The Dixie cup and other Dixies
by Brad Nelson
The sure sign that the meeting was almost over was when a man brought the big box in the back door of the meeting hall. To a five-year-old it was a huge box, seeming to be made of pieces of very thin mattresses sown together into a box shape. The top pieces folded over and in to make a nice lid. There appeared to be a small amount of white smoke coming from inside the box. The man brought it in on a hand truck, or movers’ dolly. He usually had someone hold the door open for him and tried to come in without making any noise.
All the kids at the meeting with their parents noticed when the big box arrived. What had been a quiet meeting came alive with excited children being hushed by embarrassed mothers. It would be no easier to keep the children from noticing that Santa Claus had entered the room. The first child to see the man with the box let the closest one to him or her know, and in about five seconds the children on the front row were aware that it was almost treat time.
When the excited buzz could no longer be ignored the man speaking would close the meeting by saying something about the kids being done with the meeting and get ready for treats. A few minutes later when the meeting officially closed there was a mad rush on the big box. The man who brought it in put on thick heavy gloves and folded open the thick insulation pieces of the lid. Sometimes he would actually lift out a white smoking object the color of ice and set it aside. Then he would start handing to each person that came by a “Dixie cup” and a flat rounded piece of wood that would serve as a spoon.
The Dixie cup was made of waxed paper, just like the paper cups of the day. Each one held about half a cup of ice cream and had a cardboard lid covering the top. The smoke coming from the big box was vapor escaping from dry ice and it kept the ice cream so cold that it was almost more than the patience of a five-year-old could bear to wait for the ice cream to thaw enough that the wooden “spoon” could dig out a bite.
This was Mink Creek, Idaho, at the annual meeting sponsored by the creamery at Preston, Idaho where almost everyone in Mink Creek sold their milk. The meeting was either at the gym at the school or the recreation hall of the church house. I don’t remember which; I was five years old when I attended the last one before we moved from Mink Creek.
Now to fast-forward a half-century – I came home the other evening and upset the grandchildren who were at my house. Luke asked me what I had in the sack from the store. I told him that I had some “Dixie cups,” but because his name was not “Dixie” he could not have one. He told me he needed one anyway. I told him that I would give him a Dixie cup if I could start just calling him “Dixie.” He declined.
About this time his sister entered the fray by announcing that I could call her “Dixie.” About this time their mother entered the room and reminded her children that they had already brushed their teeth and were not going to eat a Dixie cup or anything else before bed. Two or three days later I gave Luke a Dixie cup, complete with the paper-wrapped wooden flat spoon. He was delighted.
Later in the day I asked him if he liked the Dixie cup. He told me that he liked it, but his daddy had to help him eat all of it (what I had were about twice the size of the original Dixie cups). I suggested to Luke that since he had eaten some of the Dixie cup that now I got to call him “Dixie.” This was NOT okay. “Well, your daddy helped you eat it. Can we call your daddy “Dixie?” Luke’s eyes moved from side to side and then he smiled and told me that I could call his daddy “Dixie.” I did not.
1952 found us having moved from Mink Creek to Parma, Idaho. Dad’s Uncle Charlie and his sons were farming nearby south of Notus, Idaho in an area referred to by the locals as “Dixie.” Dad and Uncle Charlie traded farm work from time to time. The first year Dad did not have a hay baler or a grain combine. Dad told of being over at Uncle Charlie’s farm discing with his heavy Case tractor. Uncle Charlie had the smaller Fergusson tractors that did not do as well pulling the heavy disc.
The Fergusson tractor dealer came by and wanted Uncle Charlie to try out a brand-new tractor. They drove it out to where Dad was working and had him unhook the disc and let the man show off his new tractor. In about twenty feet the new tractor was hopelessly stuck. After they unhooked it from the disc, Dad had to pull the new tractor out of its hole before he could hook back up to the disc.
The salesman was explaining that the reason the tractor got stuck was that this was a soft, wet spot in the field and “that Case” wouldn’t pull the disc through there, either. Dad said they helped him hook back up to the disc, and then he put the Case tractor in the same gear he had been pulling the disc with all day and gave it a little throttle. When he pushed in the hand clutch lever, the tractor pulled the disc out of the “soft wet spot” with no sign of extra effort. Uncle Charlie did not buy a new tractor that day.
A couple of years before high school got done with me, a family moved in which had a daughter almost my age named “Dixie.” Scott Young and I decided to go to the State Fair and thought it would be fun to take a couple of girls with us. Rather than make it a formal “date” affair, one of us asked Dixie to see if one of her buddies would like to go along as a foursome. She found another girl, and we were off. Except that the other girl had something come up at the last minute, so it was Scott, Dixie and I.
We had a fairly good time – other than the ferris wheel ride. When our turn to enter came up, I got in, followed by Dixie and then Scott. After several attempts to get in the seat with us, the ride attendant told Scott that his body was “too many axe-handles across the stern” to get into that car with us. He would have to wait on the ground or take the next car by himself. Dixie felt sorry for Scott.
Later that year there came up some sort of a fancy dance at the high school that was a “girls’ choice” affair. Dixie asked me to be her escort to this bash. This being my first attempt at a high-class event like this, I had my mother order whatever kind of flower I was supposed to show up with when I picked up Dixie. I showed up at the appointed time and met Dixie and her mother. I presented the flower in a box.
I had never even looked at it. Dixie and her mother thought it was wonderful. I asked what the big pin in the flower was for. Dixie put her hand on her gown forward of the shoulder and about four inches below the shoulder and informed me that I was supposed to pin the flower on her gown. I looked at the corsage, I looked at the pin, I looked at the spot on Dixie’s gown where the flower was to be pinned and I looked at the door I had just come in through, hoping it was still open so I could run. It was closed. I said, “If that flower is going to be pinned there on your dress, you and your mother are going to have to do the pinning.” After much giggling, and with the flower “mother-pinned” in place, we went dancing. HG
