Sissy Boo

One of my favorite people of all time was my dad's mom, Elizabeth Staton. I always called her Granmaw, but one of my cousins gave her the nickname of “Sissy Boo”. She had a couple of other names she went by; Sis, Sister and Mothers. Mostly I remember her being called Sissy Boo.

Sissy Boo was born in 1921 in Forsyth County, Georgia. That same year Coco Chanel introduced Chanel No. 5, a Buick Model D Touring car would set you back $650 and 5 lbs of flour cost you 41 cents. She was down to earth, sharp as a tack and a whole lot country. She loved to experience new things and hardly ever passed up a chance to see or do something interesting.

My Granmaw was not a drinker or a smoker, but she did dip snuff. I always remember her having a purse that without fail contained these two items; Double Mint gum and a spit cup with some pink tissue pushed down inside of it to hold the sloshing to a minimum.

One of my favorite memories of her and that purse was when, she called me and Ray up one night and asked what we were doing that weekend. We said "whatever you wanna do Granmaw”.  She proceeded to tell us that there was gonna be women’s mud wrestling and bear wrestling at the Franklin Outdoor Arena. She told me that she had never seen anything like that before and her chances of ever getting to again would be pretty slim if she passed up this opportunity.

I was skeptical, but Ray of course was all about it. So off to the mud wrestling we went. Parking was in a huge pasture and we had to walk quite a ways to the stands.  I can still see her picking her way through the pasture with her patent leather pocketbook slung over her arm, spitting snuff juice and saying “Lord, I hope nobody from my Sunday school class sees me!” I cracked up and told her if they did, they could both act like they didn’t recognize one another.

She loved to fish, and her and my granddad had a motor home they would take to New Orleans and “PannyMaw City”, to go deep sea fishing all the time. My granddad, who I called by his first name, Bill, was actually my stepgranddad.  Bill caught a hammerhead shark on one of those fishing trips and for years I thought it was the actual fish that he caught hanging on the wall in their house. Ray burst my bubble one year and told me it was a plastic replica that was airbrushed to look like the fish that was actually caught. All that time I had thought there was some lengthy preservation process done to keep it looking fresh, it figures.

Lucky for Ray it was lost in a fire because I would have done whatever I could to sweet talk my grandmother out of that shark to hang in my house. Why? Are you new??!!! Because it was neat, it reminded me of my grandparents and because it would give people something to talk about. I might just have to go catch one for myself, because I’m pretty sure Abby’s going to have a child that would appreciate having it passed down to them.

They had a farm where they had among other things, Ostriches, hogs, goats, chickens and Brahma bulls. She also had a mean ol’ house dog named Tippy who loved my grandmother but didn’t have a whole lotta use for the rest of us. I’m pretty sure if Tippy hadn’t ever bit you then you were not officially a member of the family.

Since she loved to fish they had a pond on their place they kept stocked, and there was all the May Pops you could eat along the way. She made the best biscuits ever and there was never a time when there was not at least one biscuit and a piece of streak Olean on a saucer sittin’on top of the stove ready for whoever needed a snack.

Sissy Boo had a neat way of speaking and when I look back, it could pass for a foreign language these days. As kids we played outside, a lot! When you went to Granmaws house you made sure to wear your play clothes. She would tell us how we looked like “the dogs’ed had us under the house” when we would come in filthy from head to toe.

For those of you that don’t understand what that means, back in the day, houses at times were built up on stone or brick pillars which raised them a foot or more off of the ground. If you had a throw rug hanging out to dry on the porch rail, the dogs just might steal it and take it under the house with them where it would get quite filthy.  The dogs loved laying there in the dirt where it was a cool place to escape from the summer heat.

If Granmaw were still with us today I’m not too sure what all she would be getting into, but you could count on this; it would be fun, always interesting and she would give us all a run for our money.