memoir

Misogynistic Cat

Patches was an appealing calico  kitten until you took her personality into account. She clearly had issues.  I have to admit, I never got her to a cat psychiatrist, so my diagnoses may not impress the more knowledgeable among  you.  At first, like any kitten, she was all teeth and claws as she frisked around.  My daughter was a sweet little girl, totally enamored of Patches.  That fickle feline  wouldn’t give her the time of day unless the child was opening cat food. Patches spit or hissed at me every time I got close.

Conversely, Patches couldn’t get enough of my son, even though he put forth nothing good.  He’d stick rolled tape to her feet and she’d come back for more.  He rubbed her fur the wrong way.  She loved it.  He never fed her.  My daughter would try to entice Patches to sleep with her.  Patches always struggled loose and sped into John’s room.  Should she be locked out, she yowled at the door till he let her in.

Patches might have been a Floozy in a previous life.  She loved Bud, too.  If John was not available, she’d cuddle up on Bud’s lap and purr like a washing machine.  I believe she also suffered from hallucinations.  From time to time, she’d be walking across the floor and seem to see something then panic wildly, before running to hide under a bed or sofa.  Other times, she’d wake from a dead sleep and run till she banged her head into the wall.  It was not uncommon for her to pursue an invisible mouse or yowl at nothing.  It never occurred to me me till now, but perhaps she was Seeing ghosts.

One night, John was gone, so Patches had to make do with Bud.   She hopped on him in bed,  moving several times, made a lot of biscuits, with her purring in overdrive the whole time.  It was impossible to go to sleep. Eventually, she settled down.  “Finally.  That’s a relief.” I said, “Maybe she finally went to sleep.”

In a muffled tone, Bud answered. “Yeah, well I’d feel a lot better if her butt hole wasn’t right over my nose.”

Connie said, “Damn!”

My sister Connie is seventeen months older than Marilyn.  She was protective of Marilyn from the start, always giving over to “the baby,”. She wasn’t encouraged to do it, that’s just how she was.  Mother awas careful not make a difference or favor Marilyn.  In fact, she was felt bad at seeing Connie knocked out of the baby spot, so bent over backwards trying to be fair.

Marilyn had no problem asserting herself. Since Connie didn’t want Marilyn to get in trouble, she rarely hit Marilyn back or tattled on her.  I infer this worked well for Marilyn..  As country children often do, one day Connie didn’t want to take time to go in and wee wee.  She simply darted behind a tree to do the job.  Finding an abandoned hubcap that served as a dog-feeding dish, she squatted and filled it.  As she stood, Marilyn slipped up behind her and kicked it, splashing Connie liberally.  Instead of smacking Marilyn like a normal kid would have, Connie just exclaimed, “Damn!”  Marilyn was off like a shot, looking for Mother,  Connie ,right behind her as soon as she got her wet clothes pulled up.

””Mama, Mama!  Connie said “Damn!”  This was big trouble.  Mother wouldn’t tolerate trashytalk.

Mother whirled around, shocked, expecting Connie to deny the evil deed.  “Connie, did you say, “Damn?”

”Yes.” Connie whimpered.  Had she told Mother what Marilyn had done, they would both have been swatted.

”Get me the fly swat.”  Mother kept a plastic fly swat hanging by the back door ready for just such a occasion.  She gave Connie two or three quick swats and dismissed her, while Marilyn stood by self-righteously.  It was years before Connie told the whole story.

I wonder if the dogs thought “Damn” later that day when they smelled pee in their dish.

My family:  I am in the back row Left, holding Connie’s hands,  Billy Center, Phyllis  holding Marilyn Right.

Uncle Albert’s Barn

My great-Uncle Albert’s barn raised the bar for what a barn should be.  A rambling, splotched caterpillar, it sprawled behind his rustic house.   It was an amalgamation of scavenged lumber of various vintages. Over many years, he’d added on as the need arose and opportunity allowed Of an age to have experienced The Great Depression in its entirety, he understood waste not, want not.  His house and outbuildings were built largely of reclaimed lumber.   One stall of his barn was lied high with neatly stacked reclaimed lumber stored in readiness for his next project.  He had recently been hired to tear down and haul off an old house, the very lumber now resting in his barn.  Coffee cans of used nails sat on a shelf.  As tempting as it looked, one hard look from Uncle Albert made it clear his lumber was off limits for climbing.

