family

Quirky Family Evening

img_1799Kathleen Swain and her children.  Front left to right, Connie Miller, Kathleen Swain, Marilyn Grisham, Phyllis Barrington.  Back row, Linda Bethea and Bill Swain.  How did she ever birth all these behemoths?

A few evenings ago, Mother and her five children met for dinner at a local restaurant.  Afterwards, we went to her house to visit.  As soon as we no longer had to be socially acceptable, we regressed into our former roles and behavior, teasing Mother and each other.  At various times, we ganged up on each other just like we always had, sometimes with one sibling, sometimes another.

Once we got all that settled, we started noting interesting things about Mother’s house. Does this clock situation look odd to anyone besides me?

img_1796It seems she has been meaning to call the clock repairman but just hasn’t really had time, besides, that other clock was on the clearance rack at Walmart for a dollar.  She never did explain the lightbulb accessory.  She looked around meaningfully at the crowd.  “I guess I could use my Christmas money, but ………..”  I wonder which loser will crack first.

After my brother left, she asked us to turn her mattress.  I didn’t get a picture, but each corner of her mattress is numbered.  She didn’t remember why.  I really didn’t need to know.

When we were sitting in her living room later, we notice that each of her four speakers has a number (or two) that matches a corresponding number on the ceiling. I will only offer one photo as proof.  For some reason, she had numbered a couple twice and added a letter.  She said the theory was on a need-to-know basis.  Fortunately, I don’t need to know.

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I am not concerned that Mother is developing dementia.  She is no different than she has ever been.  Oh, yes.  A large rubber band encircled the front door knob, despite the fact that she has a security system, dead-bolt, and safety bar propping door knob securely.  That’s so she will know the door is locked.  Go figure!

 

Terrible Tom Turkey

Awfuls chasing tureyRepost of ne of my favorites.  Original art by Kathleen Swain.

When I was a kid, we often went places normal people would never intentionally go. Periodically, Daddy would realize he hadn’t spent any time around social misfits and needed a fix, bad! One day he announced he’d had heard of somebody who lived back in the woods about four miles off Tobacco Road who had a thingamajig he just had to have. Never mind, all five kids needed new shoes and the lights were due to be cut off. He NEEDED that thingamajig!

He HAD to check it out, driving forever down rutted roads that looked like they might disappear into nothing. Finally we got back to Mr. Tucker’s shack. Mr. Tucker was wearing overalls and nothing else. Apparently buttoning overalls wasted valuable time needed for  junk collecting. While Daddy and Mr. Tucker disappeared into the tangle of weeds and mess of old cars, car tires, trash, broken washing machines and other refuse scattered around the house and into the woods, Mother sweltered in the car with the five of us..

It was hot. It got hotter the longer we waited in the punishing July heat. We opened the car doors, hoping to catch a breeze as it got hotter and hotter. The baby and the two-year-old were squalling out their misery as Mother fanned them. Daddy wasn’t known for the consideration he showed his family. He was “the man.”

Mrs. Tucker, a big woman in overalls came out in the front yard and started a fire, never even looking our way. She probably thought our car was just another old clunker in their yard. It got even hotter. We were all begging for a drink of water. Daddy was still gone admiring Mr. Tucker’s junk collection. Daddy could talk for hours, unconcerned that his family was sweltering in the car. He thought misery was character-building. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know the people he’d just stumbled up on. We spent many an hour waiting in the car while he “talked” usually having stopped off on the way to visit some of his relatives.

Finally, in desperation, Mother got out of the car, introduced herself to Mrs. Tucker, and asked if we could have a drink of water. Mrs, Tucker turned without speaking, went into the house, came back out with some cloudy snuff glasses, called us over to the well, drew a bucket of water, and let us drink till we were satisfied. That was the best water I ever had. Mrs. Tucker pulled a couple of chairs under a shade tree and Mother sat down. We all sat down in the dirt in the cool of the shade and played. Daddy was still prowling around in search of junk, but things looked a lot better after we cooled off and had a drink. Mrs. Tucker was interesting to look at, but didn’t have a lot to say. She had a couple of teeth missing, had greasy red hair that was chopped off straight around, and long scratches down both arms.

