1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: FAUX BALLERINAS

Dance recitals were fun days for some girls, I'm sure.  I just wasn't one of them.  Two things made the day an ordeal: my anxiety about taking part in things where I didn't know exactly what was going to happen and my extreme self-consciousness. 

I was almost seven,  first grade nearly behind me.  An uneventful year, overall, after Marie, my closest friend, moved away.  Forty miles might as well have been a thousand. 

My sisters and I took dance from Mrs. Jewel.  I think she had a last name, but we just called her by her first name.  All the kids did.  Lots of girls in town took dance at her studio.  For some reason, she always pinched my cheeks.  I think she was trying to build my confidence, but somehow it felt a little demeaning.  I wondered if she would pinch them if I could do a cartwheel instead of a mule kick.

Becky, one of the girls in the class, was a year younger than I, and could whirl herself into action and look like the spokes on a bicycle wheel, arms and legs straight out and going round and round.  She could do more than one cartwheel at a time, too.

As we stood in line to perform our tricks, my place in line seemed to always fall  after Becky the  human wheelspoke,  and Mrs. Jewel would say to me, loudly, but not unkindly, "Well, if you can't do a cartwheel, just do a mulekick!"

I would then crouch down, palms flat on the floor, push off with my feet, raising my rear end 8-10 inches, and make a little kick motion with my heels, landing flatly on my soles.  It certainly wasn't becoming, and so far below the level of the cartwheel that even a pinch on the cheeks couldn't make up for it.

I never told her that I could stand on my head for a long time, actually until the blood pooling there made me feel my eyes would burst and my temples explode.  No one ever stood on their head at dance class, and I suppose  choreographing that into any dance routines would have proved too difficult for the dance assistants at Mrs. Jewel's.

There were short girls, tall girls, stout girls, skinny girls, girls with rhythm and girls with none, and girls with bird legs and those with shapely ones.    Everyone wanted to be a ballerina except me.  I had already figured that out.  My mother would realize it today, or at the very latest, by tonight, at the end of the recital.

This year Susan had a solo dance and Jan had a solo song.  I had a group dance and was thrilled I had no solo.  My lack of ability must have been apparent to Mrs. Jewel, too, but her sister was one of my mother's best friends, so she took pity on me and pinched me.

There were two major traumas on this day.  The first happened at practice.  All of us were at the Corsicana High School auditorium where the recitals were held.  Since I was short, certainly not because I was one of the best dancers, I was placed at one of the two outer ends of a half circle of girls, nearest the audience.

I did as I was told by Mrs. Jewel's assistant, a high school girl named Sherrie, who did the teaching.  Mrs. Jewel just did the supervising.

Sherrie placed each girl in the semicircle, spacing them about two feet apart.  Once we were all in place, she had us turn toward the inside of the semicircle.  Then she kept saying,"Now scoot apart because your costumes will take up more space tonight.   Scoot, scoot, scoot," she said,  motioning at me. 

I knew I was at the edge of the group, and the more I moved, the more anxiety rose like water seeking its own level.  I started worrying that I would get too close to the edge and fall off during a dance move.  But even more worrisome, I saw that she had insisted I move past  the curtain line.

I opened my mouth to try to tell her, but nothing came out.  She looked my way, but then turned her attention to the other side of the circle.  Suddenly, she called out , "Close the curtain, please."

I saw the thick rose colored velvet curtain moving my way, and as it moved within feet in front of me, something brushed my right arm from behind  and moved along it, causing me to look straight up and see rose velvet everywhere.  Looking down, I was startled,  realizing that the curtain was closed, and I alone was standing out in front of it.  I didn't have a solo, so I shouldn't have been there. 

A familiar panic seized me:  should I claw at the curtain trying to find the opening that would let me back with the other children, run down the steps and out of the building, jump off the stage to the seats where my mother could be found among the others, or puddle down in a heap on the stage crying?  While the latter was my definite choice, I knew I'd embarrass my mother and sisters, so I just stood there, frozen, like a deer in headlights. 

A lifetime passed.  I graduated high school, went to college, married and had children before Mrs. Jewel yelled out  "Hey, y'all left one of the kiddos outside the curtain.  Come get her!"

Immediately, Sherrie emerged from the split in the curtains.  Ah, there it was!  I probably could have found it had I tried.  Head down,  I  apologetically followed her behind the curtain where thirty little girls  looked at me with pity, irritation, puzzlement, amusement, and only one -- with genuine concern.

Nancy Meeks, who was standing next to me whispered to me, "I told her she pushed you out too far.  Your costume won't be that big."

I shrugged.  "Thanks," I said earnestly.  "I won't be taking dance after tonight." 

I would have liked to not be taking dance after that second, but I knew Mother had spent hours carefully sewing my taffeta and net costume and lining the bodice with yellow sequins.  I couldn't be so callous to her effort.  She'd made Jan and Susan's costumes too, but they planned to complete their solos, so I quickly made the decision to continue.

When we left after the interminable practice, nothing was said about what had happened.  Mother knew better than to ask why I did some of the things I did.  She knew I couldn't account for it.  It was just the way I was.  Susan and Jan were too caught up in their stardom to have paid any attention to my embarrassing actions, so I was lucky today.  They didn't mention it either.

