Getting Rid of Junk

(photo borrowed from USPS-my preferred method of shipping using Click n Ship)

In cleaning out my boxes of junk from the garage, I seem to have made many people happy. My cousin called with questions about some of the items - like "What's this black and white fuzzy long thing?" Answer: A scarf I knit for your wife. "Who's in this framed picture?" What picture, describe it to me. A man in a white shirt and a woman. Answer: That's you're grandmother and grandfather when they were younger 1944. "There's a coin purse here with stuff in it?" Coin purse was grandmother's. Necklace inside was great grandmother's. Piece of paper is grandfather's driver's license when they first began issuing them in Mississippi.

A friend: "What's this long black thing with a star shape on the bottom?" Answer: a handy-dandy meat masher to use in non-stick skillets from Pampered Chef. "You sent soap; do you think I'm dirty?" No, it made the box smell good.

Another friend: "Um, why are you sending me bottles?" Answer: so you can smash them up and use them in your glassworks. Where did you get these glass door knobs? Answer: From my great grandparents house in Mississippi before it was torn down.

And, the universal question "Why aren't you keeping all of this stuff?" Answer: I have way too much stuff and no children or grandchildren who might appreciate it.

So look out, buddies. You may be next on the list for a mystery box.

The Help

You can't look inside the book from here because the image came from Amazon.com where you can not only look inside but also buy the book.

I was born and grew up in northern Mississippi, about a hundred miles from Jackson where this novel is set. We did not have a maid, but we did have a black woman who came in to help Mom with the laundry occasionally - and I think to do my diapers because Mom was not well when I was a baby in the mid to late 1940s. She was much loved by our family. As we went past her house on the way into town, I would often ask if we could stop and visit her. We only stopped once.

No one that I knew had a regular maid though they did exist in my little town. I don't remember that they wore uniforms, but by the 1960s I don't believe anyone except the wealthiest people had maids in our part of the country. Mom's boss had a maid until she died in the late 1990s - a wonderful woman who cooked and served a brunch before my wedding (the boss' gift to me).

I was blessed with Caroline, a black woman whose husband farmed a small acreage down the turn row from us. I visited her often in the summer. She cooked turtle soup and the best biscuits in the world. She never let me eat at the table with her and her husband. I had to eat on a white cloth over the sewing machine in the living room. I always begged to be at her table because I loved her dearly. Perhaps it was Caroline who taught me how to make tiny stitches for mending or how to season food by smelling what was needed or how to get that foot motion just right on the treadle sewing machine.

I am a white woman now in my mid 60s. I was a white child in a poor family. I cannot imagine the conversations of the white women in this book. They are painful to me. Although I've read only the first 100 pages and the last few pages, I can see the plot developing. The same hoity-toity talk continues throughout even if some honesty and devotion does develop.

I'm not sure I can handle the pain of those conversations and the duplicity of both white and black women. Race, money and position were powerful then and now. Empowerment is situational. Mae Mo, the child in the book, may be told over and over that she is good and kind and such, but she will discover that power can make you feel hated and worthless at times - no matter how much you tell yourself differently. Race, money and position still rule the world.

As my previous post mentions: sometimes I'd rather live in blissful ignorance and forgetfulness.

Chistmas Past

Let's see; my childhood memories of Christmas are very scarce. The tree was always in the living room, which had no heat; Christmases were cold in Mississippi during my childhood. Santa came fairly early on Christmas Eve; David (My brother) and I waited in the warm kitchen while Mom put out the presents. I don't remember Dad ever being there...not before he went back in the Navy nor after he came home. I remember three presents during my younger years (before age 16) - a blue bicycle, a pair of clip-on skates, and a pair of drum majorette boots (no, I was never in the band, but I loved boots and still do - three pair now and counting - of course, two pair are red). Often during the summer as we cleaned out the two tiny little closets by the chimneys, we found Christmas coloring books and small items that Mom had put away and didn't remember - so we had Christmas again. I know that I received dolls for Christmas because Mom kept them and made clothes for them. She enjoyed them much more than I did. My Aunt Virgie worked in a factory up North that made doll clothes, and so I got boxes of dolls clothes of all sizes and sorts. I still have one little kimono jacket that is pink on one side and blue on the other. Probably fit a small baby doll.

Then, we moved away from the farm to Slate Springs, David was killed in an accident in the Gulf of Mexico, and that Christmas was very strange. Mom and my sister-in-law, Sue, drove to Memphis (about four hours) to buy Christmas presents. I stayed at home. Marty, my nephew, was at his sitter's house. On the way home from Memphis, Sue hit a horse on the interstate and destroyed the car. Mom's head hit the windshield (this was before seat belts) and she had a concussion and a large cut. They were taken to the hospital in Water Valley, MS, and someone either brought them home (a good samaritan) or maybe Mom's cousin went to get them. Anyway, they got home in the early morning hours. None of their purchases were hurt, and most of them were wrapped. I got a swing coat with a "mouton" collar, and inside the box were fragments of the windshield glass from the wreck.

