Mayberry Moments

I just wanted to check in today with a quick shoutout to MamaG (and all the other moms out there). You know, MamaG… the one who told me to “get my money’s worth!” at my all-inclusive last week. The one who, upon finding out I had just met a guy who works for Miller-Coors in Georgia, urged me to “give him a Bev card!” so that I can become famous and take many more all-inclusive Mexican vacations.

Thanks for the support, MamaG! Enjoy your new mini steamer! I didn’t have any Bev cards with me for my new Miller-Coors friend, but when Bev strikes it rich, we’ll upgrade ya to the Cadillac of steamers!

-Bev

Now, where did we leave this story? Oh, yes! With Smoke in the middle of our yard, pantsless! (note: he had a flashlight, not a gun. Totally less exciting.)

Anyway, after determining that he, MamaG, and Maude were in no immediate danger (and after snagging the license plate number), Smoke headed back into the house to call the cops. After making the report of the suspicious vehicle, he was asked to stay on the line with the dispatcher until police arrived. Please remember, this is essentially in the middle of nowhere, so this is no five-minute wait/conversation. So, now, it’s 3 or 4 a.m. and he’s standing in the dark kitchen, making small talk with a 911 dispatcher (presumably still pantsless).

Smoke: Where are you from? 

Dispatcher: Willis.

Smoke: Oh, my niece and nephew went to school there, etc. I thought you must’ve been from the south because you said, “y’all” (turns out, she did live in Texas for a while).

Then, when the small talk ran out, Smoke broke out the big guns (big flashlights?). Being the good small-town citizen that he is, he tried to get the dispatcher to tell him the quasi-trespasser’s name (she had it pulled up from the license plate number). Clearly, the dispatcher can’t do that, but Smoke talked her into letting him play a new game- a unique mix of Who’s Who and 20 questions, and was able to figure out that the perpetrator is!!

Their over-served neighbor.¹

Eventually, the cops showed up. Due to the fact that Smoke and MamaG live so far from the “cop shop” and the cops didn’t think the man would “blow” after the drive there, they allowed the inebriated man to drive the short distance home.

Which is fortuitous (one of Smoke’s favorite words).

So there you have it. It was the neighbor. With the BAC. At the gas barrel. (No harm, no foul, man… #MayberryMania)

-Bev

¹Yes, Smoke and MamaG know 80% of the entire town of Mayberry, and 99% of their close neighbors. Not this one, as he recently moved in. Ya know, when Kenny and Linda moved off the farm.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a good Smoke story, hasn’t it? Well, brace yourselves, because I have a good Smoke story.

A few weeks ago, MamaG got up in the middle of the night, as she couldn’t sleep (a regular occurrence in the Goldenstein home). She walked through her pitch black house to the kitchen to get a glass of water when she noticed a strange pickup parked at the gas barrel in our yard¹ (you probably want to check out that footnote). MamaG was obviously spooked, as this was between 3 and 4 a.m. and she didn’t recognize the vehicle. She crept back through the dark house to fire up ol’ Smokey G, who, I can only assume, was sound asleep and snoring like a legitimate goddamn freight train. Once she got Smoke into a lucid state, they both walked back out into the kitchen to check out the strange vehicle. There didn’t appear to be any activity or person moving about, but ol’ Guess Who wanted to go check things out and make sure there wasn’t someone out there stealing gas².

As you probably know by now, (maybe from the original Smoke Goldenstein post) Smokey G isn’t one for pajamas. One would think that he would put on pants in order to walk across his yard toward a potentially dangerous situation. One would be wrong. One might also predict that he would have the wherewithal to put on matching shoes. Again, one would be misguided. 

If you know Smoke well, you can literally picture him inching across our (very wide open) yard, in a black Carhartt hoodie and his whitie tighties, wearing two different boots (one “work”, one cowboy, if I remember correctly), carrying a shotgun.

If you don’t know Smoke well, I feel like you still don’t have a hard time with the visual.

