Day: August 13, 2024

Mrs. Johnson Copes

During my dialysis nurse days, I became very fond of Mrs. Johnson, an elderly lady who was a frequent admit to the hospital. She remained matter-of-fact, even when very sick. I expect Mrs. Johnson had had occasion to learn complaints availed her nothing.

Her father had married her off to Mr. Johnson, a man in his thirties, when she was only thirteen. Over the years she gave birth to twenty-one children. “It wasn’t so bad,” she explained. “I was only pregnant nineteen times. I had two sets of twins.”

“Mr. Johnson beat me all the time.” She said.”I was so glad when he had a stroke an’ I could beat him. I beat him ever’day after that.” .

I surmised Mrs. Johnson suffered in relationships with her children as she was careful to bring her purse with her to dialysis. “I don’t nobody gitten’ my money. I got a bunch of wuthless kids.” She also used that enormous black purse to hide away her snuff. For those of you who don’t know, snuff is smokeless tobacco to be tucked in the cheek, then spat into a cup, not swallowed. It’s a nasty habit I made a point to ignore, inferring Mrs. Johnson’s life had held too little pleasure.

Though I made a point not to acknowledge the bulge in Mrs. Johnson’s cheek nor her spitting, I made sure I knew I always had a pocket full of gloves and knew where that spit cup was at all times.

So Much in a Picture

homestead (2)This is a  1904 picture of my Great Grandfather John Dobson Holdaway, his wife, Elvira Perkins, Holdaway, and their three sons still living at home.  My Grandfather, Roscoe Holdaway is pictured in the middle with his bicycle, James Holdaway holding his rifle to his left with George Holdaway on the end, his pet groundhog at his feet.

This picture prompts so many stories.  First of all, Elvira Perkins Holdaway had been bedridden for months.  My grandfather dressed her in her wedding dress and seated her in the chair for this picture.  She died three days later.  John Dobson Holdaway had  been a Texas Ranger and was a Confederate Veteran before marrying Elvira and settling on this homestead in Red River County Texas.  They had twelve children.  Most died in early adulthood.  John Holdaway lived to be 96.

Each of the three boys was pictured with a prized possession:  Roscoe with his bicycle, Jim with his rifle, and George with his pet groundhog.  Just a few days before, the groundhog had caused them some embarrassment.  Great-Grandpa wouldn’t let the boys play cards in the house so they had a game going on the porch when the preacher rode up.  They stuffed the cards in the groundhog’s hole, hoping not to get caught.  A few seconds later an arc of cards flew out of the hole, in full view of the preacher, followed by a furious groundhog.

George, the brother on the end, was gored by a long-horn cow when he was four, leaving him with lifelong disability.  The whole family worked to keep him in school so he could get an office job, knowing he wouldn’t be able to do manual labor.  He worked in the Clerk of Courts office until his death.

Jim, the middle brother, was my grandfather’s favorite.  Most of his stories involved their escapades.

More history on Holdaway family

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Crude Word

What is a word you feel that too many people use?

Hearing the F….. word bandied about freely grates on my sensibilities. I can’t think of a single time I’ve found it necessary to communicate. I was appalled to hear it at a Sunday dinner recently where the elderly and small children were at the table. The speaker, a professional woman had just come from church. She was well-groomed and impressive until she opened her mouth. People, if you must say F….., at least consider your company. You are exposing yourself.

Accident Jokes

A very handsome man gets into a terrible car accident….

The doctors save his life, but he loses one eye. Before a nice glass one can be fitted, he is temporarily given a wooden eye.

The man becomes very depressed because of his eye loss and sits at home, moping around. Eventually his friends come over and drag him out to a bar to try and cheer himup. While at the bar, he’s still just sitting there looking depressed, not really talking. One of his friends suggests he tries to talk to a cute girl who seems alone at the bar. 

“No, she’ll never go for a man with a wooden eye,” the man says.

“Okay, how about that girl over there?” His friend responds. “She has a really big nose”.

The man walks over to the girl and asks, “Would you like to dance?”

Very excited, and shocked, to be asked to dance by such an attractive man, the woman responses “Would, I?! Would I?!”

To which the man quickly responds “Big nose! Big nose!”

A woman is pregnant with twins when she gets into a car accident…

…she wakes up in the hospital and the doctor says her twins have already been delivered, a boy and a girl. But since she wasn’t around to name them, they had to ask her brother to give them legal names.

The woman was worried, because her brother was a bit of an idiot. “What did he name them?” she asked.

“He named the girl Denise,” the doctor said.

“Oh, that’s a nice name,” she said in relief. “What did he name the boy?”

“Denephew.”

A man and his wife die in a car accident

The man is greeted by Death. “Choose your game”, says Death, “win and you will get a second chance at life, lose and you will die”.

As an avid poker player, its an easy choice for the man.

As they begin, the man loses the first few hands.

As the next hand is drawn, the man is starting to feel nervous. He notices deaths scythe propped against the wall and as death lifts his cards to look, he can see their full reflection in the scythe.

He starts winning, hand by hand, folding some, winning others, losing a few in between so death doesn’t cotton on to his method.

