Storytelling

Woo! Woo! Cousin Wayne!

train interiorI wrote of my my mother, Kathleen’s laundry list against her cousin’s Robert Gordon and Wayne Perkins just the other day, mentioning her intention to tell Robert Gordon what a hellion should she ever met him again, even if he were Pope. It’s fortunate she never had that little conversation with his partner-in-crime, Wayne, since she found herself in need of his friendship one day early in her marriage.

Daddy was a busy man who had priorities. These included good times with his brothers and brothers-in-law and manly business. That being said, we spent endless weekends with his family, careening out our drive on Fridays after he got in from work and not often not getting back till late on Sunday night, despite the fact that there were young children to be bathed, homework to be done, and the week ahead to be prepared for. That was woman’s business. Fortunately, he was not a woman.

At any rate, at the close of school every year, Mother would break the news that yet again, she was going to visit her parents this summer. They’d fight a while till they’d reach an impasse.

Outraged, he’d insist she wasn’t going. She’d go on making her plans. Finally he threw out a challenge, “Well, If you go, you’re not coming back.”

She went on with her packing. “We have to be at the train by two.”

Defeated, he asked. “When will you be back?”

“Pick me up two weeks from today. I’ll travel through the night so I won’t have to wrestle with the baby so much.”

Two weeks later, when we got off the train, Daddy wasn’t there. Mother was disgusted, but not too surprised. He was always late. At nine, she called Aunt Julie who told her Daddy and Uncle Parnell had just left there to see a man about a dog, but had mentioned he was supposed to pick her up. He was just going to be a couple of hours late. Of course, Mother was furious, but had no choice but to wait. She called Aunt Julie back later, who hadn’t seen the men. By eleven she had thirty cents left, we were starving, and the baby was guzzling the last bottle. Mother wracked her brain till she remembered her Cousin Wayne lived nearby. She looked his number up and called. Miraculously, he and his wife were home. Upon hearing her plight, he picked us up at the train, took us home for lunch, fixed the baby up with a bottle and a nap, and let Mother use the phone to tell Aunt Julie she’d found a ride, after all. It was mid-afternoon by now. Daddy still hadn’t gotten back from seeing about that dog. Cousin Wayne kindly took us home. Daddy was delighted to see us when he finally came in with his new hunting dog and not surprised at all that Mother had somehow gotten a ride home from the train station. What a guy! I don’t know why she never killed him.

Oilcan Harry and the Washing Machine

imageMother was stuck taking us everywhere she went, even to buy a new washing machine just days before her fourth baby was born. She never asked anyone to keep us since that would have insured she had to return the favor and keep someone else’s monsters in return, probably some of our killer cousins. She was always on guard against that. We followed her into to appliance store. It was maddeningly dull to me and my Brother Billy. We wanted to ride in the dryers and jump on the doors, but she put a stop to that pretty quickly, making us sit on our hands with our backs to each other where Phyllis could watch us. Eventually, she made her choice and went to sign the mortgage papers. I knew all about mortgages! I was an avid fan of Mighty Mouse! He’d saved Sweet Alice countless times when Oilcan Harry was about to do her in all on account of that danged mortgage, and here my own sweet mother was about to sign a mortgage. I set up a protest, as only a righteous eight year old can do!

“Mother, Mother, don’t sign it. We’ll lose the house! Please don’t sign a mortgage!”

She was infuriated, as only an overwrought pregnant woman can be, snarlingly at me hatefully through clenched teeth. “Go over there and sit down. If you say another word, I’ol tear you up right here in this store!”

I do believe she meant it. She got her washer and Oilcan Harry didn’t get the house.

