family stories

Miss Laura Mae’s House Part 5

bacon

I dawdled a bit to talk to Miss Laura Mae one morning as she put plum butter and a piece of bacon on the hot biscuit she’d split for me. “Floyd died twenty years ago today. It shore don’t seem like it?”

That caught my attention. “Who shot him?”

She and Mother both burst out laughing. “Why nobody shot him, honey. He just got sick and died.” 

“Looks like she’s been watching too much ‘Gunsmoke’.” Mother said, but I could tell she wasn’t really mad. “Linda, don’t be asking stuff that’s none of your business. Get your biscuit and go stand on the top step!” Mother sputtered. I certainly knew better than to ask nosey questions, but sometimes my curiosity got the best of me.

“She didn’t mean no harm,” Miss Laura chuckled, “But I tell you who I could’a shot.”

I lingered on the top step to listen in. I needed to know who Miss Laura Mae could’a shot.

“Floyd come in awful sick after work one Friday evenin’. He had a pain in his groin an’ it was all swole up. I couldn’t get him to let me call the doctor, but he was ready to go long before daylight. Betty Lou and the baby come to stay with the kids while me an’ her ol’ man Roy took Floyd in to the doctor in his truck. They done surgery soon as we got there, but Floyd had done got gangrene in his intestines. They wasn’t a thing they could do. I stayed with Floyd and Roy went on home to tend to stuff. I told him not to let on to the kids that Floyd was a’dyin’. I figured they’d find out soon enough when I was there to tell ‘em. Glomie was a’goin’ with Mack Thompson to the pitcher show that night like she’d been a’doin’ Saturdays for a while. They’d been a wantin’ to git married, but she wasn’t but sixteen and I told her she was too young. I got married at fifteen. I knowed what it meant to be tied down too young.

Well, Floyd died along about ten-thirty Saturday night. It was up in the morning before I got home. I let the kids sleep, and had biscuits in the oven before I went to wake ‘em up. When I went in the girl’s room, Glomie hadn’ ever come in. Myrt said she slept so hard she didn’ even know. I was scart to death. I didn’ know if her an’ Ray had had a wreck or what. Seems like we would have heard somethin’ though. Well, I had to go ahead an’ tell the other kids. O’ course they took it somethin’ awful. I was worried about Betty Lou. She was about four months along with a new baby, but she done alright. There wasn’t nothing to do but wait. After a while, Myrt came in a squallin’ an’ tol’ me she thought Glomie and Mack might’a run off and got married. Glomie had been talkin’ about it. I could’a shot her and Mack Thompson fer pullin’ such a trick.

Sure enough, about eleven-thirty that morning, just as neighbors was a’startin’ to bring food in for the mourners, here come Glomie and Mack, all nervous-like. Glomie thought all them folks was there to look for her. She was hurt that while her daddy was a’dyin’ she had slipped off and got married. I told her, ‘Well, you done made your bed. Now you got to lie in it.’ 

Mack turned out to be a purty good feller. He works and goes to church with ‘er ever Sunday and breaks up my garden ever’ spring. They been together ever’ since an’ had three kids. The oldest one is ‘bout to graduate, valedictorian of his class. You just can’t never tell how things is gonna turn out. Sometimes, it’s good God don’t let us run things.”

Gnawful Cousin

My brother weighed ten pounds at birth. He was born in the car on the way to the hospital but that’s a story for another day. My cousin Eddie, a colicky, pint-sized baby, was about four months younger. One afternoon when Billy was about five months old and Eddie about one month, Mother and Aunt Bonnie put both babies on a blanket on the living room floor while they had coffee in the kitchen. Billy cooed and played happily while Eddie wailed incessantly, as usual. When they finished their coffee, the mothers went to check on the babies. It turns out Poor Eddie was crying for a good reason. Husky Billy who was teething had maneuvered himself around where he could gnaw on Eddie’s skinny little leg. The poor baby’s leg was red from ankle to above the knee.

