family stories

Mixed Nuts (Part II of III)

Repost:

When you are dealing with family, it clarifies things to have a scale.  You don’t have to waste time analyzing people when you have a ready reference.  This one works pretty well for us.

1.Has a monogrammed straight jacket and standing reservation on mental ward.

2.Family is likely to move away without leaving forwarding address. Has jail time in the past or the future

3.People say, “Oh, crap. Here comes Johnny.”

4.Can go either way.  Gets by on a good day.  Never has been arrested.  Can be  lots of fun or a real mess. Relatives usually will invite in for coffee.  Likely to have hormone-induced behavior.

5.Regular guy. Holds down a job.  Mostly takes care of business.  Probably not a serial marry-er.  Attends  church when he has to.

6.Good fellow. Almost everybody likes him or her. Volunteers for Habitat for Humanity.  Manages money well enough to retire early.

7.High achiever.  Business is in order.  Serves on city council.

8.Looks too good to be true. What’s really going on?

9.Over-achiever. Affairs are in order.  Solid citizen.  Dull, dull, dull.  Could end up as a 1 Continue reading →

Bill and the Bed Slat

Biil and his mean mama

Biil and his mean mama

My mother was hard on my brother, Bill. Totally unconcerned about his tender psyche and self-esteem, she spanked him when he was a tender child. She was a tiny, “not tall” woman with a squeaky voice to match, sounding a lot like Minnie Mouse. It was ridiculous seeing her flap away at one of us with a plastic fly swat, but she gave it her best shot from time to time, anyway. Not wanting to be part of such a ridiculous show and avoid further embarrassment was the most likely inducement to better behavior.

Bill maintains he got more than his share of spankings, but most of us feel she neglected him. One day when he was about six, he confronted her, “Mama, you wupped me five times today!” Stricken by this accusation, she answered him, “I know son. I should have wupped you more, but I can’t give you all my time. I have four other children who need wupping.”

The last time she brutally beat him, he was eighteen years old, over six feet four inches tall, and had ragged her one day till she wanted to murder him. After a final smart remark as he went out the back door, he bent over and waggled his behind at her. Overcome with fury, she grabbed up a bed slat conveniently standing beside the back door and threatened him.

“Bend over and grab your knees, boy!” He thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. He bent over, grabbed his knees just as she demanded, and waggled his behind at her again for good measure, just in case she hadn’t seen enough the first time. She drew back and smacked him across the rear as hard as she could manage. POW! The percussion verberated across the woods like a rifle shot!

Bill fell to the ground, proclaiming, “You broke my back! You broke my back!

Terrified, she imagined herself going to jail for child abuse, even though he was past eighteen and towered more than a foot above her, leaving two little girls without the comfort of a mother. Mustering bravado, she threatened. “Get up from there or I’ll get you again, boy!”

He hopped up and strode around the corner of the house, laughing to my dad who’d enjoyed the whole episode. “That smarts! I didn’t think she could hit that hard!”

Happy Birthday Bill. Watch out for Mother!

Let ’em Get Their Own Damned Cheesecake!

A simple comment can say so much.  For instance, I overheard a comment from my seventeen-year-old son that cleared things up for me far more than hours of counseling ever could have. He was trying to enlist his sister in some planned mayhem, probably because he had no money for gasoline, and she replied, “Now, Mom and Dad aren’t going to be happy when they find this out.” Continue reading →

Rubbernecking

 

Rubberneck 1Rubberneck 2

Though they were not actually deranged, they might have been described as teetering somewhere between pleasantly eccentric and moderately maddening, depending on whether you met them just met them socially or had to interact with them on a regular basis. Both held Master’s Degrees, Cookie’s in Education and Uncle Riley’s in Mathmetics. Cookie was head of a large public school system in Texas and Uncle Riley Continue reading →

Fish Tale

We were all going fishing! Katie, Johnnie, and Aunt Ellie had come to spend the night. Before daybreak the next morning, carrying a picnic lunch, we all headed for the deepest part of Cuthand Creek, where the biggest, laziest catfish lay in the deep water, under the tall trees, waiting for foolish little water critters to drift by. Luck was with us that day as we Continue reading →

Working Things Out With Chris

Chris and Frogs0002
original art by Kathleen Holdaway Swain

Chris was the meanest kid around.  He threw rocks, kicked his dog, stole lunch money out of desks, broke in line for lunch, and was sassy to the teacher.  He had a giant pile of sand in his yard and dared anyone come near it.  All the kids avoided him.

This was a problem for me and my brother Billy when Mother visited Miss Alice, Chris’s next door neighbor. We sure didn’t want him to spot us so we always played in the far side of her shady yard.  One day, we were making villages of stick houses with mossy fields and sandy tracks for roads when, out of nowhere, POW!!  A rock popped me on the head, knocking me goofy.  When I quit seeing stars, I heard Chris laughing, “Ha!  Made you look!”

