wedding cakes

She made her own wedding cake in 1970, she was married in 1949.
Perhpas it wasn't tradition, or maybe they couldn't afford it, but Mom never had a wedding cake on her special day.
I have seen the pictures of the bridal party. Dad wore a suit...reminds me of a zoot suit, and mom also wore a suit...but hers was white.
She had on this cute little pillbox hat and carried some flowers.
Her arm is intertwined with dad's and she is radiant.
The bridesmaids also wore suits. They look oh so very 1940s...think of Bugle Boy of Company B, Frank Sanatra or perhaps some other old movie and there you have them.

Later on, when my Aunt A. expressed interest in taking a class in cake decorating mom went with her. Mom was the best cake baker around. No one could make a moister, sweeter, better tasting cake. So she carpooled with her sister and they went to a local high school and took lessons.

Her first cake was a basket cake. It had little wicker basket looking designs with sweet peas, roses and daisies on it.
Then came the fruit cake..with grapes, oranges, leaves and other things pouring out of another type of basket.

I can't remember the 3rd cake, or the 4th, but I do know that by the 5th cake we were very sick of cake. Dad quickly solved this problem by going to the local sewing store and buying a large piece of foam. He cut it in the shape of a large round cake and after that, mom iced it and took it to class with her. When she brought it home, it was beautifully decorated. Then she would scrape off the icing and wash the foam.
On one occasion the cake looked so beautiful that she wanted to take it to work with her. The people had been spoiled by her weekly cakes and missed them, so she took it to work...and presented it to her boss. I was not there to see his face when he tried to cut into a foam cake, but mom laughed about it for a long time and the boss proudly took the cake up to his boss and pulled the same joke on him.

The class went on for about 12 weeks and the last cake was the wedding cake.
Mom looked through books for a long time before she found "her wedding cake."
She decorated it and took it to class mostly finished...as it was the grand finale and would take too long to do completely in class.

I think my aunt's cake won a prize that night. It didn't matter, you see mom made this cake out of her favorite recipe...and decorated it lovingly. She said it was the only wedding cake she would ever have and she loved it.

The next night, the kids gathered around while mom and dad cut their cake together.
It was a sweet moment.
Later my aunt went on to make wedding cakes as a sideline.
When I married, I looked through those same books and chose the flowers, colors and things I wanted on my cake and my aunt made it for me as a wedding present.
It was white with yellow daisies. I have always loved daisies.

Cake baking and decorating is not something I inherited from my mother. I can sew, I can do hand crafts, I can paint or draw, but I have a real difficult time making my cakes come out the same way her's did...and the one time I tried to decorate, well it was not the prettiest cake although it did recieve a lot of remarks...I would not say they were compliments...more tolerant "at least you tried" type of things.

When I remember moma, I remember her cakes. I remember her creativity, her laughter and her smile.

Moma

She skipped school on Thursdays. Thursdays were laundry days and with 11 people in the family there was a lot of laundry. Each child had different chores assigned to them and she was given laundry. It was an old hand crank washer and the dryer was a clothes line, so naturally it took her the entire day. There was no time for school...not on Thursdays.
Yet moma was a gifted student. When she was old enough to enter school, her mom kept her home an extra year. She was never sure why, except that she was very close to her mom and perhaps Sitta just wanted her with her.
The Nun's at the school recognized her intelligence. They asked her how old she was, but birthdays were not important in the early 30s and moma didn't know her age.
Without this knowledge the good Sister was not able to put her up a grade as she had hoped, but she did give her extra work to challenge her.
When it came time to sign report cards, she signed her own. Her mother could not read very well, having only completed 3rd grade. English was her 2nd language. She had come to America years before with her father so she depended on Katherine to help her with things like report cards and other school matters.

I remember looking at her feet when I was a little girl. Mama's feet were old and worn way before she was 30. She told me that the family could not afford shoes during the depression so she went barefoot around the house and saved the shoes for school. The ones she wore were hand me down shoes that were too small for her feet. They hurt her as she walked to Kirby Smith Jr. High school. As a result her toes overlapped and were permanently cramped looking. At night when she watched tv, sometimes those poor old feet would cramp up and hurt her, but she didn't complain.
Moma was never a complainer.

