Ways to say goodbye

A sweet lady once shared the story of her family walking over the mountain from Swain County where they lived to visit family who lived in the Cades Cove area. She guessed it must have been at least 20 miles. I said, “Well how long did you stay when you went?” She said they stayed at least a week after walking that far.

I was telling Paul about her family walking such a long distance to visit and we got to talking about all the ways folks say goodbye.

Two goodbyes that we’ve heard all our lives are: “Come go home with me” (said by the folks who are leaving a house after visiting) and “You ought to just spend the night” (said by the folks who live in the house and who are saying goodbye to the folks who have been visiting).

As is often the case, Paul and I got pretty silly thinking about all the times we heard folks say those things when we were kids.

We began to ponder on what would have happened if Pap and Granny had said “Sure we’ll spend the night find us all a bed!” or “Well it is midnight but sure we’ll go home with you. Kids put your shoes on!”

A little mischievous of me, but I’d like to go back to one of those late night picking and grinning sessions where the men wanted to talk a little longer; the kids wanted to run wild a little longer; but all the women wanted to go home.

When the parting goodbye of ‘”You ought to just spend the night” was said I’d say “YES WE’LL ALL SPEND THE NIGHT.” Then I’d work on convincing them to stay. Just once I’d like to have pulled it off.

Although I knew we would never stay or go when the traditional “You ought to just spend the night” or “Come go home with me” was offered, in some cases folks did accept the offers.

A local family, that’s quite large, told me it was common for their extended families to spend the night with each other-even though they didn’t live very far away from one another. When I asked where everyone slept, they said they laid cross ways on the bed so more people would fit and the rest slept on pallets in the floor.

Without a doubt, the most common form of goodbye used in my part of Appalachia is “We’ll see ya.” At some point during my teenage years we’ll see ya got on my last nerve. It got to where whenever I heard someone say it I wanted to say “No you will not see me!!!”

These days hearing someone say we’ll see ya doesn’t bother me one bit. It must have been my superior teenage brain that it bothered.

Tipper

 

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31 Comments

  1. In my family come spend the night was the normal greeting. Mississippi born but raised in Michigan. Tipper, this post led me to blind pig and the acorn. My late husband had no idea what a pallet was. He was sure it was a family concocted word I did a search to show him this was a “southern term “ . He chuckled and said I guess I should know by now you are bilingual . We purchased property in Brevard but never built our dream home in NC. I love your. Blind Pig and Acorn blog and appreciate the values you have May God continue to hold you close

  2. Tipper when I was a chld it was not unusual for us to go to one of my aunt’s houses and spend the night. Everyone seemed to have a bedroom with two beds in it for guest to spend the night in. I just thought that was what everyone did. Those we fun days and we always felt welcome

    Dennis Morgan

  3. i guess that’s where “see ya.” comes from? i have no idea how it got there, but that’s what popped out of my mouth as i left my mother’s hospital room for the last time, after she had passed. “see ya.”

  4. Oh dear, how my heart yearns to hear these once again. I remember them so well and we did sometimes have some to stay over night. Makes me think of that old song, “Stay all Night, Stay Little Longer”.
    I do remember one time we had some friends and theur family from the next state over stay with us during a revival that was being run in an ole brush arbor down in the holler. It was a wonderful joyous week.
    I’m 63 now and my family is slowly shrinking and i miss them so. One day Im going to see them again and when I do, the Lord himself is gonna “Why don’t thou just stay on” and I will.
    Thank you for your sweet reminder.

  5. Tipper, this jog my memories of the pallet on the floor. We were about six of us bedded down for the night and when the lights were cut off, something like a fuzzy puppy came to the where my head lay nestled in between the others and bent over me, never figured out what or who and never cared too , it scared the wax out of me. I believe it was mother who let her hair down for bed time and checking on me, but one day I may get to ask her and get the mistry solved.

  6. Tipper, this jog my memories of the pallet on the floor. We were about six of us bedded down for the night and when the lights were cut off, something like a fuzzy puppy came to the where my head lay nestled in between the others and bent over me, never figured out what or who and never cared too , it scared the wax out of me. I believe it was mother who let her hair down for bed time and checking on me, but one day I may get to ask her and get the mistry solved.