Wisely, Albert did not seem anxious for the company of bothersome children, making no effort to be friendly.  In fact, I never noticed him behaving particularly warmly toward my dad., even though Daddy clearly admired him and sought his approval.  Uncle Albert was as likely to grump at Daddy as he was at us.  I was mystified at seeing Daddy treated as a troublesome child.  Daddy had spent months on end living and working with Uncle Albert during His childhood of The Great Depression.  His father had died young, leaving a widow with seven young children to to raise.

The barns multiple rooms opened off a central open area.  It’s many rooms held ancient implements, harness, plows and all manner of equipment neatly organized.  An ancient wagon Relaxed in one stall, in readiness for hay-hauling.  We were free to play on it, as long as we weren’t destructive.  Hay was stacked in numerous stalls.  Uncle Albert mad it clear the hay was not there for our pleasure. In one stall russet and sweet potatoes lay in their beds of hay, dusted with lime. String  of beans, dried apples, pears, and onions hung from the rafters. Several barn cats patrolled the barn to keep mice and rats at bay.  They weren’t the friendly house cat variety.

The barn was roofed with hand-split wooden shingles.  I can’t imagine all the hours he spent splitting them.  A neat fence made of various types of wire garden entry to the barn.  A couple of large metal road signs served as fence panels, adding to the barnyard’s appeal.

I just loved that barn.  I wish I could spend another afternoon poking around in it.

 

My First Barn

As wide as she was tall, the little old lady looked amusingly like a cartoon turtle in a floral dress slipping slowly out the back door before full daylight.  The last I remembered, I’d been asleep on the train.  Not wanting to be left alone, I rolled to my belly and hung off the edge of an unfamiliar bed, my pudgy feet peddling till I thudded solidly to the unfinished wood floor.  Following her out into the dewy grass of the early daylight, I saw her lurching one-sidedly under the burden of a heavy bucket of corn in one hand and a shovel in the other, totally unaware of my silent pursuit.  As I padded silently behind, sandburs pierced my baby feet.  Dropping to my round bottom, I shrieked at the insult.  The grass at home was soft and welcoming.  Startled by my banshee cries, she turned.  “Oh my Lord!  I thought I shut the door behind me.  You could have gotten in the road!”

Dropping the bucket of corn, she rushed over to comfort me, as fast as a turtle could, I suppose, seating me on her shovel blade to pick sandburs out of my feet.  By the time she’d finished, I pointed out a huge yellow road grader a few yards away on the side of the dirt road.  “You want to see that?  Okay.  Grandma will take you over there.  It’ll be a while before the workers get here.  Little fellers need to see road graders if they get a chance.”

I admired the way she thought.  Blessed with my company every day, my harried mother would probably have told me to “Get away from that.  That’s none of your business!” I’d noticed early on most interesting things fell in that category. Standing on the shovel blade, I clung to the shovel handle as Grandma dragged me across the grass.   She lifted me as high to study the gigantic tires before setting me on the step to peer inside the cab.  I am still fascinated by heavy machinery.

After I had my fill of the road grader, we went back for her bucket of corn to feed her chickens.  I liked the chickens just fine, though they weren’t nearly as interesting as the road machine.  We had chickens at home.  The barn next to the chicken yard was a different matter.  Since the grass path was worn away between the two, I toddled over to have a look. A huge, two-storied white structure larger than the house enticed me, nearer.  A padlocked chain  ran through two holes in the big double-doors, denying me entry.  Peeking into the deep shade of the barn, I discovered untold riches: a child-sized table and chairs, a rocking horse, a tricycle, and a red wagon.  Grandma’s little black and white dog dropped to his belly and slid in the deep, sandy track worn under the doors.  I dropped to my belly and wiggled right behind him.  Had Grandma moved just a little slower, I’d have earned my prize.  Instead, she caught me by my heels and dragged me by feet my back into the barn yard, howling in protest as she explained. “Those things belong to the child of the landlord. We can’t touch things in the barn. ” I couldn’t wrap my thoughts around that, having no idea what a landlord was, but I knew what toys were, and meant to have them.  To temper my disappointment, she led me to the back of barn and allowed me to climb on the rail fence.  The barn and lot  were shaded by an enormous oak tree.  Marvelously, a tire swing hung temptingly from a high branch.  I flew to the tire swing suspending myself in its embrace.  I could run and swing backwards, kicking up a sandy, white cloud.  I had a tire swing at home and had learned to wind myself up for a spinning ride.  Grandma generously let me entertain myself,  For the moment, I was satisfied, knowing I’d get find a way to get in that barn later.

