Life Droppings

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2011-11-16T11:37:00.001-08:00

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Christmas Woes

2006-12-26T00:34:00.000-08:00

Well another Christmas Day has come and gone. I spent mine alone for the most part as hubby had to work his normal 12 hour shift and the only son left at home worked 12 hours last night and spent his holiday sleeping. I am sick - whether flu or a severe sinus infection I don’t know yet. I already have an appointment for Wednesday so I will wait till then to find out. My nose is draining down my throat making me cough, my ears are hurting and ringing and my balance is iffy at best. I feel like crap. Spent most of the day on the couch wrapped in a blanket and shivering. All in all, not a very good holiday to be sure.
Lana is better I think. Yesterday I made stew from the turkey remains and took her a pint. She called and told me she ate it all. Today she called and asked if I had any more. My reply was yes, but I wasn’t bringing it - if she wanted it, she’d have to come get it - which she did. She has apologized profusely about being the cause of us missing our Christmas Eve ritual. I keep telling her it’s not about the day of the month we meet, it’s about the love and caring when we finally get together that matters. Folks can’t help getting sick after all.
I was reading Tina’s blog about her Christmas morning aftermath and have to say that I have noticed that since my children are grown, I miss the hustle and bustle of preparing for big morning when the kids find what Santa left under the tree. I miss the chaos, the laughter and excited squeals as they locate gift after gift they had asked for. It isn’t the same when the kids are grown. The excitement level is less, the anticipation is gone. Grandkids help some, but it is definitely different than your own children.
Merry Christmas and Happy 52 Anniversary Mom and Dad, where ever you are. We love you and miss you today and every day.

Picture of Sis.............Christmas Parade

2006-12-22T23:09:00.000-08:00

Here she is in all he glory at the Christmas parade 2006. Ain't she sexy?

Christmas Gifts

2006-12-19T20:27:00.000-08:00

Throughout a lifetime, children receive many gifts from their parents. Many are expensive and much desired; others are simply to fulfill a need. Probably the greatest gifts parents can bestow upon a child are those that cost nothing, that come without strenuous physical exertion or soul-searching thought. These unconscious gifts affect children for a lifetime, they shape characters forever and are free for the taking.

1. Responsibility - Our parents taught us that we were responsible for our own actions; that any action of ours could and would affect others. We were taught to use care when making promises and to be sure we delivered as best as we could when possibly.

2. Patience - Patience was a hard learned lesson for most of my family, but when there are five children it was surely a needed attribute. We learned to take turns through necessity; our Mom only had two hands and could only do so much for so many. If you waited, you would always get your turn.

3. Sharing - Five girls born into a seven year time span meant sharing was essential for the survival of our family. Whatever one had, we all had - be it cookies or paper dolls. If you weren’t willing to share, you got none.
Vicki 11-1955
Donna 1-1958
Teresa 10-1959
Tina 6-1961
Lana 6-1962

4. Time - Mom and Dad spent time with us - Mom everyday as we grew from infant to young adult - playing games, working about the house or in the garden or chicken house.Whatever we did, Mom was usually with us until we reached an age where we thought we didn’t ‘need’ her. Dad was different - he worked all hours trying to provide for us - but during his off time, he took us hunting, played his old Bluegrass albums blaring loudly as he danced and made corny jokes. He taught us to drive a tractor and mend fences, to check our oil and change a flat tire. Life is far too hectic today; parents can’t spend time with their children as I had growing up. And it is by far the parent’s loss.

5. Honesty - My parents in all likelihood valued honesty higher than any other quality in their children. It was a requirement, not an option - no negotiating, no small white lies - they were ALL black as sin. One of Mom’s favorite sayings was “Tell a lie and you have to tell more and more to cover the 1st and pretty soon, you will trip over that pile of lies and fall down.” I could never lie to my Mom - even as I got older. She knew …….. I KNEW she knew, so it was best I didn’t even go there.

6. Humility - We were all taught to be humble, that we shouldn’t consider ourselves any better than any other person in this world. But we were also taught that no one was better than us.

7. Gratitude - My sisters and I were taught to be grateful for the gifts in our lives, whether it came from God or from our Grandmother. Always accept a gift, express thanks and then smile and walk away. Whether you threw it in the trash when you got home or displayed it with pride was a matter only you should know.

8. Faith - Now here most would expect religion to be mentioned …. but faith, to me anyway, isn’t always about God, the Bible, Heaven, etc. Faith is the expectation that all will come aright after a while, that all the ills of life will pass away and we will survive and overcome whatever obstacles we meet upon the road. We were taught to greet each day with optimism and expectation; that no matter how many times we fall, eventually we can pick ourselves up and move on. That is where we are with the loss of our parents, I believe, dusting ourselves off, bandaging our skinned knees and preparing to move forward - with a bit of luck together.

9. Respect - We were taught at an early age that showing respect to our parents or any other elder around us was a common courtesy. It was expected, ingrained in us from birth and with few exceptions, we all still do it to this day. Self-respect was another quality we were taught.

10. Hope - When all seems wrong in the world, hope always seems a beacon in the distance - my Dad lived that every day of his life. He planted seeds in the garden with the hope that it would mature into a beautiful plant that flourished and bore fruit as he plowed and hoed and tended it throughout it’s lifetime - much the same way he raised us from infants to adulthood. Without hope, what does anyone have?

11. Courage - Our parents taught us that no matter the challenge we faced, with determination and strength we could move mountains. Dad said if you never tried something new, you would never know if you could succeed. They gave us the darling to allow ourselves to take wing and soar through life.

12. Love - Probably the greatest gifts our parents gave us is the gift of love. They taught us that love was unconditional; that when freely given the rewards were great. That love isn’t always expressed with words or gifts, sometimes it’s just there in the background keeping us supported and cared for when all else is wrong in our worlds. I still fell my parent’s love, it surrounds me and my sisters and our families every day. Our parents weren’t demonstrative and mushy, but they loved us no matter what.

Meet My Son the Fireman

2006-12-14T20:53:00.000-08:00

Meet my son Duane, (top of ladder) who by day is a Foreman in a mobile home plant and by night is a volunteer fireman. Isn't he cute in his lil outfit? I cringe when I hear his Station called out to a fire until I know he is back home. He is 31 years old but still my baby. I am so proud of him I could pop.

Lament of a Murder

2006-12-10T21:07:00.000-08:00

I am a vile murderer - one of the lowest of the low - belly crawling my way through the sewer systems located in the bowels of life! Does it make you any less a murder if the heinous crime is committed in the performance of normal - seemingly innocuous activities? I think not.

My son, Josh, age 24 and the only child left at home was given a pot-bellied pig. What can a Mom do but say HELL NO it isn’t staying in my house. Pigs are farm animals and belong in a pen outside a barn.
Especially pigs who grow to humongous size and will have feet larger than mine. But this pig was 10 weeks old yall - teeny tiny and cute as a button, all black and white with funky little pink toenails - and it IS winter and he is delicate (said my Son as he looked at me with sad puppy dog eyes). So I did what any Mom worth her name does - I said ok, but you have to take care of it. Right!

He did care for it - semi anyway. When it got to stinking enough to cause a funk that I could smell sitting on the couch - if I raised enough Hell and reminded him obsessively - he would clean it’s pet carrier cage. He fed it, bathed it, changed his litter and all was well. If I heard an occasional snort or squeal, well, I did my best to ignore it - all the time thinking in the back of my brain that as soon as the spring thaw came that thing was out of here. Now pigs, as it happens, have no mechanism in their brain to tell them when their belly is full - therefore earning the name Pig I suppose. At any rate, this 5 pound hunk of ham would eat as long as you fed it. As a consequence of that little glimmer of information, Josh had this critter on a diet. I scoop of cat food twice a day along with water. I liked the little thing, truly I did. It was cute, although I never did develop a sense of delight for the smell of pig piss.

Yesterday Josh had to work his normal 6 PM to 6 AM shift as a security guard. He was running late and, per usual, asked me to feed the pig his supper. I got busy - dragged all the Christmas paraphernalia I had inherited from my Mom home, divided it up between myself and my children. I put up a tree, spent an hour replacing light bulbs in numerous strings of defective lights and placed on said tree. I hauled piles of dirty clothes from the bathroom floor - left there - you guessed - by the grown son mentioned above. The pig's sniffling and snorting because it thought I was bringing it’s nightly ration of food. I decided to vacuum the living room floor - it was covered in pieces of garland, broken bulbs, and leaves carried in on our feet while dragging the debris of Christmas home.

Here I am, industriously sucking trash from the floor, shoving heavy furniture around and dusting as I went along. I am thinking - ok Donna - might as well do the hall while I was at it. Now the hall light was off, but the light on the vacuum lit up my path as I whizzed along like a red caped Hannah Homemaker fighting the never ending dirt and dust generated by normal life. Now back to the pig - as many of you know - pigs root ……… errrr dig with their snouts into anything that strikes their fancy - food included. As a result, Razor (that was his name) had strewn food all over the floor in his quest to be glutinous. In an attempt to do a quick once over - dumb Donna (that’s me) vacuumed right up to his cage and even smacked the cage with the vacuum a few times to push it back to get all the food on the floor.

After a well deserved rest, about 3 AM I decided to get a shower and some rest - AFTER I fed and watered the pig. Getting the required cup of food, I went down the hall and opened the door to empty the cup so I could get water and be done. The pig didn’t rush to the door in eager
anticipation for dinner as he usually did. I thought what the HELL? Then I said ok, he’s sleeping so I shook the cage. Nothing. Not a sound. No movement, no snorts, nada. I ran and got a flashlight and dropped to my knees and shown it inside. In the back of the cage lay a mound of what was once a living, breathing pig. I had killed the thing!

I think I scared it to death. I swear I didn’t know pigs were afraid of vacuum cleaners! But that HAD to be it! He was fine minutes before I assaulted his cage and hearing with a Hoover. I should go to jail - should roast on a spit instead of the fattest pig known to man! And dammit I TOLD Josh we shoulda named that damn pig Bacon!

Christmas past

2006-12-08T20:47:00.000-08:00

Once again the holiday season is upon us. I for one, have yet to break out the tree, much less begin to decorate with any of the enthusiasm I used to feel. I am unsure whether it’s the sadness of the missing my parents or just laziness in general. Whatever the cause, I have got to get into the spirit for my children and Grandchildren.

Tonight my sisters and I spent several hours dividing the fabrics, ribbons and ornaments of our Christmas pasts. Fifty years worth of glass balls (glitter and writing rubbed off from years of use), a zillion strings of lights, bulbs missing here and there and tangled into a mass of green cords. Glitzy garland, silver, gold and ratty stuffed into hand mixer boxes Mom had saved thru the years - stuff that should have been thrown away a century ago. There were soft ornaments and little wooden trucks and trains Mom used when my oldest and Vicki’s oldest were first starting to toddle around; green covered garlands and wreaths bent into pretzel shapes, near unrecognizable in their present forms.

Outdoor figures of Santa, angels & candy canes, a thousand Nutcrackers of every shape, color and form. Crocheted snowflakes, made my Mom, stiffened with Elmer’s Glue and water. All were divided among us 5 girls, equally, handpicked by each of us one item at a time. Every one is a treasure to be cherished, brought out each year to remind us of those gone from our lives but not our hearts. We love you Mom & Dad. Know that for this year and every year after, you will both be at every holiday celebration in our memories and thoughts. I love and miss you both.

Pictures for Vicki

2006-12-02T21:19:00.000-08:00

Here we go .... I was lucky enough to scan and save many of the pictures Mom and Dad had before they all got distributed amongst us. I also have several from a few generous Aunts.

GRRRRR

They won't upload Sis. I'll email em to you, lol

Most Memorable Christmas Gift

2006-11-29T21:02:00.000-08:00

Vicki requested a trip down Memory Lane to recollect our most memorable of all Christmas gifts. Here is mine.

Being the second of five girls all born within an eight year time span, wearing hand-me-downs was a way of life for us. What clothes we had that was new were whipped up by Mom on her trusty Singer sewing machine. She’d scrimp and save to buy fabric and patterns were passed between Mom and my Aunts to keep costs down. (I didn’t realize that then though …… I never thought about all our girl cousins of like age and size had the same clothes with the only difference being the color and print of the fabric). We always had a nice Christmas, even if there were only a few presents apiece under the tree. Stockings, red mesh and filled with hard candy, were taped with Scotch tape to an old brown desk in the living room. I never thought about others having more or better than us. It was enough.

The Christmas of 1963 I was 7 years old and in the Second Grade. My Mom and Dad had married December 25, 1954. Mom had worn a pale carnation pink wool dress to get married in, likely her very best dress. This Christmas, she cut her wedding dress apart at the seams and ironed the resulting odd shaped pieces of material flat. Then she took a paper pattern sized to fit a small girl (me), pinned, cut out and stitched the little dress together. Mom always made us dresses and outfits, but this dress was special because she had taken something that meant something to her and made it into something special for me. It was long sleeved, with tucks down the front and scratchy because it was wool. But I loved that dress and wore it until I outgrew it. Then it was passed down to Teresa, then Tina and Lana (if it lasted that long). I wish I had it today. I’d treasure it even more.

When we are young, we don’t realize the things we see, hear and feel will someday become precious memories that we will take out and treasure and pass on to our children and Grandchildren. I find myself telling my Grandsons about my childhood, growing up in a house filled with rules, noise, laughter and love. Mostly love. It’s a wonderful feeling.

Christmas is for Grandkids?? Yeah Right!

2006-11-25T00:24:00.000-08:00

The past few years the holiday season had been tough on my family and I, not the least reason being the passing of my parents and Father-in-Law within a ten month period of time. I haven’t been in the mood to celebrate anything, though I forced myself to attend gatherings and pretend to be happy to be there for the sakes of my children and grandsons. This year I have determined to turn over a new leaf ….. to begin to enjoy the traditions and rituals of the season with a newfound enthusiasm ….. Hoping to make precious and treasured memories for my grandsons to pull out and recall when I have gone from this life …. the kind I have of past Christmases with my parents and sisters. To that end, today I gathered three of my beloved offspring’s offspring to go to the woods. I intend to decorate, with their help and input, a totally natural Christmas tree … albeit it an artificial one. BAD idea. Very BAD idea.
I put in a request for my older son’s ( said son being the lovely vacuuming guy from Vicki’s blog) truck and his three sons and we set out with my youngest Sister Lana back to the woods located on the property I inherited from my Dad. These woods have been empty of cattle or any other animal (with the exception of the normal critters found in the wilds of north Alabama - deer, opossum, rabbits, coyotes & squirrels ………… oh and the occasional armadillo) for over ten years. I KNEW this having ventured there the other day with my son, but dumb me, I figured I could handle it the same as I used to when Vicki and I roamed the entire eighty acres running buck wild. I was wrong as it turned out.
The woods now are full of undergrowth and brambles and deadfall, leaves slick with the moisture of dew, frost and rain. Landmarks I once knew have long ago been obliterated due to the passage of time and Dad’s trusty tractor and chainsaw. We entered the woods from the hayfield …. Sounds easy huh? My grandsons were running like startled deer, clambering over the two dead trees blocking the path I had told them we were going to take. They scampered ahead, yelling at the top of their lungs, selecting huge rotten limbs to protect me from whatever mangy creature was lurking nearby to attack. I reached the two downed trees and thought O MY GOD! Those trees are feet off the ground and my legs are too short. Added to that, my knees don’t work very well, refusing to bend the way I want and locking up when they will. I sat down on the trees and thought okay Donna, now just swing your legs around to the other side and scoot your …… errrrr….. hiney off the trees, all the while screaming at the boys to wait for me. It nearly worked out the way I had planned ..except when I was set to scoot off., my behind was stuck between the two trees, my little short, legs waving in the air uselessly. I was yelling to my sister, hey give me a shove and get me out of here! All the while, the boys were gone from sight and sounding like a herd of Comanche on the warpath. The one thought going through my head was I am too old for this crap and if the boys get lost my son will kill me!
When I finally got down, I pushed through the dense brush, trying to look agile and athletic and I stumbled across fallen limbs, rocks and saw briars. It didn’t work. I looked like exactly what I was - a forty something short round crazy lady with bad knees. Not an awesome sight to behold. But, dammit, I was in charge of this expedition and I had to get back into control. I herded the boys, who had doubled back to see what was taking me so long, into some sort of order and we began foraging for out bounty. The problem was that the boys’ Dad had been telling them there was deer sign in the woods and they began examining every tree for scratch marks, crawling on their knees looking for prints and licking a finger and holding it up in the air to check the wind direction, because, as they told me, you have to stay downwind of a deer. I tried to explain that we weren’t hunting deer . .we had no guns and even if Bambi herself walked up, we’d pet her and let her go her merry way. They acted like I was crazy!
I thought ok, we’re moving location … on to the next section where, hopefully, their Dad HADN’T seen deer sign and just maybe we’d accomplish what we set out to do. I sent Lana after the truck ( no way was I crossing that logjam we came in over again) and we waded the waist high saw briars to exit the woods. Sitting on the tailgate with legs dangling off the back is enjoyable when you’re a kid, but as an adult it is an exercise in clenched butt cheeks and a death grip on the tailgate edge to a chorus of SLOW DOWN OR LET ME DRIVE! After a death-defying trek over branches and brambles and tree stumps, the truck finally stooped. My behind was tired of being jostled and bounced, my legs were sore from scratches and banging off the sides of terraces and holes when I forgot to keep them raised. I had had enough! I was walking back no matter what.
The section of woods I chose is criss-crossed with gullies that had been there since before we moved here in 1970. I was thinking to myself a nice slow amble would be great, the quiet and peace of the woods on a warm fall afternoon, enjoying the changing leaves and colorful berries found there. Except I didn’t reckon with the grandsons wanting to go along. I had hoped they would stay with the truck and Lana, gathering a few gumballs and pine cones to use as decorations for the tree. How could I refuse to wait when they yelled at me? After all, this entire excursion was to teach them that Christmas was about love, not expensive ornaments and gifts. As I waited for them to catch up to me, I kept thinking, okay Donna, you can keep them in order this time. Threaten them with death or worse, act crippled and helpless so they will offer aid and stay beside you for a change. Yeah right!
They ran by me like gazelles, laughter and taunts floating back to me as they sprinted ahead. I yelled and told then to be careful, that running in woods you weren’t familiar with was dangerous. Did they listen? Nooooo … instead the next thing they knew, the ground they were flying over as they turned their heads back to hurl insults at me disappeared and they ended up in the bottom of a gully higher than their heads. I stood at the top of the gully and laughed at them as they lay there stunned, damp and dirty. Me, being savvy to slick leaves and deep trenches, politely turned and walked out of the woods and across the field where I had better footing, leaving them to climb out on their own! HA!
I am exhausted, my knee hurts and I have bruises in places I had forgotten I even had. My legs are covered with scratches and dried blood . . . . I dread taking a shower cause I know they’re going to sting and burn. I have learned a valuable lesson today - next time I want to go to the woods, I am going alone. I already knew how out of shape I was - but GEEZE - I don’t need anyone to heckle me. And all I managed to gather were a few scraggly pine cones and three gumballs for the tree…..

Southern Does NOT Equal Stupid

2006-08-07T00:27:00.000-07:00

I have never understood what geography has to do with mental aptitude, but for some unknown and obviously far-fetched reason, people from the South - Alabama in particular - are considered to be made up of nothing but ignorant, uneducated, inbred hillbillies and Daisy May types. Now, being from Alabama, born, raised and happy to be so, I am not only thoroughly fed up but getting more and more aggravated by this blatant misconception. I consider my brain to be of normal size and skill, capable of logic and learning with equal competence as any person who wasn’t blessed enough the be born South of the Mason Dixon Line.

Since discovering the glories of the internet. I have encountered thousands, who, once they learn where I live, automatically assume that I am incapable of typing, much less carrying on a conversation with any rational level of intelligence. When one such person asked where I learned to type, I said I was self-taught and that just last week - I even amazed myself ……….. I taught myself to pull that little silver handle on the new outhouse they had just installed in my house! Next week, I will learn how to stop up that big old white washtub they brought the same day so the water won't run out so fast when I pour coffee cans of water over my head during my weekly bath. He left the conversation in a hurry after that ……….

I am proud to be Southern; thankful for the privilege of growing up in the Southern tradition of my ancestors; and grateful to be able to pass the morals and values I learned as a child on to my children and grandchildren. Every child in this country should have been so blessed. We, as a whole, are all offered the opportunity to learn, be it from the public school system or though the lessons life teaches us along the way. It is up to the individual what they make of themselves and the choices they make that decide who and what they will become.

In essence, intellect is a simple matter of the willingness to learn and absorb data, not a matter of geography. People should realize that and not have preconceived notions of someone they don’t know. Rant over.

Hello Mama

2006-06-14T22:30:00.001-07:00

Hello Mama.
It’s been two long, lonely years since you left us. If I could, I wouldn’t wish you back Mama. You were so very ill and tired when you left us, suffering endlessly and we girls slowly grieving the future loss we knew was fast approaching. I know you are in a better place and at peace, free from pain and the strife of the chaotic world we live in. But even knowing that doesn’t make the past two years any easier to handle, though we struggle along with dragging feet and saddened hearts as you would have insisted we do. What lifts my spirits is knowing Daddy is with you now. Losing the both of you in such a short amount of time was probably the hardest thing I have ever dealt with. Look down on us all Mama, bless us with fond memories and peaceful thoughts for the future, smile down on us with the sunshine and spread the cleansing rains on our lawns so we’ll know you are still there, though in only our memories and the bright eyes of your Grandchildren, watching over us, guiding us daily to lead lives so that we may see you once again. Love us as you always have, teach us to remind the future generations exactly who and what you were and will always be to us, our Mother, our fierce protector and the center of our hearts.
I love you Mama, I always will. I will never forget you and what you were to me, my sisters and our children. God Bless you.
Donna

SIX WEIRD THINGS ABOUT ME?

2006-04-28T22:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, she did it to me. (Vicki AKA Junebugg) !After picking my brain about her non-normal tendencies, she turns it on me...........oh well.....here goes. I consider myself perfectly normal. Just wanted that off my chest before I began. Compared to Sis, my life is dull as dishwater..............dirty, dingy dishwater.

SIX WEIRD THINGS ABOUT DONNA

1. I am a voracious reader, I read anything and everything that doesn't move too fast to grab....... from encyclopedias and dictionaries to the Bible, I have perused over every piece of written maunscript in my house and thousands beyond it's doors. I make a point to read several chapters each and every day, whether it is the latest bodice ripper or an often used and dog-earred cookbook. Keeps my brain active and my vocabulary above the national par.

2. I can and do document my family lineage back to the Mayflower, long, dead Cherokee Indians and the South of Wales. Genealogy saved my sanity at a time when I was about to reach the limits of my endurance. It gave me a focus, a reason to get up every day. It brought me closer to my parents and introduced me to unknown relatives the countyside over.

Lord, this is tough......spilling all my quirks and folliables to the world.....

3. HMMMMMMMM.........I have been married to one man since I was 16.....had sex with only one man ever..............which isn't all that uncommon. But given my age............48........apparently it is uncommon. Do I think I missed anything? Definitely. Would I choose another? Doubtful. Taken enough off the one I have. End of story. CAn one be a born again virgin?

4. For all my life, I suffered from the "Doormat Syndrone". You know, the one who always gave in in any argument, was chastised like a bad puppy for wetting the floor and had no self esteem due to constant put downs and be-littlings. No more. I haven't made it totally free, but Donna the doormat is gone forever. Emancipation is a wonderful thing.

5. Okay, now the kinky stuff..............I have a fascination with wood,the textures and patterns of the grain ...... even the smell. I love to rub my hand down a highly sanded piece of lumber, feeling the smoothness beneath my palm ..... there is something almost sensuous about it.

6. Depressions almost killed me. I nearly died because a so-called specialist couldn't diagnose the problem. Near death changes a person in many ways. It, apparenly, made me mean. I flat refuse to give in to this terrible affliction. It guides my actions every day, I guard my feelings and reactions to people, I refuse to let them close enough to hurt me if I can. Sometimes not caring is the best protection there is. I refuse to let the negative actions and pain caused by others effect me anymore.

