Growing up way,way in the country the last place bordering a game reserve, the nearest neighbor a mile away, I was always aware we didn’t live in the sticks, but I hoped to someday. The woods were full of wild pigs, deer, coyote, foxes, alligators, a few black bear, snakes, birds, and a plethora of other wild creatures. It wasn’t a great idea to go stumbling around in the dark out there, especially without knee-high boots, a pistol, and a light.
It was not uncommon for hunters to come walking up to our place, any time of the day or night, reporting being stuck in the deeply rutted roads and off-road areas of the reserve, muddy, fatigued, and bedraggled, desperate for help in getting out of a mud hole. Daddy or my brother sometimes cranked the tractor, bounced them back to their disaster, and pulled them out. It could take quite a while and was a lot of work. More often than not, if they had no cash, they left personal property to be redeemed when they came back with cash.
One morning about daylight, visitors of a different type came walking up, a teenage couple who’d gone parking and gotten stuck. The girl explained, they’d spent the night in the car, afraid to walk out, thinking a bear might get them.
I was amazed. Her father must have been nothing like mine. There wasn’t a bear big or bad enough to warrant getting caught spending the night in a parked car with a boy. I’d have faced a dozen bears rather than Daddy with a story like that!
(Continuation of story of Jamey Awful’s birthday party, without a doubt, the most fun I ever had in my life. If he gave a party today, I’d be there!)
Jamey’s birthday party was incredible. There was no sappy “Pin the Tail on the Donkey”, no party hats, just fun, fun, fun. Mama Awful didn’t concern herself with us, leaving us on our own. Of course, we ran wild, ripping through mud puddles, jumping out the barn loft, and robbing chicken nests. We splatted eggs against the side of the barn and climbed into fig trees breaking off a branch or two. My sandals were long gone and the skirt of my dress ripped from the waist band. The sash ties were mud-caked. From the look on Mother’s face when she walked over to get me, I could see she was not happy, not even going in for coffee like she usually did at neighbor lady’s houses. “I ought to tear you up for running wild like that, losing your shoes and tearing up your new dress.”
“But Mama, we was just playing. We didn’t mess up nothing in the house!” I protested. I usually got in trouble for meddling with people’s whatnots when we went to visit, a terrible wrong.
“ Don’t dispute my word!” she hissed through clenched teeth. “”You’re never going over there again!” My heart fell. Surely she didn’t mean it!
I figured Mother would forget after a few days, but no……….No visits to the Awfuls. If they noticed they were being snubbed you couldn’t tell. We were always ready to play with them if they rambled through our yard on the way to bigger and better things. During this time Daddy brought home a huge, mean turkey, to fatten for Thanksgiving. He was a monster jumping, spurring, and flogging us with when we had to feed the chickens and gather eggs. He even got bolder and started flying over the fence to attack us in our own territory. We stayed as far away as we could, but he ambushed us if he caught us off guard.
My personal favorite among the Awfuls was Junior who enjoyed a special claim to fame. He ate bugs and other strange items. He ate his first bug on a dare and liked it, saying it tasted like peanuts. From that time forward, he was generally known as Bugeater. The kids in the neighborhood took pride in finding the biggest, strangest bugs for him to eat. Bugeater did have standards, refusing to eat worms.
Before too many days, we were lucky enough to have Jamey, Bugeater, and Davey pay us a call. “Where’s that bad turkey? I wanta see it.” demanded Jamey.
“He’s out in the chicken yard but you better leave him alone! He’s real mean!” I pointed out. I watched them head for the chicken yard, wanting no part of that turkey.
Sure enough, that old devil turkey flew at them, ready to do battle. They screamed and ran like crazy, but not in the cowardly way we had. “Whoo whoo! Turn turkey run!” they shrieked, chasing him all over the chicken yard, flogging him with their caps and sticks. The terrorized turkey finally escaped up into the trees and stayed there till they sauntered off.
“That ol’turkey ain’t so bad,” Jamey said as they banged the gate shut on the way out.
”Wait, where are you going? Don’t you want to play?” I liked them even better now.
”Nah, We’re going crawfishing over in Donnie Parker’s ditch.” Jamey replied, ruining my day.
That turkey’s spirit was broken. He never bothered us again. I liked those kids even better than ever after that.
I gave Mother a little time to forget before asking to go to the Awfuls. One golden day, she had a headache and wanted to rest on the sofa until her head felt better. We played quietly for a few minutes till she went to sleep. “Mother, can I go play with the Awful’s?” I whispered. She didn’t say no, so off I went.
