At our school, on any given Friday night, we have football, cheer, marching band, and JROTC along with an enthusiastic student section. Within this community, it is apparent by the number of cell phones 12” from student faces that connecting with your neighbor has taken on new meaning. Social constructs have certainly changed over the years and, although we reside in the South, “Yes m’am and no sir” have lost some of their charm. It is just a basic fact that sometimes, “the old ways” seem to slide by the wayside in favor of a faster more convenient method of interaction.
Despite basic interactions evolving into something else, there are still kids who know the value of an old-fashioned social construct. The valuation of baking a cake and delivering it to a neighbor has certainly lost some of its shine, but for one young lady I know, it is just “what you do when you love to bake.” A moist cake with shiny icing was one way to meet a new neighbor, mend fences, or tend to the family of one who might be “feeling poorly”. Properly situated upon a plate to be returned at a future date will ensure the recipient will have something with which to reciprocate the gesture-when they are feeling a “might better” of course.
I’m not really sure how this young lady knows when “a body is ailing”, but she can sure call it with our family. On one such night, when my bones were aching with the chilly rain, the front door rattled with a knock and there, standing on my front porch, was the young lady in question holding out a delicious cake covered in shiny chocolate confection perfection. We hugged, I had a little tear in my eye as she hop-skipped back across the lawn to her mother’s waiting car. We poured huge glasses of milk as befits a tasty hunk of chocolate cake and sat down to dig in.
Not all traditions are as tasty and one can “share” any number of recipes or Krispy Kreme donut pictures, but, without the real thing baked by the loving hands of a neighbor, a body could go on ailing for days. So the next cheer that comes from me will be for the old-fashioned girl and her love of baking a little love into each cake.