The Reflection of a Year

2006-04-11T20:25:00.000-07:00

A year ago today we lost our Dad. The past year for me has been a journey of discovery in many ways. The past year for me has been a time of quiet reflection, a time gather my memories of family, of harmony and the fellowship of love. Aside from the grief and feeling of loss it has brought serious contemplation of the importance of family, the necessity of unassailable caring for one another and the need to resolve differences and reach a level of unimpeachable understanding between us all. And it isn’t always easy to accomplish. Dad was, and in many ways still is, the King of our Mountain, the Emperor of his Realm and the stalwart port in the storm. His passing didn’t change that for me, with the exception that he is physically no longer among us. He has became the voice of my conscience, the imp whispering in my ear with sometimes less than tactful suggestions for dealing with the stresses and problems of day to day life. I have learned to curb my anger and guard my tongue, to think twice before I act and ALWAYS, ALWAYS to think of how someone will hear what I am saying.
While I am not happy Dad is gone from us, I am content that he is where he wanted to be. Don’t get me wrong, I miss him terribly, his irreverent humor, his quick wit and his domineering ways, which, at times, drove us to desperation. I still expect the telephone to ring with his demand (notice I didn’t say request - - he seldom asked but expected it anyway) for assistance at anything from digging a post hole to burying a dead dog. I listen for the sound of a heavy truck in my driveway, horn blaring loudly, filled with the command for your presence at the side window of his pick-up. An old country ballad on the radio makes me smile and tap my foot in time to the music, where before I shed tears. I love the sensation of walking where his boots trod for so many years, seeing with my eyes what he loved so deeply about the land, broad pastures and the dense woods surrounding our home. I can touch his tools and almost see the sweat glistening on his brow as he labored to complete an everyday task. It’s a feeling of peace, of quiet faith that all will be well in the future. It gives me hope that we five sisters can resolve the accumulation of nearly fifty years of marriage….. trash and treasure, without blood loss, without alienation and, most of all, without remorse or further pain.

Love Everlasting

2006-03-18T22:18:00.000-08:00

Let me just say here that before my parents died, I began to ask questions about their lives together, not just my memories and the ones of my sisters, but theirs. Mom was so terribly ill it was difficult for her to talk a lot. But Daddy.....well Pops loved nothing better than a yarn. After Mom died, it seemed to tickle him that I asked and wanted to know things. We spent many an hour, both of us laughing and crying as he discussed their lives together. I miss that terribly, the time we shared together, the bonding. We were never close to Pops before Mom died, he worked all hours and Mom was the disciplinarian and the one who was home with us. After she died, Pops was so........needy. And I needed him.

This is my poor attempt to tell their story, second hand as it were. I have finished Pop's section, Mom's is a work in progress and their lives together will follow as I complete it. I intend, once I finish this, to print out a copy for each of my sisters.

Here goes.......

Since time began, there have been endless stories written of the “perfect love story,” a happily ever after life where no discord and hardship would ever dare to intrude upon the paradise a couple were building between the two of them. The man, dashing and handsome, comes along and sweeps the lovely maiden off her feet and into a life of glorious ecstasy and never-ending happiness. Unfortunately, love in real terms is hardly that way; the twists and turns of day to day living causes stress and strain between two people who have vowed to spend the remainder of their lives together. A true marriage is a linking of soul mates, a couple possessing the inner strength and faith to endure the worst life can throw at them and survive unscathed with the connection between their two heart’s intact. This is the true account of the courtship and marriage of my Mother and Father, a never-ending love story for them, and a blessing to their five daughters, for we now understand the true meaning of love and devotion, and hopefully, the ability to achieve it for ourselves.
The year of 1954 brought many changes to the United States. The Civil Rights movement was just beginning, bringing several significant differences to the educational system that had long been in place throughout the country. Premium gasoline was at an all time high of 20 cents a gallon and Coca-Cola had increased to the cost of 6 cents a bottle, bringing forth protests of price gouging. The cost of home rental was between $5 and $10 a month. The Korean War was just over and for the majority of soldiers leaving the military, the hope of a good job with adequate pay was merely a dream. For many, returning to their pre-war homes meant the realization that jobs were non-existent in countless rural areas, often necessitating the need to move to a new location in order to seek employment, frequently to another state entirely. Below is the story of one such newly released Soldier and the woman he chose as his bride: my parents, Abron Wayne Waters and Ilda Ruth Curnutt Waters. They met December 15, 1954 and married December 25, 1954 in Iuka, Mississippi.

Daddy

Abron Wayne Waters was born the third child on his parent’s farm in the rural Conway Community of north Alabama during September of 1928. The Great Depression, which started in 1929,was in its infancy when he was a child and life was very hard for the entire country during these times, but most especially for the rural areas of the deep South. There was little if any industry in the country areas, therefore, there were few jobs to be had for the common man, but a decent living could be made from farming and livestock if families were frugal and industrious. His parents, both hardworking and steady, were, like most of their neighbors, struggling daily to make a living off their property and raise their children. This family was representative of what is now regarded as the backbone of our country.

God was First and Foremost, Family was next. Nothing and no one came before God or Family. Growing up surrounded by the morals and values his parents lived by, he and all their children, with their careful supervision and encouragement, were taught these same characteristics. The household over the years eventually encompassed thirteen children. Everyone did their part, whether large or small, to carry the responsibilities of day to day living. A burden, no matter the size, is easier to shoulder if the load is shared. Even the younger children were taught to work at a very young age. The family was virtually self sufficient, relying on the crops they grew with their back breaking labor and sweat coupled with the meat they slaughtered and cured, either domestic or from the wild, to supply their food sources. The few things they did purchase, such as shoes, flour, sugar, cloth and other necessities were bought only as needed, for frugality was a way of life and an essential element to the survival of these families.

Formal schooling began at the age of 6 or seven for Daddy and the other children, the standard uniform for boys being blue overalls and a simple shirt, usually homemade. Shoes were optional, depending on the weather, as going barefoot was no hindrance to children raised from birth to feel the grit of the dirt between their toes. Being unshod was equally convenient for wading any branch, mud puddle or small creek they happened across on their rambles. Most only owned one pair of shoes, sometimes new, but more frequently they were hand-me-downs from an older sibling, somewhat tattered and worn, but certainly sturdy enough for at least part of another winter’s wear. The journey to school was usually completed on foot, for the horses and mules the family owned were needed to work the fields on a daily basis, weather permitting. Daddy’s daily trek was usually in the company of his siblings and cousins who lived near. To get to the school building, they had to go across the field in front of his house to the old cemetery in the woods above the farm pond, then a mad scramble through the thick woods to the opposite side and across another field to the dirt road that led to the school. During the wet winter months, the muddy roadway would be all but impassable on countless days during the wet spring and winter seasons.

The school was called Conway, a place of learning for the neighborhood children five days a week, and on the seventh day, a place of worship for the entire community. Originally called Shelton Chapel, the land for the school was donated by members of my Grandmother’s family. The school and church was a simple one room unpainted clapboard building, the only source of heat was either a fireplace or wood stove, fueled with firewood hand-cut and brought to the school by the adult males of the area. As Daddy got a bit older, it was his responsibility to arrive at the school early and to lay the fire to ensure the building’s warmth when the other students and teachers arrived. Water was obtained by the simple means of dropping an empty bucket, tied to a rope by its handle, down into a well and pulling or “drawing” it back up by hand over hand until it reached the top. All the children drank from the same dipper, hence the cause of several near epidemics that Daddy recalled (one such being Whooping Cough). Toilets were a small square building, built away from the school building and water well for sanitation’s sake. They were constructed over a pit to hold the waste and moved occasionally in order to bury the unhealthy accumulation. Daddy said when the pit was full of waste, the building was simply hoisted and carried to another location where a pit had been dug and the used pit filled over with fresh dirt.

Young boys typically get into mischief, and certainly Daddy was no different. Flips were the favorite toy of all males, both large and small. On the trips to and from school, there were many diversions to tease and entice a boy intent on looking for mischief. One such amusement was shooting anything that moved with their trusty flip. Made of a piece of leather, two strips of rubber from a discarded tire and a forked limb of wood, these treasures were most likely hidden in the pockets of overalls during school hours. (Daddy said they would “borrow” inner tubes that Granddaddy had lain by on a shelf to repair later and cut strips to use as the rubber to make these flips.) Rocks, nuts and dirt clods made excellent ammunition and could be easily obtained by simply watching the ground as they walked along. One such jaunt brought Daddy a whipping he claims to have never forgotten. He and a cousin, Garnett Gillespie, were walking home from school one summer day, and as was the norm for them, they cut close to the neighborhood wash spot, Shelton Hole, where the women of the area did their laundry. On this day, and apparently several others before, one very large lady was involved in the task of providing clean clothing for her family. For some reason her broad backside made an irresistible target to the two boys as she labored over her chore. They SHOT her, and according to Daddy, they proceeded to do it over and over again, day after day! After many threats to report them to their Fathers, they must have assumed they were in no danger of being told on, kinda like the boy who cried wolf. They were wrong, because on that fateful day, news of their prank got home before they did and my Grandfather was waiting on him as he walked across the last field toward home. He said his Father whipped him BAD, probably the worst whipping he ever got. (I didn’t ask for details. All he said was “WHEW!”, and wiped his hand over his face. That was enough for me to know it was more than I wanted to get into!)

Conway stayed in existence until Daddy was in the Fourth Grade when the building burned to the ground early one morning before time for the school bell to ring. The students from the one room school were sent to a neighboring school, Midway. It was a larger building and had more classrooms and teachers than Conway. Students could attend there through the Seventh Grade. After completing their final year at Midway, students had to travel to town for further education. The school, mostly filled with students who lived in the city and close surrounding area, was unlike the country schools Daddy had grew up in. The city boys, in particular, were ‘snobs’ and looked down on the country boys for their lack of new clothes and shoes and made fun of what they called their countrified ways. Daddy only attended school for two weeks before quitting in the face of their ridicule and harassment. He then attempted to take on the world with a Seventh Grade education and a fierce determination to succeed.

My Grandfather worked away from home a great deal of the time, doing whatever he could to earn money to provide for his family. This left my Grandmother to raise her young and growing family alone for the most part. Each and every child had to do their share of the chores, handling whatever they were able to do at the time on a daily basis. Every farm chore, from milking to feeding had to be finished and then the children went to the cotton fields. Each farmer who wished it received a Cotton Allotment from the government. This meant a farmer set aside and planted a set amount of acres and that they agreed to take a certain amount per bale for their crop per year. Each day, Daddy and his siblings went to the cotton field to tend to their crop. When they finished for the day, they would pick a bucket of field peas or whatever crop was ripe to bring home to Grandmother to cook for dinner the following day. After they ate that night, they would sit and shell the peas so they would be ready to cook. Money was scarce during this time, young men often had to hire out to other farmers as day workers in order to purchase clothing. They hoed or “chopped” cotton all day in the blistering sun for 50 cents a day. And when the cotton was ready to harvest, they were paid 50 cents per every hundred pounds they managed to pick in a day. One cold winter day while snow lay deep over the frozen ground, Daddy said he could remember Granddaddy bundling up and he and a neighbor setting out to hunt armed with nothing but big long sticks in their hands. Fresh meat was scarce in the winter months and with a large family to feed, providing food was a major chore. I questioned the use of sticks for weapons of destruction and asked didn’t Granddaddy have a gun. Daddy quickly answered with “Why take a gun? The rabbits were about frozen. All you had to do was locate a likely hole in the snow, poke around with your stick and when the rabbit came out, knock it up side the head and kill it.” Hours later when Granddaddy came home, his waist was surrounded with so many rabbits he had killed and tied around it he could hardly stumble through the snow that covered him almost to his knees. Granddaddy set Daddy and his brother to cleaning the bounty, gutting and skinning the rabbits one after another. They were packed in a salt brine inside a churn, filling it to the brim, for safe keeping. I asked him wasn’t that enough meat to supply the family for months? His replay came as a shock…..he said Grandmother cooked two rabbits along with gravy and biscuits every morning for breakfast to feed them all. The two churns of skinned rabbits lasted only a few weeks!

In 1942 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and on December 8th of that year, President Roosevelt declared war against Japan. As the war began, the citizens of the United States soon began to feel the effects of the war. Rationing began almost immediately, starting with rubber and gasoline. Average motorists who used their vehicles for “nonessential” purposes were restricted to 3 gallons of gasoline a week. Also affected was the production of alcohol, cigarettes and every basic consumer product with the exception of eggs and dairy products. Each man, woman, and child received a ration book restricting them to a certain quota of food and essential products per week. Gas was so precious that my Grandfather would make them travel to church in the back of a horse drawn wagon instead of using the truck. The family managed to provide their own food by growing a vegetable garden. But with little way of preserving the crops, by winter time, Daddy and his siblings often ate cornbread and molasses for breakfast. They kept three or four cows to supply fresh milk and cornbread and sweet milk was often eaten as a meal as well. There were few amusements during this time either. Daddy said my Grandmother would sell the last egg from the house to enable her sons to go to town on Saturday to the 25 cent movie. For a dollar, Daddy could see three movies and enjoy popcorn and a Coke.

After leaving school, Daddy did odd jobs around his home and the neighboring farms. He did anything and everything from cutting wood to chopping and picking cotton, whatever honest labor he could find to earn money. Life was hard here in Alabama during this time, there were few jobs to be had that paid a decent wage. He was barely 15 when my Grandfather, who was a Foreman for John C. Nipp & Son, told him if went and joined the Union, he could get him a job working with him. John C. Nipp & Son was a contractor who worked at Engle Shipyard finishing out the ships that the yard built. Daddy worked there several months hanging insulation on the inside hulls of the ships that were manufactured there. He worked until warm spring weather came, then he and his cousin, Garnet Gillespie, left north Alabama for the greener pastures of the northern States.

A higher wage was paid to workers in the north and many men from the community where the Waters lived ventured there to try their hands at bring some of it home to their families. Daddy and Garnet traveled to Hartford, Michigan where they found work picking cherries at Hilltop Farms. They rented a room for $16 a week complete with a stove and refrigerator for cooking their own meals and a communal bathroom in the hall. Daddy earned more money per day picking cherries in Michigan than his Father made as Foreman in Alabama, $30 to $50 depending on how fast your hands were. With his pay, he purchased his first pair of real man’s pants to replace the overalls he normally wore. From somewhere he heard that a driver’s license could be obtained with a fake Birth Certificate. So Daddy, enterprising young man that he was, asked around until he learned how to obtain one. After shelling out $25 for the fake certificate (which had to have been a fortune in 1943), he was driving around Michigan with a fraudulent license obtained with a fake Birth Certificate. When the weather began turning cold, Daddy and most of the others returned home to the more temperate climate of north Alabama. But before he left, he bought one more thing, his first car, a 1934 Ford Coupe. He paid $150 of his earnings for that car and drove it home. Once again, he worked around the neighborhood to earn money and drew his unemployment. The money from Michigan’s unemployment was more than could be earned working a job at home.

The summer Daddy was sixteen years old, his Father gave him and Jack, his brother, a field of cotton to raise. They were to split the profits made in the fall when the cotton was harvested. Once the cotton came up, it failed to rain, meaning the crop would bring little money. Realizing this, Daddy took his last savings and bought a calf which he fattened up. He butchered the calf himself and took the meat door to door and sold it. When he had sold the entire calf, he told Jack he could have his half of the cotton field and returned north to Hartford, Michigan to look for work. He found a job picking strawberries. When the crop was finished for the year, he began to thin peaches, which entailed walking through the orchard with a big stick and knocking at least half the young peaches off the tree. This ensured that the remaining peaches would get bigger simply because there was less fruit to draw the nutrients supplied by the tree. According to Daddy this was the most dangerous job he ever had and probably the hardest. (Can you imagine having to dodge falling and flying kamikaze peach missiles as you tried to protect your head and shoulders and still see what you were doing?) When cold weather set in, he again returned home to live, working odd jobs and saving the money he had earned while working away from home. Before he left, he again bought a car in Michigan, this time a 1936 Ford. He said was the best driving and riding car they had ever made. He kept the car until the following spring, when he sold the car to his Father to get the stake to go back north to work.

The next year, he followed the same pattern, with Daddy going north to work during the summer and returning home when the weather turned cold. The summer her was seventeen or so, his brother Jack had traveled north with him. Jack couldn’t find work anywhere, so they took a job that entailed a ten mile bus trip to and from work each day. They were working for a carpenter doing finish work on houses and filling in and leveling dirt around the foundations. When Daddy got a chance to get a better paying job with less travel at Shakespeare Rod and Reels, he took it and Uncle Jack came home because he didn’t want to work alone. Daddy returned home to work with once again with my Grandfather, but while he was earning $2.65 an hour at the Kalamazoo Paper & Box Company in Michigan, the pay he earned here at home was much less, only $1.65 per hour, a difference of $40 per a 40 hour work week. It was easy to see why a young and single man would leave his home and everyone he held dear to travel to another state to work and live. The disparity in pay per week would have made all the difference in the world at that time.

The summer of 1950, Daddy and Jack could once again be found up north, Daddy working in the Caterpillar Tractor Factory in Peoria, Illinois. Uncle Jack received his Draft notice and had to answer the call, so Daddy brought him home. Ten days later, Jack walked in the door and laughing, handed Daddy his draft notice that had came in the mail. While Jack joined the Army. Daddy elected to join the Air Force. I believe his exact words were “Hell NO! I was not joining no Army!”. From what I understand, the Army was the worst of the armed forces to join for whatever reason and if he had to go, he would have a choice. If you got drafted, you went into the Army. Daddy entered active duty December 12, 1950 in Gadsden, Alabama. He was stationed at Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas and was trained to build runways and roads at various Military bases around the world. He went to Yokohama, Japan and to Korea. He was discharged September 27, 1954 and returned to Alabama.

When Daddy was released from the Air Force, he came home to north Alabama where he stayed with my Grandparents and settled in. He worked with my Grandfather in Sumpter County helping to construct two bridges until the cold weather forced them to come home. The risk of falling forty feet into the freezing water below was too much of a gamble to take. Once he returned to Lawrence County, Daddy took any odd job he could to earn money, turning his hand to any task, everything from farm work to cutting fire wood and selling it to neighboring families. Daddy and Uncle Jack also kept my Grandparents supplied with fire wood, both for the house and also for the small Country Store they owned and operated. It took two large wagon loads a week to heat both buildings.

Daddy’s cousin, N. V. Shelton had purchased a new truck. He asked Daddy to go halves with him in a venture that necessitated traveling to Cherokee, North Carolina to pick up apples and returning home and selling them. They hauled five loads, each containing 50 bushel of apples. Paying 50 cents per bushel for the apples when they purchased them, they then drove them back to Alabama and sold them for $2.00 per bushel or 75 cents for per quarter bushel. N. V. would set up a fruit stand in town in the back of his truck. Daddy would load his own flat bed pick-up and travel around the valley selling the apples door -to-door, at gins where people were crowded to sell their cotton harvest, or anywhere there were several gathered together. That was $1.75 per bushel profit and when selling ¼ bushels they made $2.50 profit, not counting the gasoline they used. Quite an enterprising idea.

After working all the daylight hours peddling apples, Daddy would hit the road, looking for something to do. He usually went to the next town, Decatur, because then, as now, Moulton had nothing happening after dark. According to him, the young men spent their time cruising up and down 2nd Avenue. I suppose it was the place to see and be seen so to speak. Another popular past time was visiting the Snack Bar in the Bus Depot located right off 2nd Avenue. Evidently the women who worked there changed shifts at 10 P. M. and the young men would line up 40 deep to get a chance to chat with them ( he said pick them up but I am trying to be nice here). One such night of carousing changed my Daddy’s life forever…………..

Where I'm From

2006-03-16T22:51:00.000-08:00

I haven’t written in a long while for whatever reason. But my loving Sis has been hounding me to try my hand once again, in fact, she sent me a link to Cowtown Pattie’s post “Where I am From”. It intrigued me, made me think, remember, and dream.
Here it is.
Where I’m From
I am from winding dirt roads, dusty and hot on little bare feet in the blazing heat of a summer day, that lazily meandering across the rural country side. I am from the heavenly aroma of wild sweet honeysuckle vines, twisted and clinging to rusted and sagging barbwire fences, a profusion of yellow and white blossoms and lush green leaves and vines, bumble bees swarming around my head attempting to sip the nectar the blooms provided. I am from a huge gray flat rock, jutting from the edge of the pasture into the edge of the woods and overhanging the hill that fell away to a tumbling clear creek, a passel of children roasting hotdogs, firm and red and dangling from a slim, green sapling branch, enjoying a peaceful Sunday afternoon around a pile of glowing embers.
I am from station wagons and weekly trips of grocery shopping each and every Saturday that God provided. I am from wild muscadines growing dense and green along the fencerows, the grape-like fruits were sweet and tangy and tart and delicious. I am from the cool, muted darkness of the woods, sheltered and refreshing in the summer’s blistering heat, huts made of vines and tree houses made of scavenged lumber and stolen nails and hammers. I am from the farm pond in the back pasture, deep and mysterious and clouded with red clay, muck and mud and cow patties. I am from rolling terraces of luxuriant red clover, sweet to smell and cool to the naked skin of a little girl’s leg as I tumbled downhill dodging bees.
I am from orange persimmons, tart and biting to the tongue as I waited for the bus every fall morning. I am from dotted Swiss dresses and shiny white leather shoes, frilly white little girl purses and white lacy hats at Easter. I am from lazy Saturday afternoons spent fishing with cane poles and dirty red wigglers in an old rusty coffee can along Rocky Ford, perched on the cool, damp creek bank under the cover of a thousand green leaves shading us from the sun. I am from hand churned ice cream, flavored with vanilla and eggs and rich, creamy canned milk. I am from cedar Christmas trees, chopped with an axe and dragged home, fragrant and prickly and green and decorated with Construction paper ornaments and popcorn chains.
I am from a house crowded with children and laughter and love. I am from home grown vegetables, big family dinners and spilled milk. I am from luxuriant green yards, vibrantly brilliant blue skies and the quiet hum of insects with none of today’s sounds of traffic and industry. I am from dim, dark outhouses and pure clean, clear water gushing from the ground, cool and delicious on your tongue. I am from the honest sweat of a hard day’s work staining my shirt and the feeling of accomplishment it brings at the end of the day. I am from never ending nights spent lying in the dew damp grass of the yard staring up at a million glowing stars hanging like fireflies in the night sky.
I am from 2 stick Popsicles for 10 cents and Nugrape and moon pies, stick bologna and Hoop cheese from the country store down the road. I am from long horseback rides down dusty, twisting gravel roads, from dragging home stray kittens and dogs and the occasional strange animal. I am from Sunday afternoon rambles in Mom’s car, with big Sis at the wheel, circling the Town Square trying to impress the local yokels with our charms and beauty. I am from skipping school and hiding our selves away in the Bankhead National Forest for a day of picnicking and rock climbing and a tryst of waiding in Mallard Creek's muddy red waters.
I am from the backbone of this country, farmers and blacksmiths, from Ireland and England and beyond. I am from a Cherokee princess and a voyager on the Mayflower. I am from a man I called Daddy, a sometimes harsh man, whose parents instilled the ethics and morals he passed on to his children, who worked from sun-up until sundown to provide a stable home and life for me. I am from a Mother who put my needs before her own, who played with me, sang with me and loved me unconditionally. I am from the strength and determination of a large family, giving me the wisdom that who I am, what I am is more than adequate.

SEXY NAME DECODER

2006-02-20T09:55:00.000-08:00

Yes Sister, you are. Love you, Vicki

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIS

2006-01-15T20:08:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone, this is Donna's older, prettier, wiser sister Vicki aka Junebugg here to announce that Donna is now offically ..................

48 YEARS OLD!

That's right, she's now over the hill.

Revenge is sweet, Donna. Remember you and Wendi decorating my yard????

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIS. LOVE YOU

Tears for Christmas

2005-12-24T23:55:00.000-08:00

Christmas has always been special in our family, a time for togetherness, unity and love; with noise and laughter and squabbles filling the house. This year, we five sisters celebrated it in the time honored tradition of our parents on Christmas Eve night. Going home for me is hard on any day, but for some reason on holidays it is even more difficult. No Mom in the kitchen, smiling and ordering us all to line up and start dinner and remember the kids get theirs first …….she was always the last to fill her plate and take a seat. No Pops in front of the television, remote control aimed at the box to raise the volume above the noise level of a house overflowing with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The tree was different, a new tree my little sister bought and put up in a totally different place and room from the one Mom did. All so strange and out of place somehow. I made most of the desserts this year……..I missed her Graham Cracker Cake and Pecan Pies. Traditions die hard, especially the ones that bring a sense of normalcy and peace to us. The loss of them reinforces the fact that they are gone for good and nothing can ever change that. No matter that none of us would wish them back to the pain and suffering they endured before they died, each of us at one point voiced that we missed them and how strange it was to be there without them.
My sisters haven’t been close since our parents died, for whatever reason. It isn’t easy to be close with most working, living separate lives with different stresses and responsibilities. Tonight was the first time I felt they all cared, each and every one of us offered an invisible olive branch to the other, unqualified love and understanding and friendship. It was a wonderful feeling for me. I sincerely hope they all felt that way. Our parents would have been proud of us all……………make that were proud of us all, for I know they were there………..if not in fact, then certainly in our hearts and memories.

