Bena Mae's Kitchen

Time was when I wouldn’t have missed the Academy Awards presentation under threat of death. Of course that was when stars were STARS...Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Tyrone Power, Humphrey Bogart, Claudette Colbert, Barbara Stanwyck. But today it’s different. What was once known as ‘star quality’ no longer exists. I could be standing next to Steven Seagal in the checkout lane at the supermarket and I wouldn’t know him from Adam. Try comparing Julia Roberts to Carol Lombard - I dare you. Arnold Schwarzenegger an actor? Don’t be ridiculous. Even the character actors who gave the movies such depth were more recognizable than some of our highest paid stars of today. True...

Remembering the Burma Shave Signs There is a bit of Americana that made traveling so much fun. Burma Shave Signs! Or, verses by the side of the road. What fun they were to read! The roadsides were plastered with them. Spaced several feet apart, they could be easily read at speeds of 35 or 40 miles per hour-top speeds in those days. Their good-humored, catchy phrases caught the public’s eye and very quickly became a public pastime. They covered many subjects. Some of them gave warnings to drivers. This one has stayed in my mind all these years: DON’T STICK YOUR ELBOW OUT TOO FAR - IT MIGHT GO HOME IN ANOTHER...

I don’t like to travel on the interstate. Oh sure, it gets you there faster, there’s no arguing with that. But at what price? Tension, headache, nerves. And once we get to our destination, there’s no feeling of satisfaction on having enjoyed the trip. If at all possible, I take the back roads or the “road less traveled” if it gets me to where I’m going. I find looking at cattle grazing peacefully in a field preferable to dodging an 18 wheeler at every turn. And then there is the latest danger that has made driving such a hazard, “Road Rage.” Sadly, driving and driving habits have changed drastically since the onset of...

The front porch of the general store (taken from The Art of Storytelling and Prevaricating) Although the following anecdote doesn’t involve storytelling or prevaricating as such, it does describe the general thinking of the old fellows who made the general store their second home. It is one of my favorites. The story is supposed to have taken place during World War II at a general store way back in the hills of Eastern Kentucky. It was late spring and all of the fellows were holding down the benches on the front porch of the store. They were whittling and talking and enjoying the weather in general when someone rushed out and announced...

The art of storytelling and prevaricating What with the passing of neighborhood general stores and benches around courthouses, there’s no place for folks of the male gender with time on their hands to hang around and whittle and chaw and jaw anymore. In danger of becoming extinct is the art of storytelling, prevaricating and just plain blowing things all out of proportion. And it is an art - one that takes a lot of practice and one that needs to be nurtured and held onto. When I ran across an old stack of Mother Earth News recently, I felt like I had struck the ‘mother lode.’ Each issue was full of interesting...

My first prom What with all the stretch limos making an appearance in small towns hereabouts on the first Saturday night in June of each year, it would seem that some famous personages were paying a visit to our neck of the woods. Maybe someone like Garth Brooks or Dolly... or Wynonna? But on observing the occupants of the limos more closely, the mystery is made clear. It is Prom Night! Pretty girls in pretty dresses, handsome young men in tuxedos, all piling out of cars that are so long and sleek and expensive looking they invite onlookers to stop and stare as if they were visiting royalty. A few days after...

A Mother’s Day I Will Never Forget It must have been in 1946 or 47 when I  was a budding teenager, that my brother, Don, who was just a little tyke, brought shame to our family and caused his female siblings to close the curtains and withdraw from society for a spell. It happened on a Mother’s Day. As we did every Sunday, the Estep clan had filed into church that morning. Like always, Daddy took his place in the choir where he could keep an eye on his flock while the rest of us sought a secluded corner where he couldn’t see us. We knew if he saw us whisper or...

May First, the real Independence Day Although the calendar shows Independence Day on the Fourth of July, it really came on the first day of May when I was growing up. It was the day our mothers let us take off the loathsome heavy woolen underwear, thick cotton stockings and high-top shoes we had worn all win­ter. It didn’t matter if it was as hot as Dante’s Inferno all through April. She did­n’t care if we sweat bullets and threatened to faint dead away from the heat. “You will wear your winter underwear until it’s safe to take it off,” was her edict, “safe” meaning the first day of May even...

Storm Season One night while I was searching for something interesting to watch on television, I ran across a weather documentary on the Discovery channel. It was about people who travel around the country looking for tornadoes. Once they sight one, they film it until the funnel cloud bears down on them, leaving them with only precious seconds to dive for cover. As I watched them deliberately place themselves in harm’s way, one thought kept running through my head -- These people weren’t raised by my mother! When I was a child, every year when March and April rolled around and storm season was declared official, panic season set in for...

Now, which one are you? continued... Who was the prettiest? Who was the smartest? Who was the most talented? Modesty not being one of our strong points, we constantly bragged to one another about our own accomplishments even if we had to lie. If someone outside the family paid one of us a compliment, we never let the others forget it. I told them that Mama said I was her prettiest baby ... that when I was born, people came from miles around to see me because I was the most beautiful baby they had ever seen. One -upmanship was something I learned early in life. I had to. It...