There are sayings, Southern sayings, that I have written about in the past. They are not the Poor Richard Almanac sort. Ole Richard had plenty of good ones, don't get me wrong, but they didn't paint a mental picture Southern sayings do.

I guess these would be call "folk idioms" in that they come from experience with the object of conversation. "That ole mules so skinny you can read a newspaper through him." or "I've been to two hog calls, a rodeo, and followed a molasses wagon plum around the county and I ain't never seen nothing like that". I'm fond of " I'm fixing to get ready to just here in a minute." 

A friend of mine and his father were waiting for his mom to get ready to go out to dinner. He finally said "Dad, when's Mom coming, I'm hungry. His father said, Time waits for no man and only 15 minutes for women." I smile.

Some how that sort of imagery beats out "A penny saved is a penny earned".  Folks in the the Southern Appalachians to the coastal plains in Georgia were more concerned with growing enough food, preserving enough meat, and other affairs of plain living to be much concerned with money. They just didn't have much or need much, for that matter. The need for cash created home industry to raise cash for coffee, tea, sugar, flour and other absolute necessities.

Pottery in the South was a necessary item to daily life. Beats eating grits out you hand. Potter families that made it were revered. They were farmers, like their neighbors. The need for cash for stables, flour, sugar, coffee, cloth etc. drove a family cottage industry that could  take a clump of mud and make a butter churn, plate, bowl, or pitcher that could be sold for cash. 

One North Georgia potter turned very thin pottery, beautiful stuff. One of his kin said it was because he could never trade for a mule that was strong enough pull a heavy load to town. 

Another potter took a load of churns to town and stopped at a customer's hardware store. He told him, "I'll take every churn you got, even if the handles are broken,, I ain't got time to haggle with you right now."

The potter hollered out the door, "Boys, get out your pocket knives and knock the handles off them churns." I don't know the rest of the story, but in my 20 year in folk pottery I know potter were sly, funny and could dangle the bait for hours before they set the hook, I loved setting up the shaggy dog stories.

Little snippets of wisdom like " Sorry bee that don't make honey", is the a byline for story of the grasshopper and the ant. It could be used under one's breath to disparage a slackard. I guess only the politicians of the times had time for lengthy speeches. Things ain't changed much in that regard. I guess Calvin Coolidge was the only President to be a politician of few words. How did he get elected?

Back to the folk idioms. a neighbor came down the other day with one I have never heard. He was talking about people getting grief for wearing masks and socially distancing during the damdemic. He announced he'd "Rather have 12 judging than 6 carrying." I agree wholeheartedly. 

Anger is punctuated with the likes of, "If you don't stop that, I'm gonna' stomp a mudhole in you and walk it dry, or "I'm gonna' whup you so bad your shirt tail gonna' run up and down your back like a window shade."  "I'm gonna have to get out a can of whup ass if you don't stop that havishness, you hear me! That was more than a warning, it was the truth!

One can be so ugly that mama had to put a sheet over his head so the sleep could creep up on him, or had to  tie a pork chop around his neck so the dogs would play with him; so ugly he had to sneak up on a glass of water to get a drink.

Intelligence is often discussed. If his brains was dynamite, he wouldn't have enough to blow a flea's nose or the Lord said brains, that ole boy he thought he said rain and ran for cover. Two bricks shy of a load, elevator don't go to the top, or ain't got both oars in the water are pretty universal in the many parts of the country.

Disparaging a State not your own is big down South...God made Georgia to keep Alabama and South Carolina apart. What's the best thing about Interstate 20? Getting back into Ga. from Alabama. Georgia is also on the hit list. Them people live so far out of the Boonies, they have to pump sunlight in. Mississippi is called " a State of mind." 

Some of my favorites? Fattened hog ain't in luck, don't know what part of him gonna' season the turnip greens." or " Every buzzard in the neighborhood will come the gray mule's funeral and finally, " Liquor talks mighty loud when it get loose from the jug. That, my friends is true and succinctly put! 

One of my many bands were learning a new tune that I could not get right, you know one of them crooked tunes. The fiddle player said it in exasperation "If it weren't for time, everything would happen at once...listen dammit" I doubt he ever heard anyone say that. I have gotten much better at listening to crooked tune with that saying in mind.

I will leave you with one told me in a small West Virginia elementary school.  I broke a string during my program, and a little girl looked up at me and said straight-faced "Life ain't no ride on no pink duck!

Out of the mouths of babes.