I am a city girl at heart. I've never milked a cow never wanted to.
I was shocked when I attended my first "pig pickin" after my husband and I moved to North Carolina from Boston I had to avert my eyes from the huge pig skin and head still on, splayed open across an oil drum that had been sawed in half lengthwise and fitted with hinges so it opened and closed. This, I late learned, was called a "pig cooker Part of the pig's insides were chopped up i pan beside it and referred to as "barbecue." Seeing all of this did not improve my appetite.
" Y'all in thuh country now, gul" the host told me happily, apparently thrilled to be the one to indoctrinate me into country living.
When, at 8 months pregnant. I volunteered to chaperone my son's strawberry picking field trip, the other mothers looked at me strangely. I thought strawberries grew on tall bushes, not low to the ground. All that squatting sent me into early labor.
You should keep these incidents in mind in order to understand my attitude when I heard a huge hurricane was headed toward our town. I thought back to the snowstorms forecast during my days growing up in Philadelphia The 20 inche predicted by the weatherman never seemed to materialize.
The local newspaper ran a long checklist of things townspeople should get to prepare for the hurricane. My neighbor, Wayne, aware that I was new to town made a point of giving me a copy of the list. I took a cursory glance and thought nothing more of it.
while my neighbors were running around taping their windows, buying fresh batteries, and prepping their generators I was, quite literally. sitting in my glass house playing with the kids on the floor.
The rains started at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. To my amazement, this was exactly what the weatherman had predicted.
These were no ordinary rains, either. From my glass living room. I could no longer see the front lawn or the trees. The rain was a thick as a woolen curtain By nightfall, my husband's car had begun to float out of the driveway. The wate started insidiously creeping up our front steps, overturning potted plants and benches in its wake.
This is unbelievable!" I yelled. I reached for the phone to dial Wayne He had been born and raised in these parts; surely he would know what to do.