They is a Grit on My Fish
Growing up in the south, I thought everybody ate Grits. Much to my surprise, when I got older, finding out that folks, mostly from the northern areas don’t know Grit. For identification purposes and to clarify it for you northern folks, Grits is ground up hominy corn.
Growing up in Florida I was under the impression that grits are just as good for supper as they are for breakfast. One of the things I was vary use to seeing was grits with fish. Don’t be to quick to turn up your nose. You don’t know what you’re missing if you ant never tried it.
When I was 16 years old my family and I moved to North Carolina. This is where my dad was originally from and where all his folks lived. My Dad had 6 brothers and each one of them had 6 brothers, plus wives, children, dogs, cats, and the occasional wild animal. So, we had a pretty big family.
We had just moved here when the folks decided to have a fish fry. That’s a pig picking minus the pig. Or for you under educated, that is a gathering of the family members and/or friends for the purpose of cooking a meal and dinning together. Usually outside, except if it start to rain.
Anyhow, I was thrilled at the notion, and being what you might call a health appetited person, could hardly wait for the fish to commence frying.
Oh, they smelled so good. My mouth is watering just sitting here thinking about it. I was just waiting for Mama to holler “Come and Get It”!!! Or in terms of my family “Sooie”. Yep they come a running like a bunch of ol’ hogs. (That’s Swine for culturally refined folks.) I was no different, fighting for a plate and my place in line.
When I finally got up to the make shift table we had nailed up between two trees, I grabbed me 2 or 3 piece of fish. Ok more like 4 or 5 pieces of fish and a hand full of hushpuppies. (You Yankees will just have to wait for another story to learn about hushpuppies.)
I started looking for the Grits. Finally I asked, very loudly, In my family if you want to be heard you better do it loudly, Where Is The Grits? All my aunts and uncles and cousins, one old dog, and a lazy old cat started laughing. “Grits man this ant breakfast what do you want with grits?” They went on to advise me that we had french fries. (And we call ourselves Americans) But No Grits. Imagine my surprise, You would have thought I’d asked for some pickle loaf or something.
In my shock and horror I asked “Y’all don’t eat Grits with fish? Shucks in Florida they serve em in the fancy restaurants.” “No”, they said “you have done lost your mine.”
So, here I was in the land of gritless people, wondering how I was going to get my Grit Fix. But to no avail. There would be no Grits for me this day. And in one fatal move I had convinced all my North Carolina kin that Florida people are all Crazy.
But Friends, I am here to tell ya, if you ant never smothered a nice piece of fried fish, Bream being the preferred fish of choose in my humble opinion, in some delicious home cooked Grits with just a little bit of the grease poured over the top, then you don’t know what fine cultured eating is. I don’t know if you’ll ever see this recipe on one of those cooking shows. But if you do the title of the dish will be “Them Is Em Em Good Grits.”
As always remember, JESUS Loves You! And I’m working on it.
Put to pin by Joe High
A failed attempt at a #wordprompt. Green
I will smash this puny assignment. Ok that’s a bit corny, But it’s my first attempt at this kind of thing. So please don’t be to harsh. I’m a simple man and only can write simple things. luckily this is a simple word, GREEN.
Most of the time I’m green with envy with the things I see and read that others have written. How does so many people become so good at writing just about anything. I struggle to write a shopping list. But then sometimes the words just seem to flow out like water. Well, more properly, like a flood destroying everything in it’s path. Sentences going one way then another. I write something and ask my wife to take a look at it. She asked if it was in some kind of World War 2 code. But what do I know about writing? I’m a preacher not a novelist. Lucky for me most of my material was written thousands of years ago. Of course just like in preaching, I’ve jumped on a rabbit trail. Back to Green.
As the Duke put it in the movie Mclintock “The first green up of spring”. Spring has sprung and there is green all around. But now that it is spring there are a few greens that I won’t have to put up with for a while. Football season is done so no more Green Bay Packers. It’s a long time till Christmas music so I don’t have to hear Green sleeves. That’s a Christmas song for those of you younger than 40 years old. Luckily even Saint Patty’s day has already past, so no more people trying to pinch the blood blisters on me arm just because I’m not downing the green.
But spring is certainly a favorite time of the year for me. The cold is gone and the heat hasn’t quite got here just yet. Things are coming alive again and people are starting to go outside. Still on the cell phones but at least they’re outside. The fish are biting and the whole world seems new. Well except for the spreading of the chicken manure on all the fields around. But got to have that GREEN grass. I guess it is fare to say that green makes me think of spring and spring is a wonderful time of the year.
