memoir

Texas Chili Cookoff

Texas Chili Contest

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.”

Here are the scorecards from the advent: (Frank is Judge 3)

Chili #1 Eddie’s Maniac Monster Chili

>Judge #1 — A little too heavy on the tomato. Amusing kick.

>Judge #2 — Nice, smooth tomato flavor. Very mild.

>Judge #3 — (Frank) What the hell is this stuff?! You could remove dried paint on my driveway. Took me two beers to put out the flames. I hope that’s the worst one. These Texans are crazy!

Chili #2 Austin’s Afterburner Chili

>Judge #1 — Smoky, with a hint of pork. Slight jalapeno tang.

>Judge #2 — Exiting BBQ flavor; needs more peppers to be taken seriously.

>Judge #3 — Keep this out of reach of children. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to taste besides pain. I had to wave off two people who wanted to give me the Heimlich maneuver. They had to rush in more beer when they saw the look on my face.

Chili #3 Ronny’s Famous Burn Down the Barn Chili

>Judge #1 — Excellent firehouse chili. Great kick. Needs more beans.

>Judge #2 — A bean less chili, a bit salty, good use of peppers.

>Judge #3 — Call the EPA. I’ve located a uranium spill. My nose feels like I have been snorting Drano. Everyone knows the routine by now. Get me more beer before I ignite. Barmaid pounded me on the back, now my back bone is in the front part of my chest. I’m getting pie-eyed from all the beer…

Chili #4 Dave’s Black Magic

>Judge #1 — Black bean chili with almost no spice. Disappointing.

>Judge #2 — Hint of lime in the black beans. Good side dish for fish, or other mild foods; not much of a chili.

>Judge #3 — I felt something scraping across my tongue, but was unable to taste it. Is it possible to burn out taste buds? Sally, the barmaid, was standing behind me with fresh refills. That 300-lb woman is starting to look HOT…just like this nuclear waste I’m eating! Is chili an aphrodisiac?

Chili #5 Lisa’s Legal Lip Remover

>Judge #1 — Meaty, strong chili. Cayenne peppers freshly ground, adding considerable kick. Very impressive.

>Judge #2 — Chili using shredded beef, could use more tomato. Must admit the cayenne peppers make a strong statement.

>Judge #3 – My ears are ringing, sweat is pouring off may forehead, and I can no longer focus my eyes. I farted and four people behind me needed paramedics. The contestant seemed offended when I told her that her chili had given me brain damage. Sally saved my tongue from bleeding by pouring beer directly on it from the pitcher. I wonder if I’m burning my lips off. It really pisses me off that the other judges asked me to stop screaming. Screw those rednecks.

Chili #6 Pam’s Very Vegetarian Variety

>Judge #1 — Thin yet bold vegetarian variety chili. Good balance of spices and peppers.

> Judge #2 — The best yet. Aggressive use of peppers, onions, and garlic. Superb.

> Judge #3 — My intestines are now a straight pipe filled with gaseous sulphuric flames. I pooped on myself when I farted and I’m worried it will eat through the chair! No one seems inclined to stand behind me anymore. I need to wipe my butt with a snow cone.

Chili #7 Carla’s Screaming Sensation Chili

>Judge #1 — A mediocre chili with too much reliance on canned peppers.

>Judge #2 — Ho-hum; tastes as if the chef literally threw in a can of chili peppers at the last minute. **I should take note that I am worried about Judge #3. He appears to be in a bit of distress, as he is cursing uncontrollably.

>Judge #3 — You could put a grenade in my mouth, pull the pin, and I wouldn’t feel a thing. I’ve lost sight in one eye, and the world sounds like it is made of rushing water. My shirt is covered with chili, which slid unnoticed out of my mouth. My pants are filled with lave to match my shirt. At least during the autopsy, they’ll know what killed me. I’ve decided to stop breathing; it’s too painful. Screw it; I’m not getting any oxygen anyway. If I need air, I’ll just suck it through the 4-inch hole in my stomach.

