Friends, you need to run to the nearest store and get you some greens, some hog jowl, and black-eyed peas, if you want to have good luck in 2020! It’s a tradition! Granny Turner sure believed this!
She wasn’t really superstitious, except about new years, black cats, and umbrellas in the house… Come to think of it, she was superstitious! She said the greens represented money, or folding money in the new year! Pork was just for good luck, but I guess not for the poor pig!
The traditions of eating black-eyed peas came from the Civil War because the Yankees didn’t like them and would leave them for the poor southern families to eat.
Granny said the best luck was when the first person to your home in the new year was a well-dressed man bringing a gift! When we went to see her on New Years morning, she wouldn’t let us in until we got her a gift! It was usually a few leaves off the gardenia bush. I don’t know if we brought her luck — we were usually just hunting a hot biscuit!
According to her, it was bad luck if a beautiful women came to see you first! Well, I guess that would just depend on your perspective!
You were suppose to kiss somebody at midnight so that you would have affection in the coming year. If you live by yourself, just kiss the dog or cat, ain’t nobody gonna know!
And you’re suppose to make a loud racket at midnight, to scare away bad luck! Guess that’s why we shoot firecrackers in the south!
Now get busy, because you have got to get greens ready, soak dry black-eyed peas, cook pork! And if you eat a whole bunch of greens and black-eyed peas, you’ll make all kind of racket at midnight but you probably won’t be kissing no pretty girl! Ha!
Happy New Year! Thanks so much for reading! We sure love to tell these stories and hope you continue to read them!
And life goes on, on Thompson Hill.
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