This was fun and I hope someone might enjoy it. If you like it enough I’m ok with a few greenbacks. Just send them my way. I’m not sure if I did everything the way I was supposed to for #wordprompt to pick up on this Green assignment.
The Hog was Dead
Just a note for you folks that may be having a little trouble with the title. A hog is a full grown pig. You know bacon, ham and fatback. Maybe you have heard of hog jowls. All part of the same animal. Now if you don’t know what hog jowls and fatback is that’s a discussion for another day.
Growing up in north central Florida, my childhood was filled with black water swamps and fresh water springs that was so clear that a dime looks like a dollar in 40 foot of water.
I didn’t think my day was complete without a little mud in my boots. Yea, usually enough dirt in my shoes that mom would say “we can grow corn in them”. But that was one way to know it had been a good day.
Well this particular day found my best friend, we will call him Chris to protect the guilty, and me deep in the swampy jungles of north central Florida. I guess the hardest thing to face today is that swamp has a neighborhood full of half a million dollar houses for the city yuppies now. They don’t have a clue, just living their boring city lives.
Anyway, Chris and I was probably about 6 or 7 years old at the time. You know pretty much grown. And here we are dodging gators and cotton mouth moccasins wading through the miry murky darkness heading for our favorite island. It wasn’t real;y an island, but at the time we thought it was. Stopping along and along to defend ourselves from the fire breathing dragons or to attack the occasional Indian Stronghold. O I’m Sorry, peaceful native indigenous people’s village. Despite the fact that this particular band of sava….sorry, I mean native people had terrorized us we blazed the trail for others to follow. You know, they must have too. Looking at all them high dollar houses that have taken over the wilderness today.
Anyhow, even though it took a better part of an entire morning to fight our way to the island, we made it. The land opened up a good bit on the island and was a whole lot dryer. We had survived. As we began to explore this land that we came to claim for the Nation of Joe and Chris. (When I tell it, it’s Joe and Chris. He can tell it his way when he writes his story, but the Nation of Chris and Joe just don’t sound as good). When up ahead we could see something lying on the ground. What could it be? Maybe it was a bear or a panther.
As we started easing our way toward it with the stealth of 2 fully trained big game hunters, we could start to get a better look at what it might be. Hey Chris I think it might really be a bear. Chris says “I don’t know but it’s big”. Things just got serious. It is really something and the closer we got the clearer it became. It was a Hog.
A Big Dead Hog. We know it was dead because we both got a good stick to poke it with. Jab him in the eye Chris said If he’s alive we’ll know it. So being the great explorers that we are and always willing to learn more about anatomy, I poked the eye. Nothing happened, he was dead. But also being the curious type, we try a few more pokes along the body and well maybe a kick or two. Now don’t have a fit PETA. We didn’t kill him.
Well a few more jabs and just as we was about to move on. After all it wasn’t the best smelling place we had visited. All of a sudden something happened. What was that we asked? I don’t know. Did you do that? No I didn’t make him wiggle. Then he did more than wiggle, he Moved. Wait just a minute, I don’t want nothing to do with a zombie hog. This is back when zombie movies was more real. It could happen. O NO, I might be in trouble, although I was bigger than Chris, I also was a good bit fatter and slower and you know the old joke. I don’t have to out run the hog just you and Chris was faster than me.
Well there was nothing I could do but to stand and fight. Strike first is what I was taught. So with lightning like precision I wooped him fast and hard. That did it. He begin to shake and rock and make moves that you expect a zombie hog to make. We moved In close, ready for the final blow to take out this zombie pig.
Just as Chris drew back his foot, fixin to plant it deep into the corpus delicti, the hog lunged one last time and out from the bowels, like something from an alien movie busted out one of the biggest Possums I ever saw. Scared us near about to death. We thought the alien invasion and the zombie apocalypse had happened all at one time. For a moment I thought I might have heard Angels coming to carry me home.
That possum came out of there like he was on fire and I’m not sure who was the scaredest, Chris or me or the possum. But I do know that we may have started the war but the possum was going to finish it. He came out of there teeth shining, snarling, drooling, fussing and a cussing and ready to fight just as many 7 year old grown men as stayed for the battle.
It was about this time that we realized just how rude it was of us to have interrupted his meal. And being raised to be polite young men, we quickly apologized and left him to finish his gourmet delight.
I guess you could say we figured the better part of valor here was to make a tactical rear advance.
Seems kinda silly now that we left the high dry ground with one possum to go back into the swamp with the gators and cottonmouths. But at the time it seemed to be the right thing to do. It may have taken most of the morning to get to the island but we was back at his house by lunch. Tired, but hungry so it was a good lunch.
Thank you,
I am Joe High. Jesus Loves you and I’m working on it.
Everyday Joe Ministry 