1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE:OF SPINNING HULA HOOPS AND SPINNING CHICKENS

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

1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: THE HAZARDS OF DATING

Tonight looked to be exciting. Neila had a date!! With any luck, she'd bring him back home and they would sit in the living room which was situated right next to the bedroom that Susan, Jan and I shared. We watched television with our parents until 10 p.m. when the news came on. Then we meandered one by one into our room, and put on our matching pink cotton shorty pajamas,  killing time until we heard the telltale slamming of two car doors.

"They're here!" Susan said, uncharacteristically interested.

"Mother and Daddy just turned off the tv and went to bed," I noted.

"I think I hear them," Jan added. "The front door just opened."

"Quick!" I said. "Shut the bedroom door." Something blonde flashed past me and hit the door with a quick slap, slamming it into the facing with finality.

Without consultation,  Susan and I ran simultaneously to the door to join Jan and each pressed an ear to the hard thick wood.

"I can't hear anything," Jan said in a stage whisper.

"Shhh," Susan put her finger to her lips and frowned at her.

I shrugged at Susan. "Nothing," I mouthed.

Just then we noticed Jan slidiing her head downward on the door. We didn't immediately understand why until we saw her grab the brown metal doorknob to stabilize herself so she could turn and peer through the keyhole. She squinted with her right eye and looked with her left, but she seemed to be having trouble getting anything in focus.

"Move over," I said, shoving her into the cedar chest beside the door.

I positioned my eye on the keyhole. "There they are. They're coming in the front door." I said with some excitement.

"Let me see, please," Susan said, edging me out of the way.

Jan pouted, sitting on the edge of the cedar chest. "I thought of it first," she said, sticking her lip out.

Susan was now sighted in on the green brocade couch, which sat directly opposite our bedroom door on the far wall of the living room, next to the front door.

She made motions with her long, delicate hands indicating that we should be quiet.

In just a few moments, though, she seemed to lose interest. "They're sitting on the couch. I don't think we should be doing this," she said. "It's not really very nice to Neila. She might get mad at us. Let's go to bed."

"Ok," Jan said too quickly.

"Wait, Jan," I said, trying to muster soldiers for a new plan I felt forming in my vacuous head.

"Let's jump from the chest of drawers to the bed,  then run to the cedar chest and open and shut the door while we do it.  We'll each start at a different place and cross in the middle."

The door would never stay shut for long by itself because the house had shifted and none of the doors fit perfectly in their frames.

The chest of drawers stood on the left side of the door,  with  the bed  situated lengthwise at a 90 degree angle to it;  the cedar chest was on the right side of the door.

"Ok," I instructed her, trying not to look at Susan's disapproving face. "You get on the cedar chest, and I'll get on the chest of drawers. When I tell you, pop the doorknob and swing the door toward me. You jump off the cedar chest and run across to the bed. I'll jump off the chest of drawers onto the bed, onto the floor, then catch the door and swing it closed,  run across the room and  jump on the cedar chest. Then we'll repeat it in reverse, with me popping the doorknob."

Susan made no secret of rolling her eyes.

"Get on the cedar chest," I told my minion, while I stepped nimbly from the bed onto the top of the chest of drawers.

"Ok," she said, turning and crawling up.

"You understand what to do?" I asked authoritatively.

"Uhuh," she said, looking slightly uncomfortable.

"Ok, go!" I said jumping with all my might onto the bed, then bouncing up off it onto the floor and running across toward the cedar chest, hitting the door which had swung open.  I hit the door so hard with my flat palms that they felt like they'd been stung by a hundred bees.

Once Jan was in place on the chest of drawers, I gave the command again, then popped the doorknob, sending the door flying open.  Jan was to slam it shut, but she was not fast enough in getting down to the floor, so the door stayed open, and we had to hide, both of us now cowering on the bed, watching the door shimmy slightly on its  hinges.

"Felisa?  Jan?"  We heard Neila's voice and looked sheepishly at each other.  "What are you doing?  You should be in bed."

We didn't answer, but hunkered down now, dreading what came next.

She entered the doorway, and looked toward us.  Susan had burrowed down in her bed and pretended to be asleep.

"Now you need to go to sleep.  You haven't shown  Bill that  you have very good manners, now, have you?"

We ducked our heads, unable to meet her gaze.

