memoir

Nature Calls

My whole life, I have hungered for the outdoors. It has always calmed and fulfilled me.  My earliest memories were of Mother telling me I couldn’t go out till the dew dried.  Many, many times, she caught me outdoors barefoot with a muddy-tailed nightgown before breakfast.  Inclement weather was no impediment.  We simply played in the barn, slipping out the instant the downpour was over.  More likely than not, we’d end up wet anyway, then stay out till our clothes dried enough it wasn’t immediately obvious.  So much of the time I worked as a nurse, I’d go to work before daylight and come home long after dark, working on a windowless unit that shut out all hope of a glimmer of sunshine.  One of life’s greatest blessings is that after retirement, I am free again.  My husband and I camp a great deal, seeing a lot of the beach and the mountains.  While he fly fishes, I spend my time walking with my dogs, dabbling in the water, or just being.  I can’t claim to be a fly fisher person, but I never met a fly fisherman I didn’t like.  I usually cook outdoors in my Dutch Ovens over an open fire.  My posts have come to you from the hills and riversides of Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma and from the beaches along the Gulf of Mexico.  Next summer we plan to spend time with friends in Canada and the Northwest.  I am grateful to be “Chilling” at this time in my life.

This picture was from one of life’s finest moments.  Someone called to see if I could come in and work a shift for them a few days after I retired.  Sent the picture with the explanation,  “Sorry.  I’m busy!”

hammock

Uncle Albutt Part 4

Uncle Albert had an interesting vocabulary.   Even when he didn’t get words right, he forged bravely ahead.  When his energy was low, he didn’t have much image.  When the doctor diagnosed him with emphysema, he referred to his ‘zema. Air conditioners were air positioners. He called my sister Phyllis, Phillips.  I liked that one.  I was Linder.  I didn’t like that quite so much. My mother Kathleen was Kathaleen.  He called Daddy “Willie”, his real name instead of Bill, the name Daddy gave himself once he left home.  

Daddy cringed every time he was called Willie. The only other person who got away with it was his mother.  I wouldn’t have wanted to be Willie, either.  For some reason, Daddy’s brother Parnell named his daughter Willie Carol.  She was a whiny, sullen kid, maybe because of that name. It makes perfect sense to me.

On occasion, we saw some of Aunt Jewel’s relatives.  Her sister, Lucille, who incidentally had married one of Daddy’s cousins, had the hairiest legs I’ve ever seen, man or woman. The wearing of seamed stockings only made it more obvious.  A good proportion of the wiry hairs worked their way through the stockings, trying to escape, while the rest were imprisoned flat against her legs.  I don’t know which fascinated me more, the swirling mass of flattened ones, or the wild escapees.  I never got to look enough, and certainly wasn’t allowed to comment. Mother warned us off when she knew we’d see Lucille.  Daddy swore her legs had gotten hairier because she shaved them!  That just sounded nuts.  How would hair roots know a razor threatened?  He was death on leg-shaving, ascribing to the old wive’s tale that shaving made hair grow back thicker.  I don’t know what planet he was from that made his daughter’s legs, shaved or unshaven, his business, but Daddy thought he was God and his wishes,  commandments.  More likely, he may have feared he’d be stuck with his girls forever should we sprout hair like that. 

Of course, Mother never volunteered the information that she shaved her legs.  I guess she didn’t want Daddy to know what was in his future.  Naturally, I shaved my legs as soon as I could get hold of a razor.  I can’t tell you how happy I was to get away from home.

Daddy’s methods did ensure he never had to deal with adult children boomeranginghome.  Times just didn’t get that hard.

Time Out for Smart Alecks

imageMy dad was more creative than factual when making a point.  When there was no dessert, he pointed out.  “My mother or sisters made a cake every day.”

Other times, when we were ungrateful for how great we had it, he’d tell us his family sometimes went three days with nothing to eat but peas.

i piped up.  “Why didn’t y’all eat one of those cakes your mama or sisters made every day?”

He took time out his busy day to teach me the difference in smart and smart aleck.