  7. Tipper, this jog my memories of the pallet on the floor. We were about six of us bedded down for the night and when the lights were cut off, something like a fuzzy puppy came to the where my head lay nestled in between the others and bent over me, never figured out what or who and never cared too , it scared the wax out of me. I believe it was mother who let her hair down for bed time and checking on me, but one day I may get to ask her and get the mistry solved.

  8. Tipper, this jog my memories of the pallet on the floor. We were about six of us bedded down for the night and when the lights were cut off, something like a fuzzy puppy came to the where my head lay nestled in between the others and bent over me, never figured out what or who and never cared too , it scared the wax out of me. I believe it was mother who let her hair down for bed time and checking on me, but one day I may get to ask her and get the mistry solved.

  9. I have heard both phrases, but asking guests to spend the night is more common.
    Because of my hubs’ job as a pastor we moved every few years, and that always means lots of visitors.
    To this day we keep extra new toothbrushes fo give to friends who have decided go stay over and are not prepared. Most of them drive quite a ways to visit us. It is nothing to us to have guest stay over if the weather is bad or it just gets late.
    I always said we would be in trouble for running a bed and breakfast that didn’t comply with zoning regulation.
    When I was a kid I begged to stay over with my grandparents. I would sleep in one of Grandpa’s blue work shirts. My mother would go to the post office early the next morning and mail me some clothes. They would arrive before noon the same day.
    I love both staying over and having company stay as wrll!

  10. Tipper thanks so much for this post, it brought back so many good memories. I’ve heard these ‘goodbyes’ all my life but don’t use them much anymore. When someone would say, “Just spend the night” and us kids like you said would be dancing around. He would say,’Naw that’s too much like kinfolk” even though he said it in a joking way we knew he had a reason for not staying or letting us stay. I don’t know why it was so much fun to spend the night with someone especially as a kid, but it was!

  11. Uncle Arley used to say, “Just stay with us”- sometimes when I was in the middle of a sentence! He always was a hospitable kind of fella lol

  12. Tipper,
    As you know I’ve had some eye
    issues lately, but earlier this
    week I was brought to tears reading
    Jim Casada’s Newsletter about his
    Grandpa Joe. Every boy needs a
    Grandpa Joe to help guide their
    life. That was an amazing read!
    …Ken

  13. Tipper,
    and TMc…from the mouths of babes! So funny!
    I have had company that weren’t kinfolks that just couldn’t get up to go home. They lived close so there was never any intention of them sleeping over.
    One late evening after finishing, what we thought, was finally the last game of Hearts and Rook, it seemed another game might be their intention!
    I finally said, “Well, guess everybody could stay one more game and I could fix us some breakfast, and laughed!” They took the hint, and headed home!
    Thanks Tipper,

  14. “Well I guess it’s time to get on over to the poorhouse.”
    “No need to leave then, you are already here.”
    “No, I reckon we better git. I can hear old Bossie bellering. I’ve got to get the milking done.”
    “Well, you’ens come back.”
    “We will, you’ens come over.”

  15. A dear friend from Sweetwater
    Told this to be the truth about her daddy(long ago passed).He would usually say to her mother, when the visit got a little too long for his preferred bedtime, “honey we’d better get up and go to bed so these folks can go home”

  16. Tipper,
    This is a nice post, bring back lots of memories of yesteryear.
    One time my Grandpa “Boots” third
    oldest son got the croup real bad
    and Grandpa walked from Topton to
    Murphy and back for cough syrup a
    Druggist mixed up for him. That’s
    24 miles one way…wow! Back then
    people did what they had to do.
    …Ken

  17. My dad always says, “Come back when you can stay longer” and his mother always said, “What’s your hurry?” A typical teenage reply to “We’ll see you” is “Not if I see you first.” I have fond memories of making pallets in front of my grandparent’s fireplace with my siblings and cousins…sometimes 10 of us at once when we were little. What fun!

  18. A lady I used to work with said when their family would come visit, the kids would have to give up their beds. She said if it was warm weather, they just slept in the car. Some teenage boys in the neighborhood were bad to “borrow” cars late at night. She said they got quite a surprise one night when they tried to “borrow” her momma’s car & her and her sister popped up out of the back seat. 🙂

  19. Sometimes just having extra people in the house, can make the host/hostess feel easy or very uneasy. It depends upon the personality of the guests as well as the guests. Putting on the airs makes having guests uncomfortable. Going with the flow, just seems to work. Also, houses were smaller back then, so using a piece of floor and a sleeping bag or two would be very helpfull. Floor is just as good as ground, maybe better.

