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Fran Alt's
Bluedenim INK
Yankee Buttercups
By
f. fasano-alt
Mrs. Fisher wasn't your everyday smile and say hey kind of
neighbor. The only time she ever really
talked to me was that first spring in 1978 when she told me about the
buttercups.
"I've been on this earth ninety-one years, and I can tell
you a lot of stories," she said, never really looking at me.
She had heard much about the Civil War when she was young, and
these stories had become a part of her being.
She also made it clear the civil war had not yet ended. I felt uncomfortable;
as though I was naked, save for my Yankee skin.
I wanted to apologize
for all Yankees, or tell her my grandparents didn't arrive in America until the
early l900s and like her they were Southerners, but from southern Italy.
I'll tell you about the buttercups later, but right now I'm
thinking about everyday neighbors. The
first week we were here, our backyard neighbor came around with some Southern
kind of cake, at least I'd never seen one like it before, and old Mrs. Anderson
who lived across the street sent her housekeeper with a pecan pie. This kind of welcome was new to us; we
guessed it was old-fashioned Southern hospitality. That was as friendly as
things got, but then, we were hardly ever home, most days we were playing golf.
Our fondness for golf is probably how the buttercups came into
prominence. In those days, the kids
would go to school and we would head for the golf course. We'd all get home around 3:30, which was
plenty of time to fix dinner, do some chores and spend time with the kids.
Somehow, in the delirium
of our new life, we forgot to mow the lawn. Soon the buttercups blossomed.
Before I go any further, I'd better tell you more about our
situation. Our new home was in Wilson, a pretty little town (they call it a
city) in North Carolina. Our house was
situated on a beautiful street where trees form an arch over the road and the
big old houses have front lawns that seem to go on forever.
It was winter when we arrived in Wilson. The cold and snow
stayed up North. Here, in the South the lemon ice sun melted and dripped its
golden rays into our living room, proffering a warm welcome. The sun didn't
know about Yankees who let buttercups grow wild in their yards.
We brought with us a slew of able bodies lawn mowers - my
husband, our five sons ranging in age from eleven to sixteen, and our three
teenage girls. I was the only one who didn't fit in the lawn-mowing equation.
I'm convinced the lawn mower is a loud mechanical monster waiting to bite off
my foot. If you've done your math, you've
determined there were ten of us. The kids didn't care about the lawn. Their
lives were centered on sports and the opposite sex and the two adults in the
family were about on the same level as the kids.
And so it came to pass that one day our yard was a sea of yellow
buttercups. They were kind of
pretty. When we left New York the only
things yellow, were the polluted sky and the spots in the snow where the dogs
peed.
The sky wasn't always yellow in New York; somewhere in the far
reaches of my mind I can see a blue sky and vacant lots where buttercups are growing. It's l947, I'm a child, and I pick a
buttercup.
" Do you like butter?" Someone asks. "Hold this buttercup under your chin
and if it casts a yellow glow that means you like butter."
I hold the flower under my chin and the other kids squeal, yes,
yes, there's a yellow glow.
The vacant lots in New York where buttercups once grew have
changed - only tall buildings grow there now. Their chimneys belch a yellow
glow into the sky.
I guess it was good we left New York. The kids needed to see a
blue sky. They deserved to live
somewhere relatively free of drugs and crime.
We were tired of their getting mugged almost every time they went to
Shea Stadium. I know, you think that can't be true, but it did happen.
We lived two miles from the stadium. The boys loved to go to the games, especially on bat or cap day,
but they never came home with their souvenirs.
Bigger boys who would steal their bats or caps and also their carfare
home'd inevitably approach them. Funny, but that never kept them from going
back to watch the Mets play.
Wilson is a pretty long walk from Shea, and a subway doesn't
exist that runs between here and a Madison Square Garden rock concert, but no
one missed the city. We all kind of
floated on clouds when we moved south.
It was like being on
one of our vacation trips. We'd been south
in l974, stayed overnight in Sharpsburg, just outside of Wilson. Next morning at the restaurant, folks just
stared as we put sugar and milk in our hot breakfast cereal, we didn't learn
about grits etiquette until after we moved South permanently.
Dot and Bob Boyette taught us our Southern manners. Butter and a little salt and pepper
complement grits, it is unheard of to add sugar and milk.
Bob had been a colonel
in the Air Force and they'd lived in a lot of places. They were the only really
friendly people we met, when we first moved South. They'd invite us down to their farm and teach us to pick and put
up fresh corn and to speak in Southern dialect. We'd play bridge and Bob would say, look, you've got to say
"pice" instead of pass and "grice" instead of grass.
We met a lot of other
nice Southern folks at the club where we played golf, but Bob and Dot were the
only ones who meant it when they said "come see us.
