Milepost 7: Get Happy

“Great Granny Clarabelle’s Crystal Punchbowl & Matching Crystal Punch Cups, I”

charcoal & acrylic on canvas

30” x 30”

2019

“Boy, that’s HOT,” exclaims Christine. “Better have another sip of my wine!”

She’s drinking White Zinfandel in ice-filled stemware with a glass of ice on the side. Tonight’s vintage was poured from a bottle, but any other night of the week it could’ve been dispensed from a box, and that would’ve been just as fine.

“The little orange ones are hot, Sister! You don’t like those, remember?” 

Dutifully, Paula begins picking the small, orange, boomerang-shaped snacks from the bar mix and placing them on a cocktail napkin to avoid future burns. 

“If you say so,” answers Christine. 

Lara Lee and I make eye contact and smile at one another as Christine adds more ice to her wine glass and takes another sip. The waitress delivers a fresh beer for me, and Sadie orders fried mushrooms as an appetizer for the table, though, we all know the true fate of those mushrooms.

“I wish I liked beer,” says Christine. 

Paula jumps on her statement to say, “Sister, you say that every week, but you never try one.”

It’s true. Christine does say this every week, sometimes two or three times in one evening, but I don’t mind. I simply agree with her.

“I wish you liked beer too!” I say.

“I just never had a taste for it,” she says. 

“I understand. It’s just one of those things. You either like it or you don’t.”

“Your mama loved beer, especially Coors, way back when! There’s a picture of her in college somewhere in a Coors t-shirt,” Christine remembers aloud.

“I love that picture, and yes, Mama loved a cold beer. You know, she bought me my first one?”

“Did she?” Christine asks, unsurprised. 

“Yep, a Dixie Beer, down in New Orleans during a cooking class in the French Quarter somewhere.”

“How old were you?” Lara Lee asks.

“I think I was either 13 or 14, young either way, but you know New Orleans. I’d sneaked one long before then of course, but this was the first time I was given my very own to have and to hold from start to finish.”

“Oh I know all about New Orleans!” Christine chimes in. “Louis and I took our honeymoon there in ‘47. There’s a picture of us at the… at the… Hmm. I can’t think of it. Louis. Louis! Where was our honeymoon picture taken?”

Blinking away from the Saints game on the TV behind the bar, Louis returns to our Happy Hour chatter asking, “What babe?”

“Where was our picture taken on our honeymoon?”

“Oh. The Old Absinthe House in the French Quarter,” he says with a laugh and a smile.

“Oh that’s right. I knew that. ‘Have you seen the picture?’” she asks me and the girls.

“Oh, of course! It hung at Uncle Kenny’s house for years and years. We know it well. It’s that fine black and white photograph of y’all, newlyweds, young and happy in love.” 

“Oh that’s right. It did. That’s why we have it again. I forgot.” After a moment’s pause she adds, “Lord, I miss Kenny!”

The table chimes in, “Indeed!” “Always!” “Every day!”

Lara Lee says, “Someone should share a Kenny story. His are the best.”

Sadie, who has been preoccupied with the bar mix, the dinner menu, and her Diet Coke, echoes her sister’s request. 

“Yes! Tell a Kenny story!” catching us off guard.

None of us thought she was listening. That’s the thing. You can never be sure with Sadie. Sometimes you’re convinced you’re having a private conversation, only to find out later that she listened to every word and has penned that private information into a note and mailed it to the folks being discussed. We’ve all learned that the hard way.

I turn to Paula and say, “You really knew him best. Care to share? I don’t even mind if it’s one we’ve heard before.”

Paula giggles. “That rascal always was good for a laugh. Let me think.” 

This motley crew is all that remains of what was once a large circle of friends, family, and coworkers who gathered weekly for Happy Hour (or “Chapter Meeting” as they liked to call it). They’d congregate at their preferred watering hole, the bar at the local Ramada hotel, perched high on the Natchez bluffs above the Mississippi River, to commune and laugh off the stresses of the week over cocktails, and sometimes, when enough drinks were had, some dancing. 

