Awfuls

Awful Friends Part 4

The barnyard turned out to be just a bedraggled fence enclosing a chicken house with a row of nesting boxes.  The chicken house had seen better days and leaned crazily to the left.  Someone had thoughtfully propped it up enough so the eggs didn’t roll out of the boxes.  Jamey picked up a pencil-marked egg and slung it against the barn.  “You’re not gonna believe this, guys!” It exploded with a nauseating sulfurous smell and resounding pop, whereupon Jamey explained, “ Them ol’ rotten eggs explode just like a bomb!” it had been left for the hen to “set on” and had rotted.  

I was familiar with the concept of “setting hens” and knew not to touch precious eggs.  Mother had made it clear eggs were precious, not playthings.  Nonetheless, Jamey took an egg from another nest and hurled it.  It also exploded and turned the air to sulphur to the delight of the party-goers.  Kids started flinging eggs madly.  Knowing they were older and wiser, I joined in.  Before long we’d exhausted the supply and moved across the road to the pig pen.

My parents had frequently complained about the malodorous pig pen, but in a rural community, only consideration governs location of noxious livestock.   “I ought to call Sheriff Copp on JP, but he ain’t gonna do nothin’” Daddy complained “He don’t have to smell that porcine excrement.”(paraphrased) Fortunately for the Awfuls, a vacant house with an enclosed back lot stood between our place and theirs.  They had wisely appropriated the abandoned back lot for their pig pen.  It was much closer to our house than theirs, a wise decision on their part.  The small pen was home to a couple of sows, their extended families, and millions of flies. Due to their wise location of the pig lot, we undoubtedly got a lot more effect than they did.  My mother, in particular, was offended.

Jamey, our fearless leader climbed on the rails.  The smaller of the sows and her babies fled, squealing.  The larger sow the size of a sofa, didn’t seem too disturbed from where she lounged in a muddy wallow across the pen.  The baby pigs were so adorable! Jamey was generous “Let’s git us one!”Jamey was a wonderful host, dropping into the pen in pursuit of a little pig, followed by me and a couple more kids.   I was pretty lucky. My dress tail caught on a fencepost, hanging me upside down from the top rail.  

“Help! Help Git me down!” By this time I’d noticed Mama wasn’t taking any of this well.  She lunged directly under me with a guttural growl, “Rrrrroofff!” running them back over the fence.  Fortunately, suspended above the action, adrenaline saved my hide, though my fancy dress was done for.  I wasn’t the only one who suffered wardrobe loss. As Jamey sailed over the fence, the mama pig got one of his new birthday tennis shoes.  

“Oh no! Mama’s gonna git you about that shoe!” Bugeater assured him, collapsing in merriment. Clearly he anticipated his brother’s trouble amiably.

When we got back to the house, Mrs. Awful little into him. “ You little devil! Your daddy’s gonna tear you up when he gets in! We just got them @83”&$! Shoes! You ain’t had ‘em a day yet! Now you dang kids get out there so he can open them presents and get this )@/$!! party overwith!” I rarely got to hear such language.

As I said, this was my first birthday party.  I was proud of the flashlight Mother had wrapped for me to bring to the party and couldn’t wait to get it back.  Mother showed up just as I learned I was expected to leave it for Jamey.  I wasn’t falling for that one.  I was wrestling with Jamey for possession of the flashlight just as she walked in the gate.  My behavior, coupled with the destroyed dress, put an end to the coffee-klatch.  Mother dragged me home bawling without the flashlight, my tattered dress tail dragging in the dirt, my first big social fail. She had plenty to say.

Our Awful Friends Part 2

I had only been out of the bathtub about 10 minutes when this picture was made.  After that birthday party, this dress was never the same.  I never saw that little purse again.I first became aware of the Awfuls on the occasion of Jamey Awful’s fifth birthday.  I was probably about four and totally ignorant of what birthday parties entailed.  I only knew that Mother ruined a perfectly good day by calling me away from my sand pile to take a bath in the middle of the day, an unheard of event.  I was disturbed especially since she insisted on washing the sand out of my hair.  I’d just spent a good portion of the morning pouring sand on the top of my head, enjoying its powdery coolness showering down on my shoulders and the back of my sundress and saw no reason for her outraged reaction.  “I told you not to get dirty.  We have to go somewhere today.”

As far as I was concerned, sand was clean.  Mud was dirty.  Axle grease was dirty.  Chicken poop was dirty.  Sand was white and dusted right off.  It was not dirty.  At any rate, Mother filled the tub with water and sprinkled in a tub with Tide Powder and plunged me in.  That was what passed for bubble bath at our house.  I would have been content to spend the afternoon there, but she washed my hair and hurried me out, ruining another good time.  Then she brushed my stick straight hair and stuffed me in a fluffy petticoat, a white fluffy dress with red and blue polka-dots, white socks, and sandals.  Worse yet, I had to submit to a photo session.  Mother was a novice with a camera making me pose forever, staring into the sun.  She’d gone to a great deal of fuss making matching dresses for me and Phyllis for Easter and was extremely proud of the effect.  Too bad the confection was wasted on me.  When she’d said Easter outfit, I’d envisioned a cowboy getup.

Then she walked us over to the Awful’s house.  I doubt Mother knew Mrs. Awful, since we’d never been to her house for coffee, even though they only lived a couple of houses over.  I guess the poor woman was scraping the bottom of the barrel to find enough kids for a party, since I was a year younger and Phyllis was a couple of years older and neither had ever laid eyes on Jamey. 

Mrs. Awful met us at the back gate.  There were a dozen or so kids running round in the yard, so once Mother made Mrs. Awful’s acquaintance, she headed home, promising to be back for us in a couple of hours.  Mrs. Awful ushered us in the back gate and the fun began.  I was in Heaven!