Simple Pleasures

2005-10-30T20:43:00.000-08:00

What ever happened to the simple pleasures of life…those that cost little if anything and readily supply a plethora of lovely memories in our semi-golden years?? Now days, everyone is in a rush to buy the latest marvel of technology, to be the included in the stream to be one of the first thousand to view the latest Hollywood’s productions, or to own the largest and fanciest car or house money can buy…………….even if it means signing your next lifetime’s worth of hard earned paycheck over to someone else? I simply don’t understand the logic. How can it be pleasurable if you have to suffer to enjoy it?
Pleasure, to me, means something that one enjoys, either the doing of or the feeling it sensations it causes you to feel. It isn’t about money, or how someone else perceives you. It should be about feeling happiness and serenity……..not a constant race to one-up anyone. I remember simple joys from childhood. Things I still enjoy today, that are free for the taking if your imagination is up to the challenge. If you are daring enough to dream …
Growing up, life was simple, we worked when we were told to, we played at every opportunity, and we enjoyed most all of it with an enthusiasm I would give anything to have back. Chores shared became the simplest of tasks. Rarely, if ever, were we given a job without one or both of our parents involved to hasten the undertaking along. And with Mom, we sang together as we worked, be it the current Rock and Roll tunes blaring from the radio, or the golden oldies that Mom heard growing up in the 40’s and 50’s. Even church hymns. We sang them all, loud, off key, and with elation and exuberance in our voices and hearts. The chores were soon done, with little squabbling or fuss. That was a pleasure, because when the jailers are happy, the inmates tend to be as well.
Pleasure was home made ice cream…..rich in flavor, laden with eggs and milk and vanilla. We had an old ice cream churn, the wooden bucket and discolored with age and salt brine. Hot summer afternoons, Mom would whip up a big bowl full of this mixture and we knew what was coming. Layers of crushed ice and large flakes of salt would, after an hour or so, turn into heaven melting in the mouths of us kids. But only if you worked for it….if you didn’t turn the crank, you didn’t get any. That was the law. Every neighbor kid would soon come over to take their turn at the crank for just one small helping of the ice cold cream. I miss it. Oh, not the turning of the crank, but the rich taste of the ice cream.
Pleasure was wading the creek with my Sis. Knee deep, with the cool water rushing past our bare legs, the bottom slick with mud and fish darting about as we violated their sanctuaries. A deep thrill we enjoyed without Mom’s knowledge or consent. Neither of us could swim a lick. And the creek bottom was littered with craggy rocks, both large and small. If we fell, we could drown. ( The voice of doom………errrrr rather Mom). That was contentment, both in the doing and in the secrecy of the adventure.
Pleasure was tromping through the woods, the air icy and laden with snow. Barren grapevines hanging from trees, just begging to be used to propel ourselves across branches. All around was a stillness, the only sounds the rasp of our breaths as we climbed our way to the top of the ravine we had decided to explore. There was a cedar tree, surrounded by honeysuckle vines long stripped of their leaves by winter’s frigid air. And under these vines was a cave…..dark and dank, but just right for 2 girls to curl up in. It was our lair, a clubhouse of sorts. One we told few about.
Today, pleasure costs money or involves travel, possessions or other people. I am still a simple soul, much preferring a beautiful sunset to going shopping. My Grandchildren are going to benefit from my memories, I think. I plan to take them walking as soon as it is cold enough. I want them to hear the silence of the woods and see the beauty of that silence. To know peace and inner happiness comes from within ourselves and can’t be bought at the local Wal-Mart for any amount of money. Our parents taught us that. For that I am thankful.

The Smell of Freedom...........or Dog

2005-10-25T00:33:00.000-07:00

OK, I admit I am not the most knowledgeable person about equines……………………but having been around horses all my life……….I thought I remembered the basics. But apparently I don’t remember all that much. I made a terrible mistake yesterday and turned my back on a jackass who doesn’t like humans. Or dogs! Especially dogs. An error that won’t happen again anytime soon.
Now, having a pet is a wonderful thing. I mean I have fish and turtles, even a few cats outside, both wild and tame. What potential problem could one more little animal possibly cause? When my son asked me about getting these jacks, I was tickled to death at his thoughtfulness and caring for me and my little sister. We would have one apiece, to train, love and care for. Being in the barn and around animals would bring back memories of helping Daddy and be all to the good. Little sister has little time since she works, but I thought, well hey, I do nothing all day. I can feed and water these babies all alone. An added bonus was that I’d have to leave the house and get some exercise for a change. The depression makes it hard for me to get motivated, but I will do what has to be done, be it cooking, laundry or feeding. A noble endeavor with the added benefit that he could possibly be trained to pull a cart for my Grandsons……..
So yesterday, I left the house in the gusting wind, sweats and shoes on with a hoodie zipped up tight to my chin. I tromped uphill and across the lawn of my parent’s house to the barn, unlatched the front gate and went into the shadowy barn. I opened the stall and there they stood……….two beautiful sweet jacks giving me the evil eye. I could tell they had already been fed sweet feed and corn since some was still in the trough. I thought well, gee, I’ll grab em up some of this hay and put in here for them to much on later. After the 2 first armfuls of loose hay I pulled from the bale were in the trough, I turned my back and went back for one more, leaving the door to the stall open just like we have done all week. These animals were so afraid they never ventured to the door much less out of it. I heard a commotion as I grasped the last handful of hay and looked behind me……….and there was Zeke…………my ass, galloping out the stall door with a dead-eye beam on my little sister’s dog! He ran by me full gallop….or as full as a short jackass can get. I was thing oh my God…….what now. He is chasing this little speckled dog all over the lot in front of the barn and the dog runs towards the gate…….when suddenly I realized the gate wasn’t fastened!/ It wasn’t even pulled all the way closed!
I ran forward with my hands full of hay, yelling and waving it around to frighten the ass back away from the gate. The dog escaped under that darn gate and the ass stopped dead still and stared at me like I was an idiot. I was so humiliated! I ran to the gate and fastened it and turned around….and noticed the other ass had smelled freedom as well and joined his partner in crime. I slapped my pocket searching for my phone…which I had of course left at home. The house next to the barn lot is another of my sons and they were gone. My little sister was gone as well and I had no keys with me to get in to use her phone. So I walked around the lot, checked all the gates and stumbled for home.
When I got home, my daughter was on the phone. I said……….come on Windi. My ass got out. I need some help. Now! She yelled Mom’s ass has run off and she would call em back and we ran out the door lickedy split for the barn……well we ran to her car and she drove us there but ..oh well. I called my son Duane, the son who gifted me with this nice, nice pet. I had orders I couldn’t run them up, it would scare them. I was supposed to come down in the morning, put food in their stall, hide, and when they entered to eat….run out and lock the door. I thought NO WAY! After a lot of debate, with my suggestions being shot down quickly, Duane got on the tractor to go to the pasture to get some……….errrrrrr…………hmmmmm….he called them something but I have forgotten. Basically they look like gates but can be used to make a catch pen, chute, etc. anywhere. While he was gone……….I politely placed an old gate across the hallway of the barn, opened their stall door wide and walked them around the barn. She pranced and frolicked as if they didn’t have a care in the world…..and proceeded to walk into their nice warm stall. He was so angry at me for having bested him. Soon as he got back, I turned around and came home, all the while knowing Mom shouldn’t have pushed the envelope. Tonight……….I received a phone call….not irate, just with attitude…….when he went to check them after work today…they tried to kick him. I wasn’t even there and it was MY fault. I give up……

The Smell of Ass

2005-10-23T00:25:00.000-07:00

As I stated in an earlier entry, I am now the proud owner of an Ass! Not just any run of the mill Ass, but a genuine, full-blooded, beautiful gun-metal gray ass. I have named him Zeke. He is a bit on the short side, but being only 4 months old, I am assuming he will grow some. Not that being short is bad, a short ass will be just the right size considering I am 5 foot nothing. He is so cute, with his big lips and mobile ears that can twist and turn any direction at the drop of the proverbial hat.

Each and every day since I received the ass as an early Christmas present, I have treked up the hill and across a huge yard to play with my ass. But does he appreciate my thoughtfullness? NO!. I have yet to touch the thing more than a glancing blow as he backed away from my outstretched hand. Zeke isn't tame by any means. He and his......errrr.........stablemate are equally distant and scared of all humans. Go figure, me, who by no means is an accomplished brave woman, am now the owner of an ass that doesn't want to be petted.

Being of a noble nature, tho, I am determined that this ass will grow to accept me as his owner. To date, and I have only had him for a week, he is willing to eat sweet feed and corn from a bowl that I am holding out in front of me. But you can raise a hand to pet, and he runs away. Ah well, at least he doesn't turn his back to me anymore when I unlatch the stable gate. That is progress at least.

Yesterday as I entered the barn, dimly lit with the dust from hay and or manure wafting on the breeze, I encountered a horendous smell. I couldn't imagine anything smelling that bad.As I opened the stall door, my delicate nose was assaulted with the smell of manure. I looked at Zeke and Zeb and asked was that smell coming from them? Of course, they rolled there little eyes and stamped their hoofs..............which sent up another cloud of dust right into my eyes.

Why is it when we get older, our sense of smell seems to be enhanced? Sis and I spent countless hours locked into the dim barns of our childhood, constructing numerous mansions amoung the bales of hay. With hidden entrances, we could be assured of hours of time away from our pesky younger sisters. I don't remember it smelling that bad back then. I certainly don't remember the dust and smell stopping my nose up for days on end. It can't be the barn that smells so bad................so it must be the ass.

Re - Rooted and Lovin It

2005-10-17T00:04:00.000-07:00

I am turnin over a new leaf yall. I am goin back in time to my country roots, dang it! I have decided that the government is takin control of my life and I ain't standin for it no more. Gas prices are outrageous, it costs more for my ole man to drive to work than he makes. You can almost eat out at a fast food place for what it costs you to cook a decent meal every night. Heck, you can't even die without it costing a fortune. I, for one, am fed up to the back teeth with the government bleeding us dry.

I grew up with homemade clothes and hand-me-downs. We lived well in those days. Now it seems if you don't have a certain name brand of jeans or type of tennis shoe you are trash. We grew all our own vegetables and most of the meat we ate, canning and freezing all summer to provide for the winter. Now a can of beans can cost as much as a dollar! And some weeks hot dogs and mac and cheese are gourmet fare. Sheesh!

Next year, I will have a garden and grow my own food. I am determined to become more self-reliant and less dependant on the government to decide if I can afford hamburger or steak this month. I don't have a lot of use for fancy anything, be it clothes or shoes. Barefoot is fine and old sweats work great for what my life is day to day.

My son gave me an early Christmas present.............a baby jackass. So cute....for now. I aim to buy me a few chickens and a couple of goats. Farmer Donna will be back in business this time next year. Maybe even a calf or two. Who knows where I will go.

Feels nice to be back. Sis has been riding me to start this up again so here I am Vicki. Not a funny from long ago, but oh well. I WILL be back with more. This is fun again, for now anyway. Bye yall!

HIJACKED

2005-10-07T00:52:00.000-07:00

Donna, this is your Older but Better Looking (hee hee) and Smarter (etc etc) Sister, and I have temporarily hijacked your blog since you never write anything anymore. I've been playing with TypoGenerator and came up with these. Ain't they neat!! Now write something, dang it.

Love Ya, Vicki

Memories of Daddy

2005-07-13T20:55:00.000-07:00

When I think of my childhood, my Dad plays an important part in my memories. While Mom was the fun and games, Daddy was the one who instilled the value of working for what you want and earning what you get. The value of a dollar. Don't ask for a handout if you can acheive it on you own. Respect yourself and others. Or else. Although he had little education, my Dad is one of the smartest and wisest men I have ever known. He taught us the value of a hard days work and the honor of a job well done. His was the hand wielding the big stick whenever we crossed the line. And we often did. He expected us to give 100% to whatever we were attempting, be it in school or hauling hay or just playing in the yard.But, on the other side of the coin, I remember stripping second gear out of Daddy's black Ford truck learning to drive across the pasture because my legs were too short to mash the clutch all the way in and roasting wienies on the big flat rock at the edge of our woods on a hot summer Saturday afternoon. Or nights so dark and quiet as you slipped through the fields rabbit hunting with their eyes glowing red in the glare of a flashlight. Learning to load and shoot a gun and hitting what you aimed at. Slippin down to the pond in the summer with a tote sack in your hand and Daddy leading the way with his spotlight on his head and a frog gig in his hand. He taught all of us girl to check the oil and change a tire before we were allowed to drive. We learned to fix fences and run cows, milk goats and which tools were which and what they were used for. Probably the most important lesson he ever taught us was to believe in what you were and to stand up for what you believed in. We may not have been rich, with flashy clothes, a big fine home, or fancy cars, but we were loved. I think us Waters girls, all five of us, turned out just fine.

Missing Mom

2005-06-15T23:52:00.000-07:00

It has been a year today that my Mom died. A year that has been filled with pain and heartache and loss for my entire family. Grief, stubbornness, protectiveness and anger has torn what is left of my family apart.
For two years, we had no choice but to watch our Mom slowly wither away, dieing a bit each day; little by little she slipped farther and farther away from us. No matter how we prayed, what we did to help, she just gradually eased away into God’s hands. And goodness knows, if I had the power to restore her to us, I wouldn’t dream of it. Returning her to the suffering she underwent and the anguish we suffered while she endured it would be more than we could bear. Where she is now, she knows no pain, and for me personally, I know that she is in a far better place.
Dealing with Daddy after Mom died was tough on all of us. We couldn’t give in to our grief, because we had to take care of him. For Mom, he was the center of her universe, and once she could no longer care for him, us girls did. Some more than others, time, money, jobs and distance being what they are, nothing is equal. But, all in all, we did what we could when we could. That is all anyone can ask, and certainly all our parents asked of us.
Then come April, we lost Daddy - he was gone in the blink of an eye. We lost both parents in ten months. My family has been blown apart. Grief is a strange emotion - so much pain; so much anger - total helplessness and a lack of control. Human beings do not deal well with any of these and my family is no different. With the anger, people lash out, causing pain and hard feelings. And god knows me and my sisters are some of the most stubborn people ever to grace this earth. Greed is maybe a big part of it - not that I don’t want something to remember them by. We could lose it all, every piece of property, every possession, and I would still have my memories. No one can take them from me. Those are mine, precious thoughts to brighten my days and warm my heart.
I wish I could fix what is broken in our family. I miss the team effort, the sharing and caring we always had no matter who was mad. We knew we could depend on one another, regardless. What should have brought us closer together has driven us apart. I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know if I should even make the effort. For what it’s worth - Happy Birthday Sis. I love you. I love all of you - no matter what.

MEMORY MEME

2005-06-08T21:16:00.000-07:00

My dear Sister Vicki has tagged me with this, this MEME thingy. And then did me the kindness to call and inform me that she did it. Ah well, here goes nothin. Been a while since I put any thought into anything more than getting thru each day. We'll see how it goes.

The rules:Remove the #1 item from the following list, bump everyone up one place and add your blog's name in the #5 spot. You need to link to actually link to each of the blogs for the link-whorage aspect of this fiendish meme to kick in.

1. Fistful of Fortnights
2. Feisty Repartee
3. Lollygaggin
4. Junebugg
5. Lifedroppings

MY MEMORIES:
1. I miss wading thru the creek barefoot, dodging sharp rocks and snakes; attempting to catch minnows by hand; cool clear water flowing over and between my toes on a hot summer day.
2. I miss Mama, she was my best friend, my confident, my release valve when life got to be too much. She was there, always.
3. I miss the carefree days of childhood, days when, once chores were done, allowed a freedom from life's stresses and cares that I will never again have.
4. I miss the love of my family, the acceptance and caring that were unconditional. The feeling of belonging and rightness of being part of a group held together by friendship and respect.
5. I miss walking barefoot behind Daddy's plow as he cultivated the garden early in the spring, soft, cool red clay covering my feet as the plow tore the hard crust from the soil. I even miss him yelling at me to not mess up his rows and having to plant tomatoes from only ONE side of the row else the row would be crooked.

I Tag:
1. Compleat Redneck
2. War Liberal
3.Possumblog
4. The Dissident frogman
5. Redneckin

Southern Rules

2005-03-16T01:43:00.000-08:00

Not mine yall.........I 'borrowed' it. I don't have a clue who wrote it either. But I agree with every word. Enjoy!

In an effort to help outsiders understand the rules of the Southerner's mind, the following list will be handed to each person as they enter a Southern State. (These actually should be the rules in all states.)

1. That farm boy you see at the gas station did more work before breakfast than you do all week at the gym.

2. It's called a "gravel road." No matter how slow you drive, you're going to get dust on your Lincoln Navigator. Drive it or get it out of the way!

3. ! The red dirt -- it's called clay. Red clay. If you like the color, don't wash your car for a couple weeks -- it'll be permanent.

4. We all started hunting and fishing when we were seven years old. Yeah, we saw that Bambi movie, too. We got over it

.5. Go ahead and bring your $600 Orvis fly rod. Don't cry to us if a flathead breaks it off at the handle . We have a name for those little 13-inch trout you fish for: bait.

6. Pull your pants up! You look like an idiot.

7. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of mallards are making their final approach, we will shoot it. You might want to ensure it's not up to your ear at the time.

8. No, there's no "Vegetarian Special" on the menu. Order steak. Order it rare. Or, you can order the Chef's Salad and pick off the two pounds of ham and turkey.

9. Tea -- yeah, we have tea. It comes in a glass over ice and it's sweet. You want it hot? Set it in the sun. You want it unsweetened? Add a lot of water.

10. You bring Coke into my house, it better be brown, wet, and served over ice!

11. You have a sixty-thousand-dollar car. We're real impressed. We have a quarter of a million-dollar combine that we only use two weeks a year.

12. Let's get this straight. We have one stoplight in town. We stop when it's red. We may even stop when it's yellow.

13. We eat dinner together with our families. We pray before we eat--yeah, even breakfast. We go to church on Wednesdays and Sundays, and we go to high school football games on Friday nights. We still address our seniors with "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am," and we sometimes still take Sunday drives around town to see friends and neighbors.

14. We don't do "hurry up" well.

15. Greens -- yeah, we have greens, but you don't putt on them. You boil them with salty fatback, bacon or a smoked hog jowl.

16. Yeah, we eat catfish, bass, bream, and carp. You really want sushi and caviar? It's available down at the bait shop.

17. They are pigs. That's what they smell like. Get over it. Don't like it? Interstate 75 goes two ways. Interstate 40 goes the other two. Pick one.

18. Grits are corn. You put butter, salt, and maybe even some pepper on them. If you want to put milk and sugar on them, then you want cream of wheat -- go to Kansas. That would be I-40 West.

19. The "Opener" refers to the first day of deer season or dove season. Both are holidays. You can get pancakes, cane syrup, and sausage before daylight at the church on either day.

20. So every person in every pickup truck waves? Yeah, it's called being friendly. Understand the concept?

21. Yeah, we have golf courses. Don't hit in the water hazards. It spooks the fish and bothers the gators --and, if you hit it in the rough, we have these things called diamondbacks, and they're not baseball players.

22. That Highway Patrol Officer that just pulled you over for driving like an idiot --his name is "Sir," no matter how young he is.

23. We have lots of pine trees. They have sap. It drips from them . You park your Navigator under them, and they'll leave a souvenir on your hood.

24. You burn an American flag in our state, you get beat up. No questions.The liberal contingent of our state legislature -- all four of them -- enacted a measure to stop this. There is now a $2.50 fine for beating up the flag burner.

American by Birth, Southern by the Grace of God.

To Boob or Not to Boob

2005-02-24T02:27:00.000-08:00

Lets pose a question………………….where do big boobs come from??

For as far back as anyone has kept a written record, it seems women have always aspired to have large breasts, often employing ingenious methods of achieving the figure of their dreams. These oft times deceptive and devious contraptions of boob-u-lar enhancement varied with the age of the lady / girl needing to boost both her ego and her miniscule mammary tissue. From the age of puberty, anywhere from the 5th Grade to the 7th in most cases, gym class always a shocking proposition for those not yet caught up in the quest for unnatural chest enhancement. There they were, the same girls who you sat by during Math Class and History, changing into their gym clothes in the Dressing Room, the space above their ribcage either flat as a griddle cake, or already sprouting fledgling breasts, always, always encased in one of those white Training Bras with a tiny bow stuck front and center, the center made of a soft stretchy elastic-like fabric and not even a real cup designed to hold a breast. Considering they HAD no real breasts, I suppose this made some sort of sense. It always made me wonder what the Hell they were supposed to train them to do? I mean, I have to ask here, what tricks can the average Breast perform? It isn’t like they can “Sit Up“, or “Play Dead”.

And then, there was the other class of preteen girl, the ones who wanted breasts desperately but whom God hadn’t seen fit to bless with them. These girls were very imaginative in their methods of achieving their goal, that of appearing to have been turned into a women so as to not be left behind by all their overachieving classmates in the hierarchy of Boob-dom. These girls, in their quest for maturity and ergo, popularity with the males of the species, employed inventive methods of reaching the desired goal. Something as simple as a box of tissues, filched from home, could be and were inserted into a once empty bra, in a clandestine way, of course, giving the appearance of being all grown up. One of the dire consequences of tissue, I was told, was that not only did they rustle when you moved, they also, once mashed flat by something pushing against your chest, refused to plump back into their previous curvaceous form. One of the benefits of the tissue-filled bra had to be that if anyone found out that your budding figure came from a cardboard box rather than nature, you always had something to blow your nose on when you burst into tears of humiliation. Also used were gym socks, clean it has to be hoped, being likewise used as filler. These were difficult to use, being hard to the touch when rolled tightly and shoved into an empty bra and giving a lumpy appearance to the outside of your clothes. Both of these methods left a lot to be desired, I would think, the necessity of having to purchase and wear a bra that you had nothing to put into and then hiding it from your Mother would be enough to daunt even the most stout hearted. Added to that, once you had on the aforementioned bra, where did you conceal yourself to perform the necessary stuffing? It HAD to be finished before you got to school, so ……….on the School Bus? The Girl’s bathroom, after a mad dash into the school from the bus with your books glued to your chest in hopes no one would notice you were less amply endowed than the previous day? To say nothing of the hassle to maintain the overstuffed-bra look once you had completed the goal. This ritual would have to be carried out every day, which meant going through the same trials over and over, for under no circumstances could a girl, once publicly very Boob-a-lis-tic-ly gifted in public, go back to being flat as a tire that had been punctured by a sharp nail.

I have thought maybe there was a “Boob Gene”, an inherited cellular thing that caused generation after generation of massive Boobs to sprout in families, but apparently that isn’t the case. My Mother was “NORMAL” in the bustline, as were her Mother and her sisters. But for some ungodly reason, I and my four sisters were overly blessed by the Tittie Fairy, that fictional nymph of some otherworldly beginnings who flitters around with one broken wing, a bent halo and a crooked wand, bestowing burgeoning mammary glands to innocent female children in the dead of night while they dream of ways to get even with mean little boys. The little witch apparently imbibes heavily, for on occasion she stays too long on her visit (likely passed out from drink! ) and some unsuspecting little girl awakes the next morning with these horrible, embarrassing growths protruding from her once level chest. That is likely what occurred at my house, an explanation that while Mom was average, the 5 sisters of my family went from being the Boob-less wonders to Boob-a-licious in a short fashion. Personally, I remember having……..errrrr….. breasts far before any of my classmates. This not only brought unwanted attention from the males in my class, but also the unwarranted accusations of my females classmates of my own practice of Bra-Tampering in any form. Young ladies, regardless of what one might think, are spiteful and hateful to their peers when they have something they yearn for so anxiously and do not have.

High school brings changes in a girl’s life, for the boys who once wanted to harass and belittle the girls become creatures of Testosterone……..when the manly urge make them take notice of a girls figure and stand at attention, so to speak. Of course, Vicki, being the oldest, kind of blazed a trail for me and my younger sisters. I remember the exact summer when her boobs first got notice. While walking down the gravel road we lived on to a neighbor girl’s house, two of the “older” boys, teenagers who rode the same school bus as us, whistled and called out “Woo-Hoo! Teenie Boppers!”. They also mentioned how Sis had grown up over the summer. I was embarrassed for her, I must say. Bad enough that your very own body was betraying you in this hideous way, but for a guy to actually notice and comment! And it only got worse. Beings as I was only a couple of years younger than Sis, we took to rambling together. Although I couldn’t date, I could and did go on her dates…………as a would-be chaperone…….to parties and movies and such. The problem was, although I was interested in boys, they talked to my breasts instead of me! And being barely 5 feet tall, they had the opportunity to sneak a peek from their loftier height anytime they got close. From the age of 15 or so, both Vicki and I were more than amply endowed. It was a chore to buy bras much less find clothing that fit. And buying a bikini was next to impossible, for it the bra fit, the bottom fell off. If the bottom fit, it was a struggle to cram all the boob into the tiny cup, always leaving excess boob hanging from the sides or the bottom. Disgusting and not at all allowable by a Father who was sure that all the male animals in the world were just waiting to pounce on us the minute we walked into the world and removed our shirts!