“Let’s see. Well, no stories are coming to mind so much as his sayings. Lord! He had a saying for everything, like, instead of saying, ‘As it turns OUT,’ he would say, ‘As it turns IN,’ repeating what a tipsy friend had once said, you know, to keep you on your toes. He was a master at turning a phrase. Typical English teacher,” Paula says proudly, having taught Senior English with Kenny for nearly thirty years across the river at the high school.

“Well, it’s not a story, but I love how he held that lifetime grudge against that store owner downtown, the old-timey one on Main St. What was it called?” I ask the group. 

“Sister, do you remember?” Paula asks. 

In a moment of clarity Christine provides, “Do you mean Benoit’s?” 

“Exactly! “ Paula cheers, impressed with her sister’s ability to recall this detail. 

“Right. Well the owner once told Kenny’s mother that it looked like she’d left him on the vine too long.” 

“Oh God! He did! He did! I’d forgotten what that man had said,” Paula roars. 

“And Uncle Kenny later confessed to me that after Mr. Benoit made that comment about his size, he retaliated by changing the ladies’ bra display upon every return visit to the store. Covertly, he’d run around and dent in all the cups of all the bras just to create extra work for ‘that mean old bastard, Mr. Benoit.’” 

The table chuckles. 

“I love that, “ laughs Lara Lee. “I would have done the same.” 

Sadie cackles at the mention of bras as she flips her dinner menu over to view the entrées. 

“That man was a ham! Louis, do you know any Kenny stories?” Christine asks. “Louis!” 

Louis peels himself away from the Saints game again. “Kenny stories? Not right off. Faye used to call him the funniest white man alive.” 

He motions to the bartender for another vodka on the rocks with an olive, turning his attention back to the Saints. They’re behind by three and just missed a field goal. 

“Everyone thought so, especially our little circle of friends, Faye, Gebby, Mare...” 

Paula trails off and looks down into her cocktail. She rolls the cocktail straws that accompanied her drinks back and forth along the surface of the table. This is her insurance policy in case an extra drink mysteriously ends up on her bar tab. She can remind the unlucky bartender that she’s only had “this many drinks” as is evidenced by her collection of cocktail straws. 

“You just don’t get this lucky, to have wonderful friends like Kenny and Faye and Ellen, and to have had them for a whole lifetime!” Paula bites her lip, failing to continue. 

“Well here’s to those rascals, each and every one! What was that toast Aunt Ellen misquoted after too many Bud Light Limes?” I ask the table. 

“Oh! The one we now purposely misquote in her honor?!” asks Lara Lee. 

“Exactly,” I affirm. 

Lara Lee leads the toast for her mother, raising her Dirty Martini high above the table. Collectively, we cheer, “Here’s to good times and better friends!” Laughing, we all clink glasses before I move us along. 

“It’s not a Kenny story, but it’s one of his favorites.” 

“Which one?” Christine asks. 

“Suzy’s story. The one about leaving Happy Hour,” I reply. 

Paula, having just taken a sip of her cocktail, chokes on a laugh, struggling to not shower the table with bourbon and ginger ale. “Tell it,” she pleads. “You tell it so well,” she says as she sets her drink down. 

“It would be my pleasure. Sadie, do you remember this one?”

“Which one?” Sadie asks as she breaks from studying her dinner menu. 

“Suzy’s story about leaving Happy Hour.”

Sadie laughs, “So funny!”

“That’s what I thought. Don’t give away the ending this time, okay?!” 

“You bet,” she replies. 

I give her an extra look just to remind her that I mean business. She loves jumping to the punch line for you as though she’s helping out, kind of like holding the door open (but with the opposite effect). 

“Well, y’all know Suzy. She was, of course, Kenny and Paula’s fellow teacher from Vidalia High School, AKA, VHS.” I stifle my amusement at the abbreviation. 

Everyone nods in agreement. 

