Editor’s note: After finding some old black and white photos in a Shallotte, North Carolina, antiques store, Meagan Morehead Bradshaw, thought the subject matter was worthy of remembering. Here’s a fictionalized account of the story behind the snapshots.
The catawba trees are blooming and there’s corn in the field. It ain’t tossling yet but it’s coming on good and dark and green. The heat and the bugs make me want to stay inside but there’s much more to living out of them doors.
I took Mary Anne and her sisters down to the creek for a picnic after church Sunday. I wonder if they knew how much I didn’t want them there, but they didn’t seem to let on. Mary Anne is the one I wanted to be with, but her sisters just came along like they belonged, and it seemed awkward to mention any different. They ate half the tater salad, too, that Mama fixed up for me to take.
Ever body in the county will tell you Mama makes the best tater salad there is. I reckon she learned from Granny, but Granny ain’t cooked much for a long time. Since Pappy died she just sits and stares out offa the porch like she’s waiting for him to come back. People say she’s done got touched in the head, but i reckon she’s just studying on Pappy and trying to feel as close to him as she can, recollecting ever detail about him in her mind. That’s how I do when I can’t see Mary Anne. I just fix on her in my mind so hard it hurts my head.
Mama never complained about making me that tater salad when I asked her, even though i know she gets her fill of taking care of other people. Daddy ain’t never around the house, so Mama has to take care of all of us. If Mama ever did find a minute to sit down, she finds something else to do. It’s like she can’t let herself rest, and I wonder why but I think I know. She talks sometimes about idle minds and the devil, and I think she must’ve been running from him back and forth all over our place for years now. She’s beat a dirt path running from that devil and the place is better for it.
The thing that’s so good about Mama's tater salad is hard to say. I reckon anybody can make it but her’s is just the best. I feel proud of it and of Mama in a strange way. I ain’t got no more hand in making that tater salad than I have in making my Mama, but I love to tell ever body about either one.
Mama is the one who had the idea to take Mary Anne on a picnic anyway. Mama seen me looking at Mary Anne in church and Mama smiled at me when she caught me. I was embarrassed, but Mama always has a way of making everything alright. Like she’s ever person that ever was but better than all of us at the same time. I can show her the worst thing I ever done, and she would make me feel better about it, but that makes me love her so much I never want to disappoint her.
I think Mary Anne is a lot like Mama because it seems to me like she’s better than the other girls. I don’t know how Daddy ever got Mama. He works hard, but he never has much to say except for yelling. If he’s quiet then he’s happy, or at least as close to content as he gets. Mama never raises her voice though except to laugh or carry on. She can be silly with us kids and make us forget we was tired or upset or whatever it was. Maybe Daddy been with her too long though because she can’t calm him down like us. He just goes off. I think she’s the best of us.
So I knew Mama wouldn’t care to make me some tater salad. She said I orta take Mary Anne down to the spot in the woods above the creek for a picnic. She said any girl would want to go with me because I’m handsome, but I know mothers say those things. I was speculating on whether Mary Anne would want to go anywhere with me anyway, and then I thought of Mama's tater salad. Nobody can say no to that.
So I took Mary Anne and her sisters down to the picnic spot. I didn’t say much. I think I might have embarrassed myself by not saying much but not nearly as much as I might have if I opened my mouth. Mary Anne didn't talk much either but I reckon that was one good thing about her sisters being there. They kept the quiet run off like the dark from the noon time.
I am so aware of myself when I’m around her. I’m wondering if I’m sweating too much and smell like a workhorse. I’m trying to think of something clever to say to impress her but all I can come up with is something dumb about how hot it is. Then I think about it too much and end up saying nothing at all. Her sisters keep talking and laughing, and I wonder if I’m supposed to pretend to laugh with them. They aren’t funny.
And then I noticed Mary Anne wasn’t laughing either. I looked up at her and she was looking right at me. She gave me the last of the tater salad. The catawba trees ain’t all that’s blooming down here.
A teacher and mother, Meagan Morehead Bradshaw lives on a farm in Bland County; contact her at meaganmorehead123@gmail.com.
Mama’s tater salad
Cube taters and cook with salt. Boil some eggs. You need sweet pickles, pickle juice, mayonnaise, mustard, and sugar. Mama can’t tell you exactly how much of any of that to put in there because she don’t measure anything. I can tell you, though, Mama says the secret to good tater salad is to be sure and put enough salt in the taters when you are cooking them and to use the best homemade sweet pickles you can find.
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August 14, 2020 at 02:07AM
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SHOTS FROM SHALLOTTE: Mama's tater salad | Opinion - Southwest Virginia Today
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