With age comes wisdom, and alas, in my case, boobs. As the years have went by, I have learned many things in life are unfair. The disadvantages of being large chested far outweigh the advantages. Running of any sort became virtually impossible, for not only was it painful it was logistically difficult to see past the boobs flying up in your face with every step. Bras to fit me and most of my sisters generally have to be ordered, as stores have so little call for them they don’t stock them. And a discount store carry them ? No Way! The cost alone is anywhere from $25 to $40. Finding a button-up shirt is a aggravation, for if it fits across the shoulders, it will surely gap open across the chest, straining butt holes to the limits. Add the chronic back and shoulder pain and the deep grooves that wide bra straps, burdened with the task of supporting the weight of two large cantaloupes all day, cuts into both your shoulders. Mammograms, which as many know, Vicki discussed recently, are unbearable. While I understand the need to perform the x-rays, I would swear to you that the sex of the inventor had to have been male. No way would a woman force herself and millions of other women to undergo so painful an ordeal. That being said, if the man who invented the machine that tortures women daily worldwide would step forward, I, personally, would like to initiate him into the realm of Womanhood by placing his…….testicular organs into the slabs of glass and squashing the Bejesus out of them while he cringed and tried to pull away, about to scream in pain! I guarantee if men had to suffer that, there would soon be a new, less painful means of testing for Breast Cancer.

As I have gotten older, my breasts, while never perky due to the mass and weight encased inside, have no doubt sagged. Not far, mind you, for it is impossible to sag when a solid mass of tissue stands between them and my belly. Imagine folding over a full sack of dog food…..it won’t go flat as long as it is still full. And being short, I find that they are in very close proximity to my belly regardless. Makes a comfortable resting place at times. The main thing I have noticed as I have aged is sleeping on my back is more difficult. What once lay perfectly on my chest during sleep now has a tendency to fall over into my armpits, making lowering my arms difficult. It would, if I cared, be terribly humiliating for a woman who knows she is on the downward side of forty. Thank God I don’t care! Although going braless has never appealed to me for many reason, now days I look forward to the time when my house clears of teenagers and I can release the gruesome devise of torture I am forced to wear to protect the innocent daily. Although going braless did pay off for Sis once……..she entered a wet t -shirt contest and won a huge trophy. I can remember her bringing it into the parent’s house and them her trying to explain to Dad how she won it without causing a major explosion.

Far be it from me to whine and complain, but when I see these ladies who go to any expense and unnecessary pain in the pursuit of possessing deeper cleavage, it pisses me off! Here I am, overly Boob-u-lated and miserable, desiring nothing more than to wake in the morning to find a miracle, that my huge and monstrous breasts have shrank to a more normal and manageable size, that there are actually women who WANT them!

Thanks

2005-02-07T21:42:00.000-08:00

I want to make the effort to thank all of you for your support and kind words of encouragement. I should be used to this by now after dealing with it for a very constant ten years. For some reason, it isn’t like a disease where you can take a pill and find a quick fix. God know I wish it were! Until this recent downward spiral, though, I managed to have more up days than down. And yes, I do know there are many more medications on the market and available. I have such a history of allergic reactions to various drugs, it makes me hesitant to venture into the world of the unknown. Vicki (Sis) has always been a brave soul, leading the pack into danger with no thought to consequences. I, on the other hand, was and am a cautious individual, thinking of the penalty before the action is even completed. I am too housebound, that much I know. And it isn’t fear that makes me stay home, it is apathy. I simply have no desire to step-foot out into the world. There are few places I want to go, even fewer people I care to visit or talk to. I have hardly one friend and, sad to say, my two teenage children and their friends are about the only human contact I have. How did I get this way?? I used to be vivacious and outgoing, with a bubbly sense of the hilarious that turned the world on it’s ear. Somehow, in thirty years of a problematic marriage and raising four children, I have lost myself. I don’t know how to “find” me again, but I am willing to make the effort. More than willing, eager! I have managed to do better the past two days and you can all pat me on the back. I ventured to the new Wal-Mart last night with my daughter and without a specific purchase I simply “HAD” to make. It was refreshingly enjoyable for me and even my very own idea. She was remarkably well behaved ( and she is 18, not a baby, although she has been know to act the part) and we even got along very well. Of Course, it could be that I was spending my carefully hoarded money on make-up for her, but that isn’t the point. I did it, I enjoyed it, and I plan to do it again. And if you really knew me you would know that I hate to shop! Tonight, I cleaned my fish tank, which doesn’t sound too bad. But this is a 59 gallon tank and the 4 fish in it are Paku, a cousin of the Piranha. These fish weigh at least five pounds each and are as wide as a dinner plate. Cleaning their tank is a major undertaking and even though the water they were in was the dark green color of a murky, dank cesspool, I had neglected to clean it for months on end (I am not even sure I have cleaned it since Mom died last June, now I think back). With the help of our least sister, Lana, we accomplished it in a little under two hours. I woke up a full two hours earlier than my norm and even sat up all day; not once have I laid on the couch. That in it’s self is a major accomplishment for me. I am trying to overcome this. And somehow I will. Maybe not tomorrow or even the next day. But at some point, life has to have meaning again. If not, there isn’t a lot of point, is there?

Donna's Life

2005-02-02T23:51:00.000-08:00

This story won’t be the hilarious, tongue-in-cheek parody of country life and the antics of five fun-filled little girls, the sort I have poured into a typewriter and posted with the thought of sharing with the world our wonderful childhood. Instead, it is why I have apparently ceased to function and live a normal life, much less compose anything of a humorous nature in the past days and months.

There is a Demon in my life, looming large and always lurking around every corner with the intent to shatter my everyday world, spreading it’s gloom and doom to me and all who surround me. This monster is Depression. It drains the life out of me, taking away physical as well and mental strength. It saps the emotions from the soul of anyone who has it and effects those whose lives are connected. Nothing matters to me. I try to work up a bit of enthusiasm for ANYTHING and it is impossible. I can’t focus on an occupation for any amount of time. My mind wanders when I try to play a game or read a book. Concentrating long enough to watch a television program is useless. I get so tired sitting on the couch, I have to lie down and rest. I stay up all night because, even with a sleeping aid, I rarely sleep. Even when I do, I wake up exhausted and unable to function. I can barely make myself move, much less lead the active life I have always enjoyed. Most days, I don’t even want to try. The least thing makes me cry.

Suffering from Depression is bad enough, but even worse is no one understands how I feel. I can’t describe it to them, they just don’t get it. I have been told to “Snap out of it!’, or to “Get over it!” more times than I can count. Doesn’t anyone realize that no one would purposely choose to live this way? It is a living Hell, with no end; a succession of days when death looks like a release from the anguish of dealing with this everyday of the rest of my life. There is no cure and treatments have their own drawbacks. I have been on treatment for over 8 years, the pills no longer help that much. The Doctor suggested doubling them, I can’t do that. The medicines used to treat it, over a period of time, kills whatever emotions I have that still work. I feel dead inside, my life is hopelessly spiraling downward and I don’t have a clue how to stop it. I am afraid, the future looks very bleak for me, and I don’t know where to find the strength to get up everyday. I am tired, so deathly tired that doing anything is a chore. Simply putting on my clothes is a major undertaking. I struggle everyday to just make it till bedtime, and God willing, to find the energy to rise once again in the morning.

I haven’t given up, not by a long shot. This ole gal won’t go down easy. I have fought every day for the past eight years and will continue to until my last breath. I will be back, ya’ll, that I promise. I have licked this before and will again. But today, please, for me, just ask God to send some strength to me, cause I truly need it.

Mama Will Never Know

2004-09-09T22:04:00.000-07:00

Some of life’s most important lessons come from curious circumstances it seems. We grow up expecting our parents to lead us along the way, holding our hands and doling out the typical warnings and adages as we venture throughout the perils of childhood. Those we seem to acknowledge and accept as the gospel truth until we reach an age where we can formulate our own opinions and make the correct choices when differentiating right from wrong. But, once in a long while, a situation comes along that nothing in a child’s experience will cover, no words of parental wisdom or cautionary advice ever voiced could have forewarned of the consequences about to occur to a poor unsuspecting child.

Living as a child in a rural area had many negative aspects in a lot of ways, the distance to town being one of several. ( Another was telephone party lines - but that’s a different tale altogether).Even if families could have afforded a second vehicle, many women of an older generation just never learned how to drive. This being so, during the daylight hours while most husbands worked a public job, these women were tied to home, with no way to go shopping or anything else. In order to survive this obstacle, neighbor women borrowed from another neighbor women, everything from flour and sugar to help get dinner on the table to different types of non-prescription medicines that were needed by their families. My family was no different. My Mom and the old lady across and down the road a bit often utilized borrowing as a way to make it through the day. A fact that I lived to regret…

I was about ten, and the eldest sister at home, Vicki being off some where on an overnight with a cousin (not real sure where…but we only got to stay with relatives in those days). The older lady down the road had sent her tiny grandson with a note bearing a request for my Mama to allow her to borrow………..something. Sure enough, my Mama had the required article - medicine (I know this because she went to the closet in the kitchen and dug behind the curtain where she kept ALL the stuff we weren’t supposed to mess with or even know about!) My downfall began when Mama came to the conclusion that the little boy wasn’t competent or trustworthy enough to deliver the goods to his Grandmother. Unfortunately, being the oldest daughter at home, I was recruited to venture down the dusty gravel road, dragging my next younger sister behind me. I should have just stayed at home.

As I think back, being the lofty age of ten seemed to have given a gal thoughts of her own superiority over those of a lesser age. A feeling of grandeur if you will. As the two ‘youngsters’ sped along several feet in front of me, I recall ambling along at a sedate pace, my bare feet kicking up little puffs of dust with every step, and the sun beaming it’s golden rays on my bare arms and legs. Soon they were several yards in front of me, nearly to the driveway of the other house, but still in view. And, I must admit it here, my curiosity was aroused by the tiny blue and white box clutched tightly in my sweaty palm. What could so small a box contain that was so important that a little boy couldn’t possibly make it just a short walk down the road with it intact? I had to know, so I peeled open that pretty little box and there inside was something wrapped in tin foil. I peeped back over my shoulder to see if Mama was watching - no - I was safe, the barn blocked the view of our house. If I couldn’t see her, she certainly couldn’t see me. The kids had ventured into the driveway of the neighbor’s place, and again, I was blocked from sight, this time by tall weeds growing along the narrow ditch at the edge of the road. Now, I could open that shiny tin foil package and discover what was such a deep, dark secret. Much to my surprise - IT WAS CHOCOLATE!! My Mama was hoarding chocolate!

My Mama was a true southern lady, fairness was her motto - she preached it at us all our lives. How dare she hide this beautiful chocolate from her five darling daughters? As I began to examine my booty, I realized the squares were teeny tiny and a few were missing. There were only four of the blocks of candy left. Someone had been into this luscious dark chocolate candy. And we didn’t get any! I gave Mama the benefit of the doubt when I saw how few remained of this treasure, only four, and with five starving children--- well --- my first thought was that she was being fair-minded when she decided that none of us getting a treat was better than one being left out of the goodies. But wait, that meant that at some point, her or Daddy has snuck a bite when we weren’t looking! That was even worse. How unfair life seems when you are a child….

A golden opportunity was presenting itself to me - a chocoholic from birth - this was most definitely NOT the best time to taunt a candy deprived little girl! We got weekly installments of sweets from the country store a few miles away most every weekend, but Mama was pretty strict about rationing it out to us. So here I was, chocolate malnourished---and with that sweet looking candy sitting right smack in the middle of my perspiring little hand. Only four small squares, not a lot, but in my adolescent mind I reasoned that the borrower didn’t know how much the lender was
sending….so if I ate one or two…who would be the wiser? There would surely be less in the box when it was returned that what there was when mama sent it. Logical…right?

I stopped walking and stood dead still in the middle of that narrow country road, out of sight of both my destination and home. Should I? Who would know? Would I be sent straight to Hell for just one teeny taste of chocolate? I couldn’t resist the temptation of that little box. I had to have a bite! I just had to! I carefully pulled out the flap stuck into the end of the box, being very careful not to make any tears on the edges. As I eased the small foil wrapped package from the box, I was hopeful that no one could tell that it had been tampered with. Peeling the tin foil gently away from the treat, I delicately broke off a small section to taste. Realizing how truly tiny the piece of candy was, I decided that two was more generous, after all it was late afternoon and I was hungry. It also evened the remaining sections out. I popped that wonderful smelling candy into my mouth, expecting the sweet gooey rush of chocolate heaven to flood onto my tongue and fill my mouth with a fantastic sensation. What was this? It was bitter! No heady rush of sensual pleasure! No taste buds tingling with the burst of sugar straight into my system! I had been conned! What kind of chocolate looked like a child’s version of heaven and tasted like dirt?

I was trapped with that nasty fake chocolate melting into a viscous ball of foul tasting gunk inside my mouth. And I couldn’t spit it out! If my little sister saw on the ground on the it on the way home, she would surely tell Mama and I would be busted. I had to make myself swallow it, no matter what! Finally I forced it down my throat, gagging and nearly heaving with every swallow. My teeth felt like they were coated with mud and the top of my tongue was so gritty and disgusting I could hardly bear it. I had to have water and soon! So I did what any red-blooded American kid would do - I meticulously re-wrapped the tin foil around the remaining blocks of chocolate and painstakingly replaced it inside the tiny blue and white box and closed the flap. Then I slapped on my “WHO ME?” innocent face and hurried on my way.

As I got to the neighbor’s driveway, my throat was so dry I could hardly croak. Added to that, the neighbor lady met me on the porch waiting for the ‘medicine’ and talking a mile a minute. I was going to choke to death any second now! Being raised to be polite to my elders was a curse that day--near impossible to carry on a conversation interspersed with “Yes, Ma‘am” and “No Ma‘am” while trying to keep your lips closed (chocolate has a way of clinging to the teeth and I wanted no evidence available to use against me). Finally I asked for a drink of water, anxious to be on my way home. I was saved….. A full glass of frigidly cold, clear and sparkling well water, straight from the dipper resting in the metal bucket in the cool kitchen of her home! Hurrying my sister to the door, we set out for home and safety. I was in the clear for sure. Mama would never know of my misdeed and all was good in my little world.

By the time we walked into the yard at home, Daddy was due in from work. Mama was setting supper on the dining room table as we went into the house and we and the others washed our hands and prepared to eat. As Mama ladled food onto our plates and poured our glass of milk, I sat in my allotted chair and readied myself for a feast. UMMMM! Homemade stew and cornbread, my favorite meal. As I sat there waiting for my bowl to cool, I felt a rumble deep in my belly, an ominous sign to be sure. The steam from the food and the aroma that only seconds before were so appetizing were beginning to make my forehead break out into a sweat and I began to get a salty taste deep in my throat. I was going to be sick!

I dashed from the table out the back door and bolted for the outhouse just seconds short of disgracing myself. As I rounded the corner of the shed at a run I began to pray to every God I had ever heard mention of and a few more besides. I had to make it! Finally I flung open the heavy outhouse door all the while trying to wrench my shorts down below my hips. Can you imagine running with your legs crossed at the thigh, your butt cheeks clenched so tight that your is face screwed into a grotesque grimace of severe pain and all the while trying to prevent the noxious bile that is crawling up the inside of your throat from leaping out of your mouth like a river spewing from a busted dam.I was about to die and I knew it…

Redemption came as my fanny hit the toilet seat, and not a second too soon either, for as soon as I got seated, foul smelling liquid became to erupt in torrents from my backside. The stagnant afternoon air inside that small outhouse was already rancid with the stench of…..the numerous daily deposits made by my family. All I seemed to be doing was stirring that smell to even nastier realms! I sat there for what seemed like hours, disgusted tears pouring down my hot, flushed cheeks and other less mentionable body fluids shooting from a lower portion of my anatomy. When the rumbling finally slowed to a muted growl in my belly, I cleaned myself up, got dressed and wiped my nose. Mama would surely know what I had done. Time to face the music….

Returning to the house and the others still sitting at the supper table was probably the hardest thing I had ever done. Usually my sister Vicki was my culprit in crime and shared half the blame for our frequent scrapes with the wild side of life, but this time, I was on my own. I told Mama I was sick and wasn’t hungry. I was sent to bed with a cool fan blowing on me and a damp cool rag on my forehead. If doing without a meal that I couldn’t have eaten anyway was all the punishment I was going to receive I counted myself a very lucky little girl. I was so sick all night that I had to resort to many more mad sprints to the outhouse. I think I paid heavily for my sins in a lot of ways, even though Mama never discovered what I had done.

I did learn several valuable lessons from this escapade, though. They have stayed with me all my life. Not everything that looks like candy is necessarily candy. Another is that if your parent thinks you are at an age to be responsible and discriminating - then be that! The last one I know as a definite fact, and should be stressed to the fullest - NEVER! I repeat NEVER eat a candy called Ex-Lax!

Redneck Rodeo - Alabama Style

2004-09-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

Life in the country during the summer season had it's drawbacks growing up as we did in rural Alabama, always hot and humid and usually dry when the heat of the warmest months of the year drove us out of doors in search of whatever stray breeze might choose to float across our sweaty skin. With no air conditioning and only a large electric fan and propped-open windows to cool the house, we tended to escape late every afternoon to the shaded yard behind our home. While we were usually engaged in our own homemade version of fun and entertainment, at least half of our time and energy was spent trying to avoid conflict with out parents views of what was appropriate behavior for their five hellion daughters. Daddy was, as usual upon returning home from a long day at work, messing around with some of the various farm animals we kept in the pasture. Mama was in the kitchen, as she was every day, whipping up a delicious dinner and preparing to call us all to the table to eat. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a typical late summer afternoon, with dusk painting an early twilight sunset in muted pastel shades over the western sky and my family enjoying the last of the daylight that God had blessed us with that day.

Our backyard adjoined the barn lot and pasture, with access to either gained through either a walk-in wooden entry or a large wire spanned metal gate
which allowed a vehicle to be driven inside the fence. That day, Daddy and two of the neighborhood's mostly-grown boys were attempting to ride a Pinto (black and white spotted) Shetland Pony named Comanche, much to the pony's alarm and aggravation. This pony was wildly unpredictable and skittish to the touch, he also seemed to have come to the decision that he didn't want to be a beast of burden that hot afternoon. Take one bad-tempered and undomesticated pony and two determined nearly adult males and mix them - and without fail uproarious hilarity is bound to ensue. Unfortunately that isn't all that occurred during the battle between two semi-mature-men and one single minded, obstinate beast.

These two neighbors were men nearly grown, in their late teens, all arms and legs and nearly six feet of pure testosterone and sheer brass and bravado.
They were country boys, swaggering and arrogant, their Southern accent, clean cut good looks and skin-tight Wranglers lead numerous little cowgirl groupies to cast adoring and languishing looks in their direction. And their cowboy hats and boots didn't hurt their image any either. Fortunately for us, we were too young to be intrigued by their manly charms, else we'd have toted a butt whipping from Daddy! Wyman and Clyde were good ole boys, always on the lookout for a challenge and both possessed nerves of steel. Neither would ever allow the word "Failure" to enter their vocabulary. They thought they were real 'Cowboys' and set out to improve their rodeo expertise by making use of a cantankerous and willful old Billy Goat as a practice dummy, hopefully to enhance their masculine techniques. They would hop on the back of that old goat and take evil pleasure in his never-ending effort to dislodge them. Poor old Billy also got used for roping practice, which was unfair since he was pinned up in a small lot with no chance at freedom. Looking back, it is a wonder that goat didn't die from embarrassment. So cocky were these guys, they believed that the animal hadn't been born that could outfox or get the upper hand with either of them. Unfortunately they hadn't met Comanche. That little pony took both for a ride that neither will ever forget. And in the process, gave us girls and Daddy, innocent spectators that we were, their version of an accidental bona fide redneck rodeo.

When a horse, or pony as it was in this case, doesn't want to be ridden, they have obvious ways of letting the prospective rider know. And Comanche was no different in that, he let his disinterest be known up front, for all the good it did him. Catching him was difficult at best, and that day was no different. After much chasing and swearing (the guys, not the horse), he was finally cornered long enough to get a bridle on him. A saddle was too much to expect, getting the animal to hold still long enough to accomplish a flying leap up on his back a near impossibility, bareback was the only way to go. These boys were determined in their decision to ride him, and he was equally as unwavering that they wouldn't. It soon became a battle of wills, man against pony, a case of the winner being the one who was more tenacious and was belligerent enough to hold out the longest. But poor old Comanche
hadn't taken into account the extremely long and accommodating legs of thesetwo cowboys. And their determination to be atop that horse's back and in full command of both horse and the situation before the fall of darkness.

Being raised around all manner of animals, we knew that when one was kicking up a ruckus for whatever reason that our best option was to clear out of it's vicinity. And this was one time Daddy didn't have to tell us twice to back up from the fence and to keep quiet. While one Cowboy held the bridle tightly, the other jumped on, tightened his knees close to the horse's sides and nodded his head to let go.
Comanche was furious at the unwanted rider upon his back. He took off flying across the pasture, kicking his back heels high in the air while trying to unseat the cowboy from astride his back. He ran all over the lot, mane and tail blowing in the breeze created by his actions. And the cowboy, holding on for dear life and attempting to wrap that fat little belly with his long legs, while searching for purchase with his boots in Comanche's coarse hair. As the horse ran in a complete circle of the large lot, those same long and skinny legs that helped the boys stay on would pop loose and flop up and down with the motion of the horses galloping stride. One elbow were stuck out at their side, locked into a bent position to try to maintain their balance atop that uncontrollably unnerved horse. The other was up in the air like a bull rider waiting for the eight second bell. It looked like an octopus was on that horse's back and he was doing everything in his power to dump it onto the ground!What began as a simple session of teaching an old horse new tricks soon became a comedy of errors and an accident looking for a place to happen. And happen it did.

Before long, the horse was tiring and had slowed to a walk. They rode him to where Daddy was waiting with a lead rope, full of laughter at their antics,making wise-crack remarks at their expense. As they pulled Comanche to a stop in front of the wide gate Daddy snapped a long lead rein to his bridle so that they could have keep a bit of control and still have some distance between them and the angry animal. Unfortunately, as my Daddy was standing there amused, right beside him Comanche decided to bolt, back feet furiously flying outwards and yanking with all his might on the rein for freedom. When Daddy stepped back to get out of the range of those flying hoofs, he stepped into the discarded rear tractor tire that had been placed there as a hay ring (when hay is fed to animals from bales, it needs to be contained inside a boundary of some type, otherwise they will strew the hay and walk it into the ground and wasting a goodly portion of it). When Daddy stepped back, his leg went into a large jagged hole in the sidewall, wrenching and breaking
the bones in the bottom of his shin above his ankle. The once comical rodeo was over and pandemonium had set in.

The backward momentum of Daddy's steps carried him all the way to the ground. He fell with a twisting, spiraling action, almost in slow motion, a resounding crack ringing in the air. It was the loudest pop any of us had ever heard, Mama even heard it in the house and thought one of us girls had broken the big stick we had been warned about earlier for waving around and frightening the already nervous pony. When Daddy fell, the rein was dropped and the pony, at last free to escape the clutches of the humans who seemed determined to subjugate him, was released. The last we saw of him was his a blur of black and white, his coarse tail and mane waving like a flag after him as he took off at a fast run for the rear pastures, the leading rein dragging across the stubbly grass behind him. There Daddy lay, a tangle of legs and arms upon the grass, blood soaking through his pants at the juncture of the tire and his shin. His foot was still in the hole in the side of the tire and the usually straight line of his leg was bent at a grotesque angle, in a direction no human bone should ever be forced to maneuver. He looked up at them and quietly told Wyman and Clyde "My leg is broke". And those two dauntless bastions of manly fortitude began to panic, frantic to help and ignorant as to what to do next. How to release his busted leg from the hole it was trapped in without causing more pain or damage? Daddy calmly told them to grab him under his arms and stand him upright. And he told us girls to go to the house and get Mama. As they brought Daddy to his feet, his already pale face drained totally of color and beads of perspiration broke out across his forehead. He looked like he was going to pass out any second as he told them to maneuver his ankle out of the hole while holding him erect. When his foot was free, they placed it on the ground in line with his other foot. But one foot looked like it was heading south and the other north! His foot was facing the wrong direction! They set him down on the side of the tire, where he sat while Mama hurried to get the truck. While they waited, Daddy lifted his pants leg to see what damage had been done, and there is was.....bone, stark, colorless bone, jagged and pointed, sticking through a horrific puncture torn into what once was normal leg. The white of the bone looked demon-like, monstrous and
grizzly against the deep red blood which oozed from the hole forced into the skin and muscle, soaking into his pants leg and sock and running down his leg. Once the truck was brought as near as possible, they lifted Daddy to his feet and began to help him across the yard to the open truck door. As they held him up, he hopped one footed and the foot began to spin like a gruesome top, limp as a noodle and forced into movement with the motion of his actions.It was probably one of the most dreadful but totally enthralling things I have ever seen in my life! One of those things that is so shockingly appalling you can't bear to watch so you cover your eyes with your hands, but so repulsively fascinating that you keep peeking through your fingers for just one more look....