"Sorry," Jan said, meaning it.

"Sorry, too," I said, probably meaning it.

"Goodnight.  Bill is going home in a few minutes.  See you in the morning."

"Night," we said, barely looking at her.

"That was dumb of us," I said, realizing that most of it was my fault.

"I agree," Susan said, suddenly awake.

"Neila's not mad", Jan offered.

"Yeah, but I feel stupid." I said. "Bill probably thinks we're idiots.  And what if he never asks her out again because she has sisters who act like monkeys?"

"Well, I don't think she really wanted to go out with him again," Susan said, "so maybe we did her a favor."  

"We'll find out tomorrow," I imagine, I said resignedly, pulling the sheet and bedspread over my head.

"Can we jump off the chest tomorrow?  That was fun!" my former minion asked. 

"You'll have to ask Mother; and for goodness sake, don't tell her that we already did it!"

I sank into the bed, pulling the covers tightly around me,  hoping to lose my immaturity in them.
Installed

1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: A DOLL'S PAINFUL CHRISTMAS

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

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.



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1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE:LOOKING THROUGH CRACKS

I could never prevent myself from being deeply curious about things I wasn't supposed to see. At home, I searched through drawers in my parent's room when I thought no one was looking, sneaked upstairs to my brothers' room and went through desk drawers and closets,went through upper kitchen cabinets to see what unseen treasures lay there, looked under beds, and inside cedar chests, just to explore what was inside, hoping, I guess, to find an exotic object or some secret thing. What-I didn't know-it was just the thrill of searching for the unknown.

I always felt like there were things I wanted to know, but maybe no one would tell me. Maybe I would find secrets or something tucked away and forgotten that I would want to learn about. I would have to find out by myself. It was quite a burden for an 8 year-old.

The time at piano lessons suddenly piqued my curiosity and presented an opportunity.   I discovered that Mrs. Hutchinson's elderly parents lived in her home, and their rooms in the big two-story house connected to the stairwell where I took lessons, on the first floor.

I didn't know about them for a long time because they were quiet. I thought maybe Mrs. Hutchinson had them bound and gagged during the day so they wouldn't upset her piano students or bother her workday.

But one afternoon,  right in the middle of My First Waltz, I heard someone. It was soft and sweet sounding, like someone talking to their dog, or something they love. The words were muffled, but I heard two distinct voices, one male, one female, back and forth several times.

It was impossible to try to listen to the conversation and focus on the piano piece, and soon Mrs. Shirley knew it. "Concentrate," she said. "Watch your rhythm."

Hearing that conversation was too enticing.  I just had to find a way to see what they were doing in there and if they were all right. I obsessed about it every time I was there for my lesson. What were they doing back there? Why didn't anyone ever see them outside? Were they happy? Did they need anything?

Mrs. Shirley usually only left her chair at the end of the lesson to walk to the door and call the next student. One day, though,she appeared at the door, nodded to me to come in, and then she was called into the front room by Mrs. Hutchinson. I noticed her swallow hard, and without saying anything, she motioned me into the practice room, as she simultaneously walked the other way, toward the living room.

I walked in quickly, shut the door, and went straight to the piano, which was set at a 90 degree angle to the locked door of the elderly prisoners' apartment. After squeezing past the piano bench and Mrs. Shirley's chair, I wedged myself against the door, squinting through the tiny crack that ran along the edge of the door.

I could see part of a man with white hair;  he was portly, and he was standing looking at a magazine. Just as I peered in,  he moved and sat in a large barcalounger with his back to me.

I could hear the voice of a woman, but couldn't see her. My breath was not moving at all, though I didn't realize it until I was startled by Mrs. Shirley's voice, causing me to suck in air loudly.

"Felisa, what are you doing?"

"Nothing," I lied. "Nothing at all," I said, as if repetition would reinforce my innocence.

"Well, stop that nothing," she scolded. "You don't need to be looking back there."

I felt ashamed, but not too much. I genuinely thought I needed to know how they were. I didn't trust Mrs. Hutchinson to be good to them.

The next week Mrs. Shirley made sure I had no time alone to pry, but she called me in a little early while someone else was playing, and I had nowhere else to sit but the stairs. It occurred to me that I had never seen the upstairs portion of Mrs. Hutchinson's house and that I would like to.

