Dan Krotz – I walked into the Exxon Station on Passion Play Road wearing my customary face, the one announcing that I’ve just walked off the stage of Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken. A countrywoman standing behind the counter grinned and said, “You’re gonna have to cheer-up, Honey. You make me feel all drizzly.”
She was an older woman – older than “a woman of a certain age” – but still pretty in the way a vase of dried flowers is pretty, a tad brittle, but fragrant with memory and once upon a time the reason why God made Oklahoma. She can call me Honey if she wants to. I laughed and felt the day improve.
Many people think such a salutation is over-familiar, but I don’t mind. It is invariably kindly intended and has a we’re all in this together quality that seems both forgiving and egalitarian. The waitress and I are in the same dive together, the clerk and I stare at the same commercial geography, the cashier and I say hello and goodbye to the same money. Being called Honey makes the moment feel lived in and comfortable.
It is certainly a southern thing. In all the years I lived in Minnesota no stranger had ever called me Honey. And while Minnesota’s public systems and civic order precisely demonstrate how Arkansas’s similar attributes are a weary suggestion, the typical Minnesotan walks around like he’s clutching a nickel between his buttocks; a family reunion is clutching a Roosevelt dime.
The flip side of Honey is that famous southern curse, “bless his heart,” which always follows a defamatory but observable truth. For example, the south is rich in self-made men; you know the type: a guy buys a cow and milks the cow and thinks he’s invented calcium. Then you meet him somewhere, and when you do, this guy you can’t stand, you’ve never seen such whoops of joy and hail fellow well met. What a couple of fakers.
And then, later, in a private conversation just between you and a genuine pal, or a small group of pals, you’ll hear the truth of the matter. “That Joe, he’s so important, bless his heart.”
I had to stop for a moment to savor after the second paragraph. I’ve always enjoyed Dan’s writing, but I think it has gone to another level lately, with passages like this, or the exquisite column on the floor mats.
Chuckle. Began reading your book that Sharon L. recommended I begin with. On Kindle. After I read the one you recommended I begin with of hers. Yours is my second Kindle read–except for my last novel, Her Face in the Glass. Can you help me–word wise–to put the ORH with my interview on my website? Easily? So glad our FB paths crossed.