Storytelling

Sewing

I am so glad I learned to sew. From the time I can remember, I was fascinated with Mother’s sewing machine, an ancient treadle machine. It sits in my house today. It is still functional. It is the best machine to use for heavy jobs like hemming jeans.

My first dismal attempt was in 4-H. I chose a sewing project, a simple project I was supposed to enter in the fair. One of the initial instructions in the booklet was “Ask an adult for help.”

Let me preface this with, the fact that my mother was definitely not a helicopter parent. My project was MY PROJECT! The project instructions didn’t have any advice for a situation where Mother had a newborn, a severely overburdened budget, and no time or interest in teaching a nine-year-old to sew.

The prize-winning apron the agent showed us was of a heavy fabric like denim with perfect seams. It looked exactly like the one in the project guide, even down to the color. I imagined my perfectly executed project looking exactly like it with a big blue ribbon at the county fair.

As Mother held the colicky baby, I told her, “We need to go to store and buy material for an apron. For 4-H.”

She answered crabbily. “No we don’t. I have a drawer full of material Grandma sent.” She was always crabby when the baby cried.” I’m busy now. I’ll find you some later.” Though I asked three more times that day, I didn’t get fabric for an apron. The second time I asked, she sent me to dist the living room furniture. The third time, she sent me to hang out a load of diapers. I gave it up for the time being.

To be continued

Miss Laura Mae’s House. Part 11

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I got my biscuit and settled on the back step, singing the alphabet song.

Mother launched right into her conversation before Miss Laura Mae got the coffee poured.
“Laura Mae, I just got the strangest letter from Mama. You remember I told you my brother, John, in the army got married not long ago and his wife was expecting.”

“Sure do. How’s she doing?”

“Well, Mama got a letter from John saying Wanda, that’s his wife, had gone back home to stay with her mama till the baby came. He didn’t say anything at the time, thinking she’d be back. I don’t know if she’d left him, or what, but he hadn’t let Mama and Daddy know. Her daddy was high up in the military on a base up in Nebraska. Anyway, the first thing anybody knew was that my brother John got a letter from Wanda’s daddy saying Wanda had had twins, a girl and a boy, and that she and the babies had been crossing a railroad track and hit by a train. John said her daddy said they’d all been buried and to never contact him again. He said he just let it be.

Mama and Daddy, of course, were all upset, and Daddy caught the first bus to New Orleans to see about John. When he got there, John said he was fine and insisted Daddy go straight back home. He said he didn’t have any leave coming and didn’t even want Daddy to spend the night. Daddy came on home, like John asked. My sister, Annie came in that weekend. When she found out what happened, she told them something strange she had kept quiet about since it didn’t seem right. She’d gotten a letter from Wanda announcing their marriage. She wrote and told her and John she was coming over for the weekend. Well, when she got there, John met her at the bus station and told her she couldn’t stay. Wanda had gone off somewhere with her mama and daddy and he had to work. Annie couldn’t imagine what was going on. She went back home and reread her letter from Wanda, and thought it looked like it might be John’s handwriting. Mama went back and pulled out a letter she’d had from Wanda and thought it was possible John had written it, too. They don’t know if the whole thing was made up or what. I don’t know what to think. It all sounds too crazy to be true, doesn’t it? Have you ever heard such a thing? Please don’t repeat what I told you. I haven’t told another soul, but I just thought I’d pop if I couldn’t talk to somebody. I sure don’t want Bill to find out. He already thinks my family’s crazy. He’d never let me forget it.”

“Now, Honey, I hate to hear all that, but don’t be worryin’ ’bout me tellin’ yore business. That whole story doesn’t sound right, but I didn’t git to be this old without learnin’ when to keep my mouth shut. Besides, since I’m the only one you tol’you’d know where it come from, wouldn’t you? Has your brother ever done anything odd before?”

