Cousin Kat was proud of being “conservative.” She pinched pennies beyond belief, though she could afford to buy whatever she needed. Should she be given clothes or household items, she’d use only what she absolutely had to have, and sell the rest in a rummage sale. Her wardrobe was a mish-mash of parts of various outfits. She might wear a red and white striped sweater vest with a blue and pink polka-dot pullover and heavy gray corduroy skirt or green wool pants with knee socks and loafers or high-top brown boots. On cool days, she always wore a black wool hat or wool scarf. Despite her strange get-ups, she cut an appealing figure as she darted like a little bird along the trails of her little mountain village late into her eighth decade. Related to everyone there, she was totally comfortable with her life, and well-thought of by all who knew her. She worked up into her seventies when she retired to care for her ancient mother and her own ailing husband. After their deaths, she sat with the elderly in their homes, many of whom were younger than she.
Cousin Kat was proud of her trim figure. We were getting ready to go to church with her on one visit, when she asked Mother,” Do you wear a girdle?”
“Most of the time I don’t.” Mother answered.
“Well, how do you keep your panties up?” Cousin Kat inquired.
I don’t believe I’d ever heard that particular question before. Maybe she was taking her frugality too far!
Daddy was an equal opportunity employer, not that I was grateful. I got to work right alongside him and my brother. He had forty acres to fence. That’s a mile of fence. He enlisted his free help, Bill and me. He cleared the right of way. We came in really handy for piling the brush and loading the posts he’d made from the timber. After he dug the post holes with an augur behind his tractor, we plodded along behind the trailer dropping posts in the holes,
Nutsrok 