Chili #8 Karen’s Toenail Curling Chili

>Judge #1 — The perfect ending, this is a nice blend chili. Not too bold, but spicy enough to declare its existence.

>Judge #2 — This final entry is a good, balanced chili. Neither mild, nor hot. Sorry to see that most of it was lost when Judge #3 farted, passed out, fell over, and pulled the chili pot down on top of himself. Not sure if he’s going to make it. Poor fella, wonder how he’d have reacted to REALLY hot chili.

Aunt Ader’s Place Part 4

dog-trotScary stories are best when told by a true believer.  On a cold, dark night, the women and children clustered cozily around the fireplace at Aunt Ader’s old house while the men were out hunting.  By the firelight, mothers in straight back wooden chairs bumped rhythmically back and forth to lull their little ones off to sleep, as their older kids stretched out pallets in the front room enticed by oft-repeated family tales, some funny, some sad, some terrifying.

I recall this sad story as deliciously heartbreaking, though I never knew any of these distant relatives of relatives.  My Great-Aunt Jo told of her pregnant Cousin Lou on her daddy’s side from way over in Alabama.  Back before Aunt Jo was born, Cousin Lou left her baby Jessie Mae on a pallet under the shade of an oak while picking beans with her family nearby.  Lou looked back often to check her sleeping baby.  It was resting so well, she picked on a bit longer, hoping to get enough beans to can a few jars. Little Jessie never made a peep.
When Lou’s basket was filled, she came back to retrieve the baby and was horrified to find the shade had shifted and the baby burned beet-red in the sun.  Lou and her mother, Ruth, rushed to sponge the baby with cool spring water. For three days, Little Jessie lingered between life and death, before dying.  The family had to restrain poor grief-stricken Lou from pulling the baby from the coffin at the burial.  She gave birth to a seven-month baby a few days later that only lived a few hours.  Though she went home to live with her husband, all she did was pine for her lost babies.  She became catatonic, unable to eat, dress herself, or leave the chair where she rocked her dead child’s rag doll. 

A few months after her grieving young husband took her home to her mama, Ruth, it became obvious she was pregnant again.  It was hoped the new baby would bring her back to life though she never responded to the new baby Sally, just kept rocking Baby Jessie’s doll.  Ruth was left to raise little Sally and manage her sick daughter.  On good days, Lou was like a docile child, sitting quietly or doing simple tasks.  On rough days, she cried and rocked her rag doll.  On her worst days, she wailed and tried find her baby or throw herself in the well.  When she finally roused enough to try to hang herself, Ruth had to put her in the asylum where poor, deranged Lou managed to hang herself after a couple of months. Because she’d killed herself, she was hastily buried at the asylum and couldn’t have a Christian burial with her lost babies.  Afterwards, people swore they could hear Lou crying, trying to get to her babies’ graves in the church cemetery dark, moonless nights.  I still get tingles thinking of it.

spooky-halloween-scare-october-holiday-8

Aunt Ader’s Place Part 3

warhome2Uncle Dunc and Aunt Lucille had a houseful of kids.  Sometimes we were lucky enough that Bert, the eldest would drop in our games, raising our rough play to fever pitch.  Naturally, he tired of us soon, leaving us deflated when he went about the business.  I was always leery of the two big girls, since they seemed smart-aleck.  Ava, the oldest, was pretty with a bouncy, blonde ponytail.  Though I overheard Mother whispering she was trashy for mowing in her swimsuit out by the road, I thought it made perfect sense and worked well for her since she married a guy with a greasy ducktail and had a baby before her seventeenth birthday.  I kept a watch on both girls to see if they sprouted leg hair like Aunt Lucille.

swimsuitI believe Ava saw herself like this.

