I am thinking, this morning, of being 9 yrs. old, at my grandmother’s house, helping her put together the pans and pans and PANS of cornbread dressing she would be cooking very soon.

I am remembering setting the table with the good silver, going all around that huge oak table. Suddenly, every bit of it looked dull to me and needed to be shined up, so I proceeded to do that, picking up each piece, huffing on it a time or two, then rubbing it with the dish towel slung over my shoulder. I’d gotten almost completely around the table doing this when my grandfather walked into the doorway and saw me. “Good God, girl,” he said, scooping all the silverware up, “you could have tuberculosis!”

Well, I DIDN’T have tuberculosis, and nobody else did, either, because we washed every single piece of silver before resetting the table on that day. It’s a funny memory. JS