Many around the world had feared that the coming of the second millennium would be a technological doomsday that was going to throw us back into the dark times of…the pre-computer age. On New Year’s Eve I had full tank of gas, bottled water, canned food, and I had spent the night with some friends just in case calamity broke out and I had to help form a new tribe.
Since humankind didn’t come down with the millennium bug, I had another special reason to celebrate the year 2000. That was the year I turned 30, Mom turned 60 and her mother, Mama Bea, turned 90.
A 30-60-90 triangle has special properties, such as the ratio of the length of its sides, which is 1: . Mama Bea, Mom and I have our own special ratios. Our age ratio is 1:2:3. Mama Bea birthed 6 children, Mom birthed 3 and I’ve birthed none.
Early on, Mama Bea and her switch taught me not to boo-boo in my britches. Mom and her belt pretty much taught me all the rest. Say what you will about spankings (or whippings as my family calls it), but as an energetic, creative child, I usually gave plenty of motivation for whippings. Throughout my childhood, Mom often said that if anyone ever kidnapped me, they’d bring me back in a hurry. As a matter of fact, several of Mom’s favorite Teresa stories were those that ended where either she or Dad disciplined me or as she loves to say that one of them “whipped Teresa’s little tail good!”
Yet, who can blame me? I’m the third generation of hyper energetic, intelligent women. Mama Bea was the first Avon Lady in the Cascade, VA area. We, her grandchildren, thought of her as the “Original Ms. Prissy.” She kept her money straight and conducted her business with the grace and elegance of a sweet-smelling, well-dressed woman with a beehive hairdo and vintage bejeweled cat eyed glasses—before that style actually became vintage!
Mom briefly dipped her toes at being an entrepreneur, but spent most of her professional career as a bank teller. I’m quite thrifty with money myself. Although I’ve had rare occasion to write a check these days, I’ll never forget an important checking lesson Mom taught my sisters and I: just because you have checks, doesn’t mean that you have money! And of course, that leads to one of my favorite banking analogies: don’t let your mouth write a check that your ass can’t cash.
Now, no decent Southern woman worth her salt would dare show her face in public without knowing how to cook. My earliest recollections of Mama Bea took place in her spacious, aroma-filled kitchen. When my grandparents marked out the rooms of their future house, the contractor consulted my grandfather about the enormous size of the kitchen. Papa basically told him that if Bea marked out a big kitchen, he’d better build it.
Mama Bea had two deep freezers full of homemade sausage, chicken, creamed corn, green beans, various other greens, yams…well you get the picture. Out of all the savory Southern cuisine that Mama Bea cooked in her cast iron skillet and antiquated oven, fried apples with buttermilk biscuits was my absolute favorite.
Now don’t get me wrong. Mom also knows how to cook. From fried chicken, to pork chops, potato salad, cole slaw, barbeque, Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas brunch, do you know that Mom’s favorite meal in the world is hot dogs? HOT DOGS! As well as my momma knows how to cook, she’ll break for a hot dog and a cherry slurpee in a heartbeat.
Mama Bea, of course, was ol’ school. I remember one time a big group of us went out to a wonderful seafood buffet. Once everyone had fixed their plates and the blessing had been said, Mama Bea looked to her left and her right and said, “Lawd, look at all these people too lazy to cook.”
Unlike my grandmother and mother, I didn’t grow up knowing how to cook. I had a mother and two older sisters for that. I didn’t learn how to cook until I was in my twenties. In the beginning, I was amazed how I could buy fresh food, “cook” it and end up with edible poison. When I’d consult Mom about how to cook some of my favorite dishes, she’d just get this big smile on her face and say, “Well, y’know I don’t MEASURE. I just go by taste.”
One of the things that I treasure that I inherited from Mama Bea and Mom, other than intelligence and beautiful skin, is my gift for storytelling. Sitting at the knee of those two entertaining women, usually during the preparation of food, the breaking of bread and the settling of a meal, I listened to their personal stories and stories of extended family. Their daily dramas no matter how serious or tragic, were seasoned by humor with an aftertaste of a life lesson.
The fictional stories I write, follow the same recipe—with a dash of sex thrown in! Yet no matter how extensively I’ve traveled the world, how many academic degrees I’ve earned or how many books I read, I’d be an educated fool, as Mama Bea would say, if I ever forgot the influential women who raised me, protected me, and shaped me.
Mama Bea stood no taller than 5’2” and Mom stands about 5’3”, but I dwarf in the accomplishments of those two women. Perhaps one day, if I’m lucky, I will stand as mighty as they have.