From Santa, we usually got one main toy for Christmas and then some smaller things from our parents. Our paternal grandmother was on a limited budget, and it never occurred to us that she should give any of us a present, and she didn't. Our mother's parents usually gave her money to buy us slips or pajamas which she wrapped and put under the tree in Ennis.
Our usual Christmas day routine was that after opening presents at our own house and having a huge breakfast, we loaded in some disorderly fashion into two cars. Elton Jr. was married by this time, and he and Deanna probably came out for gift opening and then went to Ennis with us, though I don't remember altogether. Neila was attending junior college, but she could drive, so after present opening, we piled into the cars for the trip to Ennis to our maternal grandparents' house, a forty mile trip.
Neila drove, and Jan, Susan, and I rode with her. Mother, Daddy, and Stephen went ahead of us so Mother could help with cooking the enormous Christmas dinner we would have there.
We pulled up at Nettie's house; she was already standing outside waiting for us, dressed up and wearing her squirrel fur coat. She had on high heels, which was a great change for her; she usually wore Daniel Green houseshoes all the time, everywhere, even in the pasture.
That coat represented something to her, Neila said, but none of us could figure out what exactly. Maybe a period of family prosperity, a bright sparkler long since fizzled out.
You could tell she thought she looked swell in it, the long lines of the coat dwarfing her. At five feet tall, and weighing a little over 200 pounds, she looked like a fur-wrapped mini-bale of cotton, one with legs and a topknot of blonde curly hair.
It wasn't even cold, not really. Sometimes Christmas day in Texas really disappointed on the weather front. Sometimes it was hot, and people sweated If we had snow, it was considered miraculous.
Neila swung the car over to the curb and Nettie pulled open the passenger side door and maneuvered her rheumatoid-prone body into the seat.
"Merry Christmas," she said pleasantly.
"Merry Christmas," we all chimed, smiling at her.
"You look nice," Neila said, meaning it, even if we would laugh about the coat before and after being with her.
"Thank you," Nettie said, her red lips turning up, her mouth forming a U.
We were playing in the backseat with the toys we got. Jan had gotten a beautiful ballerina doll with brown curly hair and blue eyes. She had fourteen movable joints and several beautiful outfits for dancing. Jan had positioned the doll into plie and first position as she had learned at Mrs. Jewel's Dance Studio.
This year I hadn't wanted a doll. I had asked for a robot. It was a popular toy, and I liked the funny way it moved and made little robot noises. It had a control, and something like a metal leash, which was very short, so I had to follow it closely as it moved about. I know I begged for it, but it wasn't long before I tired of it. It required a lot of supervision, and I just got tired of going everywhere it wanted to go.
After spending the day at our grandparents, my patience exhausted, I actually no longer wanted to play with the robot. Jan's doll appealed to me, so I had to figure out a way to get her to let me play with it.
"Hey, this robot is so fun!" I said to her in the late afternoon. "He can turn corners, and he'll go wherever you want him to." I didn't add "if you hold on to his leash". She looked over, interested. She'd never had a robot, but we'd both had lots of dolls.
"Okay," she said hesitantly, placing her doll on the divan in the living room. I left the robot and walked immediately toward the doll, trying not to draw her attention.
"How long can I play with him?" she asked goodnaturedly.
"Oh, as long as you want," I said, picking up the ballerina doll.
"Are you gonna play with my doll?" she asked, seeming surprised at the exchange.
"Yes," I said simply, hoping she wouldn't realize that I had tricked her.
"Okay," she turned, activating the now idiotic looking robot and following him on the leash. He walked her for an hour or more, all over the house, the big L-shaped front porch, and past Granny Newlin, who never looked at him or Jan even though they walked between her and the television where she was watching Lassie fifteen or twenty times.
It was time to go home, and I still wanted to play with the doll. I made her dance in her tiny ballet shoes, bending her ankles, moving her legs up and down by bending them at the hips, making her legs a 90 degree angle by manipulating the knee joints. Her hands moved up above her head as they pivoted in the shoulder joints, and her elbows made the slightest bend in order to form perfect circles for her ballet positions. And she could bend at the waist to perform her perfect bows, thanking everyone for the applause.
The robot was still walking Jan when we got ready to leave, but once we got in the darkened car to leave, she wanted her doll back. I tried to bully my way into keeping her ballerina, but I realized that if our argument got any louder, someone would intervene, and it was her doll.
"Okay," I said grudgingly. "Just let me do one more dance with her," and as I said this, I made her stand on her tippy toes, then moved her so that she was tippy toeing on one leg only, and as I did so, I bent her foot back just a little too far and heard a sickening snap."
"What did you do?" Jan said angrily.
"I think her foot broke off." I said, hardly able to believe it.
"Oh no, we can't fix it!" she said louder.
Neila heard the commotion and after ascertaining the problem, said, "Well, we'll just glue her foot back on, and she will have thirteen movable parts and one unmovable part, okay?"
For some reason, Nettie chimed in, "She'll be okay. Some of my joints don't work right either, and I do all right. Well, I can't do ballet, but I do all right otherwise."
I sat quietly, feeling bad about what I'd done, but hoping Jan would not keep on about it. Our parents would probably be irritated at me for breaking her toy.
Jan was quiet for a few minutes, then for some reason-----maybe because it was Christmas------she said, "Okay, will you glue it for me, Neila?"
I breathed deeply, settled into the crack of the backseat and vowed to be nicer to her for a few days. She deserved at least that.
Installed
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: RACING FOR THE BAPTISTRY
July was always revival month for our church. That month, we worked every day on the house at Corbet, then rushed home to get ready for church during the one week revival. I started listening to the preacher about the second or third night, and for some reason though I had heard "preaching" all my life, it started to make sense. And I could feel a tug in my heart I'd never felt before.
On Wednesday, I found a few quiet moments in the midst of the hammering, board slamming, and sawing to talk with my mother.
"I'm ready to ask Jesus into my heart," I told her. "And I want to go down front tonight."
I wasn't really asking her approval, because I had already made up my mind, but I was glad when she squeezed me and said she was happy for my decision.
That night, when the congregation sang "Just As I Am", I walked forward, making public a decision I had reached in my own heart-to become a Christian. Brother Reames met me at the front with a big hug, and after some questions, he suggested I be baptized on Saturday, later that week.
That summer Saturday was a workday like every other day. We were on a tight timetable to get moved into the house before school started September 1st.
"Hey, I'm supposed to be baptized tonight," I reminded my parents about 4 o'clock. "Church starts at 6:30 tonight."
"We know, honey. We'll be there on time," my mother assured me. It wasn't much assurance coming from her because she was lateeverywhere.
I found my dad, pounding on a 2x4, framing the floor in the new living room.
"Don't forget I'm being baptized tonight," I reminded him.
He looked up and grinned. "I know," he said. "You know your mother and I were baptized out there in that tank after we married." He pointed toward the mossy green pond outside, always referred to in Texas as a tank. "That water never did clear up like it should have," he laughed, bringing chuckles from the other men working on the construction.
I didn't understand the joke, but I thought he would see that we got to church on time. He was usually punctual.
By 5 p.m., I was getting anxious, and I ran to the living room door, and balancing on the joists, walked across to the place my dad was working. He looked up and saw me, raised his arm to look at his watch, and said, "Let's call it a day, boys."
Mother, Daddy, and Haskell, one of the gin hands, loaded up in the front of the turquoise blue Chevy pickup. Phil, Stephen, Susan, Jan, me, and Greenie, one of the men helping us, hopped into the back of the truck. Daddy drove fast but expertly through the narrow blackdirt backroads from Corbet to Purdon. It took about a half hour so it was nearing 5:45 when we arrived.
Then, we had to take Haskell and Greenie home, so we stopped by each of their houses, letting them off, waving goodbye, and promising to see them early Monday.
Greenie's house was on the west side of town and ours was on the east, so as we whizzed from his house to ours, we passed the church where people were already gathering for the night service. Several of the kids we played with at church were there, and looked up with puzzled faces as we waved and yelled "hey!".
I heard Randy's yell that got softer as we sped away, "Heeeeeeey, aren't you going to be baptized tonight?"
Phil and Stephen stood upright, facing forward holding onto the cab, while Susan, Jan, and I held tightly to the sides, the truck racing down the road, spewing gravel and kicking up a dust trail that left the kids at the church coughing.
As soon as the truck stopped, everyone bailed out and ran for the house. Susan, Jan, and I ran to find clothes to wear to church, while Mother rushed into the bathroom and retrieved washcloths and towels. She ran a pan of warm water in the kitchen while one of the boys hopped into the bathroom for a superspeed bath.
We all started working on our faces, arms and legs, which were covered with sheetrock dust. Mother rushed in for a bath after Phil exited, and we girls just put our clothes on over any grit that was left. I was going to be baptized, so I wasn't too worried about any dirt that I missed; it would be washed off anyway.
