“What was it like when you were growing up?”
Sookie took a sip of her tea. “Like a three-ring circus, with Lenore as ringmaster. The house was always full of people. The bridge club or garden club always had some kind of meeting at our house and Buck’s friends were running in and out. Poor Daddy, I miss him. He was the sweetest thing; he said the only reason he could live with Lenore was the fact that he was deaf in one ear. One time Buck said, ‘Daddy, why can’t you hear out of that ear?’ And Daddy said, ‘Wishful thinking, son, just wishful thinking.’ He was a scream.”
…
Believe me, Mother lives well, but since Daddy died, who knows what she’s liable to do next. She can come up with the craziest things.”
“Like what?”
“Just crazy stuff. Five years ago so many new people started moving here and she didn’t think the Welcome Wagon and the Newcomers’ Club were doing enough to suit her so she formed the Welcome to Selma Club … and I feel sorry for the poor people who move here. As soon as they hit town, Lenore’s troops make a beeline over to their house and swarm all over them like ants before anybody else can get to them. I said, Mother, it’s a wonder you don’t scare them to death. I know if I looked up and saw Lenore Krackenberry and her gang storming up my driveway with ribbons and balloons, singing at the top of their lungs, ‘Welcome to Selma,’ I’d move back where I came from.”
“Singing what?”
“Some old stupid song that one of her friends wrote. “ ‘Welcome to Selma, Selma, Selma…can we help ya, help ya, help ya.’ It’s just awful, but God knows people know they are welcomed.”
Sookie got up. “Promise me you won’t let me have more than two glasses of wine. Earle says I’m a cheap drunk and I get silly and talk too much if I have more than two glasses. I’m liable to get drunk and reveal all the family secrets.”
“Do you have any?”
Sookie sat down and threw her legs over the side of the chair. “Secrets? Are you kidding? In Selma, honey, we couldn’t have a secret if our lives depended on it. My life is an open book. Everybody in town knows that Buck is a big goofball and that Mother is a card-carrying crazy … and I’m probably not operating on a full deck myself.”
Dena was unwinding and the feeling was pleasant. “Sookie, tell me about your life down here.”
“My life? It’s just a plain old normal life. You’re the one who hobnobs with the stars. We are just plain old people, dull, dull, dull.”
-Fannie Flagg, Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!
* I simply adore Fannie Flagg. The closer I get to the end of her novels, the slower I read them. She weaves her worlds so well, I feel that I know these characters. I think some of us would even be dear friends. This book had so many things that just tickled my funny bone. It was hard to put it down at 2am, but I woke up Mr. Michie by bursting out laughing at a particular paragraph. So out went the lights…
