There Really is MAGIC IN DIXIE

                                     
 WELCOME BACK!  I am so excited you're here!! It has been a while, I know. Writing 6 books in 18 months has been--well--let's just put it this way, I've been a tad busy! :)

BUY IT NOW!!

                                http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Dixie-Beth-Albright-ebook/dp/B00KY7X1DC/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1402948080&sr=1-1&keywords=magic+in+dixie

                  I am so excited to introduce my new IN DIXIE series! It is filled with love, laughter and the special bonds women share. And as always, the entire series is VERY SOUTHERN, and full of southern humor!  The first book in the series, MAGIC IN DIXIE is out NOW!

The IN DIXIE series is about each of these new Belles discovering themselves, their passions, their hearts and souls. And then making the difficult decision to embrace that—or not. Of course, part of that journey will always be finding true love and learning just who your southern sisters are when things get tough. And my novels will NEVER be without laughter and hilarious situations. It’s the southern way—laughter in the face of adversity. 

             These books are so near and dear to my heart! All of these women have a story to tell. They are funny and sexy, sophisticated but very genuinely southern!

             Look for CHRISTMAS IN DIXIE, coming in December, Followed by DAYDREAMS IN DIXIE, and STARDUST IN DIXIE, in 2015!

               

I had a little epiphany the other day when a reader wrote to me and asked me why I started writing. It got me thinking. I reached back into the dusty cobweb-filled corners of my mind-- and found my heart. My heart has always been at the center of my writing—and I’ve been writing stories for as long as I can remember. So, “my heart needed to speak”, was the answer to that question—I write to satisfy my heart. To express my heart. To share my heart.

        My heart resides way down in the Deep South, where the most hilarious, most passionate, most resilient women I have even known live. Tuscaloosa, Alabama is home for me, although I have lived quite literally all over this country and now live in San Francisco, CA. Still, the college town of Tuscaloosa, with our famous championship football team, The Crimson Tide, The Black Warrior River that runs through town, and the tremendous mouth-watering food all beg me to come home and nestle myself on the banks of the river under the brilliant turquoise and creamsicle sunsets. Moss hanging in lacy shawls across tree-tunneled streets call my name. 

        But mostly it’s the funny women-- the women who supported my mom and had her back constantly helping her raise my brother and me after my Daddy died in a car accident. My mother was a young widow at Twenty-five with two babies. I was only four years old and my brother was two.  Over my whole life, during tragedy or triumph, we broke out the Krispy Kremes and sat around my grandmother’s yellow 1950s styled kitchen table laughing until we couldn’t. I learned a lot about life from those women and it’s them I love to write about.

          My mother was the craziest of them all, carrying a Mary Poppins sized bag for a purse and pulling anything we ever needed out of it—from batteries, to a plate, it was magically in that “purse.” Sometimes I just stood, staring at my mother—my mouth wouldn’t close. My aunt would whisper in my ear, “Beth, your mother is crazy, never ever forget that.”  Then we would all somehow be glad Mother had that extension cord buried in that purse! Yep. She does to this day. All of them were a tad different. Fun is the way I remember it all. And Happy. Happy in the face of real life that was sometimes tragic.

These women are what I know. They are my passion. That’s why comedy is such a huge part of my stories. In my life, we couldn’t have made it without all the laughter. Through them, I learned what it really means to be a Southern Woman. I wanted to be just like them!

Writing was the way I could be home--home in Tuscaloosa with my circle of hilarious, strong, resilient women. And of course all that delicious food, along with a string of pearls, a little Aquanet, some lipstick and high heels,-- cause, honey, even in a crisis, a southern woman has to look good after all! It’s in our raising—part of the tradition that has been carried down from mother to daughter for hundreds of years.

Passion is what a writer, any artist, taps to hit that geyser of truth--the flow. I know mine lies in the Deep South, in Tuscaloosa, with all that hilarity and sweet sisterhood that calls me home, at least in my heart, every day. This is the real MAGIC IN DIXE

 But, the MAGIC IN DIXIE also lies in the place itself. The romance of the seasons, the symphony of a summer night, the damp warm summer evenings, the sound of crickets, the magic of fire-flies, or "lightening bugs" as we call them down south; these are things I love about the place I call home. Summer days are a different story: most days, the heat kisses your face like opening a dishwasher mid-cycle! I love the bright neon yellow and orange leaves of fall, the crisp cool air and the cornflower blue skies. In winter, I love waking up to the excitement of the first fresh snowfall (usually just a dusting), but on that day we all become children filled with excitement; rosy cheeks stinging in the frigid air. And I love the incredible burst of the most fragrant spring you’ll find anywhere on Earth. Azaleas abound in hot reds and pinks, color bathes your eyes at every turn and magnolias fill the air with perfume. You know you’re alive in the Deep South. It breathes long slow deep breaths. You feel it. And it’s full of the romance of just being alive. 