When Mother was dressed, she gave us a sniff test, approved, and we zipped out the door, loaded in the car and sped to the church. Daddy had entered the bathroom, and he would come and bring the boys in a little while, after the first several songs were sung. He was punctual normally, but he was also fastidious and wouldn't have thought of just washing off like we did. Our cleanup was unusual, true, but dire circumstances dictated emergency measures.
We ran up the stairs, Mother leading the way, breezed into the church all the way down the aisle to the second row, and after causing five people to move about six feet to the left, we were all able to sit down.
Brother Reames, sitting up front on the platform, wore a bemused expression, and watching us as we hurried in, he hunched slightly forward like he wanted to laugh, but couldn't. Coincidentally, the minute we sat down, Mr. Smithen, the music leader, stood up and asked everyone to do the same. On the fourth verse of When the Roll is Called Up Yonder (we almost never sang the third verse of any song, which bothered me) my dad eased in to the pew, causing another shift to the left.
After a short sermon, I moved to the back of the church and got ready for the baptism. Jackie King was being baptized that night, too. I felt happy to show people the decision I had made.
After church, one of our neighbors invited the whole family over
to celebrate by eating watermelon . It made the night even more memorable, eating the cold pink melon, its sweet flavor seeping across my tongue, while I swatted at an occasional mosquito.
"Why did the Hubbards want to celebrate my baptism?" I asked Mother as we walked home from their house.
"Why shouldn't they?" she said.
"Well, they don't go to church, so I just thought they wouldn't care that I was baptized."
She hesitated a moment. "They're good people, hard working, and they treat people right. We can't know what's in a person's heart. That's between them and God. They were happy about your decision. That's all I know."
My heart felt warm and calm that night. It was a new feeling, and it would stay with me and often crowd out the anxiety that seemed so determined to be my constant companion. I was a child, but I knew I had made a really grown-up decision that day.
Installed
On Wednesday, I found a few quiet moments in the midst of the hammering, board slamming, and sawing to talk with my mother.
"I'm ready to ask Jesus into my heart," I told her. "And I want to go down front tonight."
I wasn't really asking her approval, because I had already made up my mind, but I was glad when she squeezed me and said she was happy for my decision.
That night, when the congregation sang "Just As I Am", I walked forward, making public a decision I had reached in my own heart-to become a Christian. Brother Reames met me at the front with a big hug, and after some questions, he suggested I be baptized on Saturday, later that week.
That summer Saturday was a workday like every other day. We were on a tight timetable to get moved into the house before school started September 1st.
"Hey, I'm supposed to be baptized tonight," I reminded my parents about 4 o'clock. "Church starts at 6:30 tonight."
"We know, honey. We'll be there on time," my mother assured me. It wasn't much assurance coming from her because she was lateeverywhere.
I found my dad, pounding on a 2x4, framing the floor in the new living room.
"Don't forget I'm being baptized tonight," I reminded him.
He looked up and grinned. "I know," he said. "You know your mother and I were baptized out there in that tank after we married." He pointed toward the mossy green pond outside, always referred to in Texas as a tank. "That water never did clear up like it should have," he laughed, bringing chuckles from the other men working on the construction.
I didn't understand the joke, but I thought he would see that we got to church on time. He was usually punctual.
By 5 p.m., I was getting anxious, and I ran to the living room door, and balancing on the joists, walked across to the place my dad was working. He looked up and saw me, raised his arm to look at his watch, and said, "Let's call it a day, boys."
Mother, Daddy, and Haskell, one of the gin hands, loaded up in the front of the turquoise blue Chevy pickup. Phil, Stephen, Susan, Jan, me, and Greenie, one of the men helping us, hopped into the back of the truck. Daddy drove fast but expertly through the narrow blackdirt backroads from Corbet to Purdon. It took about a half hour so it was nearing 5:45 when we arrived.
Then, we had to take Haskell and Greenie home, so we stopped by each of their houses, letting them off, waving goodbye, and promising to see them early Monday.
Greenie's house was on the west side of town and ours was on the east, so as we whizzed from his house to ours, we passed the church where people were already gathering for the night service. Several of the kids we played with at church were there, and looked up with puzzled faces as we waved and yelled "hey!".
I heard Randy's yell that got softer as we sped away, "Heeeeeeey, aren't you going to be baptized tonight?"
Phil and Stephen stood upright, facing forward holding onto the cab, while Susan, Jan, and I held tightly to the sides, the truck racing down the road, spewing gravel and kicking up a dust trail that left the kids at the church coughing.
As soon as the truck stopped, everyone bailed out and ran for the house. Susan, Jan, and I ran to find clothes to wear to church, while Mother rushed into the bathroom and retrieved washcloths and towels. She ran a pan of warm water in the kitchen while one of the boys hopped into the bathroom for a superspeed bath.
We all started working on our faces, arms and legs, which were covered with sheetrock dust. Mother rushed in for a bath after Phil exited, and we girls just put our clothes on over any grit that was left. I was going to be baptized, so I wasn't too worried about any dirt that I missed; it would be washed off anyway.
When Mother was dressed, she gave us a sniff test, approved, and we zipped out the door, loaded in the car and sped to the church. Daddy had entered the bathroom, and he would come and bring the boys in a little while, after the first several songs were sung. He was punctual normally, but he was also fastidious and wouldn't have thought of just washing off like we did. Our cleanup was unusual, true, but dire circumstances dictated emergency measures.
We ran up the stairs, Mother leading the way, breezed into the church all the way down the aisle to the second row, and after causing five people to move about six feet to the left, we were all able to sit down.
Brother Reames, sitting up front on the platform, wore a bemused expression, and watching us as we hurried in, he hunched slightly forward like he wanted to laugh, but couldn't. Coincidentally, the minute we sat down, Mr. Smithen, the music leader, stood up and asked everyone to do the same. On the fourth verse of When the Roll is Called Up Yonder (we almost never sang the third verse of any song, which bothered me) my dad eased in to the pew, causing another shift to the left.
After a short sermon, I moved to the back of the church and got ready for the baptism. Jackie King was being baptized that night, too. I felt happy to show people the decision I had made.
After church, one of our neighbors invited the whole family over
to celebrate by eating watermelon . It made the night even more memorable, eating the cold pink melon, its sweet flavor seeping across my tongue, while I swatted at an occasional mosquito.
"Why did the Hubbards want to celebrate my baptism?" I asked Mother as we walked home from their house.
"Why shouldn't they?" she said.
"Well, they don't go to church, so I just thought they wouldn't care that I was baptized."
She hesitated a moment. "They're good people, hard working, and they treat people right. We can't know what's in a person's heart. That's between them and God. They were happy about your decision. That's all I know."
My heart felt warm and calm that night. It was a new feeling, and it would stay with me and often crowd out the anxiety that seemed so determined to be my constant companion. I was a child, but I knew I had made a really grown-up decision that day.
Installed
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: TAPIN' AND BEDDIN'
We were fairly used to the summer heat, since the only air conditioning in our house at Purdon was in my parents' bedroom, and it was only turned on at night. But the heat in the house at Corbet that we constructed and finished out that summer was oppressive at times. Some weak fans blew air toward us while we worked, but seemed to only stir the hot air a bit, occasionally blowing halfhearted puffs in our direction.
In the early years of my life, we owned a small cabin on Lake Whitney, and we used to go there and ride in the boat, swim, fish, and Mother rode the surfboard behind the boat. Lots of friends drove up to barbecue and play 42.
But they sold the cabin a year or so before, so we didn't go there anymore, and family vacations were not a part of our life, unless you count the summer we lived in Calexico as a vacation.
This summer meant daily work on the house, with almost no time to do things like swimming or just playing in the yard.
Our cousin Phil was either a saint or incredibly bored because he came down to visit my grandmother and worked on the house with us every single day. He didn't have any siblings, so he liked being with our loud family. He was actually my dad's first cousin, but we claimed him as ours because he was almost exactly my brother's age and because he made us laugh all the time.
He could drive, so at lunch, he, Susan, and I, sometimes Jan, made the one mile trip to the small grocery store run by Mr. Bittner's son Robert Earl. At least when we moved, something would still be familiar; the store where we bought groceries would have the same name.
We bought bread, mayonnaise, freshly sliced bologna and cheese which Robert Earl wrapped up in clean white butcher paper, and some kind of chips, usually barbecue potato chips, just to round out the meal. "Charge it, please" one of us would say as we pushed open the heavy screened doors on our way out.
We "taped and bedded" and painted our way through June, July and August, eating pretty much the same thing every day and washing it down with Coca Cola, Orange Nehi Soda, Grapette, or icewater. Dessert was Three Musketeers, Snickers, or Zeros, depending on your preference and how fast you grabbed one.
We were taping and bedding the den one day when Phil was helping us. None of us knew how to do it, but Daddy showed us, and while he worked on the harder parts, we filled in all the nail holes and moved a scraper across the "mud" to smooth it.
It was getting close to lunchtime; a hot breeze blew through the open windows swirling dust and small scraps of tape around, and I was sitting on the bottom rung of a small stepladder, looking back at the thousands of holes I had filled that morning.