“No, he’s always been steady as a rock. He went in the CCC when he was fifteen, then on his off time he took any job he could get, and always helped Mama and Daddy as much as he could. He finished high school in the Army since our little country school only went to tenth grade. I don’t know what to think. I’m just worried to death about him.”

“Well, I know you are, but folks deals with trouble in all kinds of ways. You’ll just have to let him be.”

“You’re sure right about that. I’ve got three little kids and I couldn’t go see about him if my life depended on it. I do feel bad for Mama and Daddy worrying about him.”

“I know you do, but they’ll have to make their own way, just like he will. Things have a way of workin’ themselves out.”

Most Happy

When are you most happy?

I am most happy when busy. I have always loved cooking whether it was for family or friends. I also get engrossed in gardening or any outdoor project. It feels best when I get so involved that I am only aware of the feel and smell of the earth, I feel a relationship with the plants I am dealing with. I hate it if I damage an earthworm and hope it regenerates. The fatigue at the end of a working day feels so right.

The Heartbreaking Tale of the Post-Mortem Fruitcake

Egyptian archaeologists discover the world's oldest fruitcake.

Christmas revolved around fruitcake.  Mother pinched pennies for weeks to buy the candied fruit and nuts required to bake the perfect fruitcake.  On December 22, everything else was in readiness for FRUITCAKE baking.  She chopped the nuts, candied fruit, brought out her spices  and pulled out her time honored recipe for the perfect fruitcake which only graced our table during the Christmas Season.  Baking the fruitcake was a sacred tradition, which we looked forward to it simply because it meant Christmas was almost here.  The eating of the cake was irrelevant.  The tradition was what mattered.

My maternal grandmother died December 16, 1964.  We were all devastated. She was the indulgent figure in out lives. Her rare visits had a holiday quality.  Her gifts were provided a few luxuries in our lives  I couldn’t imagine life without her.  She had mailed her Christmas gifts to us on the morning before she died in the night..  It arrived two or three days after her funeral.  It was a macabre feeling, being anxious to find out what she’d sent, knowing she was in her grave.

In the way of kids everywhere, we rallied and had a wonderful Christmas.  The gifts had special meaning, knowing they’d be the last.  I still have a tiny jewelry box from that year.  My poor brother managed to turn this sad situation into a mess.  Grandma had included a small fruit cake in a red tin box.  Mother put it up, intending to serve it on a special occasion.  Naturally, this fruitcake from her mother was elevated to the sacred.  Well, my brother Bill must have had a special occasion of his own.  Mother found the empty fruitcake tin hidden in his room, not a crumb left.

She was furious!  He had eaten her dead mother’s fruitcake……….the last gift she’d ever sent.  He lived to regret his theft.  She didn’t let him forget it for weeks, getting weepy every time she saw the shiny red box, sitting in a place of honor on the table. She keeps buttons and thread in that box till today.

This is probably the only documented story of anyone ever actually eating, much less stealing a fruitcake!

Feliz Navidad

My adorable niece wants to wish you a Merry Christmas and Joyous New Year!

Ralphie Wins and Loses, Bigtime

phone ringingDaddy got another phone call from Ralphie, the kid down the road.

“Mr. Bill?”

“Hey, Ralphie.  What’s going on?”

“I wrote a poem at school and won a contest.”  (On his last phone call, he’d reported making all D’s and F’s and having the papers to prove it)

“Well, that’s great, Ralphie!  I’m glad you’re doing better at school.”

“I won first at my school, then at district.  But when they took it to state, the judge said it came out of World Book and they threw it out.”

“Well, why did they do that?

“Because it came out of World Book.  Bye”

Izzy’s Stressful Life

I thought I was giving Izzy at treat and inadvertently introduced stress into his happy little life. He is now obsessed with this chew. He normally spends a good bit of his time lap-sitting but the last couple of days, he’s been moving this to keep it out of our big dog’s reach. He seems to derive no please from it. I think I may need to swap it out for a toy so he can get back to business as normal.

Life today

Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?