The Awfuls had the best place in the neighborhood. Overgrown bushes tangled into the fence so the yard was a jungle, a great place for adventures. Tall grass and junk in the yard made it easy to hide. We chased the sleeping hound dogs out of the abandoned cars and played cops and robbers. We pulled broken boards off the barn for fort-building. Best of all, there was a big tree with low-hanging branches by the front door. “Look at this!” Jamey shouted. I followed the boys up the tree and through a window into the attic. From there, we dropped through a hole into the living room ceiling and sneaked behind the furniture into a back bedroom where daft, old grandma was in the bed.
“Aigheeeeeeee!” she screeched, clutching her blankets like she’d seen a ghost.
“Y’all git out’a there! Don’t git your Granny stirred up. I got a headache” yelled Mama Awful over the TV.
They showed us a secret way out through a hole in the floor of her closet. Pelting each other with dirt clods from their bare yard, I’d never felt so free.
Eventually, Mother came stomping over. “What are you doing over here? Don’t you ever go off without asking!” she said. “I’m gonna tear you up!”
“But Mama, you said I could go!” I whined. dreading a switching. “ I asked when you was layin’ on the couch.” I told her.
I could see she remembered. “You knew I was asleep. Don’t you ever pull that again.” she threatened. Sadly, that was my last visit to the Awful’s house.
Not too long afterward, the Awfuls showed up with little Becky Awful in tow. She was about three and overdue to join their traveling show. Daddy was unhappily cleaning out a clogged septic line, bailing nasty stuff into a wheelbarrow. Not in a great mood, he sent the Awfuls on their way, not noting that Becky had remained behind playing quietly off to the side. She was making mud pies with clean white sand and septic drain sludge. As soon as he saw her, he howled for Mother. “Kathleen, get this kid out of here! She’s playing in this excrement(paraphrased) and nasty as a pig! Do I have to do everything?”
“Bill, I didn’t know she was out there.” Mother washed Becky a little under the hose and led her home. Becky was so filthy and smelly it would probably have been easier to get another little girl than to try to clean her up. As it turned out, that wasn’t a problem. Becky showed up two days later in the same malodorous outfit.
Since we couldn’t visit the Awfuls anymore, we had to make do with whatever crumbs of joy they tossed our way. My parents had their noses out of joint because Mr. Awful had shut his pigs up in a small lot between our house and theirs. Not surprisingly, it really, really stunk. Mother had us helping her hang laundry on the line when we heard a huge ruckus next door. It seems Mr. Awful had noticed Jamey’s missing birthday shoes. “You boys get out there and find them shoes or I’m gonna tear you up. We ain’t got money to waste on shoes.” he roared. I could have told him where one of them was, but Mother shushed me up. The boys made for the pigpen, wading around, looking in the muddy black hog-wallows seeking the lost shoes. Of course, it wasn’t long before Bugeater slipped and fell, then Davey, then Jamey. They forgot about the shoes and were streaking through the pig mud. Mud showered everywhere. The beleaguered pigs cowered in the corners, trying to save their bacon. Eventually, Mr. Awful came out in the yard to check the progress of the shoe search. Finding them in the pigpen meant big trouble. He pulled a spring of grass and threatened to switch them if they didn’t find the shoes.
“No don’t whoop me,” whined Jamey. Then the other boys chimed in.
“He backed down. “ Well, I won’t whoop you, but you gonna have to git a bath before bedtime.
It did my heart good to see they could get in trouble. It’s hard to live next door to kids with a perfect life.
A dispassionate young boy pounded on my front door. Looking at me dully, he announced. “Lady, your kid’s stuck in the ditch.” I wasn’t expecting that on a cold, rainy morning. The city had been installing a new sewer system. As soon as the ditches were deeply excavated the rain started. It rained and rained and rained. The ditches ran like a river. My five-year-old, John, hadn’t been out for days. Finally, the weather cleared.
John was desperate to get out. I made a bad decision, agreeing to let him play on the carport with a box of toy parts. I checked on him every few minutes, glad to see him deeply involved in his favorite pastime, disassembling his toys and building something else with the random parts. In combination with an erector set, this could occupy him for hours. His dog, as always, was at his side.
Then, I decided to vacuum, my second bad decision, hence the pounding on the door. The kid pointed to the overflowing ditches where John stood, thigh-high in the deep running water. His little dog was running up and down the ditch, barking desperately. Horrified, I flew out and grabbed his arms, trying to pull him out. He was stuck! What on earth? I waded in, braced myself, grabbing him under the arms and tugged. With a strange sucking noise he broke loose. We both rolled backwards in the muck. Instead of relief at being rescued, John wailed,”Daddy’s boots! Get Daddy’s boots!” There was no getting those boots stuck deep in that muddy ditch. It turns out, John had helped himself to his dad’s knee boots, sure he’d be able to ford the ditch. Retrieving them was his major concern.
