Blue Highways: A Journey into America

by William Least Heat-Moon

Filomena, whose common name was Fanny, finished her meal and sat back listening as best she could, looking at nothing in particular. Her hands, spotted and veined like moth wings, fluttered up and down from time to time and landed softly on the table, in her lap. I asked her, “Did you like the old days?” “Ha!” she said. “They think more of horse or jackass than human person. They never teach me to read!” “We womens was brought up to be just like mouse,” Pauline whispered. “We was so quiet.” “Work all time because we got to make everything,” Filomena said. “Couldn’t buy no cookies, no cakes. Got to make it all. Couldn’t buy nothing.” “You had two choices for dinner and supper,” Pete said. “Pasta fasol or nothing. Every day we ate pasta fasol. Always on the stove pasta fasol, pasta fasol. Macaroni and beans. Shit on it.” “You got tired of it?” “What can you do, my friend? We ate poor, lived poor, slept poor.” “How do you sleep poor?” “Five to a room.” “My mother she had eight childrens,” Pauline said. “They was all delivered by midwife. She go to doctor for first time in her life when she is sixty-five. Poor was not all things bad.”