Storytelling

Mean Girl at the Pearly Gates

imageBrenda was a mean girl.  We were thrown together because we were all Sunday School together.  She was snooty but tolerated me the best she could in Sunday School because I was preferable to Mary Bragg, an overweight girl who constantly complained other girls were “talking” about her.  We usually weren’t, because we’d already done that and moved on.  I guess I was a mean girl wanna be.

At any rate, Though Brenda could tolerate me at Sunday School, it was a different story at school.  Sometimes I tried to buddy up to her, only to be rebuffed when a real friend came along.  The thing about Brenda was, she was mad about horses.  I had a horse.  From time to time, her yearning to ride a horse got the best of her and she’d ask to come ride my horse.  I was would have played with a rattlesnake if it hadn’t bitten me too many times, so I was glad to have her. We doubled up on Ol’ Frosty and plod along being good friends as looming as the ride lasted.

Once in a great while, Brenda and her older sister Sandy, also a mean girl, the age of my older sister Phyllis, would invite Phyllis and me over.  One Sarurday, we all climbed on the honeysuckle-covered fence in their backyard and slid all one long, glorious afternoon.  I remember Phyllis asking if they were sure it was okay.  Sandy answered , “Sure, we climb this fence all the time.”  We rode that fence to the ground. The next day in Sunday School, Brenda was mad at me.  It seems they’d gotten a “whuppin” for our afternoon’s shenanigans and Mr. Davis “wished he could get his hands on us!”  I never cared to go back over.

Several years ago, I saw Brenda’s obituary in the paper.  I wonder if she’ll talk to me in the unlikely event I meet up with her in heaven.  I know for sure I won’t be swinging on the Pearly Gates with her.

Early Thanksgiving

turkeyA week ago, I put four hundred twelve pounds of fresh beef in my freezer.  Two days ago we made sixteen pounds of homemade liverwurst and put it in the freezer.  Last week I froze quite a bit of fresh sweet corn.  In the midst of all this, I canned seven quarts of dried pinto beans and ham hocks.  Things were going so well, I was planned to start making a big batch of corned beef.  I was admiring the contents of my pantry when Bud came through saying, “What’s this big puddle of water coming from the freezer?”

We rushed out to inspect and found the packed freezer dead with the contents starting to thaw.  We shuffled the meat to my other freezer and ice chests.  Mean while, Bud starting investigating the freezer problem while I started canning and cooking.  By the end of the day, thank goodness, Bud had the freezer running again and I had canned all the thawed vegetables.  In addition to that, I had made pies  from my frozen pumpkin pie filling and frozen pie dough.  You might find a previous post on that subject.  https://atomic-temporary-73629786.wpcomstaging.com/2015/08/20/fifty-two-pies-2/

At the end of the day, everything was saved, and we sat down to a turkey dinner with fresh pumpkin pie.  I am so grateful for the bounty and the freezer that kicked back off and saved us.

Mrs. Johnson Sets Me Straight

imageThe time I spent getting to know my patients was the best part of nursing.  As a hospital dialysis nurse, during the course of a four-hour treatment, we had a lot of time to talk.  One of my favorite patients was a lively little seventy-year old lady, the mother of twenty-one children.  I never knew what she’d have to say.  When I expressed my amazement at her having so had many, she told me, “It wasn’t so bad. I had a set of twins, so I was only pregnant twenty times.”

“You must be proud of your kids,” I answered.

“Huh,” she snorted.  “Ain’t half of ’em worth the powder it’d take to blow ’em away.  I gotta keep my purse right with me.”

“Oh.”  I had no other response to that.

She was always full of wild tales about getting the best of her “old man” who was twenty years older than she.  I inferred they had a warm relationship, but she straightened me out when  I expressed my condolences at her next treatment after his death.

“Mrs. Johnson, I ‘m sorry to her of your loss.  I know you must miss your husband.”  I dreaded the lonely times ahead for her.

She cackled.  “I’m glad that old devil from hell is gone.  I thought for sure he was gonna outlive me.  My daddy gave me to him when I wad’n but thirteen years old.  He beat me ever’day long as he was able.  I was so proud when he got old and stoved up so I could take a piece of a firewood to him any time I got ready.  I mean to tell you I whooped him many a time.”

She always gave me plenty to think about.

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

  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.

Camping

   image Dirty Dog

image

We just got back from camping on the Gulf Coast.  We had fun and I learned a couple of things. First of all, if you think you might fall and bust your fanny, carry your extra glasses.  I was standing behind the trailer trying to wave Bud in as he backed the trailer up and Buzzy wrapped me in his leash, plopping me flat on my keester. I fell flat, banging right on my glasses.   I hadn’t gotten in Bud’s line of vision yet, so he thought I’d wandered off, as I am prone to do.  He continued backing up, but fortunately I was able to get out of the way before he flattened me.

