Styling on Shoes

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I am thankful I’ve achieved one of my life goals!  I got Keds!  All the snooty kids wore Keds when I was in school.  Since there were five of us to shoe, Mother showed no interest in putting us on our path to snootiness.  When the guy at the shoe repair shop gave her notice that shoes were beyond repair, she’d bring home a new pair, sized by the pencilled imprint of the lucky kid’s foot.  She always went prepared,  just in case.  We were a one-car family and there was no possibility of a special trip just for shoes.  We were whatever she brought home.  There was no chance we could claim ugly shoes didn’t fit.  She knew what she was doing.

Sometimes,  one of us tripped Mother up by having a major shoe malfunction resultingin shoe acquisition that couldn’t be put off till Thursday, Daddy’s payday and her scheduled trip to town,  in that miserable situation.  On more the one occasion, she made a panicky trip to the dry goods store in Cottage Valley and bought the only shoes available.  We hated these crummy sneakers, or “Tennies” as we called them, the ugly, red-headed stepchildren of Keds.

Girls got a style somewhat reminscent of Keds, usually white, wide in the arch, just right for duck feet. Bill got hightop, black basketball shoes with a white basketball on the ankle.  Naturally, we had to wear theses lovelies till they fell apart.  Mine were always dirty by the time I got to school, even if I were lucky enough they’d just been washed, and frankly, they weren’t washed that often.

My brother Billy got off the bus in one shoe after school one afternoon.  Mother exploded. “Boy, where’s your shoe?”

He wasted some time trying to explain and she wasted more trying to make sense of the story.  Finally, she got down to business and hauled him back to school to retrieve it from deep in a mass of brush on the wrong side of a hurricane fence.  Undoubtedly, he’d pushed it deeper in his rescue attempts.  Eventually, they showed up at home victorious except for scratches on her forearms and a tick or two.

 

 

Monday Funnies – Dog Wisdom Memes Part TWO…

This will make you feel good.

Everything Smells Just Like Poke Salad • The Kindle Version

From the lovely Erika Kind. Thanks.

I Will Tell You These Secrets

Reblogged on Nutsrok.

Smorgasbord Open House – Author and Blogger Linda Bethea

Reblogged from Smorgasbord. Thanks Sally

The More Things Change (part 2)

imageAs I hold my tiny granddaughter, I remember melting into Grandma’s pillowy softness, smelling her Cashmere Bouquet Talcum Powder, unaware she’d ever played any role but “Grandma.” Though I’d always heard Mother address her as “Mama” I stung with jealousy when I found out Grandma actually was her mother. Sure, I was her favorite grandchild, I later learned the other kids thought the same things, the mark of a good grandmother.

We only visited Grandma In summers, since she lived a few hours away.  I loved following her to tend the chickens where She made that praise Della, her Dominecker Hen for laying a double-yoked egg yesterday, remarking to the others they might consider doing the same. She told Sally not to start acting “Broody.” She didn’t have enough her eggs to “set” her yet. She counted her chickens and found Susie missing. Grandma got a long stick and poked under bushes till she flushed Susie out from her “stolen” nest. I felt so important crawling way under the bush bringing two warm eggs. Chiding Juanita, an ornery red hen, she threatened to invite her to Sunday Dinner, saying “You’ll make some mighty fine dumplings if you don’t lay a couple of eggs this week!” I wasn’t that invested in Juanita and don’t recall whether we had dumplings or not.  Once I had the thrill of seeing Grandma fearlessly make short work of a black chicken snake lounging in a nest with an egg in his mouth.  Unbelievably, she grabbed him barehanded and slung him to the ground, where she dispatched him to snake heaven with the shovel she always carried outdoors.

Daily, we walked her yard, shovel in hand,checking out the flowers, moving one or two that needed a better home, filling a hole here, rooting out a weed there.  She gathered tomatoes, okra, and squash from the garden, later serving them at lunch, tomatoes still warm from the sun.  Before one, we made the ritual walk to the mailbox with a letter or two. Grandma often got two or three letters a day since she wrote to numerous friends and relatives.  She’d read these to us as a group, “Oh!  Winnie’s girl Opal’s little girl is a princess in the school play.  She’s your third cousin.  All of Winnie’s kids did good.  They were all smart as whips!” going on to tell us stories of her girlhood with the distant Winnie.

Since Grandma admired her, I envied my unknown cousin, though I’d never wanted to be a princess before or since. Sometimes, the letters included pictures, which we poured over.

As my granddaughter and I relaxed in a dear friend’s garden, I collected cleome seed to share with her sometime down the road, a reminder of this day.  I do hope my little one recalls sweet stories of our our times together.