Conquering Corwin (Part 1)

Pooped pantsIn my family of “Mixed Nuts” Cousin Corwin was the winner, hands down.  When he was about twelve, he and his twin Kelvin got in a little “dust up” with the police, so it seemed like a good time to get out of town.  Aunt Essie called Daddy, asking if the twins could come spend a few days.  Now if the image “twins” brings to mind thoughts of “barefoot boys with cheeks of tan,” think again.  Kelvin to all intents and purposes, could have passed for normal, but Corwin was nuts.  At five foot eight and two hundred and sixty pounds, he was physically intimidating.  His pale blue eyes blazed with madness.  He ripped through a fried chicken like a chain saw.  Mother had to double the amount she normally cooked the minute he arrived.

Aunt Essie’s call for relief was well-timed.  Mother and Daddy were just about to leave on a much-anticipated vacation.  Though Mother could only hear Daddy’s end of the conversation, it was clear he was assuring Aunt Essie “taking the boys will be no problem.  I’ll straighten them out. We’ll come get them as soon as we get back.  They can stay as long as they want.  They’ll always have a home with us.”  He hung up, turning to Mother.  She was murderous!  Like any right thinking human with twelve years’ experience with Corwin, she despised him.  She’d spent most of those years defending her girls from his attacks.

“Are you crazy?  I don’t want that maniac out here!  He is not coming!”

“Yes, he is!  I’ve already told Essie we’ll come get them as soon as we get back from vacation. I’m going to bring those boys out here, put ‘em to work and straighten ‘em out.  There’s not a kid in the world I can’t conquer!”

“You can’t straighten them out.  You deserve what you get!  Go get them whenever you want to.  We’re not going on vacation!”

Conceding that point, Daddy left, returning several hours later returning with two sullen, hostile boys.  Since neither Mother nor the girls had anything to say to him either, it was a quiet house except for chicken bones crunching when Corwin ate.  Corwin was exhausted after his big supper and brush with the police so Mother showed him to his bed right after supper.  As soon as she cleaned up the kitchen, she went on to bed, leaving Daddy up by himself.  He was horrified to find Corwin in his bed when he got ready to turn in.  He went to find Mother.  She bunked in with the girls, partly to protect them.

“Corwin’s in my bed!” Daddy roared.

“Yep.  You may as well go ahead and get started straightening him out tonight.”  She turned over, the bed shaking with her giggling.  Daddy knew when he was whipped.

He got up, blasting the boys out of bed the next morning about six.  They were sullen, rubbing their eyes.  He was full of false cheer, enjoying the prospect of teaching them to work, turning them into productive humans.  They dragged away from the table, out into the dawn’s early light.  They were back at noon, to eat and rest in the heat of the day.  The boys were unhappy.  I don’t think their morning had gone well.  Daddy was trying to force a good mood on everybody.  After an hour and a half’s rest, he had them back at it.  They ate, bathed, and fell in bed that night.  The next morning, he had to drag them out of bed, openly hostile.  They took potshots at him at breakfasts before he dragged them off.  By noon, things clearly had heated up.

By the fifth day, Daddy was sick of them, but stuck in the nightmare he’d created.  He had alienated everybody.  In one camp, Mother and the girls hated him.  In the other, he was spending his vacation trying “straighten out” two juvenile delinquents who openly despised him and made his life a misery on every turn. It was a challenge having to having work like a dog trying to teach them to work when he’d planned to be on vacation.

There was no escaping the nightmare as he spent his nights with the corpulent, malodorous, psychopathic Corwin, snuggled up against him.  One morning Daddy got up to find he had no clean underwear in his drawer.  While he was searching, the putrid scent of feces drifted from the general area of his closet.  He investigated, finding that Corwin had suffered digestive issues, soiled his dainties and concealed them deep in Daddy’s closet, rather than admit to his weak sphincter.  Exhausting his underwear wardrobe, he’d helped himself to Daddy’s, which he also soiled and concealed.  Daddy had had enough.  He made Corwin take the whole disgusting pile outdoors and wash it. Corwin found he didn’t care for washing aged crap out of his (and Daddy’s) drawers, retching the whole time.  He felt Daddy ought to wash out his own, even though Corwin had crapped them all and was doubly insulted when Daddy insisted he scoop up the piles of poop and haul the filthy wash water far from the house to dump it.  He would have had absolutely no problem leaving the slimy, stinking mess lying on the ground next to the faucet. To everyone’s relief, Corwin called Aunt Essie, begging to go home.  That saga had ended with Daddy finding a kid he couldn’t conquer.

