memoir

My New Old Friend

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I met a new “old friend” for the first time last week. I got to know Bernadette through her blog Haddon Musings.  She is every bit as warm and friendly as you’d expect.  She introduced me to scrabble, a delicacy I’d often heard of.  I wish I lived close enough to have coffee with her often.

Two Roads Part 4

img_1662Image pulled from Internet
In her loneliness, Neeley was an easy mark.  Aunt Lottie kept her close to home.  Awkward about her imposing height and girth, she wasn’t surprised no one had come courting. In her feed-sack dresses and straight, chopped off hair, she’d never expected to be admired. Boys liked dainty little girls with curly hair and nice clothes.  She felt like a work horse in a field of thoroughbreds.  Saturday night, when she was allowed to attend a Holness Tent Revival with her cousins Louise and Bertha, she was embarrassed when a fellow kept staring at her.  Her cheeks burned, and she looked away whenever they made eye contact, fearing he ‘d ridicule her, given the chance.  Though she did nothing to encourage him, he found his way to her after meeting.

“Howdy, pretty girl.  Can I walk you home?”  He asked.

She answered without thinking.  “No, sir.  Aunt Lottie don’t allow me no callers.  She’d tan my hide if I asked.”

“Now, how’s she gonna know?  It’s a long, dark walk home.  Ain’t you an’ these gals together?  My buddies wants company, too.  Who’s gonna know if we walk all of you gals home together?  You shore ain’t gonna tell off on each other, are you?”  Her cousins Bertha and Louise stood giggling at her side.  Obviously, they were delighted by the offer.  “How ’bout it, girls?”

The three girls held a giggling conference, deciding to give the boys a chance.

Neeley fell hard for Joey, agreeing to meet him the next night, and the next, and the next.  He’d come to help with the harvest at his Uncle George’s farm.  To hear him tell it, Uncle George was doing poorly, not likely to make it for long.  He thought so much of Joe, he was gonna leave the place to him.  Joe was gonna be well-set up.  Him and Neeley could have a good life, if he was sure she loved him.  He couldn’t marry no girl without her loving him.  Neeley sure loved him.

Three months later, the curse had passed her by and Neeley needed a husband.  Joe was long gone.  There was no Uncle George, nor farm.  When she told her cousins, they begged Neeley not to tell of their part in her story.  They’d both escaped her fate.    Lottie would have beaten them half to death if she found out what they’d been up to.

When her condition was obvious, Aunt Lottie took after her with a broom, maybe hoping she’d beat the baby out of her.  When Uncle Jep got home and found Neeley brutalized, he threatened Lottie if he laid another hand on her and set off to see his friend and neighbor, Eddie.  Eddie had a small daughter and needed a wife.

The Joy of People-Watching

img_1660The best part of traveling is people-watching.  A young family was sitting a sat or two behind me.  The mother had to take the little girl to the bathroom and interrogated the little boy vigorously as to whether he had to go.  Emphatically, he did not.  Mom annoyed him by asking again.  He stalwartly denied a need to go, despite her insistent interrogation.  Giving up, she took the little girl.  Not long after they were reseated and buckled in, imminent landed was announced.  He’d missed his chance.  Immediately, he set up a howl.  “Mom, get me out of here.  I gotta go! I gotta Go!  The pee is coming down!”

“What!  You said you didn’t have to go!”

 

Next I watched a young mother bouncing her wailing newborn.  Clearly, she was exhausted.  A young man walked up and she handed off baby, bottle, and pacifier. He skillfully bounced and fed the baby with pacifier in his mouth.  What a man!

 

Another couple was corralling two little guys.  The older knocked the smaller off a climbing toy.  Dad exploded.  “That’s it!” and stormed off.  Mom simultaneously calmed the little one and put the other in time out.  He howled.

“You hush and think about what you did.  I don’t like the way you treated your brother.”  He snuffled a while before quieting.  Before too long, he was playing with his brother.   Eventually, Dad was back.

Best Christmas Chuckles for Your Sunday

lbeth1950's avatarNutsrok

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Two Roads Part 3

It is questionable whether Aunt Lottie was really mean or just a harried woman with a houseful near to bursting when she had to take responsibility for Neeley.  It couldn’t have been an easy time for her, Uncle Jep or the grieving child.  Having Uncle Jep take Neeley’s side against her, hardened Aunt Lottie further.  She often hissed at her, “I’ll tend to you later!”

Neeley’s attempts to avoid Aunt Lottie were hopeless since she had to work along side her while enduring jabs about “yore sorry mama.”  While living with Ma,she never gave Cassie a lot of thought, but now the oppressive shadow of Aunt Lottie’s contempt for her mother was a heavy burden for a young child.  It was very confusing to mourn Ma knowing she had a mother “out there somewhere.”  Why didn’t she live with her mother?  Uncle Jep changed the subject when she asked him.

Cassie took Neeley for a few weeks or months when she had a stable home.  She’d remarried and had two boys, so Neeley did get to spend some time with her mother and two young brothers.  These times meant the world to Neeley since her attention-hungry little brothers adored her.  On her arrival, her mother showered her with love and affection before eventually succumbing to a mood swing and becoming neglectful of herself and the children.  Eventually, there would be a violent fight with her husband and the children would be dispatched to various relatives with a domestic split.  Neeley always landed back at Uncle Jep’s, the odd child out once again.