"Everybody will be looking at me," I thought with horror.

"Everybody will be looking at me!" Jan crowed.

Recital night held some excitement even for me, though.  Everyone running around in the side rooms and basement of the high school in their beautiful costumes of taffeta, satin, net, and sequins created a beautiful rainbow of colors in blue, purple, red, pink, white, green, and yellow. 

Tutus, ballerina dresses, sleek one-shouldered costumes with short skirts like Susan was wearing-- and the shoes.  The shoes were a world unto themselves.  Toe shoes, like Susan wore for her solo ballet dance.  Tap shoes for the rollicking numbers, and soft ballet shoes, with thin elastic straps holding them on, like I wore for the dance we did in the big half circle. 

                                                                              Jan
Jan had just turned four,  and she liked to stomp her tap shoes in some weird manner just to hear the sound.  She certainly could not tap dance.  She looked cute in her little pink satin dress Mother had made her, though.  It was different from mine,  but it had sequins around the neck too, so it would shine in the stagelights.  She had no fear and loved the limelight.

I was glad my dance number was first, so I got it over with, doing a softshoe in my yellow ballerina-length  costume.  With a great sense of relief, I took my seat next to my parents in the cavernous 800 seat auditorium.  The wooden seats weren't very comfortable, and they folded up, so I folded myself almost in half several times in the seat before my father made me stop, pushing my raised feet down toward the floor to unfold me. 

Susan danced to "The Beautiful Lady in Red" (her costume was red with black sequins), and I felt proud.  She was graceful and applied the same perfection to her dance as she did her schoolwork.

After some kids in purple tutus ballet danced to  "Tiptoe Through the Tulips", some others tapped to "Gonna Take a Sentimental Journey" while still another group  softshoed to "Me and My Shadow" , it was Jan's turn.

This was the second trauma, the embarrassment of how she walked on and off stage and crammed the microphone in her mouth.  Here she came, walking in those tap shoes.  She wasn't going to tap, but I think they just humored her because it was so cute.  With every step, clack, clack, clack, I slipped further into the crack between the seat back and seat.  She stepped to center stage, her blonde curls framing her cherubic face, took  hold of the microphone with both hands (it had been lowered to accommodate her height), and looked like she would eat it as she began singing.

"I'm in love with you, honey" she sang in her babyish voice.  "Say you love me too, honey.  Every day will be so sunny, honey, with you-hoo-hoo-hoo."  Then she started over, her mouth touching the metal microphone honeycomb, which distorted the words with comic result. 

Beside me, my dad was shaking with laughter, while my mother sat in rapt attention, and I tried once again to fold myself into the chair. 

"People will figure it out.  It's right there on the printed program.  She's my sister.  We have the same last name," I thought.

Then, oh thank you muses, it was over.  She curtsied, turned on her clacking heel and walked off the stage, head high, proudly making staccato metal on wood sounds with every step. 

In the car on the way home, I sighed loudly. 

"What's that about?" my dad asked.

"My last recital is over." I exhaled pointedly.

"I've signed you up to start taking piano at the Simmons Studio when school starts," Mother said, looking straight ahead into the dark night from the front passenger seat. 

Susan nudged me and laughed quietly , while Jan talked  loudly about her solo and how she loved walking onstage in her tap shoes and singing.  I scrunched down dejectedly in the dark backseat, trying to convince myself  that piano recitals surely would be less anxiety producing than dance recitals.
Installed

1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: ROOMERS, ROOMERS, AND MORE RUMORS

Nettie had a little half-bath in her garage. It was an act of forethought by my deceased grandfather, the one I never knew. He died about six weeks after I was born. He was not quite 60.

My grandmother had been a fairly young widow, and though he left her quite a few assets, she sometimes struggled with regular income. He had been smart financially, but she had no clue how to make any additional money through business. She did hang on to the bulk of the assets, by doing without things, not buying much.

She had a very comfortable house, probably decorated and furnished by someone else, as I don't think she had any sense of decor or color. When the house was built, they must have hired a professional for the interior; then she never changed it one iota. There were varied wallpapers, juxtaposed against nice lined drapes of a different pattern, yet coordinating fabric and color. I just didn't think Nettie had that artistic bent to visualize the outcome, but she appreciated fine things and took good care of all she had.

By the time I started first grade, she had come up with a plan to generate more income. She rented out one of her bedrooms to a gentleman. It had a separate entrance, but the person had to share the bathroom, as there was only one. I always thought she should have made them use the bathroom in the garage to simplify things, but she didn't see it that way.

"It's too far out here," she said when I asked. "And it's not very nice. It's just the basics. And no tub."

Anyway, our family always got to know the men very well. They became like part of our extended family for the time they were there. The first was an erudite school counselor, who after earning his doctorate moved up north and became a psychologist. He was a few years older than Nettie. Over six feet tall, he looked and talked like I thought Santa Claus would. His snow white hair was neatly combed. He didn't have a beard, and he wasn't rotund, but he laughed in a deep baritone, and he shook all over when he laughed. It was an honest sound, like it came straight from a good heart.

