Daddy

Hard Times

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My dad was born in rural Northwest Louisiana in 1924, growing up during the bleakest of The Great Depression.  Fourth of seven children born to a sharecropper who was barely scratching a living out of the red dirt, life got even harder for the family when his father died, leaving a destitute widow and six children under sixteen with only a mule, a Continue reading →

Instrument of Torture

I grew up way back in the 1950s and 1960s before the days of “Time Outs.”  I think I would have loved time out.  My parents had five wild kids.  They were partial to the time-   honored switch and belt system.  If Mother wasn’t too serious about the point she was making, she was fairly likely to pull the plastic fly swat off the nail by the stove and give us Continue reading →

I Quit! (From Kathleen’s Memoirs of The Great Depression)

One morning about a week after I started first grade, Daddy finished up the last of his coffee and ground out his cigarette as Mama scraped the few leftovers onto a plate for Ol’ Jack.  “All right kids.  Best be getting’ ready for school.”  He got up, putting on his felt had as he headed out the back door to do a couple of things before heading to his janitor job at Continue reading →

Terror in the Night(repost)

Mother awoke to the chilling realization that someone trying to break in the house. “Bill! Bill! Wake up Bill! Someone’s trying to get in!!”   Daddy didn’t normally sleep: he went into a coma, but adrenaline jolted him into action. He grabbed his loaded shotgun and crept to the window.  In the darkness, a tiny light glowed in the darkness of the front porch.  It wasn’t just Mother’s imagination!  Someone was trying to get in! Continue reading →

The Snake and the Flying Fencepost

Daddy had recently had surgery and was hobbling around on crutches in an ankle to thigh cast.  Feeling he just had to get outside for just a few minutes, he took his first trip into the yard.  Four-year-old Marilyn who was following him around suddenly starting screaming in terror.  She’d stepped on a snake!  Daddy balanced himself on one crutch, grabbed her, Continue reading →

HO! HO! HO! Deer Season Doesn’t Come But Once a Year

Daddy took his hunting very seriously.  This was a man’s sport, an entitlement.  Real men hunted and fished.  A man’s outdoor gear was a reflection of him.  Daddy would have sooner worn lace panties than not follow the unwritten rules. His hunting gear was a necessity, not an extravagance like a dependable car, bills paid on time, and clothes for Continue reading →

Working Hard to Get to Heaven

ChurchChurch was hard on me. All that sitting still and not talking were hard on a kid back when ADD was just called BAD. Believe me, I know. My prissy older sister, Phyllis, loved anything to do with church, making me look particularly bad. The only glimmer of hope was that she was slow and Mother threatened to leave her every Sunday. When I tried Continue reading →

Terror in the Night

man and womanMother awoke to the chilling realization that someone was trying to break in the house. “Bill! Bill! Wake up Bill! Someone’s trying to get in!!”   Daddy didn’t normally sleep: he went into a coma, but adrenaline jolted him into action. He grabbed his loaded shotgun and crept to the window.  In the darkness, a tiny light glowed in the darkness of the front porch.  It wasn’t just Mother’s imagination!  Someone was trying to get in! Continue reading →

“It couldn’t be helped!”

Mother has stage-four Terminal ADD. It hasn’t killed her yet, but it came close several times.  Back when I was a kid, it was called being disorganized, procrastination, and not getting things done. Having five kids, a-worse-than-unhelpful-husband, Mother had more work than six women could have accomplished. That put the icing on the cake.  Daddy should have been a Continue reading →