Can You Hear This?

In my opinion, one of the funniest TV shows ever produced is Designing Women. Apparently, a few other folks agreed with me as it was very successful during it’s run and then lasted for many more years in sindication.

To orient any of ya’ll that aren’t familiar with the show, the girls, Julia, Mary Jo, Charlene and Suzanne had a crazy friend who visited right often (Southern for frequently) named Bernice. Bernice’s craziness was blamed on the “little arterial flow” problem. Most times, it just seemed that she had finally lost all pretension of “genteel” behavior and just did or said whatever she felt like. While she never wore a Red Hat that I recall, she did wear a lot of purple.

As Bernice’s sense of timing and humor gained popularity, she became a fixture on the show and served as the lovable but “not quite right” member of the family. If you’ve spent any time at all in the South, I’m certain you’ve seen, met or been exposed to those folks that are lovingly described by family as “not quite right”.

Now you might wonder, considering the title of this entry, where I’m going with all this. Well, as Julia put so eloquently back then, “in the South, you never ask whether or not someone has crazy people in their family, you just ask which side they’re on”. In my case, the answer’s both.

In one particular episode Julia told a somewhat stuffy Yankee visitor, “in the South we don’t hide our crazy people or keep them locked up in the attic, we bring them right down to the front porch and show them off”. In my family, there are so many, the porch can’t hold ‘um all. Now, before any of my blood kin come after me for insultin’ ‘um, what I’m really saying is my family, like most I know, boasts a fair number of entertaining eccentrics.

I have an Uncle who can’t remember some things too well anymore, like where he lives, in recent years he broke into a house that he thought was his but wasn’t, slept on the back porch of a house that he thought was his but wasn’t and, frequently, called the police from wherever he was and asked for a ride home. Fortunately, he is now “residing” in a nice facility where they can keep an eye on him and prevent his nightly wanderings.

I have an Aunt nearing 90 that was convinced, right up until they reposessed her car because she couldn’t remember to pay the bill, that she was a perfectly competent driver, despite the fact that she was barely able to see over the top of the stearing wheel. Needless to say, her reflexes and her memory weren’t all that sharp either and she frequently ended up in the wrong place, confused as to how she got there.

I have several relatives that are fairly particular about what they will and will not eat. They will swear to you on a stack of bibles that they don’t eat garlic, a sacrilege in my opinion, but they think it’s too strong for their “delicate” constitutions. I’ve seen them sitting at a table, be it one of the family’s or a restaurant, saying they just can’t eat anything with garlic. All the while they are shoveling the garlic-laced meal on their plate into their mouths with gusto.

At the same time, my maternal grandfather, who worked as a clown in the circus during the Depression, would pickle hot peppers and green tomatos and eat them with everything. He’d make cracklin’ cornbread to go with turnip greens and pinto beans. And, when he was in the mood, he could bake as fine a layer cake as any woman I know.

I’ve got relatives that are dyed-in-the-wool bible-bangers and those that are New Agers. I’ve got those that won’t get on an airplane for love or money and those that can take off for a trip around the world with nothing but a credit card, a toothbrush and a map.

All those of you out there who’ve worried for year’s that the neighbors were going to find out just how “strange” your family really is, just follow my lead. I don’t worry about what the neighbors will say anymore. It’s far easier just to make sure I give them plenty to talk about! I figure, if they’re going to talk, might as well make sure it’s interesting.