Mr. Roberts, and that is what she called him the entire time, lived there for about six years, working at school during the day and attending meetings at night and graduate school every other free minute.

On weekends, he often visited his extended family. Occasionally, he watched television with my grandmother and whatever members of our family were visiting in the evenings. She had grandkids and nephews and nieces dropping by all the time as well as her brothers and their families, and occasionally her sister from Arlington.

After he moved up north, a younger man rented the room. His name was Harvey, and he sold cigarettes, so he was often gone during the week making his route. He had thick black wavy hair, gold glasses, and was somewhat hyperactive and flamboyant. He brought a lot of life and laughter back into my grandmother's house, always moving quickly through the house like he was headed to some emergency, when he was only going to the living room.

He enjoyed laughing,making silly jokes, and teasing her. He dated my sister Neila for a while. My brothers even liked him, a small miracle, I thought.

The last man who rented a room there was a Mr. McCoy. He was in his late forties while my grandmother was probably getting close to 70.
She was an upright woman, and renting rooms was not uncommon then. My dad approved, so that meant it was all right.

Occasionally, the men who rented would take her to dinner as a thank you. So one night, Mr.McCoy had taken her to out to eat, and the car crunched its return into the gravel driveway about 8 p.m.

Some discussion had begun, as my grandmother told it, and they sat there for a minute or so, finishing their conversation. Just as Mr. McCoy started to get out of the car on the driver's side next to a hedge that ran the length of the long driveway, he was stunned to hear a loud noise, and a short, shrill shreik. Even more stunned to see Mrs. Smitty, the next door neighbor, stumble through the hedge next to the car, landing prone across the hood, hitting it with a loud thud. She turned her head, looked toward my grandmother, who sat openmouthed in the passenger seat, and waved limply, her pruning shears laying beside her on the car.

Mr. McCoy, ever the gentleman, assisted Mrs. Smitty home, telling my grandmother to wait in the car. On return, he opened the passenger door, silently offered his arm, and when they had turned the corner at the back of the house, he burst out laughing.

"Does she always prune the hedge at night?" he guffawed.

"Only when she wants to see what I'm doing," my grandmother giggled. "She probaby figures it's more fun sharing the house with a man than with that old maid daughter of hers," she said. "And those two yapping dogs."

"Well, I never," Mr. McCoy said.

"I never either," Nettie laughed.

Those poor neighbors lived there a long time, and we had a number of encounters with them, none really bad. It would probably have hurt their feelings if they'd known how we laughed about their odd ways. Their house was the cleanest house I'd ever been in, sterile really, except for the dogs.

The green and white tile in the kitchen was shiny and had not one speck of dirt on it. I went over there once to take part of a cake my grandmother wanted to share with them. She was nice that way, even if nobody returned the favor. She used food to show goodwill. "They're good neighbors," she said, "just a little nosy."

So today, while Nettie washed her clothes in the electric wringer washer, I tried to see how many times I could use that garage bathroom, just for the novelty of it. She wouldn't let me get near the wringer, but every now and then if I persisted, she'd put a blouse through, dripping wet, then let me help her pull it slowly out the other side, the two rollers squeezing the life out of it.

Washing was hard work for her, but she didn't have to wash very often since she only washed for one. Mother washed three or four loads a day, put Daddy's khakis on metal stretchers, and ironed almost everything we wore.

Nettie finally noticed how many times I had run in and out of the oversized door to the bathroom and told me to stop.

"Can I go play on Mr. Watts' swings?"

"Ok," she said, probably glad to get rid of me. 

 Mr. Watts lived behind and east of her in a big gray house with a garden-like setting around it. In the part of his huge yard that was directly behind her house, though, he had a huge swingset that all of us were allowed to play on. The best thing he had were two large thick metal rings attached to long chains,   You could hang on those rings, right side up or upside down, while swinging back and forth.  It was hard work, but I felt like a circus star.  The circus held a certain amount of intrigue for me for several years.

The set was nearly as tall as the ones at school and much more interesting. There was a swing, a teeter totter, and the large hoops. I played on everything out there until I saw Nettie carrying a large basket of wet clothes to the clothesline where she started attaching them to the taut wire with wooden clothespins, hanging them to dry.

I ran to help her carry the basket. I didn't like to hang out clothes, but I thought I'd help her since she'd worked so hard washing them, and she had let me go play in Mr. Watts' yard.

"Mother hangs out everything, but I hate for my underwear to hang out there so everyone in town can see it," I said.

Nettie picked up a red and black patterned cotton dress, the kind of housedress she wore most days, large black buttons adorning the front, and attached it by the shoulders to the thick wire line. She only had one line stretched between the metal T-shaped posts. We had three lines, and they were full about five days a week at least.

Clothes flapping in the wind, waving to the neighbors, advertising our private brands to anyone in town. Course they all hung their clothes out to dry, too. Everyone in his backyard, but none of the yards were fenced, so you could see all the clothes, plain as the blue sky.

"Granddad never let Mother and her brothers and sister hang their clothes out to dry. He went to the laundromat. He says they get germs on them when you leave them out like that." I chattered on, picking up a washcloth and securing it to the line.

