memoir

It Couldn’t be Helped Part 12

Now for the poop part of the story, Once Mother gets a notion in her head, she can not be side-tracked. Mother and I stopped in at the grocery store one morning. As we made our way back to my vehicle, I spotted a dignified elderly gentleman hurriedly making his way back to his own car parked adjacent to mine. He seemed to be in some distress, so I slowed my place to stay out of his way. As he sidled past me, I got a whiff and realized the reason for his scurrying. I slowed my pace and acted distracted to give him time to get to his car and save his dignity.

Meanwhile, Mother was right behind me. She didn’t notice his predicament, only that an oldster was getting ahead of her. She is vain about being spry for her age and was determined not to be left in his dust. She picked up her pace, catching up to him. Getting into my car as the wind changed, she got a foul whiff of feces. They were standing back to back, almost touching as she inspected her shoe and announced. “Something smells awful. There must have been a dog running loose doing his business. Better check your shoe. I don’t have anything on my shoe.” Just in case I hadn’t heard, she repeated, just like I was five years old. “You’d better check your shoe! Something smells awful! Don’t you smell it!” By this time, the poor man was sitting in his car with the window open.

“No, Mother. I don’t smell a thing. Get in. Let’s go.” By this time, the whole town had to know what the problem was.

It seemed like an eternity before we got away. “Mother, that man had messed up his clothes and was trying to slip into his car. Of course, I smelled him. Dead people smelled him. I was just trying to avoid embarrassing him. You were just about backing into him.”

She was horrified. “Oh, My Lord! Did I get anything on me? Oh well. It couldn’t be helped!”

Cinderella in Reverse

Me in my stylish saddle oxfords.  I rememer those socks.  They were pink and green circumferential stripes.  I think they were boy socks.  That dress was red and white checked.  Mother must have let me pick my outfit that day.  I was not quite three here.

 

Saddle Oxfords ruined my life.  The whole time I was growing up, my mother’s fashion sense was stuck in the forties.  In the picture above, you see me modeling a scuffed and dirty pair.  I absolutely despised those shoes.  Almost as soon as they came out of the box, they looked horrible.  I was then, and still am, incapable of keeping my clothes and shoes nice.  I ought to wear  brogans and a burlap bag for all the good dressing up does.  Now I wear nothing but dark jeans with cotton prInts,  plaids, stripes , checks, or florals.to confuse people and look presentable longer.    I can reach in my closet and pull out any pair of jeans and any shirt and it will do.  It is the same for shoes.  I have brown, black, and navy shoes that go with anything.  Five minutes and I am dressed.  Of course, life does occasionally demand a dress, but I have a few in classic styles that get me through anything.  No thinking required.

I was stuck with saddle shoes because Mother liked them in high school.  She somehow didn’t notice styles had changed by the time I came along.  After I started school, Mother just took a paper where she’d marked around our feet to the shoe store and brought shoes home to us.  We were stuck with her choice.  Length was the first concern.  We were going to be wearing those shoes awhile so she got them big.  Sometimes it looked like we were wearing skis.    Durability was a major issue.  With five kids, she had to get something that lasted.  Those damned oxfords lasted.  I’ll bet roaches will be wearing them long after the apocalypse.  Oh, and Mother thought the were “cute.” so that covered style.