Robert Gordon, the Heathen

R G Holdaway Family with Johnny Bell early 1930'sR G Holdaway Family with Johnny Bell early 1930’sL to R Johnny Bell(cousin) Mary Elizabeth Perkins (Lizzie) with Kathleen Annie Lee Holdaway, Roscoe Gordon Holdaway, John Arthur Holdaway about 1930 (note how well-dressed the children are and Roscoes’s mended overalls. I have one of these chairs in my writing room today. Kathleen helped Roscoe replace the bottom in 1932. That story will be in her memoirs, soon to be published.)R G Holdaway Family with Johnny Bell early 1930’s
Bear on chair

Mother is eighty-seven. She swears if she ever meets up with her cousin, Robert Gordon, she intends tell him what a hellion he was, even if he is the Pope and has a beard down to his knees. Well, I am pretty sure our Pope wasn’t previously known as Robert Gordon and doesn’t have a beard down to his knees, but if he was, and does, please tip him off. A whacked-out little eight-seven year old lady down in Louisiana might knock his block off if she gets a chance. From the many stories I’ve heard over the years, I know Robert Gordon had a little brother, Wayne, who was also horrible, but nowhere nearly as mean as Robert Gordon.

Robert Gordon’s initial transgression that put him on Mother’s dirt list was not his fault. He was her Grandma’s favorite. Her grandma paid no attention whatsoever to Mother, or most of her other grandchildren, openly doting on Robert Gordon with warm waves of affection washing over his brother Wayne. No matter that her cousins had lived next door to her grandma from the day of their birth. Mother, hereinafter known as Kathleen, was still steamed to see them with the run of the place, their toys littering Grandma’s yard, and watch them cuddled in Grandma’s lap, when she was never noticed.

Kathleen’s prized possession was a little wagon that her father had acquired second-hand and painstakingly repaired by the broken tongue. The very next tme Robert Gordon visited, he ferreted out her precious wagon, sneaked the hatchet from the kindling pile, and smashed the tongue to smithereens so effectively that the wagon was a total loss. The destructive act wasn’t discovered till after his departure. The family later remembered hearing banging when Robert Gordon had claimed time to go to the toilet. From that day forward, Kathleen hated him.image

Kathleen had but a handful of toys, mostly homemade or hand-me-down, so of course she cherished every one. She had learned, to her great sorrow, that Robert Gordon and Wayne would steal, given the chance. Before they left after a visit, her older brother, who usually only lived to torment her, held the boys upside down by ther and shook them, while she retrieved her toys raining to the ground.

One one visit, Robert Gordon who was younger than she, but bigger, entertained himself by hiding and jumping on Kathleen’s back as she rounded corners, pushing her to the ground and enjoying the ride to the ground as she fell face-first into the dirt and muck of the yard. John helped her plot, so she was ready on his next visit. As she pranced alluringly around the corner, he jumped. She threw herself backwards, the back head bashing satsfyigly into his face and nose. Blood and snot poured from his nose and split lip as he ran bawling for his mama. It was difficult to convince anybody she had started it when he’d jumped on her back, though he tried.

The most memorable, and adult-infuriating trick Robert Gordon and Wayne ever pulled of was The Great Goat-Milk Robbery. Though they were as poor as any farmers during The Great Depression, her parents were excellent providers. They had but one cow, but they kept a goat or two as a secondary source of milk. Cows don’t produce milk just before and immediately after calving. Milk production drops drastically during periods of low feed availability such drought. At any rate all live stock is preciouos and to be treated well. The Evil Robert Gordon and Wayne were beyond the Pale. They slipped away from the visiting adults and robbed poor Nanny Goat of her milk in a way that no Christian ever should. The repulsed neighbors were watching horrified while one boy held the goat and the other nursed, just like he was a kid goat. Kathleen’s daddy and mama and the horrid boy’s parents got there just as Nanny was being rescued and flogged by an outraged neighbor. Robert Gordon and Wayne’s parents left in disgrace and Kathleen’s family had another long, enjoyable talk about how hideos they Devil-ridden were. Poor Nanny didn’t give milk for three days.

This is the same chair from vintage picture above, one of my most treasured belongings.

The Bearded Lady and the Stork’s Visit

image

I remember the day my brother was born. I’d just turned three. I woke up to find Mother gone, something I’d never experienced. Grandma had come to stay a few days to help out, but had broken a rib in a fender-bender the day before, so she wasn’t up to much, but that’s a whole other story. A neighbor stayed till with us till mid-morning, when a bearded Amazon identifying herself as Aunt Cynthia showed up to take care of us all. I’d never seen such a thing in my life. She must have been overdue time off from the circus to be free on such short notice.

