Nowadays, everybody is, "going green."
Like a lot of other things that humans do, the
whole trendy, fad-driven, obsession with
"green" this and "green"
that, has become in some ways a badge of one's
being cool and hip. In essence, it is little
more than a politically correct mask
camouflaging a radically-driven,
"environmentalist" mindset.
Folks who, "go green," seem to pride
themselves on buying recycled stuff (some of the
"stuff" out there that has already
been used once, this fat boy does NOT want to
use a second time). They also prefer to
patronize businesses and products who claim that
they too have "gone green," and they
refuse to embrace things like styro-foam fast
food containers, plastic Walmart bags, light
bulbs that really do give sufficient light to a
room, and household chemicals of yesteryear such
as chlordane (even though it is the ONLY
chemical that really does "kill back"
pesky insects and termites). Just one more
reason to overturn at the ballot box the bane of
over-reaching governmental dominance - like the
so-called, "EPA."
In reality, the only "green" the
environmentalist buzzards are truly concerned
about is the growing transfer of the
"green" from your pockets and mine to
their own. The planet, the atmosphere, and all
things related could just as well go to torment
on a fast train as far as they are concerned.
The "green" craze is all about money -
pure and simple!
Long before the trendy, politically correct
types hi-jacked the "green" world and
took the rest of us hostage in it, Mama was
already there. To borrow the hook from country
icon, Barbara Mandrell, Mama was green before
"green" was cool. But, Mama's version
of "green" was anything but cool.
Especially to a young man who had a lot on his
budding, excitement-hungry, teenage plate.
Mama went "green" every school year
with our clothes. She would either recycle last
year's school clothes, or take us down to the
local Salvation Army Store and buy us the
"green" used clothing off the racks.
In the late 1960's and early 1970's, and
especially in high school social circles all
over the city of Atlanta, styles like the
patented Izod Alligator were all you needed to
make the right fashion statement, and to be cool
and "in style." Folks would
unapologetically wear "puke green"
shirts, sweaters, and even pants (ask this
writer how he knows) as long as that little
embroidered reptile was clearly visible.
When parents, and especially one's mother, have
"gone green," it is NOT likely that
Izod Alligators are part of the wardrobe agenda
for her offspring. That little alligator did not
live down at the Salvation Army Store, nor in
the clothes that Mama sewed and made for us
during the times that she REALLY went
"green."
Mama also went "green" every Spring
and Summer.
Just about every March, Mama's normally sweet
and docile demeanor morphed into being something
far more frightening than anything Stephen King
every conceived, and more demanding and extreme
than any Drill Instructor Parris Island has ever
known.
Mama's warm weather "green" crusade
involved intense Spring cleaning, and continual
Summertime maintenance. Things like scrubbing
the bathroom tile with a toothbrush, mowing
grass with a push mower or sling blade
(John-Deere-riding-lawnmower-"Green"
didn't live at our house), trimming shrubs,
picking up dead limbs, planting flowers,
cleaning out gutters, washing out trash cans,
sweeping the driveway (the only
"blowers" were the gasps of air you
inhaled and exhaled while helping Mama "go
green"), and just about anything else that
meant a veritable chain-gang-like sentence of
house work and yard work.
As the months of Mama's environmentalist
hysteria rolled along, the "green"
tornado moved indoors. Her children were
subjected to a seemingly endless flurry of
chores which included, cleaning out closets,
painting the walls of your room to cover up the
girls' phone numbers you had scribbled there
during the school year, airing out mattresses
and throw rugs, taking down and washing every
curtain in the house, rearranging furniture, and
"deep cleaning" the stove, all the
kitchen cabinets, and the refrigerator.
The "deep cleaning" concept was all
but lost on this writer. Cleaning is cleaning,
period. But, a Mama-gone-green "knew"
deep cleaning. And, she took seriously her
mission of ensuring that her children, however
begrudgingly, knew it too. If Mama was
"going green," she was obviously
determined not to go there by herself.
Part of Mama's yearly voyage into the land of
"green" included helping us kids get
the "green" off our teeth, bodies, and
hair. Mama would inspect our ears, our skin and
scalp (for scabies, lice and bed bugs, mostly),
the mouth and the teeth (for sores and
cavities), and even underarms and between toes.
At least a part of what she was searching for
were signs of the "relaxed" standard
of personal hygiene often evidenced in young,
Southern males. Just like the story of the young
boy who went to summer youth camp during the
"Dog Days" of August. One day, a camp
counselor happened to walk through one of the
bathhouses and found this boy standing in the
shower area, vigorously scrubbing the cinder
block walls with an unused bar of soap. When the
counselor asked the reason for this behavior,
the boy matter-of-factly responded that if he
didn't scrub off the soap's brand logo indented
in the side of the bar, his mother would know
that he hadn't showered during his two-week stay
at camp. Never mind that there were other
"environmental" signs (i.e., intense
"boy" B.O.) that would be a dead
giveaway of his mindless rouse.
One other facet of Mama's being a forerunner of
the contemporary "green" movement
occurred without warning during this writer's
upbringing. Long before there was a James Dobson
with his "Dare To Discipline" mantra,
and long before there were so-called
mental/medical conditions like ADD, ADHD, ODD,
and the "wonder" drug known as
Ritalin, and long before there were street gangs
and rampant juvenile delinquency in this
writer's beloved home town, there was Mama.
The memory is vividly keen with images of her
rushing out to the shrubs and trees, talking
passionately under her breath as she went, and
walking with the gait of a fireman hurrying to
put out a raging inferno.
When Mama went "green" in this way,
her children usually looked for a place to hide.
When she returned from this "green"
pilgrimage, in her hand was a sizable portion of
the environment - a "green" limb from
either a small tree or a trusty shrub. Pulling
the limb off at its base with an almost
effortless, Schwarzenegger-like strength, Mama
stripped the limb of its "green"
foliage. As she headed back to the house, she
would boisterously call out all three names of
the offending child/children. This was designed
to alert all other neighborhood children that,
as Bill Cosby once said, the, "beatings
were about to begin."
"Going green" for Mama in this way
meant, without fail, that the offending child's
legs would soon "go red" from the
whelps inflicted during her parentally
"green" tirade.
Just another in a long list of
environmentally-based lessons learned during the
short years of having Mama as our beloved
teacher.
In the end, Mama went "green" one last
time. On that day, we carried her to the
beloved, Northwest Alabama, coal-mining,
community where she grew up. We carefully laid
her to rest beneath the beautiful green grass of
that hallowed old country cemetery where, as a
boy, this writer often played among the
tombstones and graves of family who were buried
there.
It was early May when we took Mama's body home.
The grass, the flowers, and and the trees were
blooming everywhere. And, one would hope that
Mama, in her new body and in her new home, was,
and still is to this day, finding everything
beautiful, alive with eternal freshness, and
forever "green" - just like The Good
Book says.
Mama, thank you for teaching us how to live, how
to treat other people, how to love God, how to
take care of the routine things of this life
that must be done, and how to remember you with
such love and fondness in our hearts. You
"went green," just like so many other
things you did, before the rest of us knew how
cool all those things really were.
We love you, Mama, and we miss you here...
"Well I'll Be John Brown..."
Copyright - David Decker
* * * * *
 I
am southern boy birthed in Alabama, reared in
Georgia, matriculated and married in Tennessee,
and initiated into manhood in South Carolina. To
read more, visit http://wellillbejohnbrown.blogspot.com/
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