“Well, the story as I know it goes like this. Y’all enjoyed a typical evening of cocktails, snacks, laughing, and dancing at the Ramada. Upon leaving, Suzy took her big ol’ Oldsmobile home the same route as always. She was sitting at the light on John R. Junkin waiting to turn left onto Homochitto when, in her rearview mirror, she sees a car barreling down the parkway behind her. As the car grows closer, she realizes it’s not going to stop and, instinctively, lets her foot off the brake just before the car slams into her rear.” 

“Shaken but uninjured, she and the other party move their vehicles into that gas station parking lot. You know, the one right there? And the police finally arrive to begin taking statements from both of the drivers.” 

“Suzy is sitting in her car, waiting, when the officer finally makes his way over to get her account of the events. The cop asks, ‘Ma’am, can you tell me what happened?’ and Suzy recounts how she watched the car flying down the hill behind her and laments how she just didn’t have time to get out of the way. The officer then asks, ‘Ma’am, how fast do you think the other driver was going?’ Suzy, now sore, fatigued, and past ready to be home in her night gown, responds with a sassy, ‘See that lovely wig in my back windshield? I was wearing it! That’s how fast he was going!’” 

The table erupts in laughter followed by requests to, “Tell the other one!” 

“The one about the Dairy Queen?” I ask.

Collectively, “YES!” 

“I don’t know that I can tell that one as well. Can you Aunt Paula?”

“Not as well as you, precious,” Paula replies.

“Well, okay. I don’t remember exactly, but Suzy and her mother were at the Dairy Queen, and apparently, something went wrong with their order, right? Some dispute over pickles on a burger, I think. Maybe mustard was involved? I don’t remember exactly. What I recall is being told that Suzy’s mother was a very polite and proper, older Southern lady, but because of the circumstances, she became uncharacteristically enraged by a Dairy Queen employee and, eventually, that employee’s manager, too. It all culminated with her, an eighty-something-year-old lady, being unceremoniously thrown out of the Natchez Dairy Queen and banned for life. Seriously, BANNED FOR LIFE! According to Suzy, when the manager told her to never come back, her mother turned on her heels on the way out the door and demanded of the manager, ‘Well what about the mother fucking drive thru?!’” 

Again, collective laughter. 

“I love it,” Paula says. “And her mother really was very prim and proper. That’s what makes it so entertaining.”

“How long has Suzy been gone now, Aunt Paula?” Lara Lee asks.

“At least four or five years now, right?” Paula guesstimates.

“Sounds right to me,” I say. “Truly, I can’t go through a drive thru without calling it the ‘mother fucking drive thru,’ at least in my mind anyway!”

“Same!” “Me too!” “Always!” agrees the table, including Louis who appears to have been listening more than any of us realized.

“I think I still have a jar of Suzy’s fifteen bean soup. You know, the dried beans she’d put in a jar and top with a ribbon for Christmas gifts?”

“Oh Christine, I’d throw that out,” I suggest.

“I’m old. I don’t throw things out. I lived through the Depression! It could be a doorstop,” she jokes.

“You’re not old! Look at you taking care of that pink wine like a teenager!”

“Well, it’s mostly because there’s something spicy in this bar mix. It’s HOT.”

Christine has been snacking off the pile of discarded orange boomerangs Paula plucked out of the bar mix and moved to an adjacent bar napkin.

“Sister! The orange ones are hot,” Paula exclaims, slightly frustrated this time. “I picked those out so you wouldn’t eat them.”

“These?! I thought these were the ones I like!”

Looking down to hide my smile, I literally have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing.

Paula looks to Louis, her brother-in-law, who is still focused on the Saints who have miraculously just pulled ahead after making the best of a fumble play. Paula looks back at us, rolls her eyes, and symbolically raises her glass to the sky before making a quick toast and taking another sip. 

“Count it all joy!” she says as though she’s trying to convince herself.

Picking through the separated bar mix, Christine provides the segue, “How’s Stuart?”