Prudy, the next girl was skinny with a lot of pimples and wore those pointy bras common to the late fifties and early sixties.  Her swimsuit kind of wrinkled over her skinny behind so she didn’t mow out by the street.  In fact, she worked as a carhop down at the drive-in for a while after dropping out of high school before hooking Toxie, who worked at the filling station and always smelled like oil.  Red rags always hung out of his back pocket.  I never had any contact with Toxie except when he yelled at me from under the hood of an old car suspended from a tree branch in Uncle Dunc’s front yard when I hit a ball into it.  I never really liked him much after that.

Carolyn was just a couple of years ahead of me, but must have been easier to control than her big sisters.  Her long hair, parted down the middle was braided so tightly it pulled her eyes back and hung in tight, thin braids almost to her waist.  The other girls must have rebelled against their mother in their dress and behavior, but at ten or so, mousy little Carolyn suffered under Aunt Lucille’s bossiness, since she only wore dresses and had to attend fundamentalist church services along with her mother and younger twin brothers.  They were wild little boys a couple of years younger than I, still peed their pants a good bit, and didn’t seem worried by Aunt Lucille at all.  Carolyn said she wouldn’t be allowed to have boyfriends, drop out of school, or cut her hair till she was sixteen.  I was only six or seven at the time, but that seemed very unfair to me.

I made a point to stay out of Aunt Lucille’s way since she yelled at kids a lot and was fond of using a switch on Carolyn and the little boys when she could catch them.  I certainly never asked to spend the night like I did at Cousin Sue’s and Cousin Cathy’s house.  We only visited Uncle Dunc for a year or so, until he moved off Aunt Ader’s Place, which incidentally was very near Daddy’s favorite brother.  I heard later he gave up drinking after a car-wreck left him paralyzed and he had no one to depend on but Aunt Lucille.

Aunt Lucille adapted well to Uncle Dunc’s disability. Before long she was hauling him regularly to gospel meetings along with beleaguered Carolyn and the recalcitrant twins. I heard he even got sanctified and was no longer Dunc the Drunk.

Aunt Ader’s Place Part 5

blackdog2

As the fire burned low, the lap babies had been put down and knee babies were sleeping quietly on pallets, the chatter from the older children slowed as they; too, drifted off to sleep at the feet of their mothers, aunts, and grandmother.  Desperate for ghost stories, I hung on the words of my superstitious Maw Maw. She held grandchildren spellbound with all the scary tales she knew.  Should she falter, one of my aunts urged her on…”Mama, remember about the big black dogs running through the house.” Her stories were more terrifying because she believed them with all her being.

“Oh yeah, lots of times, late at night, if the wind was still, and the night was dark, me and Granny could hear them ghost dogs, howling and scratching at the door, trying to get in…but once in a while, if the moon was full, we’d see them big, black devil dogs blowing right into the room where me and Granny was, made of black smoke from the fires of hell with blazing coals for eyes.  We hid under the covers, ‘cause Granny said ‘if you ever looked in them fiery eyes, you was bound for Hell’.”

Opportunities to hear scintillating stories like these were rare, usually limited to visits with Maw Maw, my paternal grandmother. Mother could hardly snatch her spellbound children from the writhing mass of cousins clustered around Maw Maw’s knees. Daddy ruled the roost, and he liked the stories as much as anyone.  Mother held the ridiculous notion that tender minds didn’t need to hear scary stories, more concerned about the nightmares she’d be dealing with in a few short hours than the extreme pleasure they afforded us at the time.

I do wish I could hear and savor those stories again, unmolested by that nagging voice in the background.  “There’s no such thing as ghosts.  Those stories are just pretend, like cartoons. Now, go on to sleep and forget about them.”

