This time of year makes me think of my grandparents. Specifically my grandmother. Though 6 years have flown by since her death I still listen for a phone to ring with her on the other end. When down I sometimes punch in her phone number without hitting send. In some way a food diary the other day set this memory off as much as the season.
For some reason the holidays finds members of my family passing away. My uncle passed the day after Christmas in 1993. It devastated my cousins, rightly so. I barely remember him and feel guilty that there are only two stories I can tell about him. I feel guilty that I can share with my cousin happy memories. My dog had died 3 days before my uncle. That summer before had both my grandfathers die a month apart. I had become numb by that Christmas.
My grandmother had all but raised me my first 24 years. She was my safe place. We would bicker once and a while, and once got so angry with each other we wasted a year not speaking to each other.
December 2005 found my grandmother passing. She was ill for a long while, she spiraled down after a fall a few years before. For my family funerals are more of a family reunion, sort of an Irish wake without the drink. They find us fighting with each other over some stupid thing or another. There are times though that are sweet. My dad paid for me to fly down with my family and our hotel room. My other uncle paid for my cousin whose father had passed. There was no way they were going to allow us to miss saying goodbye to our grandmother.
The title of this diary is Peggy's. I wanted to forget the painful bickering and the loss of someone I hold dear. I felt I needed to give some background first though.
My dad decided to treat us, the ever shrinking but still expansive Scot/Irish tribe, to lunch. Our normal meeting place was the Philadelphia House of Pancakes. Breakfast, lunch, and diner our funerals puts that place in the black for the year. My oldest Aunt had suggested Peggy's. Now I know Peggy's but never really went because of the crowd.
Peggy's is an unique place. An old Victorian on a side road in town. Tables fill the old parlors and dining room. We filled the longest one there. Peggy's remind me of the saying my daughter says : "You get what you get and you don't pitch a fit." Not open for anything but lunch, Peggy's started because of visitors showing up at lunch time in the 50's and 60's.
Right off the bat there are no menus, a pitcher of sweet tea is set on the table along with your dessert. This time it was my favorite when done right, banana pudding. Peggy's makes a whole mess of something a few times and when they run out of supplies that is it. This time it was fried chicken, butter beans, mash potatoes, and corn. They fill your plate to the brim as you walk by. I can still smell the wonderful smell. Mouth watering our table was quiet in the first time in days. We sat and ate. My not quite two year old shoving banana pudding into her mouth like there was no tomorrow. Mississippi banana pudding is so full of wafers and banana pieces it is solid not runny. Slowly as we were stuffed we began to talk amongst ourselves. If we were anything but proper we would of been unbuttoning our pants.
Then the curve was thrown to my husband. No check ever came. Husband was waiting to fight for us to chip in but it never showed. I kept a small smile in check so to say. The family slowly filtered out and left. We left last with my dad. By that time my husband was getting a little tick about not getting a bill. That was when he noticed the bowl in front. A bowl full of cash. 8 dollars per person said the small sign. This shocked my husband. Peggy's is an honor system. Many times people will just over pay to cover someone who can't afford it. Being from bigger place he had never seen an honor system. "This is a small town hun. Everyone knows everyone, or are related to everyone. Most out of towners don't know the place."
On the rim were ones neatly fanned out for those who needed change. No one watching the bowl, just there in the knowledge that people will do what is right.
Many bad things have happened in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Historic things. Yes I am related to most there as well, yet even in the bad there is some sort of good.
I haven't been back to Philadelphia but once for my Aunt's funeral in 2008. Driving over the Neshoba county line, in all my sadness at losing another family member so young, I still have a small smile over my husband's reaction over the honor system.