Daisy Violet Abbott Lafayette was my great-grandmother, my Granny’s Mama. She was very old fashioned and set in her ways especially when it came to her garden. Pop Joe,  my Granny’s stepfather was the same – more so when it came to his views on ‘a woman’s place.’

This was never brought home more clearly to me than at his seventy-fifth birthday dinner. His four remaining brothers and sisters attended, along with a few close friends, and of course, Granny, Mama, my Aunt Cheryl, Aunt Joan and their seven kids.

I was eight. I’d spent my morning carrying baskets laden with tomato plants down one after another, dropping them into the holes Timmy had dug with a hoe. Shelley followed behind me, planting the stalks. Tina and Johnny watered and fertilized them. It was a long, hard day of work for us. We put over two hundred tomato plants in the ground.

After bathing, Shelley and I helped out in the kitchen. I rolled out dough for pies and cut up apples. Shelley was busy breading chicken.  Tina was put in charge of watching her baby sister and my baby brother.  Timmy and Johnny set up chairs on the veranda and swept the long driveway.

As guests began to pull up, Aunt Joan took us kids into the bedroom and dressed us in our Sunday clothes. How I hated wearing frilly dresses and patent leather shoes!

By this time, I was tired and hungry.  All I wanted was to eat, go home and sleep.

I smiled and shook the hand of all these people I‘d never seen before as we went about setting the food on the table. There were mounds of it. Fried chicken, honey glazed ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, cornbread, buttermilk biscuits, corn of the cob, black eyed peas, green beans, macaroni salad and turnip greens and I can‘t remember what else. For dessert, which we left on the side cupboard, we had chocolate cakes, apple pies and blackberry cobblers.

The aromas were a treat to my nose and my hungry belly purred with anticipation.

I looked around and thought everyone looked like they belonged in an old movie. All the woman wore very plain dresses, stockings and flat shoes. They carried huge black pocketbooks.  The men wore dress shirts under their denim cover-alls, a jacket and some had hats … not baseball hats … but the type Humphrey Bogart wore.  

The Blessing was lead by Pop Joe’s elder brother, who was almost ninety and could barely speak above a whisper. As he finished and sat back down at the table, Big Granny handed me the tea pitcher and I went around to fill glasses while the men almost leapt into the feast before them.

That’s when I noticed only men were at the table.

I figured everyone else would just get a plate and eat on the verandah.

Thirty minutes later, I ask Mama if we could eat. She looked around in a panic, put her finger on my lips and pulled me outside.

“This is Pop Joe’s people,” she whispered. “We have to wait until the men are finished. Then the children eat and women last.“

I frowned, blinked and looked up at her, my empty stomach talking for me.

“Why? That‘s stupid!”

“Men work hard all day, they get to eat first.”

“But Mama!” I protested. “All Pop Joe did was ride the tractor around, how hard can that be?”

“Hush!” She said sharply. “Go swing until I call you for supper.” She started back to the door, then turned to hiss, “And watch your mouth, young lady!”

Fuming, I went to swing. Another hour went by. I thought I was starving. So I did something I knew I wasn’t supposed to do.

I snuck around  to the back of the smokehouse, climbed the apple tree and picked two juicy looking ones. Scampering back down, I peeked to see if anyone was looking for me yet.

Nope.

So I sat down against the tree and ate those apples. They were the best I ever had. So sweet, so juicy!

When Big Granny finally came out to the back porch to call me to dinner, I was happily swinging. I leapt off the swing and walked inside as if nothing had happened.

As I walked by, Big Granny smiled, “I told your Mama to let you swing, you looked so happy out there”

“She was suppose to help with clearing the table.”

“We had plenty of help,” Big Granny insisted.

The men were now on the verandah, drinking coffee and smoking pipes. My cousins were already sitting at the table eating. I fixed a small – very small – plate, eyeing what little food was left, knowing the women had yet to eat.  

I did, however, want a slice of the apple pie I’d helped to make. There was a half a pie left.  I picked up the knife to cut a small piece.

Big Granny smiled at me, her eyes were full of knowing. My own must have gotten huge in my face.