Quietly, I pushed my rear up one step, then another, then another. Just as I reached the landing, Mrs. Shirley noticed my feet disappearing, and caught me once again - to my chagrin. "Don't go up the steps," she chided. "There is nothing for you to see up there."

Well, I doubted that was true, but I did feel a little ashamed getting caught snooping twice in one week's time. I supposed I'd have to give it up, content to see only the public parts of the house.

Still, there was one more room that interested me. I'd never been in the kitchen, and I really wanted to see it. One of the kids had glimpsed it through the swinging door that connected it to the dining room, and said it had a little booth, like in a restaurant.  I'd never seen a kitchen with a booth.

The cookies at Club might be my ticket. I began to plot, thinking how I'd surprise Mrs. Hutchinson, who probably thought I was mute, by offering to get the cookies from the kitchen for refreshments. It seemed like a good plan, and it might work, if only Mrs. Shirley didn't stop me. For the first time in my life, I was actually looking forward to Club. 
Installed

1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: THE BARTLETTS

I liked the Bartlett kids, at least the two that were about my age. There were about a dozen of them. They made our family of a mere half dozen kids look smallish and wimpy by comparison. They had a few that were already married, probably in their late teens. Then they seemed to have one in each of the grades up to about the 10th which is when most of them dropped out of school or got married. I guess I never noticed that even though there was one of them in each of the grades with my older four siblings, none of my siblings ever befriended them or asked them home for supper.

But I made up for it. I befriended Lila, who was one year older, and Reba, who was one year younger than I. One particular fall day, I invited them over after school. We decided to help my mom out because she was away working at the cotton gin as a bookkeeper, a job she did part-time in the fall, to help my dad when the cotton ginning season was in full swing.

There were a few dishes in the sink, and Lila pulled up a stool and started making large plumps of soap suds and blowing them about the kitchen. I didn't say anything because I had never washed dishes, not with any seriousness anyway, and I thought maybe that was the way you did it. Anyway, I liked the way the suds floated up in the air, their little iridescent bubbles twinkling like kitchen stars, and the way they landed soft as a cloud on the yellow leatherlette of the kitchen chairs. Spread out there, they looked like miniature snow-filled lakes, and even as they dripped over the chair edge and plip-plipped onto the floor, I found myself lying prone on the thick, green linoleum following the water's path till it ran down the slight slope of the floor back toward the sink.

Reba, who was not nearly as industrious as her older sister, started skating around in the suds, faster and faster, until she couldn't stop and slid directly into the kitchen window at the far end of the table. I heard a little crack sound and noticed a long line now dividing the 30 inch square plate of glass. Reba looked a little sheepish and as soon as Neila, who had heard the telltale splitting of glass, entered the room, she started making up the most outrageous story about how the crack happened. Lila had glanced arround when the window cracked, but now she appeared engrossed in her dishwashing so much that she didn't even stop when Neila started trying to get to the truth.

Just then, we got a reprieve. The phone rang, and there was no one else to answer it except Neila.

"My daddy will beat my butt," Reba whimpered. "We cain't pay for no window. We cain't pay for nothin'. He'll whup me for sure."

Lila, with her back to us, started humming. She was actually the more socially adept of the two, but she was acting like someone on a distant planet right now. The dishes squeaked as she rubbed them with the dishcloth.
"Which plate is yours," she asked without looking.
"What?!"
"Which plate is yours. Don't you each have your own plate?"
"No!", I snapped. "We all eat off all the plates. No one has a special one."
"Oh," she said limply.

I turned my attention back to Reba who seemed to be shrinking, puddling toward the floor.
"Don't worry about it," I reassured Reba. "My little sister threw a baseball through my parent's bedroom window playing "Annie Over", and it was the window with the air conditioner in it. My daddy wanted to get mad, but my mother wouldn't let him. Just let me do the talking."

"No, Mother, they're fine.," I heard Neila say. "Felisa brought home two friends, and they seem to have cracked the kitchen window. I'm not sure what happened yet. No one is hurt. Ok, see you in a few hours."