Back in the house, Grandma slid brown-topped biscuits out of the oven.  Minutes later, I met my first true love, bacon. I have not tasted anything so good since. I felt strangely independent sharing my first morning with Grandma.  I’d never been awake before my mother that I remembered.  I was surprised to see Mother wander through in her nightgown and robe looking for coffee soon after.  I’d never seen her dressed for bed before.

This is my first conscious memory, though I must have been familiar with Grandma.  Mother recalled the story, dating it to around the time I was eighteen months old.  I am older now than Grandma was then, and like her, carry a shovel as I putter in the yard, an excellent implement to have on hand for a little impromptu digging or snake-routing.  Some things never change.

This photo was taken on that visit.  I was eighteen months old, and my sister four.  This was taken at a park.  Later that that, we were allowed to take our shoes off and wade in a park pool  I cut my foot on a coke bottle, not badly, just enough to make me scream bloody murder.

Family Talk

We all have “family talk” that outsiders don’t get.  A much-used phrase in our family is, “I don’t like what I wanted.” was first uttered by my little niece, Chelsea.  She had a quarter and spent the morning begging her mother to walk her to a nearby store to put the quarter in a vending machine for a prize.  As soon as her afternoon nap was over, off they walked for her prize.  Upon popping her quarter in, a capsule with a lizard dropped in her hand.  She hated it and smashed it to the ground.

“Chelsea,  you’ve been wanting a prize all morning.  Why did you throw it down?”

”I don’t like what I wanted!”

That line comes in so handy.  You can use it referring to a car, a man, a job, or the new shoes that cramp your toes. Thank you, Chelsea.

My cousin’s husband provided another great phrase.  When he was frustrated with her, he’d pronounce, “Don’t go crazy, Sue!”  We use that one on each other at least once at every family gathering.

“It couldn’t be helped.” This one never fails to rile Mother. She used it often, usually after a big goof-up. It entered “family talk” after Mother made a ghastly mess hemming my brother’s new suit pants. It’s best to read that story in its entirety. https://atomic-temporary-73629786.wpcomstaging.com/2014/10/08/it-couldnt-be-helped/

Another is “You’re gonna have to buy the coffee.”  My dad worked with a gifted liar.  The man’s reputation was so well-established that anyone who repeated one of his stories had to buy the next round of coffee.  On one occasion he came rushing by and one of the fellows called out, “Sam, stop and tell us a big one.”

” I can’t,” he replied.  A man just fell in Smokestack 9 and I have to call an ambulance.”  They rushed behind him to discover it was all a lie. He was just headed to the cafeteria.

”I just spent my last two bucks on toilet paper and didn’t even get to dookey!”  This one originated with my husband Bud.  We awoke in the night to hear water spewing from a pipe under the bathroom sink.  Sadly, over an inch of water was standing in the house.  It was awful.  We jumped into action, but floors and baseboards were ruined.  It was obvious we’d be disfurnished for days till life was back to normal.  After the initial water was syphoned and carpets removed we sat exhausted on bare concrete floors.  Bud sadly pondered the mess and remarked, “I spent my last two bucks on toilet tissue and didn’t even get to dookey.”  Since then, that phrase describes utter disappointment.

”You should have done it already.”  My niece, Haley, kept straddling the new mailbox her father was trying to install, ignoring her fathe’s orders to stay off it.  Finally exasperated, he warned her.  “If you don’t stay off that mailbox, I’m going to have to paddle you.”  That would have been a first.