I love the people of the Deep South, where family comes first-- where that sense of community is unique and rich and holds that tapestry of our people woven tightly together like a well-worn heirloom quilt. It’s a place where people still love to sit on their front porch and shout “hey” while they wave to everyone who walks by-- Where you will be invited inside for some sweet iced tea and some good story-telling at your neighbor’s kitchen table any day of the week. And there’s always the food, from my favorite delicacy of fried green tomatoes to cornbread and BBQ to cobblers—it’s the very best food anywhere.

The women of the Deep South (and I am one) love their make-up, pearls and pageants, but underneath all that hair and make-up is a wonder-woman, the glue holding her family and friends together. They are the strongest people I have ever known. Always feminine and polite but make no mistake, we are steel magnolias. There’s nothing we can’t or won’t do for those we love. And we’ll look like beauty queens while doing it! We can hug your neck, wring your neck and bless your heart all in the same day!

And then there’s college football, the religion of the Deep South. Our gods are our football players in Alabama. The University of Alabama Crimson Tide has more national championships than any other school in the nation. And weekend church is the tailgating that fills the University of Alabama quad every Saturday in the fall. We burst at the seams with Crimson Pride. The mantra “Roll Tide” in Alabama is like “Aloha” in Hawaii—it means hello, goodbye, and God bless you all at the same time.

            I am so filled with pride to call Alabama and the Deep South my home! With Alabama Love Stories, in the IN DIXIE series, you’ll get strong, smart, funny, sexy southern women who stick together like warm peach cobbler, love their men, and never give up on anything—or anyone they love.

            I love writing about the Deep South. My passion to write was born there and to this day, I still always find there’s MAGIC IN DIXIE.

THE BOYS OF SUMMER, SOUTHERN STYLE

  The hot, sticky days of a Deep South Summer sweep my heart back to the late 70s and early 80s.  Warm wet stagnant air drips across my skin and I can hear The Eagles singing "The Boys of Summer"....come on...sing it with me...."I can see you, your brown skin shining in the sun, you got your hair combed back, sunglasses on, Baby...." My own browned skin glistening with half a bottle of pure baby oil, laying out in the blistering heat all day...the only cares in my head...where to go out tonight.   Movies?, The Sidetrack?...our reddish brown skin hot to the touch, tingling with the day's rays....strawberry lip gloss just begging to be tasted by our boys of summer.

The barefoot summer days of my teenaged years in the Deep South were the best of the best...swimming in Lake Lurleen,  skiing  on the Warrior River, and the road trips to Panama City Beach, Florida...stopping at every roadside stand along the highway for fresh-off-the-vine tomatoes and juicy watermelon... salt shakers in hand!  We were crammed in the back seat of someone's old car, all the windows down, blowing our hair into each other's faces, The smells of Coppertone whirling around, it was slathered all over us...sweaty thighs pushed up against each other so we could all fit into the back seat....The Commodores blaring from the radio.  White shoe polish scrawled across the back window, "PANAMA CITY OR BUST"  It was Summertime in Dixie!  Let's find the boys!  Do I sound like I was boy crazy??  Weren't we all?

The food, the humidity, the beach trips all set the stage, but my boys of summer spice up the memories!  Making out in the extreme wet heat of the Deep South Summer is one sticky, hair-frizzing mess.  Cure for that?  A cool pool!

While there were many summers spent with several different young men, I recall one in particular I'll call the Summer of the "Swimming Lessons"

To say I could be sort of a Miss Priss is like telling the Pope he is "sorta" catholic!  I was full of myself.  There was one young man I had an -on-again-off-again love affair with since I was a babe of 14.  One summer I thought it would be a delicious idea if I convinced the cute Southern gent to come over to my parents pool for some kissing lessons....yep...I said kissing lessons!  I just KNEW he needed my expertise in this fragile, intimate area!  I remember being so excited to be the teacher....uh huh....really, I was just looking for an excuse to get him in my arms and lip-locked.  Can you believe he arrived ready for lessons...playing right along with me, never letting on that  he knew exactly just what I was up to...let me tell you....THAT BOY SURE DIDN'T NEED ANY TEACHING FROM ME!

I remember vividly what it felt like to kiss him under water...warm lips pressed against mine in the cool pool water, sun dapples, sparkling on the surface above.  My only thought...how long could I keep him there for "school"....only so much a girl can "teach" about kissin'...but I knew I sure didn't want him to leave!  I still am reminded about those "swimming lessons" that summer....his body covered in a million freckles, his dark brown eyes looking at me like he could devour me in one bite...knowing full well my ploy...kissing lessons????...really???  In the years that followed, I often thought of sending him an invitation for "Continuing Education"....

A Deep South Summer is brimming, over-flowing, with the richest, most textured memories...long sensual stories shared on a front porch, lightening bugs twinkling in the twilight of sunset... crickets murmuring and frogs croaking creating an orchestra of Summer ....ghost stories told in the back of a pick-up truck under a canopy of a gillion stars....holding hands for the first time with my heart racing in the moonlight....mid-night walks on the white sandy beaches of the Gulf Coast... all with my boys of summer.
The sweet sticky drips of orange pineapple ice cream from Pure Process, running down my wrist before it was even half eaten while sitting on the mosquito bitten banks of the river.....Summer was when we did our growing up....learning about life as we learned about love and boys and each other....

