"Smeddum"

Thursday, July 15, 2010 - Alma M. Womack

Summer is clicking along just fine down here on beautiful Black River. Crops and grass and grandchildren are growing nicely; the dogs are well, the chickens are laying, and I just got my kitchen cabinets redone.

The premier painter of Catahoula Parish, Tom Hamilton, came with his crew of daughter, Norma, and granddaughters, Vickie and Christie, and set to work on Monday morning. By Thursday morning they were all done, and the cabinets look like new. Anything the Hamiltons do is top quality work, for Mr. Tom learned long ago that good work would get him recommendations for future jobs. They stay booked up year round, so I was lucky to get them to come down here to do this job for me. Excellent job, beautiful cabinets, happy Alma.

I ran across an old column that I had done back in 2002, and found that it had great significance for our country today, so I am going to update it a bit. The title of the article is “Smeddum.”

Old words and phrases handed down from our ancestors are dear to my heart. I couldn't talk if I had to give up “reckon” and “figure” and “fixin' to” to explain what I'm about to do. All my young life I had heard about bob war and bar pits but was in upper elementary school before I realized that people were talking about barbed wire and barrow pits.

One of my favorite old sayings was given to me by my Uncle Douglas McClure, who lived in Fifty-Six, Arkansas, for several years. When he moved there, one of his neighbors brought over a sack of mustard greens and asked Uncle Doug who was going to “look 'em..” Uncle Doug was also a collector of words and phrases from the past, but this one had him stumped. He had to ask just exactly what did “look 'em” mean. “Why son,” the neighbor replied, “it means you're gonna look 'em over to see if there's any bugs on 'em.”

I ran across a word just this week, an old word, but a new one to me. The word is “smeddum,” an old Scots word for the kind of spirit that is uncomplaining and indomitable, who just gets on with things.

Smeddum: it's the attitude taught to me from childhood, as it was taught to my parents and grandparents and their parents, for generations back to the beginning of our country.

Smeddum carried our people through the American Revolution, the building of our nation. It sustained the South after it was invaded and desolated by the northern army and later by the policies of a northern government.

“Getting on with things” took us through the Great Depression and two World Wars, and the rebuilding of Europe after those wars.

Smeddum still exists in America; it is embodied in those who go to work every day, who try to do their best for themselves and their families, despite the obstacles thrown in their paths by an overbearing, over-controlling federal bureaucracy.

But I will tell you where smeddum does not exist. It does not exist on college campuses where only left-wing views are tolerated. It does not exist in the liberal news media, which distorts and perverts the truth on a daily basis. It does not exist in U.S. Congressmen who insist that the FBI, airport screeners, and police not profile Arabs, even though the terrorists in the September 11th attack and all subsequent attacks were all Arab, Islamic militants.

It certainly does not exist in the innumerable federal programs that take the hard earned money of working people and “redistribute” it to those “less fortunate,” a handy euphemism for those who made bad choices and expect someone else to pay for their mistakes.

I am reminded of a visit that the late Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota made to Mississippi a few years ago. He went to an area where the houses were unpainted, and the yards were strewn with garbage. “This is not the American dream,” he cried, spreading his arms. “We have to do something to help this appalling situation,” or something to that effect.

Senator Wellstone thought he was viewing poverty, but what he saw was Pure-D laziness. Poor people who have smeddum, who get on with things, do not throw their garbage in their yard. They might not be able to afford paint for their houses, but at least they keep their place decent and clean.

Smeddum is sadly lacking in a society that has to have grief counselors for every tragic situation that arises. Did grief counselors follow Sherman through Georgia? Did they go to Dresden or Warsaw or Berlin or London after the end of World War II? Did they come to Louisiana and Mississippi after our people and land were decimated after the Great Flood of 1927? Not hardly.

We were once a nation of tough people, indomitable people, uncomplaining people, who did indeed get on with things in the face of adversity. And now, we are facing great trials in our country that will not be soon solved. Are we up to the challenge? Do we have enough of our ancestors' smeddum to tackle these serious problems and solve them? Will we fight to regain our country and our freedoms, or will we be like the people Sen. Wellstone was so concerned about, just sit in the house and wait for someone else to take care of us?

I believe that we will face the challenge, for the people who will carry civilization forward won't be the whiners and complainers, the “violated” for whatever reason, who are seen daily on television. It will be John Doe, the average citizen, who wants a good, decent life for himself and his family, who will continue to 'get on with things.'

Smeddum: it's an old word that needs to be returned to our vocabulary, along with that other wonderful old word, gumption.