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
humor
Pooping with Brian
I got my daughter a Dalmatian for her thirteenth birthday. I do believe that was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. For about a day and a half, Annie was sweet. As soon as she got her bearings,she became a hyperactive, maniacal buzz saw, plundering and eviscerating everything in her path from shoes to the rag top on my husband’s MG, but that’s a story for another post.
At eighteen months, Annie’s hormones kicked in. Overnight, she was transformed into a nasty-tempered, sullen,farting, bitch, such a blessed relief. One day she was sitting between Bud and Mother farting up a storm. Bud and Mother each kept looking accusingly at the other, thinking surely they would eventually do the decent thing and excuse themselves.
Deciding to take her show on the road one morning, Annie decided the best thing for her to do was to tunnel under our neighbor’s back fence to pay him a call. Brian wasn’t in the yard, so she trotted into the house looking for him. He was deep in thought, sitting on the toilet, enjoying some quality time. Inspired by his wise example, Annie squatted and produced a fine example of her own. Though I didn’t see the actual event, I did get to hear about it in great detail.
The Sad Saga of the Beakless, Tailless, Gizzard-bobbing, One-leg Hopping chicken
Repost of an earlier post.
Being a farm kid is not for sissies and cowards. The dark side of the chicken experience is slaughtering, plucking, cleaning, and preparing chickens for the pot. I watched as Mother transformed into a slobbering beast as she towered over the caged chickens, snagging her victim by the leg with a twisted coat-hanger, ringing its neck and releasing it for its last run. We crowded by, horribly thrilled by what we knew was coming. It was scarier than ”The Night of the Living Dead”, as the chicken flapping its wings, Continue reading
Nursing Slip Up
I was reporting back to a doctor on his agitated emergency room patient I had just been caring for. Meaning to say, “He was really bucking and fighting.” I got tangled up and said “f–cking and biting.” Trying to recover before the doc reacted, I snapped back,” but fortunately I didn’t get bit!”
Surprise
I need to change my expectations. Bud and I have been married a long,long time. He just called me out to the shop to see a Big Surprise. I was somewhat caught up in it since I had asked him to do a number of things for me. He had cleaned off his fly tying bench and installed some repurposed speakers. I couldn’t spot the surprise. Where would a person ever get the idea a surprise was for them? I need to work on myself.
Pirate Joke
As the Pirate ship approached the fearsome ship, the captain told his aide, “Get me my red shirt!” He fought fearlessly in his red shirt, winning the day.
After the battle, the aide asked, “Why did you want your red shirt?
“I knew I might be injured and didn’t want the men to lose heart!”
“Ah! That makes sense.”
Just then the captain saw an entire fleet approaching. “Get me my brown pants!”
Maniac in the Wilderness
Bill ever survived my mother’s abuse. When he was only a tiny lad of eighteen, he was six feet four inches tall. I think the fact that she wasn’t even acquainted with five feet gave him a feeling of superiority. While I won’t say he had a smart mouth, I will allow it was extremely well-educated. I am sure they only reason my mother hadn’t already killed him was because she hated to go to prison and leave her younger daughters motherless. It certainly wasn’t because the thought hadn’t crossed her mind at least a thousand times a day since puberty attacked him and her by proxy.
Anyway, on occasion, they had to travel places alone together. It was a misery to them both. It didn’t help that the car was a tiny Volkswagon Beetle. It’s always worth a person’s time to stop and watch a huge guy unfold himself and crawl out of a Beetle, a pleasure Bill dreaded providing mirthful onlookers. It didn’t improve his mood on arrival, a mood already blackened with inevitable conflict he’d shared with Mother.
At any rate, on this particular day, they started home with Bill driving. According to Mother, he was driving like a maniac: driving too fast, following too closely, cutting people off. I have no doubt this was true. It was his typical manner. She insisted he slow down. He crept along at ten miles an hour, hoping that was slow enough to please her. She’d finally had enough, telling him to pull over. She’d drive. He critiqued her driving as soon as she started. “Speed up! Don’t ride the clutch! Change Gears!”
Finally, she’d had enough. She pulled over. “Get out!” Delighted, he hopped out, thinking she’d come to her senses and wanted him to drive. She drove off and left him standing on a country road, thirty miles from home. She enjoyed the rest of the peaceful drive. At home, Daddy wanted to know where Bill was. “I left him somewhere close to Bossier City.”
Daddy was shocked she’d left the little fellow all alone in the wilderness. “Well, You’d better go get him! It’ll be dark soon!”
“You go get him if you want to! I don’t care if he never gets home!”
Daddy was a lot better at giving orders than taking them, but he jumped in his truck to rescue his precious son and heir. Billy met him at the end of the driveway, brought home by a Good Samaritan. He’d somehow survived his abandonment but I think he still drives like a maniac. I don’t think he and Mother voluntarily ride together till today
See attached picture if you care to put out APB on either
Ascending into Heaven with Elijah and Big Three Firsts
The picture above stimulated the first mystical experience of my life. One of three first experiences in a twenty-four hour period for me. Quite a record for a six-year-old I’d say, not to mention, my future husband was linked to one of them. My mother and her dear friend Mildred who’d just learned to drive, decided one cold evening when their husbands were at work they’d like to drive over and spend the evening with Mildred’s sister, Mary, who many years later was fortunate enough to become my mother-in-law. While we were there Susie, Miss Mary’s prissy big girl, showed us little kids the glorious pictures in the big family bible, complete with terrifying stories of angels, devils, fire reigning down on Sodom and Gomorrah, and Adam and Eve being cast out of Eden. It was awesome.
Long after dark, we started home. Naturally, all the kids immediately fell asleep as soon as the car got warm and dark. The next thing I knew, I saw blazing lights as we whirled around. I realized immediately we were ascending into heaven in a whirlwind of fire but I wasn’t to happy about it! Howling kids were tossed all over the car. It turned out to be a far less heavenly experience. We’d been hit by a drunk driver but somehow escaped serious injury or a trip to heaven. The last thing my mother told me the next morning was not to tell my class that Johnny Jones daddy got drunk and hit our car. I had no idea it was Johnny’s daddy who’d hit our car
I had my next new experience first thing the next morning at school. I was the first up at our class’s first and last Show and Tell the next morning. I had a black eye to Show and plenty to Tell. Despite Mother’s warning, I felt the first grade really would be interested to know Johnny Jones’s father got drunk and hit our car. Miss Angie made me hush and sit down. We never had Show and Tell again, ever. Johnny Jones and I got in a fight at recess. We had to sit in the hall. The third first for me.
” Who in the Hell is Michael Jackson?”
Sometimes life serves up some incredibly sweet moments. About twenty-five years ago ,I mortally embarrassed both my high school children with no effort or planning on my part whatsoever. I was a dialysis nurse at the time. I had worked all night the night before. I had gone to bed about four that afternoon, knowing I was going to be called back. At eight-thirty in the evening the phone at my bedside rang. Jolted out of sleep, Continue reading
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