Sundays Bring the Flies

Sundays Bring the Flies

by Gary Wright

Flies have a liking for the sweetest things on earth

. . . and, the most foul. They usually eat one right after the other.

Scenes of growing up in the rural South are my earliest memories, and they include peculiar sights and sounds such as busting up clods of new-plowed earth with my own bare feet, a constant racket of too many kids in a too small house, and the fact that Sundays always bring the flies. The common house fly is, was and always has been the greatest menace to society but especially on the Sunday dinner table. Fried chicken, roast pork, cakes, pies, and all sorts of delectables are the targets of Musca domestica, and it just loves to plant its filthy feet on all the most delicious treats known to humankind. I always took it personal-like that it would place its foul, nasty paws on my scrumptious Sunday food. Once found, he invites his whole family and all his friends and neighbors to the feast—theirs to track and trod foulness and disease onto our delicious after-church offerings unto the god of sumptuousness.

Growing up in the South is not so much a phase in the life of a youth trying to fit into the mold of the world and find a useful niche in society. No, it is more like a trip to another planet where you don’t know the language, the customs, and the mores of the local people. You never learn how to behave to the grown-ups’ standard, and just about when you think you have, you, too, is ‘fully grown.’ Then you start bossing around other young-uns. The never-ending cycle begins again.

First, though, you must understand that all of these memories occurred before the advent of air conditioning; which means that all the windows and doors were wide open. Screens on the windows and doors were fitted with #25 standard fly netting which made it physically impossible for flies to penetrate. But, alas, the flies didn’t get that memo for they invaded at the first whiff of fried chicken and flew whizz-bang, straight through the old standard #25. Window fans ran full blast in all the windows where you could afford to place a nine dollar, model 27A, Emerson electric fan. And, I swear, they didn’t reduce the humidity or the temperature one bit, they only broadcast “fried chicken” to the entire neighborhood of fly-dom.

Sunday always brought the world-famous Southern Sunday dinner. Summer-time Sunday dinners were a smorgasbord of delightful fresh greens, mixed and wilted under a wickedly delicious melt of sizzling-hot bacon grease drippings. No such things as cold cuts, sandwiches, or brunch in the South. Sunday dinners always consisted of no less than three meat courses, five vegetables, three desserts, your choice of beverage—non-alcoholic, of course in the Bible-belt. After the obligatory nap, you’d give it a second round with a whole host of pies, cakes, and fresh and dried fruits.

Usually, Southern dinners were the event-of-the-week for a several-family joint venture, often including Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunties, Uncles, Cousins, and a strange kid or two. Often, in attendance, were the unexpected and often uninvited, kids who would ‘come home’ with the resident kids from the local Baptist church service for the afternoon to be brought back to their own family that evening when the family would return for the Baptist Training Union evening church service.

Leftovers from these Sunday dinners were treated as bait for the houseflies which pervaded Southern kitchens before air conditioning. Half-hearted attempts were made to keep these national birds of the South from getting their full share of remainders. The ladies would group the leftovers in the center of the dining room table and carefully cover it with a clean bed sheet. Flies quickly learned to look for fresh bed sheets on a dining room table.

One of the youngsters would be assigned garrison duty to hover over the food and swat these pesky flies with a swatter. That kid was pretty unlucky to be selected or pretty much just the last kid who was being disciplined for ‘mouthing off,’ ‘talking back,’ or just plain old ‘sassing.’ Whatever the term, in those days youngsters didn’t speak out of turn in front of their elders or betters. And, when you are ten years old, everybody is your elder and your better.

There is a definite fine art to fly swatting primarily because said Musca domestica species evolved during the Cenozoic era about 66 million years ago, and it didn’t get that old by being stupid. Now, a house fly can recognize a fly swat probably a hundred yards away, and an un-clever ten-year-old Red Neck kid perhaps about 500 yards away. So, this kid had to develop a rigorous approach, maneuver, and killing technique or Grandma was gonna throw a genuine Southern hissy-fit if she came back and didn’t see no dead fly carcasses. Or worse yet, if she saw a dead fly in any of the food.

One technique was to sidle toward the resting fly by pointing your body and looking in one direction while ever so slowly moving in the other direction. All the while, again, ever so slowly, bringing the arm and the swatting instrument upward to be in a position to bring it down forcefully when in place. Many’s the time, though, this whiz kid correctly stalked said Musca and sidled correctly, springing the swat downward vigorously, killing said fly but completely mushing Auntie Dee’s pineapple upside down cake and spreading cake bits and dead fly remnants all over Mama’s beautiful white, Sears & Roebuck polyester table cloth.

A better strategy had to be developed. You had to lure the fly onto neutral territory…on the open table or window sill where when you swat, the swatted fly would not mash the squash or squash the mashed potatoes. Ah, but that’s the quest, Mr. Phillips if you choose to accept it. The sidle strategy is okay, but it must be coupled with the attack sprung in the desired kill zone. Not when the fly lands on the sugar-encrusted topping of Cousin Adda Lee’s chess pie, you know, the kind I love best, with whipped cream and just a generous helping of sliced lime on top. No kid ever achieved greatness in fly-killing, but the Lord knows we got enough practice.

Down here in No Hope County, Alabama, the summers are something special. Hot summer days and the less hot, but more humid nights were times to be spent out of doors. We, boys, spent those days working in the fields alongside the grown-ups. But come Sundays, we were left to our own devices, and those devices involved running the open meadows, wading through creeks, having a clod fight, killing wasps, and generally every other activity guaranteed to skin our knees and elbows, rip our clothing, and pack as much dirt under our fingernails as possible.

Sunday dinners were to kill for, and we made sure to be present and accounted for so we could get our fill of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, fried okra, cornbread, and just about every kind of desert known to mankind. But it sure was hot and humid in those minutes we stayed indoors by choice. With window fans running at full blast and blowing the curtains clear across the room, there was no way to beat the heat.

Usually, ‘us boys’ would take our overflowing dinner plates out to the front yard and sit on the grass in the shade of the China Berry. There, we could eat fly-free, ‘cause everybody knows that the flies, fleas, and skeeters don’t hang around any China Berry Tree. Besides, all the flies were now inside eating fried chicken with the sweaty grown-ups.