To be continued

https://nutsrok.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/mixed-nuts/

Conquering Corwin (Part 1)

Pooped pantsIn my family of “Mixed Nuts” Cousin Corwin was the winner, hands down.  When he was about twelve, he and his twin Kelvin got in a little “dust up” with the police, so it seemed like a good time to get out of town.  Aunt Essie called Daddy, asking if the twins could come spend a few days.  Now if the image “twins” brings to mind thoughts of “barefoot boys with cheeks of tan,” think again.  Kelvin to all intents and purposes, could have passed for normal, but Corwin was nuts.  At five foot eight and two hundred and sixty pounds, he was physically intimidating.  His pale blue eyes blazed with madness.  He ripped through a fried chicken like a chain saw.  Mother had to double the amount she normally cooked the minute he arrived.

Aunt Essie’s call for relief was well-timed.  Mother and Daddy were just about to leave on a much-anticipated vacation.  Though Mother could only hear Daddy’s end of the conversation, it was clear he was assuring Aunt Essie “taking the boys will be no problem.  I’ll straighten them out. We’ll come get them as soon as we get back.  They can stay as long as they want.  They’ll always have a home with us.”  He hung up, turning to Mother.  She was murderous!  Like any right thinking human with twelve years’ experience with Corwin, she despised him.  She’d spent most of those years defending her girls from his attacks.

“Are you crazy?  I don’t want that maniac out here!  He is not coming!”

“Yes, he is!  I’ve already told Essie we’ll come get them as soon as we get back from vacation. I’m going to bring those boys out here, put ‘em to work and straighten ‘em out.  There’s not a kid in the world I can’t conquer!”

“You can’t straighten them out.  You deserve what you get!  Go get them whenever you want to.  We’re not going on vacation!”

Conceding that point, Daddy left, returning several hours later returning with two sullen, hostile boys.  Since neither Mother nor the girls had anything to say to him either, it was a quiet house except for chicken bones crunching when Corwin ate.  Corwin was exhausted after his big supper and brush with the police so Mother showed him to his bed right after supper.  As soon as she cleaned up the kitchen, she went on to bed, leaving Daddy up by himself.  He was horrified to find Corwin in his bed when he got ready to turn in.  He went to find Mother.  She bunked in with the girls, partly to protect them.

“Corwin’s in my bed!” Daddy roared.

“Yep.  You may as well go ahead and get started straightening him out tonight.”  She turned over, the bed shaking with her giggling.  Daddy knew when he was whipped.

He got up, blasting the boys out of bed the next morning about six.  They were sullen, rubbing their eyes.  He was full of false cheer, enjoying the prospect of teaching them to work, turning them into productive humans.  They dragged away from the table, out into the dawn’s early light.  They were back at noon, to eat and rest in the heat of the day.  The boys were unhappy.  I don’t think their morning had gone well.  Daddy was trying to force a good mood on everybody.  After an hour and a half’s rest, he had them back at it.  They ate, bathed, and fell in bed that night.  The next morning, he had to drag them out of bed, openly hostile.  They took potshots at him at breakfasts before he dragged them off.  By noon, things clearly had heated up.

By the fifth day, Daddy was sick of them, but stuck in the nightmare he’d created.  He had alienated everybody.  In one camp, Mother and the girls hated him.  In the other, he was spending his vacation trying “straighten out” two juvenile delinquents who openly despised him and made his life a misery on every turn. It was a challenge having to having work like a dog trying to teach them to work when he’d planned to be on vacation.