My life is better in some ways than I had hoped. Last year at this time , my ninety-six-year-old Mother lived alone in her home. I spent a great deal of my time helping her, taking her to do errands, and just taking her out. Despite all the time I spent with her, I knew it wasn’t enough. She was starved for company and wasn’t thriving. Her weight was dropping and she was weak. With encouragement, she made the difficult decision to move into an independent living apartment, an excellent decision.

She enjoys sharing meals with her friends in the dining room, has walks twice a day, has gained weight, and attends church again. Every day she tells me how happy she is now. I visit her two to three times a week because I want to, not because she needs my care. Both our lives are much better.

https://youtu.be/9xCleR6y4A0

Click link to go to youtube.

Miss Laura Mae’s House Part 7

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We could hear laughter as we opened the screen door. Miss Laura Mae and Miss Oly were dawdling over coffee when we walked in, tears running down their cheeks.

I stared, having no idea people could laugh and cry at the same time. “You ladies are having a great time. No don’t get up. I’ll get my own coffee. What in the world is so funny?” Mother wanted to know. They both took hankies out of apron pockets, wiping their eyes before cleaning glasses.

“It’s just so good to be together again after twenty-five years apart. Ory was just tellin’ me about her ol’ man comin’ in drunk an’ blackin’ her eye one night. Once he went to sleep acrost the bed, she took a bed slat to ‘im an beat’im black an’ blue.”

She gave me my biscuit as Mother shooed me out to my roost on the back step.

Miss Ory broke in, “Yeah, Harvey was a Holiness preacher but it didn’t keep ‘im from gittin’ loaded an’ chasin’ anything in a skirt of a Saturday night. After I beat ‘im, he was so sore he could’n’ hardly move the next mornin’when it was time for preachin’. He got up in the pulpit an’ said he’d been a’cuttin firewood an’ a tree fell on him. It was only the Lord’s mercy that saved him. I wasn’t gonna let him got away with that. I got up an’ testified askin’ to Lord to forgive me for tyin’ ‘im up in a sheet an’ beatin’ ‘im up so bad for tomcattin’ around.

I was gonna leave ‘im after that. I wasn’t gonna take no whoopin’ from no man, but his brothers come by after church. They was deacons an’ their daddy had been the preacher there till he passed. They said if I’d stay, they’d see Harvey did’n’ never lay a hand on me agin’ but I was still set on leavin’. Then all three of ’em’said they’d church me if I left, an’ I’d go to Hell. The little fellers was listening an’ set up a howl. ‘Don’t make my mama go to Hell!’ 

They was a carryin’ on so, I didn’t have the heart to git up an’ leave, with them a’scared I was ‘goin’ to Hell. No youngun ought to have to worry ’bout somethin’ like that.

They was good as their word. If Harvey got out ‘o line, they’d straighten ‘im out. Harvey was still a Heller,but he ain’t whooped on me ner the younguns no more an’ that’s all I keered about.

One time after we had a row, all of a sudden he calmed down an’ took me fish in’. We left the little fellers with his mama an’ walked down to the crick. He wanted to go out in his ol’ boat, even though he knowed I’d ruther fish off the bank. I could’n’ swin an’ I was a’scared o’water. He said he’d been gittin’ them fine white perch just off the point. I do love white perch. Anyways, when we got a ways out, he stood up an’ was a’rockin’the boat back an’forth till he tipped us over. I knewed he meant me to drown. 

I heard later he was a’slippin aroun’ with that Garrett woman. I let his brothers know an’ they told him nothin’ better happen to me. Not long after that he had a stroke an’ needed me to take keer o’ him. Couldn’t of planned it better myself. He never was no more trouble to me, so it all worked out fine. I didn’ git churched an’ worry the kids, I still had my home, an’ Harvey could’n’ worry me no more. Things was peaceful after that, but I shore don’t miss puttin’on up with him ner makin’ them durn biscuits ever’ mornin’. I don’t aim to ever make another biscuit!”