Yakin' and cookin'

The lexicon of Tritown

by Sally Cragin

Illustration by Lennie Peterson

When the sun finally comes out, Hollis the Mountain Man knows he has to fix his porch. A rotten step has caved in, and he has "fixed" things with a couple of milk crates "borrowed" from his local tavern, the Rod 'n` Reel. Trouble with fixing things is that there's no end to it.

Something's always jeezled up. Repair the porch step, and then you've got to replace the rail. Replace the rail, and next thing you know, you're looking at the eaves, and once you're on a roof, all hell breaks loose. Hollis keeps a bucket of tar handy in the front yard (covered with a piece of particle board on which balances a can of trim paint in the hue of Dismal Egg). This spring has been a rainy one; and Hollis has noticed a telltale bulge near the baseboard of his parlor. The roofing tile is rotten, and the tarpaper beneath is leaking onto the cheap pine, drawing the water between the walls. If he is lucky, it's still far enough from the outlet, sparing him from an electrical fire that could fry him to a Tried 'N` Tru Vinega-Dubl-Salt potato chip.

A trained psychologist, hearing the litany of woes Hollis unspools from some small disturbance in his vicinity, might conclude Hollis is suffering from advanced paranoia. But your typical Tritownie would disagree. Hollis is just realistic. Fortunately, there are some roofing tiles stored in the ice house 'round back, and Hollis thinks he might as well break his neck falling off the roof, if it comes to that. Sighing copiously, he drags his wheelbarrow to the ice house, a small shed built into the back slope. It has walls and a roof (all but the front are covered with earth). On the hottest days in summer, it's refreshingly cool. There, previous generations of Mountain Men stored blocks of ice in sawdust. Though Hollis's deliberately old-fashioned great Uncle Wilton (who'd perished in a historical re-enactment on the Bicentennial) had a refrigerator throughout his lifetime, the ice house was still good for stashing odd tools and supplies.

Hollis never fails to get a frisson of nostalgia for Uncle Wilton every time he passes the pricker bushes, lifts the latch of the ice-house door, and steps inside the cool, sod-smelling interior. Wilton had grown up in an earlier era -- he liked his ice house, Model A, and even the privy. After Aunt Winnie installed the bathroom in the Mountain Cabin (her windfall from a couple of winning lottery tickets at Happy's Coffee and Quick-Stop -- 30 kinds of doughnuts, 20 kinds of lottery tickets, one kind of coffee), he always called it "inside plumbing."

Wilton had an earthy way of talking, which Hollis has inherited, in part through mimicry but also because certain phrases just say stuff better than others. As he carries a load of shingles back to the cabin and stuffs his carpenter's apron with roofing nails, he smiles. Wilton would have said he was "getting the hind teat" again, doing this repair job by himself. As a younger son of a younger son, Wilton was fond of this expression, which means getting the last, poorest choice. (The image is derived from swine, which have large litters. The undernourished, or "runt," is frequently called the "teatman.") Being a younger son himself, Hollis definitely feels like the teatman when he compares his lot to older brother Mason's. Mason was permitted to have an air rifle at age seven (Hollis had to wait till he was 10) and a motorcycle, which Hollis wasn't allowed to get at all.

Once he is on the roof with his tiles, a wicked breeze off Picture Pond perks him up. He quickly finds the bald spot and feels for dampness around it. There is a gentle incline on the roof, not enough to throw him off, and the tiles rest easily. The trouble with a roof is that "the cheap way is always the expensive way," he thinks. Spend a few dollars and live with a leak or spend hundreds if not -- gasp -- thousands, and live dry. Hollis lifts a corner of rotten shingle. He knows what his choice would be.

Had a regional linguist come to talk with Hollis and his friends, comprehension would be immediate, and only certain words or phrases might prompt a quizzical look. Whereas, Uncle Wilton had spoken a version of Swamp Yankee Mumble (through ill-fitting false teeth, or "choppers") that incorporates some very old words and concepts, indeed.

Uncle Wilton invariably complained about getting the pope's nose at Thanksgiving, though he never did. This is the last edible part of the turkey, (i.e. the hindermost). Among his favorite meals were red flannel hash and slumgullion. Hollis remembers Wilton's face lighting up with joy at a blue plate filled with red flannel hash topped with a fried egg. As he bangs in the last nail, he remembers Mason likening the dish to a "Cyclops' eye," and then feels a hankering for the dish himself.

Red flannel hash, bread pudding, and slumgullion are all regional dishes whose constituents come from other, more tasty dishes. New England cooking at its most exemplary is not only colorful (been blinded by a squash pie, lately?) but shows thrift. Bread pudding uses up stale bread, hash takes care of the Sunday beef, and the pope's nose stews up quite nicely in slumgullion. To make hash of either flannel, corned beef is preferable with fried onions, potatoes, and turnip. Add seasoning and heat on medium. Chop up a beet for red flannel; leave it alone for white. Slumgullion is stew that can contain the aforementioned (minus the beef), plus string beans, a can of corn, rice, or even stale bread. Don't be persnickety, Wilton would say. Throw in whatcha got.

Hollis stacks his leftover shingles on the corner of the roof and thinks about leaving them up there, in case he needs to do another repair. Not that the ice house is far away, but why should he make two trips? Or maybe it is going to rain. That is the solution -- leave them up here until after it rains, so if he needed to return, they'd be waiting.

Hollis is pleased with his solution, so he clambers down the ladder. He has a wicked taste for a plate of hash, and ice cream with jimmies, washed down with a coffee regla. As it is mid-week, his aunt Winnie (named after Winnepesaukee, though she can't swim) would be just getting round to the last of the Sunday roast, meaning hash. He'd stop by the packie on the way down. Aunt Winnie likes to sit in her summer house, sipping on pale ale, which, thus far in his home-brewing career, he's been unable to concoct.

LEXICON OF TRITOWN and beyond: "Jimmies" are those colorful, sugary toppings for cake and ice cream. These can be crystallized sugar or frosted. In New York and elsewhere, they're "sprinkles," in Connecticut they're "shots," and "billions and billions" in Ireland.

"Wicked" can express awe and exasperation, when used alone, and modifies virtually any noun or adjective. Occasionally, "wicked" translates to its dictionary definition of "evil."

If you ask for a "tonic," anywhere outside of New England, you'll be directed to a drugstore. "Persnickety" is another New England-based adjective that means extra finicky or standoffish. A "pricker bush" could be a thistle, rose bush, or raspberry canes -- any vine with thorns.

You can get beer and wine at your packie (package store), and sometimes even "coffee reg'la" (well, you say it). That's coffee with so much milk and sugar in it you don't taste the coffee. Cream soda and egg creams have no cream, but ice cream has plenty. And if you can't afford either, try the bubbler. A summer house can be a screened porch on your house, a freestanding gazebo, or a cottage on a lake. There is no known etymology for "jeezled up."

This column is in memory of Donald H. Cragin (1931-1996), with thanks to Roy Besarick, Dr. Richard F. Boursy, Hal Cragin, Ian Donnis, Andre Goguen, Timothy Maxwell, Chris Mulholland, and Gus Rancatore.

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