Storytelling

Tale of the Hair of the Dog Sweater

Mother and BuzzyimageMy son John lives to torment my mother.  Buzzy, our American Eskimo Dog sheds incessantly, making up vacuum every day to stay ahead of him.  One day my husband Bud noticed a big paper bag on the mantle stuff full of Buzzy’s combings, hair pulled from his brush, and hair swept from the floor.  Amazed, Bud asked, “What in the world is this bag of dog hair doing up here?”

Mother chimed in, “Oh, that’s Buzzy’s hair I saved up for your sweater.”

This was the first Bud had heard of his dog hair sweater.  He thought maybe Mother had finally come unhinged.  “What dog hair sweater?”

“The one you’re going to get the woman at work to make for you out of Buzzy’s hair.”  Mother thought Bud was losing it.   “John told me to be careful to gather up all the hair I could find every time I came over so that woman you work with can spin it and make it into a sweater for you.  How long do you think it will take to get enough?”

Poor Bud had to break her heart.  “John’s been pulling your leg, again.  There ain’t gonna be no dog hair sweater.”

imageMy son, looking his best.

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Photo of hair I brushed out of Buzzy this morning, pictured next to pint jar.

Framed!

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I spent most of the summer away from home this year.  My friend Ann, the charming lady in the background above was my gracious host.  One morning, she asked me if I’d like to pay a visit to her favorite resale shop.   She’d found some bargains and had to go back with the cash to pay for them  It was a great sale; everything was five dollars.  In fact, earlier that day, she had gotten a pair of Gucci Loafers and the gorgeous leather bag you see me clutching above.  Jackson, her little dog was snuggled in the bag for the duration.  I should have known from the worried look on his face that Ann might be plotting to rid herself of her summer-long guest.  The store was packed.  Women were trying on clothes in the aisles.  One customer’s skirt was sold while she was busy trying on another in the aisle.  As Ann rifled the racks hoping for one last bargain, I held Jackson and her purse, moving to stand in a breeze near the front door.  The shop owner, recognizing the beautiful bag Ann had bought there just that morning, called out to warn her I was stealing her bag.  Not realizing who she was talking to, I stood there like a dope, looking around for the purse thief.  In a minute or two, Ann realized what was going on and saved me from arrest.  It’s a good thing I had Jackson concealed on my person, or she might have just let them haul me off.

That “Kathy Bates” Look

kathy bates in misery

Though it’s been awhile since I inflicted any mayhem upon him, my brother says it still gives him the “willies” when I get that “Kathy Bates” look.  I think he’s referring to the Annie Wilkes character she plays so winningly in the movie “Misery.”  To set the record straight, I love Kathy Bates and am delighted to be compared to her.  I find her personality sunny and delightful.  I don’t know what his problem is.   My brother and I had a few dustups as we grew up together, but goodness gracious, what children didn’t?  True, I had to set him straight from time to time, but never actually broke his legs with a sledgehammer.  We were raised in a Christian home and both knew Mother would murder us if we ever harmed each other to the point that one of us had to have stitches or a cast.  Money didn’t grow on trees.  Is there anything at all in this sweet face to suggest a “Kathy Bates” look?

First Grade School Picture

First Grade School Picture

Banana Pudding Bowl Blasphemy

imageSee this innocuous-looking dish.  It doesn’t look like it could break up a marriage, but you just wait. Bud chose this dish when he and his sisters divided his mother’s belongings shortly after her death.  He brought it home, showed it to me, and told it was what she’d always made banana pudding in.  Not realizing the significance of that statement, I callously baked a chicken in it less than a week later..  He came in, was delighted to see “The Banana Pudding Bowl” sitting on the stove.  He attempted to lift the lid to admire the pudding and burned his fingers.  I never heard such howling and deprecations before or since. I came to understand that bowl was only for banana pudding

Fifty Dollars Worth of Camper

th3EKZ50VW bus 2See this great old school bus.  It is so much nicer than the one Daddy acquired for the unbelievable sum of fifty dollars. He purchased it from his brother-in-law, who’d gotten stuck with it as payment body work.  Daddy was ahead of his time In acquiring this Tiny House.  Mother was furious.  Fifty dollars would have bought more than two week’s supply of groceries.  Though he gave Mother no end of grief about her extravagant spending at the grocery store, he wasn’t short-sighted and saw the great potential in this bus-camper.  It would be a wonderful shelter when he and his buddies went deer hunting, and oh yes, the family could use it for camping, too!  Now our camper wasn’t nearly so nice as the one pictured above.  It had been partially hand-painted bright silver and lacked a motor. The good news was, we could finish it up any color we liked and motors take up a lot of unnecessary space better used for storage.  In that special storage area, items were stored in boxes on one deep shelf or in  boxes on the floor beneath the shelf.  While the rest of us were out fishing, swimming, or just running wild in general, Mother drug boxes out and dug through them for dishes, pots and pans, and food, all this with two babies in diapers.  She complained about her back constantly.  What a whiner!

.nice inside

See how comfortable and well-appointed the camper pictured above is.  Ours was nothing like this.  There was no refrigerator, lighting, water, bathroom, hard-wood floors, or Benjamin Franklin wood burning stove.  There was, however, an ancient gas range Daddy hooked to a propane bottle.  It had two functioning burners and a defunct oven.  That was okay, since Mother insisted it had a propane leak and she was scared to use it longer than it took to heat a can of beans or cook eggs.  She cooked with all the windows open and made Daddy cut the fuel off every time she got through.  In fact, it did have a propane leak in the line, but that’s a story for another day.