"I'm hot!" I complained loudly. "And I'm tired of filling these holes. We're never gonna get through with this!"
Susan had filled fifteen or twenty holes, then quietly moved into another room where she continued reading The Catcher in the Rye. I tried to emulate her reading taste and hoped some of her intellect would rub off. I had peeked inside the book, but realized it was not something I could understand right now. I put it on my mental "to read" list.
She wasn't physically as strong as I was, so really the expectation for her to work hard wasn't there. Even I didn't expect her to do as much. Jan was doing a few holes on the bottom part of the wall, but she would skip off and examine bugs or stomp spiders that were always crawling in through the windows.
Stephen and Phil had worked hard on the ceiling. That was the hardest part because they had to keep their necks strained and heads back, looking up.
Mother was, of course, having to help Daddy place the bedding tape. He could never do anything by himself, and if she was available, she was his choice for assistant.
Mother called out, "We only lack a little more. Keep going. We'll be finished before you know it."
Daddy looked over at me, grinned, and promised to buy me a bag of peppermint I didn't have to share with anyone if I'd keep on till lunch. Reluctantly, I picked up my scraper and halfheartedly worked on a few holes.
The peppermint was so good, it did provide an incentive. It was shiny red and white, and melted slowly, the perfect candy, sold only at Bittner's grocery. No other peppermint could rival it, and it could only be found at our little country store.
Twenty slow holes later, Daddy called time. I ran to the pickup and jumped in so I could go to the store with Phil and get my peppermints. Daddy told Phil to buy two bags, one for me and one for everyone else.
"What are you in such a snit about?" Phil asked as we drove down the gravel road toward the store.
"I feel like an indentured servant, and I wonder how long peppermint candy will be enough bribe to keep me from rebelling," I huffed, the beginnings of a martyr complex playing in my head.
Phil shook his head and laughed quietly to himself. We got the food for lunch and took it back; everyone had stopped for a lunch break. After we ate, everyone else shared a bag of peppermints, and I placed mine strategically by the ladder where I sat to work. It kept me from going on strike all afternoon.
Neila had arrived after summer school classes, and she and Phil wired the light in the den, a feat she had learned through 4-H Club demonstrations, and which my dad declared "perfect", a compliment he rarely bestowed. The two of them kept the banter light till we demanded work stoppage about 5 p.m..
We were working in the oldest structure, the one that had been the caretaker's house, in what would become our den. The other house had been brought on site today with some minor hysteria over bringing it across the creek. I didn't go watch that event, figuring my dad would be jumping up and down and saying bad words while my mother tried to calm him and chastised him for cursing.
Eventually, we saw the truck moving slowly up the gravel road with a house atop its flatbed. I hoped they were careful. Our bedrooms were in there!
They set the house down carefully, blocked it up on hadite blocks and left. My dad and his men would nail boards to seal the base portion later. Now, they had to build the two connecting rooms between the houses.
"I've almost finished my bag of peppermint," I hinted when the house was completely unloaded. "Can I have one by myself again on Monday?"
"I imagine," they laughed, exchanging a look I couldn't decipher.
Sometimes I wished I were an only child, just for a day or two to see what it was like. Daddy hated being one, or so Mother said, but I bet he never had to share his peppermints.
InstalledInstalled
In the early years of my life, we owned a small cabin on Lake Whitney, and we used to go there and ride in the boat, swim, fish, and Mother rode the surfboard behind the boat. Lots of friends drove up to barbecue and play 42.
But they sold the cabin a year or so before, so we didn't go there anymore, and family vacations were not a part of our life, unless you count the summer we lived in Calexico as a vacation.
This summer meant daily work on the house, with almost no time to do things like swimming or just playing in the yard.
Our cousin Phil was either a saint or incredibly bored because he came down to visit my grandmother and worked on the house with us every single day. He didn't have any siblings, so he liked being with our loud family. He was actually my dad's first cousin, but we claimed him as ours because he was almost exactly my brother's age and because he made us laugh all the time.
He could drive, so at lunch, he, Susan, and I, sometimes Jan, made the one mile trip to the small grocery store run by Mr. Bittner's son Robert Earl. At least when we moved, something would still be familiar; the store where we bought groceries would have the same name.
We bought bread, mayonnaise, freshly sliced bologna and cheese which Robert Earl wrapped up in clean white butcher paper, and some kind of chips, usually barbecue potato chips, just to round out the meal. "Charge it, please" one of us would say as we pushed open the heavy screened doors on our way out.
We "taped and bedded" and painted our way through June, July and August, eating pretty much the same thing every day and washing it down with Coca Cola, Orange Nehi Soda, Grapette, or icewater. Dessert was Three Musketeers, Snickers, or Zeros, depending on your preference and how fast you grabbed one.
We were taping and bedding the den one day when Phil was helping us. None of us knew how to do it, but Daddy showed us, and while he worked on the harder parts, we filled in all the nail holes and moved a scraper across the "mud" to smooth it.
It was getting close to lunchtime; a hot breeze blew through the open windows swirling dust and small scraps of tape around, and I was sitting on the bottom rung of a small stepladder, looking back at the thousands of holes I had filled that morning.
"I'm hot!" I complained loudly. "And I'm tired of filling these holes. We're never gonna get through with this!"
Susan had filled fifteen or twenty holes, then quietly moved into another room where she continued reading The Catcher in the Rye. I tried to emulate her reading taste and hoped some of her intellect would rub off. I had peeked inside the book, but realized it was not something I could understand right now. I put it on my mental "to read" list.
She wasn't physically as strong as I was, so really the expectation for her to work hard wasn't there. Even I didn't expect her to do as much. Jan was doing a few holes on the bottom part of the wall, but she would skip off and examine bugs or stomp spiders that were always crawling in through the windows.
Stephen and Phil had worked hard on the ceiling. That was the hardest part because they had to keep their necks strained and heads back, looking up.
Mother was, of course, having to help Daddy place the bedding tape. He could never do anything by himself, and if she was available, she was his choice for assistant.
Mother called out, "We only lack a little more. Keep going. We'll be finished before you know it."
Daddy looked over at me, grinned, and promised to buy me a bag of peppermint I didn't have to share with anyone if I'd keep on till lunch. Reluctantly, I picked up my scraper and halfheartedly worked on a few holes.
The peppermint was so good, it did provide an incentive. It was shiny red and white, and melted slowly, the perfect candy, sold only at Bittner's grocery. No other peppermint could rival it, and it could only be found at our little country store.
Twenty slow holes later, Daddy called time. I ran to the pickup and jumped in so I could go to the store with Phil and get my peppermints. Daddy told Phil to buy two bags, one for me and one for everyone else.
"What are you in such a snit about?" Phil asked as we drove down the gravel road toward the store.
"I feel like an indentured servant, and I wonder how long peppermint candy will be enough bribe to keep me from rebelling," I huffed, the beginnings of a martyr complex playing in my head.
Phil shook his head and laughed quietly to himself. We got the food for lunch and took it back; everyone had stopped for a lunch break. After we ate, everyone else shared a bag of peppermints, and I placed mine strategically by the ladder where I sat to work. It kept me from going on strike all afternoon.
Neila had arrived after summer school classes, and she and Phil wired the light in the den, a feat she had learned through 4-H Club demonstrations, and which my dad declared "perfect", a compliment he rarely bestowed. The two of them kept the banter light till we demanded work stoppage about 5 p.m..
We were working in the oldest structure, the one that had been the caretaker's house, in what would become our den. The other house had been brought on site today with some minor hysteria over bringing it across the creek. I didn't go watch that event, figuring my dad would be jumping up and down and saying bad words while my mother tried to calm him and chastised him for cursing.
Eventually, we saw the truck moving slowly up the gravel road with a house atop its flatbed. I hoped they were careful. Our bedrooms were in there!
They set the house down carefully, blocked it up on hadite blocks and left. My dad and his men would nail boards to seal the base portion later. Now, they had to build the two connecting rooms between the houses.
"I've almost finished my bag of peppermint," I hinted when the house was completely unloaded. "Can I have one by myself again on Monday?"
"I imagine," they laughed, exchanging a look I couldn't decipher.
Sometimes I wished I were an only child, just for a day or two to see what it was like. Daddy hated being one, or so Mother said, but I bet he never had to share his peppermints.
InstalledInstalled
Saturday, May 15, 2010
1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE:SCHOOL'S OUT--PERMANENTLY
I could never have predicted the cataclysmic changes that would impact our town and our family in the next few years,or how they would change life forever, often in ways I didn't like.
I would have been content if the eight of us lived happily ever after like all the fairy tales suggested you should. Other people could come in to laugh and visit, then leave after a reasonable amount of time. I'd like to limit John Henry's visits, but that didn't seem possible. The weather was the only thing that helped in that regard, so I prayed for rain sometimes.
The talk started at school just before Christmas break, some kids saying the school was going to close. Most of the time I wouldn't have believed them, but it was the way they said it, just sadly like they were thinking about it out loud, trying to understand.
