Month: May 2016

Ten Things We Do For Our Kids by Cordelia’s Mom

Reposted in honor of Mother’s Day.  Thanks Cordelia’s Mom.  Please Check out her wonderful blog

The Things We Do For Our Kids! Guest Post By Cordelia’s Mom

Posted on May 10, 2015 by

Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!

When you have a short break in today’s activities, check out my guest post over on Nutsrok:

Nutsrok

Cordelia CardI am so proud to that Cordelia’s Mom did this Guest Post for Mother’s Day.  Please check out her lovely blog.  You will love it as well.

It was the mid-1950’s.  I was in first grade.

Mother’s Day was approaching, and my teacher decided to have us all make noodle necklaces for our moms.  She brought in a variety of dry noodles, along with string and water paints – and wrapping paper.  I was so proud of my creation!  Mom was going to love  it!

On Mother’s Day, I watched my mother open her precious gift. She oohed and aahed, and put the necklace around her neck.  I was so happy to see her wear it that day – I thought it was the most beautiful jewelry she ever had.

My mother didn’t work (back then, few did). Her only recreation was going bowling once a week in a league…

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Mother’s Day Pinto

imageMother was a slow learner. It took her forever to learn that Daddy was not the thoughtful kind of guy who would ever surprise her with lovely gifts and gestures. He was more the kind of guy who felt sorry for himself when she got her feelings hurt or got mad. After all, he was pretty sure he’d gotten her something last year, for her birthday or Christmas, one or the other. What had she done with that eggbeater?

This year was going to be different. Virgil Hughes had a nice Pinto horse. It was a good deal since it “wasn’t broke” yet. Nobody really wanted it since it stomped Euless and broke his leg, but Daddy was sure he could make a fine riding horse out of it. Kathleen was scared of horses, but she’d get over that. If she didn’t, he’d ride it. Daddy stopped off on the way home from work the Friday before Mother’s Day to pick it up. It was kicking the side rails when he pulled in. He called Mother out to. See her beautiful Pinto and she hit the ceiling. “Of all the things I need, you come bringing in a horse. We need another useless animal to feed like I need a hole in the head.” She stormed in, furious.

Daddy stomped off, putting the horse in the pasture. “Kathleen didn’t appreciate anything he did for her. It would be a cold day in Hell before he brought her anything else!

Happy Mother’s Day!

‘Callous’ Villains Rob Bank 10 Thousand Miles From Whitechapel Infants School

Re blogging from Whitechapel Whelk. Always love these posts.

The Whitechapel Whelk's avatarThe Whitechapel Whelk

kids Under threat! Some innocent youngsters pictured late last night.

In what police are calling a “callous and heinous act”, armed raiders entered a bank in Sidney, Australia yesterday and stole over 100 thousand dollars; just 10,571 miles from a Whitechapel infants school where over fifty, 4 to 7-year old youngsters were playing outside in the spring sunshine.

Speaking to The Whitechapel Whelk, Detective Inspector Toby Carter, said last night: “In all my 27 years in the force I have never come across a case that has shocked me like this one. These ruthless individuals clearly had no qualms about carrying out this crime with innocent youngsters less than eleven thousand miles away. I just hope they’re apprehended and locked away before any more innocent young lives are put at risk”

This latest shocking incident comes just two weeks after a woman had her bag snatched in Beijing while, just 5068…

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Happy Birthday, Mother

Mother at Cracker Barrel
Mother’s Birthday lunch. Far left, Phyllis Barrington, center front Kathleen Swain, back center, Linda Bethea, far right, Marilyn Grisham
Mother's 88 bdayimage
Today, May 5, 2016, is Mother’s birthday. I am not permitted to say which one. Suffice it to say, she is more than eighty-five and less than ninety. She and my father were married thirty-five years and raised five children. She is a remarkable woman, goes to the gym twice a week, and walks at least a mile a day. She likes to get next to puny men at the gym so she can show off how tough she is. She works in her yard every sunny day and keeps a cooler of water out on her back steps for walkers and children in her neighborhood. She’d never worked a public job till after my dad died, but worked for many years first as a pre-school teacher, then as an office manager. I can’t imagine how it must have felt to have to seek a first job in one’s fifties. She is long retired, though never unoccupied. She is active in her church, community, family, and goes out in her car every day to her coffee group and to run errands. We are all so lucky to have her as our mother.Mother sitting in yard

Woo! Woo! Cousin Wayne!

train interiorI wrote of my my mother, Kathleen’s laundry list against her cousin’s Robert Gordon and Wayne Perkins just the other day, mentioning her intention to tell Robert Gordon what a hellion should she ever met him again, even if he were Pope. It’s fortunate she never had that little conversation with his partner-in-crime, Wayne, since she found herself in need of his friendship one day early in her marriage.

