After mother's milk came iced cold sweet tea

I write this in response to an article from my very good friend Jim Keyworth pertaining to his first impressions of Southerners. Jim’s point of view was as a young boy growing up in an auto industry town, Detroit, where he was born and raised. It was a company town. More correctly, it was a two-company town split between Ford and General Motors. Everything and everyone was mentally assigned a niche within that culture

Neither John Henry nor Jim Crow was welcome. No Gomers or Goobers, either. But, on they came to fill the rosters of recruiters casting a wide net to feed the insatiable appetite of the auto factories and steel mills. The best jobs in America were in Detroit, or Pittsburgh or perhaps in a small Pennsylvania town named Bethlehem.

Farm boys and freed slaves from another generation, they came. From the agricultural South came a great wave of unskilled but eager new challengers for the factory jobs. The Civil War had set the South back 50 years, and the Great Depression squeezed the life out of whatever was still breathing. It split families apart, as the most able went to find a paying job. “Wages” was the holy grail - something dependable to pay the bills and buy some groceries.

Cultures clashed as they had in the 1860s, but the horror of genocide had, by then, turned too many stomachs and ground down the hard edges off hatred between cousins and brothers from different locales. War of a different kind was a grumbling reality. It involved claiming or protecting an economic stronghold.

Jim Keyworth’s perspective as a young boy was watching his homeland being invaded by Mongols from the South. He could not have known the complexities involved in a southern boy making the hard decision to leave home and go find work among “The Yankees.”

I come from that South - ravaged by war, raped by something called “Reconstruction,” and struggling to find a sound economic base when the cotton market and Wall Street turned their mean, aloof backs. There was no industry, of course. A man named Sherman had seen to that. Lincoln had promised a rational re-entry into the Union, but rabid animosity wanted its pound of flesh, and the cult represented by John Wilkes Booth prevailed.

Fade to the 1930’s in Detroit, Michigan.

Times were tough. - absolutely.

Jobs were precious commodities, and aggressively pursued by the strongest and most motivated individuals. This did not necessarily include the best educated or brightest, however. Physical labor was in demand. Everyone else to the end of the line.

My own father told me of those days. He was, fortunately, a pretty good athlete - a basketball player who was recruited by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company - Akron, Ohio - to play ball in a highly contested Industrial League. He was assured a good job on an assembly line, but most of the time played basketball for the company.

Most big companies had teams in all sports, and since there was very little professional ball being played, these teams were energetically supported. The players were paid above average wages. My father spoke of it often, always referring, with reverence, to “the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.”

My father made enough money to come back south, buy a brand new “A” model Ford and court and marry a beauty from Carrolton, Georgia - Christine Fuller, my mother.

I’ll spare you the myriad details., but that began a wild ride

Since they eloped, there was no wedding reception, and therefore no sweet tea. It was the drink of choice at all occasions, of course, at least the acceptable one. I’m quite sure that the first thing I ever drank, after mother’s milk, was iced cold sweet tea.

I can only guess where the tradition began, but until Coca Cola came along it was unchallenged as a thirst quencher and dinner companion. My mother usually added a sprig of mint in the summer, a nice touch. Oh, and lemon. A slice of lemon almost always accompanies the tea.

Most likely, tea drinking was a long standing tradition passed down from the British, who largely settled the Old South. From a rather formal setting in a cool climate, the ritual became more mundane and practical in a hot southern summer. Southerners loved their ties to English formality, and clung to pride and manners to a fault. In the poorest of homes you would still hear, “Yes Sir or yes Maam”, courtliness and manners were esteemed, and Sunday was the Lord’s Day.

In his column, Jim mentions Southerners’ affection for other things like grits and cornbread. The two are actually cousins, once removed, and seldom served together. Grits would almost always be accompanied by biscuits - big fluffy “cat head” biscuits. Both would be heavily buttered. It was, and is, a sacrilege to put sugar on grits. Freshly ground corn meal grits need only a bit of salt and a pat of butter to bring out their marvelous earthy taste. A slice of country ham, scrambled eggs and a piece of “loaf-bread” toast or a biscuit, along with the grits, make up a breakfast fit for royalty,

Likewise, a dinner of fried chicken or catfish along with hushpuppies or cornbread, sweet potatoes and deep fried dill pickle slices is the evening equivalent.

Incidentally, catfish pulled from a lake or river are known as “trash fish,” and almost never eaten. Catfish from fish farms, however, are raised on a special diet to yield a sweet non-fishy treat. Enhanced by a light corn meal dusting and quickly deep fried in peanut oil, this is the southern version of lobster. I have known restaurants specializing in catfish which required waiting in line for up to an hour to get a table.

And always, always, a tall glass of iced sweet tea. Call me now, Lord.