Neila hung up the bell-shaped receiver on the wallphone. I was sure that in a few minutes, it would be all over town that we had a cracked window since Molly Townsend, the telephone operator, liked to listen in on phone conversations. She seemed to especially like to listen in on ours, since six kids and a laconic mother made for interesting happenings quite often. Her own life, by comparison, was dull, except when her brother Buzzard, who was well-liked when sober and mean as a rodeo bull when drunk, came home after too much of the drink supposedly named for another bird, Wild Turkey. He was unable to support himself in the the totality, so she had lent him room and a place to stay if he would contribute to her household expenses. He did, and she made him make his bed neatly every morning, and hang his clothes in the wardrobe, not pile them on the floor.

"Ok." Neila squats down to our level. "What happened here?"

We look down at our dusty tennis shoes, silent.

"Felisa?" she asks accusingly.

I hesitate. Then tentatively......"Well, we were playing in the soapsuds, and..............

"And?"

"I can't really tell because something really bad could happen if I do."

"What bad could happen?"

"Well...........how much do windows cost?" I query.

"Oh yes, the cost......well, not much. Daddy will gripe, but he'll fix it or have one of the men at the gin fix it. The cost is not much. But you could have been hurt, whichever one of you did it."

"Reba's daddy will whup her if he finds out," I blurt out, unable to hold in this information any longer.

Neila raised one eyebrow, probably at the "whup" pronunciation.

"Oh, I see," she says. Understanding filled her hazel eyes. "Well, then. Is anyone cut? Let me see your arms and fingers."

We hold them out. She surveys them carefully. Reba's toughened skin next to my still babyish fingers. Her raggedy, bitten nails, next to my neatly trimmed ones.

"Don't worry. Just clean up this mess and yall go out and play something else that's not so dangerous."

I couldn't wait till Mother got home because Lila had asked me if on Saturday we could hike to their sister's house about two miles down the road in a cottonfield.

Mother would probably let me go. I could tell she felt sorry for the family. Once, she had offered to pick the girls up for a covered dish supper for a 4-H club banquet at the school. When the girls came out with a package of cheap weiners as their culinary offering, Mother found a way to make them into a tasty dish that people actually ate.

On the one and only visit I remember making to their house, the two girls insisted that I stay for the evening meal. I didn't eat very much because it seemed like too little food for too many people, and nobody insisted that I take the best piece of meat like we did at our house when we had company. I told them I didn't eat much meat, which was a lie, but it made me feel better not to eat it.

Their mother had come in from work wearing a white nurses' aide uniform. She worked at a nursing home in Corsicana, a larger town about twenty miles away. She looked real tired, and she didn't even seem very happy to see her kids like my mother always did when she got home. She just yelled at us to "Fill in that hole!"

Lila had had the bright idea to try to dig up her dead dog to see what he looked like after three weeks in the ground. Fortunately, we never could find the exact spot where he was buried. We got pretty hungry doing all that digging though, and Lila went to the house while Reba and I kept digging exploratory holes trying to locate Jeebie. Lila came back with three plastic cups filled with about 1/3 cup of dry oatmeal with sugar tossed on top. It wasn't something I had ever eaten in that particular form, but I was hungry. We had to make a pretty quick trip to the house to get some water to wash it down with, so we held our throats and made dying of thirst sounds and ran up the thick creosote logs to the heavy plank front porch.

Shortly after supper, I made an excuse to go home. I still wanted to play with Reba and Lila, but I wanted them to come to my house in the future. I didn't want to go over there. Even though they both seemed really happy and not to notice, I could feel and almost see a dark, sad cloud that hung over their mother.
I had an urgent question to ask Mother as soon as I got home too, since Reba had whispered something secretly to me just before I left when it was becoming dark, about a girl getting "scraped" on the railroad tracks; I was naturally concerned since the tracks ran right in front of our house.
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1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: LEVEE BREACH