  20. I was out shopping with my cousin one time and ran into one of his ex girl friends. In parting, he said to her just out of habit “come go home with me.” She said “I think I will. Let me run over here and tell my sister”
    We tried to get out of the store without her, but she caught us going out the door.
    She did “come go home with him, and he had a time getting rid of her. I never heard him say “come go home with me again.
    Last time we saw her, she said “See you later.”
    Under his breath , he said “Not if I see you first.”

  21. Tip, I just love that you use some of my older family pictures in the Blind Pig. That’s my Dad on the left. The others are my grandmothers sisters and brothers. The two brothers in the back were near the same age as my dad, but still his uncle. That happened back then when families were so big and spread over so many years. The child must belong to one of the sisters.
    “Come back when you can stay longer” is one of the sayings I used to hear. On arrival for a visit the first thing said was always “did ya eat”. Food was such a big part of visiting. When I was young and newly married I was always offered food when arriving at my in-laws home. So, Tip, here’s another saying for you. I always replied with “no thank you, I’m not hungry”. My father in law always said ” I’d rather feed two dogs that are hungry than one that aint”. I was a long time learning what he meant by that. The one that eats when they are not hungry will always eat a lot more than the one who eating is in response to genuine hunger instead of greed.

  22. “Stay with us. Why are you going home? You can go home when you can’t go anywhere else.”
    This is my husband’s typical response to anyone leaving our house. I had never heard that saying until we started dating, and now I find myself saying the same thing. 🙂

  23. “Don’t leave us…you can go home when you can’t go anywhere else.”
    That is my husbands typical response to people leaving our house. I had never heard it until we started dating, but now I find myself saying it too. 🙂

  24. Tipper,
    I’ve heard both many times and believe it or not…sometimes, once in a great while, my granny would end up going home with us! Then she would worry about her house until we got her back home!
    My NC grandmother was a great one to try and entice us to spend the night. “Y’all ort to just spend the night”! Then she went on to say where everyone would sleep. I have room or we can make a pallet on the floor! We kids would start jumping up and down, hoping we could stay over.
    Sometimes she used the “danger”
    threat! “Now, you know you don’t need to be driving over that snaky foggy mountain this late, why it will be nearly morning before you get home!” All the while slipping a smiling eye at us grandkids. Sometimes it worked with our parents, sometimes it didn’t….and sometimes, occasionally we would get to stay and the parents would go home! That was the best part of visiting granny! LOL
    Great post,
    Those were he good ole days!
    Thanks Tipper,

  25. Lot of visiting growing up! Mean of me, but I often jokingly say my entire social life growing up was going to wakes and funerals. Of course there were many overnight visits with family, and handmade quilt pallets scattered all over the house…lots of booger stories.
    With huge extended family there was always visits and visitors. Memories of a big pot of Chicken and Dumplings the next day with the longest table. There was long homemade bench behind table for kids. The visit would wind down and we were ready to head home. I recall lots of “Come visit us” followed by “Why don’t you just go home with us.”
    It seems there are more hugs nowadays with less warmth and spontaneity ….

  26. I am so familiar with these sayings and use them too! Well, I don’t think I’ve ever offered to make a pallet for anyone. Some of those I remember my dad, mom and g-dad saying are. Don’t rush off we’ll hunt us something to eat here in a minute. Y’all come and go with us. Y’all just load up and go with us. Y’all just stay and we’ll make a pallet for you. We’ll see ya, come when ya can. Y’all come back. We need to go so these folks can go to bed. Or as dad would say to us kids, Amy we need to go bed so these folks can go home. Tipper, you have put a smile on my face this morning!

  27. Yall come to see us, is one I heard a lot from the folks leaving.. My Mother and Dad loved to play the game “Rook” on Friday or Saturday nights and it some time would run very long,, One night it ran a little to long, my Brother thought and he just blertted out “I WISHED SOMEBODY WOULD GO HOME”… He was about 6yrs old,, with all that screaming and hollering got on his last nerve while he was trying to sleep..

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