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- Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
- Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!paladin.american.edu!auvm!RA.MSSTATE.EDU!MAYNOR
- Message-ID: <9301020154.AA13994@Ra.MsState.Edu>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
- Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 19:54:26 CST
- Sender: English Language Discussion Group <WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu>
- From: Natalie Maynor <maynor@RA.MSSTATE.EDU>
- Subject: Re: English peas
- Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu
- Lines: 38
-
- > What is DARE? How does one (ie me, a Teneter) access it?
-
- -Dictionary of American Regional English-, edited by Fred Cassidy. The
- first two volumes are out -- through h. Work continues (in Madison, Wisc)
- on the next volume.
-
- I don't know the answer to the question of black-eyed vs purple-hull. But
- I sure wish I could find some good lady peas like the ones in my childhood --
- the ones people walked through residential areas selling early on summer
- mornings, hollering "fresh lady peas." Those sounds came not long after
- the clinky sounds as the milkman delivered the milk and took away the old
- bottles. Wouldn't it be fun to be able to live just one or two of those
- old days again and then come back to the present? Let's make it a June day
- in the early '50s. I'd wake up to the sound of clinking milk bottles and
- vegetable sellers. After breakfast I'd run outside and see who else was
- up and out. After milling around the neighborhood for a while, we'd
- probably go swimming at Riverside Park. Then lunch. Then I'd probably
- ride my bicycle to Brent's Drugstore for a Cherry Phosphate or a Cherry
- Pepsi. Maybe a friend from another neighborhood would come over and join
- our neighborhood gang. We might go swimming again. Or maybe we'd play in
- "the woods" -- an undeveloped area between our street and a parallel street.
- When in the woods, we'd be properly respectful in the dog cemetery. We
- might even stop to check the markers. Then some of the rowdier neighborhood
- boys might convince us to ring doorbells or shoot pea-shooters at passing
- cars. Or maybe we'd play baseball or "Coming up the Hill." On a really good
- day we'd hear the sound of the popsycle man growing closer and closer. Or
- even better, the DDT truck. Chasing the DDT truck was some of the best
- summer fun of all. If it started raining, we'd have to go inside, where
- the girls would play dolls or paperdolls and the boys little soldiers. Or
- maybe we'd all "play doctor" in somebody's attic. How annoying it was when
- we had to stop playing and go home to eat. Soon we'd be back outside, though.
- The first person out would give the neighborhood Tarzan yell, answered by
- the rest of us as soon as we could escape from boring things like meals.
- We'd probably either ring doorbells or play Tiger. If we were in quiet
- moods, we might tell ghost stories or look at constellations.
-
- Good grief. Why am I writing all this stuff???
- --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)
-