The orange Hula Hoop spun around my waist, and Becky stood a few feet away making a bright green one do exactly the same thing. We were trying to win the prize at Robert's birthday party for the person who could keep the hoop going the longest.
The boys couldn't do it at all. Their hips just wouldn't swivel the way ours did. We laughed at their efforts, grabbed the brightly colored hoops, stepped inside them, lifted them waisthigh, and started the rotation by giving the hoops a brisk push in a circular motion, lifting our arms out of the way so we could keep the motion going by moving our hips slightly with each rotation.
Our mothers looked at us, laughed, and shook their heads. My concentration was broken looking at them, and I failed to keep the momentum of my hoop going; it started wobbling. I tried wildly to keep it going by making bigger ovals with my hips, but it made two or three lopsided circles, then fell to the ground at my feet. Becky kept hers going for ten or more rotations and was a gracious winner, offering to share her candy prize with me.
The site for the contest was Robert's front yard, which faced the farm to market road that was also the main street of town. Fifty yards down the street stood the wooden revival tabernacle where we sometimes sweated and swatted mosquitoes on summer nights while listening to a visiting preacher's forceful sermons.
Just south the two family-owned grocery stores sat on opposite sides of the street. Beside one of the stores, the blacksmith pounded away in his shop, where you could see a fire burning inside most days, and hear the loud metallic clank of iron against iron.
Beside the other grocery, the post office, its flagpole standing at attention, was host to everyone in town almost every day. I memorized our box number-367 , but I didn't even know our telephone number; it was only one digit, but if I needed to call home from someplace else, I just said "give me the Skinner residence, please" because my mother taught me to use good manners with the operator, even if I suspected she sometimes listened in on conversations.
Standing in front of the green asbestos-sided house, we smiled broadly at people in town who passed by in cars and waved at us real friendly-like while we hula hooped. Everyone had heard about the new hoops, and this was the first time people in Purdon had seen them in use, so they stared as they passed on their way to and from the stores and the post office. We just made a few tries spinning the hoops, and shortly, we got the hang of it and were able to keep them going around our waists for several minutes.
My mother laughed and said we moved our hips like Elvis Presley. He wouldn't be shaking those hips much anymore, she said, because he was going into the Army. It had been on television for a month or more, and they were planning to show him getting his substantial head of hair shaved on television when he was inducted into the service.
Robert had the mumps like the rest of us this past school year. I only got them on one side, but Susan had them in both sides, and Mother took a picture which made us laugh every time we saw it. Even Susan laughed, although she said it made her hurt to think of it. She looked like a chipmunk with the winter's store of nuts in her cheeks.
Mother got a funny look every time we mentioned Robert and the mumps though. She said something one day about them "settling", but then wouldn't say anymore. I was curious about a lot of things, but for some reason I let that rest and didn't ask further about it. Anyway, I thought that Robert's mother wanted to make this party special for him because of the "settling".
She asked Mother if Neila would bring Lady, her gentle horse, down to the party and let all the kids ride. Neila dressed Lady up in a Cowboy hat with holes cut out for ears. I was afraid she'd bring her down there in the pink hat she put on her one time for Susan and my joint birthday party. I didn't think Robert would like that.
He liked to wear cowboy boots and drink straight out of the cold water bottle in the refrigerator. That made me sick. When I played over there, I always asked Mrs. Miller if I could have water from the faucet with ice. That assured that I wouldn't be drinking out of the same jug as Robert. Mother was a fanatic about few things, but strangely germs, especially germs you could get from eating and drinking after other people, sent her into orbit, and I guess I picked that idea up from her.
"Don't ever drink after anyone," she'd say. "That's a sure way to get sick."
Well, I did get the mumps anyway, but it wasn't because I ate or drank after anyone.
I could just picture invisible things floating in the water and food after someone had taken a drink or a bite. It wasn't hard to follow Mother's instructions in that regard.
Mrs. Miller was always really nice to me. She just had one son too, like three other families where I often played, and I always thought she treated me as if I were her little girl. Maybe I just wanted to think that, but anyway she treated me really special. If Robert and I got in a fight, she always took my side.
"Stop that," she'd say to him, even before she knew what was happening. "What did you do? Are you not sharing?"
Poor Robert would be so dumbfounded at her verbal rampage that he just stood mute, a toy gun dangling at his side, his cowboy hat hanging at his back, attached by a thick cord around his neck. He'd scuff his cowboy boots on the floor while he tried to think how to defend himself.
When he'd retrieved his voice, he'd start, "Awwww, Maaaama, I didn't do nothin'", but before he could finish, she made a rapping motion with her fist toward his head, and he ducked and stopped talking, seeing that she had her mind made up.
