At a meeting of friends (some new, some long time) my shell of the educated sophisticated woman was shattered-- reducing me to tears as I responded in a way that likely seemed inappropriate to the group. The friend, whose background is nothing like mine, related to us the following, She and her daughter were driving through West Virginia past small houses and trailers. Discovering they needed gas they were hesitant to stop at any of the gas stations in the 'trailer section..'.
A near empty tank decided the matter. "The proprietor was very nice." Her look and tone laid bare her surprise.
How dare she assume they would be anything but nice? The trailers-- the small houses?
These were, or more truthfully are my people.
I grew up in rural Tennessee, on a dirt road stretching past small houses and shacks. (Trailers were not then generally around. The only non resident people driving on our non-paved road were the itinerant preacher, the rolling store merchant, the county agent, tax assessor, Doc Lawson when a baby was born, and an occasional passer by for 'who knows why?'
We were aware of the difference in status. We knew we did not have as much as the county agent or the tax assessor, Doc Lawson who delivered babies. But a threat to strangers?
The days of shotguns fending off unwanted visitors was long past in 1945. Certainly today it is of no concern. That trailer, that small house, that country store is owned by people as nice as my leary friend. AND LIKELY LESS PREJUDICED.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
I Have Had My Doll Donna for Seventy-six Years
On a chair in my bedroom sits my doll, Donna. I was four years old (in 1939) and my sister was two and a half when we got the dolls. Composition heads, hands and feet; cloth stuffed bodies; pink dresses and bonnets. They were the, most beautiful things we had ever seen.
The fact that Donna is still around is attributed to two things. First, Mommie, in an attempt to keep the precious dolls safe, hung them on the wall and allowed us limited play time. That time we used creatively. Our baby brother born a month before we got the dolls frequently was in need of a shirt or a diaper. The dolls were comfortable in those shirts and diapers.
In 1953 the fourteen year dolls had been stored away, safe from the attention of adolescent girls. I do not remember where Ivy stored hers, but mine was stashed away in the cedar chest which held extra quilts and unused clothing. Hence her survival.
A fire destroyed the house and most of the furnishings. One surviving item was the cedar chest, pushed out an open window, badly charred, but intact. Donna was intact. Albeit her composition face, hands and feet were cracked from the heat. But she lived even with her scars. In her dress and bonnet, the second since that fire in 1953, she sits proudly on the chair in the bedroom.
The fact that Donna is still around is attributed to two things. First, Mommie, in an attempt to keep the precious dolls safe, hung them on the wall and allowed us limited play time. That time we used creatively. Our baby brother born a month before we got the dolls frequently was in need of a shirt or a diaper. The dolls were comfortable in those shirts and diapers.
In 1953 the fourteen year dolls had been stored away, safe from the attention of adolescent girls. I do not remember where Ivy stored hers, but mine was stashed away in the cedar chest which held extra quilts and unused clothing. Hence her survival.
A fire destroyed the house and most of the furnishings. One surviving item was the cedar chest, pushed out an open window, badly charred, but intact. Donna was intact. Albeit her composition face, hands and feet were cracked from the heat. But she lived even with her scars. In her dress and bonnet, the second since that fire in 1953, she sits proudly on the chair in the bedroom.
Monday, October 19, 2015
Before My Earliest Memories
The recent spate of public service commercials about the necessity of Whooping Cough vaccines has triggered in my memory something I know only because I heard my mother tell it so many times. I was but six months old when I contracted Whooping Cough. Mommie said I coughed and whooped so hard I turned blue and she feared I would die.Then I vomited. Keeping enough food in my stomach was difficult causing fear of my general health for I was a thin baby from birth.
When I watch the current commercials with the grandmother with the wolf face, I cannot help,but wonder if in my six month old perception, when I looked in the face of my grandmother holding me tight for comfort I saw the face of a wolf.
When I watch the current commercials with the grandmother with the wolf face, I cannot help,but wonder if in my six month old perception, when I looked in the face of my grandmother holding me tight for comfort I saw the face of a wolf.
Saturday, October 10, 2015
No Love For Carbonated Sodas
July 1947
I was just twelve when Grandma Neely died. The not so great Grandma from the point of view of us kids. That was Grandma Cardwell.
Grandma Neely, who sold her house in Crossville to Uncle Fred, had plans to travel from kid to kid. That would have been a lofty plan and filled out a hunk of her life for she had ten children.
While she was in Tazewell visiting Uncle Luther and his family she fell and broke her hip. Mommie, attached at the hip it seemed to her mother, immediately made the trip from Crossville to Tazewell to see her.
Kids it turned out were not allowed to go into the hospital. Uncle Luther took Ivy and me along with his boys to a Crystal Hamburger place, where he bought each of us a nineteen cent hamburger and an Orange Crush. We had never had a soda. My first sip filled my nose with such fizz that I spit it out along with the remnants of the hamburger.
That has nothing to do with the death of Grandma, who died later that day from a stroke, related or not to her broken hip. It is relevant to the fact that my only memory of Grandma's death is of the tingly effect of Orange Crush.
I was just twelve when Grandma Neely died. The not so great Grandma from the point of view of us kids. That was Grandma Cardwell.
Grandma Neely, who sold her house in Crossville to Uncle Fred, had plans to travel from kid to kid. That would have been a lofty plan and filled out a hunk of her life for she had ten children.
While she was in Tazewell visiting Uncle Luther and his family she fell and broke her hip. Mommie, attached at the hip it seemed to her mother, immediately made the trip from Crossville to Tazewell to see her.
Kids it turned out were not allowed to go into the hospital. Uncle Luther took Ivy and me along with his boys to a Crystal Hamburger place, where he bought each of us a nineteen cent hamburger and an Orange Crush. We had never had a soda. My first sip filled my nose with such fizz that I spit it out along with the remnants of the hamburger.
That has nothing to do with the death of Grandma, who died later that day from a stroke, related or not to her broken hip. It is relevant to the fact that my only memory of Grandma's death is of the tingly effect of Orange Crush.
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