Scene - Blogs - Me Mamaw and the Jitney Jungle

Me, Mamaw and the Jitney Jungle
Published: 6/11/2008 12:27 PM
Last Modified: 6/11/2008 12:27 PM

"Swing me way down South," goes a line from one of my favorite Dixie Chicks songs, "Truth No. 2." Actually, it's more like "Suh-WING meeeeeee wuh-AAY down Sow-ow-owth," but I'm not sure how well that reads.

For whatever reason, I listen to more country music in the summer. No clue why that is, but it might explain why Southernisms -- or at least Miss'ippi-isms -- fall out of my mouth more this time of year than others.

Like "makin' groceries" (grocery-shopping), "rat-killin' " (errand-running) and the word "buggy," which I used in my Tuesday lagniappe ramble to describe grocery carts. A sweet reader, who's also a local Walmart greeter, left me a voice mail, in which she corrected my vocabulary.

But I'm afraid I'm going to keep naming 'em buggies, as that's what my Mamaw Wright called them whenever we'd go to Jitney Jungle.

"Get us a buggy, Sport Model," she'd call me while fishing out a grocery list from her purse every Thursday, which used to be her food-shopping day. (Don't ask about the "Sport Model" nickname, totally escapes me right now.) I'd usually accompany her during the summers, when I'd prefer hanging out with her vs. staying at home melting peanut butter and marshmallows in the microwave, stacking Velveeta chunks on top of Zesta crackers with dill pickle toppers (I pretended they were hors d'oeuvres), or just getting into other mischief -- like when my brother and I accidentally started a small fire in the woods behind our house in Laurel. Mamaw and Papaw must've been on vacation that week.

Anyway, I'd usually push the buggy for Mamaw, who'd remind me every other aisle not to roll it into her heels. Apparently, I had traumatized her a few times while steering. Now that I think about it, I have a fear of buggies running into my heels, too. Maybe it's a genetic thing. Or some manifestation of Baptist guilt, Lord only knows.

So y'all go ahead and call them carts; Mamaw and I prefer buggies. And Randy Travis' first album on cassette. Not sure she's a Dixie Chicks fan, though. I'll have to ask her the next time I swing myself down South.

Peace, love and buggy-bruised ankles ... xoxo

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megan (5 years ago)

Cute!! I can so visualize that.

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Living Wright

While other kids were watching "The Smurfs," Scene Writer Jason Ashley Wright was tuned in to "Style with Elsa Klensch." By fourth grade, he knew he wanted to write, and spent almost three years publishing a weekly teen-oriented magazine, Teen-Zine -- circulation: 2. After earning a degree in journalism from the University of Southern Mississippi, he became the medical reporter and teen board coordinator for the Hattiesburg (Miss.) American, a Gannett newspaper. Eight months later, with visions of Elsa dancing in his head, he applied for the fashion writer position at the Tulsa World, where he began working on Aug. 3, 1998. He is now a general assignment reporter for Scene.

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