There was one rule my father fanatically upheld that I threw out the window as soon I left home. “No bare feet before May 1.” It made no sense to me. Should it be 80 degrees on April 30, we were still chastised for sneaking out in bare feet. Once Daddy made a rule, it was written in stone. Even after I was married, he told me I was wrong to go bare foot before May 1, to which I simply replied, “I’m grown now.”
His response, “Well, you try to raise your children right, then when they get grown they do what they want to.”…….long sigh.
Mettie was abandoned by her mother, Cynthia, as an infant, leaving her with her own mother. Though divorce was almost unheard of at that time, Cynthia was twice-divorced. Her father went on to remarry and took no responsibility for her. He only visited her once, when she was the widowed mother of seven. Late one night, Mawmaw told this tale of her early years, the only time I ever heard this.
“I jist turned nine years old, ‘bout the age you are now. Me and Ma had picked some beans in the cool a’the mornin’ an’ I was a’helpin’ ‘er git ‘em ready fer canning. Ma set down in her rocker to rest jist a minute an’ I was a’playin’ with my kitten. I was glad she was a’sleepin’ a while since I didn’ want’a mess with them beans no how. After a spell, I saw Ma’s head was kinda hung to one side an’ spit was a’runnin’ out’a her mouth kinda foamy. She wouldn’ wake up. I got up to run over to git Miz Jone’s an’ seen there was a fire between our place an’ hearn. There warn’t nothin’ to do but run through it the best I could. Them flames was a’lickin’ at my feet an’ I was jist a’cryin’. I got Miz Jones, but it ain’t made no difference. When they got over to see ‘bout Ma, she was dead. They sent for Uncle Jeb to git’er buried.
I had to go to Uncle Jeb’s, then. He was awful good to me, but Aunt Lottie was jist hard down. She whooped on me ever chancet she got, an’ they was plenty. She made shore I ain’t done no sittin’ aroun’. I married soon’s I could, jist to git outta her way.
I never really had no home after Ma died. I knowed Aunt Lottie didn’t want me around ‘lessen they was work to be done. She’d put me out to help a woman that was having a baby, help with the canning, or help with the sick. I never seen no pay, just worked for my keep. Sometimes my mama would get settled and send for me, but I had to stay out of the way of her man, so back I’d go to Uncle Jep and Aunt Lottie, till she could put me off on somebody else. It was hard times for sure.”
I went to visit my son, John, in Baton Rouge this weekend.
This is John trying to sneak out the doggy door and surprise us at coffee. It didn’t go that well for him. His dogs got in the act.
Later, we made it to sale where I snagged these beautiful stacking tables, and these masks for my son’s office.
My daughter-in-law, Carissa got several very nice pieces of crystal at an excellent price. She was delighted to add them to her collection. A couple are pictured below.
Best of all, the kids got an almost new outdoor kitchen with grill, side burners, and rotisserie for only $300. It retailed for $3500. They were ecstatic!
I am so grateful to be highlighted by the lovely Melinda at Lookingfor thelightblog I have gotten hooked on her uplifting and informative blog. Please check her out.
Scary stories are best when told by a true believer.On a cold, dark night, the women and children clustered cozily around the fireplace at Aunt Ader’s old house while the men were out hunting.By the firelight, mothers in straight back wooden chairs bumped rhythmically back and forth to lull their little ones off to sleep, as their older kids stretched out pallets in the front room enticed by oft-repeated family tales, some funny, some sad, some terrifying.
I recall this sad story as deliciously heartbreaking, though I never knew any of these distant relatives of relatives.My Great-Aunt Jo told of her pregnant Cousin Lou on her daddy’s side from way over in Alabama.Back before Aunt Jo was born, Cousin Lou left her baby Jessie Mae on a pallet under the shade of an oak while picking beans with her family nearby.Lou looked back often to check her sleeping baby.It was resting so well, she picked on a bit longer, hoping to get enough beans to can a few jars. Little Jessie never made a peep. When Lou’s basket was filled, she came back to retrieve the baby and was horrified to find the shade had shifted and the baby burned beet-red in the sun.Lou and her mother, Ruth, rushed to sponge the baby with cool spring water. For three days, Little Jessie lingered between life and death, before dying.The family had to restrain poor grief-stricken Lou from pulling the baby from the coffin at the burial.She gave birth to a seven-month baby a few days later that only lived a few hours. Though she went home to live with her husband, all she did was pine for her lost babies.She became catatonic, unable to eat, dress herself, or leave the chair where she rocked her dead child’s rag doll.