She looked him straight in the eye, with all the wisdom of a four-year-old and said, “You should have done it already.”

”The head’s as dangerous as the rest of it.” said my sister as she warned us all away from the severed head of a rattlesnake. Very very people have been injured by the body and rattlers, for sure.

“You try to raise your kids right….. .” This is one of Mother’s favorites. When she met her mother-in-law for the first time, Mamaw gave her a chilly welcome. “You try to raise your kids right and then when the get old enough to help you out, they go off and get married.” Needless to say, it foretold a weak friendship. Since then, when Mother jokes about neglect by any of us, she dusts this phrase off.

“I didn’t want to be in the damn play, anyhow!” A young relative as coerced by his teacher to be in a school play by his teacher.

“Johnny, you have to be in the play. Your mama and daddy are coming. Your grandma’s coming. Everybody else is in the play.”

Finally, Johnny reluctantly agreed to a one-line part. All he had to say was, “Hark, I hear a pistol shot!”

“When his time came, he called out, “Hark! I hear a shistol pot!” He made a couple more attempts with no better luck.

Disgusted, he stomped his foot and proclaimed, “I didn’t want to be in the damned play, anyway!”  This comes in handy when we’ve had enough.

Mamaw was partial to her two-year-old grandson, referring to him often as “Ma’s little man.” His three-year-old sister was sick of coming in last. Planting her fists on her little hips, she waggled her butt and mimicked, “Ma’s little man!  Ma’s little man!  All me ever hear.  Ma’s little man!”

Mamaw early 1950s  She loved Ma’s little man.

 

 

 

”

 

Saddle Shoes and Pointy Bras

That is me in the despised saddle shoes.  I was too young to hate them, yet.

The first, longest lasting, and most redundant misery my was frizzy, old lady perms.  Mother did this so my sister and I would be social outcasts.  Vastly overestimating our sexual attractiveness, from the time we went into puberty until we got old enough to fight her off, she maliciously inflicted home perms on us.

She bought our underwear at the Dollar Store or the cheapest thrift store or fire sale around, should Grandma lag in keeping us rigged out in home-made torture underwear.  Long after pointy bras were unavailable in normal circulation, Mother managed to ferret out pointy padded bras in the cheapest stores known to mankind, never mind the fact that the stiff cups caved in if they were bumped.  I’d have loved some not-too badly-worn cast-offs from the lucky, poor kids down the street, but they laughed when they caught me going through their trash. I tried to hide when changing in gym to keep anyone from seeing my Grandma’s home-made drawers.  They were made without benefit of elastic in the waist and tended to lengthen your legs by several inches as the day went on.  Grandma didn’t worry a lot about soft, cotton fabric.  Coarse, woven prints were good for the soul.


I was stuck in saddle-shoes for years because they were durable and Mother had loved them in high school.  Never-mind the fact that no other kid would have been caught dead in saddle shoes.  Best of all, I was a total slob, not the kind of kid who would ever voluntarily polish a shoe.  Most of the time, I didn’t even remember I had shoes till the school bus driver was honking the horn outside our door and I was simultaneously looking for my books, trying to get a note signed (bad news) and looking for lost shoes.  My shoes were inevitably, wet, filthy, and most likely stinking from ripping through the barnyard.  Not a good look for black and white shoes.  A more forward-thinking mother would have dressed me every day in a slicker and rain boots, so she could have hosed me off.

I

Were You Born in a Barn?

  • I grew up in the fifties  and didn’t expect much.  I didn’t feel deprived, just understood the situation.  All the family toys fit in a medium-sized box and were shared. We had mean cousins who regularly tore them up, so storage wasn’t a problem.   If we realized they were coming and had time, we locked them in my parent’s  bedroom, but nothing was foolproof.  Those hellions could ferret out a steel marble locked in a safe and tear it up. No kid I knew laid no claim to a television, radio, or record player.  We were free to watch or listen along with our parents.