“Dad’s fine as far as I know, enjoying the temperature and the altitude of the mountains. He said he went wild blueberry picking last week on a mountainside near Asheville that was so bountiful both humans and bears alike descended for the harvest.” 

“Sounds heavenly to me, especially the cooler weather,” says Christine.

“Indeed! When’s he coming back to Natchez?” Paula asks.

“Once the weather cools off and the mountain leaves change,” I reply.

“We’ve gotta go back!” Christine hurls out.

“Y’all’ said you’d never drive on I-20 again! How are y’all going get there?” I challenge.

“Well…” Christine begins as she puts her thinking cap on.

A loud ringing emanates from beneath the table. It’s Paula’s cell phone ringing in her purse at full volume on one of the default tones. Bar patrons turn to look.

“Who is it?” Sadie asks turning her menu over and pushing it to the edge of the table, indicating she’s ready to order.

“Oh it’s Claudia! How do I answer?” asks Paula, fumbling, flustered.

This is not Paula’s first cell phone, but it doesn’t cooperate the way the last one did, and simple tasks like answering and calling are now problematic.

Lara Lee reaches over and presses the button to answer the call for Paula. 

A little confused Paula asks Lara Lee, “Did you hang up?”

Lara Lee responds, “No! I answered it. Talk!”

A faint voice beaming in from Columbia, South Carolina hollers through the phone to Paula, “I’m here! I can hear y’all! Paula, put the phone up to your ear!!”

Paula lifts the phone to her ear catching the end of what her sister, Claudia was saying. 

“Oh hey! We were just telling Kenny stories,” Paula tells her.

We can no longer hear Claudia clearly with the phone now up to Paula’s ear, but I can tell from the muffled sound that she’s trying to guess which story we were sharing.

Paula replies, “Of course! The Dairy Queen story, but the wig story first. Yes, it’s my favorite too. Well, how are y’all? Is everything okay?”

Expecting Paula to be preoccupied for a moment, Christine takes charge of the conversation. 

“Y’all know Claudia met Gary, her husband, right here in this hotel bar, right? It was still the Ramada then. They’ve been married for years now,” Christine reminds us.

“I do. Mama told me about that night. Y’all were all up here for Happy Hour, and this friendly looking guy, sitting alone at a table nearby, kept laughing at all the jokes and stories coming from the group,” I offered up.

“Sure did, and then your mama,” Christine says looking directly at me, “got up and walked right over there and told that man that he should just come join them, that perhaps he was their new best friend!”

“Sounds like Mama to me!” 

“And the rest is history! Claudia married him not long afterwards, giving us a new brother. A good one too! He can cook,” Christine shares with enthusiasm. “Even if he is a Yankee, “ she adds teasingly. “And don’t forget it was your mama that married ‘em!

“Of course she did. I had forgotten that detail, actually. Thank you reminding me.”

“I love that. It gives me hope to know that her husband just fell out of the sky,” says Lara Lee.

“Agreed, “ I add. “Especially in this corner of the world.”

“God sent him right to her,” Christine claims raising her glass.

On cue, we clink glasses. 

“Amen,” adds Sadie softly in the background.

Paula tells Claudia goodbye and returns to the conversation, handing her phone off to Lara Lee. 

“Precious, can you hang that up? Claudia said to tell everyone hello and she loves them, one and all. She just had a quick question about Thanksgiving.”

“How are they?” I ask.

“They’re fine. Gary’s in the kitchen prepping big ol’ center-cut pork chops for supper.”

Paula stretches out the word ‘supper,’ laying into the first syllable, imitating her South Carolinian sister. 

“And Claudia is having a glass of wine,” she affirms.

“Mmm. Pork chops,” says Sadie, sipping her Diet Coke.

“Wish they were here,” says Lara Lee.

“Oh me too,” says Paula rolling her cocktail straws on the table again. “But they’ll be here before too long. The holidays are just around the corner.”

“Did I tell y’all Uncle Kenny’s house sold again?” I ask the group. “I heard a couple guys from New Orleans bought it.”

