memoir

Kathleen Carries On Part 1

surprise
Kathleen, Surprised

Mother is sensitive about her age and height, so I can’t mention the fact that she is past ninety-six and “not tall.” In fact, she got busted by the nurse at her last exam. “How tall are you?” asked the nurse.

Mother looked her in the eye and said, “5’2,” bold as brass.

The nurse stared her down. “Let’s measure you.” They came back in a minute and the nurse said. “I’ll give you 4’ 9 3/4 .”

1.  She asked a nice young police officer to “jack her off.” 

2. She once crashed a formal wedding in cut off blue jeans.

3. She was once locked in a museum garden and had to be rescued by the fire department.

4. She was locked in Windsor Castle. More on that later.

5. She rolled up a car window up on a camel’s lip.  These things happen.

6. She made change in the offering plate at church and came out twenty dollars ahead

7. She lost her bra at church one Sunday.  She never could explain that!

8. When two intruders broke in her house, she made one of them help her into her robe and refused to give them more than eleven dollars. Go figure.

9. She threatened a rapist.

10. She won’t say “Bull.”  That sounds crude.  She substitutes “male cow.” God knows she tried to raise me right!  

Carrying on #1:

Mother parked her car at the mall, got her sweater and purse and went in to shop and enjoy a leisurely lunch with friends. More than two hours later, she came out and discovered her car wouldn’t start. She’d left her lights on! She didn’t want to call her kids for help, so she flagged down a young police officer, planning to buffalo him with her sweet old grandmother act. “ Officer, my battery’s down. Can you please jack me off?” Luckily, she was neither arrested nor jacked off.

To be continued

Familyisms

Like all families we employ time-honored phrases that seem nonsense to others:

“Don’t go crazy, Sue!” My cousin’s husband, a real doofus, employed this when he really messed up, intending to temper her reaction. example: He backed over the dog after she’d told him it had slipped out. It didn’t calm her down a bit.

“I don’t like what I wanted.” My three year-old-niece had a quarter. She’d been hounding her mom all morning to take her to the store. Finally, the time came. Chelsea ran up to the vending machine outside the store , popping her quarter in before Mom could stop her. Out popped a tacky little plastic car. Furious with disappointment , smashed it to the ground. Mom chided her. “I thought you wanted a prize out of the machine!”

Chelsea spouted back, “I don’t LIKE what I wanted.”

That phrase is perfect for so many of our choices in life!

“It couldn’t be helped.” Mother is a ditz, scatterbrained and chronically behind in whatever she had to do. When the beans burned, she forgot to pick a kid up at basketball practice, forgot to stub a check, or messed up in any way, she justified it by saying, “It couldn’t be helped.”. This was rarely true.

“It’s starting to get some better.”. Daddy was a hypochondriac.  When he managed a malady, he clung to it tenaciously. About two weeks after wasps stings, Mother facetiously asked how it was.  Mistaking her sarcasm for concern, he replied, “It’s starting to get some better.”

“The head’s as dangerous as the rest of it!”. My sister was warning us to stay away from a decapitated snake.  “Stay away from that snake head!  It’s as dangerous as the rest of it!” Duh!

“Only fools f___s with snakes.”. A guy Bud worked with coined this wisdom.  Since we had little kids at the time we had to amend it.

” I salted it, but not enough.”. Mother was the master of confusion.  Putting a plates of eggs on the table one morning, she advised us, ” I salted them, but not enough.”. Where do you go from there?  Salt or don’t salt.  By the time you decide, your egg’s half gone.

Bumps in the Road Part 4

Between the time my father,Bill, worked as a night watchman until he joined the Navy he worked a variety of jobs, mostly in the oilfield. Though his education wouldn’t have impressed anyone, he was brash, strong and smart, quickly picking up skills.  His charismatic personality and quick wit drew attention. When He got a draft notice, he joined the Navy straight away, reasoning sailors ate more regularly than infantrymen. He’d been hungry so often he never wanted to be hungry again.  He sent an allotment home to help his mother which the Navy matched.  Like so many veterans, he spoke very little of his military experiences.  Of those times, he mostly told of the good times, places he’d been, and friends he’d made.  He did tell of his company being evacuated for a flood. Daddy was unbelievably hard to awaken, slept through the call to evacuate, only to be awakened by the rising water lapping into his top bunk.  He also refused to eat fruit cocktail, because at one post they were stuck with nothing but fruit cocktail for three weeks when supplies didn’t come in. I overheard him telling my uncles his crew was ordered to take prisoners back to camp and be back in five minutes. I piped up with questions and that conversation broke up. No wonder veterans come back with PTSD. God help them.

