Ethel on Singing, Cooking, Tree Chopping and Love

Ethel on Singing, Cooking, Tree Chopping and Love 

I once had a dear friend named Ethel. She has passed now. We worked together at Eastern State Hospital, and that’s where I first met my Ethel.

We were both direct care psychiatric aides.

Ethel could sing—Lord, could she sing. She sang like an angel. She sang gospel and sang in her church choir, and of course, being in the South, it was a Southern Baptist church. When Ethel opened her mouth to sing, the hair on the back of your neck would stand up. It sounded like a choir of angels—absolutely beautiful.

Ethel and I had a lot of good times. My family called her my sister, and she truly was my sister. She considered me her sister, too, and her family called me their other child. I loved being included in their family. I learned so much from them, and Ethel was just as welcomed and loved in my family.

Her grandma Celestine would say to her, “Ethel, you call my child and tell her to get down here. We are having dinner on the grounds.”

You may ask, What in the world is dinner on the grounds?
Well, you take three or four small horses (or more), put a piece of plywood across their backs, throw on a tablecloth, and every wonderful Southern lady from Hope Crossing in Charles City—everyone who was a member of the church—would bring a lovingly prepared dish from her own kitchen.

Then the gospel singing would begin. They would sing for two or three hours before we went out to eat dinner. If the weather was bad, we’d eat inside the recreation hall of the church.

Heaven itself seemed to smile when that gospel choir started singing. They had other gospel groups come, too. It was truly an amazing experience.

But let’s get back to the food. That table would groan under the weight of red velvet cake, chicken and dumplings, poke salad with cornbread dumplings, smothered chicken with onion gravy, potato salad, banana pudding, homemade biscuits with homemade jam, and every casserole you can imagine. But to me, the star of the table was always the pig’s feet.

Now, let’s talk about pig’s feet. This is a truly Southern dish. You may say, “Yikes! That’s awful.” It’s not. I still cook and eat them to this day, at least two or three times a year, in honor of my friend Ethel. My husband always asks, “Why are you sucking on pig toes?” This comes from a man whose grandmother made squirrel head gravy in West Virginia!

There is an art to cooking pig’s feet. First, you boil them for about 30–40 minutes, then rinse them off. Next, put them in fresh water with salt, pepper, a bay leaf, about a quarter cup of vinegar, hot pepper flakes, onions, and two tablespoons of garlic. I put mine in a crockpot, but you can do them on the stove. Cook them on low for about 3–4 hours. That’s some good eating right there. Take them out, splash some Texas Pete on them, and go to town. I usually add a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, too.

I never ate pig’s feet until dinner on the grounds, when Ethel Mae made me taste them. Suddenly a switch flipped in my brain. My taste buds jumped up and down and said, “What is THAT?” I was hooked.

Now, let me tell you about Thelma, Ethel’s mother. Instead of drinking sweet tea—which is the standard in the South—she always had a glass of milk. I said, “Thelma, you must have some strong bones, drinking milk all day long.” She laughed and said, “It’s a special kind of milk. Here, taste it.”
Well, being the curious one, I did. Thelma had put two or three shots of brandy and a tablespoon of honey in her milk. It was sort of like a mocktail—a brandy Alexander.

I also had a friend named Renee. Her husband was in the military and deployed one Christmas. Ethel had come down to my house, and we were baking cookies. You could smell ginger, cinnamon, chocolate, and vanilla all through the house—don’t forget the vanilla; you always have to have vanilla.

We were talking and baking. Renee had come over too. This was a marathon—about fourteen hours of baking.

Renee baked Boston brown bread in a coffee can. (She was from Boston; in case you didn’t figure that out.) It’s a dark bread with molasses, and it is so good. We each made two loaves.

There was flour flying, women laughing, Christmas carols playing, the oven blazing like a demon furnace—when we came up with the idea of the century.

Now, let me talk about Ethel as a cook. She was usually a very good cook. But Ethel had this habit of keeping sugar in one bowl and salt in another—same size, same shape. She would sometimes mix them up. One time, she decided to make candied yams to bring to my house, because Ethel swore, she was the best candy yam maker in Charles City County.

She was singing and cooking in her kitchen, using two cups of what she thought was sugar and one tablespoon of what she thought was salt. She decorated the yams with marshmallows, as is custom in the South. She also added lemon slices and sugar. It’s usually delicious.

But that night, when everyone—Athleen, Ron, my mother, and me—sat down to dinner, we all served ourselves some candied yams. We took a bite, expecting our taste buds to sing with joy.

We about choked to death.

Ethel had swapped the bowls. We all looked at each other in disbelief and then just hollered laughing.

Another memory: we decided we were going to cut our own Christmas trees. A sisterhood bonding experience. Ethel called Grandma Celestine and asked if we could go onto her land behind the Baptist Church and cut three trees. Grandma Celestine said, “Lord, child, y’all go ahead and take my children out there.” I loved that woman.

So, that first Saturday in December, off we went with three axes (none of which were sharpened), a shovel, and my station wagon. We drove to Charles City, laughing and singing Christmas songs.

Behind the church, we found the perfect tree. There was a ditch between the road and the embankment. We climbed up the bank like we were Paul Bunyan—only missing Babe the Blue Ox (or maybe that was my blue station wagon).

I chopped first, then Ethel, then Renee wanted to chop—but she was eight months pregnant, so that wasn’t happening. We chopped for 40 minutes. The tree started to lean. We had won.

But here’s the thing: we fools didn’t know you were supposed to make a wedge cut. So, the tree fell straight down the embankment—right on top of Ethel—into the ditch, legs and arms flailing in the air. The ditch had about five inches of water.

Renee and I fell on the ground laughing so hard we peed our pants. Ethel was down there hollering she was going to drown. (She was not.)

We dragged the tree off her, and the three of us just stared at each other before bursting out laughing again.

At that point, we held a council meeting and decided tree-chopping was not for us. We retired our axes, shoved the tree in the back of my car, and delivered it to Ethel’s house. She earned that one.

After she changed clothes, Renee and I decided we’d just buy a tree.

Now, let me tell you about Ethel’s boyfriend—she called him “Partner.” He had an apartment in Newport News. I would drop her off on her days off, and we’d ride to work together when her days off were over.

One day, Ethel caught Partner in bed with another woman. Well, actually on the floor—but you get the idea. The woman ran out half-dressed because Ethel went for a butcher knife and was ready to commit murder. Partner managed to calm her down, but Ethel wasn’t done. Revenge was brewing.

They had a few drinks—Partner had more than a few. Once he passed out, Ethel found some rope. She tied him to the bed, leaving one wrist loose so he could eventually get free. Then she took red fingernail polish and painted his fingernails and toenails. She used red lipstick to draw clown cheeks and lips on him.

While she was creating her masterpiece, she called me to come pick her up. When I got there, Partner was still passed out, naked, and painted like a circus clown.

She grabbed her clothes and toothbrush, dumped the bottle of nail polish into the sink as a final insult, and marched out with me.

So here is my advice to you about love:
If you think you might ever be in this situation, make sure there’s no red polish or lipstick nearby.

There will be more tales of Ethel later on, but for now, these are some I wanted to share. Ethel has passed—though in the South, no one ever “dies,” we just “pass.” I don’t know where we’re all passing to or whose highway we’re using, but we’re passing.

I miss Ethel.

And just a final thought: passing seems to be like a soap opera on General Hospital. People never really die. They just get recycled, come back with new names, and we’re expected not to notice the face is the same. Maybe they think they’re using the Jedi mind trick on us.