Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color On!

I received a copy of this book by Shellie Rushing Tomlinsonas a gift from my mother-in-law, and my first response was “She thinks I’m fat?” (Incidentally, this same mother-in-law forwarded me an article with the subject line “Less than perfect moms need to unite.”) Needless to say, it took me a little while to crack the cover. When I did, what I found was as familiar and comforting as grits. If you don’t eat grits, sorry, Honey, this book probably isn’t for you.

Full of anecdotes, pithy sayings and mouth-watering (though not exactly low-fat) recipes, this book is sure to ring home with ‘most any “Belle”. Being born South of the Mason-Dixon line, most of the maxims herein were spoken in my direction at some point in my life, from “A lady doesn’t [insert admonition here]” to one reader’s contribution of “If God wanted you to have holes in your ears, he would have put them there!”  This book proves that nostalgia can be funny and uplifting without being overwhelming.A tidbit for your reading amusement:One summer day my friend John found an old man in our community named James Henry standing near the highway by the lake. The man was leaning against Mama Ruth’s car, sweating bullets in his khaki pants and huge white cowboy hat. Now John knew that his grandmother, known to the town as Mama Ruth, and James Henry weren’t sweethearts. (The butter had slipped too far off his biscuit for her liking.) But she considered him a good friend and quite handy.
John asked James Henry what he was doing. James Henry said Mama Ruth needed him to count the passing cars while she fished! Appalled, John marched down to the bank to confront his grandmother. He found Mama Ruth with a pole in one hand and a Mountain Dew in the other.
She offered a weak explanation, claiming that she was afraid the poor man would fall in the water. John observed that she hadn’t been too scared to let him bring down the ice chest, minnow bucket, tackle box, and coffee thermos! Busted!
Dressed to kill in her Bermuda shorts, sleeveless shirt, and baby-blue fishing hat with the white perch jigs, his grandmother came clean, “Honey, supposin’ a man wanted to stop and take me for a boat ride? Ya think he’d stop if he saw James Henry?”It’s worth noting: Mama Ruth was seventy-eight at the time, which is one of the most intriguing characteristics of the Southern belle. Even when the world can no longer see her charms, she’s always convinced the charm’s still there.

You can get a copy of this charming book here.

Happy Mother’s Day, all!

My own Southern mama’s most consistent catchphrase was, “Life is what you make of it.” Here’s to Southern moms, and moms everwhere!