Earl Scruggs and Southern food tradition

Country music banjo legend Earl Scruggs passed away last week at age 88.

No, this isn't a music blog by any means (although I'm a country music researcher). But bless the Southern Foodways Allliance for reminding me of Scruggs' connection with traditional Southern foods—Flatt & Scruggs' rendition of the 1953 Martha White jingle. It's still in use today. 

Now you bake right (uh-huh) with Martha White (yes, ma'am)
Goodness gracious, good and light, Martha White
For the finest biscuits, cakes and pies,
Get Martha White self-rising flour
The one all purpose flour,
Martha White self-rising flour's
Got Hot Rize

Rest in peace, Earl.  

When a place is no more

What's it like to drive past a place you knew for many years—and then discover it's gone? 
Perhaps I shouldn't say place. Perhaps building, or what used to stand at that place. The site, the location, is still there. It's not going anywhere. Its appearance, though...

Well, shoot. This is probably all a matter of semantics. And you probably understand what I'm talking about, anyway.

In my family, our longtime Labor Day weekend tradition is to spend a day at the Powers' Crossroads Festival. I pick up my Mom at her house in the cool hours of the morning, and we drive the 26 miles to the Festival grounds on the Heard-Coweta County border. To get there, we take Georgia Highway 34 through Franklin. This route intersects Bevis Road, which in turn winds past my old elementary school.

We take the same route every year. Nothing different—well, until 2010.

The old Heard Elementary on Bevis Road, early to mid-1980s
(courtesy of Heard County Elementary School)

The hand-lettered sign at the intersection caught my eye. "Salvage sale at Heard Elementary this weekend?! What the—"

Cemetary Flowers

Until recently, I wasn't aware that these old-fashioned white iris were called "cemetary iris." I always thought that it was only the old-fashioned, hardy orange gladioli that were called by that name.

These "cemetary iris," along with the heirloom orange glads (and the old-fashioned daffodils about to go dormant), are located at my mom's house. Drive down any Southern two-lane road in spring and early summer, and you'll see their blooms pronounce old mailbox flower beds, old driveways—and, of course, old cemetaries.