Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living by Bailey White

Even the roughest Gotham mugger wouldn't beat up a woman who is great with child, she figured. She tells about the time she wore a maternity dress on a northern excursion because she had to change trains in New York City. In fact, and thank goodness, she's sometimes odd and downright cranky. Absorb them from the printed page, and you realize she's not quite as sweet and gentle as maybe you had imagined. Her radio stories, taped at the NPR station in Tallahassee, are wondrously funny and warm, but her soothing cadence leaves them without edge. Reading about White's life is different from listening to her.

Oak snakes make themselves at home in her bedroom, and a tick finds its way inside Mama's pantyhose. The daughter sometimes has to crawl under the house, fending off spiders and dirt. As Bailey White portrays them, they are remarkably free of boredom, aware of their surroundings and fully present in the business of living.īut as these essays demonstrate, in the White household, life is not all cucumber sandwiches and iced tea. She has a low opinion of air travel and prefers to get to faraway places by train. A Florida State University graduate, she teaches first grade. She shares a house, without air conditioning, with her mother, Rose, in Thomasville, Ga. As we can see in the stories from Mama Makes Up Her Mind, many of which are taken from her radio broadcasts, White really does lead a life relatively unburdened by technology or traffic.

What seem to be accurate are the pictures the radio commentator helps to conjure up about her life in the rural south, teaching school and living with Mama. It brings to mind images of broad, deep porches where wilting women sit and rock and fan themselves, sipping lemonade.īut at 41 White is nowhere near retirement age. Her drawl on the wireless sounds as if it could use a good shot of WD-40.

Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living by Bailey White