Now, I am going to leave you with a little cliffhanger here folks. I want you to know that Smoke and MamaG (and Maude, who happened to be there for the night) are all alive and well. Nothing was taken from them, and the situation has been resolved. Which, as you may or may not have already assumed, is a whoooooooole other story.

Check back in the next few days for the conclusion to this Mayberry mystery!

-Bev

¹People have gas barrels in their yards. They’re called farmers. It’s the best thing ever, and I didn’t know how to run a real gas pump (like, at a station) very well until college. Obviously, the gas barrels are there for farm equipment (and teenage daughters driving the entire tri-county area because there’s nothing else to do… Driving. Just driving. No funny stuff…), and are not uncommon at all across the midwest. Smoke and MamaG’s house happens to be on a “highway” and the gas barrel is literally a stone’s throw away from it, so there is always the concern that greedy passerby may stop and try to smuggle some fuel. I believe this has actually happened on occasion- True? Smoke? MamaG?

²Don’t worry though, guys. It’s not like these drivers can just pull up, flip the handle, and fill their tanks. Ohhhhhh no! Smoke’s got a system out there. I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you. But there’s a system, man. #SecretSwitches

Target clerk at customer service: “And is there anything wrong with it?”

Me: “No. My mom gave it to me…”

Target clerk: “Oh.”

She knew.

But MamaG- I kept the pants this time!!!! #BabySteps

-Bev

My dad stepped in poop in Target on Sunday, and I saw a homeless woman urinating in the street yesterday.

Stay safe out there today, guys.

-Bev

(this text thread is to provide a bit of context for what you are about to read)

So, it’s a long story, but I have a bag of shredded cheese I may not use in the near future, so I inquired about freezing it. I Googled it, while simultaneously texting MamaG. (I trust one of these sources much more than the other, but I tried both anyway….)

In my online search, this popped up as the first inquiry in a chat room:
Went to the commissary today and found a great deal. Bought 15 bags of shredded cheese, hoping I could freeze it. Has anyone froze shredded cheese? When defrosted did it taste any different? Thanks in advance!

I mean, do you have room for fifteen bags of shredded cheese in your freezer? Should I have room for fifteen bags of shredded cheese in my freezer? I don’t have much in my freezer, but I certainly still don’t have room for that! (ain’t nobody got time fa dat…) Secondly, even if you did have the room, what if you found out that you aren’t, in fact, able to freeze shredded cheese? I mean… fifteen bags? This was on a “frugal shopping” message board. Don’t get me wrong, I’m allllllll about frugality (hi, expired products that I eat regularly), but seriously? That might’ve been something you wanted to research before you bought fifteen bags of shredded cheese, chief.

Anyhoo, Bev has some work to do before hitting the bed. I mean, someone has to go cook my expired bacon and put my shredded cheese in the freezer, guys. (One bag)

One.

-Bev

P.S.- I think you could use some Sweet Brown in your life on this Hump Day. I know I could.

I just have to introduce you to two more Mayberry characters before we return to regularly scheduled programming, and I promise to keep this one short and sweet. I have told you all about Ardith’s parents and given you a special glimpse into growing up with Agatha, but I haven’t clued you in to the details on ol’ Henrietta’s parental units.

Now, I could go on and on about Double D and MJ (Doug and MaryJo to the layperson), but there’s really just one story that perfectly describes them. It’s actually a story from very recently- within the last two years.

Essentially, Bev was hanging out at Henrietta and Hank’s house with DD and MJ, and we were just catching up on the ol’ days, getting ready to go meet Smoke and MamaG for lunch before I headed home with them. DD was just sittin’ at the kitchen table in an ear-flapper hat (ears rolled up), when his phone dings. Now, I don’t think it was an iPhone, but it was most certainly a smart phone of some type. Bev made some kind of wisecrack about DD’s technology, and how popular he must be…

Then he told me that it was just his Culver’s app letting him know that his favorite custard flavor was the Flavor the Day. Bev just about fell off her chair laughing and MJ just rolled her eyes and laughed. 