Mother tried to talk to her, but Mrs. Tucker wasn’t a great conversationalist. I suspect she didn’t know too many words. I couldn’t take my eyes off the missing teeth and long scratches down her arm. Despite Mother’s attempts to quell my questions, I found out a lot about her. She didn’t have any kids. It didn’t take long to figure out she “wasn’t right.” I was fascinated and wanted to ask about what happened to her teeth, but knew that would get me in trouble, so I asked how she scratched her arms. Mother told me to hush, but fortunately, Mrs. Tucker explained. It seemed she was going to put a rooster in the big pot in the front yard to scald him before plucking him. He’d scratched her and gotten away before she could get the lid on. Apparently she didn’t know she was supposed to kill him first. Just at the point where things were getting interesting, Daddy came back and I didn’t get to hear the rest of the story.

Mrs. Tucker gave us a turkey that day, teaching me a valuable lesson. Don’t ever accept the gift of a turkey. Ol’ Tom was going to be the guest of honor at our Thanksgiving Dinner. Daddy put him in the chicken yard and Tom took over, whipping the roosters, terrorizing the hens, and jumping on any kid sent to feed him and the chickens. We hated him. Mother had to take a stick to threaten him off when she went out to the chicken yard. He even flew over the fence and chased us as we played in the back yard till Daddy clipped his wings.

Before too long, we saw the Nickerson kids, the meanest kids in the neighborhood, headed for the chicken yard. Mother couldn’t wait to see Tom get them. Sure enough, Ol’ Devil Tom jumped out from behind a shed on jumped on the biggest boy, Clarence. Clarence yelped and ran. The other boys were right behind him, swatting at the turkey. Unlike us, they didn’t run out with their tails tucked between their legs. They launched an all-out attack on Tom, beating him with their jackets, sticks, and whatever they could grab. They chased him until they were tired of the game. Tom never chased any of us again, but Mother never got around to thanking the Nickersons.

Ask Auntie Linda

Auntie LindaDear Auntie Linda, My husband, Bob, had a cancerous kidney removed four years ago. Our marriage was never good. He is a truck driver and did well until three weeks ago when he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor after a seizure. Now, he is unable to work. His prognosis is poor and he needs my health insurance. We have three children. I had already told him I was leaving before all this happened. I could never leave him, now, with him being sick. He had already confronted me because of some text messages and emails he found, though I am pretty sure he has been unfaithful as well. He knows I have gotten involved with Mike, co-worker. I want a relationship with him.

Bob, our children, and I are all devastated by Bob’s illness and terminal diagnosis. They know I was leaving before all this happened, and immediately they all started saying I had to stay now. I feel awful about Bob’s illness. I know I am hopelessly stuck. Both our families are involved now. We live in small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Our minister has already been here to visit.

I know I have to stay and care for Bob till the end. That is not my issue. Mike is very supportive. He understands I cannot leave Bob and isn’t asking for that. There is a workshop for my job I must attend in San Francisco next month. Bob’s parents will be coming to stay with him and the children while I must be gone.

Mike wants us to be together that week. I don’t see how it would hurt since Bob knows how I felt before his illness. I wouldn’t hurt Bob by rubbing his nose in it, but I don’t see why I shouldn’t take this opportunity since Bob knew I was leaving him before his diagnosis. Am I wrong to want some happiness before what promises to be a miserable, lengthy ordeal?  Molasses Molly

Dear Molasses,  No, you are not wrong to want happiness, but this is not the time to put yourself first.  Escape will not solve your problems.  Examine your conscience.  You know Bob’s time is limited.  If your relationship with your children is important, don’t lose sight of the fact that it will be impacted forever.  Their sympathies will be with him.  If the ethics of that don’t concern you,  being involved with a coworker may be a sexual harassment issue, not to mention the damage to your professional reputation and possible job loss.  On a more practical level, you and Bob share a financial situation.  You could be left with astronomical expenses should you lose your job.

I suggest you back off, support Bob and the children through his illness, and consider your needs when the situation changes. I can’t see how adding another problem to the mix will help. Auntie Linda

P. S.  Old Mike sounds like a real buzzard.

 

Dear Auntie Linda,  Our parents had to go in a nursing home a year ago because two of my sisters and I could no longer care for them at home.  My father had end-stage lung disease requiring professional care.  Mother has early Alzheimer’s Disease.  Though she appears fairly functional on visits, she requires constant attendance since she wanders off and can’t manage her daily care.  The problem is, my father died three weeks ago.  Now, one sister who lives several hours away insists Mother is well enough to return home with some help.  Of course, Mother is all for it.  The problem of managing her care would fall on me and my two sisters who live near Mother.  Even though she appears pleasant and competent, Mother can not be left alone.  She was leaving burners on even before she went in the nursing home.  Several times we had to go looking for her in all weather.  Even though we have made this clear to my sister, she insists Mother can manage with home health.  She says we (not her) can check on her a couple of times a day.  The responsibility of Mother’s care would fall on those of us who live in town, and we have already tried everything.  I am worried my sister will move her home over our objections.  What do we do? Exhausted

Dear Exhausted, Make it clear to your sister that you will not accept responsibility for caring for your mother at home.  If your sister insists on bringing her home, involve the social worker and adult protection if necessary.  Your sister cannot force you to assume responsibility.