"Well, I like your Granddad, but that is the craziest thing I ever heard. I wonder why your mother never told me that?" Nettie wondered aloud.

"Oh, she told me not to tell, but I thought you probably already knew."

"No, can't say as I did. Well, everybody's different. He had to be mother and father to those kids most of their lives anyway. He wouldn't of had time to hang 'em out." She liked my granddad a lot, I could tell, and she wouldn't criticize him even if she disagreed with him.

"Yeah, I guess that's right. Did you know that my other Granny won't call me by my name? Every once in a while if she's put out with me, she'll call me by my middle name. Why do you suppose that is?" I asked, picking up a thick yellow bath towel and pinning it securely with three wooden pins.

"She mostly looks through me, not at me. The other night Susan, Jan and I were there and she was watching "Lassie", and we were jumping over the big armchairs in the living room and hiding behind the couch where it angles across the corner of the living room, and I bet she couldn't even hear Lassie bark. She didn't say a word to us, just stared at Timmy and Lassie until finally, Mother heard the noise and came in and put a stop to our jumping. We didn't really mean to be disrespectful like that, with her in the room and all, but........." I trailed off.

"Some people take life hard," Nettie said thoughtfully. "Your Granny had a nervous breakdown when your mother was about 12. She never recovered. They didn't know much to do for it then. It's a little better now. My neighbor over there" she pointed to the opposite side of her house from Mrs.Smitty,"has had shock treatments at least twice at the state hospital, and she's still real nervous. Some people just have a hard time," she said kindly.

"I wondered if there was anything to do for Granny," I commented as I ducked under the wet clothes. "But Mother said Granddad just vowed to protect her, and he did. He spends all his time with her--and reading. He takes her for a drive on Sunday. The rest of the time she just sits in that rocker and ..."

"I know." Nettie interrupted. "Let's talk about something else. You don't need to concern yourself with that. Your grandparents have been married a long time, and Mr. Newlin is a fine man--a fine man,"
she repeated.

"Oh, okay. Well, can you tell me more about her?" I asked, pointing in the general direction of her neighbor, Mrs. Carson, the one who had shock treatments.

"Let's go in and fix something for supper," Nettie said, ignoring my question. "Lots of things happen to people in life. You just have to accept that."
Installed

1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: PREACHER FOR LUNCH

Sundays, we went to church and Sunday School-always. My dad went-sometimes. But Mother and her brood always loaded up in the car and traipsed up the tall steps of our little white asbestos siding church.

It was the only church in that town. There were a few tiny churches out in what I called the "deep" country, those roads that snaked like octupus tentacles out in all different directions from Purdon and ended up somewhere else that was nowhere.

Some real nice families lived in the "deep", but that seemed to be where you found some real odd ones,too. All of the kids attended our school, though, same as we did, and we always found common ground as we learned, played, and struggled with growing up, together.

Some of the kids were real poor, and one or two families had a really mean daddy. I usually didn't hear that from a kid my age, but my sisters or brothers would tell me about something an older sibling of the younger kid had told someone. It would be whispered about school, one kid to the other, never reaching the ears of the teachers, I don't guess.

Some of the kids got real hard whippings, with belts.

"Buster's daddy nearly beat him to death with a belt the other night," Elton said to Neila one day, not realizing he was in my hearing. "He wouldn't suit out for basketball and wouldn't tell the coach why."

Neila shook her head back and forth, looking serious.

Some of them we heard worse stuff about from other kids, but Neila wouldn't tell me what it meant when I asked. Vague references to girls and their brothers or daddies that I didn't understand. And no one seemed to know if it was true, the gossip, but it wasn't like anyone was trying to be mean. They truly felt concern for the kids.

There didn't seem to be anything to do about it though. These were "family matters" and hard to get the truth about anyway. The kids would usually just come to school until they were old enough to get a job, and then either run away or get married or both.

Sometimes they'd get their younger siblings to live with them once they were out of the house. But the kids from those families had one thing in common-a lot of those kids didn't see anything to laugh about. They pretty much spent most of their day grim-faced. They weren't mean to people or anything; they just never laughed. To say we didn't understand, well, that would be an understatement.

Our house was filled with loud talking and laughing, everybody always trying to outshout the other-some of us anyway. Energy just about burst out of the doors and windows. Kids with their friends, running through the house, jumping, squealing, talking, eating, and fighting.

Mother stayed out of our fights for the most part, unless it got physical. She knew I could hurt Susan even though I was three years younger, so she'd usually intervene when Susan whined, "Mother, Felisa is hitting me."

I usually only hit her once in the arm or something, but she acted like it was a major blow. One time, she wasn't even mad, but she decided she and Jan would both jump me outside. They plotted, and as they walked behind me, I heard "go!" and felt a force push me forward, causing my head to whip backwards while my body flew forward. I barely caught myself with my hands on my fingertips, while they jumped on my back.

"Ok," I said to them. "Now you've made me mad."

Prying Jan off my left shoulder and letting her gently down to the ground so as not to hurt her, I turned my attention and mock anger to Susan. They were wimps, like gnats. Susan spent all her time inside exercising her brain while I spent most of mine outside, notexercising my brain.