One of them was Jimmy Addison whose father was the superintendent. He said he wasn't supposed to tell - at least the first time he talked about it. By the second time he mentioned it at recess, there were three or four other kids who seemed to know a lot about the subject.
"We're going to Dawson," Brenda Hall said.
"Who is?" I asked.
"All of us," she said self-importantly.
"Me too?" I asked.
"Yeah, all of us."
That afternoon, I asked Mother if we were all going to Dawson to school next year. She hesitated.
"What have you heard?" she asked, not waiting for an answer. "There's talk of the school closing, but let's not think about it right now. Christmas is just around the corner," she said, smiling sincerely.
New Year's Eve 1959 was celebrated as usual by the whole clan, with several other families invited over to play "Spoons" and 42 and munch their way into the new year. "Spoons" provided the requisite noise: squeals, yells about cheating, metal spoons clattering, and dull thumps, when someone goodnaturedly slugged another person in the back with a hand or fist.
The twenty-five people inside stayed revved up till midnight when everyone sang Auld Lang Syne sadly, screamed "Happy New Year", and ran outside to set off fireworks, Roman candles, sparklers, and bottle rockets in a flurry of activity and noise that would unnerve a seasoned Marine under fire.
Roman candles shot up into the velvet night, colored orbs streaking into the inky sky, dissolving among the stars to the "oohs" and "ahs" of children watching the spectacle, shadows playing on the light reflected on their upturned faces. Jan and some of the smaller kids held sparklers, mesmerized by the flecks of light spitting out in every direction from the sharp iron rods grasped rigidly in their tiny hands.
I was allowed to hold a Roman candle, but it scared me, so I usually ended up handing it off to Susan, who already had one of her own. She looked like Annie Oakley holding her two six shooters as the tiny explosions worked their way out the end of the hollow cylinders, streaming toward the stars.
The older boys and some of the girls lit strings of firecrackers and tossed them away quickly before they exploded, inciting childish screams. Meanwhile my brother set up glass coke bottles, put bottle rockets inside, and watched them shoot into the sky, their pops anemic compared to the firecrackers.
It was an exciting way to welcome the last year of the 50s decade: fun, friends, family, fireworks.
In March, my mother suddenly talked of getting people to sign a petition. For weeks, every evening after supper, she dutifully set out and talked with our neighbors, friends, and others in the community.
"What's the petition for?" Susan asked one day during supper.
"Well," she said with a hint of resignation, "Our school is going to close. The state has decided it's too small. All the kids will have to go to school somewhere else."
Susan just stared at Mother like she was unable to process what she had just heard. I felt a sense of panic rise, starting immediately to worry how I would be accepted in a new school. Jan asked if Mrs. Hagle would still be her teacher. "I sincerely doubt it," Mother answered with a certainty that made us wonder what else she knew that we didn't.
This year, in my third grade class, there were only three kids. Two boys, Doug and Dwayne, and me. Sometimes we went over and did fourth grade work when we got through with the third grade work. Mrs. Poteet taught both grades in one room as did each of the elementary teachers.
Mother had decided to carry the petition to go to Corsicana schools. It was the largest district of the three being considered. Mrs. Cary was simultaneously trying to get a petition for all of us to go to Blooming Grove, and Mr. Daniels was lobbying for Dawson, all locations about 20 miles from Purdon. The petitions would allow a vote on where the people in Purdon wanted their kids to go to school. Or at least that's the way I understood it.
On the day the petitions were due, Mother went early to the county judge's office, but he was not in yet. Instead of waiting, she ran an errand like she always did because she had so much to do, and when she returned two other people had gotten there, and he could only take two petitions. Mother was heartbroken even though I think she was the only one who really wanted her kids to go to the Corsicana schools anyway.
Dawson was the preferred district, and that was the school chosen. The day after the vote, our parents started talking about moving to the ranch at Corbet, some land my grandfather had bought in the 1940s that was in the Corsicana school district.
Their talking made me nervous. "I don't really want to move," I offered one night while they pored over houseplans. No one even looked up. "I don't really want to move," I said louder.
"This is what's best for our family," Mother said. "You'll like going to school in Corsicana."
"How do you know?" I asked plaintively, picturing myself rolled into the fetal position on the bus, riding to the new school, unable to make myself leave the security of the seat.
They seemed unconcerned with me, and were talking about creating a house beginning with a small structure already located on the land, formerly used by a caretaker.
They planned to move another house to the site, and it would become the kids' bedroom wing. That house had also been owned by my grandfather and was the first house my parents had lived in when they married. It sat on Farm to Market Road 2452, leading from Highway 31 to Corbet.
Finally, they would attach the two with a master bedrooom and living room, which my dad and some gin hands would build connecting them.
"Everybody will have to help," Daddy said, ignoring my last plea. That would prove to be an understatement.
I could smell fudge cooking in the kitchen and hoped Neila would hurry and tell us it was ready, so I could console myself. Eating it on a spoon offered the most appealing way, but often, unable to wait for it to cool, I burned my tongue and had to run for an ice cube to freeze the pain.
Susan liked to make fudge too, and once when she was taking the heavy iron pan off the flame to beat the fudge, she suddenly was overpowered by the weight of the pan and had to make an emergency landing on the yellow vinyl chair in the kitchen. It melted the plastic in a perfect circle, exposing the cotton padding.
Mother laughed when she saw it; Daddy didn't. He opened his mouth to say something, and the words seemed to race right back down his throat after Mother issued a wordless scolding. She just about always took our side against Daddy. He wasn't much of a match for her. It was usually Mother and all of us kids against him, an unequal team division, but it suited us.
Stephen was already attending high school in Corsicana per his own request and was living with Nettie during the week. Neila was attending the local junior college, Navarro, and would be moving to the dormitory there in September.
But within weeks, talk turned to activity. We were leaving Purdon, moving from a small town to the country, but a much larger school district.
Maybe there would be some girls in my grade to be friends with.
I had outgrown playing with Boy, and Gary and I were getting too tall to duck under the house and play anymore. I used to be invited out to spend the night at the Mills' house and play with their son, Jack. Helen Mills was beautiful and kind, and she always made me feel special.
She couldn't have children and they had adopted their son.
"Why don't you just stay and be my little girl?" she said wistfully one day as we walked outside. She squeezed my shoulder warmly. I didn't know what to say and stammered, but she laughed. "Your mama wouldn't let go of you!"
It seemed like the boys I had always played with after Marie moved away didn't want to play what I did anymore, so it was beginning to be hard to find anyone to spend spare time with whose company I enjoyed.
The life I had known was changing quickly. I wanted to rear up in protest even if I hit my head on the trailer like Pet did that day, knocking myself cuckoo and rolling around on the ground in protest. But none of that did Pet any good. She still had to leave Purdon and her safe life. I silently thanked Pet for teaching me at least one lesson before the trailer moved her on to a new family.
Installed
Thursday, May 13, 2010
1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: LLAMA HOUSESHOES
The ban against dogs in the house continued, at least in spirit. But after Daddy got back from Peru, we let Julie in for a short period of time daily. We had to. She was the main player in the game we created with Jan and my llama houseshoes. In order to continue the ban, Mother pretended she never saw her though she couldn't have missed her galloping through the house, growling and chasing us.
When we picked Daddy up at Love Field on his return from Peru, he came out dressed neatly in a navy blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. He wore a gray fedora and a huge smile. All the men exiting the plane were dressed similarly, and the women wore Sunday dresses with high heels, hose, and lots of big costume jewelry. With their dark red lipstick, some of them looked like Marilyn Monroe or Jane Russell.
Daddy always grabbed Mother first, but we were willing to wait our turn for a hug. He carried several shoeboxes and some smaller packages, which we silently hoped were for us, but we didn't want to appear rude or as though we were just glad he was back because he'd brought us presents, so we pretended not to notice them.
He carried his suitcase, and by tacit agreement, Mother took the boxes from him. One of them held my hand and one of them held Jan's; Susan walked next to Mother as we all crossed the street in front of the airport, moving toward the parking area.
As soon as we got in the car, Daddy said, "Well, girls, I brought something for everyone. Susan, these are for you, and Felisa and Jan, these are for you." He reached into the boxes and handed each of us something in the dark interior of the car. Only the parking lot lights shed any illumination.
Susan let out a little squeal, and I almost did because of the furry feel of the things he thrust into our hands, before he said "They're llama houseshoes. There are lots of llamas in Peru, and they use the fur to make products like houseshoes."
"Thanks, Daddy," Susan, Jan and I said in unison, stealing looks at each other in the dark.
"You're welcome," he said. "I have some other things for the "big kids" and this for your mother", he said, handing her a beautiful silver necklace studded with purple stones, a matching bracelet and earrings.
"If you want to fly anywhere, you can dress up like those other ladies," Jan piped up.
"Yes, yes I can," Mother said, putting the necklace on.
