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Writer's pictureKathryn Clark

That’s My Southern Truth

JOURNALISM NEEDS NOSY PEOPLE

After spending a majority of my summers at my grandparents’ houses, I developed a knack for being nosy.

All the drawers in the house had something new in them. The kitchen drawer had stamps, random papers, pictures, rubber bands and a plethora of medicated ChapStick. It burns!


The drawers in the living room side tables had balls for rolling out sore feet, which made excellent projectiles to throw at my brother.


I’ll never forget the smell of the bedside table drawer. Cherry Carmex and slight hints of sawdust. For some reason. I wasn’t supposed to be in that drawer, but sometimes I was trusted to retrieve something out of it. I admit though, I did snoop. Whoops.


My favorite was my special art drawer in the laundry room, hidden under all the clothes hung up to dry and the cooking aprons, right behind the door with the frame full of height markings.


I loved my art drawer. Paint, every color of construction paper, my twistable crayons. They were metallic and swirled colors. I had coloring books, sticker books -- whatever I needed to let my creativity soar.   


I could sit and rummage in drawers for hours. Another thing I could do for hours? Be on the floor.


It didn't matter which grandparent’s house I was at. If I was there, I was on the floor.


Carpet? I’m rolling around on it (I still do,) drawing lines in it (which if I didn’t rub back into place after, I’d be in trouble) and making carpet angles. I often went home with a self-inflicted carpet burn. Whoops.


I was so nosy that I would dig under the couch for forgotten items and look at the pictures on the shelves and wonder about who all those people were. It was fabulous brain fuel for my imaginary play.


Hardwood? I became a sock skater and body slider, a train puller and brother-dragger. Speaking of him, I miss when we were small enough to play and not hurt each other.


We were a great source of entertainment for each other. I used to dress him in my tutus and do his hair up in tons of little ponytails.


I also chased him around with a fake spider. He’s still terrified of spiders to this day. Whoops.


Now, it’s not like he never got me back. We had our fair share of sibling wrestling, and his muscle tone far outpowered mine, even as the ‘little’ brother. He played dirty though, and I think I still have bald spots from where he pulled out chunks of my hair. That landed him in the time-out chair.


Playing outside was also a good alternative, when it wasn’t 2024 levels of heat. The outside laundry room had all the most interesting outside toys, like chalk and swivel cars and those weird Velcro ball catcher things.


Forget about the toys, though. I wanted to make dirt pies. I made the best dirt pies topped with the most delicious toxic berries. Yum! Highly creative. Different types of dirt were flour, sugar, etc. Grass, leaves, you name it, were my add-ins.


Maybe I was inspired to cook by my grandmothers. They were both always cooking something delicious. Chicken and rice, ham and mashed potatoes.


Digging holes to make pies... how is it that the holes you dig never fill back up the same? That always baffled me.


In fact, a lot of things baffled me. Song lyrics? I could never understand them. Especially Lady Gaga, but honestly I still can’t understand half of her lyrics.


Music was always playing at my grandmother’s house, which is, of course, how I got my fantastic taste in music.


But NEVER in the car. Granted these are two very different grandmothers.


But back to the baffling. “Dude looks like a lady” turned into “do the funky lady.” “Yeah you start me up” was… somehow… “Yugoslavia” which, I assumed, was somewhere in Russia. Russia is really big. Geography was never my strong suit.


I used to love snooping through the CD rack. Does anyone my age remember those? It teetered so perilously close to toppling because of how many CDs were piled on it.


I definitely read some song titles I wasn’t supposed to. Whoops.


My snooping wasn’t just in drawers, but in every closet and room and on every shelf. Anything I could rightfully snoop in, I was snooping in.


I think it’s right to say that growing up nosy is what makes me a motivated journalist. Being nosy is fundamental, and that’s my creative truth.

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