Upon discharge, Daddy joined his brothers on a construction crew in East Texas where he met Kathleen Holdaway, a recent high school graduate. She was living with her elder sister, Annie, in a boarding house and working as a waitress. Annie, ten years older than Kathleen was also a veteran, recently discharged from the United States WomenThe two were toying with the idea of moving to Chicago to start college when Daddy stopped in at the cafe. Upon seeing Mother, he told his buddy he was going to marry her. When she came to take his order, he asked her,”Hey, Shorty. What do I have to do to get a cup of coffee?” With that witty repartee, he swept her off her feet.

That took care of Chicago and college. In three short weeks they were married.

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!”

Perfect Timing

Life presents us some perfect moments it would be a sin to ignore.  Bud, my husband of fifty-four years, and I were walking across a parking lot on a drizzly day when Bud noticed my boot lace was flopping.  “Tie your shoe!”

“I’ll tie it when I get inside.  I’m not standing in the rain to tie it,” I spouted.

“Stop!  You’re gonna break your dang neck!  I’ll tie it!”. He dropped to his knee on the wet pavement to tie it just as two men walked by.

“No,” I protested.  “I won’t marry you! Now get up.”

They burst into laughter as they passed us.

Bumps in the Road Part 3

At one desperate point, while Eddie was about the slow business of dying at Grandma Swain’s, Mettie gratefully moved her family to her brother Albert’s recently acquired farm, miles and miles from town. Red dust fogged up with the rare passing conveyance. In foul weather, the red dirt road was impassable. There was no possibility of the kids attending school since the nearest bus stop was ten miles away where the dirt road joined a hard surface road. School attendance was not mandatory at this time.

Mettie’s focus was on survival. Fortunately, in addition to the farmhouse he and his wife moved into, a battered, unpainted house was available for the poor band. Had Mettie not been in such need, he would have used it as a barn  Again, it was free. They could get milk and butter from Albert’s cows if Mettie helped with the milking. Albert’s wife, Mary, kindly passed along a hen with twelve chicks and young rooster. They could eat from Mary’s garden if she and the girls helped with gardening and canning. Of course they would! They settled in the hovel where wind sailed through the rickety walls and rain poured through the leaky roof. The uncles put the boys to cutting  and splitting wood for shingles, then set them to roofing.  A toilet leaned crazily out back, but the deep well provided cool,clean water.  Of course the rural farm had no utilities, no matter, since Mettie hadn’t funds to pay. Her brothers, Willie and Albert, did what they could to help, from plowing her garden, providing her a pig to fatten and slaughter in the fall. Willie traded a fine sow with a litter of pigs and gifted her bony milk cow.  Fortunately, when the old cow freshened, it was a heifer, ensuring Mettie would have a young cow to replace the old one at her inevitable  This was a Godsend.  A family without a milk cow was in trouble.

When Eddie eventually died in 1937, the four younger children qualified for seventy-four dollars a month Aid to Dependant Children. Mettie was able to move to a better house near town so the little girls could go to school. Mettie had a penchant for moving till the day she died. Daddy said she’d start crying and nothing would satisfy her till she got to move. No doubt, she had mood issues.

The same year the family got on “relief,” her eldest son joined Civilian Conservation Corp for which he was provided clothes, wages, food, and lodging for working on government conservation projects.  He was paid the princely sum of thirty dollars a month, twenty-five of which went directly to his mother.  Three years later, the second son joined.  The boys had never lived dressed or lived so well.  At thirteen, Daddy was six feet tall.  He was able to pass for fifteen, snagging a job on an nearby oil rig as a night watchman. He slipped home most nights to eat  a late supper.  All three boys had given up school long ago to look for work.  At any rate, Daddy said they couldn’t face the taunting of hateful kids over their bedraggled clothes.

My father is boy in front row holding hat
Eddie Swain

Best of the Afternoon Weird Relative Funnies

weird relativesweird 2weird 3Weird4 When you are dealing with family, it clarifies things to have a scale.  You don’t have to waste time analyzing people when you have a ready reference.  This one works pretty well for us.