A few months after her grieving young husband took her home to her mama, Ruth, it became obvious she was pregnant again.It was hoped the new baby would bring her back to life though she never responded to the new baby Sally, just kept rocking Baby Jessie’s doll. Ruth was left to raise little Sally and manage her sick daughter.On good days, Lou was like a docile child, sitting quietly or doing simple tasks.On rough days, she cried and rocked her rag doll.On her worst days, she wailed and tried find her baby or throw herself in the well.When she finally roused enough to try to hang herself, Ruth had to put her in the asylum where poor, deranged Lou managed to hang herself after a couple of months. Because she’d killed herself, she was hastily buried at the asylum and couldn’t have a Christian burial with her lost babies.Afterwards, people swore they could hear Lou crying, trying to get to her babies’ graves in the church cemetery dark, moonless nights.I still get tingles thinking of it.
As the fire burned low, the lap babies had been put down and knee babies were sleeping quietly on pallets, the chatter from the older children slowed as they; too, drifted off to sleep at the feet of their mothers, aunts, and grandmother. Desperate for ghost stories, I hung on the words of my superstitious Maw Maw. She held grandchildren spellbound with all the scary tales she knew. Should she falter, one of my aunts urged her on…”Mama, remember about the big black dogs running through the house.” Her stories were more terrifying because she believed them with all her being.
“Oh yeah, lots of times, late at night, if the wind was still, and the night was dark, me and Granny could hear them ghost dogs, howling and scratching at the door, trying to get in…but once in a while, if the moon was full, we’d see them big, black devil dogs blowing right into the room where me and Granny was, made of black smoke from the fires of hell with blazing coals for eyes. We hid under the covers, ‘cause Granny said ‘if you ever looked in them fiery eyes, you was bound for Hell’.”
Opportunities to hear scintillating stories like these were rare, usually limited to visits with Maw Maw, my paternal grandmother. Mother could hardly snatch her spellbound children from the writhing mass of cousins clustered around Maw Maw’s knees. Daddy ruled the roost, and he liked the stories as much as anyone. Mother held the ridiculous notion that tender minds didn’t need to hear scary stories, more concerned about the nightmares she’d be dealing with in a few short hours than the extreme pleasure they afforded us at the time.
I do wish I could hear and savor those stories again, unmolested by that nagging voice in the background. “There’s no such thing as ghosts. Those stories are just pretend, like cartoons. Now, go on to sleep and forget about them.”
Why did the man get banned from the online auction site?
Because he was always bidding off more than he could chew.
Why do companies prefer online auctions to live auctions?
Because they want to raise their “net” funds!
Why did the person lose their bid in the online auction?
Because they eBayted their budget!
Why did the man who attended an estate sale for the first time come back with a bunch of old furniture?
Because he heard it was a “chair-ity” event.
Why did the woman buy a vintage computer at the online estate sale?
Because she wanted to experience old spam, without risking her health.
Why did the man refuse to buy the antique vase on the online estate sale site?
Because he was afraid it might “break the internet” if he bid too high!
Why did the family having an estate sale cross the road?
To get to the other side of the inheritance!
If Jerry Seinfeld did a bit on estate sales:
Have you ever noticed that estate sales are just garage sales with better stuff? I mean, it’s like the person who lived there just decided to take all their good things and leave them out for strangers to buy. “Hey, I’m moving out, but you can have my priceless antique collection for 10 bucks!” It’s like the ultimate decluttering method, but instead of just tossing things out, you let people fight over them in your living room.
Why did the man prefer online estate sales?
Because he didn’t have to put on pants to buy someone else’s old pants!
Thanks to those who helped with these (mostly awful) jokes! Think you have a better one? Email us at info@estatesales.bid.