I’d say we could all take a page out of DD’s book.

-Bev

Guys.

I mean, I could not make this shit up. And no, I don’t think he was doing it on purpose to mess with me.

(Please note, that’s FaceTime Audio. Just kills me.)

Anyway, we’ve reached a point in my life where I’m replacing my old files names “Mouse1″ and Mouse2” with new files named “Mouse1” and “Mouse2” and I don’t even know where we go from here.

-Bev

Do you ever get butt dials?

Do you ever get repeated butt dials from the same number?

Do you ever get repeated butt dials from the same number, which turns out to be your best friend from high school’s dad’s number?

No? Oh.

I do. His name is Mouse. I literally have his number memorized due to all this activity. There are times that I’ll go months without hearing from ol’ Mouser. Then, there will be a two-week span where he calls me every day. Literally.

Sometimes, he knows he’s called me. Then, he’ll text to apologize. Sometimes, he has no idea. Then, he leaves me three-minute voicemails of nothing. Sometimes, he thinks he’s calling his daughter-in-law, also named Beverlie (note the spelling difference). Then, he is very confused about why I am confused (via voicemail, or if I pick up). It’s really a crapshoot.

Some other facts about Mouse? Literally everyone calls him Mouse. His name is Kevin, but I’ve only ever heard his own mother call him that. His wife calls him Mouse. His friends call him Mouse. His kids’ friends call him Mouse. He is… Mouse. Mouse (like Andy) is also missing part of a finger. Another farm accident involving words I don’t understand. Mouse eats a significant amount of chips and dip, and you can pretty much always find it in Nan’s fridge. I say Nan’s fridge, because, much like Smoke and MamaG, I am quite certain that Mouse has not set foot in a grocery store in his life, and has no idea what else is in that fridge (or how it got there). Like any good Midwestern farmer, Mouse loves “The Andy Griffith Show” (admittedly, Bev likes it, too). Over this past Christmas, Mouse was at Uncle Bart’s house (I’m telling you, people…. we’re alllllll interconnected) and when he stepped out to his truck, he slipped on the ice, and ended up under his truck. Like, looking up at the running boards. Oh, how I would’ve loved to have seen it.

Now, just like Andy and Connie, I can’t go on too much about Mouse without including my beloved Nan. Nan washes her dishes in water that is at least 8 billion degrees, and she always wears old-school yellow rubber gloves. She consistently has anywhere from 3-5 Tupperware containers or Ziplocs on her counter filled with baked goods. Cinnamon popcorn is a staple. I hate French toast unless Nan makes it. Nan takes a lot of (legal) drugs before she gets on an airplane, and I truly suspect she takes a lot of (legal) drugs before her kids get on airplanes. Nan is claustrophobic. She once got locked in a bathroom and kicked the door down. She probably weighs a bucktwenty. She kicked the door down. Don’t funk with Nan.

I truly wish you could all come to Mayberry with me someday and meet all these characters. You may not leave with all ten fingers, though. You’ve been warned.

-Bev

These just slay me every time.

Well, guys, I feel like I need to introduce you to some more Mayberry characters, because that little place really is a reality show waiting to happen (though absolutely none of them would ever agree to be on TV)… I’m starting with some non-family members who are almost like family members because I’ve known them my whole life (literally, in some cases).

You may remember my girl Agatha’s recent reader review, so I’m starting out with her mom and dad. They are one of three sets of “second parents” I had growing up. You see, Bev, Ardith, Agatha, and Henrietta were basically inseparable from third grade until high school graduation, so if you couldn’t find us at one of our own houses, you just checked the other three. Adding to this is the fact that all of our parents know each other, so there were never any issues of not being able to go to each other’s houses. This is a problem I assume cityfolk had growing up. Yes? No?

Now, when I say “our parents knew each other,” I don’t mean, like, they met at our third grade bake sale and decided the others weren’t serial killers, and were therefore fit to watch over each others’ daughters. I mean, like, my friends’ parents are my parents’ friends. And my parents’ friends are my friends’ parents. I’ll explain.