The More Things Change

 

family6Grandma slipped silently out the back door.  The last I remembered, I’d been asleep on the train.  Not wanting to be left alone, I rolled to my belly and hung off the edge of her high bed, my pudgy feet peddling till I thudded solidly to the unfinished wood floor.  Following her out into the dewy grass of the early daylight, I saw her lurching one-sidedly under the burden of a heavy bucket of corn in one hand, a shovel in the other, totally unaware of being tailed.  As I padded silently behind, sandburs pierced my baby feet.  Dropping to my round bottom, I screamed at the insult.  The grass at home was soft and welcoming.  Startled by my banshee cries, Grandma turned.  “Oh my Lord.  I thought I shut the door behind me.  You could have gotten in the road!”

Dropping the bucket of corn, she rushed over to comfort me, seating me on the shovel blade to pick sandburs out of my feet.  By the time she’d finished, I pointed out a huge yellow road grader a few yards away on the side of the dirt road.  “You want to see that?  Okay.  We’ll Go over.  It’ll be a while before the workers get here.”  I stood on the shovel blade and bent to hold the handle as she pulled me over to have a closer look, lifting me as high as she could to get a closer look at the gigantic tires.   I am still fascinated by heavy machinery. 

After I had my fill of the road grader, we went back for her bucket of corn to feed her chickens.  I liked the chickens just fine, though they weren’t nearly as interesting as the road machine.  We had chickens at home.  The barn next to the chicken yard was a different matter.  Since the grass was worn away between the two, I toddled over to have a look.  A chain with a padlock ran through two holes in the big double doors, denying me entry.  I peeked through into the shade of the barn to see a child-sized table and chairs, rocking horse, tricycle, and a red wagon.  Grandma’s little black and white dog dropped to his belly and wiggled into the barn through deep, sandy hole worn under the doors.  I dropped to my belly tunneling right behind him.  Had Grandma moved just a little slower, I’d have earned my prize.  Instead, she pulled me by my bare feet back into the barn yard. 

I howled in protest as she explained those things belonged to the child of the landlord and were off limits to me.  I couldn’t wrap my thoughts around that, having no idea what a landlord was, but I knew what toys were, and meant to have them.

Back in the house, after that major disappointment, Grandma cooked breakfast, and I met my first true love, bacon.  I have not tasted anything that wonderful before or after.

That is my first conscious memory, though I must have been familiar with Grandma.  Mother dated it to around the time I was eighteen months old.  I am older now than Grandma was then, and  like her, carry a shovel as I putter in the yard, an excellent implement to have on hand for a little impromptu digging or snake-killing.  Some things never change.

sun hat

 

Everything Smells Just Like Poke Salad • The Kindle Version

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The Kindle Version Can Be Found Here

Please tell your friends………

Also available in print version for those of you who love the feel of a book in you hand!

Cool Water

Half empty

Since I frequently mention Mother in humorous stories, I thought perhaps I should tell you more of her true nature. She lives in a quiet neighborhood on a corner lot, always busy working in her yard, which over the past thirty years, she has landscaped lovingly. For more years than I can remember, she has kept a cooler of ice water on her back porch, with cups, for any passerby, who needs a drink. She washes and reuses the cups, discouraging waste. Most days, she is on hand to greet the kids when they are getting in from school to ask about their day, encourage them, or just talk. Should she hear unkindness, she reminds them, “You can’t talk like that. How would you feel if someone called you that?” If a child tells her of being bullied, she says, “Tell your parents or teacher. If they don’t help, come back and let me know. We’ll figure something out.” She has become so well-known, that walkers of all ages in her neighborhood stop for a drink, carefully returning their used cups to the bin for rewashing. Many times I’ve seen kids tap on the back door or hunt her up in the yard to let her know she has fallen down on the job by letting the water cooler run dry. So many stop by that she can’t possibly know them all by name, although they certainly know hers.

Mother loves light, so when she isn’t working outdoors, she usually keeps her backdoor open, often privy to interesting exchanges between the kids.  They feel perfectly free to talk in front of her, like she is part of the landscape.  Recently, she passed on this conversation between a couple of boys who were taking a break on her back steps, about ten feet from where she sat.

Jason started out.  “This place is old.”

“Yep.” Amos agreed.

“This house is old.”  Jason offered.

“Yep.”  Amos was the king of “Yep!”

“That truck is old.”

“Yep.”

“Mrs. Swain is old.  Old people are so full of wisdom and uh, uh, uh…..”  Finally Jason was at a loss for words.

“Oldness!”  Quipped Amos.

Over the years, many of her “children” have grown up and moved out of her neighborhood. It is very common for her to be in a restaurant, on a parking lot, or anywhere in town and have a young police officer, store clerk, nurse, or bag boy call out, “Heh, Mrs. Swain, remember me? I used to get water at your house?” What a positive way to see how many lives she has touched over the years.