 The Boys of Summer....ahhhhh I hear the song, I smell Coppertone........and I am gone......

A SOUTHERN BELLE'S VALENTINE

I grew up where the snow flakes were usually cut from paper and hung in front of a rain streaked window.  Snow was a little piece of fairy dust that you rarely ever saw.  So we cut the mystical ice crystals from construction paper with round tipped scissors and hung them with yarn from the florescent lights overhead in our classroom.  Winter in the South is wet, but not usually cold enough to snow.  In mid February, the snowflakes came down and the red hearts went up, cut with the same scissors and hung from those same bluish lights.  It was exciting.  The grade school classrooms with the tiny Valentines and the hope that I might actually get a real Valentine, you know, from a boy, this year.

 When I was in the fourth grade, it happened.  And I was spoiled forever after.  A boy in the fifth grade at my Catholic school set the bar so high, that only years later would even my husband of seven years come close!  Southern Belles LOVED to be spoiled.  And now, as of age nine, my very first real Valentine experience, created a new definition of spoiling that I would never forget. Gary was his name.  An older boy in the fifth grade, he made me feel like such a princess that to this very day, I still have the Valentine, made by his own hand, in a trunk of special  treasures. When the Valentine arrived at my classroom, my teacher was called to the door.  She was beautiful, her golden hair swinging around, calling out my name during our Valentine party.  "Beth, something special has arrived for you.  I walked over and she handed me a creamy white box,  the same size as a small box of crackers would come in...like wheat thins. But it was creamy and had a raised french pattern on it.  Gary had decorated it with a little school picture of himself, so cute with light blonde hair and bright blue eyes, he was beautiful! Especially surrounded in little red hearts that he had cut out one by one and made a frame around his lovely face.  He had cut out letters from a magazine that spelled out, "Beautiful Beth" and glued it across the top.  He had found little pictures of hearts and cupids and "I Love You's" and glued them all over the front and back of the box.  Gary was so sweet and thoughtful.  He found letters and candy hearts and glued them across the back to spell, "Be my Valentine" and "Be Mine." Inside the box was ALL of the tiny Valentines that come in a package of children's cards....you know, those tiny little grade school Valentines.  He signed them ALL to me and put them all...in separate envelopes all addressed to me.  Wow.  I was showered with Valentines, plus the box was stunning!  The amount of time he must have spent on that gift took my breath away and needless to say made me the center of attention in the fourth grade.  Remember, he was in fifth grade...an older boy!

I must have kept Gary alive in my heart and from age nine knew exactly what I wanted in a husband.  And I found it when I met my Yankee.  A blonde, blue-eyed gentleman who knew exactly how to treat a Belle and make her feel special.

But,I have a Valentines story that continues to blow my friends away...and when I ever, rarely, ahem...complain about life with my Yankee to ANY of my friends...they say, "NO, NO, NO, don't even go there missy...remember the Valentines story?"

It was Valentines Day 1993.  It was very soon after I had dragged my pregnant self to the homeland from California so I could have my baby on Southern soil.  We were in a small apartment in Tuscaloosa with most of our belongings in storage in LA.  I had left the Soap Opera, Days of Our Lives and we were hunkered down "nesting" waiting for the love of our lives.  Valentine's Day fell over a weekend that year and it was freezing cold and rainy.  I had a hair appointment Saturday morning. I went shopping afterwards at Parisian.  Yankee dropped me off and said he had an errand to run.   When he picked me up, he said he thought I should maybe pick out my own Valentine this year and suggested we go to Birmingham, 60 miles away to the Galleria!  Hey, no problem...awesome idea Honey!  As we got into town, of course, as pregnant as I was, I had to go potty.  Yankee stopped at a hotel, saying, they would have nicer facilities for me.  I went inside and he sat in the car.  As I was walking down the hallway, he came in behind me and walked with me...helping me look for the restroom. He said he had to go too.  I followed him.  We went down a hallway where there were rooms...I said "are you sure this is right?"  He says..."Oh my gosh....look what I found....a key."  He bends over and picks up one of those key cards off the floor.  He says...let's see if it works.  He sticks the key in and it opens the door.  He says to me..."go on in"...and the room is filled with red roses...everywhere... and red petals all over the bed and wrapped presents...new bottles of my perfume..and candles.  It was Belle in wonderland.  I couldn't close my mouth!  I saw all my make up and bath products and clothes...he had packed all my things...all the RIGHT things...he had paid attention to what I used!! I turned around and around taking it all in...eventually sitting down on the bed.  I could barely speak.  I looked up at him...he is 6'2"...and he kneels in front of me and says..."I wanted this year to be special...it will be our last Valentines Day as a couple...just us....our little guy will be here soon, so I thought this would be good...do you like it?"  Still not able to find all the words, I threw my arms around him kissed him passionately and whispered in his ear..."Honey, I love you so much, you are amazing...I still have to pee."
He laughed.  I said, "Seriously how in the world did you do this?"  He said, "I packed your things as fast as I could and drove here while you got your haircut and got the room and the flowers and flew back to Tuscaloosa...luckily, you had to pee so the rest was easy."  He laughed.  I still don't know how he managed that!