The whole crazy scenario was too much for my tiny mind, especially, the strange bearded behemoth. I wasn’t buying any of it, so headed for the hills, in this case, the shrubs in our front yard. Eventually, tiring of calling me, “Aunt Cynthia” hoisted Grandma out of bed long enough to gain my trust, luring me in with the promise of scrambled eggs and strawberry jam. I was mortified to have wet my pants while in hiding. It took me forever to make Aunt Cynthia understand I needed “panties” not “pennies.”

Despite the psychic trauma, it ended well enough. Mother got home in a day or two with my new brother. Grandma was back on her feet. Aunt Cynthia went home, but for some reason I never really bonded with her, maybe because she kept offering me pennies instead of dry underwear. That’s kind of weird.

See No Evil

muddy feetI 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.

Washing after meals would have been insane.

The Great Gum Heist

Linda First GradeMy mother broke me from stealing. It’s just as well. I wasn’t any good at it anyway. She was having coffee with her friend, Miss Frankie. I was bored and used my ingenious ruse. “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

Mother warned me. “Okay, but don’t meddle and don’t touch anything!” No wonder I took a wrong turn. She never trusted me. I dawdled as I made my way to the bathroom off Miss Frankie’s bedroom. This was the 1950s. This wasn’t the master bathroom. It was the only bathroom in her Quonset hut with an add on in the back. Delightfully, for me, Miss Frankie was a relaxed housekeeper so I could see a lot without meddling. Clothes and shoes covered the floor. The open closet doors displayed shoe boxes, handbags, dresses, and nighties. I walked around in her red high heels while I surveyed the lipsticks, lotions, scarves, and a hairbrush decorating her dresser. I considered trying her lipstick when I spied an open pack of Dentyne Gum. Immediately, I peeled a piece and popped it in my mouth.

I shed the shoes. Chomping my gum happily, I strolled back in to join Mother and Miss Frankie at coffee. “What is that in your mouth?”

“‘Uh…..gum.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Uh…I found it….on Miss Frankie’s dresser.”

“You are not allowed to take things. That is stealing. Take it out of your mouth and tell Miss Frankie you’re sorry.”

i took the gooey wad out of my mouth and held it out to Miss Frankie. Reluctantly, she accepted it. “I’m sorry, Miss Frankie.” I’m sure she was, too.

“That’s okay , Honey.

That was the end of my stealing. I have never even wanted to steal again.

Maniac in the Wilderness

Bill and mother
I don’t know how my baby brother Bill ever survived my mother’s brutal abuse. When he was only a tiny lad of eighteen, he was six feet four inches tall. I think the fact that she wasn’t even acquainted with five feet added to his raging hormones gave him a feeling of superiority. While I won’t say he had a smart mouth, I will allow it was extremely well-educated. I am sure they only reason my mother hadn’t already killed him was because she hated to go to prison and leave her younger daughters motherless. It certainly wasn’t because the thought hadn’t crossed her mind at least a thousand times a day since puberty attacked him and her by proxy.

Anyway, on occasion, they had to travel places alone together. It was a misery to both. It didn’t help that the car was a tiny Volkswagon Beetle. It’s always worth a person’s time to stop and watch a huge guy unfold himself and crawl into or out of a Beetle, a pleasure Bill dreaded providing mirthful onlookers. It didn’t improve his mood on arrival, a mood already blackened with inevitable conflict he’d shared with Mother.

At any rate, on this particular day, they started home with Bill driving. According to Mother, he was driving like a maniac: driving too fast, following too closely, cutting people off. I have no doubt this was true. It was his typical manner. She insisted he slow down. He crept along at ten miles an hour, hoping that was slow enough to please her. She’d finally had enough, telling him to pull over. She’d drive. He critiqued her driving as soon as she started. “Speed up! Don’t ride the clutch! Change Gears!”

Finally, she’d had enough. She pulled over. “Get out!” Delighted, he hopped out, thinking she’d come to her senses and wanted him to drive. She drove off and left him standing on a country road, thirty miles from home. She enjoyed the rest of the peaceful drive. At home, Daddy wanted to know where Bill was. “I left him somewhere close to Bossier City.”

