direction. Gershwin did a little bit of it in Porgy and Bess. It was just heaven. We used to rush down to the curb just to hear it.
If you wanted to serve crawfish, you called some of the little po’ boys in the neighborhood. Ma-Ma would call and she’d say, “Now day after tomorrow I want four dozen crawfish.” Broad Street had a ditch down the middle then for the crawfish. And those po’ boys would deliver them. See, everything was mixed together. I mean, people who were wealthy, people who were modestly endowed, people who were working hard, people who didn’t have anything, and blacks, who were servants. They were all sort of mixed up in downtown Mobile. Miss Minnie J. Cox had a huge house on Broad Street. Sitting in this avenue of oaks, you know. Facing the ditch. And then next to her was a ship captain who wasn’t anywhere as well-off as she was. Then a block away on the other side of Spring Hill Avenue were all tiny little houses of black servants, who only walked a couple of blocks to work. So it was all social classes and colors together. And if you wanted crawfish, you just called the little po’ boys.
The lightwood man who sold pine knots for the stove and fireplace sang out, “Liiiiiid-ud! Get yo’ liiiiiid-ud!” These were oily pine knots for starting fires in stoves and fireplaces because all you do is put a match to them and they blaze. We had to have them year-round because of that wood-burning iron stove. Then came the iceman. He had a huge wooden truck lined with zinc and filled with huge blocks of ice, pulled by a white horse. He had this bell and you’d hear him from miles away down Conti Street, this tinkle-tonkle, tinkle-tonkle, tinkle-tonkle. It was hanging on a little loop of iron, and he’d pull this little rope. The icebox was on the back porch, and it was this huge oak chest with another oak chest inside lined with zinc. There was a colored disc one could leave in a window which showed how many pounds of ice were needed that day. The horse-drawn ice wagon would stop at the back gate, and the iceman would saw off the blocks and carry them with his great big iron tongs to the wooden chest on the back porch. Always a drama. Every child for blocks followed the iceman to catch the “snow” which rained down when he sawed the ice. Some ate it right there, others ran home, hands cupped, to put either vanilla or lemon extract on it, or grenadine or molasses.
The country butter lady came in an old Chevrolet with a rumble seat filled with straw baskets full of ice and pats of pale sweet butter wrapped in green leaves. Miz Mimms made a proper entry with much ado and was always invited to sit and rest a moment, have a glass of iced tea, and share those details gleaned from other households. She was a master of gossip and never forgot that “gossip is no good if it doesn’t start from fact,” as Ma-Ma always said.
“I do feel sorry for her living alone,” Miz Mimms would say. “But who owns those men’s socks she hangs on her back porch?”
Tells everything.
Miz Mimms was a real character. She wore a cabbage leaf on her head to protect her from sunstroke. She said it was the only thing that would keep you cool. The sun won’t go through a cabbage leaf. Never boil your brains if you wear a cabbage leaf.
Old black men with sugarcane stalks over their shoulder would come passing by. Children selling cut flowers, stolen from that morning’s funeral wreaths at Magnolia Cemetery. The scissors grinder with his fascinating emery wheel-on-wheels. The pot mender with his bits of lead and solder and strange tools and a spirit lamp. The postman always stopped for a word. Conversations went on, corn was husked, beans hulled or snapped, rice picked over, coffee ground, beads restrung, paper wicks folded for next winter’s fireplaces—somehow a whole world was encompassed, seized, dealt with before noon.
*
A lot of sloppy household stuff was done on the back porch. The back porch had the huge
If you wanted to serve crawfish, you called some of the little po’ boys in the neighborhood. Ma-Ma would call and she’d say, “Now day after tomorrow I want four dozen crawfish.” Broad Street had a ditch down the middle then for the crawfish. And those po’ boys would deliver them. See, everything was mixed together. I mean, people who were wealthy, people who were modestly endowed, people who were working hard, people who didn’t have anything, and blacks, who were servants. They were all sort of mixed up in downtown Mobile. Miss Minnie J. Cox had a huge house on Broad Street. Sitting in this avenue of oaks, you know. Facing the ditch. And then next to her was a ship captain who wasn’t anywhere as well-off as she was. Then a block away on the other side of Spring Hill Avenue were all tiny little houses of black servants, who only walked a couple of blocks to work. So it was all social classes and colors together. And if you wanted crawfish, you just called the little po’ boys.
The lightwood man who sold pine knots for the stove and fireplace sang out, “Liiiiiid-ud! Get yo’ liiiiiid-ud!” These were oily pine knots for starting fires in stoves and fireplaces because all you do is put a match to them and they blaze. We had to have them year-round because of that wood-burning iron stove. Then came the iceman. He had a huge wooden truck lined with zinc and filled with huge blocks of ice, pulled by a white horse. He had this bell and you’d hear him from miles away down Conti Street, this tinkle-tonkle, tinkle-tonkle, tinkle-tonkle. It was hanging on a little loop of iron, and he’d pull this little rope. The icebox was on the back porch, and it was this huge oak chest with another oak chest inside lined with zinc. There was a colored disc one could leave in a window which showed how many pounds of ice were needed that day. The horse-drawn ice wagon would stop at the back gate, and the iceman would saw off the blocks and carry them with his great big iron tongs to the wooden chest on the back porch. Always a drama. Every child for blocks followed the iceman to catch the “snow” which rained down when he sawed the ice. Some ate it right there, others ran home, hands cupped, to put either vanilla or lemon extract on it, or grenadine or molasses.
The country butter lady came in an old Chevrolet with a rumble seat filled with straw baskets full of ice and pats of pale sweet butter wrapped in green leaves. Miz Mimms made a proper entry with much ado and was always invited to sit and rest a moment, have a glass of iced tea, and share those details gleaned from other households. She was a master of gossip and never forgot that “gossip is no good if it doesn’t start from fact,” as Ma-Ma always said.
“I do feel sorry for her living alone,” Miz Mimms would say. “But who owns those men’s socks she hangs on her back porch?”
Tells everything.
Miz Mimms was a real character. She wore a cabbage leaf on her head to protect her from sunstroke. She said it was the only thing that would keep you cool. The sun won’t go through a cabbage leaf. Never boil your brains if you wear a cabbage leaf.
Old black men with sugarcane stalks over their shoulder would come passing by. Children selling cut flowers, stolen from that morning’s funeral wreaths at Magnolia Cemetery. The scissors grinder with his fascinating emery wheel-on-wheels. The pot mender with his bits of lead and solder and strange tools and a spirit lamp. The postman always stopped for a word. Conversations went on, corn was husked, beans hulled or snapped, rice picked over, coffee ground, beads restrung, paper wicks folded for next winter’s fireplaces—somehow a whole world was encompassed, seized, dealt with before noon.
*
A lot of sloppy household stuff was done on the back porch. The back porch had the huge
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