I tried not to take too much advantage of her obvious bias toward my side, but after she turned down the hall headed for the kitchen where she was cutting up a chicken to fry, if Robert didn't do what I wanted, I simply moved my head slowly in the direction of the kitchen, and he immediately gave in. I pretty much got to play with whatever I chose for the rest of the afternoon.
I was glad she didn't have to go out and kill the chickens and pop their heads off like she used to when they lived in the country. Susan and I had gone out there to play one day several years earlier, and we were on the screened porch when she walked into the bare dirt backyard, her cotton dress billowing in the breeze, threw some feed on the ground, and once the hens were contentedly pecking away at the grain, jerked one up by the neck and swung it around fast three or four times till its head let loose from its body.
I started crying while Susan took several steps backward, tripping and almost falling into the family's tin washtub; then she stood shellshocked.
Robert looked at me and said, "Whatchu cryin' about, crybaby? It's just an old chicken. It didn't hurt it. That's supper, and my mama fries gooood chicken."
When Mrs. Miller came back inside after plucking all the feathers off the hen, she seemed surprised that I was crying and Susan was standing inordinately still like a human statue, staring out into the yard.
"Oh," she said. "Oh,oh,oh. Oh, dear. You girls have never seen anyone wring a chicken's neck?"
"No ma'am," I blubbered.
Susan proved unable to respond, her deep brown eyes seemingly set, staring straight ahead.
Mrs. Miller set the chicken carcass on a small board shelf beside the door next to a bar of soap, and gathered us into her ample arms, squeezing tight. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you hadn't seen that done afore. It don't hurt 'em. It happens too fast. Besides, chickens have little bitty brains. The others watch it happen, but it never dawns on them that the next time it could be them. They don't even run away like animals that have some sense. I'm sorry," she said again, letting go of us and knocking the soap onto the floor when she picked up the dead bird. Then she headed off to the kitchen, the hen, its skinny legs stretched taut, dangling headdown, lifeless, next to her thick thighs.
"I hope we're not staying for supper," I whispered to Susan.
"We're not," she said with more determination than I'd ever heard in her voice. "I'll call Mother if she's not here by 4:30."
The party was in full force after everyone had ridden Lady. Neila patiently walked the horse around and around in the back yard under the shade of a huge post oak tree until all the kids had ridden. We waved goodbye to Lady, and Neila hopped in the saddle and trotted off toward home.
We all traipsed inside, and Robert opened his gifts. He got a lot of trucks, toy guns, and his parents gave him a real BB gun. They reminded him that he could only use it if they were with him, and only in the woods.
After cake and ice cream and the obligatory singing of "Happy Birthday", Robert wanted to play with his toys, and we were ready to go home. We alternately walked and skipped home, Mother skipping with us and challenging us to a race when we reached the railroad tracks and could see the house. I'm not sure it was because she wanted to race or because she wanted to hurry and get home when she saw what was going on in the front yard.
Stephen had several friends over, and they were trying to rig something up on the roof where they could jump off. They had an orange thing they said was an old Army parachute. My mother put an end to the jump training as we entered the driveway, but she invited everyone in for cold drinks. The boys were hot from their efforts and agreed to come in and have something.
Once inside, their substantial energy seemed to surge, and they seemed to be everywhere, yelling to each other, throwing balls, running upstairs, thundering back downstairs, plinking on the piano in the living room, and slurping their drinks. Most of them wanted cold cokes out of the bottle, and they left the glass bottles all over the house.
Neila had a friend visiting, and they had been quietly looking at magazines in her room when they had heard the thumps from the roof, but had tried to no avail to get the boys to come down.
They gave up and decided to enjoy their day, ignoring the mischief going on above them.
When all the boys suddenly stormed into the house, the girls grabbed their magazines and stashed them under the bed. Several boys barged into her room and asked what they were doing, teasing them about their magazines, and saying they were going to find what they were reading. Both of them sat impassive on the bed until the boys left.
Mother came into the bedroom shortly after to say hi and tell Neila she was home, as if it weren't evident.
Helen, Neila's friend, was an only child, and she was used to a calm, controlled life with her quiet mother and father. The rowdiness of the boys with their loud talk and play seemed to unnerve her. She motioned her head toward the living room where two boys tossed a ball, one banged on the piano, and two more were fighting, rolling onto the couch, falling to the floor, and scooting the big chaise chair around each time they rolled over.
"How can you stand this, Mrs. Skinner? Why don't you stop it?" she asked plaintively, as though it physically hurt her. "They're going to ruin your furniture."
"One day," our Mother said calmly, "they'll all be grown and gone-- and I'll just buy some more furniture." Then she looked at Helen and laughed her pure, unpretentious laugh. Helen stared at her, uncomprehending.
That pretty much summed it up. There were six kids, their friends, and one adult who still appreciated the value of playing. She could call time when needed, but she had a different perspective than a lot of parents, and it made growing up with her so much fun.