  1. Has a monogrammed straight jacket and standing reservation on mental ward.
  2. Family is likely to move away without leaving forwarding address. Has jail time in the past or the future
  3. People say, “Oh, crap. Here comes Johnny.”
  4. Can go either way.  Gets by on a good day.  Never has been arrested.  Can be  lots of fun or a real mess. Relatives usually will invite in for coffee.  Likely to have hormone-induced behavior.
  5. Regular guy. Holds down a job.  Mostly takes care of business.  Probably not a serial marry-er.  Attends  church when he has to.
  6. Good fellow. Almost everybody likes him or her. Volunteers for Habitat for Humanity.  Manages money well enough to retire early.
  7. High achiever.  Business is in order.  Serves on city council.
  8. Looks too good to be true. What’s really going on?
  9. Over-achiever. Affairs are in order.  Solid citizen.  Dull, dull, dull.  Could end up as a 1

Instead of saying, “Uncle Henry’s a pretty good guy, but sometimes he goes off the deep end, you could say, ‘He’s a usually about a 6 but he was a little 4-ish after Aunt Lou took his new truck and ran off with his brother’.” Or…

“Why in the world did Betty marry him?  He was a jerk to her when she was married to his daddy.”

“Well, you know she’s a 5.”

“Oh, yeah.  I forgot about that.”  Or…

“You set the house on fire trying to dry your underwear in the oven??  What in the hell were you thinking??    And you call yourself a 6?”

“Look, you know darn well I’m a 6.  It just seemed like a good idea.  Appliances should be multifunctional.  I’ve seen you pull a  2 lot of times and never threw it up to you.  It could happen to anyone.”  Or…

“You forgot and put the turnip greens through the spin cycle and now the washing machine drain is stopped up!   I’m not even going to ask you what turnip greens were doing in the washing machine!   You’re a 2 if I ever saw one.  Your mama and sisters are 2’s, too!!  Did you put the beans in the dishwasher, too, while you were at it?”

“No, I’m not an idiot.  You cook beans on the stove.  I put my rolls in the dishwasher to rise.”

Family reunions are an eclectic mix of mostly 5’s who vacation in 4 and 6 on occasion, some fairly regular folks, seasoned with a picante’ dash of street-corner preachers, nude airport racers, and folks who are just interesting in general.  We have a couple of 7’s thrown in, reminders of what we could do if we tried.  A person’s situation on the social ladder is likely to be greatly influenced by his company or partner.  For instance, if a submissive #5 marries a dominant #7, it is likely he or she will benefit.  If the lower number is more influential, not so much.

I was comfortable growing up in this milieu of the 1950’s. While I gave lip service to my parents’ goal of strict respectability, I enjoyed a ringside seat to periodic lunacy.  It also justified my lapses. It ran it the family! And no matter how disappointed my parents might be when I messed up, at least I hadn’t been caught naked in traffic yet.

When considering their upcoming parenthood, most people entertain hormone-tinged delusions, imagining their children as cute, well-behaved, athletic, and smart.  We gaze fondly at our partners imagining a baby with his blue eyes, her sweet smile…we should have looked a little closer at Grandpa’s buck teeth or Grandma’s frizzy hair.  Even better, this baby is just as likely to inherit genes from a great-great grandpa, the horse thief, as from Grandpa John, the Pulitzer Prize Winner.  The baby may look a lot more like Aunt Fanny, the lady wrestler, than its pretty mama.  A better plan would probably be to put all babies in a lottery at birth, so parents could credit their lumps to bad luck and the joys to good parenting for the next twenty-one years.  The kids would definitely appreciate it.

My family is as much a mixed bag of nuts as any.   As a kid, I was most fascinated by the ones on the fringes.  My favorite was Uncle Chester, not because he was friendly, funny, or even seemed to notice me, but because he was the first solid #3  of my acquaintance. (Family likely to move away without leaving forwarding address.  Has jail time in past or future.)  As a young man in the depression, he started out as a moonshiner and petty criminal, lounging a bit in local jails.  He never really hit the big time and made the Federal Penitentiary till he got caught counterfeiting quarters.  His technique was sloppy and his product unpolished.  He was fortunate in getting caught red-handed passing his ugly quarters. In 1941 he was sent up to Fort Leavenworth for some higher education. and made good use of his time apprenticing himself to a cellmate who was doing time for making twenty-dollar bills.