Uncle Albutt Part 3

Uncle Albert somehow came up on a ninety-nine year lease on several acres on Dorcheat Bayou in Louisiana.  Ready to retire from farming, he decided a fish camp would provide a modest retirement income.  My father bought his farm and stock, but that’s a story for another day.  Obviously, he was a multi-talented man, able to turn his hand to any task.  His farm boasted two cabins.  He moved into the second cabin, disassembled the log house he was living in loaded it piece by piece on his old truck, and moved  it to his lease, where he went to work reassembling it just as it had originally been, except he added an additional bedroom, occasionally recruiting help from relatives with bigger jobs.  Once the reassembled house was in the dry, he took apart the second cabin, using the timber to cover over the logs and seal the house tighter.  One day, Daddy decided we’d go by and check on Uncle Albert’s progress. My older sister climbed on the unsecured log walls, tumbling them to the ground.  I was so glad she got to them before I did.  Neither Daddy nor Uncle Albert was pleased.  Daddy spent the rest of that evening and Saturday helping Uncle Albert get it back together.  None of us kids were invited along, for some reason.  When Uncle Albert was satisfied with his house, he used the rest of the salvaged lumber for fishing boats, a pier, fences, a bait shop, and outbuildings.  Soon he had a pretty good business going.  By the next spring, he had a large garden underway.

Prior to construction of his house, Uncle Albert took care of necessities,; first, a toilet before summoning all his nephews for the digging of a well, uphill from the toilet, of course.  They came, bringing all their wives and children, a festive day of barbecuing, fishing, children running wild, while the men took turns shoveling the hard red clay from the well site..  Only one man could be in the hole at a time.  The others stayed above ground, pulling the heavy dirt from the hole.  They all took their turns.  By the end of the first day, thanks to the high water table, water was beginning to seep in at a depth of twenty feet.  They dug a few feet more, set the curb so the well wouldn’t silt in, and came back the next day to build a protective well-housing.  Uncle Albert was able to draw a bit of water by the evening of the second day.

Along with all my cousins, I was desperate to be lowered by pulley and bucket as the fortunate diggers were, into the depths of that well.  Sadly, all the mothers and aunts were just as anxious to keep wayward kids out of the well, warning us away every time we came near.  However, were able to indulge in one other life-threatening activity as they focused on that well.  A gravel road ran down the steep hill along one side of Uncle Albert’s property where it intersected with another dirt road fronting his house alongside the steep-banked bayou. The occasional oil-truck, fisherman, or hunter who travelled that way would have had no expectation of kids running wild, since until only recently, it was nothing but woods.    Someone of my cousins had thoughtfully brought along their red wagon to Uncle Albert’s that day.  Naturally, we pulled that wagon to the top of the red-dirt hill, piled in as many cousins as would fit, and prepared for a thrilling coast down the steep graveled road.  There were no engineers among us.  Confident as only a cluster of kids can be, we set off for a bone-rattling ride.  That wagon clattered and bounced, held down only by the weight of kids.  A couple of the smaller ones were pitched out, left squalling in our dusty tracks.  The clattering, crying, and dust cloud caught the attention of the well-diggers and mothers who were laying out the picnic lunch, secure in the knowledge we weren’t falling in the well.  As they looked on at the screaming wagonload of kids hurtling down the hill, an oil truck approached the crossing at the bottom.  It slammed on its brakes, swerving enough to allow us to pass, though our unlikely survival was concealed by the massive dust cloud.  The wagon flew on toward the high bank of the bayou, where we were saved by a brush thicket just short of the water.

In the manner of parents at that time, once the loving parents found their children weren’t dead, they gratefully expressed their joy with beatings for all. I had one fine ride down that hill, but I never got another crack at it.

Joke of the Day

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Blonde jokes – Memories
From the memories of a blonde: The first minutes of pregnancy were just wonderful…

Kitchen light
A blonde tells to another blonde:
– Do you know where the light from the kitchen goes when you turn it off?
– No
The blonde takes another blonde to the fridge and says: HERE.

Stuck in elevator
Once two blondes and a brunette got stuck in the elevator.
One blonde starts to shout:
– Help!!!
The other one:
– Help!!!
A brunette brings in an advice:
– Girls, shout together, it will be louder.
The blondes shout:
– Together!!! Together!!!…

Leaves
A blonde was raking the leaves and fell off the tree.

Waiting
Question: Do you know what a blonde is waiting for at the socket?
Answer: for an e-mail.