There was no escaping the nightmare as he spent his nights with the corpulent, malodorous, psychopathic Corwin, snuggled up against him.  One morning Daddy got up to find he had no clean underwear in his drawer.  While he was searching, the putrid scent of feces drifted from the general area of his closet.  He investigated, finding that Corwin had suffered digestive issues, soiled his dainties and concealed them deep in Daddy’s closet, rather than admit to his weak sphincter.  Exhausting his underwear wardrobe, he’d helped himself to Daddy’s, which he also soiled and concealed.  Daddy had had enough.  He made Corwin take the whole disgusting pile outdoors and wash it. Corwin found he didn’t care for washing aged crap out of his (and Daddy’s) drawers, retching the whole time.  He felt Daddy ought to wash out his own, even though Corwin had crapped them all and was doubly insulted when Daddy insisted he scoop up the piles of poop and haul the filthy wash water far from the house to dump it.  He would have had absolutely no problem leaving the slimy, stinking mess lying on the ground next to the faucet. To everyone’s relief, Corwin called Aunt Essie, begging to go home.  That saga had ended with Daddy finding a kid he couldn’t conquer.

To be continued

https://nutsrok.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/mixed-nuts/

Christmas Revelations

We’d put away all the Christmas decorations weeks before.   We’d finally gotten our eighteen month old, John, to bed after several unsuccessful attempts and had collapsed, totally whipped.  Meanwhile, he’d  been entertaining himself rummaging quietly through a dresser drawer we’d thought inaccessible.  After a few minutes, he toddled into the living room victorious dragging garland, an ornament in each hand, announcing, “Santa Claus is coming to town.  I’ll be damned!”

The Most Fun You’ll Never Have, Kathleen’s Amazing Bathroom Tour!

image

Kathleen Swain and her daughters

Upper Left, Linda Swain Bethea, Right, Phyllis Swain Barrington

First Row Left, Kathleen Holdaway Swain (see how deceptively nice she looks)  Connie Swain Miller, Marilyn Grisham
It’s discouraging writing about my mother, Kathleen Holdaway Swain.  Despite my long, rich history of complaining endlessly about the trials of dealing with her, she keeps getting the best of me.  It’s made worse because I tower over her, outweigh her, and am much more physically imposing, but then, who isn’t?  I do my best to take care of her, and should I exhibit the slightest impatience, onlookers treat me like I am maligning a saint.  Granted, she is tiny, far less than five feet tall, has a squeaky Minnie Mouse voice, and looks like a delightful little old church-lady.  Though she smiles and greets every soul she meets, inwardly she is malicious and conniving, constantly plotting to make me look bad.  Sometimes it doesn’t take much.

Not so long ago, my sisters and I took Mother on a girl-trip.  We were laughing just before we got out of the car about the way she’d lecture us against potential bad behavior before she had to drag the five of us hyenas (her word) into a store or business. When we inevitably started to ask for stuff, anyway, despite her stern warning, she’d fix us with a look from Hell and warn, “Don’t start!  Just don’t start!”  That dried us right up.   

First of all, Mother is the slowest person in the history of Motherdom, in case I never mentioned it before.  As she walks along, she keeps a look out for lost coins in the parking lot and frequently finds them, additionally stopping to greet all passersby.  This was the first stop of the trip. I was hurrying ahead leaving her to drag up the rear, since I had to buy gas, thinking my sisters could keep her out of trouble.  Rather than dawdling with them as they got out of the car, she came running behind me like her life depended on not getting left, and believe me, it was not because she intended to buy gas.  She has four daughters to take care of that.  As a joke, she picked it where our conversation left off, calling behind me, “Linda, wait for me!  I want you to buy me…….” 

            Not realizing we had an audience of a couple in their late sixties, I called out behind me, without bothering to look, knowing she was just continuing our conversation from the car.  “Don’t start!  Just don’t start!”  Men in their fifties and sixties just love Mother, assuming she is just a sweet, little old lady, just like their dear mother.  They have no idea of the trouble she is capable of.  The man glared at me, striding into the store, leaving my poor, mistreated, little, old mother alone and uncared for, abandoned in the parking lot.  He took her by the arm and helped her into the store, making sure she had all the attention she needed.  He fixed her up with a sandwich and coffee, after fixing me with a scathing look of hatred.  I had no idea what I might have done till she rubbed my nose in it later.  I only wish he’d hung around long enough to know she was on her way to destroy the bathroom, literally, but more on that tomorrow.