Maw Maw by CarMettie Swain Knight, a champion ghost storyteller

Aunt Ader’s Place

Aunt Ader’s House was reminiscent of the two pictured here. I am reposting a serial from 2016. Most of my followers have not seen this

dog-trotI had no idea who Aunt Ader was, or that her name should actually have been pronounced Ada, but her old farm house was a wonder.  Uncle C H, my Aunt Jenny’s on-again off-again husband apparently enjoyed some claim to it, because over the course of my childhood, several of my relatives rented it, probably when they’d fallen on hard times.  It stood high on a hill surrounded by several huge oaks.  A rutted red-dirt drive curved its way up toward the house, dusty in summer and rutted deeply in rainy weather.   In the spring and early summer weeds sprigged up between the tire tracks, kept short courtesy of the undercarriage of the vehicles making their way up the hill.  Though Aunt Ader’s forebears had been prosperous landowners a couple of generations back, the land had been subdivided and sold off long before I came to know it.  To the eyes of a small child, it was welcoming with its deep front and back porches and wide, breezy dogtrot.  An enormous living room and kitchen opened off one side with three bedrooms on the other.  Fireplaces on either side furnished the only heat.  Bare lightbulbs dangling on cords sufficed to light the big, high-ceilinged rooms, welcoming ghosts to the shadowy corners. Rain on the tin-roof could be pleasant or deafening, depending on the intensity of the storm.   I was never tempted to stray far from the light, though the sunshine from the huge windows flooded those rooms in the daytime.

A water heater stood in the corner of the enormous kitchen next to the galvanized bathtub hanging on the wall.  The old wood stove was still in use, though the only indoor plumbing was water piped in to the sink in the one piece enamel sink and cabinet combination standing beneath the window, looking out over a large field with several pear and fig trees.  Several unpainted shelves served as storage for everything that couldn’t fit into the sink cabinet and pie safe.  A cord exiting the round-topped refrigerator was plugged into an extension cord connected to bare light bulb dangling from the center of the kitchen ceiling.  The light was turned off and on by a long string.  Strips of well-populated fly-paper hung near the windows.   An unpainted toilet stood slightly downhill about three hundred yards off to the left of an old barn.  We were warned away from the hand-dug well, enclosed in a wooden frame with a heavy wooden trap cover that stood a few feet from the back porch.  Mother was so adamant we not go near, I was sure it was surrounded by quicksand, just waiting to suck a foolish child in.  A bucket hung from a chain from the roof of the creaky structure.  Pigs were pinned up near the barn, though not far enough away to miss their smell, explaining the fly problem.

To be continuedwarhome2

Hilarious Hospital Mishaps: Curtis and the Pecan Pie Escapade

Image courtesy of Pixabay

With thirty years in nursing, you can well imagine I have my share of strange stories.  I worked in acute dialysis in the hospital, so knew my patients very well.  We talked about their lives, familis, dogs, whatever was on their minds.  One of my favorite patients was Curtis, a huge man, perfectly delightful, but developmentally challenged.  His thinking was about on the level of a eight-year-old.  Curtis had somehow gotten credit at a furniture store, bought a houseful of furniture, and not made a single payment.  He was being hounded for payment, so decided the best course of action was to go in the hospital, where he wouldn’t be bothered. When he told the nurse at the outpatient dialysis clinic he needed to go to the hospital, she explained he couldn’t be admitted unless sick.  He did some thinking and called her back to his chair telling her he had something for her.  (I can’t imagine how she fell for that.). He dropped an impressive lump of excrement into her outstretched hand and was admitted into the psychiatric unit of the hospital in short order.

He was happily ensconced at the hospital, soon moved to the medical floor.  One day he walked into my unit asking for a large patient gown.  He went on his way.  Curtis was not on my mind when I heard a lady out in the hall exclaim. “Oh my God! Take it!”  It seems she had been bringing a pecan pie to her hospitalized friend from church when she encountered seven-foot-tall Curtis, walking naked down the hall, looking for hospital staff to help him with his gown.  Curtis, hadn’t seen a pecan pie in way too long.  He dropped the gown, grabbed the pie and raised a clumsy fist when the poor woman resisted.  She gave up on the pie and fled shrieking.  Eventually, the whole thing smoothed over.  Curtis had his pie and his gown.  The hospital gave the lady another pecan pie and an apology.  By the time Curtis got home, his furniture had been repossessed, so he wasn’t harassed any more.  They all lived happily ever after, except of course for the nurse who got a handful of doo-doo.