Susan was still on my back, and I was bent over, but I had raised myself to a half stance by pushing off with my solid fingers. That's the only time I thought my piano practice had paid off. She was hanging on the back of me and trying to force me to the ground again, but I knew she couldn't.

I got hold of her hands which were on both of my shoulders and held them tightly. Then I started spinning and spinning and spinning, her legs dragging the ground, until she begged me to quit. I stopped, let her hands loose, and looked at her and Jan victoriously.

"See if you jump on me again!" I laughed.

"Never!" Susan said, as she stumbled a little from vertigo.

"We're sorry," Jan said, running for the house. At least this time I hadn't done anything wrong. Mother probably wouldn't believe Susan had masterminded an attempted ambush anyway.

Her perfectly shaped hands, with their long fingers and flawless skin, were no match for mine, hardened by constant outside activity and piano practice.

"Let's don't fight anymore like that," I laughed. "Just words from now on."

"All right!" Susan said. She knew she had the advantage there, but I had been reading now for three years, and I planned to secretly start learning bigger words on the vocabulary front, like in a war. It would be a surprise tactic, for sure. Looking at me, listening to me, thinking about me--she would never believe I was capable of mounting a verbal counterattack.

So today we were all going to church, and on our best behavior. Even my dad was all dressed up. The revival preacher was coming home to eat lunch with us.

He had gone to Baylor University and was a seminary student at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth. Daddy said he needed to make some extra money, so that was why he was preaching this week at our church.

It being July and all, it was real, real hot. Revivals always took place the hottest week of the summer, a Baptist law. We had ceiling fans, but they were a weak match for all that hot air, kind of like Susan trying to push me around. Incapable of the task.

The local funeral home always provided paper fans with a picture of Jesus and the name of the funeral home on them. The fans were stapled onto a wooden tongue depressor like Dr. Logsdon used to look at our tonsils at his office.

Fanning helped the heat a little, but I didn't like thinking about dying all during the revival. Every time I fanned myself, I thought about dying, looking at that funeral home name.

Did they just sit down there at the funeral home and wait for somebody to die? If nobody died for a long time, would they have to get another job? Would they act happy when someone called them to come pick up a dead person because now they knew they didn't have to look for another job?

Each wave of the fan brought all kinds of confusing thoughts with it, so I just laid it down on the seat and tried to concentrate on the sermon. I tried to make eye contact every few minutes with Brother Lemmons, the young preacher, so he'd know I was really trying to understand what he said. We were right there on about the third row, so he had to notice me. I hoped maybe Brother Reames had mentioned me to him.

When we left church,we passed by both preachers, who always stood at the back door to shake hands.

"Good sermon, preacher," Mr. Person, the man in front of us in line, said.

Several other people in line in front of us said things to the preacher too. I noticed some people tried to go out other doors like they had a guilty conscience or something. I always wanted to go past Brother Reames and just touch his hand and say a quiet "hi."

Mother said "Brother Lemmons, we'll be looking forward to having you come for lunch."

"Yes ma'am," he said kindly, "I'll be right over there as soon as everyone leaves the church."

"Ok. Just come right on in. We'll be looking for you."

Daddy chimed in to say we were glad he was coming, and that Mother was a real good cook.

"Good, good," the young preacher commented distractedly, reaching for the hand of the next in line.

The satisfying aroma of roast, potatoes, carrots and onions pushed past us as we opened the back door. It wasn't ever locked. It was only a screened door anyway, so anyone could have pulled it open, even a young kid. Far as I knew, no one ever tried. We never locked any of our doors during the day, and if they locked anything at night, it would only be a small latch on the screened door, once in a while.

Our cousin Phil, who we counted as the seventh kid in our family since he liked to visit us, was an only child,and we loved him dearly, said that everything that Mother cooked on Sunday was done when church was over and that no matter how many people came to eat, there was always plenty. That was pretty much true.

Mother rushed into the kitchen and started cooking some green beans to go with the roast, and putting rolls into the oven. By the time Brother Lemmons came in the front door, we were almost ready to eat.

Since the dining room was now the bedroom for Susan, Jan, and I, the only place left to eat was in the small kitchen with its yellow formica table and eight matching leatherette chairs. Brother Lemmons sat on a chair between Mother and Daddy. We were in close quarters all the time for meals, but today, like on nights when John Henry ate with us, people could barely move except to lift their silverware. Elton's chair was empty though because he had married and moved to Corsicana, so Brother Lemmons filled in for him, except he was really quiet while Elton was like a spark plug,  firing constantly.

After Daddy gave thanks, we started passing the food around. It was weirdly quiet at the table. Everyone was saying "would you like some of this, Brother Lemmons" and "Oh, excuse me; here, I'll hold this so you can serve some onto your plate" and "that'll be fine; I'll hold this bowl till you're ready", and lots of "pleases and thank yous". Was this our family?

Jan sat oddly still in her chair, munching quietly on a carrot while Stephen held a bowl of vegetables as Susan dipped some onto her plate. Neila had her usual good manners. She would leave for Austin to complete college soon, and I didn't want to think about that. My parents smiled benignly at all of us, and I'm sure were silently thanking God that their children were on good behavior.