On “shoe day” I’d beg Mother for strap shoes.  Mother was a tyrant on dressings us.  We wore what she bought and learned she wasn’t taking any backtalk.  Patent leather would have thrilled me.  That wasn’t going to happen.  I always got the same story.  “When patent leather gets wet, it cracks,”  I didn’t care.  I still coveted it.  The next best would have been red leather shoes.  Mother was a tyrant.  We wore what she bought.  Our opinion didn’t factor in on trying to dress seven people on a pitiful budget.  “No, I can’t get red  shoe polish.  They’ll look awful,”  I always hoped for a miracle, but no patent leather shoes,  velveteenshoes, or cowboy boots ever came home with her.  I guess she never got a look at those dirty oxfords I clumped around in.  In theory, the saddle oxfords could be polished nicely.  I was so rough on mine, they still looked liked thunder after polishing.  The scuffs were more gray than white.  Mother was not particularly good at polishing, anyway.  After Connie and Marilyn came along, she had me polishing my own and I found out what a crappy job really looked like.  I smeared white all over the edge of the black.  Did you ever see chicken poop?  It’s mostly black with a little white saddle on top.  That was my shoes in reverse, mostly white with a dollop of black.  The white was generously slopped on the black.  We always had that pathetic white  liquid shoe polish that  didn’t cover worth diddly.  It was only good for making the black look worse.  Not only that, I was supposed to polish my shoes the night before.  I’d get up the next morning and realize  I’d already been threatened to polish my shoes a couple of times, and slap on a messy coat of white.   It didn’t usually have time to let it dry, much less buff, so I looked a mess.  Better yet, if I’d waited too late, I got polish on my legs as I walked around.  See, it was all Mother’s fault I wasn’t a fashion icon.  I guess there are just some kids destined to wear saddle oxfords while others get patent leather.  Life isn’t fair!

The third child on the hay is my sister Connie Swain Miller.  You see here she got a good dose of those ugly shoes.  They look even worse without socks.  The other two children were family friends.  Notice all the diapers on the line.  My younger  sister Marilyn was seventeen months younger than Connie.  She may have escaped the Saddle Oxford Curse.  You notice they have sneakers, or tennies, as they were called then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It Couldn’t Be Helped Part 9

When two intruders broke in her house, she made one of them help her into her robe before she would talk to them.  She gave them eleven dollars, telling them, “That’s enough!”  They thanked her when they left, telling her to “have a nice day.”  She told the police officers later, “They were polite and had been raised right

I think this story sums Mother up better than anything else.  She gets rattled over little things, but is a rock when something huge challenges her.

I got a call from her after midnight.  “I’m okay.  Don’t panic.  The police are on the way!  I just wanted to let you know someone kicked my door down!”  You can imagine the horror and shock that message sent through me, imagining my poor little mother at the mercy of God only knows who, not even a door against the night.  Bud and I flew over.

By the time we got there, police officers were there investigating.  Her shattered front door was propped up on her front porch, splintered wood splayed around her living room.  Mother had coffee ready for us. (I told you she was calm in a storm.)  She had been sleeping when awakened by two young guys dressed in black, with black ski masks, one brandishing a baseball bat.  The nearest advanced down the hall, demanding her purse. She cooperated, but asked, “Can you get me my robe?  It’s hanging on a hook on the bathroom door. I can’t be walking around in front of you with no robe.”

He agreed, getting the robe, helping her into it since she was having a little trouble with her shoulder, probably sorry he’d ever started this.  His partner laid down the bat, thank God, demanding her purse.

Fearing he’d think she was going for a gun, she said, “It’s on that shelf.”  He bumbled and found her library books in a bag, ready for return.

“These are just books.”

“Just behind them.

This time he found her wallet.  Digging through it, he was dismayed to find only eleven dollars.  “Is this all?”

“Yes, I only have that because I was going to buy gas tomorrow.  I never keep cash.  It’s too dangerous!”  Truer words were never spoken.  She usually has to dig in her car to find change for a coke, preferring to bum off whoever she is with.  It’s a wonder she didn’t ask the robbers for money for a coke while she had them there.

“What about your bank card?”

She said she gave him a disgusted look, thinking, “Now, that’s going too far. Eleven dollars is enough!”

They must have realized their business with her was complete, turning to leave.  Before going down the steps, the one who’d helped her into her robe returned for his bat, telling her, “Have a nice day.” As they walked toward the door, she thanked them for not hurting her.

She summed the whole story up for the officers, promising to get in touch if she remembered anything else.  “I don’t think they ever meant to hurt me.  They were both as polite as could be.  I think their mother raised them right.”