Family Drama: Confiscated Secrets and Sibling Rivalry

Mother and Daddy were bipolar, as a couple, not individually. Daddy was generous with tales of his life on the wild side intended to edify and occasionally entertain.  In his youth, he’d selfishly used up the family quota of sin, carousing, drinking, gambling, fighting, and honky-tonking to his heart’s content.  Reforming after marrying Mother, he put all that behind him so he could rest on his laurels, be a good example, and watch us like a hawk.  Knowing the bad apples probably wouldn’t fall too far from the tree, he was suspicious of the crop he was reaping.  Mother, on the other hand, apparently had always had an over-developed sense of guilt and expected we’d just naturally behave well.  When we did mess up, she was “hurt, not mad.”  With five kids, it’s a wonder she survived the casualties.

Once my brother Billy managed to snag some girly books and hide them under his mattress. Mother found them and righteously confiscated them.  Lecturing him in her squeaky Minnie Mouse voice, she plunged them in the trash destined for the burn barrel.  Connie and Marilyn, our younger sisters enjoyed the whole production off to the side, always glad to see Billy in trouble.  Pained at the loss of his valuable property, Bill tolerated her complaints while he considered a better place for his next treasure trove.  Mother went on about her housecleaning and foolishly sent Connie and Marilyn to burn the trash.

What a bonanza!  While the rest of us had had to rely on conjecture and misinformation from our ignorant friends, these two had been blessed with a virtual illustrated encyclopedia of forbidden knowledge and filthy jokes.  Life just isn’t fair.  Mother was always was partial to them!

Jamey Awful’s Birthday Party Adventures: Tales of the Mean Turkey and Bugeater

Awfuls chasing turey
Awfuls chasing turkey

 

Awfuls in Pigpen
Awfuls in Pigpen

(Continuation of story of Jamey Awful’s birthday party, without a doubt, the most fun I ever had in my life.  If he gave a party today, I’d be there!)

Jamey’s birthday party was incredible. There was no sappy “Pin the Tail on the Donkey”, no party hats, just fun, fun, fun. Mama Awful didn’t concern herself with us, leaving us on our own.  Of course, we ran wild, ripping through mud puddles, jumping out the barn loft, and robbing chicken nests.  We splatted eggs against the side of the barn and climbed into fig trees breaking off a branch or two. My sandals were long gone and the skirt of my dress ripped from the waist band.  The sash ties were mud-caked.  From the look on Mother’s face when she walked over to get me, I could see she was not happy, not even going in for coffee like she usually did at neighbor lady’s houses. “I ought to tear you up for running wild like that, losing your shoes and tearing up your new dress.”


“But Mama, we was just playing.  We didn’t mess up nothing in the house!” I protested.  I usually got in trouble for meddling with people’s whatnots when we went to visit, a terrible wrong.

“ Don’t dispute my word!” she hissed through clenched teeth.  “”You’re never going over there again!”  My heart fell.  Surely she didn’t mean it!

I figured Mother would forget after a few days, but no……….No visits to the Awfuls. If they noticed they were being snubbed you couldn’t tell. We were always ready to play with them if they rambled through our yard on the way to bigger and better things. During this time Daddy brought home a huge, mean turkey, to fatten for Thanksgiving. He was a monster jumping, spurring,  and flogging us with when we had to feed the chickens and gather eggs. He even got bolder and started flying over the fence to attack us in our own territory. We stayed as far away as we could, but he ambushed us if he caught us off guard.