Two men at a bar had been enjoying a few drinks for the past couple of hours and were pretty drunk when one of them notices a beautiful woman sitting in the corner. One says to the other, “Jeez, I’d really like to dance with that girl.”

The other man replies, “Well go ahead and ask her, don’t be a chicken.”

So the man approaches the lovely woman and says, “Excuse me. Would you be so kind as to dance with me?”

Seeing the man is totally drunk the woman says, “I’m sorry. Right now I’m concentrating on matrimony and I’d rather sit than dance.”

So the man humbly returns to his friend.

“So what did she say?” asks the friend.

The drunk responded, “She said she’s constipated on macaroni and would rather $h– in her pants.”

Everyone was seated around the table as the food was being served. When little Johnny received his plate, he started eating straight away.

“Jonny, wait until we’ve said our prayer,” his mother reminded him.

“I don’t have to.” – the little boy replied.

“Of course you do.” – his mother insisted. “We say a prayer before eating at our house.”

“That’s at our house,” Johnny explained, “but this is Grandma’s house and she knows how to cook.”

My wife’s jealousy is getting ridiculous. The other day she looked at my calendar and wanted to know who May was.

An enormously wealthy 65-year-old man falls in love with a young woman in her twenties and is contemplating a proposal.

“Do you think she’d marry me if I tell her I’m 45?” – he asked a friend.

“Your chances are better,” said the friend, “if you tell her you’re 90.”

A man inserted an ad in the classifieds: “Wife wanted”. Next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: “You can have mine.”

Uncle Albutt Part 2

Uncle Albert was the only person I ever knew who never attended school at all.  He couldn’t write or read a word.  I remember seeing him bring documents for Mother to read and interpret and pen his replies.  He was the first person I ever saw make an X mark for his signature. Mother wrote his name afterward and witnessed it. I was filled with awe that a person had never attended school.  Mother filled out his income tax returns for him every year.

Uncle Albert was very shrewd in his accounts, despite his lack of education.  He handled his business affairs skillfully, requiring no assistance.  He was a skilled trader.  I remember hearing him tell Daddy how he left the house one morning with a goat to barter and after several trades, came home with a shotgun and box of shells.  I never knew him to hold public employment.   He farmed forty acres more than fifty years, providing a living for him and his wife.  He paid cash, bartered, or did without.  The whole time I knew him, he drove a nineteen forty-eight Ford pickup truck.  He and Aunt Jewel smoked Prince Albert Tobacco and rolled their own cigarettes when money was tight, and bought Raleigh cigarettes when they were flush.  Aunt Jewel saved Raleigh Cigarette coupons for prizes.  From time to time, she’d show off a fancy vase or pair of pillowcases. I never knew of them being without cigarettes of some sort.

Daddy was always honored when Uncle Albert and Aunt Jewel came to visit.  One evening, Mother cooked our favorite, fried chicken.  We never got enough of her fried chicken, particularly the crisp scrambles of flour that dropped off during the frying.  Knowing this, Mother scraped up every crisp bit and put it on the platter with the chicken.  After the chicken was devoured, she divided those scrambles among the kids.  They were delicious, a highly anticipated treat.  That evening, the chicken platter passed from on end of the table to the other several times.  Uncle Albert liked Mother’s chicken, too.  As he forked  the last piece, the unthinkable happened.  He tipped the platter up and poured all those beautiful scrambled bits onto his plate.  Our eyes were huge with horror.  Surely he hadn’t just scooped up all the best all for himself!  He had!  Mother shushed us with a look as he noisily crunched and chomped through the pile.  A more heartbreaking sound was never heard.   In just a few seconds, he finished off our stolen treat, then burped his appreciation, wiped his mouth, leaned back his chair and remarked, “That’s the best part of the chicken.  I ain’t never got enough.”

We knew just how he felt.

Tale of My Uncle’s Tail

imageWhen I got older, I found out Uncle Albert and Aunt Jewel weren’t dull; they were just worn out. Besides that, Uncle Albert had a fascinating physical attribute Daddy slipped up and mentioned one day, to his later regret. Uncle Albert had a tail! From that moment forward, my brother and I stalked him, probabably the first nasty little, voyeuristic kids in the word to molest a pitiful, worn-out old man. We kept hoping his worn-out old khakis would slide off his bony behind, giving us a glimpse of that tail. Eventually Daddy realized why we were pestering him and threatened us enough to put a stop to our tagging.