Most of mine and my brother’s time was spent outdoors.  We had the run of our property, including a large two-story barn, so we never had to stay indoors, even in rain or rare icy weather.  “Get your jacket and shoes and socks on before you go to the barn.”  I was more concerned about getting out than I was about bad weather, so I’d gladly have gone barefoot and jacketless, given the chance.  Mother, a pessimist, foolishly believed in hookworms, stray nails, and broken glass.  I knew better, but she stayed on me.  It was a real downer.  If I got wet, I certainly didn’t come in to dry off and change shoes..  Most likely, I was wearing my only shoes.  Should Mother notice wet feet or muddy clothes, we might be stuck indoors for the day or till our jackets and shoes dried  I learned early that if you stay out in your wet things, pretty soon they lose that discolored, wet look.  Besides if you play hard enough, you generate some heat.

Our barn was two stories with a gigantic open door centering the second where Daddy backed up his truck up to load or unload hay.  It was a thrill to get a running start and fly to the ground eight or ten feet below.  Dry weather provided the softest landings since thick, shredded hay and powdery manure make a decent cushion.   Even the most determined jumper soon learned the folly of jumping on a rainy day.  It was too easy to slide into something horrible.  Regular wet clothes aren’t too bad, but malodorous puddles and cow pies should be avoided at all costs.  No one ever broke an arm or neck.

Playing on the square hay bales without damaging them is an art worth learning.  Tearing up baled hay quickly got us expelled from the barn as well as plenty of trouble.  It didn’t take long to discover which friend could be trusted to do right.  Billy and I policed them  and put a stop to tearing up bales.  Daddy had a stacking method we knew not to mess up. The cats loved the barn, busying themselves with the rats who also made themselves at home.  Knowing rats hid in our playhouse made them no less scream-worthy, though we weren’t afraid of them, often hurling corncobs at them.  I don’t think I was ever fast enough to do any damage.  Sometimes we were a little mor effective with slingshots or a BB gun.

A covered area below the loft was intended for equipment storage.  Interestingly, only the broken equipment was under the shed.  Presumably, repairs were started and abandoned there.  The good stuff sat out in the open.  Very little Space was taken up feed.   Mostly, it served as a repository for junk items. One of the most interesting  was a rough wooden box with filled with letters and personal items both parents brought to the marriage.  We were forbidden to open that box on pain of death, so were sneaky as we prowled through it, enjoying  the pictures and letters from old sweethearts, navy  memorabilia including a gigantic pin used to close Daddy’s navy gear bag, six two-inch chalkware dolls in their original box, and  two enormous carved ebony spoons featuring a naked man and a woman with pendulous bosoms.   I can only assume Mother was too much of a coward to hang those shocking spoons on her kitchen wall.  Her sister, Anne, in the WACS had brought them home as a gift to Mother, a woman who wouldn’t  say butt or titty, euphemizing with “your sitting down place “or “chest” if absolutely necessary. What a waste.  If fondling ebony wood breasts makes a pervert, I signed on early. The man was not anatomically correct or the guilt would have undone me..  The pity of it was, I couldn’t ask questions about any of those treasures since  the  boxes were strictly off limits.  Sadly, the rats devoured the letters long before I learned to read, though Phyllis bragged she got to read some.  I prefer to think she was lying.

Lean-to sheds with stalls flanked the left side and back of the barn.  We frequently snitched oats and  one lured the horse near the rail partitions dividing the stalls while the other slid on for a brief ride, then switch around for the other to ride.  We badgered Daddy Incessantly to saddle the horse for us, until one fine day when I was about ten, he told us we could ride any time we wanted if we could saddle the horse ourselves.  We’ never expected that.  Billy and I did the old oat trick and had him saddled in minutes.  We rode any time we wanted after that.  Frosty could never count on a moment of peace from that time forward.

The most charming thing about our barn was the black bucket and mop sitting atop the roof.  Whoever was applying tar the last day must have been either too lazy or tired to lower it to the ground. In all my days, I never saw another barn roof with a permanent tar bucket and mop guarding the roof.  I thought it looked kind of witchy.  Now that’s something to be proud of!

