Southern Raisin’ What is it and how do you get it? Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6
In the South, when someone’s behavior astonishes us, we shake our heads and say, “She ain’t had no raisin’.”(Translation – She hasn’t had any raising.)But—to even understand the translation, you must know what raisin’ means.No, I’m not talking about the raisins flowing two scoops worth from the cardboard cereal box that sits on your breakfast table each morning, when you know you ought to be eating grits and butter biscuits. And not the kind of raising you used to do when you would place your hand far above your head as you tried to be the first one to answer a question in Mrs. Smith’s English class, your eager hand raise causing your shirt to slip so far up your side that your ribs could be counted.
No, raisin’ in the South is brought on by the generous hands of a loving Southern mama or the wrong end of a switch stripped clean from a peach tree or the thick wooden board of education.You will remember those times from when you were knee high to a grasshopper and for those of us who were extraordinarily stubborn even after your height towered above that sweet mama placing a little raisin’ on her brood.
Good old raisin’ that taught us to sit still during monotonous church services though our legs itched to squirm and squiggle our way beneath the pews like a soldier on assignment through the trenches of enemy territory.That same raisin’ taught us to share our toys with the tow-headed next-door-neighbor who stuck his tongue out at us when our mama wasn’t looking.
Even the pet swats we received from Mama when we were in public kept us in line as we stood twenty people deep waiting for the cashier blowing purple bubbles with a wad of Bubbilicious to finish checking out the folks in front of us.And the shrill, tired warnings we heard escape from Mama’s lips at the end of a chaotic day telling us she would report our behavior to our father brought about further raisin’ at a cost none of us care to remember.
Just the sight of Daddy pulling into the driveway, caused us to swarm around Mama’s ankles hoping our last ditch effort to show some raisin’ would cause her to forget to tell Daddy what hellions we had been as we battled our siblings, ranting and raving, through her newly mopped kitchen, the linoleum just slick enough for us to belly flop on, catapulting us into the recesses of the pantry.
But, Mama knew more about raisin’ than we did and she met Daddy at the door, her lips pressed firmly together, her eyes casting daggers at Daddy for the children he had spawned, for that type behavior always came from HIS side of the family.He would know as soon as he turned the doorknob and found us all waiting at the door that he would have to put off placing himself comfortably in his recliner until a lesson in raisin’ had been administered.His first order of business was to prove to Mama that we would have raisin’, one way or the other, and his way caused our knees to knock as we eyed the belt hooked around his bulging waistline.It wasn’t so much that the belt hurt our bottoms as it was the thought of Daddy’s discipline hurt our feelings, pushing raisin’ back into our minds and helping us to remember years later to respect other folks and their efforts.
Raisin’—you can’t bottle it, can’t have it for breakfast, and you sure can’t substitute anything else for it, but you can wish other folks had a little of it from time to time.
A little Southern raisin’ might help everyone to talk with a drawl, sip sweet iced tea as a choice beverage, yield to the other fellow, and call that sweet mama at least once a week and thank her for all the RAISIN’.
Written/Published/Copyright by Elisa Mayo www.elisamayo.com December 2007
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