Mother always had a special capacity for bungling. Sometimes she just talks to hear her head rattle. That can be as dangerous as leaving a loaded gun lying around. When Mother was a teenager, the flu came to town. The Pyles family next door all got the flu, except for Mr. Pyles. He was struggling to care for his wife and six children. The Continue reading
Phyllis
Coming to Jesus
Repost:
Though I wasn’t an actual heathen, I looked like one compared to my older sister Phyllis. In her religious fervor, she never missed a church service, sang in the choir, and volunteered for all kinds of activities, while I dreaded Sunday mornings, knowing I’d have to sit through another long service. This really rankled me, so one Sunday I decided to Continue reading
Rudy and the Fancy Pants
My parents had very strict standards of appropriate courtship behavior. Some were objective: No dating till sixteen. No expensive or personal gifts. No gifts of clothing. Tasteful gifts included inexpensive perfume, flowers, and books. Some were Continue reading
Don’t Let Me Catch You!
First Grade School Picture
Tommy got me in a lot of trouble. Oh, not the usual boy and girl trouble you’re thinking of. Three years older and much worldlier, he fed me jokes like a gambler shoveling quarters in a slot machine. Most of the time, they sailed right over my head, but Tommy made it clear theses were high humor and bore repeating. By the time I was six, I was Continue reading
Not a Small Matter!
Grandma was born in 1896. Very progressive, she employed higher standards of hygiene I do today, possibly because she’d barely survived typhoid in her mid-forties. Like me, washed her hands frequently as she cooked, but she scalded instead of merely rinsing her dishes, and boiled her whites, linens, and towels when doing her laundry with home-made lye soap in a huge cast-iron washpot outdoors until she got a washing machine. Continue reading
It’s Snot What You Think
Illustration by Kathleen Swain
Unless you’ve been cursed with a prissy, goody-two-shoes older sister, you couldn’t possibly appreciate this, so just go on with whatever you were doing. If you want to commiserate, jump right in. Phyllis was three years older than I. This put her just far enough ahead of me that all the teachers and Sunday School teachers were still raving Continue reading
Working Hard to Get to Heaven
Church was hard on me. All that sitting still and not talking were hard on a kid back when ADD was just called BAD. Believe me, I know. My prissy older sister, Phyllis, loved anything to do with church, making me look particularly bad. The only glimmer of hope was that she was slow and Mother threatened to leave her every Sunday. When I tried Continue reading
Hellion Envy
Froggy had it all. His parents had the wisdom not to interfere in his life. He played whenever and wherever he wanted, went to school when he pleased and never got held back. Wonder of wonder, his Granny Bounds had a store bus chock full of marvelous goodies. When she showed up, we ripped through the house, ferreting out pennies and a Continue reading
Coming to Jesus
Though I wasn’t an actual heathen, I looked like one compared to my older sister Phyllis. In her religious fervor, she never missed a church service, sang in the choir, and volunteered for all kinds of activities, while I dreaded Sunday mornings, knowing I’d have to sit through another long service. This really rankled me, so one Sunday I decided to Continue reading
Nutsrok 