did she say what i think she just said?

Oh, all this Paula Deen nonsense.  I really don't care what some butter-lovin', fake-tanned, southern-cookin' TV personality says.  (If y'all don't know what I'm talking about, and I only know about it because of the Daily Show, here's the scoop.)

The whole thing did remind me of one very important life-lesson that I learned...the hard way.

Where to start....  Well, I guess the beginning.  My grandmother was born in 1912 (a week before or after the Titanic went down - I can never remember which) and lived in a farming town in South Dakota.  They were extremely rural (she endured the Dust Bowl), and a little behind the times.  She was raised with certain...stereotypes...and used certain terms that in her mind were perfectly commonplace and not at all taboo.  She was raised with poems and songs from the time that she would recite around the house when she was cooking or cleaning, the same way we would sing along with any song we grew up with.  Here's an example of one of them (if you're offended by n-words, I suggest you don't click the link).  Yeah...  Brazil nuts were called "n----r toes" (sigh), and this was a book that I read quite often when I was at her place:

I remember this cover vividly.
It was much more tame than the original 1900's version.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not accusing her of being blatantly racist.  (Okay, she wasn't the most open-minded of individuals, but she wasn't out to be intentionally derogatory.)  She just didn't understand that the terms and phrases that used to be mainstream (right or not), had become quite offensive and were not to be used  - especially in public.  Especially especially around children.

On one occasion, after she had recited one of her childhood poems and because it was a word I had never heard before (because my parents knew it wasn't very nice), I asked her what that n-word meant.  She stated very simply that it was just another word for a black person.  Oh!  Well, okay then.  I was in grade school, my brain was a sponge, and I loved soaking up new words to impress people with.  Let's add this one to the list!

Flash forward a few months later to one of my parents' popular outdoor parties.  As everyone was on our lawn playing another round of killer croquet while downing sipping on bullfrog punch, my mother had donned some sort of wig stand head of a brownish color and put it on her shoulder to become a two-headed monster.  (Don't ask, I don't remember the details...I attribute it to the copious amounts of bullfrog punch.)
I said, "Wow, Mom!  Now you're a N----r!"

Her eyes widened, I think she actually stopped breathing for a moment.  My uncle, who was standing behind her, did a bullfrog punch spit-take and said, "Oohhhh, I think I'll go this way now..." backed up a few steps and high-tailed it back to the food, trying his hardest not to laugh.  After catching her breath and a bit of stammering, my mother tried keeping her voice at 7 instead of the 11 she really wanted and asked, "Where did you learn that word?"  I was very confused.  It didn't seem like a bad word to me, I mean my grandma said it a lot, so why were people reacting that way?  I told her very innocently and quietly that it was her own mother who gave me that new word.  She was not amused.  In fact, I believe after quickly telling me that that word was never to be used again because it's not a nice word at all, she sought out her mother and gave her a good what-for.  Luckily because of my complete innocence, I was spared from punishment.

It did made for quite a spectacle though, and I don't think I ever heard my grandmother say that word around me again after that.  Oh, there were plenty of other choice words, but that one was not one of them.  (Sometime I'll have to tell you about her hatred of George Michael.)

So, yeah.  There's my random flashback for no good reason.  Thanks a lot, Paula Deen!