Aunt Ader’s House was reminiscent of the two pictured here. I am reposting a serial from 2016. Most of my followers have not seen this
I had no idea who Aunt Ader was, or that her name should actually have been pronounced Ada, but her old farm house was a wonder.Uncle C H, my Aunt Jenny’s on-again off-again husband apparently enjoyed some claim to it, because over the course of my childhood, several of my relatives rented it, probably when they’d fallen on hard times.It stood high on a hill surrounded by several huge oaks. A rutted red-dirt drive curved its way up toward the house, dusty in summer and rutted deeply in rainy weather.In the spring and early summer weeds sprigged up between the tire tracks, kept short courtesy of the undercarriage of the vehicles making their way up the hill.Though Aunt Ader’s forebears had been prosperous landowners a couple of generations back, the land had been subdivided and sold off long before I came to know it.To the eyes of a small child, it was welcoming with its deep front and back porches and wide, breezy dogtrot. An enormous living room and kitchen opened off one side with three bedrooms on the other.Fireplaces on either side furnished the only heat.Bare lightbulbs dangling on cords sufficed to light the big, high-ceilinged rooms, welcoming ghosts to the shadowy corners. Rain on the tin-roof could be pleasant or deafening, depending on the intensity of the storm. I was never tempted to stray far from the light, though the sunshine from the huge windows flooded those rooms in the daytime.
A water heater stood in the corner of the enormous kitchen next to the galvanized bathtub hanging on the wall.The old wood stove was still in use, though the only indoor plumbing was water piped in to the sink in the one piece enamel sink and cabinet combination standing beneath the window, looking out over a large field with several pear and fig trees.Several unpainted shelves served as storage for everything that couldn’t fit into the sink cabinet and pie safe.A cord exiting the round-topped refrigerator was plugged into an extension cord connected to bare light bulb dangling from the center of the kitchen ceiling.The light was turned off and on by a long string.Strips of well-populated fly-paper hung near the windows.An unpainted toilet stood slightly downhill about three hundred yards off to the left of an old barn. We were warned away from the hand-dug well, enclosed in a wooden frame with a heavy wooden trap cover that stood a few feet from the back porch.Mother was so adamant we not go near, I was sure it was surrounded by quicksand, just waiting to suck a foolish child in.A bucket hung from a chain from the roof of the creaky structure.Pigs were pinned up near the barn, though not far enough away to miss their smell, explaining the fly problem.
With thirty years in nursing, you can well imagine I have my share of strange stories. I worked in acute dialysis in the hospital, so knew my patients very well. We talked about their lives, familis, dogs, whatever was on their minds. One of my favorite patients was Curtis, a huge man, perfectly delightful, but developmentally challenged. His thinking was about on the level of a eight-year-old. Curtis had somehow gotten credit at a furniture store, bought a houseful of furniture, and not made a single payment. He was being hounded for payment, so decided the best course of action was to go in the hospital, where he wouldn’t be bothered. When he told the nurse at the outpatient dialysis clinic he needed to go to the hospital, she explained he couldn’t be admitted unless sick. He did some thinking and called her back to his chair telling her he had something for her. (I can’t imagine how she fell for that.). He dropped an impressive lump of excrement into her outstretched hand and was admitted into the psychiatric unit of the hospital in short order.
He was happily ensconced at the hospital, soon moved to the medical floor. One day he walked into my unit asking for a large patient gown. He went on his way. Curtis was not on my mind when I heard a lady out in the hall exclaim. “Oh my God! Take it!” It seems she had been bringing a pecan pie to her hospitalized friend from church when she encountered seven-foot-tall Curtis, walking naked down the hall, looking for hospital staff to help him with his gown. Curtis, hadn’t seen a pecan pie in way too long. He dropped the gown, grabbed the pie and raised a clumsy fist when the poor woman resisted. She gave up on the pie and fled shrieking. Eventually, the whole thing smoothed over. Curtis had his pie and his gown. The hospital gave the lady another pecan pie and an apology. By the time Curtis got home, his furniture had been repossessed, so he wasn’t harassed any more. They all lived happily ever after, except of course for the nurse who got a handful of doo-doo.
Scary stories are best when told by a true believer.
Mettie Swain Knight, a champion ghost storyteller
Nutsrok 