Everyone was served, and chewing seemed to be the loudest thing happening at the table. It seemed surreal, unnatural,too quiet. My parents were almost mute, odd, since my dad was normally a big talker, explaining things to us by drawing diagrams of cotton gin machinery on a napkin, like we could understand.

I thought of a good thing we could talk about, so I piped up.

"Brother Lemmons, do you like to go to the movies?" I asked.

"Yes, yes I do, if I can find one that is fit to go to."

"Well, what have you seen lately?" I asked, like I was a movie expert.

"Oh, let's see. I really liked the Ten Commandments. Did you see it?"

"Yes, I...."

I didn't have to carry that conversation. All the other kids butted right in, trying to talk at once, telling their reaction or their favorite part of that epic. The parting of the Red Sea, Moses receiving The Ten Commandments, The Passover, the plagues, the golden calf. It seemed like we could go on and on. The conviviality at the table seemed to grow by the second. My parents put in their ideas and seemed relieved that the conversation was going so well.

We'd about worn Moses out after ten minutes, and it looked like everyone was about through with the main meal and ready for dessert, chocolate pie with fluffy meringue.

The conversation lulled once again, and I felt responsible to come up with another subject to fill the void.

"Hey, Brother Lemmons, we saw a good movie about a preacher. Did you see it?" I asked him brightly.

"No, I don't believe I've seen any recently about any preachers," he said amiably. "What was the name of the movie?"

"Elmer Gan......", I started, but stopped, distracted, when simultaneously, Susan poked me hard in the ribs with her index finger,Neila coughed, Stephen dropped a heavy metal caseknife on the table, Daddy grabbed the young pastor by the elbow and Mother said, "Why don't we move to the living room for dessert?" Jan's eyes got big, and she held her fork in midair, seemingly as surprised by the sudden activity as I was.

Susan whispered, "You are going to be in trouble, bigmouth."

I guess she could see the question in my eyes.

"You aren't supposed to talk about that movie, Elmer Gantry. Remember?"

"Oh, I forgot," I said meekly.

The rest of the afternoon was uneventful. The young pastor went out with Daddy to look at the horse and pet Daddy's six hound dog puppies, those stinky, loving animals. They were like relatives with poor hygiene, poor manners, and lots of love. You just had to like them, even if you didn't really want to be around them much.

They'd jump up on you, so happy to see you, sloppily licking your face, scratching your arms and legs, coming back over and over, even if you pushed and shoved them. They'd shove back, like it was a game, jumping even harder against your chest, like they were so thrilled to be near you, all fighting to be closest, falling over one another, hopping up and down, almost standing upright on their long stringy legs.

Soon enough, it was time to return to evening church. Brother Lemmons seemed so sincere and kind. He would be here all week, and I was looking forward to going to church every night to see my friends, play, and maybe listen a little. I liked the singing a lot, so loud and hearty.

"Shall we gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river?" the congregation sang, pianist plunking away. I hadn't seen any beautiful rivers in Texas yet. The Trinity River near Dallas was a mix of moss and sludge. I hoped we didn't meet by that river.

As we left to go home, Brother Lemmons thanked my mother over and over, telling her he had really enjoyed himself and how good her food was. Then he patted Jan on the head and me on the shoulder and said he enjoyed being with us. He laughed a little when he patted me, but I didn't think much about his laughing. He just seemed like a real happy guy.

"Do you think I'm going to get in trouble?" I whispered to Susan in the backseat of the car on the quarter mile ride home.

"I think Daddy got him out in time," she whispered back. "Don't bring it up. You need to think before you say stuff. You don't have to fill every silence."

"Well, okay," I pouted in the dark. "I was just trying to be polite!"

"Sometimes it's more polite to say nothing."

The three of us tumbled out of the car and raced inside. We had to hurry in and watch Gunsmoke. Who knew what would happen with Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty? There was always some bad man trying to stir things up in Dodge City. Usually when it got real quiet at the card tables in The Longbranch Saloon, someone started shooting. When it got real quiet at our table, I just started shooting off my mouth.

"At least I didn't kill anyone," I whispered to myself quietly.

Installed

1950S SMALL TOWN LIFE: THE PERFECT FIT

Mother held Jan's hand and walked slowly behind her up the two steep concrete steps from the street to the walkway in front of Two County Shoe Store. Susan walked up real ladylike, and I jumped from the street to the first step with both feet, then took a modified frog position to make the second leap, landing squarely on the circle that surrounded the 2 in the shoe store's logo. Inlaid into the sidewalk, it was mostly made of bronze and looked expensive and classy. I felt proud that we bought our shoes here.

There were cars parked all along the street in front of the various stores. We'd had to circle the block once to find a place close to the store. People walked up and down the street, shopping. Mother handed some nickels and dimes to Susan and me and let us put them in the parking meter. The early April weather was pleasant, and the smell of dirt and magnolias was in the air.

Mother laughed about our grandmother coming and parking in downtown Corsicana on Saturdays, even though she didn't want to shop. Mother said Nettie would park and sit in her car for hours commenting on every person who went by, some remarks not very complimentary. "I think it makes her feel better about herself, I don't know." Mother had offered with a shrug and a laugh.

