Auntie J’s Thoughts on the Fourth Of July

Many of my current day feelings about how to celebrate the 4th of July come from my wonderful South Carolina family traditions. As families generally do, ours had a basic plan in place for that holiday each year and I can still feel my instincts shift into a “barbecue mode” when the first of July rolls around each year.

Most often, we would have Maurice Bessinger’s delicious offerings of smoky pit-cooked barbeque pork with their delicious mustard-based BBQ sauce, baked beans, slaw and some of their tasty signature hash & rice. I really don’t – to this day – know EXACTLY what is in that hash…. and in this case I truly feel that ignorance is bliss. It’s somewhat the same case with the ceviche that Uncle R and I love to buy on weekends from a small but thriving nearby Mexican grocery store… the fewer questions asked, the better. Crazy tasty… but slightly mysterious.

There were some years that we used another barbeque restaurant, Ray Levers Barbeque, out in Blythewood. I used to love to drive out North Main Street through rolling farmlands and tall pines to pick up our meal at this barbeque spot because I was out in the “horse country” where I kept Shawnee. I would turn up the radio, roll down the windows and push Pamela’s little gold & white Chevy Nova in a speed-appreciating way that it never experienced under Pamela’s quiet, firm and careful control.

Then at home Mommas and Pamela would have garnered samplings of summer South Carolina fruits and vegetables… plump, burnished red tomatoes, crisp cucumbers to add to some slices of onion & sprinkles of pepper & sugar in some vinegar, curling yellow summer squash, fresh and tender green beans and usually your nose would lead you to a big basket of newly-picked SC peaches from the Columbia farmer’s market. Their smell sifting through the gently fan-stirred air made your mind skip from one peach possibility to the next… Cobbler? Homemade ice cream? Or just sliced into a bowl drenched in their own sweet juices. I find myself holding peaches & their yellow & pink fuzziness up to my nose in grocery stores here in Nashville hoping to smell that oh so familiar and lovely perfume that immediately takes me back to a hot, lazy South Carolina summer day…. And I usually don’t get it… unless they are South Carolina peaches, that is.

Uncle R has always remembered that I gravitate towards barbeque on the 4th because of my upbringing and we have spent many Independence Days with me dousing a dry Tennessee-style BBQ sandwich with sauce from a treasured bottle of Maurice Bessingers. But last July 4th Uncle R and I had the wonderful treat of traveling down to SC to see CeCe, SS, Mommy M, Daddy L and meet Baby B for the very first time!



We loved seeing Baby B eat his breakfast as we spent that first morning with him! (Oh, NO, Mommy M… I said…I am NOT taking your picture.. don’t worry… Gulp). Then in Darlington we went to a fun July 4th celebration at the Darlington Country Club and got to see Baby B eat his first ice-cream sandwich. Afterward we sat back in lawn chairs and watched a fireworks display together. It was a perfect holiday together.



I will miss not being with my SC Pamela’s Girls this July 4th, but will look forward to seeing ALL the Pamela’s Girls during the first week in August!


And yes! Happy Birthday to Mommas!

Love you all!
Auntie J.