Aunt Jenny #5 (Can go either way. Gets by on a good day.  Never been arrested.  Can be lots of fun or a real mess. Relatives usually will invite in for coffee.  Likely to have hormone-induced behavior.) was short-sighted about Uncle Chester’s situation and ditched him while he was imprisoned, but realized she still loved him when he came home with his enhanced earning capacity. They let bygones be bygones, got back together, and had three lovely children.    Their eldest son Lynn and daughter Sue were solid #7s from the start. (Good fellows.  Almost everybody likes him or her.  Volunteers for Habitat for Humanity.  Manages money well enough to retire early.)  Uncle Chester was perfectly willing to give Lynn a good start in business, but Lynn was ungrateful, distanced himself from his father’s dealings, joined the military, and avoided the family business altogether, even seeming to resent his father. One Sunday dinner, when Uncle Chester was dropping names of the interesting people he had been in jail with at various times, Lynn rudely interrupted, “Daddy, you’ve been in jail with everybody at one time or another.”  Uncle Chester did step up and keep Cousin Lynn from making a mistake.  Lynn came home on leave from the military and met a girl he wanted to marry; love at first sight.  She was a pretty as a spotted puppy and even she noticed how much she looked like Ross.  Uncle Chester got her off to the side and asked a few questions about her mama and daddy and where she was raised.  He was waiting up for Lynn to get home.  “Son, I sure hope things ain’t gone too far. I hate it, but you can’t marry that li’l old gal.  She looks just like her Mama did when we was running around together.  There’s a real good reason she looks just like yore brother Ross – a real good reason.”

By the fifties, Uncle Chester had branched out a little.  He did a little research and decided lawsuits paid well and weren’t too much work.  He captured some bees, applied them to his leg.  When his leg was good and swollen, he got his buddy to drop him off downtown at a trolley stop.  As the trolley approached, Uncle Chester carefully stumbled into the path of the trolley, suffering a knee injury in front of numerous witnesses.  He collapsed to the ground, moaning and groaning. Suffering terribly, he was transported and treated at the hospital. Now  Uncle Chester was set with a fifty-thousand dollar settlement, a tidy sum for that time.

Their daughter Susie turned out real well, became a teacher, and married a Baptist Preacher, lending Uncle Chester a much appreciated touch of respectability. Uncle  Chester and Aunt Jenny  were very generous toward her church, and the legitimacy of their donations was never questioned.  Sadly, many years later Susie’s daughter a bona fide #3, embarrassed them all by stealing from her employer.

Ross, Uncle Chester’s youngest son, a gifted #3 (Family likely to move away without leaving forwarding address. Has jail time in past or future) followed in Uncle Chester’s footsteps. He dabbled in moonshine, petty crime, and scams but just never rose to Uncle Chester’s level. He initiated a few crooked lawsuits but lacked the brain power and organization to pull bigger things off.  All went well till he got too big for his britches and tried setting up business in Texas. When he got caught moon shining in someone else’s territory, he called the old man for help and Uncle Chester had to admit, “I’m sorry son, but I can’t do a thing for you.  I don’t have any influence with the law out there.”  Uncle Chester felt bad about one of his boys getting in trouble till the day he died,” but sometimes you just have to let kids make their own mistakes.”

Aunt Jenny was stingy.  You would think she got her money in the usual way.  Or maybe she just got tired of hearing Uncle Chester complain how hard it was to make money, but she would even make her own mother pay for a ride to the grocery store.  When Maw Maw won some groceries in a weekly contest she had to share with Aunt Jenny since she rode with Aunt Jenny to the grocery store every week.  Aunt Jenny sold eggs and tomatoes and charged Maw Maw the same as everyone else.

When Aunt Jenny got older, she got dentures.  She liked them so well she saved them for special occasions.  She wore them when she had ladies over for coffee, church, and Sunday dinner.  Being toothless didn’t hold her back a bit.  She could take a bite off an apple as well as anyone and could have won a fried chicken eating contest hands down.