I liked coming here. The owner would always meet us at the front of the store, smiling, his teeth seeming to take up most of his face. He was short, seemed old to me, and just seemed tickled to death that we had come in.

"How can we help you today?" he effused.

Susan whispered that Mother might say, "How about taking some of these kids off my hands?", and we laughed.

He directed us toward the displays of shoes spread neatly about the store on glass tables. Boxes of shoes lined both of the sidewalls, lined up in neat rows in shelves from the floor almost to the ceiling. The store was spotless, mirrors for observing feet in new shoes, shining perfectly.

We didn't spend long looking before another man came and offered to help. He was named Gabby, and he had the most beautiful, thick black hair I had ever seen. I remembered him from previous trips because he was so gentlemanly and polite.

First, he sat on a low wooden box in front of each of us. Taking turns, we each put our bare foot on a piece of wood made onto the front of the box where he was seated. It had an uphill slope so our feet pointed toward his chest.

With our foot in place, he carefully measured it with a metal contraption with numbers on it. Uncomplaining, he helped us try on pair after pair of shoes until we found some we liked. Then he pushed on the toe of the shoe to see where our toes were located inside, looked at the fit at the back of our foot, and checked the instep. I had no idea what that was, but he seemed to think it was important, so I let him push on the top of my foot. "How does that feel on your foot?" he would ask. "Is that too tight? Stand up and walk on it a little bit. Now, how does it feel?"

"Fine," I would always say. "Fine."

On this day, he helped us with two pairs of shoes each, six pairs in all. One pair for Sunday and dressup and one pair of tennis shoes for school. After we had settled on the shoes, had them fitted, and been asked the final question by Mother about the fit, she walked to the counter at the front of the store, near the huge glass windows of the outside display cases, and paid for them.

"Ok, we're all set," she said, motioning us toward the glass door at the front. Then she remembered the gumball machine, standing like an exit guard near the front door, and she dug in her purse for some pennies.

We waited, looking up at her like puppies waiting for bones. Coins in hand, we rushed over to put them in, then all tried to grab our favorite color of gum as they rolled into the small opening: green, yellow, red, orange, blue. We started talking a little loud trying to get our favorite color until Mother had to "shhh" us and quickly ushered us through the door and into the car.

"Where are we going now?" Susan asked.

"I'm going to stop by the hospital and try to see Millie and J.C. You know Jake has been real sick. They think he's going to be okay though."

"Why Jake sick?" Jan asked, chewing her gum, her teeth turning blue from the dye. "What wrong with Jake?"

"He has polio," Mother said sadly.

I remembered that when Jake first got sick, it was talked about in hushed tones. And we weren't included. I asked Neila, though, and she said polio was real bad for little kids and all the people were afraid their kids would get it. But it turned out Jake was the only one in Purdon that got it, and he was doing a lot better. Neila said the shot a doctor invented to keep kids from getting it would probably keep a lot of kids from getting sick in the future, but the shot had just become available to people like us in the rural areas, she said, and we hadn't gotten it yet in Purdon.

"Can I wear my Sunday shoes?" I asked.

"Well, I want you girls to stay in the waiting area, but you can wear them if you like."

I dug into the tissue paper, grabbed the shoes, and shoved my feet into the white patent leather, buckling the strap with the tiny clasp on the side. Just then, we arrived at the hospital, so we all tramped up the long set of stairs that led from the parking lot to the entrance at Memorial Hospital. A duck with her ducklings.

Inside, Mother showed us some green plastic couches to the left in a small waiting area, told us to behave, that she would be back shortly, and left us there.

"My shoes hurt," I said, putting my feet on a wooden table in the waiting area.

"Get your feet off the table!" Susan reprimanded me. "What do you mean your feet hurt? Those shoes are brand new. They were fitted to your foot!"

"Yeah, I know. But they hurt a little in the store. I didn't want to hurt Gabby's feelings, so I just said they felt okay, but they're a little tight."

"Well, you just have to wear them. You need to speak up when you're asked. You'll just have to wear them," she said somewhat harshly, I thought. She looked perturbed and let out a loud puff of air, popping her lips and crossing her arms on her chest.

Then she turned totally away from me and immersed herself in her fourth grade math homework, which for some inexplicable reason she had brought with her. Nobody else I knew did homework on Saturday. Well, she did have one friend, Andrea, who might have, but that was absolutely all. It was embarrassing.

And her reaction is the reason I limped around for three months in an uncomfortable pair of shoes, and why I begged Mother to let me wear tennis shoes to church, which I knew she wouldn't.

"Why are you limping like that?" Elton asked as we walked up the never- ending concrete steps at the front of our church one Sunday a few months later. It was late June now and we were sweating and anxious to get inside where it was cooler, though only by a few degrees.

"My feet hurt," I said quietly. I didn't want anyone to hear, especially Mother.

"Well, didn't you just get some new shoes a few months ago?"

"Yes," I told him dejectedly.

"Then why are they hurting?" I thought for a minute I detected genuine concern. I could never be sure because he teased me a lot, but this seemed real. He was getting nicer and nicer the more he was around Deanna. Stephen said they were in love.

"Susan said I didn't speak up for myself and I just had to wear them. They never did fit."

