We owned a prescription for the languid days and close nights of summer in 1960’s rural Georgia. I dare say you may still find people filling it up and down red clay byroads and sandy lanes even now. We lived our days with iced tea, porch sitting and cold dinners. Nothing exceptional about this really, except the tea was sweet, the porches were shaded by ancient oaks and dinner was served midday.
Early evening found the folks gathering on the porch. The young’uns less tractable to muggy ran through the cooling damp grass. We caught lightning bugs or played statue tag, (no freeze tag in Georgia, no siree). One or two of the grown folks always had a banjo or guitar handy. Twanging beats and acoustic melodies joined the drone and clicks of night bugs. My grandmomma had a reedy voice common to mountain women. She was neither from the mountains nor with perfect pitch. She listened to a lot of radio and we thought her voice rivaled the likes of Loretta Lynn or June Carter Cash. Her lyrics were mostly sad if taken alone. It was the lilt in her voice rising out of the strumming that put the tap in our toes. Those verdant days were fragranced with warm honeysuckle born on the shimmer of heat waves. I need only a whiff of green or floral hot to transport back. It is the night I remember best.
Not long after everyone packed it in for their own nearby homes, grandmomma would line us children up to clean our feet. Running barefoot made for filthy feet. No one tolerated sand and dirt on the sun bleached cotton sheets carefully tightened over soft mattresses. There was no better remedy for tired as found in clean feet slipping into cool smooth sheets. The tucking in accomplished, my momma and grandmomma would sit idly for a while. Their faint whispers trailed into our almost asleep ears, our lullaby. The last dose readied. This remaining bit was heard before being enveloped in a cooling breeze of sleep. Over the hum of a large attic fan, grandmomma called softly to momma, “crack the windas and cut the lights.”
The Colloquialisms
Cut the Lights: Several sources seem to agree that the origin of this phrase may lie in the early use of electricity before main power switches. A disconnect or break in the power between source and recipient was manual. You can get the idea of this break in power being referred to as a “cut.” The continued usage into modern times has grown primarily in the south and some rural areas in the north. It is interesting because not only can it be used to tell someone to turn on the light-cut on the light but also to convey turn off the light-cut the light. This does not sound at all strange to my ears having grown up in the deep south. However after a 30 year stint in the north it does take me by surprise when I see it in print. I recently returned to the south and have noticed road signs warning drivers to cut on your headlights when raining. I have also witnessed road signs urging drivers to burn headlights when raining.
Crack the Window: Meaning to open the window to a small sliver of an opening. It is descriptive in its intention. It does not refer to any previous cracking of glass that may or may not have been done to let air in. Southerners use the term to distinguish between opening the window just a little or a lot. A wide open window is accomplished by throwing open the window. Again, this term sounds most familiar to me. I am hard pressed to think of asking if I should roll the car window down just a tad. I without fail ask, “Want me to crack the window?”
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