Turnip Greens

Dear Boo and Bubble,

There’s only one thing more fun than writing to you – and that’s BEING with you!  We had such a good time last week while you were here.  I treasure every moment we’re together and I will never forget being your Pokémon chauffeur all over Sugar Mountain and Banner Elk.  Now you’re back home and the rain has settled in, almost like Mother Nature feels the need to be sad along with me at your departure.

Fortunately, there’s always something to do around here and last night we went to the most enjoyable concert down at Lees/McRae College.  It was a benefit for the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate and featured my favorite pianist of all time, Emile Pandolfi.  Although he’s a little older than I am and doesn’t know me from Adam’s house cat, we grew up together in Greenville.  I remember vividly going to Calhoun Towers on Sundays for lunch after church where Emile, only a teenager then, played the piano and his two sisters accompanied him on the violin.  As a youngster, I marveled at their talent and over the years have always felt sort of a claim of ownership to Emile as his fame grew. 

Sitting in the audience, watching this winsome, witty, humble man draw everyone into his web of artistry, it struck me just how important music has always been in our family.  No doubt the seed was planted by your great, great grandmother Mattie whose most agile fingers could elicit any tune upon request - whether allegro, adagio or bellicoso – from the black and white ivories of her piano.  I can remember hearing the strains of many a hymn wafting up from her basement apartment at 3 Lakecrest.  There was never a day without a free concert from below.  

Her daughter, your great, great Aunt Katherine, inherited Mattie’s talent.  There was always a piano in our living room and whenever Kat visited, she delighted us with renditions of many favorite songs.  Every time, Great Granddaddy Schaefer insisted that she play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata after which he would take his seat on the piano bench at the bass end and join her for their standard duet of Do You Believe In Magic.  Many a good time with pats of the feet and claps of the hand revolved around those sessions.

Your great Uncle Bryant picked up the bass fiddle in high school and played in a band consistently literally until the day he died.  Aunt Doris has his fiddle still poised on its stand in the living room of her house.

Your great Uncle Gene carries his guitar with him everywhere he goes – and he’s always making up songs like Alex the Engineer - much to the giggling amusement of us all.

If I had to say, though, what musical memory stands out most in my mind over the years, it would have to be the tradition of singing our family (as in the overall larger Bryant clan - cousins and all) song at every gathering great or small.  It was a song Granddaddy Schaefer first heard in his car on the radio in the 1930’s and kept searching until he found a written copy of the lyrics.  The title has become the familial mantra and many a design on a reunion teeshirt has been inspired by it.  The greatest song of all time – Turnip Greens!

No one can be an honest to goodness Bryant without knowing the words to Turnip Greens.  And so, I want to make sure that the two of you come into your full fledged heritage by sharing them here.  (We can work on the tune the next time we’re together.)

Here goes:

Had a dream the other night

I dreamed that I could fly.

Flapped my wings like a bub…bub…buzzard

And flew up to the sky.

At the gate I met St. Peter

Who looked at me so neat-a.

He asked me into dinner

And this is what we eat-a…

(Chorus)

OH!  Turnip Greens, Turnip Greens

Good old turnip greens

It’s cornbread and butter milk

And good old turnip greens.

Now Peter kindly asked of me

From what town did I fly

I told him that from Old KC

I flew up to the sky

He told me through his periscope

Now I don’t know what that means

But they’re ten thousand people there

Who live on turnip greens.

(Chorus)

Peter said from Old KC

Now we only had one man

But he could hardly live here

In this gold and happy land

His ways they got so crook…crook…crooked

That he lived beyond his means

Got sent to the Devil for stealing

A dish of turnip greens!

(Chorus)