"Come to think of it, Idgie and Ruth bought the cafe in 1929, right in the height of the Depression, but I don't think we ever had margarine there. Leastways, I cain't recall if we did. It's odd, here the whole world was suffering so, but at the cafe, those Depression years come back to me now as the happy times, even though we were all struggling. We were happy and didn't know it.
"A lot of nights we'd all sit around up at the cafe and just listen to the radio. We'd listen to Fibber McGee and Molly, Amos and Andy, Fred Allen ... oh, I cain't remember what all we'd listen to, but they were all good. I cain't look at any of these programs they put on the TV today. Just people shootin’ their guns and shoutin’ insults at each other. Fibber McGee and Molly didn't shout at each other. Amos and Andy used to shout a little, but that was funny. And the colored people on the TV now are not near as sweet as they used to be. Sipsey would have Big George's hide if he talked as smart aleck as some of them do.
"It's not just TV. Mrs. Otis was over at the supermarket one day and she told this little colored boy that was passing by that she would give him a nickel if he'd lift her groceries in her car for her, and she said that he cut his eyes at her, mean-like, and just walked away. Oh, and it's not just the colored people, either. Back when Mrs. Otis was driving, before she hit that stack of grocery carts, people would run up behind us and blow their horns something awful, and when they passed us, some of them would give us the finger. I never saw such behavior. There's no call to be that ugly.
"I don't even want to look at the news anymore. Everybody fighting each other. They ought to give those boys some tranquilizers and quiet them down for a while. That's what they gave Mr. Dunaway. I think all the bad news affects people, makes them so mean. So whenever the news comes on, I just cut it off.
"Lately, for the past ten years or so, I have just taken to looking at my religious programs. I like the P.T.L. Club. They have a lot of smart men on that program. I send money every once in a while, if I have any. And I listen to Camp Meeting U.S.A., from seven to eight, every night. And I like Oral Roberts and the Seven Hundred Club. I like just about all of them, except that woman with the makeup, and she'd be all right if she just didn't cry all the time. Oh, she cries if she's happy and she cries when she's sad. I'm telling you, she can cry at the drop of a hat. Now, there's one that needs her hormones. And I don't like preachers that yell all the time. I don't know why they want to yell when they have a microphone right in their hands. When they get to yelling like that, we just switch them over.
And I'll tell you another thing, the funnies in the paper are not funny anymore. I remember when you could always get a laugh out of Gasoline Alley or Wee Willie Winkle. And I loved that Little Henry . . . oh, the scrapes Little Henry could get himself in.
"I just don't believe people are happy anymore, not like they used to be. You never see a happy face, at least I don't. I said to Mrs. Otis when Frances carried us out to the mall, I said, 'Look at all these people pulling such dried-up, sour little faces, even the youngsters.'"
Evelyn sighed. "I wonder why people have gotten so mean, anymore . . .”
"Oh, it's all over the world, honey. The end of times are coming. Now, we may go to the year two thousand, but I doubt it. You know, I listen to a lot of good preachers and they're all saying we're in our last time. They say it's in the Bible in Revelations. . . . Of course, they don't know. Nobody knows but the good Lord.
"I don't know how long the good Lord is going to let me live but I'm in the jumping-off years, you know that. That's why I live every day like it could be my last. I want to be ready. And that's why I don't say anything about Mr. Dunaway and Vesta Adcock. We have to live and let live."
Evelyn felt she had to ask. "What about them?"
"Oh, they think they're in love. That's what they say. Oh, you should have seen them holding hands and smooching all over the place. Mr. Dunaway's daughter found out about it and came out here and threatened to sue the nursing home. Called Mrs. Adcock a hussy!"
"Oh no."
"Oh yes, honey . . . said she was trying to steal their daddy away from them. It was a big mess, and they took Mr. Dunaway back home. They were afraid he and Mrs. Adcock would try to have relations, I guess. I think that's a dream long dead, myself. Geneene said he lost his activities years ago and couldn't possibly harm a fly . . . so what would a little hugging and kissing hurt? Vesta is heartbroken. No telling what she’ll do next.
“But tell you one thing, they don’t give much slack out here.”
Evelyn said, “I guess not.”
AUGUST 1, 1945
Man Falls in Lacquer
If I hadn't been married to him, I would have never believed it. . . . My other half was out at the railroad yards, hanging out where they've been painting all the troop trains, and he fell into a 250-gallon vat of lacquer, he was able to climb out, but the lacquer dried so fast, he was completely encrusted before setting foot on the ground and we had to get Opal to come over to the house and cut the lacquer out of what's left of his hair. It's a good thing we didn't have any children. I don't have time to worry about any other kids.
Does anybody know a good baby-sitter for a husband . . . ?
We are all so happy the war is finally over. Bobby Scroggins came home yesterday, and Tommy Glass and Bay Limeway got home last Thursday. Hooray!
Nothing but good news. Ninny Threadgoode came in and brought me a four-leaf clover. She said she and Albert had found three of them in her front yard. Thanks, Ninny.
. . . Dot Weems . . .
AUGUST 15, 1986
Geneene the black nurse who prided herself on being as tough as nails, but really wasn’t, said she was tired. She was working a double shift today, and she had come in their room to sit down for a minute and have a cigarette. Mrs Otis was down the hall in her arts and crafts class so Mrs. Threadgoode was happy for the company.
“You know that woman I talk to on Sundays?”
Geneene said, “What woman?”
“Evelyn.”
“Who?”
“She’s that little plump gray-haired woman. Evelyn . . . Evelyn Crouch . . . Mrs. Crouch’s daughter in law.”
“Oh Yes.”
“She told me ever since that man called her names at the Pigley-Wigley, she just hates people. I told her, I said, ‘Oh honey, it does no good to hate. It’ll do nothing but turn your heart into a bitter root. People cain’t help being what they are any more than a skunk can help being a skunk. Don’t you think if they had their choice they would rather be something else? Sure they would, people are just weak.’
“Evelyn said there are times when she is even beginning to hate her husband. He’ll be sitting at his football games or talking on the phone, and she has this terrible desire to hit him in the head with a baseball bat, for no reason. Poor little Evelyn, she thinks she’s the only person in the world that ever had an ugly thought. I told her, her problem is just a natural thing that happens with couples after they’ve been together so long.
"I remember when Cleo got his first set of dentures he was so proud of. They’d make this clicking sound every time he’d take a bite of food, and it just grated on my nerves so bad there’d be some nights, I’d just have to get up from the table to keep myself from saying something . . . and I loved that man better than anything in the world. But you go through a period when you start to get on one another's nerves. And then, one day— now, I don't know if his teeth stopped clicking on their own or if I just got used to it or what—but It never bothered me another time. You have that kind of thing happen in the best of families.