Daddy was a busy man who had priorities. These included good times with his brothers and brothers-in-law and manly business. That being said, we spent endless weekends with his family, careening out our drive on Fridays after he got in from work and not often not getting back till late on Sunday night, despite the fact that there were young children to be bathed, homework to be done, and the week ahead to be prepared for. That was woman’s business. Fortunately, he was not a woman.

At any rate, at the close of school every year, Mother would break the news that yet again, she was going to visit her parents this summer. They’d fight a while till they’d reach an impasse.

Outraged, he’d insist she wasn’t going. She’d go on making her plans. Finally he threw out a challenge, “Well, If you go, you’re not coming back.”

She went on with her packing. “We have to be at the train by two.”

Defeated, he asked. “When will you be back?”

“Pick me up two weeks from today. I’ll travel through the night so I won’t have to wrestle with the baby so much.”

Two weeks later, when we got off the train, Daddy wasn’t there. Mother was disgusted, but not too surprised. He was always late. At nine, she called Aunt Julie who told her Daddy and Uncle Parnell had just left there to see a man about a dog, but had mentioned he was supposed to pick her up. He was just going to be a couple of hours late. Of course, Mother was furious, but had no choice but to wait. She called Aunt Julie back later, who hadn’t seen the men. By eleven she had thirty cents left, we were starving, and the baby was guzzling the last bottle. Mother wracked her brain till she remembered her Cousin Wayne lived nearby. She looked his number up and called. Miraculously, he and his wife were home. Upon hearing her plight, he picked us up at the train, took us home for lunch, fixed the baby up with a bottle and a nap, and let Mother use the phone to tell Aunt Julie she’d found a ride, after all. It was mid-afternoon by now. Daddy still hadn’t gotten back from seeing about that dog. Cousin Wayne kindly took us home. Daddy was delighted to see us when he finally came in with his new hunting dog and not surprised at all that Mother had somehow gotten a ride home from the train station. What a guy! I don’t know why she never killed him.

Oilcan Harry and the Washing Machine

imageMother was stuck taking us everywhere she went, even to buy a new washing machine just days before her fourth baby was born. She never asked anyone to keep us since that would have insured she had to return the favor and keep someone else’s monsters in return, probably some of our killer cousins. She was always on guard against that. We followed her into to appliance store. It was maddeningly dull to me and my Brother Billy. We wanted to ride in the dryers and jump on the doors, but she put a stop to that pretty quickly, making us sit on our hands with our backs to each other where Phyllis could watch us. Eventually, she made her choice and went to sign the mortgage papers. I knew all about mortgages! I was an avid fan of Mighty Mouse! He’d saved Sweet Alice countless times when Oilcan Harry was about to do her in all on account of that danged mortgage, and here my own sweet mother was about to sign a mortgage. I set up a protest, as only a righteous eight year old can do!

“Mother, Mother, don’t sign it. We’ll lose the house! Please don’t sign a mortgage!”

She was infuriated, as only an overwrought pregnant woman can be, snarlingly at me hatefully through clenched teeth. “Go over there and sit down. If you say another word, I’ol tear you up right here in this store!”

I do believe she meant it. She got her washer and Oilcan Harry didn’t get the house.

Farside Cartoons

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Robert Gordon, the Heathen

R G Holdaway Family with Johnny Bell early 1930'sR G Holdaway Family with Johnny Bell early 1930’sL to R Johnny Bell(cousin) Mary Elizabeth Perkins (Lizzie) with Kathleen Annie Lee Holdaway, Roscoe Gordon Holdaway, John Arthur Holdaway about 1930 (note how well-dressed the children are and Roscoes’s mended overalls. I have one of these chairs in my writing room today. Kathleen helped Roscoe replace the bottom in 1932. That story will be in her memoirs, soon to be published.)R G Holdaway Family with Johnny Bell early 1930’s
Bear on chair

Mother is eighty-seven. She swears if she ever meets up with her cousin, Robert Gordon, she intends tell him what a hellion he was, even if he is the Pope and has a beard down to his knees. Well, I am pretty sure our Pope wasn’t previously known as Robert Gordon and doesn’t have a beard down to his knees, but if he was, and does, please tip him off. A whacked-out little eight-seven year old lady down in Louisiana might knock his block off if she gets a chance. From the many stories I’ve heard over the years, I know Robert Gordon had a little brother, Wayne, who was also horrible, but nowhere nearly as mean as Robert Gordon.

