ROOM and BORED

So just when I have got this Buffalo/hippy/pot/no make-up/straight hair/overalls thing down…my parents decide to move BACK TO TENNESSEE.   WHIPLASH. They gathered us all together over the summer and sat us down (always a bad sign) and informed us that Dad was either going to buy a tea plantation in Sri Lanka,  India (where?) or a catfish farm in Tennessee.  (what?)  I was a little disappointed when they decided on Tennessee.  At least India had  sounded dramatic…visions of myself riding on an elephant, etc. ..”so we loaded up our truck and we moved to Tennessee”..no movie stars, no swimmin’ pools…just catfish…200 acres of ponds, and fish and bugs, and biting horseflies…in the middle -of- nowhere (Counce) Tennessee . At least my overalls were going to come in handy again.  I spent that first summer on the fish farm with my family…helping people fish, untangling their lines, selling stink bait (aptly named, I might add) weighing their catch, skinning catfish (I didn’t even know fish HAD skin)…and being socially BORED TO TEARS.

I decided we needed to shake things up a bit…get some action going..because I was not going to spend the rest of my summers DOING THIS.  I suggested we put a restaurant in the old fish processing room.  I told my parents that I was more than qualified to help get a restaurant started because I had worked one summer in Howard Johnson’s as a waitress.  It frightens me to this day that they listened to me.  They obviously mistook my bored  desperation for enthusiasm and know-how.

My mom experimented on all the recipes until she had something we all agreed was pretty darn good.  Menu…fried catfish, cole claw, hushpuppies, french fries…all-you-can-eat…$7.95. 

Flash forward 3 weeks…Pickwick Catfish Farm Restaurant opens…denim table cloths and curtains, red bandana tie-backs, coke machine, deep fryers…and…voila…customers!!  We hadn’t really anticipated that many customers which became evident that night.  One man who was waiting for his food for quite some time said to me (the waitress) “what’d ya have to do, catch ‘em”??  Oh, how right he was.  I’d have to yell out the back door to my brothers who were desperately trying to reel in that next meal..”another customer…now step on it”. 

Flash forward about 36 years.  The little -restaurant -that- could is still going strong,  has been in many books about the BEST OF THE BEST, has been featured on the Food Network, has kept those first customers for all these years, packs ‘em in every weekend,  and now people drive 2 hours from Memphis..JUST TO EAT OUR CATFISH DINNER!!!!

Lesson:  never, ever underestimate a bored teenager.

Cinderella hippy

Hi..me again…sorry for the long gap.  So, where was I??  Oh yeah…Buffalo…waist-deep in snow.  I quickly found out that my idea of what college SHOULD be like and what it was ACTUALLY LIKE…were two completely different things.

Since I had seen the movie “Daddy Longlegs” with Fred Astaire..where the girl goes off to school with trunkloads of fabulous dresses, etc…that’s what I did.  I was so thrilled at the prospect of dressing for the dances, socials, dates, football games….WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.  As I began unpacking my “trunks”, my roomate and suitemates were sitting on the floor in their WORK OVERALLS smoking pot and laughing.  Where was my social whirlwind, my mint juleps…my gentlemen callers…something told me I was not in the south anymore.  So, fast forward about a month…I am now sitting on the floor in WORK OVERALLS AND WORK BOOTS…smoking POT, eating pizza, and passing around a bottle of whiskey.   Cinderella had turned into a hippy at midnight.   Talk about BACKWARDS! 

One day I saw a beautiful boy playing guitar in the lobby of my dorm and fell head -over -workboots in love.  After asking around I found out who he was and wormed my way into his life.  We were both virgins and I remember the night I lost that title.  It always reminds me of the song from “A Chorus Line”….”I felt nothing”.  All I remember is about 10 seconds of  something after which he said “it broke”.  I found out later he was referring to the condom.

