Hill Country Living
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Hill Country Living
By Coulter Fussell
I was so sorry to hear about the passing of Don Larson. He was always so kind, calm and friendly at the grocery store. We all watched him brave his illness at that store through a global pandemic to keep the groceries flowing out to our town and to keep the teenagers employed when many of us were closing up shop and afraid to step outside.
Regular readers of my column may already know that I’m a fan of the PigSaver (I’m a member of a Water Valley cusp generation who moved here when the store was Piggly Wiggly and we thoroughly settled into that name until it became CashSaver. We still haven’t fully transitioned.)
I remember one time several years ago they held a jelly bean counting contest back by the lunch line. There was a giant jar of what must have been millions of jelly beans. This was during a time period when I was selling little hand-sewn bunny rabbit dolls made out of knit garden gloves. Don Larson and crew used those little bunny rabbits as one of the prizes if you guessed the correct amount of jelly beans. I sewed one bunny rabbit a little grocer’s apron to wear! I thought it was nice of them to support a local arts and craft situation. All this to say, the PigSaver is as local as it gets.
Well, it’s March and Spring is finally peeping around the corner. My paranoia about the December freeze killing off all Southeastern flora is waning as, one by one, my yard plants are waking up. I just needed to be patient. The weather has still been bizarre, though, with temperatures near 80 on some afternoons. A few days ago we had what seemed to be a day-long, low key, slow-roll tornado. The wind was wild! The front doors to businesses were flying open and trees were coming down! My house shook for a day. The wind knocked over my ugly cactus on my front porch, which was honestly a blessing, and at one point it literally blew my glasses off my face while I was walking through a parking lot. Several strangers witnessed my glasses fly from my head and skid across the asphalt. It was arguably the nerdiest moment of my life – to have your giant eye glasses be so gargantuan that they catch air like a Viking ship sail and be lifted into actual flight by a rogue parking lot breeze.
Two standout happenings this week, one national and one local, are that the Murdaugh Trial finally concluded with exactly the sentencing I hoped for and the other is that the Famous Landi Salad is back on the menu at the BTC. Both of these occurrences are good news to me and revitalized my work days. I was incapable of getting any work done while the Murdaugh Trial was on TV and the Landi Salad is a workday motivator as it gives one reason to attend a job so that you can then take a lunch break.
Lastly, we have a home Blue Devils baseball game this Saturday against Bruce! See ya there!