 

 

5 Ways to Make Sure Your Child and His Puppy Have a Satisfying Morning (reposted)

  1. Let your kid eat in front of the TV.
  2.  Forget to put Vaseline on the doorknob so kid can open door.
  3.  Make sure your kid has a puppy.
  4.  Make sure your kid’s stomach and puppy’s digestive tract are both full.
  5.  Go to bathroom for a little quality time.
                                             John and Buster on a Better Day
John and Blackie

We’ve all seen articles by organized people enumerating methods to keep out lives well-organized, tidy, and rational.  Well, this is not one of those.  I’d be far more successful at writing “How to Mess Up Everything You Touch.”  My kids were always right ahead of me, making sure nothing was missed.  When John was three, I settled him on the floor on a big towel in front of the television with his breakfast on a tray to watch “Sesame Street.  Never a slacker in the appetite department, he always wanted milk, eggs, bacon, toast, and grits.  I always watched with him, ready to pick up his tray and cuddle him in his blanket after he finished eating. This worked well for months.

One sad day, I had to excuse myself for just a minute.  Naturally, I told John to sit tight till I got back.  Everything would have been fine, except the Buster the Dog wanted in.  No three-year-old could have resisted.  Buster surely thought he’d gone to Doggy Heaven when he found breakfast waiting for him, set right at puppy level.  Making quick work of my tidy layout, he spilled the milk, gobbled the eggs and bacon, and smeared the grits as far as they’d go.  In fact, it was so altogether satisfying and filling, he pooped his gratitude out on the carpet.  Sickened by the smell, John vomited on top of the whole mess. By the time I’d finished my business and got back to the living room, John was bawling at the top of his lungs and Buster was happily burrowed into the sofa, licking the jam off the toast.

I scraped up the worst of the mess and fixed John another breakfast, not because I thought he deserved it, but because it was the only way to assuage his loud and continuous grief.  Buster went back to the yard and I spent the next couple of hours catching up on some unplanned cleaning.

As a footnote, I noticed fruit flies buzzing around John’s toy box later that morning.  Digging deep, I found a rotten banana right at the bottom, but that’s a story for another day.  Just so you know, later that week I pulled a peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of the VCR.

Not the Boss of Me

In her never-ending mission to make Daddy’s life miserable, Mother raised objections when Daddy wanted to move one of his sisters, her dead-beat husband, and her horrible twins onto their place.  His plan was to buy them a mobile home, set it up, install utilities, under his name, of course, since their only income was Bubba’s disability check.  The good news was, the happy couple could now theoretically afford rent since they’d married and Bubba was getting extra income by acquiring her minor children.  The bad news was, Hubby was running from the law because he hadn’t paid child support for his own children in years.  They needed to get out of town fast since his ex-wife had finally located him.  The warrant for his arrest lay heavy on his mind.

Daddy was THE BOSS!  He would move anybody on his place he wanted to and if Mother didn’t like it, she could leave.  In fact, it was God’s Will that a man help his sister out.  Daddy went to work in a self-righteous swagger.  Righteousness became him.  Well, she would leave, by golly, but there was a small complication.  When Mother got ready to go, she found he’d taken all the vehicle keys with him.  She was waiting up for him when he got in after eleven that night for round two.

Quite satisfied with himself, he hid the keys and went to bed to sleep like the dead.  Rather than wrapping him in the sheet and beating the coon-dog poo out of him like she should have, she decided to give him the scare of a lifetime.  It was one of Louisiana’s rare icy nights.

Enraged, Mother grabbed an afghan off the sofa and made her way out to sleep in the camper, sure he’d be terrified when he found awoke and found her gone.  She tried to settle in the camper for the night, but it was beyond freezing.  With only the afghan, she might as well have been out in the icy night.  Naturally, she had no idea how to turn on the propane heater.  She dug through and found a couple of sheets and blankets in the camper, but they weren’t much help.  Finally, her rage cooled enough she decided she’d seek comfort back in the house and deal with Daddy in the morning.

Unfortunately, she had to deal with him a lot sooner than that.  She had inadvertently locked herself out of the house and had to beat on the doors and windows till she finally woke him up to let her in.  By that time, she was so cold she had to snuggle up to his back to warm up. It’s good he was a forgiving man.