“No! I haven’t heard that. Are they planning to live there full time? I surely hope so. The last owners were never there,” says Paula.

“Um, not from what I heard. I think they bought it as their ‘hurricane house,’ you know, to ride out future storms when forced out of New Orleans.”

“So just like the last owners then?” Lara Lee asks.

“Unfortunately, “ I reply.

“Aw. Makes me sad to think of it just sitting there again,” Lara Lee replies.

“Well, it’ll get spruced up a bit at least,” I predict.

Involuntarily, we clink glasses again.

“It could certainly use it. His little shack of a carport has drooped even lower on one side,” says Paula.

“I bet that thing’s older than the house,” Christine hedges.

“Probably,” I agree.

“Looks like something out of a horror movie to me,” Lara Lee adds.

“Do y’all remember that Aunt Shelley used to tease him about his house falling into the bayou and that his carport-shack-garage-horror-movie-thingy would be first to go?” I ask the table.

“Well, as far as Natchez bayous are concerned, that’s a short fall compared to Cemetery Road.” Louis adds with a laugh, surprisingly joining the conversation. 

“Or Quitman Road!” Lara Lee counters.

“Lordy, going off the road there would be like living the end of ‘Thelma & Louise!’” says Paula, seeing the moment in her mind, her eyes getting wider.

“Mama used to caution us about Quitman Road as newly-licensed teenagers. She’d say, ‘You Georgia boys don’t know this kind of gravel road, and you surely don’t know about these bluffs and bayous. Y’all could drive off in one and no one would ever know! Natchez is loess country, bottomless bayous around every corner.”

“Didn’t Uncle Buster back off into one of those holes?  At the top of the hill?” Lara Lee asks.

“WHAT?!” asks Paula releasing her grasp on her collected cocktail straws.

“He did! He said he was going to dump branches over and backed too close to the edge,” I recall. “Lucky for him that wasn’t a sheer drop-off like most places along that road. Regardless, down he went!” 

“BUSTER ROLLED IN BACKWARDS?!” Paula asks in disbelief.

“GLORY!” exclaims Christine.

We hear Louis chuckling to himself, confirming again that he’s been half-listening. The Saints are now ahead and actually in danger of winning. 

“I think so. That’s the story I remember. Didn’t you tell me that?!” I ask Lara Lee suspiciously.

“Y’all text one of his children or grandchildren! C’MON! Get one of those Junkin cousins on the phone and find out! I want to know!” Paula demands.

Lara Lee jumps on the task as the waitress returns with the fried mushrooms and a fresh round of drinks. Sadie gleams at the arrival of the appetizer “for the table” and orders herself a fried catfish po’boy with sweet potato fries for supper. 

“Anyone else like to order?” asks the waitress.

Paula answers for the table. “No darlin’. The rest of us are just drinking our supper tonight.”

“Speak for yourself!” pipes Christine. 

“Would you like to order, ma’am?” the waitress asks Christine.

“No. Thank you. I just meant I’m enjoying this bar mix, but Lordy, it’s HOT! Lucky for me you just brought me this big ol’ glass of icy, pink wine, “ she says with a lilt.  May I have another side of ice too, please ma’am?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you! Thank you!”

The waitress turns to leave before Christine adds, “And more bar mix please, ma’am! It’s absolutely delicious!”

Lemon Champagne Punch

(Recipe fills 1 punchbowl)

 Prepare and Freeze Lemonade Citrus Ice Ring for Serving.

(Ask your mama how to do it.)

Portion Ingredients in Mason Jars for easy Punchbowl Refills.

Produce en masse for Multiple Servings.

Chill Ingredients Overnight.

 Ingredients

1 cup freshly squeezed, strained Lemon juice

1 1/4 cup Lemon Simple Syrup

2 bottles Dry Champagne

1-ish cup Vodka

Mint for garnish

Take a seat, honey! You’re gonna need one. Much love from ol’ Natchez!  Please enjoy responsibly with family, friends, & neighbors.