Moma was brilliant. Although she missed one day of school a week, she finished 3rd in her high school class and went on to become a bookkeeper. She could add up figures in her head faster than the clerk could enter them into the old fashioned cash register and if the clerk made an error, she was sure to notice and have her correct it. Perhaps it was her natural ability with numbers or it might have been the years she helped out in her father's store.

Moma also had a temper, although her children rarely saw it. Her older sister once told me that when they were playing jacks, mother lost the game. I don't know how old she was at the time, but her sister insisted that Katherine leaned over and bite her on the nose when she lost the game. Moma denied the story.

I loved moma's family. There were eight daughters and moma was number 5. The oldest sister was one of my favorites. She had a lovely laugh and funny sense of humor. Moma said that this sister (I will call Rose) helped to raise her. She said that Rose raised her and the next sister (I will call Susan) helped raised the 3rd. sister...(Beebee) Then Moma helped raise sister number 6 (Margie) and Beebee helped raise sister number 7, (Deedee). Then Moma and Margie helped raise (Annie) and Beebee and Susan helped raise (Nettie). I thought about this for a long time and came to the conclusion that my favorite sisters were the ones that Rose and Mom helped raise...Margie and Annie. They were the fun sisters....full of smiles, laughter and personality. The other sisters were more serious and less likely to laugh or tell a funny story. If you were wondering what happened to child number 4...well he was a boy. He didn't have to help raise anyone.

The funny thing is that the oldest sister and my mom were very close. Rose had a hardy laugh and a big smile. She used to tease my dad and curse at him in Lebanese.
I thought it was great fun. Years later I learned that Rose didn't like my dad very much and dad didn't really care for Rose. They got on each other's nerves. Well if they didn't get along well, then they hide it well. Over the years the two sisters spent a lot of time together. When Rose's husband died, mom and dad spent almost every weekend with Rose. They would go play Bingo or out to dinner. One of my favorite memories was staying with my cousin while her mother and my parents went out for the night. Rose was the first sister to pass away from this life.
She is buried near my mother's grave, so when I go to bring mom fresh flowers I always walk over to Aunt Rose and bring her some too.

Then I walk over to where my grandparents are buried. Their plot is under a large oak tree. You can see the graves from the street. When I was a little girl, sometimes dad would take the back way to town to avoid traffic. This took us past the cemetary. I would always look out of the window and search for their graves.
When my mom passed away, her remaining sisters mentioned something about Rose and their parents being buried around there "somewhere". I showed them the way to both graves....not sure why I was the only one who knew. That day I decided to become the official grave keeper and once a year my husband and I go and wash the stones, rake the area and plant new flowers.

In the fall, when the weather cools I will return to the cemetary and replace the old faded silk flowers with fresh fall colors. On that day I will visit 13 graves of family members on my husband's and my side. I will place flowers on all of the graves, brush away the cobwebs, pick up any broken tree branches and move on to the next person....but on one grave I will linger longer, remembering the little girl who walked to school in ill fitting shoes, who calculated faster than the cash register,
who baked the best cakes in the world, and who crocheted every new baby his/her own blanket...and thought far enough ahead to make two blankets for yet unborn grandchildren..one of the blankets given to my daughter as a wedding present long after cancer had stilled her worn hands. I will pause...and I will remember moma.

The fishing trip

The hurricane that rushed through Florida had destroyed many of the homes and businesses on the coast of North Florida. Great open beaches with white sand dunes, sea oats and occasional palm tree was all that was left of my parents favorite beach.

A large concrete slab that had once been a building was cracked and bulking. From the back an old pipe sprouted sulfer water from what must have once been the businesses well. Creative people had taken bolders, brick and other items and created a natural freshwater pool with little steps that allowed one to wade into the pool. The "pool" lay about 50 feet from the hot sandy beach in Ponte Vedra Florida.

There, isolated from the rest of the world, my parents took their little family for the bi monthly summer fishing trip. Only a few other people knew of the spot, so my brother and I had the beach to ourselves. We had only to watch out for the occasional fishining line.