Installed
The boys couldn't do it at all. Their hips just wouldn't swivel the way ours did. We laughed at their efforts, grabbed the brightly colored hoops, stepped inside them, lifted them waisthigh, and started the rotation by giving the hoops a brisk push in a circular motion, lifting our arms out of the way so we could keep the motion going by moving our hips slightly with each rotation.
Our mothers looked at us, laughed, and shook their heads. My concentration was broken looking at them, and I failed to keep the momentum of my hoop going; it started wobbling. I tried wildly to keep it going by making bigger ovals with my hips, but it made two or three lopsided circles, then fell to the ground at my feet. Becky kept hers going for ten or more rotations and was a gracious winner, offering to share her candy prize with me.
The site for the contest was Robert's front yard, which faced the farm to market road that was also the main street of town. Fifty yards down the street stood the wooden revival tabernacle where we sometimes sweated and swatted mosquitoes on summer nights while listening to a visiting preacher's forceful sermons.
Just south the two family-owned grocery stores sat on opposite sides of the street. Beside one of the stores, the blacksmith pounded away in his shop, where you could see a fire burning inside most days, and hear the loud metallic clank of iron against iron.
Beside the other grocery, the post office, its flagpole standing at attention, was host to everyone in town almost every day. I memorized our box number-367 , but I didn't even know our telephone number; it was only one digit, but if I needed to call home from someplace else, I just said "give me the Skinner residence, please" because my mother taught me to use good manners with the operator, even if I suspected she sometimes listened in on conversations.
Standing in front of the green asbestos-sided house, we smiled broadly at people in town who passed by in cars and waved at us real friendly-like while we hula hooped. Everyone had heard about the new hoops, and this was the first time people in Purdon had seen them in use, so they stared as they passed on their way to and from the stores and the post office. We just made a few tries spinning the hoops, and shortly, we got the hang of it and were able to keep them going around our waists for several minutes.
My mother laughed and said we moved our hips like Elvis Presley. He wouldn't be shaking those hips much anymore, she said, because he was going into the Army. It had been on television for a month or more, and they were planning to show him getting his substantial head of hair shaved on television when he was inducted into the service.
Robert had the mumps like the rest of us this past school year. I only got them on one side, but Susan had them in both sides, and Mother took a picture which made us laugh every time we saw it. Even Susan laughed, although she said it made her hurt to think of it. She looked like a chipmunk with the winter's store of nuts in her cheeks.
Mother got a funny look every time we mentioned Robert and the mumps though. She said something one day about them "settling", but then wouldn't say anymore. I was curious about a lot of things, but for some reason I let that rest and didn't ask further about it. Anyway, I thought that Robert's mother wanted to make this party special for him because of the "settling".
She asked Mother if Neila would bring Lady, her gentle horse, down to the party and let all the kids ride. Neila dressed Lady up in a Cowboy hat with holes cut out for ears. I was afraid she'd bring her down there in the pink hat she put on her one time for Susan and my joint birthday party. I didn't think Robert would like that.
He liked to wear cowboy boots and drink straight out of the cold water bottle in the refrigerator. That made me sick. When I played over there, I always asked Mrs. Miller if I could have water from the faucet with ice. That assured that I wouldn't be drinking out of the same jug as Robert. Mother was a fanatic about few things, but strangely germs, especially germs you could get from eating and drinking after other people, sent her into orbit, and I guess I picked that idea up from her.
"Don't ever drink after anyone," she'd say. "That's a sure way to get sick."
Well, I did get the mumps anyway, but it wasn't because I ate or drank after anyone.
I could just picture invisible things floating in the water and food after someone had taken a drink or a bite. It wasn't hard to follow Mother's instructions in that regard.
Mrs. Miller was always really nice to me. She just had one son too, like three other families where I often played, and I always thought she treated me as if I were her little girl. Maybe I just wanted to think that, but anyway she treated me really special. If Robert and I got in a fight, she always took my side.
"Stop that," she'd say to him, even before she knew what was happening. "What did you do? Are you not sharing?"
Poor Robert would be so dumbfounded at her verbal rampage that he just stood mute, a toy gun dangling at his side, his cowboy hat hanging at his back, attached by a thick cord around his neck. He'd scuff his cowboy boots on the floor while he tried to think how to defend himself.
When he'd retrieved his voice, he'd start, "Awwww, Maaaama, I didn't do nothin'", but before he could finish, she made a rapping motion with her fist toward his head, and he ducked and stopped talking, seeing that she had her mind made up.
I tried not to take too much advantage of her obvious bias toward my side, but after she turned down the hall headed for the kitchen where she was cutting up a chicken to fry, if Robert didn't do what I wanted, I simply moved my head slowly in the direction of the kitchen, and he immediately gave in. I pretty much got to play with whatever I chose for the rest of the afternoon.
