memoir

At the Moment of Death

I thought I was at the moment of death.  As a nurse I’d been with patients in their final moments but now found myself preparing to face my own probable death. Late one evening, I was trying desperately to get home amidst severe weather warnings.  Thunderstorm warnings were in effect with strong likelihood for development of a tornado.  We live near a lake in Louisiana experiencing frequent tornado activity, so bad weather is always a concern.  I was within a mile of home when the worst of the storm hit, stranding me on an overpass over the interstate.  I was caught between cars, visibility so low I couldn’t even see the tail lights of the car ahead of me.  Rain and straight lines winds buffeted the car, moving it and rocking it side to side.  I waited, terrified, not knowing if I was going to be swept from my high point by a tornado or killed by impact from a vehicle behind.  Though, I couldn’t see it, I learned later the tornado touched down about two hundred feet behind me, destroying everything in its path.

Once I determined death was inevitable, my fear left me.  I felt gratitude for the life I’d been given and was grateful that my husband was there to finish raising the children. In a minute or so the skies cleared as I headed home to my worried family who was hiding in a closet from the tornado I’d just escaped!  I’ve never felt a dread of death since that day.

My Own Circus (Kathleen’s Memoirs of The Great Depression)

circus parade0002

Illustration by Kathleen Swain.  Story by Linda Bethea.

One warm spring day as the sun beamed brightly in the open window, Miss Billie read a story about Billy Boy and the Buffalos.   I loved to hear her read but was distracted by a couple of flies who had slipped in and were buzzing a vase of daffodils on the ledge.   Almost hypnotized by the droning, I caught an inkling of faraway music on the breeze.  Continue reading →

Surprise

I need to change my expectations.  Bud and I have been married a long,long time.  He just called me out to the shop to see a Big Surprise.  I was somewhat caught up in it since I had asked him to do a number of things for me.  He had cleaned off his fly tying bench and installed some repurposed speakers.  I couldn’t spot the surprise.  Where would a person ever get the idea a surprise was for them?  I need to work on myself.

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Death of a Mean Girl (from Kathleen’s Memoirs of the 1930s)

Vernell Mullins and Jessie Hollins cornered me as I headed out of the schoolhouse after school one terrible day, cutting me off from the troop exiting the building.  Backing me against me against the wall, they bent over and got right in my face. “We’re gonna pull your pants down and look at your tile.” (They pronounced it tile, but I know now they had to have meant tail) I was terrorized.  They must have been at least sixteen.  To have been singled out by them for such a horrific and shameful threat changed my life.  It had never occurred to me before that I had any such thing to fear from them or anyone else. We were so modest at our house that we didn’t even refer to our private parts or answer from the outhouse.  Thankfully, they had accosted me in a public place.  I could hear their vicious laughter as I fled.  My shame overwhelmed me.  I obsessed over it but would have never told Mama, feeling I had somehow deserved it.  I was quiet the rest of the day at home, dreading another such attack tomorrow.

The next day and every day thereafter, I gave them a wide berth, taking care never to get caught alone anywhere.  I felt like prey, about to be run down any time.  Coming in from school one afternoon, I got a biscuit and glass of milk as always, along with Mama’s usual admonition to change out of my school clothes and hang up my dress before I went out to play.  Mama was having coffee with Miz Reagan when I came back through.  “Oh did you hear the terrible news?” asked Miz Reagan.  “Vernell Mullins died today.  Her kidneys just shut down and she died!  They thought she just had the flu……a young person like her.  Isn’t that just the saddest thing?”

I was ecstatic!  After the fear I’d been living with the past couple of weeks, news of Vernell’s death was a blessed relief.  Then and there, I started praying for Jessie’s death, watching her hopefully for signs of developing illness over the next few days.  Even eighty years later, knowing Vernell’s death was not a judgment from God, in one little six-year-old corner of my heart, I can still remember the macabre joy with which I received the news.

Pirate Joke

As the Pirate ship approached the fearsome ship, the captain told his aide, “Get me my red shirt!”  He fought fearlessly in his red shirt, winning the day.

After the battle, the aide asked, “Why did you want your red shirt?

“I knew I might be injured and didn’t want the men to lose heart!”

“Ah!  That makes sense.”

Just then the captain saw an entire fleet approaching.  “Get me my brown pants!”

Maniac in the Wilderness

Bill 2Bill ever survived my mother’s abuse.  When he was only a tiny lad of eighteen, he was six feet four inches tall. I think the fact that she wasn’t even acquainted with five feet gave him a feeling of superiority.  While I won’t say he had a smart mouth, I will allow it was extremely well-educated.  I am sure they only reason my mother hadn’t already killed him was because she hated to go to prison and leave her younger daughters motherless.  It certainly wasn’t because the thought hadn’t crossed her mind at least a thousand times a day since puberty attacked him and her by proxy.

Anyway, on occasion, they had to travel places alone together.  It was a misery to them both.  It didn’t help that the car was a tiny Volkswagon Beetle.  It’s always worth a person’s time to stop and watch a huge guy unfold himself and crawl out of a Beetle, a pleasure Bill dreaded providing mirthful onlookers.  It didn’t improve his mood on arrival, a mood already blackened with inevitable conflict he’d shared with Mother.

At any rate, on this particular day, they started home with Bill driving.  According to Mother, he was driving like a maniac: driving too fast, following too closely, cutting people off.  I have no doubt this was true.  It was his typical manner.  She insisted he slow down.  He crept along at ten miles an hour, hoping that was slow enough to please her.  She’d finally had enough, telling him to pull over.  She’d drive.  He critiqued her driving as soon as she started.  “Speed up!  Don’t ride the clutch! Change Gears!”

Finally, she’d had enough.  She pulled over.  “Get out!”  Delighted, he hopped out, thinking she’d come to her senses and wanted him to drive.  She drove off and left him standing on a country road, thirty miles from home.  She enjoyed the rest of the peaceful drive.  At  home, Daddy wanted to know where Bill was.  “I left him somewhere close to Bossier City.”

Daddy was shocked she’d left the little fellow all alone in the wilderness.  “Well, You’d better go get him!  It’ll be dark soon!”

“You go get him if you want to!  I don’t care if he never gets home!”

Daddy was a lot better at giving orders than taking them, but he jumped in his truck to rescue his precious son and heir.  Billy met him at the end of the driveway, brought home by a Good Samaritan.  He’d somehow survived his abandonment but I think he still drives like a maniac.  I don’t think he and Mother voluntarily ride together till today

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