This particular day dad had stopped by Pic N Save (a local drug store)and purchased two styrofoam surf boards. Jack's was a large white board and mine was a smaller brown board. While my parents fished and Donna remained safe next to my mom in about 6 inches of water, my brother and I went out to catch the waves. The board was not strong enough for us to try to stand on like the guys we saw on TV, but it was perfect for body surfing.
I so remember the routine....hold the board to an angle, wade out as far as you could, put the board in front of you, paddle out a little more, then turn your back, lie on the board and wait. In only a moment a wave large enough to carry you to shore would appear. High into the air, the light board lifted..and then zoom, you were flying! Moments later, standing in knee deep water, you picked the board up and did it all over again. Now and then....if you were not careful, you caught a rough one, and had to hold onto your bathing suit bottoms to keep them on....oh what fun.
Donna would never venture into the water. I thought she was chicken. My brother called her chicken of the sea...after the tuna brand. As I look back on it now, it was probably because she was very small. Three years younger than I was, she was not yet ready to go surfing. Playing in the shallows, building sand castles and staying close to mom was about as adventursome as she would get at that age.

I loved the beach. I loved the surf and the sand. I loved the large faded blanket my mom threw on the sand and the dining tarp my father rigged to keep the sun off of us while we were eating. I loved the Vienna Sausages mom would pry out of the can and the taste of saltine crackers with potted meat. I even liked the sardines we brought for dad...just as long as they were buried between two crackers.

After lunch we would build sand castles with my sister or play on the sand dunes with my brother. He was a pirate and I was a princess. Sometimes he would rescue me from the evil pirates..and sometimes he would capture me and hold me prisoner underneat the hanging seaoats and other plants that created a small cave at the base of the sanddunes. There, watching the tide roll in I would braid sea oats into my hair, collect sand dollars and pretend that I really was a princess...or a mermaid.

I loved the ice cold grape Shasta drinks mom bought from Pic N Save. They were 10 for a dollar in those days, so mom let us pick our favorite. Mine was grape and creme soda. I always had the grape for lunch and saved the creme soda for the trip home.

I love watching the fish swim in the large cooler of salt water, building sand castles using the empty Vienna Sausage cans and falling asleep in the back seat of the car on top of my brother as we drove home.

But my favorite part was the outdoor bath in the fresh water pool. Mom always brought soap and shampoo and we bathed in the pool, put on fresh clothes and were able to ride home comfortable.

As I look back on those days I am sure it was not too long before someone capped off the end of the well and rebuilt the business into a hotel or home. The beaches are private and the public ones are crowded with people on most days in the summer....
but I can not step out onto a beach, squish my feet into the shallow water and sand, smell the salt air or taste a Vienna Sausage without thinking about a less crowded, simpler time when everything was good, life was easy and I was Princess of the sand dunes with sea oats woven into my hair.

The Dog

He lived on the porch of the "haunted" house by the park. An old tumbled down sort of place with live oak trees that shaded the yard and moss that covered the limbs of the trees, dripping onto the tin roof. The painted on the porch had blistered and peeled away leaving shades of green and blue under the white paint. The porch itself was lop sided, leaning to the left. In the middle, sitting with its massive head dutifully watching every passerby was "the dog."

None of the children knew "the dog's" name, only that he was a killer. Large and as mean as a moma bear, the dog kept watch as the children crossed the street as they neared the sidewalk near his house. Seldom was he not on guard duty.

I had never been to the park before. It was several blocks away and in my 6 year old dream world, I didn't know much anything existed outside of the three houses on my side of the street, "the Little store" across the street and perhaps the house next door to it. For me, a long drive meant going to grandma's house or picking up dad from work. A treat meant going grocery shopping with mom and grandma or visiting one of my cousins. A park? Too far away from my little girl world.. in that summer before 1st grade when my world was still small.

Linda, the hero of my childhood, was allowed to take us to the park this particular day. Not too assured that we could "keep Up" with the teenagers, Linda's mom, Aunt Faye (in that typical southern style of calling every adult female "aunt") dropped all of us off at the park and drove the 4 blocks back to the house. There we spent an hour or so swinging on swings, riding the spinner, watching boys play basketball and having a wonderful time.

Then came the walk home...passed killer's house.

I remember eating an icecream cone. I don't know where it came from. Perhpas the icecream man came by and my mother had given Linda money for a treat. Perhaps Linda treated us herself or the ice cream man took pity on us walking in the hot Florida sun. All I know is that I was in heaven, eating ice cream and walking on the sidewalk, trying not to step on a crack. Totally unaware of foreign dogs that would "bite your head off" or any other problems, I watched the feet of my much older friends and trusted that they knew the way home.

