I thought all older people talked like that. All those words and sayings I heard all the time. It was after I went to college that I found out what "roastanears" really were. I didn't take as much quinine as I did Groves Chill Tonic. Ladies, have you ever heard panties called "stepins"? Melissa, "onree" is how I still pronounce it. Also, there was a Mr. Ed Barber who lived in Possum Valley when we were growing up. He and his wife had no children and lived close to Gee's Landing with the Butler's and McCarty's. Bobbie ---------- > From: Jane McBride <jmcbride@sat.net> > To: ARDREW-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: [ARDREW-L] How we say thangs, treat ills and what we believe > Date: Tuesday, October 27, 1998 10:40 PM > > So, do any of you have family who says, as my grandmother did, > "Yestiddy'' for yesterday? Or say, "Don't pay him no never mind." Or > "That'll make you want to rare back and holler?" And who knows what > "Roastinears" are? > > Did anyone ever take quinine in a spoon of sugar for a cough? > > My grandmother's mother was Indian (although we haven't been able to > document it) and when she was small, she cut her wrist badly on a tin > can, severing a vein or artery (don't know which). Her mother stuffed it > with cobwebs and it coagulated and stopped the bleeding. > > When I had a stye, my grandmother would make me go to a fork in the road > by our house and repeat, "Stye, stye, leave my eye. Go to the next one > who passes by." When I had chicken pox as a child, she took me in the > chicken yard, shooed chickens over my head and that was supposed to cure > me. I could never walk under a ladder, keep going on a road if a black > cat walked in front of me, sew something while I was wearing it, or > sweep under someone's feet (if it was a woman, she'd never get married) > and I still cannot bear to see an umbrella opened in a room. Am I alone > here? > > Speaking of Indians, my great aunt, Beatrice Irene (Bedie) Johnson > Kelley of Warren had a kitchen with running water, a sink and cabinet, > but preferred to wash dishes the Indian way, in a pan, squatting on the > floor. Anytime she was at rest, she squatted. Jane