When they got him to town, the small rural hospital that served our area boasted no Doctor qualified to treat that serious an injury. (One of the major drawbacks to living in rural America, then and now.) He needed an Orthopedic Surgeon and having none on the staff, they called one to come to town to set Daddy's leg. The Doctor flew his small personal plane to the hospital, arriving in the early hours of the morning. Awaking from the anesthesia following a long surgery, the Doctor informed Daddy that he had put his leg back together with five stainless steel bolts and nuts, all purchased from the local hardware store in town. They then constructed a
heavy white cast from his groin area down the entire length of his leg and out to his toes, leaving an opening over the place where the skin was torn by bone to place a drain tube. Complications set in and overnight Daddy developed an infection and began to suffer the effects of a body temperature of 107 degrees. Not being able to bring the fever to a normal level with medication, they had to resort to placing him on a bed of ice and rubbing him down with alcohol. In that moment,
Daddy's beard and sideburns turned from red to gray due to the severity of the high temperature. I can't remember how many days he was in the hospital, but I do remember when Mama brought him home, their bed was placed in the living room so that he could watch the only television in the house. He would wear that cast for at least a year, and until it began to heal, he wouldn't even be allowed crutches to get around with. Thus began the vigil to keep Daddy entertained, for both Mama and us girls.

Being confined to bed was hard for a man who was normally on his feet and going every sunlit hour of the day. And boredom seems to lead to a shortness of temper in grown men for some reason. And our Daddy was no different than most it seemed. One of the few amusements we had access to was the television. And television in those times had only four channels, Alabama Public Broadcasting Channel offering about all that was available during the day for any entertainment value above soap operas and game shows. As a choice, PBS wasn't Daddy's first, but with little else to be had, that is what he watched as he lay there with his leg propped on pillows in the front room. As it continues to offer today, PBS had several 'How-To" programs during Daddy's recovery process. One such program was "How To Macramé". Daddy was intrigued by this demonstration of knot tying skill and he sent us to the barn for pieces of twine that had been torn from the bales and tossed to the side as it was fed to the various animals who resided on our little farm. Joined together with small knots, these lengths of twine became the material which he then tied with Macramé knots. He fashioned many flower pot hangers and bottle hangers, one such hanger was used to hold a gallon vinegar jug filled with Pepper Sauce and gave to my Grandmother Waters, his Mother. It was so colorful with the multi-shaded hues of red and green peppers that Grandmommy hung it on her kitchen wall and refused to use the sauce because it was too pretty. That hanger and jug hung there until she died in 1987. I am not really sure what became of it after that, but I assume it was thrown away. I wish I had thought about asking for it so that I would have it for the memories.

Daddy also tried his hand at drawing a pattern and sewing to combat his boredom. He sat in a straight chair pulled up to Mama's sewing machine, his good leg underneath the cabinet, with that awkward cast stuck out at a strange angle, his heel propped on a pillow on the floor to the side of machine. The main thing I remember him constructing with that machine was my baby sister, Lana, a pair of brown pants. They were probably a foot and a half across, seamed straight up the sides and the straddle was cut and stitched into a deep V shape. No elastic at the waist, no fastener of any sort. No way they would fit her, she was about as scrawny as they come in those days. But it was the thought that counted even then. Now I wonder what Mama ever did with those funny looking britches?

That Christmas, Daddy sat in the floor of the living room and helped wrap presents, an activity he always had left to Mama before. We actually got to see more of Daddy during his convalescence, not because he didn't want to spend time with us prior to his accident, the simple fact was with five growing children, he worked ever hour of every day simply to provide for us. Mama would load us all into the car, Daddy with his busted leg cushioned on the floorboard, and ride the back roads sightseeing just to give him a change of scenery. He also spent several hours each week sitting on a stool down at the neighborhood garage gossiping with the old men who spent time there. Anything to get him out of the house and back to having some semblance of a normal social life. One of his friends even came and picked him to take him coon hunting, where Daddy would sit in the truck and listen to the dogs
howl as they treed an old raccoon. He always did love that
sound.

Once the incision had healed, the Doctor cut off the full cast and replaced it with a short walking cast. This enabled him to move around a bit more, and with the added benefit of wearing a pair of pants with the denim leg split only to the knee and not to the crotch. Unfortunately as the weather grew warmer, so did the cast. It itched horribly and smelled so bad Mama took to sprinkling Baby Power down into it as far as she could reach. Daddy, not being the patient sort, demanded a wire clothing hanger which he then fashioned into a scratcher by unwinding the coiled part and straightening it completely. When he began to itch and tingle under the cast, he resorted to running the end down into the cast, thereby providing himself a bit of relief. Ultimately, though, that wasn’t a very smart idea, as the
scratching led to the compacting of the cotton underneath the plaster which resulted in the cording of his leg. When his toes turned purple because of the lack of blood flow, we knew he had gone too far. And another trip to the Doctor was eminent.

As he began to get up and about more with the aid of wooden crutches, thing
got a bit more normal around our house. He began going to work, still hopping along with the aid of his sticks and doing more around the farm. He also took that wild pony to the sale barn and sold him. When the icy blast of winter hit hard, Daddy and Vicki went to the creek to ensure that the frigid water hadn't frozen into a solid sheet of ice because cattle won't lick solid ice and will therefore dehydrate in the coldest winter months. Daddy made it to the creek, but then his crutch hit a patch or ice, Daddy tumbled into the creek, cast and all. Vicki had to help him up
as best she could and get him back to the truck and home before he froze to death. At least his crash busted up the ice that had formed across the top of the water and the cattle could drink. Another adventure into the pasture with Daddy ambling along on crutches complete with him scaling a 30 or 40 foot bluff, handhold to handhold on the far side of the water. I can still remember the sound of his cast banging off the rugged rock face as he migrated slowly across the rock. The ledges in the rock were covered with icy mush, and Daddy, being the type of man he was, was climbing to mend a fence to make sure the neighbor's cows didn't come for an unappreciated and inopportune visit.

It was a year before Daddy walked with just a cane, still with cast intact. And another few months until the cast was finally removed for good. I guess you could say that all the effects of the accident were bad, all things considered, at least for Daddy. He sports five stainless steel bolts and nuts that set the metal detector off every visit to the local Courthouse. Imagine trying to explain that to the Security Guards watching over the {?}He went from being served supper in the dining room, the main meal of our day, to lazing in an easy chair in front of the television. (The only meal after that he ate in the kitchen was breakfast.) Daddy had remote control long before it was ever invented. His consisted of hollering from his seat in front of the television to whichever child was closest to the end of the table for a change of channel or volume during meal times. He also gained
six personal maidens to wait on him hand and foot. A nice accomplishment for those lucky enough to achieve it. My Daddy is almost 76 years of age now and even thought all of us are gone from home with the exception of the youngest, he is still waited on hand and foot. It is his due, he expects it, and will likely always receive it. I guess we girls are carrying on for Mama, who, as long as she was able did her level best to make his feel like a Prince. When she left us this past June, we, as her daughters, took up the vigil of supplying Daddy's every wish, not because it is our job, but because she wanted it that way.

Blog is so Messed Up!

2004-09-01T21:35:00.000-07:00

Forgive me, but my blog is so messed up. I had lost all my posts for some reason.I have spent a week trying to mend the flaws and finally last night changed the template. It DID finally get back up. Once again I am in gear and hopefully will get caught up on my posts.

Not Gone - Just Busy

2004-08-26T00:25:00.000-07:00

I am not gone folks. Temporarily diverted in the quest to find my long lost cousins. We are getting close and hope to soon accomplish the goal. Be back soon.
Donna

Scared Spitless - Calling All Ghosts

2004-08-13T19:28:00.000-07:00

Ghosts and spooks have haunted the imagination of children since the beginning of time, I guess. And we were no different because along about the time adolescence set in, we decided to try our hands at dabbling into the supernatural. Having been gifted with the blessing of an avid curiosity, along with a Mother who encouraged us to investigate that which we didn’t understand, we embarked onto a voyage of discovery into the unknown. And who better to appease our fascination than the neighborhood ghost, Annie Dee Wilkerson Moody Dearman, a lady who died in unexplained circumstances just steps down the road from where we lived. And so it began…

Annie Dee Wilkerson was born January 28, 1928. In 1945, she married a Mr. Moody, a relative or a relative (etc.). They parented two children. Family history says she divorced him after he returned from the war. She married a Virgil Dearman and again, gave birth to two children. For some never disclosed reason, at midnight on October 4, 1967, she was standing in her front yard when some “ambushed” her, shooting her five times. She managed to crawl to the front porch steps before she died. No one was ever indicted or ever even charged with her murder. Her husband, Mr. Dearman, had a nervous breakdown shortly after her death, and claimed that she kept appearing to him after her death. He died shortly after her death. Rumor still runs rampant when her name is mentioned as to her character - Annie Dee was a lady who liked and craved men. And had few scruples about satisfying that craving.

She is said to haunt the place where she died, a small house less than several hundred feet from where we live. Local legend in the small rural community where we live states that on any given rainy day, her blood stains can still be seen on the front doorstep, even though the original step has been replaced numerous times. Blood stains are reported to leech up through paint, no matter how many coats are used. I have seen “SOMETHING” on that step myself, whether from an overactive imagination or something actually being there I can’t decide. Who had assassinated this woman in cold blood in her own front yard? We were determined to discover her murderer and the reasoning behind it. Being inquisitive in nature, a group of us decided to try to have a séance to call her back into our midst, never knowing what we were getting in to. Or the chaos it would cause.

A séance requires two things - a medium, or intermediary, and a group of people with a open mind willing to accept that there might actually be spirits of the deceased living among us with the ability and the will to communicate with us. The only other necessary items are total darkness, a candle or other form of light source and an overactive imagination. Our version of a séance were drawn from late night television viewing, such oldies as Saturday Night Shock Theatre, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Dark Shadows. Fingers joined, each person thumb to thumb, with pinkie finger touching the same finger of the next person around the candle, the medium simply “goes into a trance”, closing their eyes and meditating and chanting, hopefully opening communication with the spirit of the deceased. If the chain of hands is broken, the link to the spirit world is severed. They supposedly reply by either using the medium’s voice, noises, movement of something in the room or some other strange way. We were ready to begin, but I don’t think we were prepared for what actually happened.

Being kids, we had the imagination in plenty and were willing to take the chance that we could contact the other side. We felt very brave and daring, having no fear as we delved into the great unknown. It was decided that the séance would be held in our neighbor, Karren’s, bedroom. She was the medium, the one chosen to make contact with those who had already passed from this earth. Her room had no windows, and with both the doors shut tight not a sliver of light could enter her room, leaving it a black pit, the perfect ambience for a séance. It was also a plus that her Mom worked during the day, hence no parental interruptions or censure. Our party of courageous souls included myself, my sister Vicki, Karren, of course, and two boys who lived next door, brothers, Rickey Gene and Kenny. These boys, although they were scared spitless, big macho males and real he-men that they were, were not going back down in front of three lowly girls. And, let’s be honest here, us girls had a way of challenging them that left them no room for retreat. They at ‘least’ had to be as brave as we were or they would never hear the end of it!

We were set - we could handle any ghost that deigned to present itself to us. Let the nether world do it’s worst! Gathering in the bedroom, we fell to our knees around a small table placed in the open space of the floor. The candle was lit and the overhead light was shut off. Ebony darkness surrounded us, the candlelight from the taper sending wavering tapestries of movement to dance along the murky, shadowed walls. A picture of Annie Dee, the lady of our quest, was placed near the candle, an encouragement to entice her to leave her place in the from beyond the veil of darkness and give us a sign of her unearthly presence. There we were, kneeling in the small cramped room, elbow to elbow, pinkies and thumbs touching, eyes closed…… breathlessly waiting….

The air in the room was still, almost stagnant, the silence complete and nearly stifling, as we waited apprehensive and anxious. It began, a low chant, a droning hum, slowly rising in volume, sounding eerily like the calls of a wild animal in it’s death throes. Mumbled words, spoken in a monotone, at first garbled beyond recognition, slowly became a chant….” We are here to reach the Realm of the Spirit World“…..“Are there any spirits willing to connect with us?”………. “If you hear us, please give us a sign that you are there”. Our eyes opened and there was Karren, seemingly deep into a trance, appearing under a spell from some unknown source. We watched apprehensively for what was going to transpire next. As we sat there uneasy and vigilant in the gloomy room, the light from the shifting rise and fall of the candle flame caused specter-like forms to drift over the ceiling, grotesque shadowy ghoul-like forms hovering above our heads. The air was expectant, the possibilities in our minds endless with the mayhem that could be caused from the opening of opening Pandora’s Box.

The temperature in the room, although it was summer, seemed to have dropped several degrees. A breeze, which had no source (remember the room was closed off - no windows - doors closed tight) was floating lazily across the room, raising chill bumps on bare arms and legs. Sweat, clammy and cool, most likely brought on by fear, dripped from our brows and into our eyes. Electricity from some mysterious source made the hair on our arms and back of our necks stand on end. The flame of the candle dipped, sputtering and popping loudly, nearly extinguishing itself and thereby leaving the room in total darkness. A glow began to radiate from the picture of Annie Dee, eerily lighting up the face of the slain woman, giving her the appearance of a fiery wraith about to escape the confines of the picture frame. Was she seeking her murderer, possibly seeking revenge for the person responsible? Would she wreak her vengeance on us? Then all Hell broke loose…

Suddenly, there was a scream, a feral screech, high pitched and earsplitting in the small, closed room. Pandemonium erupted and in the melee, the candle was knocked from it’s base and the two boys, those bastions of manly courageousness, rushed to the bedroom door. In their haste to exit the room, fear and cowardice lending their puny arms strength, the door was ripped from it’s frame left to dangle drunkenly from the remaining hinge. The candle, knocked from it’s base, was left to flounder on the bedroom floor, igniting the covers on the bed. Candle wax spattered the floor, leaving a sticky gooey mess. The glass covering the picture was shattered, although whether from being knocked over in the fracas or from her ghost making an appearance was never known. The two boys, terrified, ran up the hall and out the front door, never stopping their wild dash until they reached the safety of their own home across the highway. Us girls were right behind them, until, smelling smoke, returned to the scene of the crime to extinguish the flames searing the bedspread. All that was left for us to do was to try to hide the evidence of our latest fall from grace from Karren’s Mom. There was a flurry of activity as we flipped the bedspread several directions, hoping to conceal the burnt spot. Melted wax, once a candle, and now a hard solid substance on the carpet, was scraped and scrubbed in the effort to remove every trace. Open windows and doors allowed the smell of smoke and singed material to escape. Glass from the broken glass covering the picture was discarded. We might just survive this escapade if we were lucky.

Annie Dee’s murder was never solved, although people from our community have their suspicions as to her assailant to this day. She was buried in a grave in the small town near us, alone, with neither husband placed beside her. Which in itself, seems a punishment to a lady who enjoyed the company of a number of men, to be left lying alone in a cold, dark tomb. Although we had numerous other séances, all with the intent purpose of solving a murder mystery, no new evidence ever came to light. But, in every ceremony we held, some very strange happenings occurred - everything from a towel being set on fire to uncanny noises and smells permeating the air. To this day, I would speculate that Annie Dee is still there, living beyond the veil of darkness, waiting for her death to be avenged.

Saving the Souls of Puppies

2004-08-10T01:06:00.000-07:00

The imagination of a child is an amazing thing, sometimes baffling parents with their ingenuity and terrifying them with their daring. My family was no different, I would guess, that others growing up on a rural farm in the South. Every one of us pulled our share of stunts over the years and suffered the consequences for our actions. Maybe the problem of misbehavior was made worse because there were five of us, all with two years or less between us, for somehow our parents managed to begat five little girls in the short span of six years. ( I just can’t make a crack here, yall - It was my PARENTS!! Nasty!)) We were famous in our county and made the front page in the little weekly newspaper that was and is published there. We were also blessed with overactive imaginations and creative genius enough to keep us in a world of trouble. That very same trait led us into unimaginable difficulties with both our parents, truly outrageous acts that required both a stern talking to and discipline of some sort, much to our dismay.

Boredom or confinement can do lead children to think up unbelievable and imaginative things to find enjoyment in the normalness of everyday life. My three youngest sisters, who will remain nameless (both to protect their egos and my hide if they ever were to read this) had this thing about playacting. Winter or Summer, they would dress up and act out some obscure scene they had concocted jointly in their heads. These flights of fancy always varied and were too numerous to count. One of their favorites were weddings, where one wore a veil (usually made of some piece of material they had purloined from Mom), the second sister was the groom and the third was the preacher. I can vividly recall the three of them standing on the front porch on a lazy and hot summer afternoon, the “minister” being the older sister, with the two younger being the “bride and groom”, and the words of the wedding rite ringing out loudly through the still air……”We are gathered here to join the two in Holy Macaroni…..”.

Another program consisted of the ritual of baptism, you know what I mean, the custom of dunking the repentant sinner’s head and body underneath water to cleanse away the sin that was marring their soul. Unfortunately their choice of baptismal was the ditch running full of water from a heavy rain, and the weather was barely freezing when they began the near-drowning. Then too, their choice of reprobate caused them no end of trouble, especially when Mom found them in the midst of their misdeed, ankle deep in water.

One of daddy’s old dogs had puppies, fat, fluffy balls of fur, that roamed the yard at will. They would roll and tumble head over heels chasing us girls when we were allowed to venture out in the winter sunshine. On that afternoon, the sky was overcast and we bundled up against the wind and trooped outside for a few hours of entertainment, free to run and romp to our heart’s content. While Vicki and I found our own outlet, the others proceeded with the baptism, unknown to us. Here we were, doing our own thing, and the next thing we hear is yelling and screaming from the front yard, both human and canine. We went running to find out what had happened.

There they were, three little angels, deeply engrossed in their endeavors, calmly submersing the screaming and squirming puppies beneath the icy water, intent on saving their souls and in the process, nearly drowning them and thoroughly drenching their own arms and feet in the cold water. When Mom yelled, they jumped to their feet, innocent looks on each face and proceeded to give the explanation that Mom demanded. Those puppies, so full of life moments earlier, now bore a striking resemblance to a drowned rat, fluffy fur now slicked down to their skinny little bodies and looking more dead than alive. Mom was livid, the girls were terrified. The puppies, well, the puppies were frozen.

Upon reaching the house and the warm blaze of the big gas heater that filled the corner of the living room, Mom began to pull the wet coats and shoes and socks from my now trembling little sisters, all the while berating them for their transgressions and listing the possible results of their actions. After a quick change of clothes, all the while a scolding being rung over their bowed heads, the punishment was doled out. For every dripping, wet and bedraggled puppy, there was a sister sitting as close to the heater as possible, with a towel to hold the dogs until they were dry and warm. It took hours before the animals were able to stop shivering and be put back outside on the porch to return to the relative safety of their Mother’s side. The sisters hated their punishment, being confined to one spot tends to take a toll on any kid. The added burden of trying to hold a ball of squirming fur and energy, all the while having to massage and keep it warm makes it even worse. I think they learned a lesson that day. I can guarantee you I did.

Tales of the Outhouse - Drawers Down

2004-08-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

Growing up in the rural south, many thought us ‘backwards’ or less sophisticated than others or so I’ve been told. Maybe we were, but the honest truth is that we didn’t realize it at the time. And you seldom miss what you never had. Until I started the first grade, I didn’t realize that an indoor toilet was a prerequisite to a modern life, much less a luxury of which we were being deprived . A select few of my relatives had an indoor toilet, but many, many had the same as we did ------ an outhouse. And never thought twice about it.

A good indication of my age is almost certainly my ability to recall early morning trips to the outhouse, my little bare feet leaving a dark, rambling path through the dew coated grass in the warm summer air. At first light, a quick call to the ‘necessary’ was the single most important mission on the agenda, a job to be handled without delay, as we ambled single file out the back screen door and across the yard. It was called a ‘necessary’ because --- well -- it was necessary. If you pour gallons of liquids into a small pitcher until it is full, you can’t pour any more into it unless it is emptied! Simple logic. Small bladders, full of late night drinks of water, require prompt and frequent draining. And with five young girls in our family, that outhouse was in almost constant use, from early morning rush hour all the way through the more sedate strolls late at night.

Our outhouse was typical, I would say, being built of wide wooden planks, aged and weathered gray in the southern sun. There was a hard dirt floor, packed solid by the passage of feet over a period of who knows how many years. The door was constructed of a tin covered wooden frame, heavy and bulky to open and close. The tin roof, which I have mentioned before, was the place me and my oldest sister chose to spend time “broadening our horizons”, so to speak, with dingy literature and tales of near-lust. It was also an excellent escape from the trials of little sisters. The outhouse was constructed on the side of a big open shed, the back side, of course, to hide it from view of the house. On the other side of the building was a field of weeds, usually as high as our heads, home to numerous critters we didn’t want to identify. On the back was a dog pen, complete with dog, and the accompanying flies and odors they seem to generate without fail. We had the essential toilet seat, stationed over a vast black pit dug deep into the ground. We even had the well known toilet paper, hung by the cylinder at the center of the roll being threaded over a ten penny nail driven solidly into the front inside wall. All together, as I read back over this, not a picture of bucolic bliss. It gets worse…..

The changing of the season brought with it various drawbacks to pastoral country living, each as annoying and troublesome as the other. In the summer, there was the heat and humidity; for no air could stir inside the building, tin door shut tight and there were no windows to ease open, ergo no way of allowing a fresh breeze to enter. The atmosphere was stagnant and stale, abundant with foul odors, indescribably rank and fetid, wafting around you as you attempted to hurry along the call of nature. Of course, there were the obligatory snakes and lizards and creepy crawlies lurking about, ready to pounce on an unsuspecting occupant. The lighting in the building was always dim, the air filled with floating particles of dust and haze. Flies buzzed about your head and all types of bees, riled from the cozy nests they constructed under the eaves or in the corner of the door opening, showed a tendency to dive-bomb you as you sat enthroned, a captive audience so to speak. It was terribly hard to run with your pants down.

When winter reared it’s frigid head in the South, the trip to the privy became entirely more expeditious and required a vastly shorter amount of time than those enjoyed in the lazy days of summer. The mandatory visits were carried out in haste, with little energy spent dawdling along the way, as you hurried from the warmth of a gas fire to take care of business only to arrive running in the back door scant few minutes later with your teeth chattering and shivering from head to foot. Although the odors accompanying the outhouse died down somewhat in the colder months, the blackness of that small enclosed space was absolute with the skies often being overcast and gloomy and little light permeating the cracks in the walls. And those same wooden walls, which blocked the flow of air in the heat of the summer months, were, in the winter, an entirely different story. Icy cold blasts of air, tossed about by the wicked “Goddess of all things Winter“, were flung at bared body parts, sensitive, private parts that seldom saw the light of ANY day, much less were ever exposed to the frosty chill of mid-winter. There can be no worse feeling in the world than a gust of glacially cold wind wrenching the door wide open, allowing the full force to hit you in the face as you say there trapped and unable to move.

I have to be honest here, outhouse usage was not without it’s hazards and dangers though, especially not to my family. We were accident prone, it seemed, no matter our locality or attitude. That tin door, designed to protect your privacy at embarrassing moments, would catch the heel of an unsuspecting little girl on her way out, gouging out a chunk of flesh and leaving a bloody hole in it’s wake. That same door, when caught by the wind on a breezy day, mashed the fingers repeatedly of those same little girls, turning our fingernails numerous shades of blue and purple. The heat of the summer gave rise to all sorts of nasty and disgusting wildlife, floating and writhing in the pit of doom, causing Daddy to attempt to control them by pouring gasoline or kerosene into the hole. And little girls, being adventurous by nature, WOULD experiment with matches……….and cause a flash fire when the arrival of Mama and punishment was eminent ( 3rd sister received 1st & 2nd Degree burns to her upper arms and face for this stunt). There was nothing like target practice at 3 A. M., hovering over an empty Crisco Shortening can in enclosed back porch when, in the dark of the night, nature called at an inopportune time. Little girls, by body type and shape, are handicapped at peeing off a porch ledge. And in the winter, the risk of a broken leg or sprain was always imminent when, in the rush to cover the distance required to heed bodily demands, one sprinted down the back steps, cinder blocks stacked and wobbly and likely coated with ice. We survived, but just barely.

