I may not belong here with this, sorry

[Margm]

When I have memories that happened before I met Billy, I can think about them with fondness.  This below is not meant to bring sorrow, it is just a part of my life, way out in the dirt road country life that came to my mind today.  I honestly can think of things before I met Billy.  Now, if I had actually from baby-hood to teenager grown up with him, I could not think of these things.  Read if you want to.  It sets me off for the country person I was and really still am............even though I have been to the big city.  Nothing world shattering, nothing pertaining to grief, although all the participants but my cousins and me, and some of my cousins are gone.  Just a piece of early Americana, (southern). 

Henceforth, you will have to understand that the fake two syllable word syrup (sir-up) will be called by its name, SURP, that being the proper way to pronounce it.

I went outside and a cold, fierce wind hit me. Oh no, another memory. You had to be a city kid if you did not make your own surp. I write about this every year. It is an annual reunion. Daddy Wise used a mule that dug a round hole in the ground going round and round running that presser that smashed the sugar cane to juice. Then, he had a rectangle boiler and would put wood to the fire that kept that green liquid boiling. Formed a pretty white foam on top they kept filtered off. Big ole home-made things done the old fashioned way. Then Uncle Straud took over, used a tractor and had butane burners. Ugly green thick liquid that turned to brown gold. All sisters waited for their can of this surp.

I remember Grandma saying that at the church stump politician speeches they gave out sticks of rock candy back in the early 1900's. Did not impress her at all. When the surp bucket was empty, there was rock candy at the bottom.

Grandma and I cannot/could not cook. Tea cakes were Billy's favorites and I would have him eat them right away. Most times they would turn hard if they were not hot, not a true tea cake, but a true Marg cooking failure. But Grandma, she made the best surp teacakes you will ever take a bite of.

Sometimes we just stumble through life, but we all have a past, and I hope you all have beautiful past memories. I don't think my granddaughter would like sugar cane. I have not seen any in 20 years.

[Gin]

Enjoyed your memories, Marg,. My memory today consisted of doing the simple things with Al.    I talked to my brother and he spoke of JUST going shopping with his wife.  Of course I wished I could JUST go shopping with Al.    Then a friend called and invited me to go to a play with her and her husband.  Al and I always went to plays, but I do not ever, ever want to go without Al.  I had a good excuse because of my back problems.  So Marg, thanks for a few of your good memories and I promise I will always say surp.

gin

[TomPB]

Great story Marg and thanks for sharing it. Actually I have had sugar cane in the Caribbean not so long ago. We are so different I am a total city kid.

Funny you mention your life before Billy, my grief counselor has me trying to remember and reclaim my life before Susan. I was 24 when we married so there doesn't seem to be a lot of it from my current perspective, and I don't think there was much to it compared to what T&S made together. But she thinks it's important. 

[enna]

I love your memory, Marg. My paternal grandmother was raised in the south and always said surp. Thanks for this memory. 

[Margm]

I married Billy at 18 (July 3rd).  He was 20.  He would be 21 on July 20th.  I would be 19 on August 13th.  I put a lot of living in those 18 years, mostly family reunions and family and school  oriented..  

Somehow or other, the places I go where I did not know him, they still bother me, but not nearly as bad as these 15-17 boxes in this apartment that I have not gone through. (Oh, I'm not going through them).   I picked up a notebook to use and he had written some of his measurements for his fly line in it and the companies that carried that type.  And, it cut like a knife.  You just don't know how you are going to react.

I honestly think I am progressing.  I don't like it.  But I cannot stay treading water either, I cannot swim in more ways than one.  Ever so often I will go to his urn and put my hands on it and the cross I have on it and I will just say "please help me."  I am having to handle papers to maybe let the people who live in my house assume the notes.  They lease it legally now and have never been late with the payments and have made so many improvements on the house, but it is paperwork I just find almost impossible to tackle, but I have to.  I shake and when I get agitated my hands shake worse than ever.  I cannot even sign my name.   I put my hand on the urn and cross and I prayed for help.  Xanax stops the shakes but I was transferring my prescription from Arkansas to Louisiana.  I called, it was ready at Walmart and I was able to handle the paperwork.  I just felt Billy intervened, even if it is only in my head and heart, it was enough.  

[MartyT]

Thanks for yet another fond memory, Marg. Every March my daddy would tap the sugar maple trees on the property he owned in northern Michigan (and where we lived when I was in high school), and I would help him boil the sap down over an open fire to make our own maple surp. As I've mentioned before, although he was an excellent surgeon and dearly loved by his patients, he always was a true, blue, Country Boy at heart ~ and he spoke L'il Abner's language, too. I really do miss him a lot . . . ♥

[Margm]

I always wanted to be part of tapping the maple trees.  L'il Abner language was spoke at my house all the time.  I knew all the characters.  I was "Moonbeam McSwine" because Mama said I would be happy laying in slop with the hogs, (I was untidy in my room).  Billy was Tiny.  One year she bought me L'il Abner shoes and made me wear them six months until I outgrew them, as it was saving money.  I had to pull those monstrosities off when I came in from school to save them.  All the little girls were wearing pixie shoes. (I finally got my pixie''s).  She called one of my boyfriends by one of the names (cannot remember now) because he almost had a unibrow, which I loved.  All people were L'il Abner characters to her.  I only identified with Joe Btfspik, below..  Your dad was a character too.  I wish I could have traded you a bucket of cane surp for maple surp.  Oops, up north I know you all used the two syllable syrup.    

[MartyT]

Ah, yes. Joe Btfsplk. I know him very well 

[kayc]

You all have some wonderful syrup memory making (sorry, Marg, I'm from Oregon )!  That would be something I would really enjoy doing.

I think it's good to try to remember who we were before, but I know my life felt like it was missing something "before George" even if I didn't know he existed yet, it was him.  I am still me, but a different "me" now.  But that's how it is for all of us, our life evolves, it doesn't stay the same.  We continue through this life, learning, changing, and everything we go through shapes and molds us a little more.

[Margm]

Brianna goes to a technical school that is open to the whole parish (county).  She has five boys in her class she knows come from where I was born because we all talk "the same" dialect.  My son never sounded like a "down south" person, but his job was as a DJ and he spoke beautifully.  So does my granddaughter.  I love my dialect, but of course your right, it has two syllables everywhere, but in my little corner of the world.  My granddaughter corrects me, but that makes me dig in deeper.