Neeley was becoming a young Amazon, over six feet tall and powerfully built.  With the hard life she faced, she’d need her strength to be able to hold her own.  Neeley never spent enough time in school to be a good student. At the age of sixteen, she realized she was pregnant.  No knight in shining armor showed up to marry her.  Soon after her baby was born, she married Eddie Malone, a twenty-six-year-old divorced man who was a friend of Uncle Jep.  Love was never mentioned, but there was the promise of a home.  She hadn’t had a home since she was nine.

 

 

Kathleen’s Cuthand Christmas, Excerpt from Everything Smells Just Like Poke Salad

Excerpt from my book Everything Smells Just Like Poke Salad.  To purchase book, please click on link of book cover to right.  I would be grateful for a review.

lbeth1950's avatarNutsrok

We don’t have the money.” I’d heard that so many times I knew not to ask for candy, bright rubber balls, or coloring books at Miss Lonie’s store. If Daddy had a few cents to spare, he’d fill three small brown paper bags with candy for us…..peppermint sticks, gumballs, bubble gum, lollipops. Kits and BB Bats were five for a penny. A few cents

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Two Roads Part 2

On the last day of her old life, Ma sent nine-year-old Neeley to the store with some butter and eggs to trade for baking soda and needles. As she left the store with her penny candy and Ma’s things, she saw smoke hanging over the trees.  To her horror, when she topped the ridge, flames were leaping in the field between their house and Uncle Jep’s.  She fairly flew the last few hundred yards, calling for Ma at the top of her lungs.  Tearing into the front room, she found Ma slumped in the rocker, her arm hanging limp at her side with spittle running out the corner of her mouth.  She shook Ma, then pulled her arm with no response.  Desperate to rouse Ma for escape, she dashed her with a dipper full of water.   Ma didn’t wake up!

Threatened by the approaching fire, she realized she had to get Uncle Jep.  Racing barefoot toward his house, she skirted the actively burning areas, arriving to find him and Aunt Lottie gone.  Desperately, she headed toward the nearest neighbor’s place, only to meet neighbors rushing to help put out the fire.  Crying, she told them of Ma’s troubles.  Most went on to fight the fire, but Mr. Jones and Mr. Bilieu went to check on Ma.  Mr. Bilieu took Neeley to his house for his wife to tend her burned feet.  They got Dr Crisp out to see Ma.  He came later to check on Neeley bringing sad news.  Ma was dead.

Uncle Jep came for her. She had to deal with the agony of her burned feet along with the greater pain of losing Ma and her home.  Uncle Jep loved and welcomed her, but Aunt Lottie had the burden of her care.  The overworked mother of four was quick with the switch and criticism.  It was not an easy transition for the grieving girl going from darling grandchild to “another mouth to feed.”  The farm wife already had more work and worry than she could handle before Neeley was foisted on her.  It was not a good situation for any of them.

 

Most Awful Christmas Ever

Reblog of previous Christmas post.

lbeth1950's avatarNutsrok

One year, the Awful’s made sure their parents had the most awful Christmas ever.  Like the rest of us, they couldn’t wait for Christmas.  As always, they starting finding their presents about a week before Christmas.  Every day one of them showed up with something new.  One day, Froggy had a brand new basketball.  The next day, Jamey had

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Two Roads Part 1

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Image from vintage postcard “Itchy, Scratchy Romance in the Hay”

Lloyd Wright wasn’t  the first boy Cassie Merrill had let go that far, just the one Ma  caught her with.  Right off, Ma sent Jep running for the preacher. Lloyd’s hateful old mama raged, swearing Cassie had trapped her boy and yelling she’d heard plenty about her “wild streak” long before Lloyd took up with her.  No matter. They had to stay with her till they could do better.  Resentful at the forced marriage, Lloyd and Cassie battled from the first with Mama Wright putting her two cents’ worth in every chance she got. After the baby’s birth, things settled down and Mama felt hopeful when she saw how Cassie doted on the baby girl.  Then, just like a candle extinguished, she lost interest in the baby.  Cassie’s raging hormones kicked in.  Four months after Baby Neeley’s birth, Cassie dropped the her off with her own mother and took off with the first of many boyfriends.  It was four years before she got back to see her little girl.  Neeley grew up calling Grandma Merrill, “Ma.” Cassie was simply “Cassie”, a sporadic visitor who passed through from time to time and visited for a few days.  Of course, Neeley knew Cassie was her real mother, but she had Ma.  Her father wasn’t in her life.

Neeley’s days were full with chores, school, and working along beside Ma.  She fed the chickens, gathered eggs, helped Ma in the garden, churned, and all the other things little girls growing up in the early nineteenth century did.  She and Ma needed each other.  In the evenings, Ma sat in her rocker and crocheted or did mending while Neeley played  at her feet.  Neeley could hem and crochet a few simple stitches by the time her ninth birthday rolled around.  With her black hair and strikingly blue eyes, she looked nothing like Cassie.  Ma hoped Cassie’s wildness had passed her over, too.

So far, Neeley was a docile, loving  child, content to spend her time playing quietly or following Ma at work, nothing like her wild mama.  Long before Cassie had reached her age, she was a trial.  She’d climb on top of the house to tell a lie when she could’ve stood on the ground and told the truth.  Ma couldn’t make Cassie stay in school and finally just gave up, hoping she’d at least learn enough housekeeping to be a decent wife.  Though Cassie would grudgingly work along with Ma, the minute she turned her back the girl was gone.  Cassie’s rages and temper made life a misery.  By the time she was fourteen, she slipped out her window regularly to meet boys.  Her mother initially felt some hope when Cassie seemed to be a loving mother until the day Cassie dropped Neeley off for a “few days” that turned out to be forever.