I am so glad she did. (to be continued)

It couldn’t Be Helped Part 7

I don’t know why Mother comes home and tells these stories on herself.  She wasn’t arrested or shunned by her congregation.  Despite the impression the title of this post makes, Mother is very faithful to her faith, tithing, attending services weekly, and supportive of her church.  She normally writes a monthly check for her tithe, but one Sunday decided give an extra cash gift.  This was a fine idea, except that she only had twenties and wanted to give fifty dollars, not sixty.  Well, the obvious solution to her was to put three twenties in the offering plate and take out a ten.  For most people, this would have worked out fine, but Mother has been known to bumble, especially when she is concentrating hard.  When the plate was passed, she put in her three twenties and lifted a ten and a twenty.  She felt vaguely uneasy passing the plate on.

It was on her mind through the rest of the service, getting little out of the service, except a vague feeling of guilt when the pastor chose the text of “the widow’s mite.”  As soon as she got home, she counted her cash, realizing she’d committed a theft from God.  She wasn’t struck down by lightning when she waited until the following to return that twenty.

Anxious not to repeat that error.  She decided it would be best to purchase a money order to put in the offering plate.  Mother is notoriously tight with her money.  Hearing that “Mr. Thrifty,” the local liquor store had the cheapest money orders, she scurried in to purchase one.  Unfortunately, she locked her keys in the car.  There was no way to hide this fiasco.  She had to call me to bring her the extra key.  Naturally, I made the most of this ridiculous situation, since she CLAIMS to be a teetotaler.

The story didn’t end there.  As she put her money order in the offering plate the next Sunday morning, she noticed a big “Mr. Thrifty” logo emblazoned prominently on the bottom.  Baptists normally  have the grace not to advertise their visits to liquor stores so boldly.

My sister’s son is a minister.  Upon learning that he has accepted the pastorate of their home church, Connie remarked, “Now Mother has to start coming here.  Oh no, forget that.  He doesn’t need Mother stealing from the offering plate and losing her bra at our church.”

More on losing her bra at church later.  (to be continued)

It Couldn’t Be Helped Part 5

Which looks better?
Mother was locked on the grounds of Windsor Castle, but in all honesty, it was’t her fault.  She was part of a tour group that got locked in.  They were just enjoying themselves and, as on the other museum visit, the group found themselves alone, the exits locked.  She hastily pointed out, this time it wasn’t her fault.  It was the group leader’s responsibility to keep up with the time.

Concerned about arrest for trespassing, they searched fruitlessly for a helpful guard.  None were found.  Eventually, they went up and beat on the castle doors, to no avail.  Mother was quite offended, sure the queen was inside and just refusing to answer because she was a snob.  Though she saw on the news later that night the queen was supposedly in Scotland, Mother was still miffed, preferring to believe she’d been snubbed.  Eventually, the group found an unlocked gate in the gardener’s area and made their departure.  Having to go out the back way did not improve Mother’ s prejudice toward Her Majesty.

Though Mother is a royal watcher, she never misses an opportunity to take a swipe at the queen.  “The queen wears ugly hats.”  “ The queen seems overbearing.” “It’s awful the way the queen bosses her family around.”  “I’ll bet she’s an awful mother/grandmother-in-law.”  “The queen is no better than anyone else.”  “The queen has gained weight.”  I don’t know why she got such a bee in her bonnet about the queen.  I know the queen would be devastated if she knew all the nasty things Mother says about her.

Mother positively gloated upon learning of a story published in The Guardian that DNA  studies on Richard III, one of Queen Elizabeth’s forebears was illegitimate.  Possibly, the queen herself has no better claim to the throne than Mother does.  I will leave it to the the two of them to sort that out.  I don’t have a dog in that fight.

Questions raised over Queen’s

ancestry after DNA test on

Richard III ‘s cousins.

 

 

Doggonit, Give Me Some Directions that Make Sense

            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.

It Couldn’t Be Helped Part 3

Mother is sensitive about her height.  For some reason, people feel free asking her how tall she is.  She dodges the issue by returning with a question,  either, “How much do you weigh?”  or “How much money do you have?”  By the way, she is not tall.  Most of her grandchildren pass her up by the time they are ten or eleven.  I was with her on a recent visit to her doctor when the nurse asked her height.

