Month: July 2024

Aunt Ader’s Place Part 5

blackdog2

As the fire burned low, the lap babies had been put down and knee babies were sleeping quietly on pallets, the chatter from the older children slowed as they; too, drifted off to sleep at the feet of their mothers, aunts, and grandmother.  Desperate for ghost stories, I hung on the words of my superstitious Maw Maw. She held grandchildren spellbound with all the scary tales she knew.  Should she falter, one of my aunts urged her on…”Mama, remember about the big black dogs running through the house.” Her stories were more terrifying because she believed them with all her being.

“Oh yeah, lots of times, late at night, if the wind was still, and the night was dark, me and Granny could hear them ghost dogs, howling and scratching at the door, trying to get in…but once in a while, if the moon was full, we’d see them big, black devil dogs blowing right into the room where me and Granny was, made of black smoke from the fires of hell with blazing coals for eyes.  We hid under the covers, ‘cause Granny said ‘if you ever looked in them fiery eyes, you was bound for Hell’.”

Opportunities to hear scintillating stories like these were rare, usually limited to visits with Maw Maw, my paternal grandmother. Mother could hardly snatch her spellbound children from the writhing mass of cousins clustered around Maw Maw’s knees. Daddy ruled the roost, and he liked the stories as much as anyone.  Mother held the ridiculous notion that tender minds didn’t need to hear scary stories, more concerned about the nightmares she’d be dealing with in a few short hours than the extreme pleasure they afforded us at the time.

I do wish I could hear and savor those stories again, unmolested by that nagging voice in the background.  “There’s no such thing as ghosts.  Those stories are just pretend, like cartoons. Now, go on to sleep and forget about them.”

Maw Maw by CarMettie Swain Knight, a champion ghost storyteller

Good Cartoons

Exploring the Lush Country of New Zealand: A Ticket Winner’s Dream

If you won two free plane tickets, where would you go?

I think I’d go to New Zealand. It’s such a lush country. The climate seems wonderful. I could see the ocean and unbelievable mountains on the same trip. I’ve convinced myself New Zealand is heaven, though admittedly, I am basing my opinion on movie scenery. I’ve done no research.

Aunt Ader’s Place Part 2

dog-trot

House much like Aunt Ader’s

Not understanding the nature of inebriation, I assumed Uncle Dunc, a great name for a drunk, was just playful when he laughed at all our jokes and fell off the high porch chasing us. No one bothered to explain for years that Dunc was a drunk. He was one of my mawmaw’s youngest siblings, younger than some of her own children.  Her mother, Cynthia, was a scandal, having been twice divorced before she married John Miller.  John only lasted long enough to father a daughter and twin boys in quick succession before dying of lead poisoning.  He was shot in a bar fight, likely saving him from the heartbreak of his fickle wife’s habit of spousal abandonment.  Presumably, his son Duncan was the bad apple that didn’t fall too far from either parental tree. 

Aunt Lucille’s demeanor didn’t match Uncle Dunc’s.  She was a dour, strait-laced woman not given to smiling, though it’s not likely she had much to smile about, considering her life with Dunc.  She looked a lot like Smokey the Bear in a dress. I have not seen a woman more hirsute before or since.  Her unibrow and mustache dominated her round face and coarse, black hair, resembling pubic hair covered her legs, though I had no knowledge of pubic hair at the time. After a visit there, Daddy always warned against us girls against shaving our legs or we’d end up with legs like Lucille.  I was far too young at the time to be aware of leg-shaving anyway, but I certainly didn’t want Smokey the Bear legs.

Most of the time when we visited Uncle Dunc’s place, many other aunts, uncles, and cousins were there. Huge dinners of fried fish, barbecue, or fried chicken were served up, the first shift to ravenous children who ate scattered about the floor or maybe on the porch. This was in the days before paper plates, so dishes were quickly washed before setting the second table for adults. By this time knee babies were nodding off in their father’s arms and younger babies put to the breast. After dark, a propane lantern hanging on the big front porch cast a cone of light where dozens of cousins chased each other hysterically in and out of the shadows. Parents visited in the cool of the front porch.  Mamas rocked babies and put them down to sleep on pallets just inside the house where they could be heard if they cried out. 

Sometimes times there would be home-made vanilla, peach, or banana ice-cream made in hand-cranked freezers.  The evening usually ended when exhausted kids were called in for ice-cream, but on the best nights, the old folks launched into deliciously terrifying ghost stories, made all the better because the teller believed them.

cousins

A few of my forty first cousins.