We had plenty of other interesting relatives, too.  Dogs were off limits inside our house.  All we had were hunting dogs, dogs with a purpose.  People with house dogs were considered silly and weak-minded.  Cookie and Uncle Riley (#4 People say, “Oh, crap.  Here comes Johnny.”)never came to visit without bringing a couple of fat, shiny, little house dogs.  You can guess what category this put them in.  Daddy grudgingly tolerated their dogs as long as the dogs didn’t bark or mess up the house.  They chattered endlessly about their dogs.  Uncle Riley frequently assured us his dog, Jackie, was, “just like a person.”  Daddy agreed the dog was as smart as Uncle Riley.

Unfortunately, Jackie got some kind of skin infection.  Cookie and Uncle Riley showed up for a visit with poor Jackie, bald as an egg, the skin on his entire body irritated and red.  Uncle Riley had been too cheap to take him to a veterinarian and concocted his own home remedy. He would dip Jackie in a Lysol and pine-oil mixture, reasoning it would kill any bacteria.  The best we could tell, Jackie was bacteria and hair-free, but itching miserably with blistered skin.  Uncle Riley felt badly about his medicine gone bad, and lovingly coated Jackie with Calamine Lotion several times a day.  While Uncle Riley told us of Jackie’s troubles, he was unaware of Jackie sitting at his feet, licking his wounds.  Not surprisingly, the harsh home remedy inflicted the most damage on Jackie’s sensitive nether portions.  As he licked his little doggy privates tenderly, Uncle Willie reminded us Jackie was “just like a person.” Three-year-old John was watching Jackie’s ablutions intently and remarked, “I never saw a person do that!”

Uncle Charlie , another #3, was a compulsive liar.  It didn’t concern him that no one believed him.  He just lied because he was so darn good at it.  Uncle Charlie would climb up on the roof to tell a lie instead of stand on the ground and tell the truth.  If Uncle Charlie told you it was raining, don’t bother with your umbrella. He worked at the paper mill with Daddy, and had such a reputation for lying, that anyone repeating one of Charlie’s stories had to buy coffee for the group.  One afternoon on coffee break, Charlie came rushing by the fellows in a big hurry.  “Charlie, stop and tell us a lie!” one of them called after him.

Charlie never looked back, “I can’t!” he called over his shoulder as he rushed on.  “Ray Pierson fell in Smokestack #2 and I’m going to call an ambulance!”  They all rushed to see about their buddy and found Ray Pierson in perfect health at his usual work station, Smokestack #2.

Cousin Vonia #5 and her husband Joe #4 (Oh, Crap!  Here comes Johnny) came to visit a lot, bringing their three little kids. Joe was “disabled” and didn’t have to get up early, so he just wouldn’t go home.  Mother sent us on to bed, but Joe wanted to sit till midnight, even on a school night.  Their little kids would have been drooped over asleep for hours.   Finally Daddy started telling Mother, “We’d better to go to bed so these good folks can go home.”

Joe would look disappointed, then get up and shuffle toward the door, saying, “Well, I guess I better get my sorry self on home.” Vonia would trail behind him, carrying two sleeping kids and guiding the other staggering kid to the car.  Joe couldn’t carry kids.  He had a “bad back.”

Joe had a few other quirks.  He had been fortunate enough to hurt his back at work and land a nice settlement and a monthly disability check so invested in a few cows and took care of them from then on.  For those who know nothing of cattle farming, it is extremely hard work.  Joe and his disabled back spent many hours building fences, making hay, stacking hay in the barn, unstacking that same hay later and loading it on a trailer, then taking it off and feeding it to the cattle, herding cows, wrestling soon-to-be steers to the ground and helping them become steers.  He spent hours on end driving a tractor.  Hard, hard, hard work.

Joe had a strange quality for a farmer, eschewing all healthy foods and existing on a diet of peanut patties, banana pudding, and milk.  He also smoked like a smokestack.  This careful attention to diet paid off for him.  He didn’t have a tooth in his head by the time he was thirty five.  He refused to get dentures.  He just dropped peanut patties from his diet.  He said he didn’t need dentures for just milk and banana pudding.  The smoking finally killed him when he was seventy-eight.  He dropped a cigarette down the bib of his overalls and pulled out in front of a train.

