“Jenny, leave them dishes for me and I’ll sit with you while you rock the baby.This little feller is so sweet.I know you cain’t remember Jimmy, but Lucy’s eyelashes are just like his, so long and curly.Seemed like they was wasted on a boy.This one is shore to break some hearts with them purty eyes and pink cheeks.”Lucille admired the baby in Jenny’s arms.
“Mama, seems like I do remember you pulling me and Jimmy in a little brown wagon down that long driveway to the row of mailboxes.Somebody sent me you a letter with a lollipop for me and Jimmy in it.Do you remember that?How old was I?”
“Lordy, child.That was from your Aunt Lucy.She was so good to us.I never thought you’d remember that.You couldn’t have been much more than two, ‘cause she died a good while before you turned three.That was a good day.You young’ns didn’t never git much candy.You was both so tickled. I never got to see Aunt Lu but a time or two after me and your daddy married. We moved up to his uncle’s farm in the Panhandle soon after we married. We didn’t have no car so we didn’t go nowhere we couldn’t go in a wagon, walk, or catch a ride.
Do you remember the time your Aunt Betty come to stay awhile? Well, she was Holiness. You know that church where the women don’t wear no makeup and don’t cut their hair. They was a tent revival and nothin’ would do but we all had to go. I didn’t care nothin’ about it since I was Methodist, but your Daddy had been raised up Holiness, so when Betty asked him to take her we all had to go along. I always made you sit still in church so you just loved it when they got to shoutin’ an’ raisin’ their hands. Then Betty got the spirit and was a’speakin’ in tongues. I believe you thought it was a game cause you got to jabberin’ just like her. I didn’ have a whole lot of idea what to do so I just kept quiet while you was a’worshiping with her. You played “church” for days. I think Betty was real proud of you.” She smiled at the memory.
“I remember that. I loved Aunt Betty.” Jenny broke in. “I wish I could see her now.”
“Yeah, your Aunt Betty always took a lot of time with you.”
I love this story I got from a guy who is nice enough to comment on my writing from time to time. He is always telling me what a wonderful woman his wife is and how lucky he is to have found her. In fact, I think he described it as “lucky as a dog with two dicks. I couldn’t speak from experience for obvious reasons, but he certainly sounds happy.
Me: How did you meet her?
Him: I met my wife at my local bar and she was sitting with some mutual friends I knew. I was working on several big projects at the steel plant and was getting behind on my house work and gardening so she offered her services. The house was spotless. My clothes ironed and folded and she even put a little garden in the back yard along with flowers along the driveway. I worked 11 months without a day off then finally got 2 weeks off at Christmas. I thanked her for her services and gave her a nice going away bonus. She asked what I was doing for the holidays and I said just taking a long deserved break alone. Why don’t we spend Christmas together she said and the next day she brought some clothes over along with her bird Joey and her little dog Amie. The next two weeks were magic and her spell has never worn off. I had given up on ever being happy again and had buried myself in work. What a fool I was. I didn’t want love but love found me.
Me: You were lucky to find each other.
Him: Luckier than a dog with two dicks! Were going out dancing today and I wish you could be there to meet us and have some fun. I just wanted to share that my favorite song Higher and Higher is on YouTube and the video is of Fred Astaire and partner dancing to it. It’s great fun and wish you would watch it and think of me!
Me: That sounds really lucky. Tell me about her
Him: My wife is Marie and she comes from a large family of German/Russian descent from Regina Saskatchewan western Canada.She married young and moved to Calgary Alberta and had four kids in a row. Her first husband drank himself to death at 34 years old. She then met a man I knew from Sault Ste. Marie and they moved back here. From what little I know he drank and abused her till she’d had enough and left him. She managed a large motel when I met her and lived just around the corner from me. She keeps in great shape exercising and loves reading novels. Summertime she’s out in the garden and we have lots of preserves come fall. I know you would love her for she’s kind and friendly and likes a few beer and good company. I have a funny story about meeting her mother if you want to hear it?
Me: I’d love to hear that one.
Him: We went out west to visit my wifes’ family after we got married and the first night in Regina we spent at her Mothers’ place. Her Mom was leery about me and a little cold but polite. My wife was tired so went to bed and left me and Mom to talk. I got us a couple of beers and she showed me her picture albums of the family. There were old pictures of a little girl with a dog or sitting on a pony. I’d ask is that little girl you Grandma and she yelled don’t call me granma and I laughed. Another picture of a little girl and I asked the same question and the madder she got. Finally I asked if she would like another beer Grandma and this time she smiled and politely said yes, thanks son and we were pals after that. I loved all her family and they accepted me and loved me as there own.
Me: I like the way Grandma thinks.
This is one of the best love stories I’ve heard in a long time. It has all the essentials, housework, bars, Fred Astaire, And a beer-swigging granny. I’d love to know this guy and his sweetie.