To be continued

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20 thoughts on “Aunt Ader’s Place Part 2”

  1. Pingback: Aunt Ader’s Place | Nutsrok – Br Andrew’s MusesEDIT
  2. patriciaruthsusanGreat memories, Linda. :) — SuzanneLikeREPLY EDIT
  3. Aunt BeulahAh, the fun of screeching around with cousins big and small as dusk falls and our parents talked and laughed on the porch or in the house. I’ll never forget it. And don’t you think everybody has an Uncle Dunc of one failing or another in their family tree? I know we did. Great post, one that opened me to many memories.Liked by youREPLYEDIT
  4. http://www.salpa58.wordpress.comOh Linda, this is hysterical. I can relate to most of it and I am sitting here laughing out loud. Your aunt with all the bear hair sounds like she might have had some Italian in her. Very hairy group, I can attest to that. On the bright side you don’t see too many bald Italians. :o)
    Loving this one and looking forward to reading more.Liked by youREPLYEDIT
  5. Let’s CUT the Crap!So nice to have family around you. :-D Forty cousins. Wow.
    Your stories are every entertaining.
    Woe is me. I come from a family of women once my dad passed away. Thank goodness one of my four sisters had a boy.Liked by youREPLYEDIT
  6. Annette Rochelle AbenHook me up with the ice cream… Crazy but my mom had an older brother named Duncan. He passed very young, in fact she never met him.Liked by youREPLYEDIT
  7. olganmAnother great image. And I like the sound of the ghost story telling…:)Liked by you and 1 other personREPLYEDIT
  8. Soul GiftsThe image of the hirsute Smokey the Bear is now stuck in my head !! Thank God I stopped shaving my legs :)Liked by you and 1 other personREPLYEDIT
  9. Judy MartinThis is great Linda. It must have been such fun for you at the time. I am so glad you have such a good memory and are sharing your stories of your colourful relatives with us! :-)Liked by you and 1 other personREPLYEDIT

Nutsrok Illustrations by Kathleen Swain

Magic circle0002
Chris and Frogs0002
Becky in the Drain
Wuppin Mama redo
Appreciation
indian dress and hen
Church
Water head
Surprise party

Appreciation


			

	
	



			
				


		

		
Some Estate Sale Jokes
	


		

		
















Why did the ghost attend the estate sale?





Because he wanted to get a grave deal!





Why did the man get banned from the online auction site?





Because he was always bidding off more than he could chew.





Why do companies prefer online auctions to live auctions?





Because they want to raise their “net” funds!





Why did the person lose their bid in the online auction?





Because they eBayted their budget!





Why did the man who attended an estate sale for the first time come back with a bunch of old furniture?





Because he heard it was a “chair-ity” event.





Why did the woman buy a vintage computer at the online estate sale?





Because she wanted to experience old spam, without risking her health.





Why did the man refuse to buy the antique vase on the online estate sale site?





Because he was afraid it might “break the internet” if he bid too high!





Why did the family having an estate sale cross the road?





To get to the other side of the inheritance!





If Jerry Seinfeld did a bit on estate sales:





Have you ever noticed that estate sales are just garage sales with better stuff? I mean, it’s like the person who lived there just decided to take all their good things and leave them out for strangers to buy. “Hey, I’m moving out, but you can have my priceless antique collection for 10 bucks!” It’s like the ultimate decluttering method, but instead of just tossing things out, you let people fight over them in your living room.





Why did the man prefer online estate sales?





Because he didn’t have to put on pants to buy someone else’s old pants!





Thanks to those who helped with these (mostly awful) jokes! Think you have a better one? Email us at info@estatesales.bid. 

			

	
	



			
				
	

		
	



		

		
My Childhood Nickname
	


		

		

Linda Bug.  I have no idea how I got my name.  I assume my dad first called me that.  I still remember it made me feel cherished.  Sometimes, it was shortened to Bug.  My favorite cousin never called me anything else.  There are only a few people left who knew me by that name, Mother, my older sister, my brother, and Bud.  I suppose Linda Bug is fading away.










Linda Bug is diapered baby in front row.  Bud is right behind me.