That was my very best Valentines Day ever. Ever.  He had lived up to Gary and my fourth grade expectations of being spoiled rotten.  To this day, he believes Valentines Day is all about me.  I never argue with him on this.  His birthday falls two days earlier, so I make sure he is the center of attention.

Valentines Day is a holiday for love, all kinds of love, for a parent, a child a friend.  But most of all its the gestures, the details, the time put into the celebration of the day, that, for me makes it so special.  Like Gary's heart box, and my yankee sweetheart's hotel room, for our last Valentine's Day as a couple.  Yep, I am a spoiled Belle...but little red hearts made of construction paper, like the one my son made me in elementary school that sits upon my dresser, and those little candy hearts printed with Valentine messages, still make my own heart skip and sing too.  Maybe it's WHO the little Valentine is coming from that really makes me feel so special after all.

THE SECRETS OF THE BELLE

I have so often been told, "You are a true Southern Belle." I love that.  Feminine, classy and secure in our womanhood...inherently understanding just how powerful that is.  I get that.  And I am so proud of that.  Growing up down South, we Belles are privy to the secrets, the mysterious, magical stardust sprinkled over us at birth... of being a Belle.  And honey, we are the luckiest of all of our sisters.  We get to be powerful women, without EVER losing our femininity.  Why, lose our femininity???  We'd never dream of it!  The deep South might as well lose our ability to fry things!  Or take pound cake to a funeral!  NEVER!  It is the very essence of us.  Our secret weapon.  We embrace it, cherish it, and understand how to use it. Don't get me wrong, even my Northern sisters can be a Belle!!  It's all in the knowledge we possess and the power we wield.
Nearly Fifty years have passed since the days of Betty Friedan, and then Gloria Steinem, and all the bra burnings.  I have to say, I have common ground with both of them.  And I think most Belles understand that a REAL woman encompasses the powerful elements of the stances of both Gloria and Betty.  Women of today's generation understand this too.  A Belle basks in the sweet scented glory of both the simplicity and the complexities of being feminine.  I came of age in the 70s and 80s and I am certainly educated and have been exposed to women in the work place making equal money for equal work and having equal opportunities.  I was raised by a single mother.  I whole heartedly agree with all of that. But I don't need to burn my bra or toss my perfect red lipstick to prove that.  That is just nuts!  I love having red lips and I like my breasts securely snuggled in lace and silk, thank you very much!
I guess that's just it.  I never felt a need to prove my worth, to fight for my rights simply because I am a woman.  I am for EVERYONE'S rights.  And a man who thinks less of me because I am a female, well I just pity him, the poor fool.  He certainly does not matter.
I KNOW all of this because I worked in an almost totally man oriented world: TALK RADIO.  This industry is filled with men and very few women, all with old attitudes. It is a men's club, but I never felt the need to light a stogie or dip snuff to fit into it.  I was young and cute and I knew from the start they would not respect me but I never worried.  I had my secret weapon, tucked inside my designer hand-bag.  My femininity would soon be wafting through the halls, and into the studios and seep into the microphones. And I had my pearls dangling from my neck.  I was confident.  And I was right.  The men accepted me and soon loved me.  But my work stood on it's own.  Managing to secure interviews with Oprah, Bob Hope, and Monica Lewinsky, my tenacity, delivered with feminine charm, pushed me quickly into the spotlight.  Of course I ran into a few, ahem, asses, both male and female,  but I always wound up with all the publicity....and I never had to leave my perfume and mascara at home.
While I agree with the feminists positions, I have nothing to prove, and I am not angry.  Not angry at men...because I never feel insecure because of my femininity.  I love men ...why in the world would I want to fight with those precious honeys?   Women have all the gifts.  My sister Belles understand this as a birth-right.  I LOVE for a man to open my door, and offer me his coat!  To be held in the arms of a REAL man is a gift for sure!   A REAL woman KNOWS how to make a man feel like a man, and she gets the rewards of that.  Think about it!  To tell a man, "I can do it all without you" just castrates our men.  And is that what we want?  Men who aren't MEN!  A Belle would never ever want anything less than a Prince!  To be swept up into someone's arms and carried off to the castle....oh don't get me wrong....we Belles can OWN the castle...but we want to be CARRIED there by our prince!
AND, a Real man is never ever threatened by the success of his smart, ambitious wife.  He loves her and encourages her as she does him.
Maybe it's because I was raised in the South. I grew up mostly at my city grandmother's house and no doubt, she was one of my influences.  I saw my Nanny care for a huge family, a very sick bed-ridden grandfather, cook all the food, make all the money, all while wearing her red lipstick, her perfume and her pearls!  Being a woman meant I could have it all, do it all and always be a Belle.  My mother did it all too.  They were smart, powerful, classy, and feminine.
So, women need to relax and embrace being a woman.  We are unique...soft yet powerful with an awesome ability to lead from an exclusive rare perspective.  Let your feminine light cast a glow over your life and it will illuminate everyone around you.
That, my Dears, is the rich secret of being a true Belle...Do it all.... and never forget to wear your pearls!