To be continued…….

More Travels with Mother

hotmama.https://nutsrok.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/the-low-down-on-lunch-with-mother/
Travels With Mother (Part 2)

The Most Fun You’ll Never Have, Kathleen’s Amazing Bathroom Tour!

It’s Not What You Tank!

 

God was with us.  We got to our destination, Hot Springs, Arkansas without a lot more drama.  We checked into our room, a nice suite with two king-sized beds and an extra bed for the fifth in our party.  For some reason, though it was 104 degrees, we freshened up a bit before going out to see the town, allowing us to start out with a less vintage sweat.  Within minutes, we were rank.  Not to be deterred by a little thing like heat exhaustion, we explored every shop on Main Street, till Mother found a little shop selling belly-dancing costumes. She wouldn’t be budged.  Now, as I’ve said before, Mother is tight.  She had no intention of making such a frivolous purchase, but had to admire herself in one. Every inch of the stifling shop was crammed with exotic outfits with no space devoted to dressing rooms. The proprietor obviously didn’t expect belly-dancers to be overly modest. Not to be denied, Mother just slipped her favorite on over her clothes, despite the heavy customer traffic. She is a little old church lady, after all.  I would never have expected so much business in a store selling belly-dancing costumes. 

Mother had us hold her things while she tottered and struggled into her racy choice, bumping customers at every turn.  They had to have thought her mind was gone and we should have looked out for her better, or that we were in geriatric sex-trade, pimping her out to some perverted creature with a fetish for demented, antique belly-dancers.  Neither choice made us look good.  Eventually, she pranced a bit and had us take a picture or two for her Sunday School Class, before being convinced to leave.  The store clerk was not amused by any of this, but I figured if she thought she was big enough to straighten Mother out, she could go for it.  I know when I am whipped. 

Bigsmilemotorcyclemama

An amused motorcycle guy and his girlfriend were taking all this in and invited Mother to meet their friends waiting on their bikes just outside. I think the burly guys exact words were, “She reminds me so much of my mama!” With him as Mother’s escort, we escaped the wrath of the store owner who was obviously thought it was past time we left.

Mother charmed his friends.  Her new friend invited her for a ride, which she refused, but she did climb behind him on his bike to get her picture made.  Regretfully, he helped her off, after telling her, “Ma’am, you don’t have to go home with these girls if you don’t want to.  We coaxed her away after she exchanged phone numbers and addresses with them, insisting they all come visit.  
Later that evening, we made it back to our hotel, only to find the air-conditioning and bathroom both out of order in our room.  Mother took charge, went to see the manager, and got us transferred to the only room they had left, the Presidential Suite, complete with a hot-spring bath.  I suspect the manager thought, “She reminds me of my mama.”  For once, a bathroom drama with Mother worked in our favor.

We enjoyed the rest of our visit.  On the way home, my sister Connie hung her purse strap on a toilet handle and broke the toilet in a station.  She takes after Mother.

 

The Quirky Dining Adventures of My 96-Year-Old Mother

I am running a series I originally did in 2016.   Just so you know, Mother is thriving at ninet-six.

Mother is ninety-something years old and enjoys the health and enthusiasm of a ten-year-old, with a few added quirks. Let me preface this by assuring you, I don’t mean her mind is going. She hasn’t changed in all the years I’ve had the great fortune to know her. Also, I am not complaining about her, just passing on a few things I’ve learned a person will experience should they spend a little time with her.

Lunch out with Mother always starts with an understanding. I understand I will be paying unless she tells me otherwise ahead of time. Let me give you a little background. She is a tightwad. When we stop for a cup of coffee, she always holds her little yellow change purse where I can’t see it, pretends she has no change, even though it’s bulging, and asks, “Can you pay for my coffee? I hate to break a dollar for coffee.” Technically, this is true. She never said she didn’t have change. She just hates to break a dollar for coffee. If we went to a car dealership, she’d say, “Can you get this. I hate to write a check for a car.”