Daddy was shocked she’d left the little fellow all alone in the wilderness. “Well, You’d better go get him! It’ll be dark soon!”

“You go get him if you want to! I don’t care if he never gets home!”

Daddy was a lot better at giving orders than taking them, but he jumped in his truck to rescue his precious son and heir. Billy met him at the end of the driveway, brought home by a Good Samaritan. He’d somehow survived his abandonment but I think he still drives like a maniac. I don’t think he and Mother voluntarily ride together till today

See attached picture if you care to put out APB on either

Miss Laura Mae’s House Part 13

woman on motorcycle

A gigantic red motorcycle claimed a place of prominence front of ol’ lady Duck’s house for a day or two, till it moved over to the long-abandoned shot-gun house next door.  Now I’d had my eye on that shotgun house and its environs since I’d admired many times on the way to Miss Laura Mae’s house.  It had everything to recommend it.  Unpainted, its broken windows, door hanging by one hinge, a huge tree with a ragged tire swing in the front yard, a caved in storm-cellar in the side yard, and several plum trees called to me.  It everything a kid could dream off.  Best of all, there was a ramshackle car up on blocks. 

Mother never let me out of the yard.  Only her eagle eye and short leash had kept me away so far.  Mother constantly warned me of danger.  I could fall out of a tree and break my neck, drown if I played in the creek, burn up if I played in the fire.  So far, I had fallen out of trees many times, played in the creek as often as I could manage, and even been caught playing with matches.  None of these had killed me yet, though playing with matches did result in damage to my bottom when Mother caught me.  My cousins hinted at ghosts and maybe a devil in the ruined storm cellar.  Always concerned about nightmares, Mother had assured me there was no such thing as ghosts, and the devil wasn’t interested in children.  Is it any wonder I was wild to explore, having always yearned to see a ghost or a devil.

The motorcycle in front of the house was a good omen.  Maybe a family with children had moved in.

I chattered about the motorcycle while Miss Laura Mae buttered my biscuit.  I was lucky enough she had already made a batch of mayhaw jelly this morning and she slathered the steaming stuff on my biscuit.  She hadn’t even had time to “jar” it yet.  “I need to tell me if this tastes good.  Don’t burn your tongue.  It’s still hot. ” she told me.  Boy, did it ever.  I closed my eyes as I carefully licked the cooking syrup from the sides of the biscuit.  It was tangy and sweet, almost making my teeth ache.

As happy as I was with my biscuit and jelly, the word motorcycle caught my attention.  “Did you see that motorcycle outside ol’lady Duck’s house?”  Miss Laura Mae asked. 

“I sure did.”  Mother said.  “I figured it must be her boy Rudy’s.”

“Nooooo!  It’s his wife’s.  He got him a mail order bride out o’ one a’them lonely hearts magazines.  She come down from Nebraska with a big ole young’un on back to marry him!”  Miss Laura didn’t bother to whisper.

“Really?”  asked Mother.  “How did you find out?”

“You know Gertha Nelson in my quiltin’ group?  Well, she’s his sister.  She told me.  She said ol’ lady Duck is furious.  She don’t want him marryin’ no motorcycle woman.  But she tol’ her mama, it ain’t like anybody around here is breakin’ down the door to marry Rudy.  Beggars cain’t be choosers.  Anyhow, he moved her an’ her boy into that ol’ shotgun house next door.  He aims to fix it up some.”

“I saw the motorcycle moved over there, and thought I saw some work going on,” Mother said.  “Well, maybe they’ll make a go of it.  Rudy’s always been a loner.”

“Not if his mama’s got anything to do with it.  He’s always lived at home an’ took care of her.  Anyway, listen to this.  That boy’s mama is callin’ that big ol’ boy o’hearn “Little Rudy” after Rudy.  That’s crazy.  You cain’t call a kid “Charley”  all his life, then up an’ change his name to “Little Rudy” after a man you just married.  She thinks it’ll make him and Rudy git along better.” Miss Laura Mae said.

 

About three weeks later, I was lucky enough to get an update.  “Well, the honeymoon’s over down at Rudy’s.  His wife done left in his truck. “ Miss Laura opened the conversation.

