By Regena Handy

Decorated with tiny yellow flowers, Grandma’s cotton apron had ruffles and two pockets where she kept a good handkerchief.

It was a full style, leaving an open neckline that allowed a favorite brooch to peek through. It covered her best Sunday dress as she bustled from the kitchen to dining room setting out dinner.

(Perhaps I should clarify — by dinner I mean lunch, the mid-day meal, of course.  No true-blue, southern country girl would call it otherwise.)

The meal was mostly prepared, hours previously spent frying chicken, cooking pots of green beans and mashed potatoes and creamed corn. The sideboard held a variety of cakes and pies. Biscuits were baked and in the warmer; it was just a matter of making the gravy. Gurgling sounds and aroma from the electric coffee pot as it perked filled the room.

The guests might have been immediate family — adult children and grandchildren who were gathered home, sometimes for special occasions. As often as not, it was a very ordinary Sunday.  Company could include neighbors, church friends, and the minister. Visits from the many extended family members who lived outside the county or in other states were always celebrated with enjoyable meals.

After the blessing, the children’s plates were filled. In warm weather they were sent to the front porch. During winter months, they would perch in the stairwell leading to the second floor of the house.

All adult males were seated at the table and served first. I’m sure this must have seemed quite the rite of passage for a young boy when he was upgraded from the children’s sitting area to the men’s table.

I am imagining the reaction of a reader unfamiliar with such practices. No doubt to some the tradition of serving the men first appears an outdated act of servitude. But I’m about to share a little secret. Here’s my opinion — I don’t believe it was all about the men — could be the women had an ulterior motive.

Here’s what really happened. Always aware the women were waiting to eat after they finished, the men did so reasonably quickly and sometimes sparingly. Afterwards they sat under the shade trees, some smoking, others napping, listening to the car race on the radio of a nearby vehicle and debating the merits of Fords versus Chevrolets.

While they did so, the women would gather around the dining room table and, without guilt, lick the platter clean, to quote an old saying. I recall several Sunday dinners at the home of my husband’s grandparents, sitting with other women of the family as we feasted on chicken and dumplings, followed by luscious desserts and yet more coffee. And the laughter — oh, the laughter, as we sat there together, having one more bite of this and one more bite of that.

Seems to me that I need to end this column before it makes me terribly melancholy for another time, a better time to me. Or before all this talk about food sends me to the ‘fridge in search of pie.

But seriously, these fond recollections serve as a reminder of the sweet graciousness with which our grandmothers opened up their homes and offered the best of what they had to others. There’s definitely a lesson to all of us in that simple act.