If you live in the South, you have to know how to make iced tea. If you live in the South, you also have to know how to make friends, right? Many times the process of making friends starts by entertaining them in your southern home. You know how it is and likely have seen it portrayed perfectly in the movies--the exquisite southern gentlewoman entertaining ladies who have "come calling." Usually they are served a tall glass of fresh iced tea with mint and perhaps a petit four. Classic Southern Hospitality!
Yes, Southern hospitality is a way of life--not just a saying. It has been documented in literature and newspapers throughout the years. "Some characteristics of southern hospitality were described as early as 1835, when Jacob Abbott
attributed the poor quality of taverns in the south to the lack of need
for them, given the willingness of southerners to provide for
strangers." (Wikipedia)
Abbott continues by saying, "Conversation flows cheeringly, for the southern gentleman has a
particular tact in making a guest happy. After dinner you are urged to
pass the afternoon and night...Such is the character of southern hospitality." If a man successfully covered the definition for "southern gentlemen," then you know that the women automatically would take the whole concept of Southern hospitality to a whole new level.
Now I'm not saying I am a Southern gentlewoman by any means, but I do have characteristics of that Southern hospitality as described by Abbott. I love having guests over (after I spend a day cleaning, rearranging, and most likely panicking to a degree). I have been taught the skills of being a hostess. Although I would never try to make "petit fours," I am willing to say that I can make iced tea (even though these days I tend to buy the ready-made gallons of the sweet variety in the refrigerated section of the grocery stores).
So having iced tea and ladies in my home is not an unusual event, but becoming fast friends because of my iced tea was a most unusual (thankfully) event.
Let me explain...
When we bought a house in Little Rock, we had one little girl and were expecting another one. Before long, we were expecting our third girl. So I was basically a stay-at-home-mother for awhile.
Fortunately for me, there were some other young mothers in the neighborhood who weren't working. It so happened that these moms all had little girls around the same ages as mine. So immediately we bonded and would gather at each others' houses for visits while the girls played. The adult conversations were always a welcomed change from continuous interaction with preschoolers. Although I'm sure our conversations were frequently interrupted to settle squabbles ("You can't come to my birthday party" or "She said she won't be my friend") and sometimes to simply check on them when things got too quiet.
It was through one of these gatherings that I met the newest neighbor at the time. We really meshed early on and I invited her to come to my house one afternoon with her little girl in tow. Of course, as always when I have guest over, I did my rushed straightening-up-job and certainly had prepared some iced tea for the occasion.
We got the girls involved in playing with an assortment of dolls and then we sat down at the kitchen table to begin our visit. Trying to be that gracious hostess, I offered some iced tea to my new neighbor. While we chatted, I got the glasses out of the cabinet; I filled them with ice. I put the lid to the pitcher on, getting it ready to pour. Then it happened! No, I didn't spill the ice out of the glasses or knock off the glasses and break them. No, the lid to the tea pitcher didn't fall off. And, no, I didn't spill any tea. It was worse, much worse than any of those goofs (although any of them could have easily happened).
When I was pouring the freshly steeped tea from the pitcher, not only did the tea come out of the pitcher but a DISHCLOTH almost made it out! Yes, you read it correctly. (Thank goodness I had remembered to put the lid on the pitcher.) But somehow, someway, sometime when I wasn't looking a dishcloth had surreptitiously fallen into the pitcher. (It was a clean one, though.) Evidently, it had fallen into the pitcher at some point when I had opened the cabinet where I kept dishcloths. (Uh, okay...maybe I had thrown them up in the cabinet haphazardly in my usual "company's coming rush" to "clean" the kitchen--I don't know. I just know that now one was now floating at the edge of the pitcher.)
We both looked at each other. Although she had a wry grin on her face, I'm sure she was a little shocked and wondered what kind of southerner serves iced tea à la dishcloth. A true Southern gentlewoman might have swooned and fanned away from her embarrassment, but even though I was definitely embarrassed, I was also undone with laughter. As soon as it actually dawned on me what it was, I started laughing uproariously. She joined in with equal enthusiasm.
I did tell her I would make a new pitcher of tea. However, she replied with something like, "Why bother. It looks fine to me." So we enjoyed that pitcher of tea that afternoon and a long, long friendship which has continued to this day.
We don't see each other very often anymore because she has moved out of the south--"bless her heart!" (See, I told you I was a Southerner!) But when she does make it back to this city, we take up right where we left off from the last visit--maybe not with my special tea, but we do enjoy our times together.
It was just this week that we got together again and the tea story came up. It doesn't come up every time we visit but I never mind it when it does. It was funny then and it is still funny. We both learned a lot about each other in a split second, and I think we both liked what we learned. It certainly moved our friendship forward very quickly and all pretenses were dismissed as we drank our sweet tea that afternoon. To this day, we still know who we are and have an appreciation for each others' quirkiness.
That pitcher of sweet tea is long gone, but the friendship is still sweet which simply proves that the quote by Elbert Hubbard is all too true--"A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same." I'm glad for that. Thanks, my friend, for knowing me and still being my friend!