We dated a while until I fell in love with Jesus.    I  was in the college production of  “Jesus Christ Superstar”…and Jesus was downright dreamy.  We started hanging out together and I fantasized about how passionate it would be for Mary Magdalene to be making love to Jesus…wouldn’t it be so cool in the throes of passion screaming out his name and it WAS HIS NAME????   Oh Jesus…that didn’t happen.  What DID happen is I bopped over to his off-campus apartment for a surprise visit and found him in bed with KING HARROD!!  I mean, JESUS CHRIST already. As you can probably guess, that pretty much ended my fantasy.  It wouldn’t have been as much fun screaming out ASSHOLE.

Story of my life…

After spending my teen years in Chattanooga, living on number 7 green of a golf course..poor us, attending GPS, a private girls’ school, falling in major love with Jim,(way more about him later) the president of the Senior class of Baylor, the  boy’s school, I was ready to have the summer of my life upon graduation..not so fast, missy.  The DAY AFTER I GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL, we moved to Rochester, New York (for my dad’s job–puhleeeze) . 

So, instead of spending the summer at the country club pool with all my friends and skipping off to the University of Tennessee like everyone else I knew…my boyfriend dumps me for some girl who is more “advanced”.(and I’m being kind here)  and here I was in Rochester, NY…which I don’t think I had ever heard of and am sure I didn’t know where it was.

I knew NOT ON PERSON, and was about to start college at SUNY at Buffalo. knowing NOT ONE PERSON.   It was cold, lonely, grey, huge and, well, Buffalo.   The only thing I remember knowing about Buffalo was that  the football star OJ Simpson played there, and, well,  we all pretty much know where that went.  Story of my life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too Big for my Britches

I guess, during my “Hollywood” years I may have gotten a little bit “too big for my britches” as far as my family was concerned.  I remember they wanted to do a family reunion in the Florida Panhandle and I complained that I had to come “all the way from California” and the other siblings didn’t have to travel nearly that far.  I felt quite “put upon” that I was forced to make that weekend trip.  Did I mention we took a private plane in?  No, of course not..because that would make me sound like the brat I had become.

When I look back, I am amazed that my family put up with me…I wouldn’t have.

Does Chanel make overalls?

Some back story is necessary here…I should have known I was about to lead a rather “backwards” life the day I graduated from Sears Charm School…sounds kind of like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?  This was in Chattanooga in the late 60′s.  I was 14ish…walking around the room in white gloves with an etiquette book on my head…trying desperately not to drop it…what the significance of keeping the book on my head was..I had no idea.   I suppose some of that “poise” did come in handy years later when I had to walk down the “rue” at the Cannes Film Festival in 4″ heels with SEBASTIAN THE CRAB from “The Little Mermaid” movie as my escort.  By the end of the road, with the hem of my dress shredded by his claws/feet…I am sure I was the crabbiest.  

Anyhoo, after years of backstage passes, Hollywood premieres, limos to the Golden Globes and……THE OSCARS, was I ready trade in all those Balenciaga, Armani, Valentino and vintage Chanel gowns for, um, well, a beat up pair of overalls and a flannel shirt…you bet.  Ebay was about to have a heyday.

“Hills, that is, swimmin’ pools, movie stars”

Unfortunately, I started my adventure before I started my blog..so let me bring you up to date…………..

I remember as a kid in Tennessee watching the show “The Beverly Hillbillies” and wondering what that life would be like…then I lived it.  Through a series of events..and husbands, I found myself married to a Hollywood movie executive, rubbing elbows with the stars, and living smack dab in the middle of Beverly Hills.  Harrison Ford was my buddy, Drew Barrymore was AT MY HOUSE for dinner (she doesn’t eat meat, garlic or mushrooms, so try to make a decent meal) , Sophia Loren made homemade spaghetti for us (barefoot in a Chanel suit)…by the way …Harrison’s favorite song is “sittin on the dock of the bay”…like I cared…which I did.  I kinda got caught up in the whole Hollywood life and lost touch with reality, my family and myself.   Anyhow, it was a long way and a long time from the catfish farm in Tennessee to the “Hills of Beverly”…this is a story about my journey back….to Tennessee, to my family and to me…in other words…Beverly Hillbillies…only backwards.

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