By: Angela Gillaspie © 1998-2001

This past weekend, I was stringing beans for my Sunday supper and strange little thoughts started bubbling through my head.

Breaking beans is relaxing, and my mind wanders to odd little places. Some thoughts are rather profound, for example, as I looked at the curly strings I stripped from the beans, I remembered that I was running low on conditioner for my hair. Other thoughts that I have are downright bizarre.

For example, do famous folks break their own beans, or would the hired help do it? Would they flavor their beans with bacon grease and if they did, would they collect bacon drippings in a coffeepot as I do? Bacon grease is wonderful to flavor green beans. I wondered if Charlton Heston ate green beans flavored with bacon grease. Hmm.

My mind wandered to an event from a couple of years ago. My dad is a 'Yeller Dawg Republican', which is rare in rural Georgia. If they ever ran a yellow dog on the republican ticket, my dad would vote for it because he is so dedicated to the republican party. Anyway, there was a fancy republican dinner that my dad was invited to. The keynote speaker was none other than Charlton Heston.

Somehow, my dad finagled himself a seat at the head table right next to old Chuck. I can only imagine what my bean-and-tater-fed daddy might have said to the prestigious Mr. Heston. I do know that my daddy and Mr. Heston share a love for the Lord because Mr. Heston mentioned the fact of how well God has blessed him.

The next day, my daddy was at our little church (where he is a deacon), and the preacher was talking to him about an upcoming revival. Daddy said, "I can't get much more excited than I am now, I just had supper with Moses!"

I started giggling to myself at that memory as I grabbed another bean. I could just picture Mr. Heston in his nice pressed suit at one of our church's revivals and suppers.

"Scuse me Mr. Moses," a patron from our church might say, "Can yuh pass me summa them thar grain banes?"

I wondered if Charlton Heston has ever sat on his porch with a big old poke of beans in his lap (a poke is a paper sack, for you non-Southern readers). The image in my mind is: Chuck sitting in his favorite lawn chair, wearing cut-off jeans and a tee-shirt, playing Roger Miller's King of the Road and Dang Me in the background, and breaking beans. Nope, it just does not seem to fit. I doubt that he has ever eaten chicken-fried steak with sawmill gravy and cornbread. He seems to be the sautéed steak with yeast rolls type.

Now, I can see Martha Stewart stringing beans, but I wonder if she has ever skinned a squirrel. Squirrel meat is stringy and high in fat, so she probably would not eat a squirrel. I laugh again; I wonder if Martha would eat barbecue pork rinds and M&Ms for lunch in her underwear while reading her e-mail. Hmm. Has she ever eaten a frozen pizza? Would she have a couch on her front porch?

I wondered if Martha knew what chitlins or cracklins are. Most thoroughbred Southerners have eaten chitlins (pig's entrails) or cracklins (bits of pig's skin) at least once in their lives. I can see Dolly Parton eating cracklins because she is one of our own. If you didn't already know, cracklins in cornbread is bodacious. Dolly most likely has strung beans and she has probably rolled her hair at night with bobby pins. I do not think Martha would go to bed at night with any kind of roller in her hair.

We Southerners dearly love our fatty foods and big hair. Oprah Winfrey used to have big hair, and I will bet that she ate chitlins before she went on her diet. She probably ate chicken livers once, too. Yuck. I would rather eat cold leftover chitlins than liver. The only use for liver is for catfish bait. Oprah probably would bait her hook with liver, but I doubt she would bait a fat juicy night crawler.

I looked up from my beans and saw my youngest son jumping on the trampoline and then tugging at the rear of his pants. Returning to the familiar snap-snap-pop-pop-pop of breaking my beans, I remembered those awful diaper days. Do famous people change their kid's diapers or do they hire someone to do it for them? Hmm. I just cannot picture Sean Connery changing his child's diaper. Would he take out the trash and change the oil in the mini-van? Does he kill the spiders? Would he even have spiders or bugs in his house?

I have spiders in my house, and my dear husband is in charge of killing them. I told my oldest son that it would be his job to kill the bugs when he gets bigger, and this news excited him. Boys just love bugs, especially dead ones. There have been many times that I have pulled bugs and bug parts out of my kids' collective pockets, toys, and mouths.

I wonder if any of Kathie Lee's kids had ever eaten a bug. Even if Kathie Lee didn't have bugs in her house, she surely has them in her yard! Does Frank have a cooler loaded down with Budweiser duct-taped on his riding mower? Nah, he probably hires someone to cut his grass. I remembered one hot summer, my daddy used duct tape to attach a Styrofoam cooler to the back of his Murray riding mower; he cut the grass longer than usual that time. My husband aspires to the day that we can afford a Murray riding mower.

I wonder if Kathie Lee finds cheese curls on her floor? Sometimes, when I accidentally drop a cheese curl on the floor (and if nobody is looking), I will pick it up and eat it. I wonder if Kathie Lee has ever done that. Now mind you, if I were to drop something gooey on the floor, like a spoonful of pinto beans, I probably wouldn't eat it.

I doubt that Kathie Lee ever made meatloaf and pinto beans for Frank, but she might make biscuits. Would she roll out her biscuits from scratch or would she use Hungry Jack canned biscuits? I wonder. When I'm in a pinch, I will use canned biscuits and sometimes even instant potatoes. Hey, would Martha Stewart use instant potatoes? Hmm.

Finally, I reached for my last bean. As I pull the strings out, and snap it into four pieces, my mind returned to the present. Yup, time sure does fly when you're having fun.

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