God Save the Sweet Potato Queens by Jill Conner Browne Read Free Book Online Page A

Middle-sized child had been talking, and overbearing grandmother had been interrupting regularly, with manners instructions and other things not at all pertinent to the child’s subject of conversation. Granny clearly wasn’t listening to him at all, so focused on her own nagging she was, until two words left his mouth upon which she pounced—if a fat old lady with a dour disposition can be said to pounce or even envisioned pouncing—like a swift duck on a dawdling June bug. “Willie Steve”—we do love double names down here—“how many times do I have to tell you, there ain’t no such words as
maters
and
taters!
It is toe-maters and poe-taters! You just sound like such a ignerint hick sometimes, I swannee.” Yes, doesn’t he, though? For those of you who are not blessed with Southern birth, there is a faction of folk down here who are so adamant against any word that might possibly be construed as cursing that they won’t even say “I swear.” This is, after all, the much-touted Bible Belt. But, as we all know, occasions arise all day every day that make it not only highly desirable to cuss but indeed next to impossible not to, and so they have come up with substitutes, fake cussin’s, like this one, “I swannee.” We have also heard “shoot a monkey,” “goldang it,” “fudge,” and, of course, “heckfire.” Somehow, I think, if God does really have an opinion on all this (and if He does, I think He’s just not got His priorities straight), He would care more about the spirit behind the words than the actual words themselves, and I just bet He knows the difference. But I have heard some of these folks so riled up that—shoot a monkey!—if they had the power to consign me to eternal heckfire, goldang it, they would, I swannee.
    Our main most Spud Stud, Malcolm White, founder of Mal’s St. Paddy’s Parade, has been struck down once again with a genius idea. You will kick yourself when you hear it—how could none of us have thought of it before? Well, he’s thought of it, and you can take advantage of it. You can buy, thanks to Malcolm, an actual Bible Belt suitable for wearing to church or honky-tonks or anywhere else! Go to www.biblebelts.net and goon these things. You’ve just
got
to have one, I swannee.
    One of the Queens, Tammy, said she knew a sour old prissy woman once who loved to preach table manners to everybody else in the world. One of her favorite maxims was “Mah grandmutha on my mutha’s si-i-i-ide always to-o-o-old me-e-e that wun shud nevah eet anything in its enti-i-i-irety.” How silly is that? What is the point of deliberately leaving something on your plate—even if you are starving slap to death and want to eat the painted flowers off the dish—to be polite? If you are not hungry, fine. If the food is rotten and you simply can’t choke down another bite of it, fine. But for appearance’s sake? Tammy had been to a hoity-toity fashion show where this woman had been the commentator. The remark that sent Tammy flying from the room was uttered to describe what we used to call a “housedress,” which we all thought had mercifully evolved out of existence: “This is just the thing to pop on when your yard man comes to the door.” But to get the full effect, you should hear it said like this: “Thiiis is juuuuust th’ thiiiing to pawp ah-own whin yoah yaaaaaahd ma-un cuuums to th’ do-ah.”
    This same woman was known for planting cookies behind doors to see if the maids were on their toes. When I heard this initially, I took it to mean she was hiding the cookies to keep the maids from eating them—a greedy, stingy sort of act. But no, she was hiding just a single cookie to see if the maids were doing their job properly, checking every nook and cranny for possible dirt. Of course, what she didn’t know is the maids told everybody in town she was crazy and did weird stuff with food. They were always finding cookies stashed in strange places and they didn’t dare