Agatha’s dad, Andy, graduated with Smoke and MamaG. Andy and Smoke were best friends.

Andy was Smoke’s best man. Smoke was Andy’s best man. Bev was Agatha’s maid of honor. Agatha is… still wondering if Bev will ever get married (but that’s another post).

Yeah. I have literally known Agatha (and Ardith- coming soon) and their parents since I was born. And so have our parents, so they’re all pretty important characters in Bev’s Mayberry world.

Anyway, back to Andy (I affectionately call him AF; Smoke calls him Ang). Andy and Smoke have been a bit of an inseparable duo since the late 60s, and they are probably best known for their foosball and card-playing abilities. Smoke will deny it, but I’m pretty sure they used to skip study hall and head “uptown” to drink Schlitz and play foos or cards during actual school hours (the legal drinking age was 18- can you imagine?). Anyway, for foosball, I don’t have a ton of stories or facts, because it’s not often that they play anymore. They’ll blame it on the fact that there aren’t many tables around these days, I’ll chalk it up to the fact that they’re 60, and would prefer to be seated as much as possible… but I can attest to Smokey G’s abilities, as he’s recently played a few games at a dive bar here and there in MyCity. MamaG ain’t no foosball punk, either, actually. I’m going to go ahead and assume AF is an absolutely foosball boss.

And, obviously, if you’ve been playing cards with somebody for 50+ years, you get to be a pretty good team. Their game of choice is called ‘Smear’ (don’t ask me a thing about how to play because I don’t know) and I can remember them playing it weekly for years and years during the winters (farming offseason, ya dig?) when I was growing up. The Henning House was/is obviously the best place to play Smear. Rumors have it that some people actually refuse to play if Smoke an Ang are on a team and make them split up. In any case, they’re legendary smear players.

*Some info has been blocked out to protect the innocent, but basically, this is a text from Alfred, who is 26, and would watch Smoke and Ang play cards on TV if he could.

Anyway, like many Midwestern farmers, AF is softspoken but smart, quick with a one-liner, and missing a small part of a finger due to some type of farm accident. Like… no one else in the world… he is also a Cincinnati Bengals fan.

Now, we can’t get through a post about Agatha’s family without mention of the good ol’ Connie. I call her Con, and she’s one of those people who just makes ya feel like you should be a stand-up comedian, because she laughs at pretty much everything you say. Con comes from a big family of funny ladies, and while she didn’t graduate with my parents, I have known her my whole life, as she and Ang were married before I was born. I recently saw Con at a wedding at home in Mayberry, where she was “pretty smashed” after two glasses of wine, and was getting worried about what people might think of her at the high school basketball game she was headed to watch after the wedding meal was served. I just chuckle picturing Con breezing into a Midwestern high school gym, rosy cheeks, hanging on to AF for dear life. I also chuckle at the fact that she told me she sometimes reads Bev on her break from work as a para at an elementary school, but that she had to stop because she was scared she was going to pee her pants at work. Con, if that ever does happen, you have to do a guest blog post. Deal?

I also can’t even mention Con without mentioning her cooking. Her kitchen was not only a steady hangout for Bev growing up, but is always filled with delicious goodies. Her specialty? Cherry bars. You haven’t lived until you’ve had Con’s cherry bars.

OK, this post has turned out to be much longer than originally anticipated, so I better sign off (or, go write the upcoming Mouse post…). Happy Sunday y’all, and I hope you enjoy the more detailed glimpse into Mayberry Moments!

AF and Con- I love you guys, and thanks for following along (even if Agatha put you up to it)! See ya this summer sometime! 

-Bev

P.S.- if you can’t get enough of Mayberry and its residents, there are several places where you can access previous posts… Click the Mayberry Moments tab at the top of your page, or simply search “Mayberry” or “Henning House” in the search bar on your top right. It won’t disappoint. (at least I hope)