DOWN SOUTH...YOU CAN ALWAYS GO HOME AGAIN

It's funny how Southerner's always say, "I'm going home," when they are going back to visit their family.  I have always said this, no matter where I have lived.  And I have lived all over this country! On both coasts, two great lakes, in the desert Southwest, and in the land-locked, sweet midwest.  Tuscaloosa will ALWAYS be HOME...it IS HOME. I have heard the saying, "you can't go home again," but I beg to differ.  Maybe some folks can't, but at least in Tuscaloosa I know it to be different.  I have always been able to go HOME.

 I learned this from my earliest memories.  We moved to Oklahoma when I was 10 and we lived there for about 4 years.  But we always went HOME for Christmas.  HOME was Tuscaloosa and my Mother always said, all year long..."When we go HOME...."  I knew what she meant, and from then on, no place else would ever be home....there was only one.  We would load up the tiny toyota station wagon and head East then South with a car load of presents, and on a few occasions, puppies in diapers!  Yes, puppies in diapers, with little holes my mother would cut out for their tales.  The puppies were Christmas gifts and believe me it was not that fun to go 800 miles in a tiny Toyota with THREE stinky rambunctious puppies!!!  Even in diapers!  I specifically remember how nuts I would go knowing I was going HOME.  It didn't matter that it was Christmas...I wasn't thinking of the presents.  I was thinking of Tuscaloosa!!  I would put on my Crimson Tide jersey and pack as fast as I could!  The days leading up to the big trip were a frenzy so hypnotic, I was, as they say, already GONE!  I was in such a place of excitement, without fail, every single year, as the time to leave grew closer, I would actually break out in hives!!!  My poor mother would not only have the puppies to deal with, she had to always keep the calamine lotion handy and always find a motel with a bathtub for the baking soda bath!  The "excitement hives" would disappear when we arrived at my grandmother's driveway...ahhhhhhhh HOME!

After I got married and began the gypsy life with my wanderlust affected husband, I always said to him, "I am going home..." He said, "Aren't you home already?"  Poor, silly Yankee.  He has never quite been able to grasp that HOME thing.  He is sweet and says "I" am HIS home...I love that.  I do.  But still, at the end of the day, HOME for me is Tuscaloosa!  Remember, I drove across the country pregnant, with morning sickness that lasted all day to make sure my only baby was born at HOME...Tuscaloosa! I don't really expect folks from other parts of the country to understand.  But to a Southerner...well, I don't have to explain.

I was talking to a fellow Alabamaian the other day, Yes, there are a few other transplants out here in
 LA LA land.  She is from Birmingham.  She said it's not the same for people from Birmingham.  She explained that her other friends from Tuscaloosa are just like me....in the midst of a true, life-long love affair with our sweet home-town.  She said it must be something about being from Tuscaloosa.  Of course it is!!, I told her. It is a magical place.  Only those of us in the little exclusive club who are from there know it's special secrets.  And it just can't be explained.  It has to be felt.

I can't wait to wander the old historic downtown again, filled with stories on every corner. And marvel at the growth and the newness.  It inspires every part of me.  I will gaze at the winding Warrior River and the misty liquid sunsets and the kudzu creeping and crawling over everything standing still. I am going HOME.

 YES!!!...I am going home in a few days!  No, I am not covered in hives, hopefully I have outgrown that, but the anxious excitement is overwhelming!!  I can't sleep and the thought of the great food I will be eating has me salivating like no tomorrow! Especially for some REAL fried green tomatoes!  Out here in LA LA land, they TRY to make fried green tomatoes, and I use that word TRY loosely...but they have never heard of corn meal here, so yeah....shoe leather is what's for dinner!  I am always embarrassing my Yankee cause I offer to go back to the kitchen to speak with the chef...c'mon...it's a simple thing...corn meal!!  I am seriously thinking of bringing back some Martha White and dropping it off to these folks with a note.

The excitement of The University of Alabama's Homecoming has me crazy!  Just knowing I will be in Tuscaloosa for a football Saturday, Oh I can barely breathe!!  The energy there on game day is electric.  I actually feel sorry for people who don't get to experience this at least once in their lives.  I swear it is like NO OTHER homecoming anywhere! Alabama Football is like no other FOOTBALL anywhere!   I have been to other games.  I speak with knowledge on this subject.  There is nothing like my Crimson Tide!

I know Tuscaloosa looks different since the horrific tornado hit April 27th.  I know it will hit me when I get there how the landscape will never look the same.  I have prepared myself as best I can.  And I am bringing tissues.  But what I DO know, is that it will still BE the same.  Because the spirit of this magical, one-of-a-kind place can never be broken. Even when the big bad wolf tries to blow us down, NOTHING can break the spirit of this most treasured place.  It IS and will FOREVER be, HOME.
Maybe I can always go home, because truth be told, I never really left.