			

	
	



			
				


		

		
Aunt Ader’s Place
	


		

		
Aunt Ader’s House was reminiscent of the two pictured here. I am reposting a serial from 2016. Most of my followers have not seen this


dog-trotI had no idea who Aunt Ader was, or that her name should actually have been pronounced Ada, but her old farm house was a wonder.  Uncle C H, my Aunt Jenny’s on-again off-again husband apparently enjoyed some claim to it, because over the course of my childhood, several of my relatives rented it, probably when they’d fallen on hard times.  It stood high on a hill surrounded by several huge oaks.  A rutted red-dirt drive curved its way up toward the house, dusty in summer and rutted deeply in rainy weather.   In the spring and early summer weeds sprigged up between the tire tracks, kept short courtesy of the undercarriage of the vehicles making their way up the hill.  Though Aunt Ader’s forebears had been prosperous landowners a couple of generations back, the land had been subdivided and sold off long before I came to know it.  To the eyes of a small child, it was welcoming with its deep front and back porches and wide, breezy dogtrot.  An enormous living room and kitchen opened off one side with three bedrooms on the other.  Fireplaces on either side furnished the only heat.  Bare lightbulbs dangling on cords sufficed to light the big, high-ceilinged rooms, welcoming ghosts to the shadowy corners. Rain on the tin-roof could be pleasant or deafening, depending on the intensity of the storm.   I was never tempted to stray far from the light, though the sunshine from the huge windows flooded those rooms in the daytime.


A water heater stood in the corner of the enormous kitchen next to the galvanized bathtub hanging on the wall.  The old wood stove was still in use, though the only indoor plumbing was water piped in to the sink in the one piece enamel sink and cabinet combination standing beneath the window, looking out over a large field with several pear and fig trees.  Several unpainted shelves served as storage for everything that couldn’t fit into the sink cabinet and pie safe.  A cord exiting the round-topped refrigerator was plugged into an extension cord connected to bare light bulb dangling from the center of the kitchen ceiling.  The light was turned off and on by a long string.  Strips of well-populated fly-paper hung near the windows.   An unpainted toilet stood slightly downhill about three hundred yards off to the left of an old barn.  We were warned away from the hand-dug well, enclosed in a wooden frame with a heavy wooden trap cover that stood a few feet from the back porch.  Mother was so adamant we not go near, I was sure it was surrounded by quicksand, just waiting to suck a foolish child in.  A bucket hung from a chain from the roof of the creaky structure.  Pigs were pinned up near the barn, though not far enough away to miss their smell, explaining the fly problem.


To be continuedwarhome2

			

	
	



			
				


		

		
Hilarious Hospital Mishaps: Curtis and the Pecan Pie Escapade
	


		

		


Image courtesy of Pixabay


With thirty years in nursing, you can well imagine I have my share of strange stories.  I worked in acute dialysis in the hospital, so knew my patients very well.  We talked about their lives, familis, dogs, whatever was on their minds.  One of my favorite patients was Curtis, a huge man, perfectly delightful, but developmentally challenged.  His thinking was about on the level of a eight-year-old.  Curtis had somehow gotten credit at a furniture store, bought a houseful of furniture, and not made a single payment.  He was being hounded for payment, so decided the best course of action was to go in the hospital, where he wouldn’t be bothered. When he told the nurse at the outpatient dialysis clinic he needed to go to the hospital, she explained he couldn’t be admitted unless sick.  He did some thinking and called her back to his chair telling her he had something for her.  (I can’t imagine how she fell for that.). He dropped an impressive lump of excrement into her outstretched hand and was admitted into the psychiatric unit of the hospital in short order.


He was happily ensconced at the hospital, soon moved to the medical floor.  One day he walked into my unit asking for a large patient gown.  He went on his way.  Curtis was not on my mind when I heard a lady out in the hall exclaim. “Oh my God! Take it!”  It seems she had been bringing a pecan pie to her hospitalized friend from church when she encountered seven-foot-tall Curtis, walking naked down the hall, looking for hospital staff to help him with his gown.  Curtis, hadn’t seen a pecan pie in way too long.  He dropped the gown, grabbed the pie and raised a clumsy fist when the poor woman resisted.  She gave up on the pie and fled shrieking.  Eventually, the whole thing smoothed over.  Curtis had his pie and his gown.  The hospital gave the lady another pecan pie and an apology.  By the time Curtis got home, his furniture had been repossessed, so he wasn’t harassed any more.  They all lived happily ever after, except of course for the nurse who got a handful of doo-doo.