My personal favorite among the Awfuls was Junior who enjoyed a special claim to fame. He ate bugs and other strange items. He ate his first bug on a dare and liked it, saying it tasted like peanuts. From that time forward, he was generally known as Bugeater. The kids in the neighborhood took pride in finding the biggest, strangest bugs for him to eat. Bugeater did have standards, refusing to eat worms.

Before too many days, we were lucky enough to have Jamey, Bugeater, and Davey pay us a call. “Where’s that bad turkey?  I wanta see it.” demanded Jamey.  

“He’s out in the chicken yard but you better leave him alone! He’s real mean!”  I pointed out.  I watched them head for the chicken yard, wanting no part of that turkey.

Sure enough, that old devil turkey flew at them, ready to do battle. They screamed and ran like crazy, but not in the cowardly way we had. “Whoo whoo!  Turn turkey run!” they shrieked, chasing him all over the chicken yard, flogging him with their caps and sticks.  The terrorized turkey finally escaped up into the trees and stayed there till they sauntered off.  

“That ol’turkey ain’t so bad,” Jamey said as they banged the gate shut on the way out.

”Wait, where are you going?  Don’t you want to play?”  I liked them even better now.

”Nah, We’re going crawfishing over in Donnie Parker’s ditch.”  Jamey replied, ruining my day.

That turkey’s spirit was broken.  He never bothered us again. I liked those kids even better than ever after that.

I gave Mother a little time to forget before asking to go to the Awfuls. One golden day, she had a headache and wanted to rest on the sofa until her head felt better. We played quietly for a few minutes till she went to sleep. “Mother, can I go play with the Awful’s?” I whispered.  She didn’t say no, so off I went.

The Awfuls had the best place in the neighborhood. Overgrown bushes tangled into the fence so the yard was a jungle, a great place for adventures. Tall grass and junk in the yard made it easy to hide. We chased the sleeping hound dogs out of the abandoned cars and played cops and robbers. We pulled broken boards off the barn for fort-building. Best of all, there was a big tree with low-hanging branches by the front door. “Look at this!” Jamey shouted.  I followed  the boys up the tree and through a window into the attic. From there, we dropped through a hole into the living room ceiling and sneaked behind the furniture into a back bedroom where daft, old grandma was in the bed.

“Aigheeeeeeee!” she screeched, clutching her blankets like she’d seen a ghost. 

“Y’all git out’a there!  Don’t git your Granny stirred up.  I got a headache” yelled Mama Awful over the TV.

They showed us a secret way out through a hole in the floor of her closet. Pelting each other with dirt clods from their bare yard, I’d never felt so free.

Eventually, Mother came stomping over.  “What are you doing over here?  Don’t you ever go off without asking!” she said.  “I’m gonna tear you up!”

“But Mama, you said I could go!” I whined. dreading a switching.  “ I asked when you was layin’ on the couch.” I told her.  

I could see she remembered. “You knew I was asleep.  Don’t you ever pull that again.” she threatened. Sadly, that was my last visit to the Awful’s house.

Not too long afterward, the Awfuls showed up with little Becky Awful in tow. She was about three and overdue to join their traveling show. Daddy was unhappily cleaning out a clogged septic line, bailing nasty stuff into a wheelbarrow.  Not in a great mood, he sent the Awfuls on their way, not noting that Becky had remained behind playing quietly off to the side. She was making mud pies with clean white sand and septic drain sludge. As soon as he saw her, he howled for Mother. “Kathleen, get this kid out of here!  She’s playing in this excrement(paraphrased) and nasty as a pig!  Do I have to do everything?”  

“Bill, I didn’t know she was out there.”  Mother washed Becky a little under the hose and led her home.  Becky was so filthy and smelly it would probably have been easier to get another little girl than to try to clean her up. As it turned out, that wasn’t a problem. Becky showed up two days later in the same malodorous outfit.