A DEEP SOUTH WEDDING...OR THE DAY MY YANKEE IN-LAWS MELTED

I love weddings.  They are such a big Pageant and you know how us Southern girls love our pageants! I even decided, that for my wedding, I would be wearing a tiara attached to my veil...but I did forego the sash!    I always loved going to weddings.  They are so emotional.  No matter who was getting married, I cried. Sometimes I have to admit I cried because it was taking too long and I was salivating for the fried catfish and hush puppies!  "Come on y'all, just say you will and kiss that girl so we can eat!" Wedding food is unreal in the South.  Peach Cobblers and Red Velvet cake, Cheese balls and sausage balls, rum balls and cocktail weenies in grape jelly and chili sauce...mmmm.   I just realized I am eating a lot of wedding food named Balls and Weenies...surely, no pun intended!  Can barely stand talking about it all, it makes me so hungry!

And then being a bridesmaid, yes that was exciting too. The blue dress that made swishing and scratching noises, and knocked over small children as I walked.  The Giganimous blue bow that sat on my shoulder like a peacock.  To this day I have no idea who I walked down the isle with.  I never saw him.  Never mind that I was thinking, why in the hell are you marrying this jackass anyway, as I smiled and helped carry her 12 foot train, Bless her heart.

But nothing compared to the day I was the bride!  I was marrying my Yankee and that in itself made for an...uh...interesting event.  And just to be especially sweet, I chose the HOT, sauna-fied month of JULY!  OK Y'all....just to help you FEEL the moment..JULY in Tuscaloosa, Alabama ...imagine being dipped, in winter clothes, in a bubbly hot jacuzzi, and boiling, soaking wet with your wool scarf tied around your neck, hot steam rising up for a week....without a cold drink.  It is MISERABLE, unbearable, and suffocating.   Welcome to the South, Yankees....we gonna have us a PAGEANT!  UHhhhh...Wedding.

Me and my Yankee

All the festivities leading to the big day began several days earlier...just so I could make sure the new Yankee family  would need to be here in my fair city not for ONE day, but for three, and they all FELT the wet heat and would never ever forget it...READ...never, ever, want to return. Not really, but it seemed to work out that way.  Since most of them expressed to me at one time or another that they could barely breathe, I was certain I could not even PAY them to visit us...awwww, that's too bad.  I'll miss y'all.
To make sure my wedding was an experience for my new Yankee relatives, I thought it would be a good idea to relive  GONE WITH THE WIND. Yes July , and formal tuxes with tails for an afternoon wedding should do the trick.  And TWO hoop skirts for me, and don't forget the corset!  No, Miss Scarlet would have nothin' on me!  All of the pre-wedding events were held in old Southern historic homes in Tuscaloosa, and several of the original pre-civil war buildings on the University of Alabama campus. The reception took place in the Gorgas House on Campus.  It is one of the four original structures that was left standing after Federal Troops burned the entire campus !  I was so proud to offer my Yankees such a rich history lesson!  Oh, and at the time, the Gorgas house had no air-conditioning.  Nothing but the most authentic re-creation of GONE WITH THE WIND for MY new relatives. No sir-ee!  We served the Southern meals in the historic homes, decked out with fried chicken, peach cobblers, and fresh watermelons.  I had to teach them all, of course, that the proper way to eat a watermelon is with a salt shaker.  Why, the poor dears never heard of such! We had the bridesmaids luncheon at the University Club and just the grandeur of that old home overwhelmed my new Yankee family.  It was meant to.  Miss Scarlet could live there.
"Oh we all live this way down here, didn't y'all see GONE WITH THE WIND?"

 And Lordy, don't get me started on the ability of our fine Northern neighbors to understand the sweet music of the Magnolia lilted accents....what accents?  Why, we don't have an ac-ce-unt!  I will never forget the time my very northern bred Mother-in-law had a flat tire while down South and she went into the mechanics shop to pay....here is the conversation.  TIRE MAN:  "I ain't never seen such a mess as that there tar...it was pure ol' D shredded.  That is one 'spensive tar so that's a gone cost ya 'bout fitty I'd say."  MOTHER IN LAW:  while looking at me with teeth and jaws clenched together so no one could see her mouth moving, like a ventriloquist...."I cannot understand a single word he just said...help me please."   TIRE MAN:  "M'am I ain't deaf.  Just cause you ain't a movin' yor mouth, don't mean I can't hear yew.  I spoke slow as I could....what yew need me to repeat?"  I stepped in and saved the day.
ME: "He said the tire is a shredded mess and will cost fifty dollars for a new one."  TIRE MAN:  That's jes ezack-e-ly what I jes say-ed....waddin it?"  Everyone just stood in the heat of the shop and stared at each other with an uncomfortable painful smile.  Add that to my new job description as wife of a Yankee....Translator!

In the gardens of the Gorgas House....
my Miss Scarlet Picture, on the lap of my Yankee

For the most part, the wedding went off without a hitch. If you don't count the fact that I got wound up with the photographer taking fantasy "Scarlet" pictures of me and my Yankee and was late to my own wedding by a whole half hour.  And my matron of honor's brand new baby insisted that her precious vocals become a memento for all posterity on my wedding video.  My long time priest had an emergency at the very last second and was a no show, and the priest that showed up had breath like a hundred year old rhinoceros who had just fed from a poop puddle! With every "H" and "P" sound , I thought I might faint.   Yep, other than that it was pretty smooth.  Then came the reception.