Although the fall did kill my glasses, I escaped.  I was worried whether I would have a black eye, but luckily I didn’t.  If I had, I would have to have blacked both Bud’s eyes or I would have been ashamed to be seen when we met friends later.  I was able to get the frames replaced, using the same lenses.  What a relief.  I had dreaded trying to get by with just reading glasses till I could get new ones made.  I will never go off without a spare again.

Buzzy had a fine time camping as always.  We patrolled the camp several times a day.  He got to meet new dogs, see an alligator, smell the Gulf, roll in some different flavors of mud, walk on the beach, and sleep in the camper.  His favorite part of camping is sitting on the bench seat between us at meals.  He doesn’t get a place at the table at home.

What Did You Say?

My husband,Bud,used to work with Jeb, an older fellow who was deaf as a post, but couldn’t be bothered with a hearing aid.  Jeb followed the conversation as best he could, and guessed at the rest.  In his  younger days, he’d run a full-service filling station.  Jeb was filling up a lady’s automobile one day when she asked if he had Resr Room.  He heard whisk broom, not Rest Room    “No Ma’am we don’t.”. He said,  noting the dirt on the mat at her feet.  “But just lift your feet up.  I’ll blow it out with the air hose.”

Bo

Them That Don’t Work……..

Five kidsThere was always more work than Mother could possibly get done by the time there were five kids.  In addition to the house and cooking, Daddy kept Mother running errands for the farm.  “Run up to Manolia and get me a magneto for the tractor.  On the way back, pick my saw up from the shop and a couple of cans of gasoline.”

Magnolia was forty miles away.  Unless Daddy got his request in early, by the time Mother got back, we were in from school.  If I saw a chicken thawing in the sink, I knew to get supper started.  No instructions were needed.  Chicken meant fried chicken. Ground meat meant meatloaf.  I’d change clothes, peel and boil mountains of potatoes, cut the chicken up and get it started frying, or get the meatloaf on and get some vegetables started, if Mother hadn’t left a pot of beans simmering on low.  God forbid, I should let the beans cook dry and scorch.  That was a catastrophe.  While the chicken fried, cornbread or biscuits went in the oven, no “light bread” ever defiled the table at our house.  Daddy frequently bragged about that.  It reflected well his authority and manhood.  Supper was on the table at the expected time.  As soon as dinner was over, we got the kitchen cleaned up.  After the first time or two I got a meal on the table, never Mother worried again if she was held up, knowing dinner would be ready on time.  Only once did I foolishly decide I had better things to do than cook supper after I had started that routine.  Turns out, I didn’t have anything better to do.  We also had dogs, cows, and chickens who didn’t take care of themselves.  They ate before we did.

At about the age of seven or eight, when I initially got the devastating news that I was going to start having “jobs” to do, I was appalled and disgusted.  I was a kid. I was supposed to play.  It was my parent’s job to take care of me.  Life wouldn’t be worth living!  Sometimes Mother would send me back three or four times till I did a job right.  Daddy had a much more time efficient method.  He’d just kick my butt and make it worth my time to get it right.  After three or four years of involuntary servitude, I realized it was easier to do what needed to be done than deal with the alternative and still have to do get busy.  Eventually, somehow I started needed doing without being told.

His Last Two Bucks

imageSeveral years ago, I dreamed of camping by a mountain stream. About 3:30 am, Bud got up to go to the bathroom, stepping into about two inches of standing water. The plumbing under the bathroom sink had sprung a leak, flooding the house, hence my dream about the babbling brook.  We were both sloshing around like mad, though clearly, nothing we did was going to make a great difference right then, except for cutting off the flood and opening the doors to let the house drain.  We were surveying the damage when Bud went back in the bathroom for solace and discovered the greatest loss of all, soaked toilet tissue.  I can still hear his heartbroken cry. “Well, <%#>*^. ;3~#}”£!  I spent my last two bucks on toilet tissue and didn’t even get to take a s___!

Brother Gobel and Lost Love

roseJust days after Daddy’s death, Brother Gobel, a Pentecostal preacher, paid a condolence call to Mother.  A Bantam Rooster of a man, he was bow-legged, bald and not much taller than she,  a stark contrast to the tall, handsome husband she was still mourning.  He drank coffee, prayed with her, as ministers on visits normally do, and took his leave.  Thinking no more of it, Mother was shocked to get a letter from him a few days later.  Even more startling, was the fact that it included an epic poem of love telling of his devotion and hopes for their future together,  followed up with a marriage proposal, and some appropriate Biblical quotations about the role of wives, remarking that he’d always admired what a dutiful wife she had been, waiting on Daddy hand and foot.  Wisely, she pitched the letter in the trash.  Unwisely, she told me about it.  One of my great regrets in life is that she never shared that poem with me.  It would have my life, and yours, so much richer.