Even though Great Uncle Albert was only a 4.5 – 5, he had given Daddy a place to stay and let him work for his keep during the terrible times of the 1930’s when Maw Maw was struggling to feed seven children alone.  Daddy appreciated this and was loyal to Uncle Albert all his life.  Old, grumpy, and hormone-depleted by the time I knew him in the mid 1950’s, it was hard for me to imagine him in his younger, randy days.  He was dull, and full of good advice, a habit he’d developed since he’d gotten too old to set a bad example.  Aunt Jewel wasn’t his first wife, and frankly, was on pretty shaky ground as a #2, but as far back as they lived in the sticks, there weren’t any airports, so she was hanging on.   I heard whispers she had broken up his first marriage to Mary.  Even more shocking, Uncle Albert was entertaining her when Mary tried to force her way in to the marital bedroom.  Uncle Albert slammed the door, breaking his poor wife’s arm.  Mary got the hint, took the baby, and left.  Smart girl.

I had trouble envisioning this.  I had never met Mary, but she had to look better than the Aunt Jewell I knew.  I had heard Aunt Jewell used be really pretty, but she had gotten over it.  By the time I knew her, she had smoked over forty years, had nicotine-stained fingers and teeth, wrinkles around her mouth from drawing on a cigarette, and her mouth pulled a little to one side.  She had a thick middle, thin hair in a frizzy old-lady perm, and bird legs.  She wore stockings rolled to her knees and cotton house dresses. She wheezed constantly and never spoke except to whine, “Albert, I’m ready to go now.” Or “Albert, give me a puff off your cigarette.”  Oh yes.  One time they came to visit after she’d fallen and broken a rib and she started crying and said, “Albert, I want a puff off your cigarette, but I’m too sore to cough. “ That was kind of interesting, but I couldn’t imagine a man choosing her over anyone else.

It was interesting to see my father treated as a kid.  Uncle Albert felt free to give his opinion about whatever Daddy was up to.  He arrived for a visit one day before Daddy got home from work and was inspecting the place.  Daddy  aspired to 8 or 9 (8. High achiever.  Business in order.

  1. Looks too good to be true.) despite struggling to maintain a 6 (Regular guy. Holds down job.  Mostly takes care of business.  Probably not serial marry-er.  Attends church when he has to.)

Uncle Albert kept all his stuff organized and in perfect repair. Daddy’s barn was a disorganized mess.  He tossed things wherever he got through with them.   Uncle Albert walked around, examining items and commenting.  “This is a good old singletree.  It just needs a new chain.”  “This is a good rasp.  It just needs to be cleaned up.” “This is a good axe-head.  It just needs to be sharpened and have a new handle put in.”  Before too long, Daddy came striding up, delighted to see his uncle.  He was smiling broadly and thrust out his hand.

Uncle Albert looked at straight at him and pronounced, “Bill, you need to get the junk man out here and get all this #^%$ hauled off.”

I’m pretty sure I can pass for a 5 most days.

Bumps in the Road

Though I most frequently talk about the amusing things our family experienced, of course there was another side.  Mother is a lovely lady, cheerful, fun-loving, and totally centered on her family, still at ninety-six.  She is and always was, scatterbrained, a trait she generously shared with her children.  It provided comic relief in otherwise hard times and sometimes precipitated hard times. I know now Daddy was bipolar, though he never went off the deep end.  As a young man, he was a binge drinker and gambler, though he gave it up to save his marriage.  Before setting out to establish a farm in his early forties he was always hunting or hanging with his cronies.  When I was a small child, Billy and I frequently got to tag along.  It was heaven! Upon his return from work we rushed joyously rushing to meet him shrieking, “Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home.” Then we’d likely be off for an adventure. Unfortunately, for his older two girls, Daddy made a point of  establishing an emotional and physical distance as we approached puberty.  He wanted no hint of inappropriate behavior in his family.  God only knows how he was influenced by his early life. 

About the time Daddy was nine, his sick father had moved into the home of his own mother. Suffering with a brain tumor, he lay abed for four years, unable to do anything for his poor family.  That grandma wanted nothing to do with her daughter-in-law and the starving children.  The fourth of seven, Daddy, along with his two older brother’s, took any work they could get, often for nothing more than the chance to put their feet under someone else’s table.  Daddy said one day he chopped bushes all day for a bag of meal. 

