Simply Southern
Aug 28, 2005
By Cappy Hall Rearick
ISBN 140105675X
Published 2002
Simply Southern is a collection of short stories from the mind of award winning short story writer, Cappy Hall Rearick who hails from St. Simon’s Island, Georgia. As she puts it, it is “the humor, insight and fun of a southern good old gal”. And she is right about the humor. She can make you laugh. But she also writes poignantly of lessons learned and of her love for family. Most of her stories are from columns she has written over the years when she, herself, was living in the north and homesick for the south.
The first section deals with memoirs of time spent with her grandchildren, or “Grandkids from Hell” as she affectionately calls them. It is titled, “Camp Mammy”. Here is an excerpt from the first story, Granny Fuel.
“There are two three-foot high aliens hammering at my back door. They appear to be in disguise, their skin covered with dirt as fine and black as coal dust. I stare at the two aliens and they stare back at me, the whites of their eyes standing out from the rest of their faces. Underneath it all, there is a slight resemblance to the Grandkids from Hell.
Tentatively, I ask, ‘Who are you?’
They give each other the Duh! Look and say, ‘We’re your grandsons.’
‘Well, why are you covered in black dirt?’
‘Cause we’re digging a humongous hole in your back yard.’
‘Are you planning to bury each other? Do you need some help?’
‘Duh! We’re building an armadillo trap.’
Stop the presses!
The dreaded armadillo infestation is going to be thwarted by two creatures who act like they might actually be related to me. I look them over, searching in vain for any likeness to my side of the family.
‘We’re working hard, Mammy, and we need Koolade.’
‘With or without Benedryl,’ I ask.”
Cappy has a dry sense of humor, but her love for her family shines through in her stories. Some of them are fictional and the characters she comes up with are truly one-of-a-kind.
Here’s an excerpt from the short story, Stretched Genes as told by one of Cappy’s characters, Ivy Lee Johnson.
“’One time, me and my mama, my grandmama, my great–grandmama, and my great-great grandmama came here to the Winn Dixie. Mamma and me was walking down Aisle Six and the others was on Aisle Seven arguing over whether Maxwell House was as good as the coffee with the blue line around it. Terrickly, my great-grandmama comes over to Aisle Six crying like a baby, her face all puckered up and shiny.
“My mama said, ‘Grandmama, now what in the world’s the matter with you?’
“Great grandmama sniffed real loud, wiped her nose with a raggedy Kleenex and said, ‘Mama jist now slapped me.’
“Right then, my great-great grandmama come walking up and Mama yells at her, ‘Did you slap Grandmama?’
“She was a hundred and twenty years old at the time, Cappy, and she looked at me and Mama both like we was stone stupid. ‘Dang straight I did, and I’ll do it again if she don’t shut her mouth. Ain’t no youngun’ of mine gone sass me like that and get away with it.’”
“I am now laughing way out of control. Louder, even, than Ivy’s voice.
“’Ittn’t enough to drive a person plum crazy?’ Ivy Lee grins…”
I highly recommend Simply Southern. Cappy really makes me “feel the spirit of the south” and it warms my heart when I am homesick for my Alabama home.
You can reach Cappy at her website, http://www.simplysoutherncappy.com/ or order her book at http://www.xlibris.com/.
Dana Sieben
www.southerngalgoesnorth.blogspot.com