Mother feloniously claimed five foot two inches.  Realizing she was getting nowhere, the nurse took her to measure.  She was busted.

Compounding the issue of her slight build, is her squeaky voice.  She sounds just like Minnie Mouse.  The minute a caller hears her voice, they say, “Oh, hello Mrs. Swain.”  She’d never be able to make crank calls.

Mother was at loose ends one Sunday in June after church so decided to visit The American Rose Center.  As it was already hot that day, she donned her comfortable clothes:  cut off blue jean shorts, (neatly hemmed, starched, and ironed since “her mama raised her right!”) pink gingham shirt, tennis shoes and pink socks that perfectly matched her shirt.  She topped her ensemble off with a big straw sun hat.  She knew she looked cute!

She strolled around for an hour or so, admiring the lovely roses, when she noticed a gathering at a small rustic building.  Thinking there was a “program” of some sort, she decided to check it and cool off for a bit.  Based on the attendance, the program promised to be a good one.  The music was beautiful.  She had to go all the way to the front row to get a seat.  It was a hot day, but she was surprised to see so many hats.  Somehow, she failed to notice the wedding party standing before the altar.

Just about the time she got settled, the organist started playing the “Wedding March.”  It dawned on her that she had crashed a wedding as the usher escorted the groom’s mother to her seat.   Panicked to realize she occupied the seat intended for the bride’s mother, she fled back down the aisle to the giggling of the wedding guests where she was forced to make her way around the mother of the bride on the arm of the usher.  I can only imagine the confusion of the bride as Mother excused herself on the way out.

That was the most unfriendly family she’d ever met.

 

Kathleen Holdaway and Bill Swain June 29, 1946 on the day of their marriage.

 

It Couldn’t Be Helped Part 2

Daddy should have been a polygamist the way he laid out work for Mother.  His list might start, “Take the power saw by the shop in Springhill (22 miles away) on your way to the tractor place in Magnolia (24 miles beyond Springhill) pick up a magneto.  It ought to look like this.  (He’d dangle two broken pieces)  Mother wouldn’t have known a magneto from a mosquito.  On your way home, stop at Rusty’s and get some  catfish to fry tonight.  Eric is coming over after work to help me and I told him you’d fry him up some catfish.  Oh yeah, don’t forget to stop at the feed store in Cotton Valley and get a hundred pounds of grain.  That red cow is looking poor and I want to fatten her up.”

The entire round of errands was more than one hundred miles. Mother would do what she had to at the house, grab her two preschoolers and start her day.  Of course, she still had to “fry fish for Eric” at the end of this little jaunt.  Mother was a “good wife” and would never told Daddy to take care of his own business.  He was completely demanding and thought she was lucky to be married to him.  Add Mother’s regular routine to this and it was a mess.

Well, on the proud occasion of my brother Bill’s high school graduation, he was miraculously gifted with a suit. The whole family was thrilled.  My parents had been worried for months how they would come up with the necessary graduation suit.  A regular suit would have really stretched their budget, but Bill was tall, more than six feet-four inches.  West Brothers wasn’t going to be much help.  About two weeks before graduation, a box came in the mail, a beautiful blue suit.  It came with long, long unhemmed pants.  All the pants needed was hemming to make them perfect-the answer to a prayer.  Immediately, Daddy pronounced, “Kathleen, you’ve got to get busy right now and get those pants hemmed.”

“I’ll get it done, but not right now. I’m cooking supper.”  Daddy liked his food.  He couldn’t argue with that.

The next night at exactly the same time, “Kathleen, did you get those pants hemmed today?”

“No. Connie was sick and I had to take her to the doctor.  She threw up the rest of the day.  I didn’t get anything done.”

Now he was clearly not pleased. “Well, you better get it done tomorrow.  Graduation is only a week and a half off.”

Mother was mad now. “I know that as well as you do.  And I know he has to have a suit.  I would have done it today if Connie hadn’t gotten sick!”