Daddy drove home, his internal radar getting us quickly out of Dallas; he never let Mother drive when he was in the car. She'd get lost anyway, so we were thankful he took the wheel.
When we got to the house, we looked at the houseshoes more carefully. We were used to the idea that things were killed to make coats, earmuffs, and even houseshoes,especially since Daddy once raised mink, but a llama? That was a big animal.
I'm not sure if it was because Susan's houseshoes were a sleek deep brown color with shorter hair while ours were made of dull brown shaggy hair, but
the game developed within days of our receiving them.
Jan and I noticed that Julie had a fascination with our footcovering when we wore the houseshoes.
"Grrrrrrrrr," she growled as menacingly as she was capable of, trying to grab the toe of the shoe in her mouth. "Grrrrrrrrrr," she continued, putting both her front feet on the tip of the shoe and biting down, trying to get it to hold still. If we stepped out of the shoe, she shook it violently, trying to kill it, making her amusing "vicious" sounds.
We found that if we ran with the shoes firmly on our feet, she chased us around the house growling with every step, her brown body hopping toward our foot as though it were a live animal.
Since every room connected to the other and there were no halls or dead ends, we could effectively run in circles through the house, screaming, with Julie following us, nipping at our heels. The denouement of the game was our jumping on the couch, Julie soaring up behind us, yelping and grabbing wildly for the houseshoes which we hid by sitting on them.
Daddy wasn't ever home when we played chase with Julie, or he might have wondered at our appreciation of his gift, brought from such a distance. We played for years, until the shoes, both Jan's and mine, were in shreds. Susan kept hers carefully in the wardrobe and never wore them when Julie was in the house. Hers were prettier anyway.
Installed
When we picked Daddy up at Love Field on his return from Peru, he came out dressed neatly in a navy blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. He wore a gray fedora and a huge smile. All the men exiting the plane were dressed similarly, and the women wore Sunday dresses with high heels, hose, and lots of big costume jewelry. With their dark red lipstick, some of them looked like Marilyn Monroe or Jane Russell.
Daddy always grabbed Mother first, but we were willing to wait our turn for a hug. He carried several shoeboxes and some smaller packages, which we silently hoped were for us, but we didn't want to appear rude or as though we were just glad he was back because he'd brought us presents, so we pretended not to notice them.
He carried his suitcase, and by tacit agreement, Mother took the boxes from him. One of them held my hand and one of them held Jan's; Susan walked next to Mother as we all crossed the street in front of the airport, moving toward the parking area.
As soon as we got in the car, Daddy said, "Well, girls, I brought something for everyone. Susan, these are for you, and Felisa and Jan, these are for you." He reached into the boxes and handed each of us something in the dark interior of the car. Only the parking lot lights shed any illumination.
Susan let out a little squeal, and I almost did because of the furry feel of the things he thrust into our hands, before he said "They're llama houseshoes. There are lots of llamas in Peru, and they use the fur to make products like houseshoes."
"Thanks, Daddy," Susan, Jan and I said in unison, stealing looks at each other in the dark.
"You're welcome," he said. "I have some other things for the "big kids" and this for your mother", he said, handing her a beautiful silver necklace studded with purple stones, a matching bracelet and earrings.
"If you want to fly anywhere, you can dress up like those other ladies," Jan piped up.
"Yes, yes I can," Mother said, putting the necklace on.
Daddy drove home, his internal radar getting us quickly out of Dallas; he never let Mother drive when he was in the car. She'd get lost anyway, so we were thankful he took the wheel.
When we got to the house, we looked at the houseshoes more carefully. We were used to the idea that things were killed to make coats, earmuffs, and even houseshoes,especially since Daddy once raised mink, but a llama? That was a big animal.
I'm not sure if it was because Susan's houseshoes were a sleek deep brown color with shorter hair while ours were made of dull brown shaggy hair, but
the game developed within days of our receiving them.
Jan and I noticed that Julie had a fascination with our footcovering when we wore the houseshoes.
"Grrrrrrrrr," she growled as menacingly as she was capable of, trying to grab the toe of the shoe in her mouth. "Grrrrrrrrrr," she continued, putting both her front feet on the tip of the shoe and biting down, trying to get it to hold still. If we stepped out of the shoe, she shook it violently, trying to kill it, making her amusing "vicious" sounds.
We found that if we ran with the shoes firmly on our feet, she chased us around the house growling with every step, her brown body hopping toward our foot as though it were a live animal.
Since every room connected to the other and there were no halls or dead ends, we could effectively run in circles through the house, screaming, with Julie following us, nipping at our heels. The denouement of the game was our jumping on the couch, Julie soaring up behind us, yelping and grabbing wildly for the houseshoes which we hid by sitting on them.
Daddy wasn't ever home when we played chase with Julie, or he might have wondered at our appreciation of his gift, brought from such a distance. We played for years, until the shoes, both Jan's and mine, were in shreds. Susan kept hers carefully in the wardrobe and never wore them when Julie was in the house. Hers were prettier anyway.
Installed
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE/COTTON GIN EXPLORERS PART 2
The silence of the stilled gin machinery was almost as overwhelming as the screaming whine of the gin in full operation. Standing inside, just in front of the ginstands, I tilted my head back to look up at the cavernous corrugated tin ceiling. The distance from the concrete floor to the top of the building seemed endless. The entire building was a giant tin shack. A few windows in the front of the building let in the only natural light, and large round metal light fixtures hung down in several places providing some illumination.
Most days, the large front door was slid open, and the doors to the dock area which was up on a higher level off a raised platform, were open as well, providing welcome airflow and light.
This was the offseason, and I felt a jittery excitement at being in the gin at all. My brother Stephen was fiddling with something in the corner, and he suddenly turned and asked if I wanted to climb up in the gin. I looked up, wondering where we'd start and he pointed toward the raised platform that held the press. He sprinted up the five metal steps, and I followed closely behind, sensing my adrenalin pumping.
It never occurred to me to ask if I could do it. The gin seemed like a second home, we were there so much. I trusted myself more than I allowed myself to trust others.
Jan and Susan would get in the cotton press and let Elton Jr. run the press up and down, like a tiny elevator. I would never get in, even though I knew he was the type of person who would have given his life for any of us. I still didn't trust anyone to get me out of the press if the gin started, and I could envision myself squished through the slats as the press did its job, squeezing everything inside it into a tight package.
"Come on, get in," he'd laugh. "It's not going to hurt you," as Jan and Susan sat on the red metal slats, legs folded under them, obviously enjoying the ride.
"No, I don't want to. The gin might start," I said, meaning it.
He started to say something, but after studying my eyes, stopped abruptly. "Okay," he said reassuringly, "okay."
Stephen took a step up to a catwalk that ran along the back of the ginstands. I followed him, enjoying the thrill of looking down on the machinery and floor. The gin swallowed our footsteps, as we moved along noiselessly. We walked the length of the gin easily, him leading the way, me holding tenuously to a metal rail that ran beside the wooden walk.
At the far end of the building, he turned left, and stepped up a few feet onto a platform. I bent at the waist, then pulled myself up onto the plywood. When my legs joined me, I stood up slowly. I held to the metal railing and looked back toward the front of the gin. Light shone dully through the lint covered windows, casting a gray pall over the building's interior.
We moved along a plywood trail for ten yards or so in the direction from which we'd come, then turned abruptly right, his long legs stepping easily onto the next platform while I doubled over and drug myself up, holding tightly to the metal bars forming rails.
Next, he climbed a ten step ladder attached to one of the machines. Gulping silently, I grabbed hold of the ladder and climbed blindly up. At the top, we found ourselves on a flat surface that led across the machine, then behind it. Another platform, paths to the far side of the gin. I looked up against my better judgment, but dared not look down. Tiny pinprick holes of light shone through the tin ceiling, like daystars. I was surprised seeing how many there were that the gin didn't leak like a spaghetti strainer.
"How much farther are we going?" I asked in a timid voice.
Stephen seemed to have forgotten I was following him. I was beginning to wonder if I might get in trouble for climbing so high.
"Oh, we can go back. Do you want to? Pretty fun, huh?" he said. Was that a question he expected me to answer right now? I wasn't even sure I'd make it down.
Heights frightened me, so now I was asking mmyself why I didn't remember my number two fear prior to the climb. Stephen started down at a fast clip, hopping down too heavily for my taste onto the platforms, climbing nimbly down the ladder whose attachment screws suddenly concerned me. I painstakingly descended it, holding to the machine behind it just in case the ladder loosened and fell. Scooting slowly across the platforms, I eased myself onto the pathways beneath.
Stephen practically ran the last part of the descent, ignoring me completely. When he reached the press platform, he ran to the door, jumped onto the outside platform where cotton bales would be if it were ginning season, and disappeared down the steps leading to the cottonyard.
I walked slowly now, in no hurry. Safety was in sight. I turned fully around when I was at the edge of the press platform, looking at where I'd been. I held onto the rail and leaned back so I could turn my face up and see the whole underside of the gin.
