A little house by the side of US Route Seventeen South

[oneighty]

The frames around the windows and doors are painted blue to keep the haints out. The wooden clapboards are warped and gray from old age just like people. The house sets on concrete pilings a couple of feet up from the earth. The earth surrounding the house is pounded flat, nothing grows there. There are not going to be any bad snakes hiding there on the dirt. I expect that now and then turpentine is poured on the ground around the house foundation; keeps snakes from lurking in the cool space under the house. In the yard is a broken down red wagon.

I think maybe around supper time one could maybe go there and ask for some food and get invited in. The meal would be pan fried cornbread and maybe some cat fish from the nearby pond. Hot bacon grease might be poured over raw collard greens. There would be some grits too and ice tea with sugar and lemon..

Maybe next time I pass that way I just might stop.

180

[supernova]

1. Passing through here

lately 180? :D

Damn, you make me want cornbread now.

[oneighty]

2. Me too Supernova!

Me too!

North of Charleston SC..Buck Hall.

180

[On the Road]

3. "Hot bacon grease might be poured over raw collard greens"

That's a new one on me. I thought the owners of this house would be likely to simmer those greens for hours.

I have definitely seen the house you described. Or ones very much like it.

[oneighty]

4. Did the house

make you want to sit down and cry?

180

[On the Road]

7. My Feelings are More Complex Than Crying

it's like looking into another world. Poverty and isolation do not always mean sadness.

[oneighty]

8. Perhaps cry is not the word.

The house always make me feel so lonely, helpless. We lived the next house north same side. I never ever saw anybody at the house. Maybe the house was all alone waiting for supper company! Ya think?

180

[supernova]

11. I've seen plenty of houses

like that one down there. They look so lonely and deserted. You can almost hear the echoes of life there long ago.

[On the Road]

16. Oh, They Were Your Neighbors!

There's a huge gulf between the perceptions of the old and the young. The more I live, the more I realize that when I retire, my primary desires will be for peace, contentment, and familiar surroundings.

If that house was inhabited, your neighbors might have preferred it to anywhere else on earth.

[oneighty]

17. And that is why

I figured should I ever stop by they just might say, "Hey, Cap'n Ed come on in." Maybe they say that.

180

[JitterbugPerfume]

5. Mom used to do that

pour hot bacon grease (and vinegar) on greens She called fried cornbread hoecake

boy she sure could cook---- Made a potato taste like a feast

I sure do miss her

[pagerbear]

6. You're making me miss my mama!

And the house she grew up in on rte 211 outside of Bolton, NC. Not far from where 17 and 211 meet.

[oneighty]

9. I drove Route Seventeen North and South

Many many times in the fifties and sixties between Buffalo and Charleston.

[supernova]

10. I have a sudden desire

to go to THE BEACH! :-)

[oneighty]

12. Come we go surfing

at Myrtle Beach. We lived there for a few years long ago. We go to Conway night clubing and to Little River, go to Jack's Oyster Roast eat oyster and clams, get sick.

Hee Hee!

180

[supernova]

13. We could stay at my aunt's place

in Cherry Grove. :D

[oneighty]

14. Cherry Grove!

WhooooHoooo! I attended a riot there once! Hee Hee. Hey thats right around the cornor from Jack's.

180

[JitterbugPerfume]

15. A riot?

now there is a story i gotta hear!