"Supper on the Grounds"

DATELINE February 05, 2013:

"Supper on the Grounds"
By: Bascimb Biggers

When I was a kid growin up in Nankipooh, one of my most favorote times was when we had supper on the grounds at the old Methodist Church. Now this was just a little church out in the country that a few farm families had got together and built, and includin the children there probably wern't more than about fifty or sixty members. About four times a year we had supper on the grounds, and all of the women brought a covered dish or two and we had a big old-fashioned supper for everybody.

The men set up tables out in the yard next to the church, and then the women went to pilin them high with the best of their cookin, while us kids just about went crazy waitin around for a chance to get at it. There was fresh tomaotes, pole beans, yaller squash, okra, mashed potatoes and gravey, turnip greens, black-eyed peas, deviled eggs, bisquits, cornbread, hoecakes, and for desert there was pies and cakes and banana puddin. And of course there was lots of fried chicken!

Now I never met a farm woman who didn't know how to cook great fried chicken, and these suppers always became a contest to see whose fried chiclen disapeared the fastest. Us kids helped quite a bit at gettin that chicken gone, as soon as we got our chance. In those days when I was ten or twelve years old, I could eat a lot of fried chicken. One year I ate a dozen drumsticks, and a couple of wings, and still had room for a few pieces of pie.

Now one thing about a small church is that although everyone cares for each other, there is always a couple of families that want to run things, and tell everybody else what to do. At our church it was the Johnstons and the Halls. They was always competing with each other and arguin about how everything was supposed to be, so it carried over to the supper on the grounds as well. Both Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Johnston always brought a big platter of fried chicken, and went about encourgin everbody to have some of their's. They both made good fried chicken, but of course I didn't think neither one was as good as my Grandma's, but it didn't stop me from eatin plenty of theirs also.

One year these two ladies got to arguin so much about their chicken, that they both got mad and packed up their stuff and went home, and all of the chicken wasn't eat up yet. Now this left me and some of the other kids without quite as much chicken as we was plannin to eat, and Mrs. Smith's old dried up fried pork chops just didn't take up the slack. Some us went home a little more hungry than usual that year, and I ain't never forgot that day, since I figured that I was somehow cheated out of my share of fried chicken.

When I sit around and watch how much the Skunks and Polecats up in DC keep arguin about who is gonna run the show, and who's got the best ideas for the country, I keep thinkin about Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Johnston. If they would just shut their yaps and get down to servin up the fried chicken, we would all be a lot better off.

"Now, that's the way I see it, and you can tell-em I said so!""
Bascomb Biggers