One morning about a week after I started first grade, Daddy finished up the last of his coffee and ground out his cigarette as Mama scraped the few leftovers onto a plate for Ol’ Jack. “All right kids. Best be getting’ ready for school.” He got up, putting on his felt had as he headed out the back door to do a couple of things before heading to his janitor job at Continue reading
Month: January 2015
I Am So Sorry, Rosie.
Please excuse the offensive word used in context in this story.
Rosie was beautiful, the first black woman I ever knew. She tolerated my stroking her creamy, caramel-colored legs as she washed dishes or ironed. Her crisply starched cotton housedresses smelled just like sunshine. Normally, I trailed my mother, but on the days Rosie was there, she couldn’t stop suddenly without my bumping her.
Rosie ate standing up at the kitchen counter with her own special dishes while I ate at the kitchen table. I wanted to eat standing at the counter with her but wasn’t tall enough. One day as we ate, she told me she had a little girl. Pearl was three years old, just my age. I was enchanted. “Is she a nigger girl?” Rosie’s face fell.
“Don’t say ‘nigger.’ That’s a mean word. Say ‘colored’.” I was surprised Rosie corrected me, not knowing I’d done anything wrong. I was also surprised to hear “nigger” was a mean word. I’d heard it many times.
Rosie said no more. I was relieved when she seemed to have forgiven me, soon allowing me to hug her and stroke her beautiful, smooth legs as she worked along.
It was years before I realized how deeply I’d hurt her. I am so, so sorry Rosie. I wish I could unsay that awful thing.
Addendum. I wrote this many years ago but repost it from time to time. I am seventy-three years old raised in a thoroughly racist South. Most people I knew were so racist their ears rubbed together. I graduated from a segregated school and never met one black child. I saw black children in town but we only stared, big-eyed at each other. My eyes opened when I went to college and made my first black friend. I would have loved to bring her home to meet my family but knew she would be unwelcome. All I had to do was open my eyes to see the truth.
Pooping with Brian
I got my daughter a Dalmatian for her thirteenth birthday. I do believe that was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. For about a day and a half, Annie was sweet. As soon as she got her bearings,she became a hyperactive, maniacal buzz saw, plundering and eviscerating everything in her path from shoes to the rag top on my husband’s MG, but that’s a story for another post.
At eighteen months, Annie’s hormones kicked in. Overnight, she was transformed into a nasty-tempered, sullen,farting, bitch, such a blessed relief. One day she was sitting between Bud and Mother farting up a storm. Bud and Mother each kept looking accusingly at the other, thinking surely they would eventually do the decent thing and excuse themselves.
Deciding to take her show on the road one morning, Annie decided the best thing for her to do was to tunnel under our neighbor’s back fence to pay him a call. Brian wasn’t in the yard, so she trotted into the house looking for him. He was deep in thought, sitting on the toilet, enjoying some quality time. Inspired by his wise example, Annie squatted and produced a fine example of her own. Though I didn’t see the actual event, I did get to hear about it in great detail.
The Heartbreak of Dementia
Reblogged from Before Sundown
by C.E.Robinson
This small woman grips the worn strap of a large black purse tucked at her side, and leans forward in the rocking chair.
Her gnarled fingers trace tiny rose petals in her skirt as if to find a path back to her life; the aging face of her daughter, her husband’s death, her 90th birthday party, her flower shop.
She sits in the same spot every day, near the entrance door, waiting for husband and daughter to take her home. The daily vigil stops when I call her name,
Ida Mae, let’s go back to your room and look at the photos of John and Olivia, and one we took last week with all the nursing staff at your ninetieth birthday party.
I visit often, hold her hand and tell her “back when I was a little girl” stories, she told me over the years. Triggering a…
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Vote For Your Winner of the Nature Chills Challenge #2
Reblog from A Momma’s View. Vote for your favorite!
Everything comes to an end at one point and so does my Nature Chills Challenge #2. Thank you all so much for sharing your great stories with me here. In my eyes you all are winners. As I received 11 posts for this challenge I decided to mention all of them here for you to pick the winner.
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Bloggers Unite for a Better World: 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion
Reblogged from Beyond the Flow.
The Sad Saga of the Beakless, Tailless, Gizzard-bobbing, One-leg Hopping chicken
Repost of an earlier post.
Being a farm kid is not for sissies and cowards. The dark side of the chicken experience is slaughtering, plucking, cleaning, and preparing chickens for the pot. I watched as Mother transformed into a slobbering beast as she towered over the caged chickens, snagging her victim by the leg with a twisted coat-hanger, ringing its neck and releasing it for its last run. We crowded by, horribly thrilled by what we knew was coming. It was scarier than ”The Night of the Living Dead”, as the chicken flapping its wings, Continue reading
Are There Unofficial Rules for Blogging?
Reblogging this excellent post from My Thoughts on a Page
My blog is nearly six weeks old.
For months after a baby is born,
you refer to its age in weeks.
So maybe my husband has a point,
My blog is my new baby!
Well if that is the case,
As the parent of my new blog,
I have some queries and questions,
of those of you more experienced blog parents than I.
In the early days as I read other blogs,
I was amazed to see,
the number of people,
taking the time to write,
on every conceivable topic.
I felt like a child in a sweet shop,
whenever I knew I had free time,
to sit and read so many different posts.
Then if i wished,
I could press the “like” button.
After a while,
I began to absorb my new surroundings.
Some people had large followings,
some relatively small.
Some posted frequently,
others less so.
Then I…
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Nursing Slip Up
I was reporting back to a doctor on his agitated emergency room patient I had just been caring for. Meaning to say, “He was really bucking and fighting.” I got tangled up and said “f–cking and biting.” Trying to recover before the doc reacted, I snapped back,” but fortunately I didn’t get bit!”
Nutsrok 
In response to recent terrorist atrocities around the world, a call has gone out for bloggers to unite behind an inspirational campaign to highlight compassion around the world. On the Friday 20th February, 2014, bloggers are asked to write a post on their blog about compassion and be a part of the 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion.
This campaign was launched by Yvonne Spence who suggested the idea to a Facebook group she belongs to and it went from there.
As a writer, I have always hoped that the pen is mightier than the sword and in more modern times, the bullet. Through participating in this campaign, I hope to be part of the change which leads the pen and indeed the cartoonist’s pencil, to victory!!
Naturally, I would love…