Larrupin

When we were in Sweet Home and Ruthanne was about 3, Mom and Dad flew in for a visit. And Daddy was stretched out on the couch eating popcorn and said to Ruthanne, ‘Ooh, Ruthanne, this is larrupin!’ And she asked what that was, and he said ‘so good that you can’t stop eating it!’

[Note: there are several different spellings of this word, including larrupin, larapin, and larupin, but all are regional slang meaning something that is extremely good or tasty]

We must have told that story many times. So one day when Ruthanne was about 5 and we were living in Washington, Papaw bought the girls some penny candy and they had it in little paper bags, and Ruthanne had been hitting her bag against her leg and it broke. Daddy was fussing at her about it, and she said, ‘Papaw, isn’t that larrupin!’ She was hoping to not get in trouble if she used his word.