Since we couldn’t visit the Awfuls anymore, we had to make do with whatever crumbs of joy they tossed our way. My parents had their noses out of joint because Mr. Awful had shut his pigs up in a small lot between our house and theirs. Not surprisingly, it really, really stunk. Mother had us helping her hang laundry on the line when we heard a huge ruckus next door. It seems Mr. Awful had noticed Jamey’s missing birthday shoes.  “You boys get out there and find them shoes or I’m gonna tear you up.  We ain’t got money to waste on shoes.”  he roared. I could have told him where one of them was, but Mother shushed me up. The boys made for the pigpen, wading around, looking in the muddy black hog-wallows seeking the lost shoes. Of course, it wasn’t long before Bugeater slipped and fell, then Davey, then Jamey. They forgot about the shoes and were streaking through the pig mud. Mud showered everywhere. The beleaguered pigs cowered in the corners, trying to save their bacon. Eventually, Mr. Awful came out in the yard to check the progress of the shoe search. Finding them in the pigpen meant big trouble. He pulled a spring of grass and threatened to switch them if they didn’t find the shoes.

“No don’t whoop me,” whined Jamey. Then the other boys chimed in.

“He backed down. “ Well, I won’t whoop you, but you gonna have to git a bath before bedtime.

It did my heart good to see they could get in trouble. It’s hard to live next door to kids with a perfect life.

Old Lady Borden: The Meanest Christian | Opinion and Troublemaker

witch 2 Old Lady Borden was a saint! We had it on good authority, hers. She had been widowed longer than anybody knew. Hateful as she was, had I been her husband, I would have claimed to be dead, too. Though she was devout in another denomination, she was in attendance at our little country church every time the doors opened. Her own church was twelve miles away and she didn’t want to bother anyone for a ride to services so far afield. It was much more expedient walk a few hundred feet and stir up no end of trouble closer to home, inserting herself fully into all matters related to church business, be it financial, theological, or just some sinner in need of her hateful opinion.
Mother was very particular about our language. We would have never been allowed refer to Ms. Borden by the B word, but she turned a deaf ear when we referred to her as an Old Bat. Old Lady Borden played a vital role pointing out flaws that might have gone unnoticed for a while, a pregnant bride, a baby with a crossed-eye, a child who stuttered, a woman who’d gained weight, or was a bad housekeeper. She begrudged any good fortune coming to a neighbor, such as good crops, or getting a good job. They were “gittin’ uppity.” Should a church member appear too prosperous, they were probably “gittin’ in the c’lection plate.”
Old Lady Borden was the first to the home of the bereaved, making sure to crowd the younger women out at the kitchen sink, then complaining loudly about how “lazy them gals was. “ Any one unfortunate enough to be handed a drying towel would be treated to her acid tongue about what a pitiful job they were doing. Nothing excited her more than a tragedy. Long before the days of cell phones, or even many house phones in our rural community, the school principal got the word that Mr. Barnes, the school bus driver’s father had collapsed and died a few minutes after his daughter Becky left on her bus route. The principal got in his vehicle, hoping to catch up with her before she home and found a shocking scene. When she stopped to let off Old Lady Borden’s grandson, the old woman rushed out to meet her at the bus stop with the horrible news. “Becky, yore daddy just dropped dead. He’s still a’ laying out in the yard a’waitin’ for the coroner.”
Naturally, Becky and her young children were distraught. There were still a half-dozen other children, some of them relatives, on the bus who’d heard the whole thing. They became overwrought at hearing the news of Mr. Barne’s death. Becky had no idea how to manage till the principal caught up to comfort and relieve her. He had to finish her route with her and the upset children still on the bus, since there was no other way to get them home. It was a shocking situation but at least the old bat had the pleasure of delivering the terrible news.
Old Lady Borden kept trouble stirred up.  She made every church business meeting to  make her opinion known, despite the fact that she wasn’t a church member and could not vote.  She bullied everyone she dealt with and tried to dominate her Sunday School Class, making it clear she had God’s ear and wouldn’t hesitate to use her influence.  She was the meanest Christian I ever met.