Robert Gordon’s initial transgression that put him on Mother’s dirt list was not his fault. He was her Grandma’s favorite. Her grandma paid no attention whatsoever to Mother, or most of her other grandchildren, openly doting on Robert Gordon with warm waves of affection washing over his brother Wayne. No matter that her cousins had lived next door to her grandma from the day of their birth. Mother, hereinafter known as Kathleen, was still steamed to see them with the run of the place, their toys littering Grandma’s yard, and watch them cuddled in Grandma’s lap, when she was never noticed.

Kathleen’s prized possession was a little wagon that her father had acquired second-hand and painstakingly repaired by the broken tongue. The very next tme Robert Gordon visited, he ferreted out her precious wagon, sneaked the hatchet from the kindling pile, and smashed the tongue to smithereens so effectively that the wagon was a total loss. The destructive act wasn’t discovered till after his departure. The family later remembered hearing banging when Robert Gordon had claimed time to go to the toilet. From that day forward, Kathleen hated him.image

Kathleen had but a handful of toys, mostly homemade or hand-me-down, so of course she cherished every one. She had learned, to her great sorrow, that Robert Gordon and Wayne would steal, given the chance. Before they left after a visit, her older brother, who usually only lived to torment her, held the boys upside down by ther and shook them, while she retrieved her toys raining to the ground.

One one visit, Robert Gordon who was younger than she, but bigger, entertained himself by hiding and jumping on Kathleen’s back as she rounded corners, pushing her to the ground and enjoying the ride to the ground as she fell face-first into the dirt and muck of the yard. John helped her plot, so she was ready on his next visit. As she pranced alluringly around the corner, he jumped. She threw herself backwards, the back head bashing satsfyigly into his face and nose. Blood and snot poured from his nose and split lip as he ran bawling for his mama. It was difficult to convince anybody she had started it when he’d jumped on her back, though he tried.

The most memorable, and adult-infuriating trick Robert Gordon and Wayne ever pulled of was The Great Goat-Milk Robbery. Though they were as poor as any farmers during The Great Depression, her parents were excellent providers. They had but one cow, but they kept a goat or two as a secondary source of milk. Cows don’t produce milk just before and immediately after calving. Milk production drops drastically during periods of low feed availability such drought. At any rate all live stock is preciouos and to be treated well. The Evil Robert Gordon and Wayne were beyond the Pale. They slipped away from the visiting adults and robbed poor Nanny Goat of her milk in a way that no Christian ever should. The repulsed neighbors were watching horrified while one boy held the goat and the other nursed, just like he was a kid goat. Kathleen’s daddy and mama and the horrid boy’s parents got there just as Nanny was being rescued and flogged by an outraged neighbor. Robert Gordon and Wayne’s parents left in disgrace and Kathleen’s family had another long, enjoyable talk about how hideos they Devil-ridden were. Poor Nanny didn’t give milk for three days.

This is the same chair from vintage picture above, one of my most treasured belongings.

Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire!

So there was this Grandma who was late for a meeting. She is going 65 on a street where the speed limit is 40. A cop pulls her over and says “ma’am, can I please see your license?” She says “I’m sorry, officer, but I got it revoked two years ago for drunk driving.” His brow furrows and he straightens up. “Well, can I please see the registration of your car?” She says “I stole the car and I killed the driver; he’s in the trunk.” “Ma’am, DON’T MOVE, I’m calling for backup.” He mutters furiously into his walkie-talkie… Five minutes later, half the squad pulls up, the Chief of Police walks over to the woman’s window. “Ma’am, can I see your license?” he asks sternly. “Of course, officer,” she smiles demurely and pulls out a license from her purse. He squints warily at it. “This looks legitimate,” he mumbles. “Can I see the registration to this car?” She pulls it out of the glove compartment and hands it to him. “Ma’am, stand back!” He bangs open the trunk of the car and flinches: but it was completely empty… The woman brandishes a finger at the first cop and says accusingly, “And I’ll bet that liar told you I was speeding too!!”