"Oh," he said. "Well, try to walk right, or everyone in town will notice. Let's go inside."

The brightly lit auditorium was filled, people talking and laughing quietly, and I hopped up on an oak pew. My feet stuck straight out since my legs were too short to reach the floor. My shoes glared angrily back at me, pinching my feet to torture me.

I bent my leg and started studying the soles. The heels were worn in the oddest fashion. The right side of my right heel was worn down a good half inch, while the other part of the heel and the left shoe were not worn at all.

"I'm lopsided," I thought. The picture I'd seen at school of the leaning tower of pizza in that country where they made a lot of pizza came to mind. It leaned like that. "Is that how I look when I walk?" I thought, horrified.

I pictured myself walking down the street in front of the leaning tower,moving steadfastly toward it, my body listing to one side, right foot dragging, right side of the heel digging away at the asphalt. Tiny pieces of shoe sole flew out behind and landed in the street. Birds dove down and tried to eat them, but dropped them as they soared back upward, spitting out the dry leather. And still I limped on, stoic and uncomplaining.

"Could you hand me a hymnal, honey?" Mrs. Beamon tapped me on the knee.

Her navy blue suit made her skin look so pale ghosts would pity her color. She had big rouge spots that covered most of each cheek. Red lipstick juxtaposed against her yellow teeth was distinctly unappealing, and her breath smelled like some sweet tasting mouthwash I had once used that was blue.

But she was so sweet. She always hugged everybody, never seemed to be in a bad mood like some people at our house, and generally tried to improve life wherever she was. Sometimes she wore a navy blue hat with a plastic flower on it. It looked better than I can describe it, but today was not a hat day. She was like most of the women. She wore a hat when she felt like it and on Easter. Most of the men wore hats to church every Sunday though.

I had to stand up and walk a few steps to get the heavy book, which I handed to her. She started thumbing through the pages just as Mr. Simmons, the song leader, stood up to welcome everyone and tell us to turn to page 456. Mother slid into the pew just as everyone stood to sing "When the Roll is Called up Yonder", late like she was to everything. When they called roll at school, you had to be in your seat or you'd get in trouble.

Jan was in the nursery, and I guess the other kids were sitting with their friends. Elton had totally disappeared.

The ceiling fans and open windows had spread the heat out some, so if you didn't move much, you might not sweat. Mrs. Beamon was taking up a pretty good part of her section of the pew, so I was between her and Mother who sat at the outside seat, near the aisle. Mrs. Beamon must've been hot because she got a white cotton handkerchief out of her purse and waved it discreetly back and forth in front of her face.

No matter if I didn't listen to anyone else, I would listen to my beloved Brother Reames. Even if I didn't understand him, I listened and watched him. You could tell he liked all the people in the church and especially the little kids. He was just six or seven years older than Elton, who'd just turned 18 in May.

He'd tease us at the door as we left church, and sometimes they had parties for us at their house, where we played "Pinchy Winchy, Don't You Laugh" and somebody ended up with their face covered with lipstick. Only they didn't know unless they had a friend who would tell them what everybody was laughing about. We thought Hollywood had come to Purdon when we looked at him and his beautiful raven-haired wife with her dark red lipstick.

I was embarrassed when Mother gently shook my shoulder and told me it was time to go home. I had let Brother Reames down. "Did Brother Reames see that I went to sleep?" I almost pleaded.

Mother thought a second, then said, "No,no, my arm was mostly in front of you." I let out a loud sigh and a relieved "Good".

We walked to the back of the church which actually seemed like the front to me because everyone entered there from the grass parking area or the gravel road in front of the church. But it was the back door really, and Brother Reames hugged me and told me he'd see me at services tonight. His wife Jane gave me a little wave. I wished I could look like her when I grew up, but so far my brothers said I had dishwater blonde hair, nothing even close to the color of the raven hair of Jane.

Mother and I started down the unending steps to the grassy front area.

"Why are you limping?" she asked, seeming somewhat startled.

I didn't want to tell her the whole truth, so I just said, "My heel's rubbed off on part of my shoe. I'm lopsided."

Once we got in the car, she took the shoe off my foot, looked at it and said "Well, we'll have to take this to the repair shop and get a new heel."

I'm walking further toward the leaning tower. I am still stoic and uncomplaining, but now the sole of the other shoe is shredding in the street. I list to the right and now to the left. People on the edges of the foreign street are laughing at me, pointing to my shoes. I look at them, but for some reason I cannot say what I need. One finally yells, "The shoes are too tight. The shame of Italy. Look, she needs new shoes!"

Elton's exclamation of "Look, she needs new shoes!" and Susan's quiet affirmation caused my shoulders to relax. Mother looked over at me with a question in her eyes. I stared at the floorboard.

"Can I wear my thong sandals to church? Everyone is wearing them this summer."

"Your feet are growing fast. We'll get you some new shoes this week."

"Yeah, her limping is beginning to be embarrassing" came from the backseat, and peals of laughter followed it.

"Can we get gum at th' shoe store?" Jan asked. I hated to think about looking at her blue teeth again so soon, but it was worth it to have limp-free Sundays.
Installed