Eula and the Great Gas Oven Caper...

 

My Granny's kitchen was the place to be around 11:30 every day, Monday through Friday.  There was food on every inch of the table, and more than enough to go around.  Some days Granny would have help, but some most of the time she would do it all by herself.  There was no air conditioning in the house, and the only way it had any breeze circulating, was from the big chicken house fan attached to the south side window in the living room.  Every window in the house would be open and that fan would be chugging.  Remember, this was Summer in the south!  The only breeze coming through was a nice 90 degrees.  It didn't matter to Granny!  She would dive headfirst into making the cornbread and frying up some fresh corn from the garden.   On the rare occasion Paw would make it to the house before the food was ready, he was put in charge of making the sweet tea.  There is sweet tea, but Paw's tea fell somewhere between sweet and molasses.  It was so sweet you could almost use it for dessert!  When the tea was ready, he would put it in a gallon glass jug and sit it on the table, then pour it over a glass full of ice.  There was nothing better than sipping the tea while eating fresh cornbread and beans, with an onion on the side.  I can taste it now!  I was very close to my grandparents on both Mama and Daddy's side of the family.  I was also extremely close to my great-grandmother "Maw", who was Paw's Mama.  She was a unique lady, and you wouldn't find anybody any sweeter!  She was born 1-1-1900 and had her first baby (my Paw) when she was just 17.  He was a whopper weighing in at 14lbs, but that didn't stop her from having 5 more in addition to him.  Some of my favorite memories are visiting with her at her home.  Her house always smelled like fresh baked pineapple upside down cake and was so clean you could eat off of the floor.  She didn't have an inside toilet, so she had to use an enamel bucket with a lid that sat on a stool.  Funny the things you remember, but I always had to "go" when I went there because I thought it was cool to use her bucket.  In her later years she would visit with her kids for a few days at a time.  I LOVED when she would stay with Granny and Paw, because I knew she would stay at our house and be my bed buddy.  She was peed on, puked on, and pushed off the bed, but she never complained.  She always loved me, and believe or not, I was the perfect kid while I was around her.  She would bring her "paper poke" (paper grocery bag), and as long as she had "dressed up cakes", she was in Heaven!  One day when several of us were at Granny's house helping with lunch, Maw decided to help bake the cornbread.  The kitchen was extra full that day with Granny, Maw, Mama, my Aunt Mary, and of course me.  Granny cooked on a gas stove and the pilot light had to be lit if you wanted to use the oven.  The stove had been acting up and was really not safe, but that didn't stop her from using it.  The kitchen was a sweltering inferno, but the bread had to be made.  Granny was busy at the sink, while Mama and my aunt were setting the table and doing other stuff.  I was busy playing with the washing machine and pilfering through the cabinets.  Maw opened the oven door and proceeded to light a match.  The next thing we hear was a loud boom!  Pots and pans were flying, smoke was boiling out of the oven, while Mama and my aunt ran for their lives.  I remember ending up standing on top of the washing machine, holding on to a box of Corn Flakes from the top of the refrigerator!  Granny was in the floor with a pan over her head, and Maw was nowhere to be seen!  Were we just attacked by the Republicans again?  Did the ghost of Sherman's army make another appearance while heading for Atlanta?  No, it was the stove showing off for everybody.  After Mama and my aunt ran back into the room, and Granny scraped herself off of the floor, Maw made her appearance!  In the pandemonium, it was assumed she had been blown through the ceiling, but in reality, she never left the room.  After the smoke cleared, we saw Maw's rear end in the air, and she was pulling her head out of the oven.  She stood up and her hair was a big fuzzy mess.  Her glasses were hanging half off of her face, and the first words out of her mouth were, "What did y'all say"?  She gathered herself, and with the kindest soft voice she said, "I think I'm going to go lay down for a minute and let y'all finish up in here".  The last I saw she was wobbling into the next room where she finished taking her glasses off and took a nice little nap. That was the day we had loaf bread instead of cornbread for lunch!!