Neila said Daddy could build a gin from the concrete slab up. That was quite a ways. She said he could put a machine in and make it fit even if he only had an inch of clearance. I guessed that was why he was in Peru now, helping Murray Gin Company build gins down there. He'd probably be mad at me if he found out I'd climbed up there. I could have ruined his safety record!
To be truthful, I was proud of having climbed. I could tell I was still afraid of heights, but I did it anyway. Mother was probably over at the office. I was working on my excuse. If she figured out what I'd done, or I slipped and told her because I could not keep a secret or lie to her, I'd just blame it on Stephen since he was sixteen. It probably wasn't fair, but in our family you sometimes had to do whatever it took to survive.
We were going to Dallas tonight to pick Daddy up at the airport, so hopefully Mother would be thinking about that and forget to ask me where I'd been or what I'd been doing.
Installed
Most days, the large front door was slid open, and the doors to the dock area which was up on a higher level off a raised platform, were open as well, providing welcome airflow and light.
This was the offseason, and I felt a jittery excitement at being in the gin at all. My brother Stephen was fiddling with something in the corner, and he suddenly turned and asked if I wanted to climb up in the gin. I looked up, wondering where we'd start and he pointed toward the raised platform that held the press. He sprinted up the five metal steps, and I followed closely behind, sensing my adrenalin pumping.
It never occurred to me to ask if I could do it. The gin seemed like a second home, we were there so much. I trusted myself more than I allowed myself to trust others.
Jan and Susan would get in the cotton press and let Elton Jr. run the press up and down, like a tiny elevator. I would never get in, even though I knew he was the type of person who would have given his life for any of us. I still didn't trust anyone to get me out of the press if the gin started, and I could envision myself squished through the slats as the press did its job, squeezing everything inside it into a tight package.
"Come on, get in," he'd laugh. "It's not going to hurt you," as Jan and Susan sat on the red metal slats, legs folded under them, obviously enjoying the ride.
"No, I don't want to. The gin might start," I said, meaning it.
He started to say something, but after studying my eyes, stopped abruptly. "Okay," he said reassuringly, "okay."
Stephen took a step up to a catwalk that ran along the back of the ginstands. I followed him, enjoying the thrill of looking down on the machinery and floor. The gin swallowed our footsteps, as we moved along noiselessly. We walked the length of the gin easily, him leading the way, me holding tenuously to a metal rail that ran beside the wooden walk.
At the far end of the building, he turned left, and stepped up a few feet onto a platform. I bent at the waist, then pulled myself up onto the plywood. When my legs joined me, I stood up slowly. I held to the metal railing and looked back toward the front of the gin. Light shone dully through the lint covered windows, casting a gray pall over the building's interior.
We moved along a plywood trail for ten yards or so in the direction from which we'd come, then turned abruptly right, his long legs stepping easily onto the next platform while I doubled over and drug myself up, holding tightly to the metal bars forming rails.
Next, he climbed a ten step ladder attached to one of the machines. Gulping silently, I grabbed hold of the ladder and climbed blindly up. At the top, we found ourselves on a flat surface that led across the machine, then behind it. Another platform, paths to the far side of the gin. I looked up against my better judgment, but dared not look down. Tiny pinprick holes of light shone through the tin ceiling, like daystars. I was surprised seeing how many there were that the gin didn't leak like a spaghetti strainer.
"How much farther are we going?" I asked in a timid voice.
Stephen seemed to have forgotten I was following him. I was beginning to wonder if I might get in trouble for climbing so high.
"Oh, we can go back. Do you want to? Pretty fun, huh?" he said. Was that a question he expected me to answer right now? I wasn't even sure I'd make it down.
Heights frightened me, so now I was asking mmyself why I didn't remember my number two fear prior to the climb. Stephen started down at a fast clip, hopping down too heavily for my taste onto the platforms, climbing nimbly down the ladder whose attachment screws suddenly concerned me. I painstakingly descended it, holding to the machine behind it just in case the ladder loosened and fell. Scooting slowly across the platforms, I eased myself onto the pathways beneath.
Stephen practically ran the last part of the descent, ignoring me completely. When he reached the press platform, he ran to the door, jumped onto the outside platform where cotton bales would be if it were ginning season, and disappeared down the steps leading to the cottonyard.
I walked slowly now, in no hurry. Safety was in sight. I turned fully around when I was at the edge of the press platform, looking at where I'd been. I held onto the rail and leaned back so I could turn my face up and see the whole underside of the gin.
Neila said Daddy could build a gin from the concrete slab up. That was quite a ways. She said he could put a machine in and make it fit even if he only had an inch of clearance. I guessed that was why he was in Peru now, helping Murray Gin Company build gins down there. He'd probably be mad at me if he found out I'd climbed up there. I could have ruined his safety record!
To be truthful, I was proud of having climbed. I could tell I was still afraid of heights, but I did it anyway. Mother was probably over at the office. I was working on my excuse. If she figured out what I'd done, or I slipped and told her because I could not keep a secret or lie to her, I'd just blame it on Stephen since he was sixteen. It probably wasn't fair, but in our family you sometimes had to do whatever it took to survive.
We were going to Dallas tonight to pick Daddy up at the airport, so hopefully Mother would be thinking about that and forget to ask me where I'd been or what I'd been doing.
Installed
Saturday, May 1, 2010
1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE/COTTON GIN EXPLORERS PART 1
I screamed in Susan's direction though I couldn't have heard her if she answered. My bent arms stuck out from my shoulders like chicken wings, and my palms were glued to my ears.
"Why is it so loud?" I yelled as hard as I could, the effort straining my throat.
She stood facing me, her arms and hands in the same positions as mine.
"Be quiet," she mouthed at me with irritation.
"Well, you don't have to be mean about it," I muttered to myself, pouting internally.
When the gin came to life, it always seemed shocking and scary, yet exciting . The men, lounging in metal folding chairs, jumped to their feet and raced toward the machinery, moving this lever, checking the lint cleaners, adjusting the gin stands, eyeing the metal conveyors that ran beneath the stands. All the machinery starting at once sounded like a thousand sirens, and caused my heart to feel a comparable amount of alarm.
We knew we had to leave the gin immediately once it started. Our dad was a fanatic about safety, and he was proud of the fact that no one had ever had a serious injury while working for him. One of his friend's sons, a teenager, was killed in a gin accident a few years ago while working for his own father, and it had troubled my dad greatly. Both my brothers worked at the gin, but Daddy didn't allow any horseplay while the gin was running.
We started walking stiffly toward the large closed sliding door. Mr. Ward, busy running up and down the front of the ginstands making adjustments, rushed over smiling and pushed the heavy corrugated tin door open for us, shoving hard against the wooden crosspiece. We stepped carefully into the covered portico area. It looked like a porch, but a really tall one that could accommodate trailers.
A green trailer, its sides made of chickenwire and wood framing, stood under the covered area. Mr. Bennett was standing inside it, hip deep in cotton moving the huge suction around, vacuuming up cotton bolls and sending them up twenty feet or so to the top of the portico where they entered a large metal conduit that took the cotton into the gin. There the seed was separated from the cotton, the cotton was cleaned, pressed into a bale, wrapped in brown looseweave burlap, and bound tightly with three inch wide metal straps that squeezed the compressed cotton like an overeager grandmother, making indentions in the bale every eighteen inches or so.
Mr Bennett goodnaturedly motioned for us to crawl up in the trailer. We vigorously shook our heads no, our arms moving back and forth awkwardly, palms still pressed hard against our ears.
That suction looked larger than my head and nearly as large as my shoulders. I envisioned myself hopping up in the trailer, laughing and happy, then being forcefully vacuumed up into the suction. I didn't allow myself to envision anything beyond that.
A cap flew off Mr. Bennett's head once and got sucked away. Daddy said later they chased that cap through the whole gin and never could get hold of it without risking someone's fingers or arms. It came through at the end of the ginning process in shreds and ended up in a bale of cotton, what was left of it anyway.
We looked both ways once we were outside the cover of the portico. There were quite a few cottonwagons in the yard. Some were full of cotton; others sat empty waiting for owners to return for them. Red ones, blue ones, some without paint, all lined with chicken wire and one small one that was completely made of weathered wooden boards.
It was owned by Annie, a woman who farmed a small amount of land outside Purdon. She always brought in cotton each year. My daddy said he thought she planted it, hoed it, and picked it herself. He doubted she had any help. She was about the only black person who owned her cotton herself in that community. The majority worked for someone else.
"Gi haw," she said to her old mule as she moved her wagon across the scale at the office, just twenty yards in front of the gin. It was always on a first come/first served basis at the gin.
Mother was inside, and I could see Jan's forehead and the top of her blonde hair through the large windows. Mother had obviously let her sit up on one of the tall stools that lined the elevated pressboard desk running the length of the front wall. She liked to spin around, but that could be dangerous due to the height of the seats.