Looking back, I don’t think we were hampered much by the lack of an indoor toilet. We had hot and cold running water in the kitchen, Daddy ensured this by putting in a pump and hot water heater. Baths were accomplished by virtue of a Number 10 washtub placed on the floor in front of the kitchen sink, full of warm water from the taps and complete with all the necessary items to ensure a good and thorough cleaning from head to foot. It wasn’t a problem unless you were low kid on the totem pole, because the fist kid got the clean water and the last, well, it was murky, cooling and less than pristine when it came your turn. We were clean, bathed to within an inch of our very lives, well taken care of and had no knowledge of the amenities and conveniences we were missing. Like I said before, what you never had, you don’t miss. Although I do rather miss the solitude and feeling of daring of those lazy hours spent reading on the roof of the old outhouse. Ah well, we all grow up…

Postscript:
After I finished this story, I asked my sister Vicki to help me come up with an appropriate title while on MSN Messenger. Here is our conversation:
cowcrazy78: I'm done
cowcrazy78: I think
cowcrazy78: I need a name.........
junebuggvw: for the outhouse
cowcrazy78: yeah
junebuggvw: the sweet stink of it
cowcrazy78: lol
junebuggvw: ye old pottie
junebuggvw: flies in the outhouse
junebuggvw: drawers on the ground
cowcrazy78: oh lord
junebuggvw: a bug went where!!
junebuggvw: outdoor duns
junebuggvw: buns
cowcrazy78: what about Are You Privy?
junebuggvw: thatll do
cowcrazy78: The Call of Nature
junebuggvw: hell yeah
cowcrazy78: Naked Buns?
junebuggvw: frozen buns
cowcrazy78: a title, come on sis
junebuggvw: the smell of the past
cowcrazy78: lol
cowcrazy78: oh GOD
cowcrazy78: I love it....
junebuggvw: ty
cowcrazy78: Tales from the Outhouse?
junebuggvw: behind the outhouse door
cowcrazy78: If Toilet Paper Could Talk
junebuggvw: beyond the outhouse door
junebuggvw: shitting in the dark
cowcrazy78: lol
cowcrazy78: daym
cowcrazy78: um
junebuggvw: those were the days
junebuggvw: peeping bugs
junebuggvw: perils of the pottie
cowcrazy78: Life of the Not So Rich and Famous
junebuggvw: perils of the privey
junebuggvw: privey perils
junebuggvw: outdoor what!!!
cowcrazy78: Atmosphere is Everything.....
junebuggvw: drawers down
junebuggvw: bottoms up
junebuggvw: bottoms up
cowcrazy78: It can't smell any better than this
cowcrazy78: dodging the doodie
junebuggvw: whats that smell
cowcrazy78: enuff
junebuggvw: floating turds
junebuggvw: turd turf
junebuggvw: outdoor pissing
junebuggvw: doing it in the rough
junebuggvw: oldtime privey
junebuggvw: hunting for the privey
junebuggvw: private pissing
cowcrazy78: Tales of the Outhouse - Drawers Down
junebuggvw: hell yes
cowcrazy78: ok

Teeth Prints in the Soap - Let's Talk Dirty

2004-08-02T19:18:00.000-07:00

(Title courtesy of my sister, Vicki, who, along with myself, likes to occasionally visit the hilarious side of life)

Growing up in the deep south, seldom was a dirty word mentioned in our home by our parents or any other adult who expected to be invited back to visit our humble abode. And even less by us five girls if we knew what was good for us. Ivory soap is mild compared to the some of the stuff my Mama threatened to use to wash our mouths out for a mere utterance of a “DINGY” word, much less something considered “DIRTY“. And most of the words we considered to be passable, were, in Mama’s eyes (or ears), less than desirable for some reason. We walked a fine chalk line from our earliest years until preadolescence, and then the soap hit the fan………..well let’s be honest here, our teeth.

What is it about the years between childhood and young adulthood that make youngsters push the limits set by every parent? Some inborn trait that goads children to challenge authority at any level and damn the consequences. Tell a kid they can’t say a word or phrase, and they will use it in every possible sentence or conversation. They hear a word, new to their limited vocabulary, some deeply profound utterance, likely mumbled under their parents or some other adult’s breath, who is clearly frustrated at the trials life has hurled at them. The next thing you know, there it is….the {BAD} word….screeched out of some unsuspecting youngster’s mouth at another sibling who has royally ticked them off. Now, I ask you, how are these innocent children supposed to realize the word is bad and forbidden to be uttered in any adult’s hearing? Do they have words that are issued with a PG Rating? Words such as those ( you know the ones I mean) should come with a warning label *** Do Not Say Under Penalty of Death if Under 21*** or something similar. How many millions of children have voiced a perfectly normal sounding word, heard out of a well respected adult’s mouth, only to have the punishment of uttering that same word be devastating? My Mama’s Mother’s bad word was Banana Oil, which we didn’t known until years later was her code word, her vulgarity of choice. Life is very unfair when you have no license to make and enforce the rules of vocal etiquette enjoyed by persons of an older generation…

My Mama, to tell you the truth, was a true Southern lady, a gentle and even tempered soul, full of love and understanding for the idiosyncrasies of five girls of varying ages atempting to forgetheir way through life. She didn’t voice many bad words, seldom even raised her tone (unless we were some distance from home and then the horn of the car worked - 3 sharp beeps meant to come home NOW). The occasional “SHOOT FIRE “ or “DADBLAME” or even "DANG" was about the worst she ever allowed past her lips when we were small. Daddy, on the other hard, was less discriminating in his choice of verbal profanities, but even the ones he chose to let fly around us were heard seldom and generally mild. All in all, due probably as much to Daddy working all the time as anything else, Mama was the chief disciplinarian in our home. We got by with a lot around her, (like as not to our being such cute, lovable and adorable kids), we could cajole and plead with the best of them and usually avoid the most severe consequences of the numerous misdeeds we inevitably committed. The one thing she didn’t tolerate was foul language and the resulting punishments were swiftly administered and sometimes harsh.

Being one of the eldest two of the five sisters was both a blessing and a curse in many ways. My oldest sister was both bold as brass and imaginative in her rebellion of the moment (whichever moment it was and she had many - just pick one!), forever butting her head against whatever realm of authority was rearing it’s ugly head in her face at the moment. And unfortunately, her temper matched her stubbornness when it came to asserting her rights of passage into the world of nearly adulthoodism. Living with her was an education for me, I learned very young what could and could not be yelled back at Mama and survive unscathed. In the first place, raising one’s voice in an aggressive manner towards Mama was BAD, much less when the backtalk was peppered with expressive exclamations of dubious fame and even less auspicious origins. It quickly became obvious to me that discretion was the better part of valor in this case, that if I felt the urge to “swear” I’d best do it out of Mama’s range of hearing or pay the price. But why did it seem that Mama had radar ears, able to pick up the vibrations of choice nasty words filtering through my mind, much less to decipher the ones I dared to mumble under my breath? Maybe it was some parental mode of extrasensory perception all adults are issued along with the ordinary certificate of birth.

Over the years, I remember an assortment of punishments for the various profane remarks we were know to spew out of our lily white mouths (OH YEAH!! WE WERE SO GOOD!!!). And as we aged, the words and phrases of choice grew and diversified over the years. We even invented our own, words that were not really true words, but used in the way we used them, were meant to be replacements for the words we dare not articulate in Mama’s presence. But she knew…she always knew, and would chastise us accordingly. I can’t begin to count the times we heard…“Behave, you are a role model for your little sisters! Set a good example.” in our lifetime. So we tried.

Punishments were based on age, somewhat, in our family. The younger ones, who, having heard an older one say a word that was less that proper, after running to inform Mama of our indiscretion, would then go own to make the same mistake, usually with the same aftereffects - ergo - being tattled on. Younger sister received the standard talking to - that “You know better!” or “Don’t let me hear that come out of your mouth again!”, verbal warnings that, with any luck, would keep them on the straight and narrow. Older ones, having passed the point where warnings had must lasting effect, received harsher punishment - a fate worse than death - washing the mouth out with soap. First just threats of this dastardly consequence, and then it was eat soap or lose your teeth!

Sis and I, being older, were more of a size with Mama, although she was slim and we were more … buxom (Yes, even then!). The woman was slender as a reed, strong as an ox when angry and determined to win no matter what. (Maybe that is where I get that trait from…) When threats didn’t work and warnings were ignored, she got down to business. And when I say business, I MEAN business. She would stalk you through the house, bar of soap in hand, her mind set on the chastisement she felt we had forced her to heap upon us. And those were her words, exactly, “If you would have just hushed when I said to……none of this would be necessary. You brought this on yourself”. Locked doors were no hindrance to a determined Mama either, she was the best lock picker in the family, a trait she likely picked up out of necessity when dealing with us. Once we were face to face, it was…”Now open your mouth”. And no self respecting teenager of any renown would dare to comply with that order. What usually ensued was a wrestling match of some duration, arms and legs flying through the air, interested spectators (little sisters) vying for a prime seat to view the spectacle and enjoy the battle of wills. And somehow, and I never did figure out exactly how, Mama always was the victor in these battles. We ate soap. Spitting, sputtering, brushing our teeth until they bled, nothing will remove the taste of soap left in the mouth by a vigilante like our Mama when she was riled.

What was your personal favorite flavor of soap?? Personally I preferred Ivory.

The Missing Doll Pecker

2004-07-26T21:41:00.000-07:00

Reading my sister, Vicki’s, blog, it brought to mind the past weekend. I have four grandsons, hoodlums from Hell who I love dearly. They make life interesting for all who come into contact with them. Never a dull moment. Three of these monsters belong to my oldest son, likely because it took him that long to figure out why his family was growing by leaps and bounds. When I was younger, and more agile, I had them for days at a time. I have learned as I got older, and they got rowdier, that is a much simpler thing to borrow them one at a time. Saves my sanity and my body, especially since they are too big to pen up anymore. Alex, the youngest of the three, was staying overnight with his Granddaddy last Saturday night. Not me, Grandmommys seem to be an accessory to Granddaddy these days. Ah, the good old days, when Grandmommy was the “shit”.

Now Alex, being the ripe old age of five, is mature beyond his years. This likely comes from having two older brothers, who having already braved Kindergarten and First Grade, have been bringing home tales of the difference between boys and girls. But evidently they left out a few pertinent parts of the female anatomy that they should have mentioned.

I have a doll, three feet tall, that my Mom bought for me one Christmas. I had and still have all intentions of sewing a beautiful dress for her. Someday. As soon as I get around to it. This doll was sitting in a chair in my living room Saturday night in all her ‘nekked’ glory. Where he clothes were remains a mystery. Legs sprawled out, hinney shining in the glow of the lamp light…….I thought nothing of it. After all, being a 40ish woman, I have certainly seen a few naked dolls in my day. I never considered Alex though. Or his questions.

Being a parent for several, several years, I have heard a lot of questions over time. And never thought I’d be surprised at anything that come from a kid’s mouth. I was wrong. Boy, was I wrong.

Here I lay on the couch in a comfortable pose, resting, waiting until Alex was ready for bed and staring at the idiot box. He was fresh from a soak in the tub with his granddad. When he ambled over to my side and poked my arm, I figured he was wanting a snack, a drink, something NORMAL……..I was shocked at what came out of his mouth. “Grandmommy, that girl ain’t got no pecter.” I said “Do what?”

He repeated his words and I am stumbling and stammering, trying to think of a logical reason to tell him the doll was different without going into a real biology lesson. Finally all I came up with was “ She is a doll, dolls don’t have peckers” He looked at me solemnly and informed me…..” Well me and Granddaddy does”. Ah, the simplicity of a five year old's logic.

Thunder's Christmas Tree

2004-07-25T23:14:00.000-07:00

(With grateful appreciation to my sister, Vicki, whose memories in addition to mine made this story special)

Christmas was always a special time at our house, not necessarily in monetary costs, but in family togetherness and love, the stuff memories are made of. Little habits and rituals, followed year after year, lead to family traditions that are passed down throughout the generations. My family has these traditions and here is the beginning of a few of them.

The first week of December, Mom would start cooking for the Christmas holidays. She would spend hours every day in the kitchen, measuring flour, breaking eggs and beating the stuff into fluffy pies and cakes. She guarded these desserts more diligently that a hen sitting on a nest full of eggs. A household full of little greedy fingers meant random swipes across the icing of whatever cake we found access to. She would clean the house from top to bottom, mopping and waxing the old painted board floors until they gleamed like a new penny. Daddy worked many long hours when we were growing up, most days it was long after dark when he came home for supper. With five girls to raise I guess he had to.

The second week of December meant the Christmas tree was brought home, usually after a family trip riding thru the pasture, looking along the edges of the woods for that perfect cedar tree to chop down. Using a live cedar and having gas heat meant a tree couldn’t be brought home too early, as the limbs tended to die and shed off no matter how much water you kept in the can it sat in. Unfortunately, with Daddy working so many hours that winter and Mom having no access to the truck he drove to work, there wasn’t a Christmas tree decorated and sitting in the living room. Asking “When” as politely as we could brought only the promise of “Soon” and that just wasn’t good enough for anxious children for very long.

By the third week of the month, we, Vicki and I had decided we had had enough. Our little sisters were whining and moaning about the lack of a tree and if our parents couldn’t find the time to get a tree, then we would do it ourselves. Without asking permission, we set out to locate and wrestle home a tree to make everyone proud. We knew we could never get a big tree or at least the type we wanted to the house alone, so we recruited Thunder, Vicki’s horse, to do the heavy work. Now the time had come to decide which weapon we would use to murder a tree. Knowing Daddy, he had all sorts of tool we could have borrowed to do the dastardly deed, but for some reason we chose a small hand axe, probably because we thought we were less likely to do bodily damage to our limbs with it than with something larger. We were ready for action.

Here we were, bundled up against the cold, riding a horse off into the woods, axe in hand, looking for the perfect tree to appease our sisters and make our parents forget our crime. We searched hours for the perfect tree, wandering through woods bounded on the top side by the pasture and at the bottom of a steep hill, an icy creek. Selection of the perfect tree is difficult, first is height, it has to be tall enough to allow many, many presents to be piled under it when the base limbs are trimmed. Second, it has to have a single center because two makes it difficult to place a star on the top. Third, almost every tree has a side that isn’t ‘perfect’, but this can be overcome by turning that side to the wall. Finally we found it, the perfect tree, and it was huge. For some reason, a tree looks smaller out in the woods----it’s when you get it home and try to squeeze it indoors that it turns into a giant. And ours was gargantuan.

After several long minutes spent fighting to untangle vines and undergrowth from around the base, we began chopping our prize down. We chopped and chopped, taking turns with the axe, until finally after what seemed like hours, we had it down on the ground. A falling tree is not always the safest thing in the world, I can tell you, because it never goes in the direction you intend for it to. And why did it take us longer than it did Daddy to bring a tree down? Oh well, one thing us girls seemed to inherit was stubbornness, although I am not sure which parent blessed us with that gene. Here we were, two preteen girls, with a ten or twelve foot cedar tree on the ground in front of us, and likely weighing hundreds of pounds. How to get it home? And we WERE taking it home, one way or another…We didn’t do all that work for nothing.

There stood the horse, capable of carrying a load on his back, surely? Somehow we were going to be sure he did. We struggled and tussled with that tree and couldn’t lift it hardly at all. Vicki always carried twine on her saddle, luckily for us. We decided to use the rope and hoist it up onto the horse’s back and let him carry it home for us. After crawling in and through the limbs of that cedar tree and wrapping the twine around it, we looped the other end around the saddle horn for leverage and began to pull. Just as we would raise it high enough to think we were going to be able to maneuver it onto his back, Thunder would shy and skitter sideways out from under the tree. Another try and he was rearing up, and shaking his head, “NO” to let us know he meant business. Vicki tried sweet talking him, cajoling and even bribery, nothing seemed to be working. After several attempts, with the results being less than promising, we were quickly convinced we were going to have to devise another way to get our treasure home.

There was no possible way we two girls could get the gigantic tree home without help. And the horse was all that was available, so Thunder was just going to have to bite the proverbial bullet and do his share of the work. No more horsy hissie fits would be tolerated! And we were going to figure out a way to ensure he did. After a bit of discussion, it was decided if he wouldn’t carry it, he was going to have to pull it home. We used the rope and rigged up a travois, similar to the type once used by Indians to pull heavy items behind their horses. After looping the rope around the cedar securely, we had to ensure the tree was far enough behind him not to hit his heels as he walked towards home. We climbed on top of Thunder’s back, Vicki in the saddle and me behind, allowing the rope pulling the tree to set under our legs and flat against the horse. It took us forever to get to the house and discover what awaited us there. We had been gone for hours and dusk was setting in.

When we arrived, there was Daddy waiting on us, a thunderous look on his face, and “Where have you been?” coming from his mouth. We were in the soup now and we knew it. Luckily the Christmas tree and our little sisters exclamations of delight diverted his attention, and likely thereby probably saved our rear ends. Between the noise our sisters made and trying to ready the tree to bring into the house, somehow our misdeeds seemed to be forgotten. Staring at that tree lying there on the cold ground in front of the house, it appeared massive, much larger than it did when compared to the trees in the woods. Daddy said it was too tall and would have to be cut down to even get it into the door. He went to work, sawing several feet off the bottom of the tree and then drug it into the house and set it up. It was still so tall the top brushed the ceiling. It almost filled the small room, smelling like Christmas, and we could hardly wait to begin decorating it.

Christmas ornaments were scarce in our family, whether from the expense or the availability I can’t begin to wonder. We had store bought lights, big bursts of primary colors the size of an egg, and tinsel, shimmering in the glow of the lights. The rest were homemade, usually by us girls, from simple things we already had or found objects. All the more special to Mom because we had made them ourselves. From plain white paper, we cut and colored bells, angels, snowflakes and balls of every hue. Sweet gum balls and pinecones, when painted with glue and rolled into glitter, became shiny explosions of color when added to the deep green of the tree. Mom cut construction paper into narrow strips, and we glued them into chains to dangle haphazardly around the limbs. Popcorn was strung and added to the tree, us kids eating as much fro the bowl as we strung. We made a huge mess, but we were happy. The tree was beautiful, as always, when the colorful lights were lit on the tree, aglow in the darkened room. We had no chimney, instead we had an old desk where we hung our stockings. Our socks were used and the younger sisters would complain that ours was bigger that theirs, as well they should be since our feet were bigger. There is always some kind of squabble in a house that holds five children. Always.

Christmas traditions began in our house with memories made just like the one described in this story. If we were lucky enough to have snow, Daddy would take us outdoors to show us reindeer tracks in the snow, which now being grown, we know were dog prints from some hound roaming around the yard. It didn’t matter if we suspected even then, we believed. As we got older, there were phone calls to my Grandmother to see if Santa had been on her roof already, hence the gentle reminder we should be in bed and asleep. At some point along the way, we began celebrating on Christmas Eve night, due to Daddy’s impatience for the site of us opening the presents, and we still do this today. I hardly ever remember getting up on Christmas morning to open gifts. Memories are special, no matter the season, but for some reason Christmas time is special. Maybe because it was Mom’s favorite holiday, a time to decorate and celebrate with family. She loved Christmas, it’s sights and sounds. Christmas this year will be the first without her. I dread it while at the same time I can hardly wait. Dread because she won’t be here. And excitement, because we will make this this the best Christmas ever. In her memory. We love you Mom.

Wild Ride

2004-07-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

Life in the country was different when we were young, perfectly safe for young girls to roam the gravel back roads for hours riding on horseback. And we did, leaving home for hours on end, with total disregard to the heat and humidity of the day, roaming at random, with never a set destination in mind.

One particular hot summer day comes to mind…it began much the same as all others, doing our chores then we had several free hours to wander, rambling to our heart’s content. As long as we were home by the next time appointed time for chicken house duty, all was good in our world. Now, I, being not an educated horsy person, was relegated to riding double with either Vicki or Karren, her long time friend and our neighbor. This was fine for me, all I had to do was hang on and watch the road for traffic or dogs coming up behind us. Although the road we lived on was paved, the traffic was minimal during the daytime hours and we would soon find a winding gravel road to travel down. We dodged snakes and squirrels and the stray rabbit, hugging the shade along the edges of these roads, trying to keep the horses cool. It should have been a typical summertime ride, but somehow, nothing went normally for us…

The trouble started when we stopped to see a little old lady, Mrs. Early, who lived a mile or so from us down a dead-end rock road. We went often to visit with her, drinking iced tea and nibbling homemade cookies, listening to the tales she wove. I guess she was lonely, living alone as she did, and three semi-teen girls dropping by for a chat likely livened up her day. She had a tiny white house and a yard full of flowering plants, as most old folks did back then. Something else she had that day was kittens. And she was giving them away. Well, you will never guess who wanted one….Vicki, animal lover that she was. Thus began the tale of Thunder, the Wonder Horse and my wild ride.

Thunder, being a horse, had no appreciation for a mewling, spitting ball of fluff and claws on his back. And showed it in no uncertain terms - sidestepping - bucking - snorting - rolling his eyes - typical actions when a horse does not wish to fall in with his riders wishes. It was decided, after some discussion and I might add here, my reluctance, that Vicki would walk home toting the kitten, I would ride Thunder and Karren would follow me. Knowing how headstrong that horse was, I should have walked….

Here I am, astride a horse and in a saddle whose stirrups my legs were too short to reach. It went fine until we made it to the highway, the all heck broke loose. I was walking, slowly, along the side of the highway. Notice I said W-A-L-K-I-N-G! Me and the horse were getting along fine, he was calm, I was calm, the picture of perfect harmony. I could do this, I would make Daddy proud, get Vicki off my back (she liked to call me a coward) and manage to get the horse home in one piece, all at the same time.

When all of a sudden, Karren, behind me, decided I wasn’t going fast enough to suit her. So she takes her rein and hits Thunder on the hind end. And I was off! He jumped forward and took off at a gallop down the side of the highway. I held on for dear life! And was doing fine until we topped the hill and the stupid horse saw the barn in the distance. That was home, and he was going there NOW..

Thunder pulled his head down, jerking the reins (which sis never tied together) from my hands. Here I am on a big horse, a million feet from the ground, and I have no way to drive him. My feet were flopping up and down and likely scaring the horse ever worse than the smack on the butt. (what could I do, short legged as I was?) I was about to fall off, my fanny bouncing what felt like a foot off the seat every time he took a step. So I did what any self respecting girl would do in that situation - I held on for dear life to the saddle horn and screamed for Vicki to stop this fool horse.

I was leaving them in the distance, although it wasn’t exactly by choice. As we neared the driveway, I can remember thinking, ok, ok, I am nearly there. Then I looked up - and directly into a car’s windshield! There was a car coming, the stupid horse was galloping down the middle of the pavement and I had no way to turn him onto the grass at the edge of the road. The horse was getting faster, the car wasn’t slowing down, the driver was laying on his horn for me to get out of the way--I was going to die! I just knew it!

All of a sudden, Thunder bolted to the right, toward the barn and home. My toe, because as usual I was barefooted, nicked the grill on the front of that car. I had left Vicki and Karren behind somewhere and that idiot horse went directly to the gate in front of the barn lot with me on his back. He sides were lathered, he was winded and heaving for air and I was shaking and crying. Here I am on the back of a horse I now hate, afraid to try to get off because I was afraid he would try to run away.. And the saddle was kept in the garage at the house, all the way across the yard. Now I had to get it off and put up or else. After a few minutes of sitting there and getting a bit of self control back, I gingerly got him to walk to the garage. He let me ease off his back and unhook his saddle girth while he just stood there trembling. As soon as I reached to slide it off his back, he took off, straight back to the barn. I dropped the saddle where I stood and ran to open the gate, which he politely just walked into. I left him that way, still wearing the bridle, reins dangling and the saddle blanket, matted and wet, drinking water from the trough……and smiling at me!

Never again did I get on that horse alone, no matter who called me chicken. We had an understanding, Thunder and I, we both liked it better when I wasn’t on his back and trying to drive him. He was a one person horse and that person was Vicki. She raised him from a colt, broke him and babied him. Daddy kept him until after Vicki married and left home. Thunder was a great horse, Vicki could do anything with him. He drank from a water hose, smoked cigars, drank beer and counted. For her, no one else. She used to guide him everywhere with nothing but her knees and was often seen jumping astride his back, galloping bareback across the pasture and without benefit of a bridle or halter. He was hers and hers alone…and he knew it.

Christmas In July

2004-07-22T20:42:00.000-07:00

My Grandmommy, on my Daddy’s side, had a small dogwood tree in her yard. The tree was maybe six feet tall, not very large really, but to short kids, it was huge. It was planted within a few feet of the carport at the “new” house (I’ll get to the old house later) in the center of a discarded tractor tire. If I had to guess, she likely went to the woods and dug it up, brought it home and planted it. She did that a lot, taking something growing in the wild and coaxing it to live in her yard. She had a green thumb that way, although I didn’t inherit the gene myself. The tire was filled with dirt, most likely in the hopes of someday planting flowers there surrounding the base of the tree. But little feet and hands kept the dirt packed tight, making it impossible to grow much of anything but dust and mud when it rained. But for some reason, Grandmommy never seemed to mind.

