For YEARS, at the southeast corner of 2nd Avenue South and the Mellow Valley Highway stood the Ashland Crub Market.  Yes, you read it correctly– “crub” market.  A ten foot, homemade  sign emblazoned with black letters on a plain white background greeted travelers headed south from town, just one block from the court house square.  Almost all Ashlanders will remember it.

Obviously, it was supposed to say “curb market,” which is an open air fresh fruit and vegetable stand, common throughout the South.  At curb markets, we could buy fresh produce by the box or by the item, cash only.  It was a quick, happy way to usher those fresh grown veggies into the kitchen– especially for Ashlanders who didn’t have time to work their own gardens.

The gentleman who owned the “crub market” said that his grandson had painted the sign, and probably wasn’t the best speller. (Duh. No kidding.)  The owner was asked numerous times why he didn’t correct the misspelled word.  “Now why would I do that?  People from all over Clay County come to trade with me, just to see the sign.”  He was a shrewd businessman in his own way, laughing all the way to the bank– which was only two blocks away.  (Three blocks away would be all the way across town!)

Mama Sims (my grandmother) always had a garden– at least until she was approaching 90.  It was a big one too.  It always featured the southern summer favorites– white corn, peas, squash, potatoes, peppers, green beans, and tomatoes.  In the fall, turnip greens and collards showed up.  She provided much of the extended Sims family with regular baskets of her bumper crops.  I don’t know how she did it, but her yield was always the most beautiful produce around.  For some reason, worms and bugs just didn’t bother her stuff.  (They all came to our house and devoured Dad’s feeble annual attempt to grow a few tomato plants.)  Mama Sims got tickled every time she passed by the Ashland Crub Market on her way to church in her white Ford Fairlane.  “That poor man can’t even spell a four letter word.”  Of course we bought very little from the Crub Market.  Mama Sims’ garden was our own personal produce stand.

My excellent cousin Steve became her gardening partner when she was in her 80’s, just to make sure she didn’t over-do it. (Steve also loved to eat veggies at Mama Sims’ house.)  My dad was always afraid we would someday find her body lying between corn rows wearing a long sleeve shirt and a wide brim straw hat.  The truth is that her garden as the portal to heaven would have suited Mama Sims just fine.

As she approached age 90 she surprised Steve with an unusual directive.  “Steve, I don’t want us to plant any green beans this year,” she said.   Steve was aghast.

“Why not, Mama Sims?”

“I just don’t want to,” she answered.

Mama Sims was the family matriarch–  Sims’ family royalty– the Queen.  She had earned her crown.  Whatever she said, went, without question.  (My dad said it had always been that way.)  So Steve kept quiet and planted extra corn.

One day Dad dropped by to visit Mama Sims and check out her garden as it matured.  “Mama, where did you put in the green beans?  I don’t see any.”

“I didn’t plant any this year,” she snapped as they rested under the massive pecan tree in her back yard.  “Ya’ll will just have to get your green beans over yonder at the crub market this year.”

“What happened, Mama?   Did you and Steve forget to plant them when you made the garden?”  Focused on a young acrobatic squirrel in the sprawling pecan tree, she answered Dad without hesitation,

“No, Coolidge.  I’ve had to eat green beans all my life, and I’m not about to eat another one as long as I live.”

And she didn’t.

She died about four years later.

Just blame it on the green beans.

“God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”  Genesis 21:6