With the humidity hovering over us like the breath of a big dog, we arrived at the Gorgas House and of course the top of my mind was the pictures, all outside on that historic old beautiful staircase. Outside.  It was 99 degrees and 100% humidity.  With no air-conditioning.  And a bunch of light-headed, lily-livered Northerners needing a cool cloth.  And me in my double hooped lacy long train climbing up and down those stairs for the photographer.  While I was living it up as Miss Scarlet, my ice sculpture was rivaling Frosty after the mean magician stole his hat and locked him in the Green House.  Oh well, I knew it was my one and only day to be the bride and I wanted to live in the moment.  The poor men in their long tails were beat red and all volunteering to help remove the ice sculpture before it flooded onto the cakes.  ANYTHING to get out of the tails of the monkey suit and hold that ice nice and close.  "Is it always like this, one of the Yankee groomsman asked me.  Like what?  Hot?  Silly boy...I said, why, it IS July!

The wedding party
on the steps of the Gorgas House

When the Union and the Confederacy finally became UNITED was when all the men in the party got together to "decorate" our get away car.  Someone, surely a soldier/ groomsman from the Northern side thought it would be a fabulous idea to outfit the car with raw SARDINES!  Stuffed into the air vents, and all over the motor so they would fry up nice and aromatic for us as we drove all the way to Birmingham for our flight to the Bahamas!  Yes, it was quite unifying when we started the car and the smoke of the sizzling pungent fish began to cook on my engine! They all enjoyed it, pointing the fingers at each other shouting .."It wasn't me" as the smoke trailed through the humid air. They had also covered all the door handles in vaseline!  Those boys were all hugging each other and laughing and slapping high fives....yes is was tear jerking really...to see such family togetherness and a final unification of the North and the South!

Before we realized our getaway car
had been "sardined"

We missed our flight.  But had a terrific wedding night in the bridal suite at the Hilton in Birmingham.  Got out at 7am the next morning. And I will always take credit for doing my part to help unify the factions and teach those Yankees a thing or two about the South... IT's   H O T!!!!!  And yes...we do talk pretty!