I was glad she didn't have to go out and kill the chickens and pop their heads off like she used to when they lived in the country. Susan and I had gone out there to play one day several years earlier, and we were on the screened porch when she walked into the bare dirt backyard, her cotton dress billowing in the breeze, threw some feed on the ground, and once the hens were contentedly pecking away at the grain, jerked one up by the neck and swung it around fast three or four times till its head let loose from its body.
I started crying while Susan took several steps backward, tripping and almost falling into the family's tin washtub; then she stood shellshocked.
Robert looked at me and said, "Whatchu cryin' about, crybaby? It's just an old chicken. It didn't hurt it. That's supper, and my mama fries gooood chicken."
When Mrs. Miller came back inside after plucking all the feathers off the hen, she seemed surprised that I was crying and Susan was standing inordinately still like a human statue, staring out into the yard.
"Oh," she said. "Oh,oh,oh. Oh, dear. You girls have never seen anyone wring a chicken's neck?"
"No ma'am," I blubbered.
Susan proved unable to respond, her deep brown eyes seemingly set, staring straight ahead.
Mrs. Miller set the chicken carcass on a small board shelf beside the door next to a bar of soap, and gathered us into her ample arms, squeezing tight. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you hadn't seen that done afore. It don't hurt 'em. It happens too fast. Besides, chickens have little bitty brains. The others watch it happen, but it never dawns on them that the next time it could be them. They don't even run away like animals that have some sense. I'm sorry," she said again, letting go of us and knocking the soap onto the floor when she picked up the dead bird. Then she headed off to the kitchen, the hen, its skinny legs stretched taut, dangling headdown, lifeless, next to her thick thighs.
"I hope we're not staying for supper," I whispered to Susan.
"We're not," she said with more determination than I'd ever heard in her voice. "I'll call Mother if she's not here by 4:30."
The party was in full force after everyone had ridden Lady. Neila patiently walked the horse around and around in the back yard under the shade of a huge post oak tree until all the kids had ridden. We waved goodbye to Lady, and Neila hopped in the saddle and trotted off toward home.
We all traipsed inside, and Robert opened his gifts. He got a lot of trucks, toy guns, and his parents gave him a real BB gun. They reminded him that he could only use it if they were with him, and only in the woods.
After cake and ice cream and the obligatory singing of "Happy Birthday", Robert wanted to play with his toys, and we were ready to go home. We alternately walked and skipped home, Mother skipping with us and challenging us to a race when we reached the railroad tracks and could see the house. I'm not sure it was because she wanted to race or because she wanted to hurry and get home when she saw what was going on in the front yard.
Stephen had several friends over, and they were trying to rig something up on the roof where they could jump off. They had an orange thing they said was an old Army parachute. My mother put an end to the jump training as we entered the driveway, but she invited everyone in for cold drinks. The boys were hot from their efforts and agreed to come in and have something.
Once inside, their substantial energy seemed to surge, and they seemed to be everywhere, yelling to each other, throwing balls, running upstairs, thundering back downstairs, plinking on the piano in the living room, and slurping their drinks. Most of them wanted cold cokes out of the bottle, and they left the glass bottles all over the house.
Neila had a friend visiting, and they had been quietly looking at magazines in her room when they had heard the thumps from the roof, but had tried to no avail to get the boys to come down.
They gave up and decided to enjoy their day, ignoring the mischief going on above them.
When all the boys suddenly stormed into the house, the girls grabbed their magazines and stashed them under the bed. Several boys barged into her room and asked what they were doing, teasing them about their magazines, and saying they were going to find what they were reading. Both of them sat impassive on the bed until the boys left.
Mother came into the bedroom shortly after to say hi and tell Neila she was home, as if it weren't evident.
Helen, Neila's friend, was an only child, and she was used to a calm, controlled life with her quiet mother and father. The rowdiness of the boys with their loud talk and play seemed to unnerve her. She motioned her head toward the living room where two boys tossed a ball, one banged on the piano, and two more were fighting, rolling onto the couch, falling to the floor, and scooting the big chaise chair around each time they rolled over.
"How can you stand this, Mrs. Skinner? Why don't you stop it?" she asked plaintively, as though it physically hurt her. "They're going to ruin your furniture."
"One day," our Mother said calmly, "they'll all be grown and gone-- and I'll just buy some more furniture." Then she looked at Helen and laughed her pure, unpretentious laugh. Helen stared at her, uncomprehending.
That pretty much summed it up. There were six kids, their friends, and one adult who still appreciated the value of playing. She could call time when needed, but she had a different perspective than a lot of parents, and it made growing up with her so much fun.
Installed