Then we came to "the house."
As we approached, Linda picked up my 4 year old sister. She whispered to the other children, "He is on the porch."
My eyes opened. "Who is on the porch?" I thought. "Which porch?" Looking at the rows a shotgun style houses.
We walked slowly towards the house.
"If I give the word, then run as fast as you can." She said. "Don't look back, just run."
I don't know what happened after that. Did the dog growl? Did it make threatening movements? Did it appear as if it were going to come across the street and chase 6 children? Where was its owner? Why wasn't it on a chain?

All I know is that Linda gave the word. "Run!!"
I held my ice cream as tight as I could and began to run. Short legs on cracked sidewalk. The sidewalk ended. We ran across a field of grass almost as tall as I was. My head and shoulders barely appeared over the grass and all I could see was my friend's back. My heart was racing. My black patten leather shoe came off.
I tripped and my ice cream flew from my hand. The world disappeared in a tall grove of grass.

To my left, I could hear the dog. He ran right past me. I could see him large body as he went by. I didn't know what to do, so I lay there for a moment and waited.
After a moment or two, Linda's form appeared above me. She helped me stand up. I looked around. The dog was gone. She took my hand and lead me to a lady's porch.
The old woman was sitting in a rocking chair talking to the other children.
"Never run from a dog." She was saying. "It just makes them chase you. If you need help, go up onto someone's porch. Dog won't follow you up here."

I listed to her words of wisdom as Linda brushed off my clothes, then we all went back to the field to searh for my missing shoe. I told them the "dog ran right passed me" and their eyes got large. They told me I was a brave little girl. Truth was I was a scared little girl...scared of large unknown dogs, not finding my way back home, having to walk with only one shoe, and losing my ice cream cone.

It would be years before I ventured back to the park. My teen friends soon found other adventures that didn't include little girls as they entered high school. My world would open up and new characters would join the story...but for that one summer, that last summer before I started school, life consisted of 1/2 a block of Lawton Ave, peanut butter sandwhiches and frozen Kool-Aide climbing through the open window of Linda's house, playing school in her 1/2 finished garage, climbing trees, drawing hop scotch on the sidewalk and an occassional run down a slip N slide.

RC Cola

R.C. Cola, don't remember the taste, but I remember the bottle caps. Why? They opened a magic door to a world I had not yet taken a step..the movie theater.

The summer I was six, just before entering first grade, my next door neighbor came over and asked my mom if they could take me and my older brother to the movies. Linda was 14 and she had a group of neighborhood friends that were going to the free movies...that is they were free if you collected enough bottle caps. Linda was an interesting girl. Ready to start high school, yet not too old to play with the little girl next door. At that time in my life, she was my hero..someone I wanted to be like when I entered that magic world of the teenage.
At six, I was content to peek into her world, and on this particular day, she invited me to join her and 3 of her friends, her sister and my older brother to a trip to the movie theater.

All we had to do was collect bottle caps for RC Cola. AT that time I didn't know what RC Cola was and I knew we didn't drink it, but we were told all we had to do was ask Mrs. Cotton and she would let us have as many bottle caps as we wanted.
So that afternoon I went across the street to "The Little Store" and Mrs. Cotton took the bottle cap collector off of the side of the cooler and dumped them onto a newspaper. We went though them and collected 21 RC Cola bottle caps.

My mom washed them. (go figure) I spent the rest of the afternoon stacking them into pryamid shapes, mini castles and other designs. I thought they were great fun.
Then on the appointed day, the caps were placed in a paper bag and one of the moms dropped us off at the movies. Now I don't really remember what was showing. I don't remember if we were really parent free and trusted into the hands of 4 teens or if one of the parents came along. All I remember is that it was my first movie and I thought it was great fun.

Picture a large darkened room with dark green cloth covered seats, air conditioning and music playing. Hundreds of children hustled around the room eating popcorn and drinking soda. The theater had a stage in front with long green velvet curtains that hung in front of the screen. After we found our seats, a man in a red suit and little cap pushed a cart down the aisle and handed out free popcorn, hotdogs and soda. Then just before the movie started, a man began calling numbers from the other half of the ticket stub. One of the numbers was on my ticket! Linda held my hand and I went up to collect my prize. It was a 45 record of some popular song. Linda thought it was a great prize. I had not yet discovered music. The only songs I knew where those my dad played on the record player or listened to on the old car radio, always tuned to county. Music to me was Marty Robbins.

