.5) Hest
Til the Cows Come Home (4.3) Icenoggle
Thanks to the Animals (3.1) Sockabasin
2010
Chicken-Chasing Queen of Lamar County (2.6)
Harrington
Little Mamá Forgets (3.6) Cruise
One Green Apple (2.6) Bunting
Ten-Gallon Bart (2.3) Crummel
Visitor for Bear (2.7) Becker
2011
Big Red Lollipop (2.2) Khan
Incredible Book Eating Boy (2.8) Jeffers
Interrupting Chicken (2.2) Stein
2012
Blue Chicken (1.2) Freedman
Planting the Wild Garden (2.0) Galbraith
Perfect Square (2.2) Hall
When a Dragon Moves In (3.3) Moore
I was totally going to go back and write posts about some of the great stuff that happened this year, but we know I am so longwinded that would never in a million years take place, so here is a bit of recap, more for my old forgetful mind to look back at one day, and to assuage my guilt because I used to write so often and i never do and my kids are gonna wonder why all the writing and then all of a sudden sporadic missives from the Hatch during their late elementary years. But mostly because I hate to forget one wonderful second I spent with my family, or any one of those moments where I thought to myself, i have to remember this bit of right now forever.
I haven’t really seen that many Disney movies. I don’t even know the words to The Circle of Life. (I admit that I know a lot of the words, but not all, to Let It Go, but i have a 9 year old daughter. It is not by choice.)
1. Scooters
2. Heat
3. Food
4. Mickey to Mickey
5. Princesses
6. Scheduled to death.
7. The rooms.
8. The people that work there. They won’t break.
9. The rides – Just not that good
10. Buy buy buy – lightupflashy things
11. Football
Since I was a little girl, I’ve always been fascinated by historic tomboys and wild girls: 15-year old Annie Oakley beating men at shooting contests.
The outlaw Belle Star (“That ain’t no lady, that’s Belle Starr!)
wild girl Calamity Jane (best nickname ever?)
Sacagawea
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Harriet Tubman
Belle Boyd
Nancy Hart
Annie Taylor