Slowly, but surely, he’s got death by the balls, a couple more hands and he’s won.

“You know, I don’t know how you’ve done it”, says Death, “but you’re actually going to beat me”.

Not this hand, thinks the man. He’s seen Death has a pair of Kings and he’s going to have to fold and wait for the next one.

“Good news from above too, seems like your wife has pulled through, she’s going to be alright.”

The man takes a moment, then says…

“All in”

A farmer named Clyde had a car accident.

In court, the trucking company’s lawyer was questioning Clyde. “Didn’t you say, at the moment of the accident, ‘I’m fine.'” asked the lawyer?

Clyde responded, “Well, I’ll tell you what happened. I had just loaded my favorite mule, Bessie, into the…”

“I did not ask you for any details”, the lawyer interrupted. “Just answer the question. Did you not say, at the scene of the accident, ‘I’m fine?'”

Clyde said, “Well, I had just got Bessie into the trailer and I was driving down the road.” 

The lawyer interrupted again and said “Judge, I’m trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the highway patrolman on the scene that he was just fine. Now several weeks after the accident he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question.”

By this time the judge was fairly interested in Clyde’s answer and said to the lawyer “I’d like to hear what he has to say about his favorite mule, Bessie.”

Clyde thanked the judge and proceeded.

“Well as I was saying, I had just loaded Bessie, my favorite mule, into the trailer and was driving down the highway when this huge semi-truck and trailer ran the stop sign and smacked my truck right in the side. I was thrown into one ditch and Bessie was thrown into the other. I was hurting real bad and didn’t want to move. However, I could hear old Bessie moaning and groaning. I knew she was in terrible shape just by her groans.

When the highway patrolman came on the scene he could hear Bessie moaning and groaning so he went over to her. After he looked at her and saw her near fatal condition, he took out his gun and shot her between the eyes.

Then the patrolman came across the road, gun still in hand, looked at me and said, ‘how are you feeling?’

Now what the heck would you say?”

A Hog a Day Part 10

Art by Kathleen Swain

Cousin Carol married a sorry guy. He wasn’t crazy about working. In fact, he was pretty much averse to it. He had better things to do, hunting, fishing, sleeping and making babies.  He and Carol had three babies in record time.   It worried Daddy’s brother terribly that Jerry didn’t provide for Carol and the kids.  As a favor to him, Daddy had Jerry meet him at the house one day after work.  “Come with me and we’ll go get you a hog so Carol can have something to cook for the kids.”  Jerry was all for free pork.  They went to the pen, got Jerry a nice-sized pig, and he was on his way.

A few days later, Daddy showed up to check hs traps mid-morning and surprised Jerry at his pen with a 22 rifle in his hands. Comfortable with helping himself, he’d just shot a pig in Daddy’s catch pen and was about to load it in his car.  Daddy was an imposing man, very near six foot three. Rather than deal with Jerry like a man, he slapped Jerry to the ground.

Billy was Daddy’s shadow, making every step he made, whether it was hunting or socializing, activities that were often one in the same.  One evening, they were sitting with several of the guys on logs around a fire telling tales. Billy had worked hard to keep up with his new orange hunting cap all day, only too aware of how lucky he was to have it. It was late. He was tired. He’d nodded off a time or two, leaned up against a big log next to Daddy when he was startled to see Runt Rider, the crotchety owner of the fish camp wearing his cap. His hand flew to his head, finding it bare. Sure enough, Runt had his hat! The other fellows teased him routinely, but Runt was an old grump, who’d never even spoken to him. There were even stories that Runt had stabbed a man!

Billy was furious, thinking he’d been set up. The guys were all waiting, watching for his reaction. The more he studied the situation, the more outraged he became. Finally, time for action. He bounded across, grabbed the cap off Runt’s head, and was rewarded by an explosion of laughter from all the guys around the fire. Runt was not happy at being laughed at. His face turned fiery red. He spit, sputtered, cursed, struggling to maintain control, clearly infuriated. Billy calmly put the hat on his head, walked to Daddy’s truck, and got in, feeling vindicated.

Daddy walked over to the truck. “Son, why in the world did you grab Mr. Runt’s hat off his head?”

“He had my hat. I had to get it back.”

“Look on the seat beside you.” Beside him on the seat, undeniably, lay his own hat. “I guess you’d better give Mr. Runt’s cap back. Billy took off the cap, returning it to Mr. Runt, with an apology. Mr. Runt was ungracious, but at least didn’t stab him.

The Old Lady the Cow and the Pig

The time in our doctor’s waiting room became unexpectedly enjoyable as we sat with an elderly lady and her family. No one had said much beyond “Good morning” till the elderly lady asked her daughter to push her closer so she could admire the ornaments on the tree the doctor had so generously decorated for her patients’ pleasure. She laughed and said, “I am eighty-three years old. I’ve come all the way from chopping wood to people walking on the moon. Oh, I’ve chopped lots of wood.” As she talked on, she cackled as she told this one. “I’ve milked many a cow in my time, many a cow. I remember one time, I was ‘a milking two titties and a pig was ‘a sucking on the other side.” She had us all laughing along with her. We would have loved to spend the rest of the day with her. What a wonderful visit we had!