“Well, butter my biscuits, that was fun!”
In order to fully appreciate that statement, you need to hear it spoken with a slow, Southern drawl – which, obviously, I can’t do in print. But I repeated it often after reading the saying – the “butter my biscuits” part and several variations of it – on coffee mugs, tea towels, and wall hangings in some of the shops and boutiques I strolled through last weekend.
I was with some friends I haven’t seen in a long time, and we were way overdue for a reunion.
We first met each other in the mid-1990s, when all four of us lived in Roanoke, Virginia. Only one member of our group still calls Roanoke home. Two of us live in Georgia, and one – the one who hosted our girls’ weekend – now lives in South Carolina.
We’re all roughly the same age – give or take ten years or so – and have kids who are roughly the same age as well. So we had plenty of family photos and updates to share, including news of weddings, children, grandchildren, and retirement activities or plans.
One evening after dinner, when our host started to get up to clear the dishes, her husband stopped her and said, “Sit right there and talk to your friends.” He then got up, cleared the table, and washed the dinner dishes. I resisted the temptation to say, “Well, butter my biscuits, isn’t he a sweetheart!” But I was thinking it.
It was wonderful to have a few days of lazy, unstructured time, with coffee in the sunroom every morning, a trip to the beach or the pool if the weather cooperated, and a Plan B – that included shopping, reading, napping, or sightseeing – if it did not. And through it all, time for us to “sit right there and talk to your friends.”
It was difficult – as we knew it would be – to say goodbye at the end of the weekend. We’ve already started making plans for our next get-together, but we’re smart enough and experienced enough to know that life can quickly get in the way, and it may be some years before we do this again.
But butter my biscuits, it’s sure something to look forward to.
August 3, 2018
©Betty Liedtke, 2018
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