on summer potlucks, ‘EveryChurch’ U.S.A., 1950s – “Nearly every summer evening just before six o’clock we would walk uptown to some shady church lawn and take part in a vast potluck supper, presided over by armies of immense, chuckling women who had arms and necks that sagged in an impossible manner, like really wet clothes. They were all named Mabel and they all suffered greatly from the heat, though they never complained and never stopped chuckling and being happy. They spent their lives shooing flies from food with spatulas (setting their old arms a-wobbling in a hypnotizing manner), blowing wisps of stray hair out of their faces, and making sure that no human being within fifty yards failed to have a heaped paper plate of hearty but deeply odd food – and dinners in the 1950s, let me say, were odd indeed… The main dishes were complemented by a table of brightly colored Jell-Os, the state fruit, each containing further imaginative components – marshmallows, pretzels, fruit chunks, Rice Krispies, Fritos corn chips, whatever would maintain its integrity in suspension – and you had to take some of each of these, too, though of course you wanted to because it all looked so tasty.” -The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir, by Iowan Bill Bryson, 2006
Posted on: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:29:16 +0000
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