When our cousin Millicent, who lived up north in a big city, came to the Mississippi Delta for a visit, the pure country air didn’t invigorate her as much as our vernacular vexed her.
Flatland jargon is clear to Flatland folks, but not to outsiders. Take the term “Mamanem" — a contraction of “Mama and them.” Having fewer syllables and being easier to say, it can refer to: Mama, or Mama and Daddy, or Mama, Daddy, brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, and grandchillun. Why say all that when you can just say, Mamanem?
“Sweet riggum” is another utterance universally utilized by Delta folks. When they gather to graze, and someone wants to slaver a slab of catfish with catsup and commence chomping Southern fried crunch, he’s apt to say, “Pass the sweet riggum,” not “Pass the catsup.”
Sweet riggum can just as easily refer to WD-40. Say two farm boys are getting equipment ready for the field, and one is mostly working while one is mostly watching. The working one might say, “The least you can do is chunk me that can of sweet riggum. I wanna finish before suppertime. Mamanem’s fixin’ collards and cornbread.”
Our citified cousin coped with Southern weather, words, and ways, but it took a snake to make her accept Peggy Pokechop, Sophie’s sottish sow. As part of our gang, that hog loved us despite our frailties, and we loved her, despite hers.
Two-legged imbibers worked in order to eat, to say nothing of swilling, but not Peggy. From shoat to sow, she swilled sour mash, and her owner, Sophie, was no slacker when it came to lapping Lucifer’s liquid. If Peggy let it be known she desired a dollop, Sophie poured the porker a bowl and joined in.
Our sanctimonious cousin called the sow sinful … until she met the moccasin. A railroad track ran through our little hamlet, and dewberry vines grew thick along its sides. Southern kids carry snake sticks when berry picking and swat the vines a few times to scare off any slant-eyed, no-shouldered lean fellows lurking there.
Cousin Millicent didn’t carry a snake stick, and had never picked dewberries. But, did she ever love eating them! Her pickings mostly went from vine to mouth.
Peggy and I were working our way down one side of the track, and the other kids were working the other side, when Millicent screamed, “Snake! Snake!” We scrambled across the tracks and saw the poor girl … on her knees, paralyzed in fright. Snorting savagely, Peggy plunged into the brambles, rooted out the snake and snapped him into several squirming segments.
That night, around a supper table laden with fried chicken, mustard greens, black-eyed peas, fried green tomatoes, cornbread, and dewberry cobbler, Millicent told us about her terrifying serpent encounter and how Peggy Pokechop saved her life.
Bless her heart, what Millicent said when she finished the story let us know that she was now one of us: “Mamanem, please pass the sweet riggum.”
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