None of his father’s family wanted to be saddled with their ravenous appetites either.  They were all struggling. Daddy told of helping his uncle with the harvest one late fall day.  The three barefoot boys got there before daylight, hoping for breakfast.  Their shoeless condition was not slovenliness.  They’d have gladly worn shoes had they had them. Sadly, his aunt was plunging the breakfast dishes in hot water as they shuffled up to the back door.  She’d had no intention of feeding them, shooing them out to the field with Uncle Robert and their cousins. At noon, Annie Mae sent one of her girls to the field with a bag of biscuits slathered with cold gravy and a jug of water.  The biscuits were bland but filling, but the boys had been hoping for milk, and maybe a cookie or a pear

The weather turned about four that afternoon, a cold sleety rain.  The hungry boys followed their uncle to the house, looking forward to a hot supper and a cozy bed for the night.  Their mother wouldn’t be worried, knowing they were at Uncle Robert’s.  Surely, Uncle Robert would hitch up the wagon and bring them home in the morning.  They didn’t have shoes or coats!  In the days before their Daddy got sick, they’d often stayed at Uncle Robert’s with their cousins.

Again, the heartless Annie Mae met them at the door.  “You boys git on home before it gits any worse.  Your Mama’s gonna be worried about you.” Aunt Annie made it clear they and their appetites had no welcome at her table. Uncle Robert gave them each a quarter and a tow sack full of the corn they’d just helped harvest. He sadly watched his nephews head to their poor home, clearly having had his orders. The shoeless boys cried with misery as they gingerly stumbled the long three miles home on frozen feet.  Daddy vowed then never to turn a hungry visitor away.  He never did.  Mother was often angered when Daddy insisted she come up with a meal for drop-in company, even hours after mealtime.  It’s surprising how often Daddy’s offer was accepted, especially  by ne’er do wells. Meanwhile, Mother fumed at the stove. “Nobody with any raising would expect someone to drop in and be offered a meal!” Mother never had sandwich makings or quick food so a meal meant cooking.

On a further further note, the penurious Annie Mae made each of her own children raise heir own garden contributing to the family larder.  She benefitting further, selling off the excess.

All in the Family

I preceded my husband into nursing by several years.  I trained as an acute hemodialysis nurse and found myself suited to the work, enjoying the challenge and autonomy.  Acute dialysis patients receive their care in hospital, going to outpatient dialysis centers when they are well.  Naturally, patients on dialysis are not immune to health care problems experienced by the the rest of us.  Unfortunately, they may be more complicated. Hubby’s early career was in the oilfield.  Due to economic changes,  he saw the writing on the wall and realized he’d need to retrain.  He made the difficult decision to go to nursing school.

I’d trained and worked with many nurses coming from the oilfield. I knew Bud would do well. Like them, he was smart, technically savvy, accustomed to long hours, motivated, and happy to be out of the elements.  Comfortable with exchanging exposure to mud and grease for bodily fluids,  most did really well in acute hemodialysis, the intensive care unit, and the emergency room. 

Since I was in hemodialysis and Bud worked on a Physical Rehabilitation Unit, we shared many patients. Of course, it didn’t take patients long to ask about our link.  I am of a talkative nature, warm and friendly, greeting each patient by name as they arrived. Bud is friendly, but reserved. Hemodialysis is a typically a four hour treatment, so if patients felt like visiting, there was plenty of time for that.  One grumpy patient must have wished I’d hush.  When she got back to Bud’s floor, she asked him. “Is that your wife working down there in dialysis?”

“Sure is,” he admitted.  “Did she take good care of you?”

“Yeah.” She admitted. “But she talks too much! And ever’ time I go to sleep she comes over and gits my blood pressure.”

“Well, I guess you better tell her she talks too much, but you do know she has to take your blood pressure every fifteen minutes, don’t you?”

The next time she came to me, I greeted her like always.  “Good morning, Mrs. Smith.(not her name) Let me get you all settled in. Now you know I have to get your blood pressure every fifteen minutes, but I’ll try to keep quiet and let you get a good nap.  I know I talk too much.”.

“You shore do.” she said.  “Now, put a pillow behind my back, git me another blanket, a cuppa ice an’ switch that TV to “Price is Right,” Turn off that light.” With this, she nodded off.  I didn’t wake her if I could help it.

Bud greeted her when she returned to his care.  “How are you? Mrs. Smith.  Did your treatment go okay today?”

“Yeah, but they keep it like a freezer down there.  Git me some blankets an’ a cuppa coffee.” She snapped.”

“Yes ma’am, as soon as I get your vital signs. He got to work. 

“Is that all y’all Betheas can do? Talk and git my pressure.  Git me some blankets.” He did. I was happy for him.