You could see them in the distance, about 200 yards off. Two little girls with dishwater colored hair, trudging along the narrow farm-to-market road. Heatwaves rose off the pavement obscuring their faces, their bodies like upright pieces of cooked bacon, brown and wavy.
Lib guided the '53 Buick carefully onto the grassy edge beside the road, stopping it with a slight swoosh from the power brakes. Even though it was five years old, it was the fanciest car the family had ever had, bought during a period of prosperity fueled by ginning bumper crops of cotton.
She glanced at 18 year-old Neila, sitting quietly in the passenger seat. The cool interior belied the devastating heat of a July day in Texas. Both of them watched the approaching 8 year-olds, hot, dusty, but definitely not desperate. They walked at their normal pace toward the car, seemingly not in any hurry, proudly displaying their independence.
They had begged that morning to walk up the road about two miles to Lila's sister's house which sat in the middle of a cotton field. They wanted to play with Judy's babies, Lester, age 2 and Billie Jean, who was just 6 months old. Lib had packed them a lunch and snacks. The young mother cared for the children while her husband worked in the fields. She was 18, the same age as Neila, but she had dropped out of school three years ago. Neila would leave for college in a few months.
"Now don't ask for anything to eat or drink while you're there. I packed plenty for both of you." Lib admonished Felisa.
"Y'all don't stay too long either. She has a lot to do with those babies. Are you sure she wants you to come?"
"I'm sure. Lila talked to her Saturday when they came to town, and she knows we're comin'."
"Ok, then. Wear your tennis shoes and drink a lot of water. It's really hot."
"Lila said they don't have a phone. I don't know why, but anyway, we can't call you."
"Well, don't stay more than 2 hours, and then start home."
"Ok. Lila says the babies are really cute."
"They are, I'm sure. I never met a baby I thought was ugly."
"Really?"
"Really." she answered, handing her two brown paper lunchsacks stuffed with food.
The back door slammed, and Felisa and Lila set off on their big adventure.
Neila shot a knowing look at her mother. "Are you sure it's okay? It's at least two miles down there."
"She has to learn about the world sometime. She's too idealistic. She needs to see how other people live. And how fortunate she is."
"Yeah," I guess. Neila sounded unconvinced. She sometimes thought her mother too cavalier, too trusting of people, and too eager to let her children experience more troubling aspects of life. Her mother, the eternal optimist, the non-worrier, had just released the worryingest child she had to walk two miles to a sharecropper's cabin that lacked running water or an indoor toilet, things she had not experienced.

The girls climbed in the backseat. Deep sighs, then Lila immediately started babbling about the babies, how much fun they had, how glad Judy had been to see them, and planning the next trip out loud. She appeared not to notice that no sound was emanating from the seat occupied by her fellow traveler. Felisa stared out the window, silent. Lib and Ann knew better than to interrupt or pry. It would all come out, like stormwater breaking through a levee, but this wasn't the time.
They dropped Lila at her house, an old commercial building that had been converted to a home. The rooms were huge, as they needed to be for the large family of 12 children. She skipped happily toward the wooden steps that led up steeply to a small porch made of thick wooden planks salvaged from a railroad waiting platform. She turned to wave, kicking at the three mongrel dogs running up the steps to greet her.
"She's probably going to have some oatmeal and sugar for a snack," Felisa said flatly.
"Do you like that?" Neila asked.
"No, I choke on it, but that's all they have over there. That house didn't have any paint on it." This without a breath between sentences. "And those little babies have to wear dishcloths for diapers. And the floor has so many cracks in it between the boards that there is dirt all over the floor and the babies crawl in it, and then they cry, and it smears a dirt smear on their face and then they wet their "diaper" (this said with a look of disgust), and then there's mud on their legs, and it is so hot there you can't even hardly breathe, and the flies and bugs are in there because she leaves the front door and all the windows wide open to try to get a breath of air. And they have an outdoor toilet, and it stinks and has flies everywhere and wasps in the corners and spiderwebs and no telling what is under that hole you're supposed to sit on, so I just held it and now I really have to go to the bathroom. And there's nowhere to wash your hands except in a bowl that everybody else has washed their hands in and the baby's bottoms have been washed in, and oh my gosh, I just feel so sorry for them. Why would she want to have those babies when it's so bad for her already? She doesnt' sing to them or smile at them like we all smile at babies. And even if Lila said she was glad to see us, she didn't smile at us when we got to the house. She let us give the babies some of our lunch food and snacks. That's the only time I saw her smile. Lila can go back, but I don't want to."
Mother and Neila sat quietly, listening to the levee break. The water swirled through the breach and over, coursing its way through the carefully crafted banks, destroying what had been there. It couldn't be put back. It was too strong and swift. Sometimes water like that spread out in the fields on the other side, making the grass grow, the flowers flourish, and the soil moist and life-bearing. Sometimes it sat, dark, mossy, and stagnant in the fields breeding mosquitos and snakes.
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