Janis Owens

I’ve gathered quite a collection of all manner of Cracker portrait. Here is a sampling, with notes on application to the species.  

To begin: a picture of the lively Rice women, posed around Grannie. Mama is left, then Aunt Sophie and Aunt Doris (who were in-laws and detested each other, by the way.) I’m the little baldie poking the wall, finger in mouth. Taken in Marianna, around ‘62.

…

Next, a rare picture of Grandaddy in a suit and tie, taken around ‘41. He never had much in the way of church clothes and was too proud to go to church in overalls (which is, incidently, a shifty Cracker way of getting out of going to church.) Note the inexpert knot on his tie. He had this picture taken for Uncle Kelly, to take with him when he fought in the Islands, in WWII.  

…

…

 I love this picture of Uncle Dennis - Captain Hill to his prisoners - and Aunt Doris, taken at the camp on Christmas, 1960. The stetson hat was part of his uniform. He was buried with it on his chest. 

… 

This is a rare picture of Big Mama and her brothers, John beside her, Ed and EG to the front. You can see the “Little Black Dutch” in all of them. I had my deep DNA tested, and have the DNA of a Berber woman. I don’t know how the Moors got to this part of South Alabama, but there it is. This picture was taken at my great-great grandfather, John Jackson’s funeral. He was a good man, and died of pneumonia after gathering his scattered livestock in a storm. His wife remarried a man so sorry that his older sons (I ain’t naming names) “done away with him.” When my own grandfather proved equally sorry, they met him down at the spring where he was getting water, and told him: “Drink at this spring the rest of you life, or leave.” Roughly translated, that meant: quit running around on your wife, or you’ll end up like our step-father. My grandfather took them at their word and left for Texas that very hour. He seldom showed his face in Alabama again.

…

….

 Here is a nice photo lineup of The Women of Cracker Kitchen. From left, there is Aunt Izzy, Aunt Doris, Mama and Grannie. It was taken around ’78, in Uncle Kelly’s yard, at a cook-out. Note the generational divide here: neither Aunt Izzy or Grannie cut their hair, and didn’t braid it either, but twisted it, per scripture. Aunt Doris and Mama were of a younger, more contemporary stripe of Pentecostal. Mama is really walking on the wild side, wearing pants. She only wore dresses till I was in about middle school. She was the only one of them who could drive, now that I think of it; an innovator in Cracker womanhood. The big old purse sitting on Aunt Doris’ lap was characteristic: she never let it out of sight. She was afraid of frogs and my cousin Nelson once got the blessing-out of a lifetime for putting a frog in her purse. 

…

Another classic Cracker family pose, of grandaddy and his mule, Old Grey. Like most mules, he was famously stubborn; so contrary that Granddaddy once balled up his fists and took a pugilist’s stance in challenging him. Old Grey was not impressed. Mules taught Crackers everything they know about tenacity and defiance. In the deathless words of Faulkner, they’d work patiently for you for many years, for the chance to kick you once.  

…

 A trio of Fabulous Uncles: left to right, Uncle Tom, Uncle Kelly and Uncle Andrew (we pronounced it: Ann-drah.) Between them lurks King, the Wonder Dog. Uncle Tom and Uncle Andrew were bachelor brothers and always lived around and about their sisters, who did their laundry back in a day when sisters could be easier cowed into such things. Uncle Andrew got skin cancer from doing parade ground exercises for WWI and was considerably scarred. Uncle Tom had a limp and used to tell us he’d been shot in the butt by a cannon in the Civil War. We believed him. His real limp was caused by a less illustrious affliction, but since he treated us like royalty as children – always hobbled down to the store at the sight of us and bought us candy – I will stick to the CSA version. Both Uncle Tom and Uncle Andrew had been put to work as children in the saw mills of Cuba, Alabama, and had the missing fingers and deafness to prove it. They smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and listened to the Yankees on transistor radio, and deviled their sisters about religion till their dying day. The night before Uncle Tom died, I dreamed that Grannie had come to the foot of our bed and told me he’d died.  When I came home from school the next day, there was Uncle Kelly’s car – he’d come to take her back to Marianna for funeral.  

… 

I can’t tell you how much joy this picture gives me, of Grannie holding up her catch of the day. It has all the hallmarks of Classic Cracker: a sweet old grannie, a cane pole, and a shell cracker, soon to be eaten at the table.  

Viva la Grannie. Viva la Cracker.

…