memoir

How to Navigate Directions: A Guide for the Directionally Challenged

            I’m not good with directions.  In fact, I’d have to improve considerably to even be bad.  Useless terms like left, right, North, South, East, and West annoy me.  If people actually expect me to get somewhere, they need to be more specific.  “Turn off the interstate at exit 5.  Go the opposite direction you’ve been going and go three streets past Brookshire’s.   Drive just a minute or so and you’ll see a restaurant with the big cow in the parking lot.  Don’t turn there.  Drive to the next red light and turn on the street that turns between the WaWa and that hardware store with the inflatable lumberjack.  Watch for the ugly house with the silk flowers in the bucket of that tacky wishing well.  Pass it up, but now you need to start driving pretty slow.  You’ll see a big, old white house with a deep porch and all those ferns, kind of like the one Grandma lived in at Houston, the one where the woman living upstairs tossed her dirty mop water out on my head when I was sitting on the sidewalk playing. Boy, did Grandma have something to say to her!  Remember, it was just across the street from that big, old funeral home.   I just love those old houses, but I’ll bet they are expensive to heat.  About six houses down on the other side, there’s a little, blue house. I believe it used to be gray. If you look hard, you’ll see an old rusted out 1950 GMC like Aunt Ada and Uncle Junior used to drive, up on blocks way off to the side of the shed.  Remember how they used to toodle around with all those mean boys bouncing like popcorn in the back?  Anyway, our house is the yellow one with the big shade trees just across from it.  You can’t miss it. There’s a bottle tree out front.”

            Now I can’t miss with those directions.

My Proud Introduction to the World of Opera (Sorry Pavarotti)

I have been described as spaced out, happy go lucky, and sometimes eccentric.  Suffice it to say, I am uninhibited, finding joy in little things.  Most recently, I was described as Pavarotti but I fear it was in jest.  My husband Bud and I, along with Bud’s cousin were making a little trip.  It was a beautiful, sun-drenched day and my spirits were high.  Mid-morning, we stopped in a rest area.  While “resting” I admired the native stone used in its construction and noted the remarkable acoustics of the building.  I immediately channeled Pavarotti, bursting into an amazing rendition of “O Sole Mio.”  I sounded GOOD!  I waxed melodious for a few strains, till a confused lady walked in, interrupting my reverie, fearing she’d interrupted a insane, transgender opera drop out.  I excused myself and left her musing on the madness.

When we got back to our vehicle, Bud said he and his cousin had had a good laugh.  When they were in the men’s room, they’d heard some man, somewhere, singing opera at the top of his lungs and it actually sounded pretty good.  Bud’s cousin did remark the guy sounded happy.

I’ve never had a prouder moment.

Childhood Memories of Food and Family

Bud and I grew up together. He was raised like me, one of five. Like my home, there was plenty of food at mealtime but treats were rare. After school snacks were leftover biscuits, cornbread, or a grizzled flapjack left over from breakfast. Should a bag of cookies or chips miraculously materialize, ravenous kids would fall on it like a hoard of locusts. It brought new meaning to term, “first come, first served!”

Bud’s mom made cookies one evening. He ate all he was allowed before being dispatched to bed. Long after the house quieted, he lay sleepless, those cookies silently beckoning him from the cookie jar. He waited as long as he could stand it before slipping into the dark kitchen surreptitiously opening the cookie jar. Naturally, he was too wily to turn on the lights.

Slipping back into bed, he gobbled his bonanza under the covers. His appetite satiated, he laid back, finally ready for sleep. Moments later, Bud noticed a tingly, ticklish feeling on his hands. Upon investigation, he found them crawling with the remainder of the ants he hadn’t already consumed.

It was the same at the Swain house. I had some dainty little cousins. Their mother constantly worried that they wouldn’t eat. Invariably, Mother embarrassed me by remarking, “My kids eat anything I put in front of them!” Even a blind man could have inferred that by the smacking. It was hazardous to reach for the last piece of chicken. A slow kid might get a fork in the hand.

Anyway, I spent a few days with my non-eating cousin. Still smarting from Mother’s remark, I made up my mind to be a picky eater for the duration. Though it nearly killed me, I turned up my nose at every meal. I even spurned fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy, my favorites.

Aunt Bonnie tested me sorely when she emptied her freezer and offered up the remains of a carton of butter pecan ice cream before she tossing it. Along with her honestly snooty kids, I refused to consider it. I very nearly died of heartbreak as she rinsed the carton with hot water and ran the ice cream down the drain. I fear I would have lost my resolve and eaten out of the garbage if she’d left it in the carton in the outdoor garbage can.

By the time I got home, I was gaunt with hunger, having made a point to be pickier than her miniature children. Finally, my efforts were rewarded. The minute we got home, Aunt Bonnie claimed I was the pickiest eater she’d ever seen. I’d worried her to death!”

I was overjoyed! I rushed into the kitchen and snatched a dried out biscuit off Mother’s stove. I hid under the bed and ate it where Aunt Bonnie wouldn’t see me.