Mother waved to Annie when her wheels were on the scale properly and she pulled up on the mule's reins, causing him to stand still. After Mother weighed the cotton and trailer, she mouthed "thank you" and motioned Annie toward the short line at the gin suction area. She'd have to come around for a second weighing after the cotton was out of the trailer.
We stood still in the area between the gin and office and watched as Annie, her bonnet securely tied around her face, "gi hawed" the mule carefully around us and in line behind Mr. Curtis and his pickup truck with attached blue trailer already waiting their turn.
Glancing back toward the huge tin building with its red and white Murray Gin sign, I saw Daddy motioning the next trailer under the overhang, smiling, yelling goodnaturedly to them. There were only five noteworthy buildings in Purdon: the school, the Bittner and McCraw grocery stores, the big wooden revival tabernacle, and the Purdon gin.
The gin made a lot of noise, and so did some preachers that held revivals in the tabernacle. Nobody complained though. A lot of people depended on the gin for their livelihood and the preachers for spiritual guidance.
The tabernacle was an arsonist's dream with its all-wood construction and wooden benches, but it was the gins that often burned. The remains of one gin that my grandfather had owned was in our back pasture, and I liked to climb up on the brick footers that stood about four feet high and jump between them to show off when the yellow school bus passed by. I was never sure anyone saw me. No one ever mentioned it to me, but I continued to do it on days I felt like showing off.
I had begged Mother once to let me go out and pick cotton. I'm not sure what made me ask, but I was sincere. She had already let my older siblings try it one time, and I don't think she wanted to waste her time or listen to the complaining. But I could see the people in the cotton fields at harvest time as we passed in the car.
They worked in cotton dresses and bonnets of pink and yellow and white, patterned cloth, with flowers or animals, rarely a solid color. I could sometimes see small people out there between the cotton stalks, maybe children of 8 or 9, near my age.
It was so hot in the fields, I knew I couldn't make it very long, but I wanted to see what it was like and whether I could endure it. I never got the chance to prove it, but I was still mesmerized by the sight of those people in the fields. The largest part of them were black, but not all of them. I didn't know any of the kids since they didn't attend our school. I wasn't really sure where they went to school, and I guess it never occurred to me to ask. It was a whole world about which I knew nothing.
Susan turned the metal doorknob and swung open the door. It nearly hit the wooden chair that rolled away toward the rolltop desk.
"Who left this chair out like this,?" she demanded like she was an employee.
Mother glanced back over her left shoulder. "I think Jan was playing there on the adding machine," she said nonchalantly.
"Can I look at the cotton samples?" I asked suddenly.
"Yes, but don't pull any cotton out of them. Mr. Saber will be here tomorrow to grade them. Don't mess them up," she reminded me.
I never was sure why cotton had to be graded, but I would give it all an "A" because I loved the way it looked and felt, so soft and white.
I opened the door to the tiny room that held the samples on floor to ceiliing shelves. Each sample was about the size of a large roll of paper towels and wrapped in a plain brown paper sleeve, the pure white cotton sticking out on each end like unruly clouds.
I liked to pick them up, feel their weight, and move them to different places on the shelf, talking to myself about which one was the best quality the entire time. Even though there was a lot of dirt, cotton fiber, and dust around the gin, the cotton sample shelves were kept spotless.
The room was so small, there was barely room to stand in front of the shelves. A calendar hanging on the wall always puzzled me. It was kind of funny, but I thought it should embarrass both my parents, but for different reasons.
A very attractive blonde woman appeared to be in a windy place. Her hair was swept up as was her dress, of course not revealing much except her very shapely legs. She was holding a bag of groceries and looking somewhat distraught. The most puzzling part of the picture was that her pink panties were puddled around her pink high heels, and clearly she could do nothing about it.
"We don't like this picture," Susan told Mother, speaking for both of us. "Why do you have it in here?"
Mother glanced in the sample room. "We usually keep that door closed," she said, offering no explanation. Then, "It's from a supplier."
There was a small refrigerator to the right of the shelves, and I always looked in it when I was in there, but it rarely held anything I wanted to eat. Some of the men left their lunches in there, but they had always eaten everything up by the time I got there after school.
Seeing the refrigerator always reminded me that I wanted a coke, so I asked, and Mother dug some change out of a metal box in the drawers of the desk and gave it to us. We carried the coins outside to the small front porch of the office where there was a red Coca Cola machine. A nickel and a penny inserted into the change slot produced an ice cold cola in a glass bottle, a taste that seemed made for afterschool.
"Hey," I suggested a little later, feeling confined in the small office. "Let's go out back behind the gin and look at the burrs."
Burrs were dumped out back and on clear fall days when the air was pure, they were set on fire, and the pungent smell of burrs infiltrated every home in Purdon within a mile. I guess everybody was used to it. It was just one of the normal smells of fall.
"What's that?" someone would say, puttinng their nose toward the sky.
"Oh, they're burning burrs at the gin, that's all."
"See if Jan wants to come," I told Susan. Of course she did.
Jan had a little wooden thing with some tacky writing on it that she had made at school She took it with her outside. We strolled across the lot. Annie was just pulling out from under the gin, and there weren't any more trailers behind her. Mercifully, the gin would shut down soon, that loud whine silenced until tomorrow when we'd be at school.
The burrs covered a third of an acre or so. We picked up sticks and rocks, threw them out, and watched them sink into the burrs. Burrs are very tough, a plant version of porcupines, hard on the skin, so we were not tempted to do anything but toss items for distance.
For some reason, Susan and I started throwing the piece of wood that Jan had brought out, back and forth between us. Jan didn't notice at first because she was still chunking things into the burr swamp. Eventually, she noticed our game of keepaway and asked for, then demanded, her silly piece of wood.
One of us, of course I don't remember who it was, took the wood piece and threw it into the burrs. Without thinking, Jan rushed into the burrs for it and sank immediately up to her knees in the nasty sludge. She started screaming, and we grabbed her hands and drug her from the muck, her legs covered in black slime.
We were grateful for the screaming of the gin at that moment as it covered Jan's screams. Susan and I exchanged uncertain looks and Susan yelled, "I'll get a pole and get your wood thing."
"I don't want it anymore," Jan cried out. "I want Mother!"
We helped her limp up to the office, certain that we'd have to confess.
"I didn't know the burrs had water in them!" Jan sobbed as she burst through the office door.
Mother looked momentarily startled, then started to laugh. "Time to go home," she said, closing the ledger and picking up her purse.
Jan leaned into her and Mother wrapped her arm around her shoulder. "Bring some paper towels from the sample room," Mother said over her shoulder as she headed for the car.
"Think she's gonna tell Mother?" I whispered.
"Well, I can't believe she didn't already." Susan whispered back. "I never dreamed she'd take off running into those burrs like that. No telling what's down there. Ugh!"
"Cotton is a vegetable," Mother was saying to Jan as we opened the car door and crawled quiet as snakes into the backseat. "It's actually the mallow family, easy to remember because it looks like marshmallows."
"But not the burrs," Jan whimpered. "I think they're part of the filthy family."
Mother laughed gently, handed her a wad of paper towels Susan had passed over from the backseat, and edged the car slowly out of the drive onto the narrow gravel road leading home. Susan and I stared out windows on opposite sides of the car, mentally marking our balance sheets. We now deserved more punishment than we had received. We'd have to be extra good this week.
Installed
"Why is it so loud?" I yelled as hard as I could, the effort straining my throat.
She stood facing me, her arms and hands in the same positions as mine.
"Be quiet," she mouthed at me with irritation.
"Well, you don't have to be mean about it," I muttered to myself, pouting internally.
When the gin came to life, it always seemed shocking and scary, yet exciting . The men, lounging in metal folding chairs, jumped to their feet and raced toward the machinery, moving this lever, checking the lint cleaners, adjusting the gin stands, eyeing the metal conveyors that ran beneath the stands. All the machinery starting at once sounded like a thousand sirens, and caused my heart to feel a comparable amount of alarm.
We knew we had to leave the gin immediately once it started. Our dad was a fanatic about safety, and he was proud of the fact that no one had ever had a serious injury while working for him. One of his friend's sons, a teenager, was killed in a gin accident a few years ago while working for his own father, and it had troubled my dad greatly. Both my brothers worked at the gin, but Daddy didn't allow any horseplay while the gin was running.
We started walking stiffly toward the large closed sliding door. Mr. Ward, busy running up and down the front of the ginstands making adjustments, rushed over smiling and pushed the heavy corrugated tin door open for us, shoving hard against the wooden crosspiece. We stepped carefully into the covered portico area. It looked like a porch, but a really tall one that could accommodate trailers.
A green trailer, its sides made of chickenwire and wood framing, stood under the covered area. Mr. Bennett was standing inside it, hip deep in cotton moving the huge suction around, vacuuming up cotton bolls and sending them up twenty feet or so to the top of the portico where they entered a large metal conduit that took the cotton into the gin. There the seed was separated from the cotton, the cotton was cleaned, pressed into a bale, wrapped in brown looseweave burlap, and bound tightly with three inch wide metal straps that squeezed the compressed cotton like an overeager grandmother, making indentions in the bale every eighteen inches or so.