Disaster fell that night. Granny Long died.  Mother had to help at the house and cook food for the funeral.  Mother and Daddy had to “sit” a shift with the body at the home that night, when they were asked if Billy could be a pall bearer.  “Of course,” said Daddy.  “It would be an honor.”

”Oh no! He’ll have to have a suit and I didn’t get it hemmed!”  thought Mother. It was after 2:00 A.M. when they got home.  The funeral was at 10:00 A.M. It never even occurred to Daddy the suit was not hemmed and pressed just like he’d delegated days ago.

“Come Hell or High Water” breakfast was the first order of the day.  Mother wasn’t about to mention the suit before she had to.   By the time Daddy was out of the way, Bill learned he’d been pressed into service as a pall-bearer. With a yet-to-be hemmed suit, tensions were high.  Every minute counted.  Mother told him to try the pants on so she could measure them for a hem.  Furious as only a hormone-ridden seventeen-year-old pantsless pall-bearer can be, he held them in front of himself and snarled, “Just cut them here.”

Sick of the attitude, Mother didn’t notice he was bending as he pointed. She cut.  He ran for the shower while she hemmed and pressed faster than I’d ever seen her move, glad to have dodged a bullet.

Minutes later, he strode down to hall where we all were waiting, Daddy included. Complete with jacket, tie, cufflinks, and beautifully shined dress shoes he made an entrance.  His new suit pants ended four inches below his knees, revealing six inches of hairy, white leg above his black socks.  He looked like Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence.  His expression was unreadable.  There would be no saving his beautiful suit.  I was sure somebody would have to die!  Mother looked from him to Daddy and pronounced, “Well, it couldn’t be helped!”  We all exploded and laughed so long and hard a tragedy was averted.  Billy went back and put on his old black dress pants to do his pall bearer duty.  I don’t remember what happened to the graduation suit.  I guess it didn’t matter that much after all.

Old Wives Tales and Periods

imageI knew there was some kind of big, stupid mystery even before my “sometimes” friend Margaret Green broke the news to me in the fourth grade.  My grandma had started badgering me not to go barefoot and had taken to sneaking peeks at my underwear when she was sorting laundry.

This is some interesting information and dire warnings I was given regarding health care of young ladies after the onset of puberty. My maternal grandmother hissed these warnings at me, though she was hazy on rationale  Girls should never go barefoot or get their feet wet after they go into puberty. (She made no mention of how I was to wash my feet or bathe.). I must never bathe or get my head wet or ride a horse during my period.  She offered as proof the fact that when my grandpa’s sister was only sixteen, she was riding a horse just before she got ready to take a job as a teacher in her first school.  She got caught in a rainstorm while she was having her period and was soaked to the skin.  She got galloping pneumonia and died before daybreak.  I was never sure if all these variables had to be included for the situation to be deadly.  Perhaps if she had been fifteen, walking to her job as a clerk in a store while she was having her period and broke out in chicken pox, she might have escaped with only a few scars on her face.

Also, Grandma warned me young girls shouldn’t ever go swimming.  “Never?”  I was appalled.

For some reason, going barefoot was deadly, especially if there was dew on the ground.  There was something called “dew poisoning.”  Dew poisoning “stopped” periods.  How could that be a bad thing?  I didn’t want periods anyway.  Not only that, dew poisoning caused rampant infections should it enter a tiny wound on the foot, but I don’t remember her ever harassing my brother about going barefoot.  Maybe she wasn’t looking out for him.

Then she told me of a stubborn cousin of hers who went swimming all the time.  “Even when she was expecting!  Everyone of her kids had epileptic fits!”  That didn’t concern me at all since I had no intention of doing anything to cause children, in view of my recent sex education.

Mother had her own ridiculous rules about hygiene.  Hair could only be washed once a week, and never during you period.  That was a disaster for us with our oily hair.  I’d try to slip around and wash it more often, but she watched us.  She insisted on giving us hideous home perms.  They were awful!  I was so glad when Mother had to much on her mind to to to keep up with trying to enforce all her mindless rules.