"Y'all-come-see-us is an expression I've never learned to translate. To a
Northerner it says come to my house and visit, but in the South it seems to
mean something akin to the expression, so long.
I know there are folks
who are sincere when they say it, but for the most part Southerners will say to
someone they just met, "y'all come see us now, ya hear." Something seems amiss to my Yankee ears.
Yankee, that's another confusing southern term. I've never had a
real conception of what that expression means.
Maybe if I'd been able to stay awake through Gone With the Wind, I'd
understand it.
Most of my life I knew
two things about Yankees: the Yankees were a baseball team in the Bronx, and Yankee
is how foreigners refer to Americans in old war movies. What I knew about
Rebels is that a rebel is a guy who wears a black leather jacket and rides a
motorcycle, as in James Dean or the Fonz.
I remember we'd been here a little over a week when the phone
rang and I heard a young voice on the other end.
"Hey, is Yankee there?"
"Yankee?" I asked aloud.
Twelve-year-old James
claimed to be Yankee so I handed him the phone. Yankee, I thought, that's a
strange name to be calling a diehard Met fan like James. Yankee . . . oh, I get it, that's what
Southerners call Northerners.
Yankees have a lot to learn about the South. Lesson number one:
Southerners are NOT slow. Things get done faster here; there's a lot less red
tape and a lot more know-how. And, I guarandamntee (I love the way Southerners
put damn in the middle of a word), if anyone could sell the Brooklyn Bridge
today, it would be a Southerner.
Charm is alive and well
in the South, as are genteel values, male chauvinism and the Civil War. Most
men here do not cuss in front of ladies; most ladies do not cuss (or maybe
their dominant male counterparts do not allow them to), and most folks have
someone who keeps the Civil War alive with hand-me-down stories of savage
Yankeeism.
I never met anyone in New York who remembered the Civil War or
ever even mentioned it; most of their war memories began with World War One.
My Grandfather was a
Merchant Marine who brought his wife and her family to New York around nineteen
hundred. His family was already here.
He opened an ice business. He and
Grandmother had fifteen children, and Mom says even though she was born here,
she didn't learn to speak English until she went to school.
They lived in Manhattan
for a few years, until Grandpa sold his ice business and moved the family out
to Queens. Funny, read about any
immigrant from that era and the story would be about the same. Anyhow, this is how I got to be a Yankee,
and Mrs. Fisher didn't like Yankees or buttercups.
You had to be there to appreciate the situation. She had an aura
that shot icicles into my Yankee veins. This was her hometown and a place where
a Yankee didn't fit in. Me, I never really wanted to fit in anywhere,
mediocrity appalled me, life had to be better than nine-to-five.
My New York was rows of matching houses with small matching
lawns that spread over a long island.
The island has a road in the middle that leads to some man made
mountains.
The Empire Mountains are
made of steel, glass, and IBM business machines. Volcanic fumes exude from the buses and cars that crawl around in
the mountain's belly. The fumes rise and encircle the mountaintops with a cloud
like, yellow haze called pollution.
With every breath he
takes, a New Yorker inhales an entire city. This was my hometown. Anyone who wanted to could fit in here. It was the famous melting pot. I guess it's a good thing I never wanted to
fit in anywhere, because what spills over from the melting pot doesn't blend
too well with field peas and collards.
My grandchildren don't like being reminded they are part Yankee
unless you try to feed them field peas or collard greens. Ask them their nationality and they'll tell
you they are half Rebel and half Italian.
That's how important
their Southern heritage is. Southern is
their nationality. And remember, that
Italian part was, after all, from Southern Italy.
If Mrs. Fisher was
living today I wonder how she'd feel about my grandchildren? They are proud little Rebels with charming
Southern accents. But the buttercups
mixed with Southern soil and Mrs. Fisher didn't like them.
Maybe it wasn't the
buttercups or Yankees that bothered her.
Maybe she was just being friendly, giving me a history lesson and I took
it the wrong way. No, there was
something about her demeanor that showed she didn't particularly care for
Yankees.
She was just standing there staring into my yard, when I came
out the back door and said hello. She
seemed startled, as if I'd walked in on a reverie.
"Oh," she said, giving me a cold stare, "I was
just looking at the buttercups."
Mrs. Fisher didn't smile, but nodded her head toward my backyard and the
pretty yellow flowers.
"Yes" I said, "I've always liked
buttercups."
It was as though she
didn't hear me. Her eyes were
transfixed on those little yellow flowers. She appeared mesmerized, lost in a
sea of thoughts.
"You know how those buttercups got here?" Her voice wandered, as though drifting in
empty space. Without waiting for me to
answer, she went on, "Yankee soldiers, that's how." She glared at me and finished her history lesson
with a cold flat statement, "Yankee soldiers brought them here in their
saddlebags."</I>I
C 1991 Frances Fasano Alt