SUMMERS IN THE DEEP SOUTH: TIME...TO PLAY

Deep down South, in the Heart of Dixie, Summers start in April, and last till October. The wrap around porches full of blue Hydrangeas and Honeysuckle, are set with white wicker tables holding sweet tea and freshly cut mint. Sipping slowly and feeling the breeze as it floats a fragrance of magnolia across the porch swing.   I used to love summertime when I was growing up down South.  No school, some visits from crazy relatives and a ride on the garden mule!  Yep, I said ride a mule.  ME!
My part of the Deep South was and IS a little bit country, where folks still grow tomatoes and cucumber and watermelons outside in the backyard.  When it came time to plow, we went to get the old mule and my brother and I would beg for a ride.  The folks that helped my Mother raise us after my dad died, the Ryans, lived out in Cottondale and they had a huge garden, the kind that fed you all Winter.  We had the best Summers when Floyd would bring home that mule and let us ride him as he plowed the garden. Keep in mind I was young and had not discovered the joys of Tiaras and make-up quite yet. We walked to the local grocery store and got a moon pie and an RC cola...what a treat!  We helped pick, and can, and make preserves, ate watermelon with a salt shaker in one hand...(just did that this morning...but watermelons are EXPENSIVE here in LALA land!)... Then I'd go visit my city Grandmother for a priss- pot makeover, and a trip to Gayfer's department store for a new summer shorts outfit. With the fragrance of Charles Of the Ritz floating throughout her home, and red nail polish in her bathroom, I could pretend all day to be the Princess of Glendale Gardens when I was at her house.  That's where I learned Southern women are to be adored...READ: worshipped.
As I grew up, the "Princess" life became a little more ME than riding that mule, but I still loved being at the Ryan's house and picking strawberries and making homemade buttermilk biscuits from scratch every single day!  The Ryan's were our family as much as any Grandparent and we were like their own too.  We went fishing with them some weekends and they were at our house every single holiday till the day they died.  I don't remember it ever being a rule that to be FAMILY you had to share blood.  Nope, that's not the way it works in the South. So far I don't think we have any prisoners in the fam!  But mother would feed them just the same!!
In laws and outlaws as my mother used to call everyone who visited.  We were a "Hodge-Podge" she said.
Summers were long and lazy and not filled to the bursting point with planned activities.  We had time to think, to dream, to plan, and to pretend.  Sad to say, but it's not like that anymore...anywhere.  The calendars are full of camps and summer school and trips, and the push to get better at something...to BE best.  But I like the hot, lazy summer days catching minnows in the backyard creek in a dixie cup under the shade of the hundreds of weeping willows. Watching Love American Style in the afternoons under the dripping window unit air conditioner and drinking Koolaid all day till  my lips and tongue were stained ruby red for a week. And making Koolaid Pops ourselves in the freezer.  The best!
We had a park and trails near my house when I was little and we would imagine being detectives and looking for a murderer, turing over huge rocks for clues, only to find us an unsuspecting, but surprised Water Moccasin snake!  I ran like the dickens outta there!  I remember swinging so high and singing to the top of my lungs, (cause nobody else was in the park but me) all the Carpenters songs and "Leaving on a Jet Plane" imagining I was flying off to somewhere exotic.  I had my first real kiss in the Summer of 76 in cutoff blue jeans under the honeysuckle.  Summers were for imagining and day dreaming and thinking.
I had lemonade stands with my friends in Glendale and played princess games in makeup and went on detective adventures in the park, rode a mule through a backyard garden, and was a rock star on a swingset.... all because I had TIME to do it.  I learned from my relatives, the in-laws, the out-laws, the elders and the crazies, all because I had TIME to spend with them and really get to know them. I wouldn't trade this for a million summer enrichment camps.  This is the most priceless of all enrichments; TIME.
One summer, my great grandmother on my Father's side, spent the Summer with us.  I was very young,
and she and my mother would laugh so loud, I just couldn't wait till I was old enough to know what in the world was so funny.  One day we had both of my great grandmother's out for a ride like we always did on Sundays, and we stopped at a gas station.  My great grandma Cummings got out to get a cold drink...like a Rootbeer, not a margarita, and as she was walking back to the car, her underwear made its way down to her ankles. And she was in a dress! But she was from another era and was discreet beyond words.  About half way back, she realized her undies were at her feet, as I watched from the back window of the car, she calmly looked around to see if anyone was looking, and she shook her leg and kicked off one foot.  Then just as calmly did the same with the the other foot making sure no one was watching her.  She then bent over and grabbed them, shoving them down into her purse.  My mother was laughing so hard, she couldn't catch her breath. So was my other Granny.  She rode the rest of the afternoon without any "Step-ins" as she called them.  The next Sunday, when we picked her up for the Sunday drive, my mother asked her..."Well, Bertha Mae, you wearin' your step-ins today?"  My great-grandmother arched one eyebrow up and said..."Well, Betty, maybe I am.... and maybe I ain't"  She winked and everyone laughed as we rode to Pure Process in the little shack on the river for our Sunday Ice Cream cone.
Those days were such a treasure. TIME allowed me to have these memories.  I was always with my relatives.  Maybe it's because we didn't have much money to send me away to camp, and the world was much less competitive. Whatever it was I liked it this way.  Time with relatives these days is too few and far between.
 My teen years began, and the summers were hot in a different way. Boys became the center of my universe and a hot summer and a cool swimming pool was the place to be. We had a house with a pool and many a make-out session heated up the already sticky Southern summer night swims.  One summer before we got the pool my friend Ellen and I went down the little paved path to the Hinton Farm and spent the entire Summer with a bottle of Hawaiian Tropic...SPF 0...and browned ourselves to a gorgeous bronze and listened to Boys of Summer on the radio.  I never hear that song that I don't think of the Hinton Pool, and my friend Ellen.  I was in my mid teens and still was unscheduled in the long hot Southern Summer days.  My "sister" Susan and I would lay out all day with baby oil slathered all over us at my pool the next Summer, then go out with our boyfriends reddened to a crisp at night.  We'd all hang out in the driveway under the humid damp night sky till the wee hours talking and kissing on the hood of their cars.  It was poetic.  A right of passage. Bruce Sprinsteen and John Mellancamp wrote songs about us.  We fell in love, and lived and laughed and connected in a way that really doesn't happen anymore: Talking face to face.  Having TIME.
Eventually, we grew up and had our own families but I think the very thing that makes us so connected today has stepped in the way of "real" connections.  Technology, and social networks and texting and emails...while keep us in touch, do not help us stay connected on a tactile level.  Our kids have a new normal and their kids will have a new normal.  But TIME ...with each other and TIME to dream and plan...and imagine will always be the center of my memories growing up down South.  We seemed to always have time to sit on the porch and chat with our neighbors. Summer evenings outside on the front porch, playing cards or Yahtzee with the neighborhood kids was a perfect way to spend a lazy humid Southern night.  Time to catch light'ning bugs in a jar on the first warm Summer evenings. And Playing hide-and-go-seek in the dark with flashlights, using literally cans and cans of bug spay to keep the mosquitos away just a little longer.  We would wait till late at night for the mosquito truck to come with their toxic spray so we could chase it down the street and get lost in the fog.  What the heck were we thinking?  We sure didn't know any better!  Time...thats what we shared and the feeling that it would all last forever.
I remember reading once that the best thing we can give our children is unstructured time.  Ahhh... if we only had time...right?
I always feel so lucky to have had my growing up years down South. It's slower there anyway.  And That's a good thing.  Summers in the South was my own living amusement park, filled with the rivers, and the mule, and the koolaid stands and detective games, snakes and make-up, and the tingles from those first kisses. It was the South...and you just can't get better than that!