“Well, that didn’t last long.”  What happened?”  I was at least as curious as Mother.  Why would anybody take a truck if they had a motorcycle?

“Oh, they done had a big bust up.  Rudy come home one evenin’ with a big load o’watermelons an’ peaches he was gonna peddle the next day.  He had a taste for some ham an’ went out to his smokehouse an’ found one’a his hams whittled almost clean to the bone.  He was mad as hops.  He’d been piecing that ham along, just cuttin’ off a slice fer his breakfast oncet in a while.  When he found it sliced clean down to the bone, he went roaring in the house and lit into ‘em.  Turns out that boy had been workin’ on that ham off an had just about et it up.  Rudy took a whack at the boy with the bone an’ his wife wrestled it away from ‘im and whooped him good.  Her boy jumped in an’ they ‘bout beat Rudy to death.  While Rudy was laying up, her an’ that boy took Rudy’s ol’ truck, peaches, watermelons an’ all.  They even took Rudy’s ol’ huntin’ dog and the last two hams..  Now ain’t that pitiful?”

hambone-dog-bone-individ

https://atomic-temporary-73629786.wpcomstaging.com/2016/04/29/miss-laura-maes-house-part-12/

Miss Laura Mae’s House Part 12

My grandma was in the hospital, we had a houseful of company, and we didn’t go to Miss Laura Mae’s house for several days. I was happy to be sitting on her top step with a biscuit again.

“Well, I ain’t seen y’all in a month of Sundays,” she said “Where you been?”

“Right there at the house,” answered Mother. “I’m so tired I can hardly wiggle. Bill’s mama thought she was having a heart attack and they kept her in the hospital overnight. It turns out it was just a hernia. She was doing fine but they still kept her overnight for tests. They were supposed to let her out the next morning. You know how Dr. Hawkins is. You can’t go to see him without him wanting to keep you overnight for tests. Anyway, she was sleeping and the nurse came to check on her. She thought she was seeing a ghost and got all upset,
convinced she was dying. She had the nurse call Bill to call all the kids in. You know she has seven.

Anyway, all the kids and in-laws came flocking in to the house along with all their kids. There was no need to all pile in at the house and stay all that time. They all live within ten miles of us. I don’t know what good they thought they were doing, anyway. Next thing, her two brothers and their wives showed up. Somebody called her step-brother from way down in South Louisana and told him it might be his last chance to see her. They couldn’t have been close. They hadn’t seen each other in more than twenty years.

“Lordy, was she really that sick? That sounds like a mess.” Miss Laura Mae offered.

“No, nothing was really wrong. She’s just the superstitious type and was convinced it was a sign she was going to die. Anyway, the whole bunch hung around the rest of the night and visited the next day, like it was their last chance to see each other. They made a bunch of long distance phone calls, which I know they’ll never pay for, ate up my week’s supply of groceries, drank up all my coffee, and even used up all the toilet paper. Even after she got out of the hospital, they kept right on visiting. The kids were running in and out banging the doors and screaming and yelling like a bunch of heathens. I stayed behind them with the broom an mop, but it was hopeless. It was horrible. I thought they never would go home. I am so tired, I could sleep for a week. We are out groceries. I don’t even have any dry beans left. We’ll be eating biscuits till payday.” Mother sighed.

“You know, my mother had a stroke last summer. They didn’t know if she’d make it. She lives out in Texas. I wanted to go, but we talked about it and Bill decided we really didn’t have the money. I didn’t get to go for three months. It’s strange how when it’s the man, it is so different. It makes me mad all over we didn’t go when Mama was sick. I could have missed my last chance then. Why are men so selfish?”

“Honey, that’s why I never married agin after Floyd died. Most men think they own their women, an’ women don’t need to do nuthin’ but tend to them, the younguns, an’ the house an’ garden. I wasn’t much past forty and still had a couple of younguns to raise when Floyd died, but it was a lot easier for me to take in ironin’, sew for the public, babysit, or sit with the elderly or the sick than have to answer to another man. Now, don’t get me wrong. They’s a’plenty o’ good men out there, but they do that one bad thing. They just keep on a’breathing in an’ breathin’ out.”

They both laughed till tears were running down their faces.