Home again...after an incredible week :)
And with a fresh case of "South Mouth"...as in
"Kin I hep yew?"
and
"Yes, mo ch'urry pah thankyew"
Waking up missing Angie and coffee and double-chocolate biscotti...BB and Ivy and REAL morning hugs.
Back into the box...~sigh~ Well, at least until her trip up in July...when we are plotting a fresh-water beach...build a bonfire on the sand...and collect driftwood and rocks...holiday together.
Through years of travels through Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida...it is amazing I didn't settle "Down South". I love the sunbaked clay changing from the reds of Georgia to the mustard/ocher yellows of Memphis and Mississippi...the humidity and heat...the "Plantation Magnolias" and Live Oaks...the music and the food (where else can you get barbecue piled high and topped with coleslaw with a side of deep fried pickles and a glass of sweet tea to wash it down...and yes a slice of "chawklit pah" to make the meal perfect)...the genuine hospitality...and realness of the people.
I may travel the World...but my heart lives firmly across the Mason-Dixon line.
This Spring spent checking out her new Cottage and studio and latest artistic endeavors...catching the film Life of Pi...building pizza and coffeecake from scratch together...and homemade Coke Blak...sipping Duplin and Scuppernong beneath a large Bougainvillea...plotting and planning our gardens...plundering probably the largest antique store I have ever seen...seriously you could pick an era, and completely redecorate and furnish your home from this place...walking in the park and checking out the log cabins...and an impromptu road-trip...generated by an old Bob Seger cover of Tina Turner's
"Nutbush City Limits"
And we found it!
And the best laid plans...of course.
(lyrics) Nutbush City Limits:
There's a church house- gin house
A little school house- outhouse
On highway number nineteen
The people keep the city clean
They call it Nutbush, oh Nutbush
They call it Nutbush City Limits
Twenty-five for speed limit
Motorcycles not allowed in it
No whiskey for sale
Can't find a female
Salt pork and molasses
Is all your gonna get if you land in jail
You better watch out
for the po-lice
If you're driving through Nutbush.
Keep an eye out for the po-lice
So after winding through the backroads...having already passed through Bucksnort, Tennessee...(I have seen Bucksnort...my traveling life is complete)...about an hour and a half out of Memphis...we found US-19...and at last Nutbush!
Laughing like fools because it seems Ms. Turner might of taken the whole town with her when she made her escape all those years back. Even the City Limits sign is gone. They did rename US-19 after her. One good sneeze and you would miss the entire town. Even the church-house was now abandoned (...a minor miracle in Tennessee...a State that has churches a lot like Nevada has casinos...) And an outhouse would have been a welcome sight...after 2 hours travel.
You could have driven a motorcycle, or 110 MPH for all it mattered...crushing our fantasies of possibly getting a speeding ticket in Nutbush. (...we would have framed it!)
Where the hell is a Tennessee State Trooper when you need him?
And since we were hoping to brunch in Nutbush...by one'o'clock even Salt Pork and Molasses were sounding good. Sadly, the jailhouse was as gone as the school-house and outhouse.
Lucky for us...Riley was just down the road where we drowned our dashed expectations in "pah" and "indoor plumbin' "and we (okay...I) requested Miss Emily read the entire "pah" list.
"...we gots chawklit...churry...cream..."
Just to listen to her South Mouth.
After a wedge of homemade Coconut Cream "pah" in a REAL flaky lard crust...we were feeling much better about the whole thing.
It was a Grand Adventure!
...just outside Nutbush...
And soon to be immortalized in oil!