First of all, bathrooms are a priority at every stop. In the name of good hygiene, a bathroom visit is the first order of business at a restaurant. Handwashing before a meal is a laudable practice. As soon as we get in line for a table, or are seated, Mother makes a bee-line for the bathroom. This is not out of the norm. The minimal bathroom visit is thirteen minutes. This includes waiting in line, stepping back for anyone in distress or with children, conversation with other bathroom goers, and meditation and stall inspection time. Then she has get in line to soap, wash, dry, and inspect her hands,face, teeth, and general appearance before leaving. It goes without saying, she steps out of line at any opportunity, giving up her spot to any and all, in the name of kindness. (Kindness to the public, not her party) Eventually, she rejoins her party at the table, after we have put the server off a time or two.

As often as not, we’ve already ordered beverages, which include an iced tea for her. This implies someone else will be picking up the tab for lunch, since Mother has no intention of ordering tea. “It’s too expensive. I’ll have tea at home.”
She peruses the menu while regaling us with tales of those she observed or became acquainted with in the restroom or enroute back to the table, fascinating fare. I am not kidding. She has come back with people’s life history, including tales of running away with the circus, being born with an identical twin incarcerated in one’s body, to miraculous spontaneous cancer cures. I have no idea how she elicits these stories. Eventually, she chooses her choice of the chicken and vegetable offerings of the day, to the relief of the server, and turns her attention to the other diners.
There’s always a story. She sees someone she knows, someone who looks interesting, or someone who reminds her of her Cousin Kathleen from Virginia, and she’s off. “Remember how Cousin Kathleen always shut everything down to listen to her “bituaries” (obituaries) on the radio, and was so full of stories about all the dead people? She knew all the recent and ancient gossip on everybody and resurrected it when their obituary aired.” Cousin Kathleen did know a lot of great stories. It was interesting to hear about the spicy pasts of her octogenarian neighbors, proving there’s definitely nothing new under the sun.

Mother enjoys her food, and is a slow eater. I usually finish my meal and have dawdled over two or three glasses of tea by the time we let the server know Mother needs a takeout box. She loads it up with her leftovers, and anything left on our plates, eventually rounding up enough for two or three meals at home. “If you’re not going to eat that chicken, I’ll put in my takeout box…and if you don’t want the rest of your salad, and that roll……..”
By this time, someone in the group has confessed that they will pick up her tab, though she protests unconvincingly, just for the sake of good manners. She was “raised right.”

Mother disappears to the bathroom for her post-prandial visit, “as long as we had to wait for the check.” The check came while she was gone. She came back, totally surprised to find me paying check. “I didn’t know the check would come so soon. I’ll pay you back later…….
It’s always easy to tell I am supposed to pick up her ticket. If she intends to pay, she lets me know before getting to the restaurant. “Now don’t try to pick up my ticket. I’m paying my own today.” This usually happens when it’s her trip to the doctor or her special errand. I am content to pay for her meals forever, it’s such a pleasure to still have her company.

Quite often, a stranger, usually a man in his sixties or seventies from a nearby table insists on buying her lunch, just because they’ve enjoyed overhearing her conversation at lunch, often saying she sounds like their mama. They were “raised right.”
Another trip to the bathroom is in order before we hit the road. Another thirteen minutes, while I pay the tab and keep up with her takeout box. Finally, torn from the bosom of all her new friends, ready for the next step. ………..To be continued

My Dog’s Quirky Habit: Treasures in Bed

I’ve written before about how my little dog, Izzie, puts his treasures in our bed. This morning when I got ready to make the bed, I found he’d adapted his habit a bit. He regularly hides toys among the bed covers. In addition, he’d hidden half a hotdog and a dog snack. He also stashed half a piece of garlic toast he’d salvaged from the trash.

Fortunately for Izzie, his brother, Croc, our mastiff mix, is too heavy. He cannot get up on the bed to make off with Izzie’s goodies.