Previous post
A quote: “It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.” ~~ Voltaire
I’ll start with a story …
**********************************
Warm greetings, friendly chatter – the grandmothers and the few great-grandmas greeted the younger women as they filed in for Sunday worship.
The state-licensed pastor looked on with growing boredom, unaware these old ladies had, in their girlhood, perfected the practice of saying one thing while passing notes with a deftness to make a magician envious.
Sole reliance on high-tech surveillance had made authorities lazy.
So, a couple drive-bys of the home where the women later gathered, chatting about children and baking cookies in the kitchen and the authorities moved on to other, more promising targets.
Meanwhile, in the basement …
**********************************
Now, it’s your turn.
.
.
.
.
.
. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license
“Slow, even strokes.” Sarah demonstrated for her granddaughter. “You want to roll out the crust slowly so that it will bake nice and flaky.”
Deborah was getting old enough to really appreciate these visits — and Sarah was enjoying having her granddaughter over. Sure, she could be difficult at times, like when she’d suddenly announced she was too old for “Debbie,” and now wanted to be “Deb.” But Sarah wasn’t so old that she’d forgotten her own passage through that awkward age, complicated by the tension between tradition and assimilation.
In memory she could still see her grandparents, the ones who had numbers on their arms and the ones who didn’t because someone risked everything to hide them, to smuggle them to safety. And ever present at those gatherings were the shades of those who didn’t make it, the stories of their lives before that long, dark shadow spread across Europe, the regime the old generation spoke of only in whispers and euphemisms.
Now she was the grandmother, teaching her granddaughter the old recipes, telling Deb the old stories, and hoping the teen would pick up the message behind the words, the things Sarah didn’t dare say outright. They’d said “never again,” but they forgot that history seldom repeats itself, but sometimes it rhymes. The shadow that was spreading across her family’s new homeland might not be targeting them, at least not yet, but the fact it had targets was cause for concern.
One day, when she was certain that Deb understood, it would be time to show her the secret passageways, the hidden rooms in the basement. Running a safehouse for the Sharp Resistance was not something undertaken lightly, but Sarah had known from the moment she heard people called “unnatural products of Frankenstein science” that it was time to pay forward.
Cameron says: I knew it was bad when my daughter asked for help. Her girl needed to be home schooled but she didn’t have a support network. And I could tell that her girl was in trouble when she got here. A boy style haircut, sullenly talking about being “non-binary” and “western privilege.”
No social media allowed in my house and every day for the first month was a fight. But with good friends and a good community, she slowly started coming back to herself. Today, she’s learning how to bake. And figuring out that being a girl is a good thing.
Dupin says: I always have so much fun with Great-gran at Christmas time.
She reads off the recipe, but I’m old enough now that Great-gran has me do all of the measurements. Still, she watches me closely to make sure I do it right. It’s very important, she says.
Then I knead it, but my hands get tired, and she takes over. It’s supposed to be about like Play-Doh when we’re done.
“Excellent,” she says. “Homemade plastic explosives like I’ve made since the sixties. Supplements my Social Security these days. Now let’s move on to napalm.”
I smile big. I love Great-gran.
Cameron says: That was a nice twist. I approve.
Sheila Garrett says: I love being a Southerner.
The weather is amazing, a nine month growing season, all year with greenhouses and grow-lights. Animal production is great too, with a little protection from the cold and wet we can have calves, pigs, or chicks anytime.
Sure they call us the Bible Belt, but I’ve never seen a better way to build a community network that will meet freely from house to house. Or preach the benefits of hard work, saving your produce, and sharing with those in need.
And the geology, why I’m less than 75 miles from Mammoth Cave. The government’s still never managed to map all of that one, even with their ground penetrating radar. And with our limestone bedrock just about every bluff or cliff has a cave in it.
Just what you need for a thriving underground economy or budding revolution.
5 Comments