 

 

Wonderful Times of Reading Aloud

It has always been a joy to hear my sister Phyllis read aloud.  Till my last days, I will cherish a few days during school Christmas vacation in 1961.  Phyllis was enjoying reading Great Expectations in her ninth grade English class and offered to read a few pages aloud. Daddy was working second shift at the paper mill, so once he left and the remains of the noon meal were cleared away, we settled in the cozy living room for a reading.  I would have been eleven, Billy, eight, and Connie and Marilyn, two and a few months old.  Enraptured by the story of Pip, the cruel Estella, and the mad Miss Havisham, I would have probably saved the book first had the house caught fire.  I loved the kindly Jo and despised Mrs. Jo, his mean sister.  Phyllis read for several hours as the babies played on the floor in the warm front room, enjoying being in the middle of us all clustered together around the reader.  We broke only long enough to get a simple supper together and do evening chores.  Soon we were back in place, where she held us till bedtime, happy captives.

The next day, we rushed through chores to be free for reading again, settling in as soon as Daddy left.  Phyllis read on and on, as we did whatever chores we could that didn’t, interfere with her reading, folding laundry, ironing, watching the babies.   Mother hemmed a skirt and hand-worked buttonholes in a blouse.  Mother just felt we couldn’t through another afternoon listening to Phyllis read.

The next day, and the next, Phyllis read as we hung on every word about foolish, arrogant Pip.  Finally, late on the fourth day, Phyllis finished Great Expectations,

leaving me questioning and hungering for more.  Why had Miss Havisham gone to so much trouble to be cruel?  How could Pip be so ungrateful and foolish?  What happened afterwards?

Phyllis read us many more books, to my great joy, introducing me to some great literature.Great Expec

Shot in the Foot, Again

imageMother's 88 bdayHave you ever seen a happier face?MotherIt was a perfect storm.  I’d made up my mind not to take Mother to the garden center any more this summer, not that I have anything against garden centers.  Mother is addicted to flowers, just like I am.  She just isn’t strong enough to dig holes.  In contrast, I’d never be able to convince anyone I couldn’t dig a hole.  If I tried, they’d hand me a shovel and point me toward China.  Anyway, I’m tired of digging holes.  If all the holes I’ve dug this summer, in my yard and hers, were lined up end to end, they’d reach…..well, you know.

Anyway, one of my meddling sisters called one day last week and invited Mother and me to lunch.  It sounded innocent enough.  At the worst, I would only get stuck with her lunch ticket.  Mother doesn’t believe in paying her own ticket when she dines with her children.  I can’t say I blame her, after all the biscuits and gravy she’s cooked over the years.  Connie’s husband generously treated us all to lunch. I had a wonderful time till somebody shot me in the foot.

“__________ has their plants marked down.  Anybody want to stop by?”

Mother was the first in line.  I was loading my buggy up when I heard Connie ask Mother.

“Is that all you’re getting?  Get whatever you want and I’ll pay for it!”

“Nooooooo!  ………..only if they sell the holes to go with them!”

Mother was deaf to my protests and loaded her cart.  Connie went home proud of herself for being good to her mama.  The checkout lady even gave her a lantana someone had left at the counter because she looked so cute standing behind that cart full of plants.

I took my posthole digger over a couple of days later and spent some time digging holes.  If anyone else buys her any plants this summer, I will have to commit mayhem.

,Garden hint:  Posthole diggers are great for digging holes for your plants!

Personality

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Leda Felicity Dayton

I recently had the pleasure of visiting with this young lady, my granddaughter. She has personality a’plenty.

