Falling in Love with the Fashionably Southern

Today, I had a random memory of the first time I saw Gone with The Wind come to me. It made me smile and think of my grandmother. I was a preteen and the summer before I had spent it between my grandparents and aunts and uncles. I remember my Grandmother Buzzard loves Gone with the Wind and had purchased my first copy for me, then insisted on reading it first to make sure it was "correct."

I fell in love with the fashionably southern times of Margaret Mitchell's world. I laughed and cried along with Scarlet and both loved and hated her as many of her admirers did. The next winter when my grandparents came to visit, I watched the movie for the first time with my grandmother. We were in between baking, as I remember, so we had to use the up-stairs television (We were always in between baking as that is what we do when we are together. Us, Midwesterners, bake in the winter as we can not leave the house, too much snow, so a four hour movie is right up our alley).

Now don't think the up-stairs television makes us fancy people...it was 13in black and white garage sale find with rabbit-ears and tin foil. We use to play Atari on it (yep, space invaders and froggers...maybe we were fancy folks). Anyway, I am grateful for that black and white TV as it is truly the only reason I remember watching the movie for the first time.

There is the famous scene in Gone with the Wind where Scarlet broke and desperate to save Tara after the war, must go to town and wrangler her up some money or a husband or two. She has to humble herself again in front of Rhett Butler and she will be darn if she will go in rags so she cuts up her momma's good curtains. Watching on black and white, you don't see the lushness of the green and gold that was meant to be the fabric, the evidence of a once wealth family and the only reason I remember the curtains are green and gold was my grandmother described the color to me as the green of a field and the gold of corn husk. As we filled the house with the smells of cinnamon rolls and Christmas, she told me the story of her and grandpa going to see it in the movie theaters. I never loved Scarlet O'Hara more than at that time.

A sweet memory...one I will keep for a long time. I love you Grandma Buzzard.