The third day of the sixth month of the seventh year of the millennium, spelled correctly, is upon us.

This is the day on which the state of Mississippi, spelled correctly, used to close the banks to honor the birth of Jefferson Davis, first team, All-Confederacy.

My mother Lucile, two L’s, not three, was also born June 3.

As a child growing young in Mississippi, she thought it very special that the banks were closed on her birthday.

Today, June 3, Lucile Strahan, born and raised without a middle name, would have been 88 years of age.

Eighty-eight years, a year for every key on the piano that mom enjoyed and played happily after a whiff or two of bourbon and Coke.

Mom was always proud of the song she had written on toilet paper while seated on a commode.

Mother always called it a commode.

I vividly recall mom singing her creation, always apologizing first about her voice being ruined by excessive cheerleading.

Mother was definitely everyone’s cheerleader, no matter what team you were on.

Lucile’s song, penciled on Scott tissue, was a slow tune, pleasantly harmonic and genuinely impassioned. The only lyrics that I recall are the opening lines “Last night you told me you loved me. Did you mean it, sweetheart?”

Mom and Dad met on the rooftop of the Heidelberg Hotel in Jackson, Miss. It was a hot, humid summer evening in 1942.

In Jackson, every Friday and Saturday night, popular dances were held on the rooftop of this classic southern hotel. Can’t you just see those big bands playing under sparkling stars of romance?

Dad was an Army private, stationed at nearby Camp Shelby. Mother was a local, or a “townie,” as she was termed by her college classmates at Millsaps.

Both mom and dad liked to dance.

Both liked to drink.

Put those two together and you have three kids who know how to jitterbug.

While mother enjoyed jitterbugging, cheerleading and cigarettes, she did not much care for cooking.

Maybe it was because Lucile’s mother Tama was such a great cook.

Maybe it was because Lucile was not allowed in Tama’s kitchen.

Maybe it had to do with baby Lucile trying to stab her sister Dorothy with a fork while drying dishes.

Today, June 3, my brother Lew and sister Linda, allegedly Lucile’s offspring, but how much off we are unsure, will join with Lucile’s daughter-in-law Gretta, grandsons Dennis and Oliver, grandson-in-law Jamie, granddaughter Tama and great-granddaughter Willow and her middle child from Freeland to celebrate in Waynesboro, Virginia.

We shall celebrate breathing.

We shall celebrate family.

We shall celebrate jitterbugging.

Who knows, maybe my brother will get drunk enough to do the Charleston.

But I know what will not happen.

We will not eat our mother’s cooking.

And that’s a good thing, because Lucile was not about cooking.

Mentioned below are some of the recipes her offspring will be avoiding.

These recipes will, however, be included in our new family cookbook, “Things Our Mother Made Us Eat,” to be published in the fall, if we get through the summer.

Thanks to my sister Linda for saving our mother’s mother’s cookbook to rediscover some of these once-a-week gems. Naturally, my sister and I were always members of the Clean Plate Club with this following meal as we fast scraped it into the garbage when mom was not looking.

At the top of Grandma Tama’s cookbook, handwritten on page 46 — “By my baby Lucile, tuna fish and peas: Make a white sauce (see below), add cheese, then stir in one can of peas and one can of tuna fish – drained. Mix thoroughly while heating. Serve hot. Very delicious.

White Sauce – 1 cup of water, 2 heaping tablespoons of flour, salt and pepper, Mix until smooth, Add 1 cup grated cheddar cheese, 1 stick butter.”

What was delicious about this meal was brushing my teeth afterwards.

Another Lucile classic was her rarely ballyhooed bean sandwiches. Mom would heat a sauce pan, half-filled with the reliably tasty contents of a can of Van de Kamps Pork n’ Beans, on one of the four gas flamed burners, while simultaneously toasting slices of Wonder Bread, slicing Velveeta cheese, chopping white onions and frying bacon.

The fact that our mother, baby Lucile, could do all of these kitchen-related activities at the same time, without even calling her mother, always amazed us allegedly-related kids.

Mom’s finished product, a broiled, heated bean sandwich, was presented, from north to south, or from top to bottom, as melted Velveeta on bacon, onion and beans, resting comfortably in a glob on toasted Wonder bread.

Mother’s bridge clubs even featured her hor’s doeuvre panoply including a single, sweet pickle served on a round, twenty-five-cents-sized, cookie-cuttered and mayo’ed Wonder bread; a mixed, purple-gooed peanut butter and grape jelly combo served between two triangle shaped Wonder bread slices, sans crust, which went to the birds; and four small bowls of Planter’s nuts, missing the few cashews I had already squirreled.

For this monthly event, I stayed home from school, feigning illness to eat cashews and drink cherry Cokes while listening to mother and her girlfriends giggle over bridge club treats marinated in bourbon and Coke.

Yes, today will be a day of fun, of family and of fond remembrance.

And, yes, Mom, the banks are closed today.

Happy 88th!

Even way down here in ‘ol Virginia, these Yanks know that June 3 is your birthday.

May our checks clear again!