Spit, Scarey Ann, and Sweat Bees: One Thing Leads to Another - Hardcover

Windham, Kathryn Tucker

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1588382400 ISBN 13: 9781588382405

Publisher: NewSouth Books, 2009

Synopsis

With sprightly humor and a lifetime spent observing Southern culture, beloved storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham shares memories of her childhood in Thomasville, Alabama. She affectionately recounts stories about family members, friends, and favorite pastimes.

Spit, Scarey Ann, and Sweat Bees recalls small-town life in the 1920s and ’30s, garnished with ruminations about folktales and superstitions. Mrs. Windham recalls how Thurza, the family cook, tucked a wooden match in her hair to cure a headache, and how her father spit in his hat when a rabbit crossed the road. She ponders the origins of old sayings and the creativity of children’s play before television and air conditioning.

One thing leads to another, Mrs. Windham says, ticking off the items she wants us not to forget. In every phrase, the reader hears her voice, almost as if our favorite story teller was in the room.

About this title

About the Author:

Kathryn Tucker Windham grew up in Thomasville, Alabama. She graduated from Huntingdon College in 1939, married Amasa Benjamin Windham in 1946, and had three children before being widowed in 1956. A newspaper reporter by profession, her career spanned four decades, beginning in the shadow of the Great Depression and continuing through the Civil Rights Movement, which she observed at ground level in her adopted home town of Selma. In the 1970s, she left journalism and worked as a coordinator for a federally funded agency for programs for the elderly. She continued to write, take photographs, and tell stories. The storytelling was an outgrowth of her 1969 book, 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. More volumes of ghost stories, folklore, recipes, and essays followed; she has now published more than twenty books. Her reputation as a storyteller led to thirty-three appearances over an eighteen-month period on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, which introduced her to an even larger audience. She has written, produced, and acted in a one-woman play, My Name Is Julia, about pioneering social reformer Julia Tutwiler, has narrated several television documentaries, and is a regular interviewee for national and international journalists visiting Alabama in search of the Old or the New South. It is a testament to the good humor, keen intelligence, and life-long curiosity of one of the region’s best known public citizens that she can guide visitors unerringly to either mythical place.

Review:

"Spit, Scarey Ann, & Sweat Bees contains highly visual images, and it is written almost as if Windham is viewing mental photographs. She scrutinizes one, reminisces of the anecdote surrounding it, and moves on to the next. Windham’s memoir is evidence of why she has earned the reputation of being Alabama’s favorite storyteller." ―Rebecca Dempsey
"Kathryn Tucker Windham is one of the state’s most beloved storytellers, A Selma native and award-winning reporter whose ghost stories have brought laughter and fear to the lives of many. In the memoir Spit, Scarey Ann and Sweat Bees, Windham invites readers to sit on the front porch of her life. Reading this book is like sitting alongside Windham in a rocker, fanning away mosquitoes and reminiscing. The story-telling is more train of thought than a strict narrative, proving that one thing does, indeed, lead to another." ―reporter, Birmingham Magazine
"Kathryn Tucker Windham continues to pursue many professions. Regardless of the genre, she succeeds. She captures her South with all its richness and complexity ... All ages can enjoy this book, which can easily bridge generation gaps through shared reading. These “simple tales” are the “stuff” of our heritage, Alabama’s past. This master storyteller has done her readers the invaluable service of preserving our past and, we can hope, inspiring us to preserve and share our own “serigamy” (her family’s word for “a whole lot of, a good many, a heap of”) stories." ―Nancy Anderson, The Alabama Review

About this edition

• Publisher: NewSouth Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1588382400
• ISBN 13: 9781588382405
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 112