At any rate, once I got sly enough to ferret out family gossip, I found out Aunt Jewel had once been a very pretty, if not too virtuous, girl. Apparently, Uncle Albert brought her to his house to visit one evening when his wife, Mary, was out. Mary, came home early and found them together in her bedroom. Not surprisingly, she was unhappy. When she tried to get in the bedroom with them, Uncle Albert slammed the door on her arm, breaking it. He and Aunt Jewel became a couple after that.

It’s not surprising he preferred her to the unreasonable Mary. She was a very understanding woman. She told Albert’s sister,my grandma, “Albert has to have a woman! Fortunately, her three sisters and mother were all friendly women, of questionable virtue, willing to accommodate Albert’s needs when she wasn’t well. Uncle Albert and Aunt Jewel lived together over thirty years, becoming very devoted members of their local church the last ten years or so. They gave very good advice once they got too old to set a bad example.

Uncle Albert’s Barn

My great-Uncle Albert’s barn raised the bar for what a barn should be.  A rambling, splotched caterpillar, it sprawled behind his rustic house.   It was an amalgamation of scavenged lumber of various vintages. Over many years, he’d added on as the need arose and opportunity allowed Of an age to have experienced The Great Depression in its entirety, he understood waste not, want not.  His house and outbuildings were built largely of reclaimed lumber.   One stall of his barn was lied high with neatly stacked reclaimed lumber stored in readiness for his next project.  He had recently been hired to tear down and haul off an old house, the very lumber now resting in his barn.  Coffee cans of used nails sat on a shelf.  As tempting as it looked, one hard look from Uncle Albert made it clear his lumber was off limits for climbing.

Wisely, Albert did not seem anxious for the company of bothersome children, making no effort to be friendly.  In fact, I never noticed him behaving particularly warmly toward my dad., even though Daddy clearly admired him and sought his approval.  Uncle Albert was as likely to grump at Daddy as he was at us.  I was mystified at seeing Daddy treated as a troublesome child.  Daddy had spent months on end living and working with Uncle Albert during His childhood of The Great Depression.  His father had died young, leaving a widow with seven young children to to raise.

The barns multiple rooms opened off a central open area.  It’s many rooms held ancient implements, harness, plows and all manner of equipment neatly organized.  An ancient wagon Relaxed in one stall, in readiness for hay-hauling.  We were free to play on it, as long as we weren’t destructive.  Hay was stacked in numerous stalls.  Uncle Albert mad it clear the hay was not there for our pleasure. In one stall russet and sweet potatoes lay in their beds of hay, dusted with lime. String  of beans, dried apples, pears, and onions hung from the rafters. Several barn cats patrolled the barn to keep mice and rats at bay.  They weren’t the friendly house cat variety.

The barn was roofed with hand-split wooden shingles.  I can’t imagine all the hours he spent splitting them.  A neat fence made of various types of wire garden entry to the barn.  A couple of large metal road signs served as fence panels, adding to the barnyard’s appeal.

I just loved that barn.  I wish I could spend another afternoon poking around in it.

 

Evil Incarnate on a Pink Tricycle

imageMother gets pretty hot about a few things.  One of these is problems with mail delivery.  One day, she got to her mailbox to find her mail tattered,torn, and lying on the ground.  Worst of all, a government check had been ripped.  Somebody was going to pay for this crime!  Rabid with rage, she cornered a couple of kids who gladly gave up the perpetrator to save their own sorry hides.  They’d seen a little blonde-haired girl with pig-tails standing on her pink tricycle rifling through Mother’s box.  Mother gave the little snitches a five dollar reward after they located the child’s tricycle parked in front of a house two streets over.

Armed with this information, Mother called the Sheriff’s Department to report the heinous crime. Regaling him every shocking detail, the criminal’s description, description of the getaway vehicle, and last known address.  The deputy laughed, asking if she’d had the check back.

“Yes, but that’s not the point.  I want this stopped!  Tampering with the mail is a Federal Crime!”

“Lady, what do you want me to do, put out an APB on a little three-year-old girl on a pink tricycle?