Visiting rituals

 My friend Christopher called my attention to the importance of small talk in rural life.

East Texas is known for its forests. The place has a lot of sawyers, and one of Christopher’s ancestors sharpened saws. There’s an art to it, and people who make their living in the woods value it.

Many sawyers are migrant workers. They follow the jobs, going wherever the timber companies are cutting.

The fellow who is about to spend hours sharpening a saw doesn’t know the sawyer, and the sawyer doesn’t know the sharpener. And so, before a deal was struck, there was some conversation. It might seem to be about the weather or baseball or the pecan crop. But all the while, each men was trying to get a sense of the character of the other fellow. No one likes to be cheated.

It’s a kind of visiting ritual, and there’s an art to it.

There are other kinds of visiting rituals. When my brother and I were boys, we would be taken visit distant kin. The visits had fixed elements, almost like elements of the liturgy in high church services.

If people were remarking on how the kids had grown, you were at the beginning of the ritual. If your mother was commenting on the lovely zinnias and a great aunt was giving her a couple of seedlings potted in a tin can, it was almost time to go.

• Note: Peter Taylor’s story “What You Hear From ‘Em?” has a specimen of a visiting ritual. It’s in Stories of the Modern South, edited by Benjamin Forkner and Patrick Samway, S.J.; New York, Bantam Books, 1978, pp. 327-42.