All’s well that ends well. My kid survived being stuck in the “ditch.” About four days later, Bud took a shovel and dug his boots out of the mud.
The fallout from the birthday party continued when Mr. Awful got home and heard the sad saga of the missing birthday shoe.Loss of a shoe was a weighty matter in that time.Many families usually got shoes in the fall and perhaps a pair of sandals or tennis shoes in the summer to get kids through till serious shoe season in the fall.I suspect this may have been true at the Awful’s as well, since he bellowed at the kids and put them to searching for the lost birthday shoe.
Naturally, they returned to the last place the shoe was seen, the pigpen adjoining our property. They truly searched for a few minutes, this time not harassing the pig family.Before long, their inherent high spirits overcame them and they began sliding in the black mud and manure mixture created by the pigs.They were so joyous in their search, we watched enviously, begging Mother to let us join in the fun.Unreasonably, she refused, though she did join us in watching their fun.They cavorted in the ever-increasing slime till the entire pig pen became one enormous excremental slide, spread universally over the entire lot, erasing all the hills and valleys the pigs had carefully constructed for their wallows.From a running start, the kids could skid from one end to the other, spraying slop high on either side as they flew by us.The squealing pigs fled from one end to the other as the slimy kids approached them.
I have never been more jealous.Eventually, it occurred to Mr. Awful no one had returned with the missing shoe. He was reunited with his filth-encrusted children and shrieked his disappointment to High Heaven.“You kids better find that shoe or I’m gonna tear you up!”To demonstrate his intent, he picked a wispy weed and smacked his own leg, demonstrating the beating they could expect.I suspect those poor kids had never heard such a threat, since they set up a wail and started diving into the slop in earnest, eventually uncovering the filthy lost shoe near the feed troughs.I couldn’t tell a lot of difference in the search and what they’d been doing before, except that they squalled all during the real search, as Mr. Awful periodically shouted threats and swatted his leg with the switch to terrify them back into action.Altogether, it was a wonderful show.
I didn’t like having syrup for breakfast on school mornings when I was a little kid since I was lazy about washing up afterwards. In class, my papers stuck to me all morning till I went out at recess. Then I usually romped around and came back in with dirt sticking to the syrupy patches. I never saw much point in washing up before meals anyway. I knew something as tiny as a germ couldn’t possibly hurt me.
Now, there were occasions I had no problem with washing, but really felt soap was overrated. I had my standards and expected to wash after contact with earthworms, snails, slimy animal carcasses, blood, axle grease, or chicken poop between my bare toes, sometimes even using soap voluntarily. I was on the fence about frogs. I wasn’t altogether sure they didn’t cause warts. Sue Lunsford played with frogs all the time and had lots of warts, so I erred on the side of caution, washing with soap after quality time with frogs. After I smelled a dog once who’d tangled with a skunk. I put that on my list, too. I figured if you could see dirt or it would rub off on people or furniture, it was good to wash. I also believed in washing loose sand off. I hated walking barefoot on gritty sand on smooth floors. I was also happy to take a bath if I’d been playing in sand. I hated the way it made the sheets feel. We threw sand and dirt at each other a lot, so I’d done the research.
Unfortunately for me, Mother didn’t share my philosophy about washing, insisting I wash my hands and arms up to my elbows with soap and water before every meal. Naturally, I fell short as often as possible, often just running my dirty hands and arms under the running water and drying on the towel by the sink. The dirty, streaked up towel ratted me out quite a few times.
(Continuation of story of Jamey Awful’s birthday party, without a doubt, the most fun I ever had in my life. If he gave a party today, I’d be there!)
Jamey’s birthday party was the most fun I’ve ever had. There had been no “Pin the Tail on the Donkey”, no party hats, just fun, fun, fun. When my mother walked over to get me, I could tell she was not happy. She didn’t even go in for coffee like she always did at neighbor lady’s houses. Boy was I in trouble with my ruined party dress, lost shoes, and muddy self. She said I could never go to the Awfuls again.
I figured Mother would forget after a few days, but no……….No visits to Continue reading →
It usually took two or three tries to get Jody out of bed on schooldays, but weekends were a totally different story. He was always up before daylight watching cartoons. He wasn’t supposed to go outdoors before Mom and Dad got up but today, it was impossible to resist. Rain had been coming down all week, so the ditches were muddy rivers, a perfect Continue reading →
I didn’t like having syrup for breakfast on school mornings when I was a little kid since I was lazy about washing up afterwards. In class, my papers stuck to me all morning till I went out at recess. Then I usually romped around and came back in with dirt sticking to the syrupy patches. I never saw much point in washing up before meals anyway. I knew something as tiny as a germ couldn’t possibly hurt me.
Nutsrok 