That tree became our Christmas Tree. Even though the season was wrong and the sandy dirt hot against our bare feet, we hunted high and low for bits and pieces to use for ornaments. One of our favorite places to explore while looking for treasure was the old burn pile behind Granddaddys’ shed, where they discarded their trash (before the Garbage Collection people started coming door to door). This pile of rubble was a treasure trove for girls with an active imagination such as we possessed. At the barn we discovered twine, pulled from bales of hay and discarded on the ground in the center hall. There were tote sacks hanging on the rails and bits of cotton from old raggedy saddle blankets. It was difficult to understand how anyone could throw away such useful and amazing things! We could find uses for much of it……and did.

From the garbage we pulled bits of colorful broken bowls and glasses, discarded pot pie containers, shiny metal tops off jars of snuff and the lids off of various sizes of tin cans. They became beautiful ornaments when tied with bits of twine, dangling from the limbs of that dogwood tree. Long lengths of twine became the rope, short arms having to tie it to a rock and toss it as high as we could to get it wrapped haphazardly around the tree. Bits of hay and cotton, tied together with that same rope became decorations also. The tote sacks were wrapped around the base of the tree for a skirt and our tree was done. Now to show Grandmommy…

I can still recall Grandmommy’s face when she came to see our masterpiece, although I am not sure whether it was dismay or laughter brimming in her eyes. To us, our tree was beautiful, as lovely a tree as has ever been decorated. To an adult, I am sure it left much to be desired. The rope was looped messily across the branches, bunched in several places, and others having none at all. The majority of the shiny ornaments and pieces of glass were, without fail, strung from the lower branches, the top ones having none at all. They were lovely spinning and swaying gently in the summer breeze! The tote sacks, dusty and stained as they were from laying around the stables gave the smell of a barnyard to our mid-summer festivities. It was a sight to behold.

The praise we received that day for our efforts I have never forgotten, as well as the laughter in Grandmommy’s voice as she said it. To this day, I still wonder who cleaned up our mess. Likely her. She was a wonderful lady with a heart large enough to hold love for everyone. I love you Grandmommy. Always.

A City Slicker Goes Frog Gigging

2004-07-21T21:44:00.000-07:00

My friend, Rita, lived in the city, if the small town nearest to where we live could be classified as a city. It has, present day, only ten traffic lights, and that is if a dog hasn’t relieved himself on the pole and knocked the power out to that particular light. Anyway, this gal had never gotten her hands or feet dirty, much less enjoyed any of the pastimes that were the norm for a country girl like me. I invited her for an overnight visit, hoping to introduce her to the joys of country life. Unfortunately chaos came with her!

Rita, the epitome of lady hood and gentility, rode the school bus home with me. Once there, I introduced her to farm chores, the like of which were my everyday routine and responsibility. They were enough, to her city bred sensibilities, to make her want to run back to town as fast as her legs could carry her. Working in our family’s layer house, surrounded by thousands of clucking and pecking chickens and roosters, having to gather hundreds of eggs, all fresh from those same chickens, was an fascinating journey for me, watching her master the art of dodging chicken droppings (to keep her city-bred shoes clean, of course). Then came scooping grain for the horses and filling the water troughs, all the while evading the horses who wanted attention and were determined to get it, no matter what. These tasks were as alien to her as dodging the city traffic was to me. Like being stranded on another planet with no way home.

When Daddy came home from work, we set to washing his truck, most probably with the hope of some sort of reward for our industriousness. The truck was a Ford, red and white, with massive bugs splattered all over the windshield and the paint thick with road grime and farm dirt. We got our reward later that evening, just not one she appreciated or expected. Much to her dismay and my family’s entertainment.

Along about dusk, my Daddy invited us to take a ride with him, with orders to wear old clothes and shoes, prepared to get dirty and muddy. We were going frog gigging! Now me, country bumpkin that I was and having been on such a jaunt before, knew what to expect. Rita had no idea what she had let herself in for. But she was soon to find out.

Rita’s face, when we piled into the cab of the truck, was alight with eagerness and excitement. Windows rolled down, the warm summer air of early night blowing in and stirring the air, we were on an adventure. Things went fine until Daddy turned off onto a muddy and rutted farm road, the trail winding across the a grassy meadow and disappearing into the shadowed darkness of the woods on the other side. Night was falling fast, the lengths of the silhouettes ever growing over the field as the sun became a memory. The opening in the trees loomed ahead of the truck, it’s headlights piercing the darkness and gloom of the trees and Rita was beginning to shift nervously in the seat. There it was, our objective, a small pond, filled with shadowed, murky water, still and black as glass in the hot summer night. Once the engine was shut off, the sounds of the woods were all around us, thunderous in the quiet and spooky darkness. As We got out of the truck, Rita nearly knocked me down trying to remain close to me, afraid of this new and terrifying experience.

The art of frog gigging is a curious one, requiring peculiar apparatus and a certain type of person to get pleasure from it, I guess.. To begin, one has to have a flashlight, of course, to scope out the prey. Now, Daddy being a man of enterprise, had a contraption of the type once worn on the head of Doctors, with a twist. Instead of the standard reflecting disc sported by a physician, Daddy’s headgear of choice was a flashlight, small and round, that sat in the center of his forehead, attached to an elastic strap that encircled his head like a headband. This piece of frog gigging sophistication was complete with a power cord that attached it to a battery he carried on his belt and made scoping out the victims of our nighttime trek easier to catch a glimpse of, while at the same time freeing his hands. The only other piece of paraphernalia needed for frog gigging is a gig, an extremely long round handle (much like an over grown hoe handle), equipped with a three prong tool on the end of it. The handle, and it’s length can be explained simply - to reach the frogs that had been spotted by light of the handy-dandy flashlight, it required a tool that allowed the means to span the distance between the hunter and the hunted, before they had the chance to hop into the water (thus escaping capture). And the gig, or three pronged tool, was the business end of the tackle. Once spotted, a frog was simply poked with the gill and ergo, became a meal! Now to find the frogs….

As we walked along the sides of the pond, the loud croaking of numerous bull frogs shattered the peaceful wooded serenity. Rita, being the nervous sort, was tripping over every clump of grass and mound of dirt she encountered along the way, often slipping and sliding as she encountered a spot of mud near the dark, stagnant water. She stumbled along behind us, Daddy and his trusty light leading the way through the gloomy darkness, mumbling under her breath about never leaving the safety of the city again. And carrying the tote sack Daddy had given her with no clue as to it’s use on this idiotic, in her opinion, expedition.

Here we are, silent and ever alert in the darkness, the echoes of bullfrog calls ringing in our ears and occasionally the splash of the water when we ventured too close and startled one into a flying leap into the water. With Daddy admonishing us to be quiet, we struggled to keep up, knowing if we got out of range of the light we were doomed. Suddenly Daddy stopped walking and held up his hand, a signal known everywhere that meant not to move or breathe, his arm darting out suddenly several feet in front of him as he speared the first victim of the night. As he slowly brought his arm back, we edged closer. There, twitching and jerking on the end of the gig was a huge bullfrog. Rita stepped back, much too quickly for balance, and landed flat on her bottom there on the edge of the pond. Daddy told her to get up and bring him the sack, and as she did so, he calmly un-forked the still living frog from the gig and dropped it into the sack. And handed it back to her, with strict orders to carry it and to hold on tight, no matter what! She almost died as we calmly walked off and left her standing there, bag full of frog dangling from her outstretched arm and her mouth hanging open. She quickly followed as she realized we were moving on without her, scared of being left alone there in the pitch blackness of the night.

Daddy gigged nearly a dozen frogs after that, a bag full of squirming and bleeding (ugh!) amphibians. We took turns carrying that bag, heavy with water and the weight of the wounded, then headed back to the safety of the truck. Arriving at the side, my Daddy calmly took the bag of frogs and bashed it against the top railing along the side of the truck. Our just washed truck!! I am not really sure if the purpose was to knock them unconscious or to finish them off, but either way, their fate was sealed. It was a silent ride back to the house, I guess Rita was in shock at the violence she had been witness to that night.

When we got home, the tote sack was brought into the kitchen, dripping water and who know what else onto the floor. Daddy hoisted the sack onto the counter and began to dump the night’s trophies into the sink, trash, algae and what have you following along. He proceeded to clean them, cutting off the legs (the only part of the frog worth eating) and placing them into a bowl of cold water. Rita was watching, aghast at the spectacle before her, most likely alarmed. Thinking back, I have to wonder if she knew what she had gotten into, coming home with me……

Cooking frog legs can be every bit as adventurous as collecting them. For frog legs, once put on the heat of the stove, well ….. move. They twitch and writhe as if they are still alive, and will likely leap out of the pan if the lid covering it is raised too high.
I remember Mom just breaking the seal of the covering over the skillet, letting Rita peep into the depths and her jumping back as if the frog legs were likely to attack. She refused to eat any of this southern delicacy, as did I. Me because I don’t care for them and her, well your guess is as good as mine.

Never again would she go on any excursion with me, at least not without an itinerary up front. A city slicker in every sense of the word. Initiating city friends to country amusements was an entertaining pastime for me and for my family. We never failed to get a laugh at the expressions of dismay on their faces at some of the things we took as everyday life.

The Smutty Side of Life

2004-07-19T15:02:00.000-07:00

My Grandmommy Waters liked pornography……..well, actually it was more along the lines of mildly titillating journalism, but to my daddy it was smut. My older sister and I were avid readers even then, and a visit to Grandmommy’s house brought us into contact with the “wilder” side of life. She allowed us to read her True Romance and True Story magazines, much to Daddy’s dismay. I am not exactly sure of Mom’s opinion of our choice of enlightenment, but Daddy said no, and to Mom that was the end of it. We were preteen, nearly ready to burst onto the world with our adolescent fantasies of love and lust. And he was attempting to reign us in, control our wanton urges, through any means he had available. In Grandmommy we had an comrade, a partner in broadening our choice of reading material and exposure to worldly activities.

To be honest here, these magazines were mild, not by any means could they be considered pornographic. There were no naked pictures lounging against tangled sheets, no sexual language or body parts mentioned, it was all implication and suggestion, an allusion to what could possibly be happening and not what actually was. But to my Daddy, they were trash and not fit subjects for our reading pleasure. So we grew sneaky, as all children do at some point or time. After a visit to Grandmommy’s house, it because a clandestine mission to hide our booty from the clutches of both Daddy and the prying (and tattling) band of little sisters we possessed.

A favorite hiding place for our secret cache of loot was an old hollow tree deep in the woods on the back side of our little farm. The magazines were protected no matter what form the weather took in the deep cavernous insides. During the summer, we would slip off for a few hours of reading enjoyment with no one being the wiser. But come winter, and the changing weather, we had to resort to concealing them closer to the house, since our excursions were somewhat curtailed during the colder and more inclement months. At the rear of the house was the outhouse, attached to the shed in our back yard. The outhouse was hidden from the view of the back door and the perfect place to read our treasures of literary perversity in private bliss and solitude. It was a simple matter to store our scandalous reading material under the eaves and between the rafters of the shed. Perfect in fact, for they couldn’t be seen from the inside of the shed by Daddy and were once again protected from the weather. Easy enough to protect our stash and still be within hollering distance if the need should arise for quick divertive action. With no one the wiser.

Unfortunately it was not always a simple thing to climb on top of the outhouse for me, being vertically challenged as I was. My sister had it easier, being somewhat ape legged and armed as she was blessed with height. Usually I went first, more from need than seniority. Climb up on the dog pen attached to the back of the outhouse and use the post as a stepping stool to reach the roof. If that failed, a boost in the seat of my pants by my taller (and therefore luckier) sister usually accomplished the goal. Once perched atop the tin roof ( scaldingly hot on bare naked legs on sunny summer days), we would creep up the roof to the edge of the shed and sit down to enjoy a bit or scholarly pursuit. If we were lucky and had timed it correctly, the sun would have sunk low enough to provide a bit of shade to protect our fannies from the heat generated off the tin. And if it hadn’t…..a extra book, one not being scrutinized at that moment, made an excellent cushion for sitting on. We had all the bases covered, or so we thought…

Although reading should be a relaxing and pleasurable pastime, this wasn’t always the case for us, unfortunately. There was always the chance, with three younger sisters living there, that someone would have to have use of the outhouse at any moment. When that happened, we had to flatten our bodies down on that roof, no matter the temperature of the tin. Absolutely no movement or even deep breathing or we would be discovered. And Discovery was a thing to avoid at all costs, since our littler sister were seriously prone to tattling for any indiscretion on our part.

My last remembered jaunt into the realms of literary oblivion upon the roof of the outhouse ended badly, as one might imagine. There we were, immersed up to our eyeballs in lustful adventure, when suddenly the back screen door slammed, signaling the approach of either Mom or the terrible three, ready to interrupt our solitude and serenity. For some reason, no subversive movement, such as flattening on my belly and holding my breath came to mind ---- I panicked. I jumped off the back of the roof and landed flat on the ground….

The outhouse backed up to a field, overgrown with weeds, some taller than my head. While we played and romped in the tall grass and weeds, evidently we hadn’t scoped it all out, because there, exactly where I landed, was an old board, complete with a protruding and rusty nail. And pointing up, of course. And, as you have probably surmised, I landed on it. The nail was HUGE, so long it went through my entire foot. Well, almost. I hit the ground running, so to speak, because when I landed on that nail, I never slowed down, but kept running, yelling wildly, straight to Mom who had, indeed, just walked out the back door. Vicki was hot on my heels, in shock most likely because she had no idea what had happened, only that I was flying across the grass and screaming as if I had been snake-bitten. To tell the truth, I didn’t know at that moment that I hadn’t. I had no idea what I had landed on when I nose-dived off the roof.

After the requisite Doctor visit for a Tetanus shot and a bandage big enough to make it seem my foot had been decapitated, we came home. Sad to say, Doctor Willard wasn’t even surprised to see Mom bring one of us girls in to see him with some major catastrophe. We tended to be accident prone to say the least. It was a terrible time for me, crawling across the floor when Mom had a cake in the oven (so as not to make it “fall”) and being stuck in the house while my sisters got to roam and play. Even harder to accept was that my foot didn’t heal, the top of my foot, which the nail failed to penetrate completely, became infected and had to be lanced. That was possibly the worst punishment I could have gotten.

While I don’t exactly remember what became of our clandestine reading material, I can positively state that I still love smutty journalism, those trashy romances, where the guy is impossibly handsome and virile and the women are so gorgeous and indescribably sensual the men can’t resist them. And to this day, my Daddy has a problem with my choices in literary fulfillment. I used to share them with Mom, much to his dismay. He would ask, as I walked though with a sack full for Mom‘s enjoyment, is that more trash you are bring in here and I would answer, Daddy----it’s safe sex.

Southern For Life

2004-07-18T15:46:00.000-07:00

It has often been said that people born and raised in the south are doomed to be “backwards“, without the benefit of a decent education or an entrée to the sophisticated enjoyments that the rest of the world has ready access to. I, personally, have found this to be true….tell someone you are from the south and they immediately assume you are ignorant and illiterate, a product of close inbreeding and likely illegitimate. Which isn’t the case at all. This is simply a case of being judged by a body of people who don’t personally know us and who also presume to act as an authority of appropriate behavior for all humanity. And what gives them the right to judge, by virtue of the location we choose to live our lives, what is acceptable and the norm?

Maybe it is because we in the south take pleasure in the simple things in life, the frolicking of a small, rambunctious puppy, the laughter of happy children or the delight of a family dinner, abundant with love and fellowship. Does it make us less worldly to take contentment in the simple act of walking barefoot through a shallow stream or taking a ride in the car through the mountains for the simple delight of viewing the changing color of the leaves that nature had wrought? Summers days filled with Bible School, Kool-Aid and bologna sandwiches? Does this make us dull and lacking? Picnics under the limbs of an ancient oak, or simply a stroll along a country lane, undemanding pursuits that both are, but rich in what is important, contentment and promise.

Being Southern is much more than where you live. It is being thankful with what God provides and telling him so every day. It is being joyful for the simple fact of being alive and not being constantly on the hunt for the material things that money will buy. If it is that I am uneducated and backwards, then so be it, I am happy.

A Mule Named Pearl

2004-07-17T20:40:00.000-07:00

My sister, Vicki, had a horse, a fine example of horseflesh and equine excellence. I, on the other hand, had Pearl. Pearl was a mule, the offspring of the unlikely mating of a donkey and a horse. Now, Pearl wasn’t much on looks, in fact she was kind of homely and plain. The hair on her body was stubby and coarse instead of sleek and silky, prickly to bare legged riders on hot summer days. While horses have flowing manes, long and shiny strands of hair that blew prettily in the breeze, Pearl looked like she had survived a disastrous experience at the world’s worst hairdressing salon. Her mane was rough and stubbly, sheared off at the skin of her neckline, the usual fashion for mules of both sexes. She had gray hair around her nose and mouth, when every one knows ladies should keep young looking with whatever color of hair dye is currently in vogue. Her tail, though long, was not the stuff any self-respecting horse would be jealous of either. It was stiff and bristly, very difficult to braid and impossible to manage with a comb or brush.

Pearl had protruding ears, large pointy appendages that stood straight up from the top of her head and had a backwards tilt. Kind of like they stood at attention at all times, alert and ready. They did come in handy, though, for holding a bridle in place and using as a guide when we ambled down the side of the highway or along winding gravel roads. I, at one point, thought she was broad as a river, but looking back, it was more likely my legs were so stubby they stuck out, not because of her girth, but due to the length of my much cursed lower extremities. She was kinda tall, although to be honest here, I am not sure how tall a normal mule is supposed to be. But to a five foot shrimp like me, she was massive. The shear logistics of getting my fanny from the ground to her back were mind-boggling.

The first problem was to capture her, usually after a chase of several minutes duration around the briar patch in the barn lot. Not for me was the usual tame horse--- you know the kind I mean, one who ambled up to the fence as soon as you even looked towards the barn looking for a pat on the neck or a snack. This mule was no Lady, snubbing love and affection or a bribe. She was ornery as all heck, and stubborn in her desire for freedom from the rigors of carrying a would-be cowgirl for miles on her back. Once I had her in my clutches, bridling her became an act of will, mine against hers. Being ....ummm…less than tall, shall we say, was a definite handicap when attempting to reach the height needed to slip it over her head and into place behind her ears. And the simple act of putting a saddle on her was an adventure in logistical maneuvers. A saddle , at the best of times, is a heavy piece of equine equipment, awkward and cumbersome to fling onto the backside of an animal. It is even more difficult to achieve on an animal who’s back is almost taller than your head. There is also the fact that she would blow her belly out so the saddle girt can’t be tightened, which meant the saddle would come loose at some later point. And this could cause the rider to hit the ground in an ungainly and not very dignified heap. The cure was simple enough, explained by my older sister. A simple knee placed forcefully in the side of the animal would cause them to let the breath so the saddle could be fastened properly. The problem came from my lack of height, not the force of my kneeing ability. So Vicki, being the taller, would usually do this little maneuver for me. Ah, I would have treasured long legs!

Thunder, Vicki’s trusty horse, had a variety of gaits, or paces consisting of a various types and rates of locomotion. A slow, ambling walk, a gentle lope, or a rollicking gallop were no problem for the Wonder Horse to accomplish. Pearl, on the other hand, had two speeds, stop and trot. And neither were effortless or trouble-free to accomplish. To begin with, after either a boost up, (usually accomplished by Vicki’s cupped hands under my foot, or standing on whatever likely object was handy to step up on for the added inches needed for me to reach the stirrup), the gear Pearl was in was “STOP”. Getting her to move wasn’t an easy accomplishment to achieve for this cowgirl of little experience. But usually after several vigorous kicks aimed at her sides, along with the “Giddy-ups” and “He-Yahhs” got her to move out of her tracks. If those failed to get any response other than a twitch of those radar ears, clicking the tongue and swatting of the palm of the hand on the rear most portion of her anatomy sometimes became necessary. As a last resort, the flick of Vicki’s bridle reins across the top of her backside would launch her into motion, unfortunately, with a severe jolt and jerk which nearly unseated me!

Once moving, she had one speed……”TROT“. Trotting was and has never been a comfortable gait for the rider. It consists mainly of a shuffling pace by the mule/horse and the bouncing of the rider’s fanny against the seat portion of the saddle. Tough on a sensitive portion of a teenaged gal’s body, even with the padding of the saddle and, er, a teenage girls backside. And I have to say, at this point, that a fanny slapping the saddle for several hours leads to aches and pains in portions of your anatomy you didn’t even know existed. Saddles should have been constructed like a recliner, fluffy cushions of foam and fabric!

The next problem arose when the need to stop moving came into play. Pearl was equally as reluctant to halt forward progress as she was to start it. No gentle backward tug of the reins had any effect on this stubborn mule. Even mighty yanks failed to get any response. I can remember resorting to hauling back on the reins till her head was pulled up high and I was practically laying across her back ( my head pointing at her tail) before I had any effective means of stopping moving. It soon became simpler to let Vicki lead the way, no matter where we were riding to. Much easier to let Pearl run into the lead horse, and thereby stop, than to try to stop her on my own. Thank goodness that mule wouldn’t run, or I’d have ridden off the edge of the earth by now!

You know, I was jealous that Vicki had her horse, typical of kids everywhere when one has something the other covets. And to tell the truth, Daddy didn’t buy her for me to ride, but to plow the garden patch. Her being my everyday ride was just a bonus. She was gentle, and calm. Never bucked or kicked or bit, no matter the provocation. She allowed me to roam the countryside with my sister and her friends, gave me a freedom I hadn’t had before. The fact that she survived me learning to ride meant she could survive anything.

"Redneck Southern Belle"

2004-07-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

Being a “Southern Belle” is more than your proximity to that portion of America below the Mason-Dixon Line. It is a life style you carry with you no matter where you happen to plant yourself at any point in life. It’s an attitude, a self confidence often displayed in forms that ‘foreigners’ (you know who I mean, those Not from south of abovementioned Line) have a problem with. That “I know who I am and I am damn proud of it” that comes across when we talk to outsiders who dare to look at us like some sort of bug they need to squash. Southern pride is impenetrable and immeasurable, a fortress ingrained around our soul, hiding a tender and caring heart. Southerners have a cockiness, a surety of who we are and where we came from, a deep-rooted and genuine feeling of oneness we all seem to share.
A ’belle’ attitude is ingrained from birth, passed down from Mother to daughter, an unquestionable surety that we are worthy of bearing the name, carrying the title and passing it on to future generations. An in-your-face posture that offends some, but puts up one step ahead of the rest of the world. It’s the ability to make something from less than nothing, to overcome obstacles and smile sweetly as you cross that mountain others said you would never scale. No matter what! It’s visiting your elderly neighbors across the way and offering a helping hand without being asked. And expecting nothing in return other than a thank you kindly and a grin. It’s loving your family, no matter how dysfunctional, even if they do nothing to deserve it.
We are a class, a distinction, a whole entire group of ladies who depend on no one but ourselves and care nothing for what others think. We are bold, brassy and assertive. We say please and Thank You, and expect the same in return from those we come into contact with. Yes Sir and No Ma’am are instilled in us from birth, a gesture of honor bestowed by virtue of age and not the recipient’s worthiness. A southern belle allows, nay, expects, her men folk to open doors and seat them graciously, although they are perfectly able to do it for themselves. We show respect when it is merited, have little time for fools and never expect something for nothing. We are independent and honorable, worthy and faithful, both to ourselves and those we love. Our standards are high for our sisterhood and those around us.
Being a Redneck Southern Belle is, in every sense of the word, a lifetime of forging ahead and making life the way you intended it to be. It’s carrying on traditions, making the choices needed to stay true to your roots and heritage. Women, strong women, from the beginning of time, have kept their families together and this world moving forward. Southern women are those women, liberated, courageous and committed to securing the present and future for our daughters and for the daughters of the South for all time.

Fishing for Cows Ears

2004-07-15T02:21:00.000-07:00

Few things stand out in my memory as strongly as the fishing trip I took with my sister, Vicki, when we were young. The results of that fated trip were unexpected and evolved into a definite learning experience for both of us.

Our family took many group angling trips throughout our rural countryside, dropping lines in neighborhood creeks and ponds to while away a few hours on sunny afternoons. We all went on these trips, five girls of varying ages, and our parents. Loaded in the back of Daddy’s truck, it seemed like we were flying, the wind blowing through our hair, as we sailed along gravel roads looking for the perfect spot to wet our hooks. And always was the chance that after the fishing was done, we girls might have the chance to wade and frolic in the cool water.

With age comes the belief that parents are overprotective and that they lose the ability to determine what their children are capable of alone……….at least in a child’s eyes. That being said, Vicki and I were becoming more adventuresome as we got older. Parental restrictions were a thing to be ignored, as was the reasoning behind them. In order to avoid parental supervision and censure, it was easier to neglect to tell them of you plans. Thus, the ill-fated fishing trip came to be.