Happy Birthday, Mother

Mother at Cracker Barrel
Mother’s Birthday lunch. Far left, Phyllis Barrington, center front Kathleen Swain, back center, Linda Bethea, far right, Marilyn Grisham
Mother's 88 bdayimage
Today, May 5, 2016, is Mother’s birthday. I am not permitted to say which one. Suffice it to say, she is more than eighty-five and less than ninety. She and my father were married thirty-five years and raised five children. She is a remarkable woman, goes to the gym twice a week, and walks at least a mile a day. She likes to get next to puny men at the gym so she can show off how tough she is. She works in her yard every sunny day and keeps a cooler of water out on her back steps for walkers and children in her neighborhood. She’d never worked a public job till after my dad died, but worked for many years first as a pre-school teacher, then as an office manager. I can’t imagine how it must have felt to have to seek a first job in one’s fifties. She is long retired, though never unoccupied. She is active in her church, community, family, and goes out in her car every day to her coffee group and to run errands. We are all so lucky to have her as our mother.Mother sitting in yard

Easter with the Family

I am the barefoot girl standing in the back row. Mother made me wear a dress, since it was Easter. By the time this photo was made, I’d been playing football with my cousins. Two buttons were missing from my new blouse, finished it only that morning. The hem of my skirt was dragging. Needless to say, Mother was not pleased.
Eater egg hunts with my cousins were a lot more like cage boxing than gentle competitions. I am sure I fit right in. I had more than forty first cousins, mostly wild animals. By the time my aunts and uncles herded them to the scene of the Cousins on Christmascrime, they just opened the car doors and all Hell broke loose. Exhausted from defending themselves and the babies on the ride over, it was every man for himself. God help anybody in the way.

They’d rip through the house under the guise of needing the bathroom and a drink of water, destruction in their wake, before being cast out into the yard like demons into swine. Actually, they were cast out onto the other cousins. We’d get a baseball or football team going, all the big kids on one team, so the little ones never got a chance to bat, or got mowed down in football. They’d go squalling in to their nosy daddies who’d come out long enough to straighten us out a vague semblance of fairness, often lingering to play a while.

Once the egg hunt started, it was chaos. It was survival of the meanest, shoving kids down, stomping eggs little ones dropped, squalling, and even a few bloody noses. Crazy Larry kept trying to pee on us while we were distracted. One aunt in particular didn’t think her big kids ought to have to share at the end of the hunt, even though they had twenty eggs and babies had none. “They found ‘em!” It didn’t matter that she’d only brought a dozen eggs to the hunt.

Ah, family. Better get busy. I have company coming. But not Crazy Larry. He’s in the witness protection program.

Ask Auntie Linda, Straight Answers from a Straight Shooter

Auntie LindaDear Auntie Linda, I am a twelve-year-old girl.  My mother left me with my grandma when I was born.  I lived with her till she died.  After that, I had to move in with my mother’s older sister.  She has four kids in a small house and they don’t really have enough of anything to go around.  I don’t know how they’d make it without the money they get for taking care of me.  My cousin is seventeen and kind of snotty, but I love the three little boys.  My cousin Jody and I are supposed to be taking care of them when Aunt Cindy works nights at the nursing home but Jody usually disappears into her room or slips off with her boyfriend.  I do like the school and am doing well.  My mother showed up last week and wants me to move in with her.  I’ve always wanted to live with Mama, but am worried because she’s always off here and yonder, usually following a druggie boyfriend.  She says she and Bobby(the boyfriend) are going to get jobs and at a factory a couple of towns over and get a place so I can l live with them.  Bobby creeps me out, but maybe Mama can get a place for just us.  I’d have to change schools and don’t want to do that.  What should I do?  I am kind of scared to leave Aunt Cindy’s even if it is crowded.  Good Girl

Dear Good Girl,  It won’t hurt to stay at Aunt Cindy’s.  It’s safe even if its crowded.  Don’t put too much stock in Jody being snotty.  Sisters say the same thing about each other.  It’s a bad idea to move in your mother’s boyfriend’s house.  Give her a chance to get a job, work a while, and get a place of her own before you even consider it.  Life is very stressful and her situation is unsettled.  What’s the hurry, if you are okay?

Auntie Linda Dear Auntie Linda, I am seventy-four and have four children.  I live next door to my oldest.  The other three live a couple of hours away, so they don’t get over too often.  Louise, the oldest takes care of everything I can’t.  Her husband fixes my roof, changes the oil in my car, and treats me just like a mother.  I have very little money, so that won’t be an issue.  I do worry over how to divide my belongings.  How can I be fair and still express appreciation?  Poor Mama

Dear Poor,  Why not ask the daughter who helps the most if there’s anything she’d like to have before the rest is divided.  Let her pick one special thing.  If it’s something you can part with now, it might be good to let her have it now so you can see her enjoy it.  The others don’t have to know.  How you divide your things is your business.  Auntie Linda

email your questions to Ask Auntie Linda lbeth1950@hotmail.com