This is me and my cousin. We were about a year apart in age. Of course, I was the big one.

Fire!

I was not envious of Bud when I was a kid. He lived directly across from the Baptist church. He’d never have been able to come up with an excuse to skip church if his feet worked.

As was usual in that day, the parsonage was alongside the church. Also, as usual, the preacher’s kid was a rotter. Although there were no kids his age at the Bethea household, they’d made the mistake of tolerating him, so he haunted Bud’s poor sisters. He never bothered to knock, just made himself welcome.

One day, he showed up just as they were taking brownies out of the oven. The brownies were intended for an upcoming social event. Nonetheless , without waiting for an invitation, he helped himself. Finding them to his satisfaction, he remarked, “That was good. I’ll have another.”

On another occasion, he let himself in the front door without invitation, as usual, announcing he had a box of matches. Cognizant it was the fall of the year with tempting piles of dry leaves lying about the yard, one of the girls reminded him to keep those matches in his pocket. Her direction went in one ear and out the other. Within five minutes, he was tearing through the house shouting, “Fire! And I don’t know how it got started!”

Perfect Happiness

It is so easy to make Bud a perfect meal, I don’t know why I don’t do it every night.

There are several interchangeable choices. All I have to do is cook steak, chicken, roast beef or pork, ribs, or meatloaf with gravy. My second decision is between rice, stewed or mashed potatoes. The third decision is the side. Black-eyed peas, always Bud’s first choice, either pinto, lima, red, or green beans.

Of course, we need a bread. Biscuits, cornbread, or rolls are always fine. Should I feel particularly industrious, dessert is in order, preferably homemade apple pie or yellow cake with buttercream frosting.

I can throw all the salad in the trash. Oh yes, Bud always volunteers to make the gravy if its not cooked along with the meat.

Common Sense and the Camper (Part 2)

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CamperOne of the great benefits of my parent’s cross-country camping trip was that they had the opportunity to share their cab-over camper for three weeks with two hormone-ridden teenage girls.  For some reason, they’d taken leave of their senses and forced my sixteen-year-old sister Marilyn to accompany them, though she could have stayed with either me or Phyllis, either of whom were as married and dull as Mother and Daddy ever thought of being.  They sweetened the pot by letting her friend Rhonda who became every bit as unpleasant as Marilyn after a few snug hours together.

In the way of teenagers everywhere, the girls snored snugly in their bunks all day as the camper passed the glorious sites of the Americas.  As a result, both were wide-awake and ready to go when they stopped to make camp every evening.  At an RV camp in Las Vegas, two young ladies who looked to have complicated social situations dawdled about the office as they checked in.  Before, I go on with this story, you need to know, my dad was a no-nonsense “I ain’t worried if you like me.  I’m your Daddy” kind of guy.  He didn’t put up with any nonsense.  He pointed out that RV Camp Girls looked trampy.  Though Marilyn and Rhonda didn’t even talk to them, they got a nice lecture just in case they’d ever thought of dressing or acting “like them trashy gals,”  a term he often used make a point and make his girls’ blood boil.

They made camp and cooked supper outdoors.  About ten o’clock as their evening drew to a close Daddy told his disgusted girls it was about time to turn out the lights and settle in for the night.  After a long day of napping, naturally, they dawdled.  After a couple of warnings, just as the lights went out, there was a knock at the camper door.  He opened it to find the two young lovelies they’d seen at the office earlier in the day.  One of them was obviously pregnant below her brief halter-top.

“Can your girls go out for a while?  We’ve got dates for them?” they asked, invitingly.

Behind him, Mother and the big-eyed girls waited for him to explode into a vitriolic diatribe at their request.  Instead, he replied as calmly as if he had been at a tea-party and asked if he wanted “one lump or two.”

“Well, I guess not, but thanks for inviting them.  We have to leave pretty early in the morning.”

Pigs flew and Hell froze over.

Lovely Trip

I have to catch up with all my WordPress friends. We visited Mountain View, Arkansas for a few days. We stayed at a rustic cabin on the shores of Syllamore Creek.

We did absolutely no touristy things, only leaving the cabin once to buy groceries. We spent one afternoon watching buzzards glide on the updrafts from the creek up the cliff. Their ability to glide indefinitely was something to see. They seemed to exert no energy. They were still circling when the heavy rain ran us from our rockers on the back porch. The rain pounding on the tin cabin roof was relaxing.

Note the mansion on the bluff above the creek. Though we were at the cabin three nights, they never invited us up for coffee.

College

Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?

College was a thrill for me. I was free of my tyrannical father. I owed him nothing. I was working my way through and got just enough loans for tuition and books. L. Unlike today, there were no students predatory loans. Contrary to what you’d expect, I carried maximum loads every term and graduated with a 3.8 GPA in three years. I didn’t party or play. I had no intention of ever becoming ng dependent on anyone again. It’s interesting how situations motivate people differently. I have wed $1500 in student loans upon graduation. That was not a burden.

Boxcar Grafitti

Grafitti fascinates me.