I should point our here, and being totally honest, the jaunt was entirely her idea. I was the good kid, never back-talked, never in hot water. Where-as she was in your face and far too brave for her own good. That being said, I am POSITIVE that it was her idea. We had a plan, secret of course, to sneak off and go fishing in the cow pond on the back pasture of our farm. Without the requisite parental permission, we were boldly going off on our own, foraging for food in the form of fishes. Likely with the idea of cooking them over an open flame blazing deep in the woods, and most probably lit with pilfered matches. It’s a wonder we didn’t set the world on fire!

Once the plan was set, total secrecy was vital. With three littler sisters around, one couldn’t be too careful. And Mom had a way of ferreting out information, which for our backside’s benefit, was better not known to her. The plan was uncomplicated……. find bait and tackle and disappear for a few hours. Simple, easy to accomplish, no muss - no fuss.

Bait…..the first and easiest requirement. Out near the old barn was rotting hay and feed, left - over bits and pieces from where Daddy fed the cows. Discarded pieces of lumber and bits of tote sacks, likely blown by the wind or scattered by the hooves of cattle and horses, were around the cool and shady perimeter of the barn, the perfect hiding place for fat, juicy earthworms. Excellent enticement for hungry and unsuspecting brim. Catching worms is easy unless you are squeamish about getting dirt under your finger nails. And getting dirty was something we girls excelled at. The means of digging for worms is simple. Some sort of utensil for excavating and elbow grease were all that were required. For a mission of stealth such as ours, the risk of borrowing a hoe or shovel from the garden utensils was far more dangerous than risking a splinter in our hand from a piece of scavenged wood lying around the barn lot. An empty coffee can to keep the worms in, a little moist soil to keep them cool and damp, and we were set. The next undertaking was the procurement of fishing apparatus.

Over the years, Daddy had made or purchased each of us cane poles to use for our fishing endeavors, while he and Mom had rod and reels, those new-fangled pieces of prime angling equipment. Now, being semi-grown as we were, sis and I decided that we were certainly mature and capable enough to handle these contraptions of mechanical technology, and we were entirely too old to be restricted to the cane poles our littler sisters were made destined to be using to entice fish onto their hooks for eternity. We were made of sterner stuff ! Unwisely, we were sure we were equal to the challenges of fishing with the mighty rod and reel, and decided to “borrow” the parents much prized examples of the latest models of elite fishing apparatus. To obtain the objective….equipment…much stealth and furtive movement was required. Slipping as silently and cautiously as we could, we approached the shed where the fishing tackle was kept. The goal was to grab the rods and hurry away before either our sisters or our Mom spotted us. Once we achieved that, we were home free.

Hurrying across the grassy fields, we made sure to stay low and, hopefully, out of sight of the house and windows of home. Usually we skirted the woods across from the garden spot, since the grass and vegetables would offer cover from being seen. Once at the back of the woods, it was a simple matter of crossing a fence and being lost to view. The pond was in the center of a hay field waiting for us in hot, hazy afternoon sun. The cattle were gentle, scarcely looking up as we crossed the pasture. They roamed at will around us as we prepared to capture our feast. The fish were there, waiting for us. All we had to do was taunt them enough, with our trusty bait, to bite the hook. Dinner on a string!

Getting the rods prepared was scary, the line wasn’t wrapped around it, tied on at the tip and running clear to the bottom of the pole! And it wasn’t fastened near the end of the pole with black electrical tape! This fact led to a bit of experimentation as to the workings of the apparatus we had…..ahem………borrowed. Much trial and error was employed in our endeavors to understand how they worked. Once we were assured of our competency at casting, we proceeded to explore the pond for likely fish to capture. Slip a big, fat earthworm onto the hook, threading it through the end and sliding it up over the hook, or one good nibble from a fish would strip the hook clean as a whistle. Once a successful cast was achieved, thereby bait and hook hitting the water instead of at the ground near our feet, we settled in to wait for luck…and fish… to come our way. Now, it has to be said here, that fishing is a lot of waiting and watching, often with few and disappointing results. There is also the mandatory checking to make sure you still have bait and that some obnoxious fishy hasn’t swam by and sucked the hook clean without even a bobble of your cork. It should also be a given that everyone knows that fish do not care for a dead and water-bloated worm, hanging by a thread and white and disgusting looking, hence the need to refresh the bait occasionally. Yuck!

Here we were in supreme pre-teen Heaven, far from the prying eyes of parents and siblings. Luring unsuspecting fish to our hooks, hopefully prepared to die for the cause of our empty bellies and the good of girlhood everywhere. We waited, occasionally doing the required and necessary bait checks, then recasting to a more likely spot of water, sure that sooner of later our luck would change. Then if happened, something that would change my thoughts of following where sis led for the rest of my days. She had reeled in her line and was starting to recast, flinging the reel far back over her shoulder and preparing to release the button to send the line zinging across the water. Somehow, that isn’t what happened. Instead, the line went flying behind her, and hooked into…..unbelievably……right into a cow’s ear. I remember standing there with my mouth wide open, and wondering how we were ever going to explain this to Daddy. If I had known any cuss words, I would surely have been yelling them at that moment. The cow was bellowing, I was hyperventilating and panic was not far away, for me or the cow. Sis, of course, just grabbed the line and jerked, leaving the hook and a lot of the line attached to the poor cow’s ear, dangling like a gaudy earring. There she was, ambling across the pasture, hook attached, the broken line dangling on the ground and the cork bouncing along through the grass and dust. After much lamentation and discussion of how to explain the missing parts of the rod and reel, we decided that we would not mention our little expedition to anyone. That way, maybe no one would notice the damage and we would get off free and clear. A surreptitious trek back to the shed, careful replacement of the “borrowed” tackle, and angelic faces accomplished our goal. We were going to get away with it!

No one ever questioned the damage to the reel. I am not sure why, thought I am sure it was noticed. I assume it was considered to be damaged in some other fashion than being “borrowed” by us. We got lucky that time. Actually, we got lucky a lot over the years. I never knew what became of the infamous cow with one earring, although she likely rubbed it off on a tree or fence somewhere along the way. I am equally sure she didn’t appreciate our addition to her customary dressing habits. If a lesson could have been learned from this little transgression by me, it was that, absolutely, under no circumstances, was I ever going fishing for cow’s ears with my sister again.

I Have Become My Parents

2004-07-13T21:01:00.000-07:00

Why is it when we reach a certain age we think we are grown? You know what I mean, the point where your body starts maturing and boobs sprout and you get as tall as your Mom. Well, not in my case, my boobs got bigger and I never reached the exalted height Mom attained but seemed destined to remain a shrimp at 5 foot. And a half inch! ( not much, but I need all I can get) At some point during our aging process, we always determine that we are at least as intelligent as our parents, more sophisticated and certainly should be in control of our destinies. No over-age being of civilized behavior should or would tell us how to think, feel or act! How dare they, the keepers of our future, think to educate us on how to conduct ourselves when we know perfectly well what are the responsible and appropriate actions required to be the epitome of adulthood and wisdom! Then came the battles, those clashes of will that were both noisy and unrestrained. Our quests for freedom, the right of choice in the direction of our life and the questioning of parental authority that our predecessors have heard from the beginning of time. Opposition came in the form of the reasoning behind the rules they imposed on us, the love they bore us - hence the care so diligently given to protecting us, and finally the authoritative “BECAUSE I SAID SO!!”

We rebelled! Disobedience took many forms for a group of determined young people. From a small white lie, nothing very important in essence, although to our parents any lie was as devious as committing murder, to the ultimate infraction - doing the bad thing anyway, with total disregard of the reasoning why we shouldn’t, blatantly brandishing our bravery in the face of our parents disapproval. Always there were consequences for our misdemeanors, no matter how minor. From a scolding, usually given with the thought to discourage the committing of the action again right on up to grounding, loss of telephone and/or television privileges being the least severe penalty. And being a pre-adult and a girl at that, loss of the telephone, the ultimate source of communication between non-driving adolescents, was devastating. The harshest of all was the revoking of the right to “GO”, the simple act of leaving home, thereby being rendered afloat in the quagmire of a hoard of loved ones who, at the moment, were the last people you wanted to spend time with. I suppose the ultimate punishment was the good old fashioned spanking, although not of the wood shed variety. Mom and Dad, had, in their estimation, rose far above this choice location of chastisement. The fact that we had no woodshed could also have had some bearing on this fact. The vast majority of whippings we ever got came from Mom. And were usually well deserved. At the least. The earliest thrashing I can remember was with a keen switch, hell on little bare legs. More humiliating was the fact that the switch in question was usually destined to be obtained by the wrongdoer, the price we paid for deliberate misbehavior. Mom would send us, the prisoner on trial, demoralized and apprehensive, on that horrendous errand, the purveyor of the means of our own punishment. Too small a limb from whatever semi-thorny bush we could find, and the punishment was doubled (or was threatened to be). Too large, and, well, the thought was terrifying to a kid. Broken Leg? Maimed for life by multiple cross hatches of pus oozing strips of torn flesh, rancid and dangling from our tiny unprotected legs.

Actually, the beatings we received from our parents were few, less numerous than we likely deserved. The elders of our home were somewhat lenient in their actions than harsh, preferring to punish us by means of guilt and common sense talk than abuse. We were lucky kids by any system of measure you choose to use. I can recall few cases where the punishment was equal to the crime we had committed, and generally were less than the consequences should have been. We were raised with love, abundant and freely given by our parents. I have found, to my growing dismay, that I have become my parents. Shocking how the truisms, orders and rules flying from my lips once before graced my ears growing up! My children, now mostly grown, voiced the same objections to policy in my household, voicing the age old cry of adolescents everywhere - “But Why Not?!” And received the same answer -
“BECAUSE I SAID SO!!”

Visits With Death

2004-07-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

We buried my Father-in-law yesterday. He had been battling cancer for a year. Almost thee weeks to the day we buried my Mother. My family has been decimated by grief. My children have lost 2 of their grandparents within a three week period of time. Each and everyone of us are walking casualties of the worst life can throw at you. The trials of death do not pass when the grave is closed it seems. We are left with an empty spot in our hearts no one can ever fill. A hollow ache in our souls and a silence that will never again echo with the sound of our loved one’s voice. Even tho God’s promise means a happier future and a joyous reunion with our loved ones who have gone before us, to the ones who remain behind, death is a lonely place that seems never-ending.

My Dad is grief stricken still. Never has he been less than a rock where we were concerned. It is actually scary to see him lose that confidence, the will to be leader. How can we, as daughters and still considered children, help him? We try, but we can never replace Mom. And wouldn’t want to. But it seems the harder we try, the more he pulls away. Seeing his tears wretches my soul and visiting the cemetery and viewing the roses he has planted in the ground on his daily visits to Mom, both makes me smile and breaks my heart. My Dad was always the strong one. Mom was the anchor of our family ship, Daddy was the wind in the sail who kept us going no matter what. We persevere and pray that tomorrow will be better. As long as we remember Mom, she is here, guiding us until we meet again.

My Country Childhood

2004-07-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

At the edge of the woods near where we lived growing up was a massive slab of rock. It grew out of the ground, level on one side, where it joined the pasture and the other edge being under the shade of the trees and several feet off the ground. Down a steep hill from our rock was a creek, where the water was ever-running and clear. Though it was near the road where traffic ran, the road was gravel and had little thru traffic. It was quiet and peaceful there on a summer afternoon, the rustling of the woods and the water gamboling over the rocks lining the creek bottom were musical. My family spent many hot, humid afternoons on that rock, cooking hotdogs over a homemade fire ring , the fuel burned down to glowing embers. Toasting marshmallows until they were burnt crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside. We collected small rocks and placed them into a circle to contain the fire. ( And also to keep little girls from stumbling into it). I remember gathering dead fall, small sticks and twigs to make a fire, with dry and decomposing leaves added for kindling. They were piled into a heap in the center of the big flat rock and one of the adults would light it, fanning the flames until all the wood had caught and was blazing. You don’t roast weenies over an open flame, but must wait until the fire had burned down, leaving nothing but glowing embers. After spearing the weenie with a thin stick, or as Daddy made us, metal coat hangers, straightened and saved for reuse each time we roasted out. Sticks, after all, were not always strong enough to support a fat hotdog without drooping too close to the coals, It was a given, ash and mustard did not taste well together.

We seldom used the requisite buns bought from the grocery store. We mainly used a loaf of white bread, slathered in mustard and ketchup and rolled around a length of charred hot dog. I can still see the little faces, slick with condiments, alight with the free and easy laughter of shared good times. There is no telling how many dozens of hotdogs we put away in this fashion. It was one of the highlights of our summer, costing little in the money, but rich in the stuff memories are made of. I still ride by that old home place, even now years later. The house where we lived has been torn down, new ones sprung up where once were nothing but grassy fields. The woods are overgrown and the rock all but covered over with underbrush and vines. But I know it is still there, in hiding, waiting for another generation of children to discover it’s secrets and enjoy the pleasures that last a lifetime.

REDNECK INDEPENDENCE DAY - The Aftermath

2004-07-05T22:23:00.000-07:00

I got up this morning, well 11ish really, and looked out side. There it was, the remains of a typical redneck summer holiday widely known and respected in the south. And likely feared as well by those who don’t celebrate in the normal southern fashion. Or as normal as we in the boonies ever get.

My entire front and side yard were covered in confetti, the aftermath of hundreds of exploding rockets, bombs and firecrackers. While the brilliant bursts of color are a wonder to behold lighting up the night sky, the morning after is a disaster. Hardly a square inch of space spanning a huge chunk of grass was not filled with cardboard pieces, empty rocket tubes or blown up bits of firecrackers of every hue. There was plastic wrappers from the multitude of packages opened by amateur pyrotechnical wanna-be experts that were strewn about like wrapping paper at Christmas. Sparkler skeletons, the things of wonder to kids too young for explosive devices, were stuck haphazardly in the grass, testament to the enjoyment of the little ones and their penchant for refusing to stay in one place for any length of time. Little white wrappers, once Snap & Pops lay spent, burst open, where tiny hands had thrown them in a frenzy of noise, laughter and littering. Two garbage cans were in sight, overflowing with debris, empty beer and soda cans, lending the thought that at least a few were making an effort to conduct themselves with neatness and dignity. Scattered around the base of those same cans was the evidence that once the can was full, none of them had the time or energy to walk into the house for an empty garbage bag, and instead aimed in the general direction of said cans and hoped it fell somewhere near them.

Walking across the grass was like a treasure hunt, one made even more difficult by the lack of a map for directions or clues. No matter which direction I walked, there was some evidence of a celebration. Half filled glasses of (usually) a suspicious smelling drink sitting in the grass, to a full un-opened can of Natural Lite sitting on my doorstep, the remnants of someone’s alcoholic bliss lingered. And this ole gal never touched a drop. The cooler was still half full of Cokes and Dr, Peppers and Sprite…………and the requisite half gallon of Vodka, nearly empty of course. But all still cold as hell, with ice chunks still floating in the frigid water. I lassoed and rounded up stray chairs, many of whom I have yet to discover belonged to. They are amassed into a herd, waiting patiently to be collected by their respective owners. I even found an open fifth of Seagram’s 7, still wrapped in it’s little brown paper bag, sitting alone in the yard, likely abandoned in the flurry of goodnights. I think it belonged to my oldest son.

The effects of a night of partying do NOT go as well for some as for others. I know of several hangovers, slow movers with headaches who were about today. And the said oldest son of mine spent the early morning hours hugging the goddess of the toilet. But even after 3 hours of steady work de-confetti- ing my yard, from the pasture fence to the middle of the highway, it has to be admitted that a good time was had by all. And Mom, I know you were there, watching over our shoulders, fussing about the drinkers and enjoying the festivities. Next year, we will attempt to do you proud once again. And, like yesterday, I know you will be there. We love you.

Fourth of July Without Mom

2004-07-04T21:01:00.000-07:00

I knew the first holiday without Mom being here would be hard for me and my family. I just never truly realized how tough it would be. We had the normal things, hamburgers and hotdogs roasted on a grill, chips, and drinks. Watermelon and a family gathering, complete with sisters, in-laws, nieces and nephews and the greats. Somehow it just wasn’t the same. The Fourth of July was probably the second favorite of Mom’s holiday celebrations. She loved the seeing the colorful fireworks lighting up the night sky, seeing the huge bursts of vivid color blossom above our heads.. She loved the excitement of the little kids, hearing the oohs and ahhs from kids of every age, be they 5 or 50. This year she missed all that, and we missed her. The family that was recently brought together by grief, tonight, was once again brought together by love. Love for her, and hopefully for each other. Tonight was in memory of Mom. We love you. Me miss you. And I hope the view of our fireworks were even brighter in Heaven.

Save a Cowboy - Ride a Cow

2004-06-27T23:25:00.000-07:00

Heard that new song today---Save a Horse - Ride a Cowboy.

It brings to memory the antics of my sisters and I riding one of our Daddy’s prized white face Hereford Cows. We named this piece of prime beef and hamburger on hooves Bossie and made a pet of her. I can’t even remember who decided we should make this 2000 pound creature our own private carnival ride, all I can remember is riding the thing around the yard, not at a wild gallop but traveling at a slow, sedate walk, ambling along at what seemed to be top speed to a bunch of young gals. She wore a little black felt hillbilly hat and sported a halter. I guess we all wanted to be rodeo stars in a future life or at the very least, be as daring as Annie Oakley. How brave we felt, sitting high on a cow’s back, looking down on the world from our lofty perch. I recall waiting anxiously for my turn, awash with the fidgets, and getting so frustrated when the lucky sister who happened to be atop that cow would turn and smirk at the unfortunate wanta-be-cow-riders waiting their turn. I can also remember Mom having to step in and force the change of rider at a specified time because we were unwilling to relinquish possession.

The cowboys on television make riding a cow seem a difficult and fool-hardy piece of idiocy. The trick is to find a cow that actually likes to be ridden and is tame enough as to encourage this trait. Bossie was that and more. I am also of the opinion that her lack of that pesky testosterone that Bulls (which are boy cows, for those uneducated people) have in abundance had some bearing on her gentleness. For a bunch of girls who had little in the way of summertime entertainment, Bossie was definitely a big hit.

Actually riding a cow was simple. To get on that cow was a more difficult maneuver. Especially for a short woman who was an equally short child. My older sister was long -legged and could easily vault onto her back from the ground. She was lucky. But the short become very resourceful in their hour of need. Either a step up from a littler sister’s back who is down on all fours beside said cow or ever a bucket placed near her hooves became a handy stool to use. Once atop the cow, getting her to move was tougher. She had a tendency to just stand there chewing her cud while you kicked and yelled and pleaded for her to move forward. Once in a while, she would swish her tail to shoo a fly. And maybe even turn her head to take a peek at whoever on her back, all the while chewing and blinking at you. Forward motion of both the cow and, ergo, the cowgirl, was achieved simply by means of an ear of dried corn tied to a piece of twine and to a long stick. Bossie would follow that corn anywhere. To turn left, you moved the corn to the left. Right, same thing, opposite direction. Simple. The cow followed the ear of corn. The problems started when you were holding the corn before you were ready to get going. She went whether you were ready or not. It became necessary to ensure her immobility, and that was to make sure someone else had the corn on the stick while you got on and got settled. And equally important was to make sure she could not see the corn, or she would move before your were ready to go after that food. To stop the ride was equally frustrating, both to the rider and to the cow. Either by means of handing the stick to someone on the ground or throwing it as far away as possible was one means. As long as she didn’t see where it went. The most expeditious means was to simply jump off her back while still in motion and hope for a soft landing.

Of course, our cow riding days were not without risks and numerous mishaps. Getting a small bare foot stepped on by a cow hoof is not a pleasant thing. The steering mechanism also left room for improvement. Bossie had a bad habit for side-swiping barbwire fences. Whether from our terrible steering or from sheer perversity I don’t know. But either way, little bare legs and barb wire fences were not a pretty combination. Equally dangerous were the before mentioned dismounts. Rodeo daredevils had nothing on us when it came to abandoning ship and disastrous landings. We sported many scraped knees and arms and bruises, all badges of honor in our eyes. A few of still have the scars to prove it.

She had twin calves once and one got stuck in the mud at the cow pond. When it died, Bossie’s milk dried up and we raised the other calf on a bottle. When the calf got older, Daddy took it to the slaughter house and had it turned into steak, hamburger and roasts. I can clearly remember sitting at the dinner table where Mom had served some of that beef and refusing to eat any of it. None of us would eat it. We all five sat there with tears running down our faces and watching Daddy as he ate our pet. It would have been like eating our pet dog, sacrilege. He had to give all that meat away to appease us. I can remember when Daddy sold her at the sale barn. We were broken hearted.

All in all, I think all kids should have a pet cow. Preferably one that is amicable enough to allow ambling strolls atop her back. We had dogs, cats, goats and pigs. We have even had opossums and skunks as pets. But, for me, Bossie is the best pet we ever had. Maybe because she was unique, because in all honesty, not many have bovines for pets.

Growin Up Wild

2004-06-26T21:22:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a family of five girls in rural Lawrence County, Alabama. We were adventuresome and boisterous, with each and every one of us having accomplished a broken bone at least once in our childhood. Some of us achieved more than one, all usually thru our own mischievousness or unadulterated penchant for the wilder side of life. Our parents were less than thrilled at some of our antics, but we were allowed to be as big a tomboy as we wanted. Daddy loved that aspect of us and encouraged it for his own gain. It led to 5 ready, able and sometimes willing farm hands, always on the spot to chase cows, mend fences, haul hay and the occasional lawnmower overhaul. Whatever needed doing, most any of us could turn our hand to it.

Life at our house was highly entertaining and unpredictable. Any common, every day event could and often did turn into a fantastic occurrence. I remember Tina and Teresa dressing puppies in doll clothes. Common enough for little girls. Next thing we knew, they were baptizing them in the ditch full of water running in front of our house. And it was cold, wintertime weather! Mama made them dry the puppies and sit in front of the big old gas heater until they dried. My cousins came down to visit one hot summer day. We were down at the edge of the woods where some old car bodies were. My cousins, being boys, were throwing rocks through the glasses of the cars so they would bust. This was before shatter-proof glass and a sliver of the glass flew off and cut the end of my sister Lana’s finger nearly off. I, personally was run over by a station wagon, driven by my four year old cousin, who, too short to see over the steering wheel while sitting, was standing in the seat of a still-running car. Luckily, even though the tires passed over the backs of my knees, the ground was wet enough and the ground indented enough that no damage was done. Vicki, the oldest, and likely the bravest, was galloping her horse across the pasture when she traveled under a low-lying limb and was knocked unconscious. And Thunder, her trusty steed, stayed beside her until she came to and crawled back on.

These are only a few incidences where the normal everyday activities of any family have turned into a fiasco. How our Mama survived us is a wonder. I do recall the local Doctor telling her that he knew it was summer when the Waters girls began to come in. I must say, though, that we had a wonderful childhood, filled with laughter, excitement and fun. Our parents did a great job of raising us and, for the most part, we turned into fairly respectable adults.

Nearly A Virgin

2004-06-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

Can having sex with only one man make you a nearly virgin? If so, that is me. And damn, I must admit, I feel something has been missing from my life forever. Most women my age (fourtish) have experimented and tried out different models of the male animal. And here I am, nearly about old, and I have never seen many of the aforesaid models, much less strapped one on for a test drive. And precisely how does a woman (past her prime, alas) go about capturing one of these specimens of manhood for personal experimentation? Maybe a baited trap? Any sophisticated and alluring attributes I ever possessed have faded long ago and long been forgotten. A deep pit, covered with brush, and a prayer that some likely prospect will come strolling by and fall in, thereby becoming the victim of my adolescent fantasies? I am too lazy to dig a hole to plant a flower, much less a pit over six feet deep to hold him hostage while I have my wicked way with him. Maybe a gentle nudge with the bumper of my car as he walked along the road, to make him somersault into the ditch, thereby stunning him into immobility, giving me time to leap on him.

What are the perfect specifications I should look for in the quest for amorous adventure? Size should be the first requisite I would think. Any red blooded American woman should realize that a tank full to the brim is much more advantageous than a tank only half filled. And stamina….not enough can be said about this I am afraid. What would be the point of riding in a race car and only getting ¾ of the way to the finish line? Every woman should want to cross that line, carry the checkered flag and say “YES!”, “YES!” as she soared to victory. The ride of the machine should also be of prime importance. Who wants to ride on a bumpy old John Deere tractor when the ride of a Cadillac is much smoother and fulfilling to the driver? Should I check his teeth, his oil, his tires?

Is it worth it, this quest for knowledge I have to test-drive and decide the performance of other vehicles of pleasure? Is any one better than another? All in all, I have to believe that I am better off alone in my quest for personal fulfillment. I will drive alone, not to be tempted to stray from my path of self-imposed near virginity. And wonder what I missed.