By August, our kids almost refused to go outside. If you’ve never sweated in an Alabama August swelter, well, you just haven’t truly lived! Hannah would pout and Dallas would snort when I’d try to make them go outside if it was after lunch. I couldn’t blame them. Some days, the humidity was enough to make your makeup run.
Still, though, I’d make them some ice-cold sweet tea, or some days, I’d mix them up some Tang. They liked Tang when they were little. I bet most folks don’t even know what Tang is today! Sometimes, if I was making some sort of fruit cocktail, I’d take the juice from the pineapples and mix in a little orange or apple juice and make them a special fruity drink. The promise of a special cold treat was enough to get them to go outside and play. And that would give me time to clean up the mess they left inside.
And by the end of the day, they would both be covered in dirt and sweat from head to toe, so straight to the bathtubs they would go. I’d have to make sure Dallas scrubbed good. I think little boys think “getting wet all over” constitutes a good bath. And every day, I’d take their dirty, sweaty, stinky clothes to the laundry room and start a load.
It was a daily cycle.
By the end of summer, Dallas had worn two holes in his blue jeans and Hannah had worn the soles off her tennis shoes. Their clothes were “giving up the ghost,” as I like to say. Back then, we went back-to-school shopping and Easter shopping and that was it. Those were the only two times during the year that George and I would go clothes shopping with the kids. As they grew older, we began to give them the money, and they could shop on their own—but they had strict instructions: “Whatever you buy, it has to last until Easter.”
BRENDA-ISM
“Save a little money here and there when you can. Times are sometimes hard, but hard times draw us closer together.”
Hannah would hit the thrift store circuit, and she would come back with a carload of clothes fit for a queen and still have money left over. Dallas would come home with two pairs of blue jeans, two shirts, and, if he splurged, he might have a new belt, too. And he always managed to get a good deal on a pocketknife while he was buying those blue jeans.
Those traditions still live on in our family. Hannah and her girls go to the thrift stores almost exclusively to shop. Dallas and his children still love pocketknives. And we all love fruit cocktail drinks and sweet tea!
We are all teaching our children and grandchildren, no matter what. Whether we sit around and watch television all day long or get up and get outside, they are learning! They learn to find joy in simple things because we teach them the value of those simple things. And there are few things more joyful than some ice-cold sweet tea on a hot August afternoon in Alabama.
Enjoy!
Brenda Gantt is the owner of The Cottle House Bed & Breakfast in Andalusia, Alabama. Follow along on her cooking adventures at Cooking with Brenda Gantt on Facebook and Instagram.