Look nothing!!  He nearly made me dead!! We jumped up and chased him, but he left us in his dust, fuming!  We had to come up with a plan to get that creep.  We puzzled and plotted the rest of the day.  He was the biggest, fastest, meanest bully around, so we’d have to outsmart him.  We decided to spy on him the next time Mother went to visit Miss Alice. 

We got our big chance the next day.  He glared when we went in her gate, just waiting to torture us.   The ladies decided to drink their tea in the backyard.  Even Chris knew he couldn’t  us get at us with adults around, so he skulked back to his own yard and kicked at his dog to cheer himself up.   We lay on our stomachs and crawled into the bushes to spy on him as he stomped over to where his mother was working in her flower bed.

Chris was even mean to his mother.  He sassed her when she told him to help, stepped on her flowers, sprayed the cat with water, and kicked over the flower pots.  Suddenly, he went crazy jumping and screaming.  When she finally caught up with him, she said, “Chris, it’s nothing but a little bitty frog!!!  He can’t hurt you!! Just stay still and I’ll get him. I don’t know why you’re so scared of a little bitty frog.”

That big bully was bawling like a baby.  “Get him off! Get him off!  Get him off!!! I hate frogs!” We had our plan!

We headed to the pond and collected a few frogs as soon as we got home.  The next morning at school I slipped in to the class room and got to work hiding frogs.  I put a couple in Chris’s desk, a couple in his pencil box, and slipped a really nice one in the pocket of the jacket hanging on the back of his desk.  I barely finished before the first bell rang.  Chris strolled in after the last bell.  All I had to do now was wait.  I did wish Billy could be here for the fun.

The frogs stayed quiet as we all settled down.  I kept waiting for the fun to start.  After a while, I got involved in a story the teacher was reading and forgot about the frogs.  That’s when it happened.   “Ribbitt!  Ribbitt!  Ribbitt!”   We all started giggling.

“Who did that?”  Miz McZumley was not amused.

“Ribbitt!!  Ribbitt!!”  Kids guffawed!  The class was out of control.

Miz McZumley whacked her ruler down on her desk.  “That does it!  Storytime is over!  Get out your pencils and workbooks.”

You can imagine what happened next.  Two fine frogs jumped out of Chris’s desk.  He screamed and ran in place.  The whole class was hysterical as they chased frogs.  The teacher was furious at Chris for bringing frogs to class.  He blubbered a pathetic defense “I didn’t!! I didn’t! I hate frogs!”  Two more frogs jumped out of his desk, looking for their buddies.

“Then where did all these frogs come from?”  She wasn’t convinced.  Chris got paddled and was sentenced to pick up trash at recess.  I couldn’t wait for him to put on his jacket!!!  My bully problems were over.  There were going to be a lot of frogs in Chris’s future.

 

Killer Tomatoes

Mama kept me close her side when we were home alone. If she did let me go in the yard on my own, I had to be close enough to come running in an instant when she called. The only exception was a trip to the toilet.  Since it wasn’t polite to answer from the toilet, I kept quiet knowing, she’d be watching for me to come out before mounting a search.  She Continue reading →

Ain’t Fitten for the Dawrgs

The Elam family lived nearby, excellent neighbors, though not too long descended to Cuthand Creek from the Ozarks. You did have to watch your step around pipe-smoking Granny in her long skirts, brogans and speech bearing the distinctive mark of ‘the hills.’  A feisty, old lady, she tended to get fired up when offended.  I loved her distinct language, Continue reading →

The Trouble With Ducks

I loved hearing my grandpa Roscoe get cranked up on a good story. His best were about devilish pranks he was part of as a boy.  This is one of my favorites.

duck drowning         ” I was over at my friend Everitt’s house one day.  For some reason, his mama didn’t like me much, so I pretty much tried to steer clear of her.  Well, we’d been to the barn to get Everitt’s cane pole and was headed for the creek, when we noticed that Miz Maxey, Everitt’s mama, had let her flock of ducks out. She was real proud of them ducks.  There was a mama duck with about a dozen ducklings just ahead of us.  They was just tiny little things, probably was gonna be their first time in the water.  Mama Duck went right on in with her brood following her.  They swam just like they’d been doing it for years.  Just as they was about to get to the other side, one of us (I think it must’ve been Everitt) chunked a piece of wood in the creek.  Them and their mama ducked under and come up on the other side.  I was on that other side and chunked it back across.  They ducked under and come up on the other side again.  It was so funny, I guess we’d done it more than we realized before we noticed fewer ducks were coming up.  We also hadn’t noticed Miz Maxey headed our way, mad as hops.  She’d seen what we was up to and I took off.  Last I knew, she was whaling Everitt, and yelling after me, “Run, you little devil, run!  I’ll git you next time!”  I kept my distance for a good long time!”