Mr Bennett goodnaturedly motioned for us to crawl up in the trailer. We vigorously shook our heads no, our arms moving back and forth awkwardly, palms still pressed hard against our ears.
That suction looked larger than my head and nearly as large as my shoulders. I envisioned myself hopping up in the trailer, laughing and happy, then being forcefully vacuumed up into the suction. I didn't allow myself to envision anything beyond that.
A cap flew off Mr. Bennett's head once and got sucked away. Daddy said later they chased that cap through the whole gin and never could get hold of it without risking someone's fingers or arms. It came through at the end of the ginning process in shreds and ended up in a bale of cotton, what was left of it anyway.
We looked both ways once we were outside the cover of the portico. There were quite a few cottonwagons in the yard. Some were full of cotton; others sat empty waiting for owners to return for them. Red ones, blue ones, some without paint, all lined with chicken wire and one small one that was completely made of weathered wooden boards.
It was owned by Annie, a woman who farmed a small amount of land outside Purdon. She always brought in cotton each year. My daddy said he thought she planted it, hoed it, and picked it herself. He doubted she had any help. She was about the only black person who owned her cotton herself in that community. The majority worked for someone else.
"Gi haw," she said to her old mule as she moved her wagon across the scale at the office, just twenty yards in front of the gin. It was always on a first come/first served basis at the gin.
Mother was inside, and I could see Jan's forehead and the top of her blonde hair through the large windows. Mother had obviously let her sit up on one of the tall stools that lined the elevated pressboard desk running the length of the front wall. She liked to spin around, but that could be dangerous due to the height of the seats.
Mother waved to Annie when her wheels were on the scale properly and she pulled up on the mule's reins, causing him to stand still. After Mother weighed the cotton and trailer, she mouthed "thank you" and motioned Annie toward the short line at the gin suction area. She'd have to come around for a second weighing after the cotton was out of the trailer.
We stood still in the area between the gin and office and watched as Annie, her bonnet securely tied around her face, "gi hawed" the mule carefully around us and in line behind Mr. Curtis and his pickup truck with attached blue trailer already waiting their turn.
Glancing back toward the huge tin building with its red and white Murray Gin sign, I saw Daddy motioning the next trailer under the overhang, smiling, yelling goodnaturedly to them. There were only five noteworthy buildings in Purdon: the school, the Bittner and McCraw grocery stores, the big wooden revival tabernacle, and the Purdon gin.
The gin made a lot of noise, and so did some preachers that held revivals in the tabernacle. Nobody complained though. A lot of people depended on the gin for their livelihood and the preachers for spiritual guidance.
The tabernacle was an arsonist's dream with its all-wood construction and wooden benches, but it was the gins that often burned. The remains of one gin that my grandfather had owned was in our back pasture, and I liked to climb up on the brick footers that stood about four feet high and jump between them to show off when the yellow school bus passed by. I was never sure anyone saw me. No one ever mentioned it to me, but I continued to do it on days I felt like showing off.
I had begged Mother once to let me go out and pick cotton. I'm not sure what made me ask, but I was sincere. She had already let my older siblings try it one time, and I don't think she wanted to waste her time or listen to the complaining. But I could see the people in the cotton fields at harvest time as we passed in the car.
They worked in cotton dresses and bonnets of pink and yellow and white, patterned cloth, with flowers or animals, rarely a solid color. I could sometimes see small people out there between the cotton stalks, maybe children of 8 or 9, near my age.
It was so hot in the fields, I knew I couldn't make it very long, but I wanted to see what it was like and whether I could endure it. I never got the chance to prove it, but I was still mesmerized by the sight of those people in the fields. The largest part of them were black, but not all of them. I didn't know any of the kids since they didn't attend our school. I wasn't really sure where they went to school, and I guess it never occurred to me to ask. It was a whole world about which I knew nothing.
Susan turned the metal doorknob and swung open the door. It nearly hit the wooden chair that rolled away toward the rolltop desk.
"Who left this chair out like this,?" she demanded like she was an employee.
Mother glanced back over her left shoulder. "I think Jan was playing there on the adding machine," she said nonchalantly.
"Can I look at the cotton samples?" I asked suddenly.
"Yes, but don't pull any cotton out of them. Mr. Saber will be here tomorrow to grade them. Don't mess them up," she reminded me.
I never was sure why cotton had to be graded, but I would give it all an "A" because I loved the way it looked and felt, so soft and white.
I opened the door to the tiny room that held the samples on floor to ceiliing shelves. Each sample was about the size of a large roll of paper towels and wrapped in a plain brown paper sleeve, the pure white cotton sticking out on each end like unruly clouds.
I liked to pick them up, feel their weight, and move them to different places on the shelf, talking to myself about which one was the best quality the entire time. Even though there was a lot of dirt, cotton fiber, and dust around the gin, the cotton sample shelves were kept spotless.
The room was so small, there was barely room to stand in front of the shelves. A calendar hanging on the wall always puzzled me. It was kind of funny, but I thought it should embarrass both my parents, but for different reasons.
A very attractive blonde woman appeared to be in a windy place. Her hair was swept up as was her dress, of course not revealing much except her very shapely legs. She was holding a bag of groceries and looking somewhat distraught. The most puzzling part of the picture was that her pink panties were puddled around her pink high heels, and clearly she could do nothing about it.
"We don't like this picture," Susan told Mother, speaking for both of us. "Why do you have it in here?"
Mother glanced in the sample room. "We usually keep that door closed," she said, offering no explanation. Then, "It's from a supplier."
There was a small refrigerator to the right of the shelves, and I always looked in it when I was in there, but it rarely held anything I wanted to eat. Some of the men left their lunches in there, but they had always eaten everything up by the time I got there after school.
Seeing the refrigerator always reminded me that I wanted a coke, so I asked, and Mother dug some change out of a metal box in the drawers of the desk and gave it to us. We carried the coins outside to the small front porch of the office where there was a red Coca Cola machine. A nickel and a penny inserted into the change slot produced an ice cold cola in a glass bottle, a taste that seemed made for afterschool.
"Hey," I suggested a little later, feeling confined in the small office. "Let's go out back behind the gin and look at the burrs."
Burrs were dumped out back and on clear fall days when the air was pure, they were set on fire, and the pungent smell of burrs infiltrated every home in Purdon within a mile. I guess everybody was used to it. It was just one of the normal smells of fall.
"What's that?" someone would say, puttinng their nose toward the sky.
"Oh, they're burning burrs at the gin, that's all."
"See if Jan wants to come," I told Susan. Of course she did.
Jan had a little wooden thing with some tacky writing on it that she had made at school She took it with her outside. We strolled across the lot. Annie was just pulling out from under the gin, and there weren't any more trailers behind her. Mercifully, the gin would shut down soon, that loud whine silenced until tomorrow when we'd be at school.
The burrs covered a third of an acre or so. We picked up sticks and rocks, threw them out, and watched them sink into the burrs. Burrs are very tough, a plant version of porcupines, hard on the skin, so we were not tempted to do anything but toss items for distance.
For some reason, Susan and I started throwing the piece of wood that Jan had brought out, back and forth between us. Jan didn't notice at first because she was still chunking things into the burr swamp. Eventually, she noticed our game of keepaway and asked for, then demanded, her silly piece of wood.
One of us, of course I don't remember who it was, took the wood piece and threw it into the burrs. Without thinking, Jan rushed into the burrs for it and sank immediately up to her knees in the nasty sludge. She started screaming, and we grabbed her hands and drug her from the muck, her legs covered in black slime.
We were grateful for the screaming of the gin at that moment as it covered Jan's screams. Susan and I exchanged uncertain looks and Susan yelled, "I'll get a pole and get your wood thing."
"I don't want it anymore," Jan cried out. "I want Mother!"
We helped her limp up to the office, certain that we'd have to confess.
"I didn't know the burrs had water in them!" Jan sobbed as she burst through the office door.
Mother looked momentarily startled, then started to laugh. "Time to go home," she said, closing the ledger and picking up her purse.
Jan leaned into her and Mother wrapped her arm around her shoulder. "Bring some paper towels from the sample room," Mother said over her shoulder as she headed for the car.
"Think she's gonna tell Mother?" I whispered.
"Well, I can't believe she didn't already." Susan whispered back. "I never dreamed she'd take off running into those burrs like that. No telling what's down there. Ugh!"
"Cotton is a vegetable," Mother was saying to Jan as we opened the car door and crawled quiet as snakes into the backseat. "It's actually the mallow family, easy to remember because it looks like marshmallows."
"But not the burrs," Jan whimpered. "I think they're part of the filthy family."
Mother laughed gently, handed her a wad of paper towels Susan had passed over from the backseat, and edged the car slowly out of the drive onto the narrow gravel road leading home. Susan and I stared out windows on opposite sides of the car, mentally marking our balance sheets. We now deserved more punishment than we had received. We'd have to be extra good this week.
Installed
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