Two full-size bunk beds filled the rear of the camper.  Two sets of old army bunks were stacked along either side.  Of course, we fought over the top bunks.  The lower bunks served as seating.  A lantern and flash lights served when light was needed.

It was perfect.  I remember one wonderful camping trip when Daddy pulled it to a creek bank.  We swam, fished, swatted mosquitoes, cooked outdoors, only going in to sleep, so exhausted we hardly moved till morning.  Mother got up several times every night to spray to camper with bug killer and spray the covers and any exposed skin with mosquito repellent.  We scratched bug bites and poison ivy for days after we got home.

That was our only family camping trip.  Daddy used it a time or two for hunting, then gave it up as too much trouble.  It had a couple of other incarnations as a home for a farm laborer who confirmed the stove fuel line leak before it descended so far down the social scale it ended life as a junk shed on Daddy’s farm.

To me, that camper was worth every cent!

Not Far From the Tree

imageI recently asked my son if he’d pick me up in the airport upon a return flight if I came into Dallas instead of Shreveport, since  I’d been fortunate enough to find a forty-seven dollar ticket.  Thinking what a good son he was, since I hadn’t seen him in a few weeks, I happily purchased the cheap ticket, telling him I’d email him the gate and time details later, knowing he’d already agreed to the date.  A few days later, completely out of the blue, I got this text.  “Mom, we are at the airport.  Which gate is it?”

I was horrified.  Dallas is two and a half hours from Shreveport.  Surely I hadn’t somehow given him the wrong date.  I tried to return his text.  No reply.  After a few minutes I got him by phone.  He was laughing hysterically, enjoying my panic.  Of course, he was just tricking me.

Realizing I owed him, I decided to send him this horrible picture, hoping he’d be repulsed.  He certainly deserved it. Instead, I got a return email, asking me if they made matching pants so me, him, and his grandmother could get a matching set.

My apologies to the artist.

How to Raise Healthy Eaters in 5 Easy Steps

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I am the girl in the second row with the dark sweater.  See how hungry we all look.

Connie and Marilyn's Toddler Pictures

Just look at the spindly legs on these poor, undernourished babies.  They suffered so!

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Pictured above is the poor, hungry creature I sat on while I ate the only Twinkie from the day-old bakery box.  I think malnutrition stunted his growth.  He is only six foot four.  He is pictured here with my mother, the woman who deprived us all of delicious goodies.

My mother was a child-rearing genius.  She taught me her fool-proof plan for raising healthy-eaters, though she never sat down to delineate it for me.  She was too busy trying to get dinner on the table.  I’ve done that for all of you.  You are welcome.

  1. There were five of us kids.   Mother’s food budget was minimal.  She put the food on the table, believing no child starved with food available. We ate like pigs in slop because should we we tarry, one of the other pigs got it.  It would be a long, hungry time till the next meal.
  2. Kids don’t eat what isn’t there.  She only bought and served nutritious foods, which we hated, by the way, but not as much as hunger.  Our diet was based on vegetables supplemented by a modicum of chicken.  Mother checked the markdowns and specials first.  Though she bought many dented cans, she inspected them carefully for leakage, swelling, and signs of spoilage.  It must have been a great disappointment, but she never managed to poison any of us.  I often showed up at the table disgusted again to see beans, peas, greens, corn, rice, potatoes, corn, squash, spinach, tomatoes, and a tidbit or no meat on the table, again.  A time or two, I tried turning my nose up at it.  Mother’s response killed that.  “Fine, maybe there will be a little left for supper.  Now start on the dishes while we eat.”
  3. Leftovers were snacks.  That meant, you might get a leftover biscuit, piece of cornbread, or flapjack if you beat the other kids off the bus. You had to be pretty hungry to go for flapjack.  Mother’s flapjacks were disgusting.  Sometimes, if she caught it on special, Mother bought peanut butter and saltines.  We burned through those in a day or two.  We made quick work  Once in a while Mother made popcorn, but that was a family snack to be shared by the whole family while watching “Gunsmoke.”  Remember “Gunsmoke?”
  4.  Dessert was rare, usually reserved for Sunday’s and holidays.  No cake, pie, cookies, lingered long.  On rare blessed weeks, she went by the bread store to pick up a box of day-old bread, pies, cakes, hot dog buns, and various and sundry cast offs.  One of my fondest memories is finding a lone, moldy Twinkie near the bottom of one of those boxes.   I sat on my brother and ate it without chewing.  If by some miracle a goody survived the initial family attack, the last piece had to be saved for Daddy.  God help the misbegotten fool dared go there.
  5. Finally, she shared her pain when company dropped in for the WHOLE weekend polishing off the carefully stewarded foodstuffs that would have barely let her squeak through till payday, anyway.  We needed to know that she would have to kite a check to get some dry beans, flour, shortening, and that a couple of chickens in the barnyard have a date with destiny this week.  It stimulated our flagging appetites!

Sometimes, I’d hear Mother’s friends complaining that their kids were picky eaters.  Once, just once, I’d have loved to hear her defend us saying we were, too, but, no!  Invariably she’d crassly complain, “My kids eat anything I put in front of them!”  She had no pride at all.

Cousin Wayne Saves the Day (Part 2 of Robert Gordon, Wayne, Robbing Nanny, and Look Out Pope)

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I 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 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.

Heartbreaking Story of the Red-Headed Baby

babyprint1xAccording to gossip, Redheaded Connie and Callie were reputed to have been left on their Pentecostal aunt’s doorstep at birth. This fascinating tidbit guaranteed my interest.  I imagined them lying in a basket, long waist-length braids dangling from a basket, dusting the ground. They were high-school girls when I was in first grade, so I never gave them much thought beyond that. Continue reading →