When I got home that afternoon, we played the record. I don't remember liking it very much...but I loved the record itself. It was the first thing I had ever won.
I carried it around every where I went, even if we went to the store.
One afternoon I took it with me to go pick up my dad from work. I must have gotten distracted or the novelty of the record had begun to wear off, because I forgot it on the back shelf of the car. A few days later when I was helping my dad clean the car I found it....warped, melted, changed into some strange shape. I wad sad, but fascinated that such a heavy plastic thing could melt.

I remember Linda asking me about that record a few weeks later. I told her what happened and she said "too bad, it was a nice song." It was? I don't think I played after the first day. To me it was a symbol of a different world that I was connected to..but not yet a part of. It was a grown up world with movies, music, raffle drawings and activities that didn't involve parents. A world that I was not ready to step into at age 6...but now knew existed.

Cotton's Store

Yesterday's thunder storm brought back an old memory.
The year was 1962. Small family own stores were still a staple in many areas.
Across the street from our home, was a one room store, about the size of today's family room. Picture two large windows filled with simple toys and books. Under the window were green wooden benches with the paint chipping off showing the previous coat of white underneath. The front door to the store was always open and there was a screen door that flopped shut after you walked into the building.
Two large ceiling fans made soft humming noises.
To the right, when you walked in the door was the jewelry counter. An arrangement of "less than $10 jewlery was arranged on faded velvet material.
As a child, I skipped that counter and walked straight to the 2nd counter...the penny candy. Here was an arrangement of the best candy around. Tootsie Rolls, 2 for 1 cents, suckers, candy cigerretts, sixlets, licore sticks, malt balls and of course miniture sugar daddies...but my favorite was the candy lipstick. Do you remember? It kind of tasted like wax, which reminds me of the little wax coke bottles filled with ???what was that stuff anyway? You bit off the end and gulped it down then chewed the way or made it into a small wax ball and threw it at your brother.
The the left, opposite the candy counter were two old fashioned refrigerator freezers. Not the upright glass kind you see in most gas stations, but the red rectangle models with the top that lifted up and the bottle opener on the side.
One contained sodas and the other ice cream on a stick...one of man's greatest inventions.
Our store was called "The Little Store" but everyone called it Cotton's after the people who owned it.
The Cottons were friendly people and knew all the customers by name.
When Mr. Cotton went on a buying trip and a storm came up, Mrs. Cotton would call my mom and she would dress us in our raincoats, get out the large umbrella and march us across the street. There we would sit inside the store on large wicker rocking chairs and listen to the thunder and rain hit the tin roof. Mrs. Cotton was afraid of storms but she didn't show it. She cheerfully let her little bird out of its cage and it would sit on top of her head. If I was really still, it might land on my shoulder but if I moved my head to look, it would fly back to its owner.

As a special treat, sometimes Mrs. Cotton would give us a soda. I always chose orange Nehi and my sister took grape. We would rock and talk and drink our soda...only down in the south it was always called "coke" no matter what flavor it was.
When I got older, I painted a picture of the little store. It was my first "real" painting and my mom rushed it across the street to show Mrs. Cotton. She loved it so much she wanted to keep it, so I signed the back and gave it to her.
I don't know what that first painting looked like quality wise, but I do remember her commenting that the side of the store was dark because it needed painting. So much for my attempts to show shadows. lol

When I go home to visit my parents, I look at the little store, now converted into the new owners family room. Mr. and Mrs. Cotton retired and moved down south shortly after I married. I heard they had passed away in the 1980s.

It is not the store I miss so much...as the time period. My kids can't run across the street into a neighborhood store and pop down a nickle coming home with five or six peices of candy depending on the kind. They won't have the opportunity to sit and listen to an afternoon thunderstorm and rain hitting a tin roof while hoping a bird would land on their shoulder. They won't even know the taste of an orange soda drank from a "glass" bottle, or the sound of the bottle top clinking down the metal container and landing on countless of other tops with a soft "plink". Or the smell...the sugary sweet, slighly metallic smell of a hundred bottle tops gathered in one place...or the opportunity to beg Mrs. Cotton for enough RC cola bottle tops to get into the movies for free. (tell you about that later)

Now when afternoon thunderstorms come up during the long hot summer, I turn off the lights (why did the electricity go off so much back then?) open the curtains, sit in my overstuffed rocker and watch the light show. I listen for the rain hitting the glass and I wish I had a pet canary flying around the room. In a way I do....but it flies around the corners of my mind.