For those of you who have lived in Texas, you know how true this is. They actually have a chili cook-off about the time Halloween comes around. It takes up a major portion of a parking lot at the San Antonio city park. The notes are from an inexperienced chili taster named Frank, who has visited from Springfield IL.
Frank: “Recently, I was honored to be selected as a judge at a chili cooking contest. The original person called in sick at the last moment and I happened to be standing there at the judges table asking for directions to the Coors Light truck, when the call came in. I was assured by the other two judges (native Texans) that the chili wouldn’t be all that spicy and, besides, they told me that I could have free beer during the tasting, so I accepted.”
Mother had been frying chicken and making potato salad all morning in preparation for our picnic with Christine who was high-spirited and laughed all the time, making any occasion a party. She left her chocolate cake and deviled eggs in an open box on the back seat of her car when she parked in our drive. We made several trips loading the goodies. Christine got the car packed to her satisfaction, then decided to run her little girls back in for one last bathroom stop. Forgetting we had dogs, she left the back car door standing open, a fatal mistake.
Ecstatically, five or six hounds bounded into the backseat, snarling and falling on the the chocolate cake and fried chicken laid out so enticingly for their benefit. Hearing the dogfight in progress, we all flew out of the house to see chocolate-covered dogs fighting tooth and nail for the remains…
Photo of my great-grandmother, Sarah Jones Perkin’s, still born baby circa 1900
For some reason, Lucille had always loved washing dishes. After breakfast, she stacked the dishes in the dishpan, added the soap, ran scalding water over them, and brought a glass of milk and a cup of coffee to Jenny where she was nursing the baby on her shady front porch. Jenny had been married seven years and had almost given up on a baby when Lucy surprised her.
“Thanks for the milk, Mama. Did you have trouble getting pregnant like I did?” she asked.
“Lord, no! I had Jimmy only ten months after I married, and me only fifteen.” she laughed.” After that, I think I miscarried twice before I got that way with you. Back then, we didn’t run to the doctor for every little thing, so I never was sure if I lost babies or not. I couldn’t have been too far along, if I was. We was about to starve, so my curse wasn’t real regular. You didn’t come along till five years after Jimmy,” Lucille reminded her.
“I never knew you were that young when you got married. Why, you couldn’t have even finished school. What was your daddy thinking letting you marry that young?” Jenny was feeling protective of her own sweet baby.
“Honey, my daddy was was the reason I needed to git married. He was a mean drunk. My mama died when me and my twin sister Velma was about ten. Seemed like he never got tired of beatin’ on her. He’d come in drunk long after we was asleep in bed like a ragin’ bull. We’d learnt to hide and Mama took the whuppin’. I really think a beatin’ is what finally kilt her. He come in and whipped her and kicked her around real bad one Thursday night. She crept around three or four days till she died with the most awful black blood comin’ from her bowels. Nobody never said nothin’ to him. It was a man’s business if he felt like beatin’ his wife.
Daddy started in on me and Velma after Mama died. We made sure not to get caught off alone with him or he’d a’done us some real dirt. I met your Daddy when I was fourteen, but I let him think I was a lot older. Me and Melba was stayin’ with Aunt Lucy by now. That’s Mama’s sister I was named for. She was so good to us. I slipped out one night and went to the pictures with Russ. I feel bad now about doing Aunt Lucy that way, now, but you know how boy-crazy young girls is. I sat with him a few times at church, and he got to coming to see me at Aunt Lucy’s. We wanted to gut married, but Aunt Lucy said I’d have to git Daddy to sign for me. I wasn’t about to go to Daddy for nothin’. The next Friday morning I skipped school and run off with Russ to Oklahoma. His sister was an old friend of my mama’s. She knowed how bad Daddy done Mama and knew I needed to get away, so she went with us and signed like she was my mama. I always ‘preciated her doin’ that. I left Velma a note tellin’ her I’d run off to got married so they wouldn’t think somethin’ awful had happened. Lordy, I never meant to gab so long. I got to git back to them dishes.” She heaved herself to her feet and headed back to the kitchen.
Jenny caught her by the hand. “Mama, I’m real proud you came to stay awhile.”
Valentines Day in the Animal Kingdom 
Q: What do you get from sitting on the ice too long?
I love this story I got from a guy who is nice enough to comment on my writing from time to time. He is always telling me what a wonderful woman his wife is and how lucky he is to have found her. In fact, I think he described it as “lucky as a dog with two dicks. I couldn’t speak from experience for obvious reasons, but he certainly sounds happy.
Finding True Love is hard to do.
‘Chili again?’ 
Photo of my great-grandmother, Sarah Jones Perkin’s, still born baby circa 1900
Nutsrok 