Christmases didn't make a big impression on me again until Mom bought her house in Columbus, MS. It was a rambling 9 room house, and she invited her step-sister and family each year for dinner - and anyone one else who wanted to come. Huge meals and lots of games were the order of the day. The two step-nephews were a bit younger than me - though it doesn't seem so much so now - and I watched them grow from boys to men through the Christmases at that house. One year, Mom bought Santa Claus gifts for my ex-husband's new family, and I watched those girls enjoy their presents in front of her fireplace. Each year, Mom bought a dozen little wind-up toys for each place at the table - and we had races and much laughter after the pecan and chocolate pies were finished.

My second husband and I split our Christmas times between our Moms, but we always spent some time at my Mom's house and that's when the family gathered. One year, we elected to stay in New Haven while I was in seminary. Our friend Donna came to visit. We went to New York City and played all day and into the night. Driving down the street with the sunroof open, taking pictures as we stopped at traffic lights; dashing across streets to the big Christmas tree while Loftin drove around blocks. Sadly, when we arrived back in New Haven, Donna found that her mother had died that day. Judith, who was just returning from the midnight service, brought us communion and did prayers for her mother.

This Christmastime, Donna is burying her father - some 17 years later. Please remember Donna and her family in your prayers. Her father really missed his wife, and I am glad they are reunited - and with the Westies that he loved so much. May we also find that joy after death.

In 1988, our neighbors gathered for a tree-trimming party - the first one. And, I realized that we'd be going to seminary the following year; so I bought my first miniature Christmas tree and Hallmark miniature ornaments. I have a miracle story about that little tree's ornaments, but I'll save that for the day after Christmas.

Since I've been with my partner, celebrating 10 Christmases now, we've had a tree trimming party each year - with lots of good food and friends. Our family now is "chosen family", those friends that we would call sisters and brothers - except for our delightful - well, actually her delightful son, who will be here in a few days. Homemade Chicken Soup was at the other end of the table. um um good.

A little more history

Hmmm, seems some young folks are following my history and asking questions, and I answered some of them on the phone, but there's a big gap there.

Sister-in-law Sue, nephew Marty. Marty was deaf. Sue worked nights at the Coffee Cup. Sometimes Marty was left alone all night. Sue was unmarried and got pregnant - 1965. Mom filed suit to get custody of Marty. Sue married an Air Force guy who needed someone to take care of his kids. The baby was born and is mentally about 2 years old. She was beautiful and her name is Darcy. Her father was a very good looking drug addict who died before she was born. Darcy lives with her sister Dena now in Clarksdale, Miss.

The Air Force guy retired and they moved to Rochester, New York, where Sue stayed until his kids were out of high school. She spent a summer with Mom and me in Columbus when Darcy was about 2 and Dena, her next child, was a baby. Dena is bright and wonderful. They went back to New York, but eventually moved back to Mississippi. Sue married once and divorced. Marty committed suicide on July 4, 1996. Sue died in the operating room while she was having an ulcer repaired/removed. They are both buried in the cemetery with the rest of my family in Slate Springs, Mississippi.

However, between that part of the story and where I left off at college....Sue had another child and gave him up for adoption. Mom said he had red hair. I think that was the summer of 1964.

Leaving college

I majored in journalism, and we had a crusty old newspaper editor as head of the department. He took the students on tour each year to the area newspapers - well, the big ones in Memphis and Birmingham. I got so drunk in Memphis at a nightclub where Gene somebody was singing about a haunted house (okay, so I used to know both his name and the popular song) that my buddies had to pour me into the car and take me back to the hotel. I missed part of the following day's activities. But, Birmingham was another story. We dined atop the mountain, compliments of the B'ham News, and toured radio, tv, and newspapers. That was wonderful.

I was taking all my major courses in my second year of college. Somehow I knew that I wouldn't finish - too many problems. Mom wanted me to make decisions and then she could complain when something went wrong. Mind you, this is a 17 year old making decisions for the family. And, Sue and I were arguing every day. Mom finally caught onto the fact that I was really drinking heavily. My boyfriend was getting discharged from the service that year, and I decided I would leave college and marry him. Didn't really consult him about whether that was what he wanted to do or not. Mom and I visited his grandmother, who reared him, in Cullman, AL, a couple of times, and I was not the most popular choice for his family. After the last visit, Jim and his uncle took me to the bus in Birmingham, and I knew I'd never see him again. I didn't tell Mom that. What I told Mom was that I was moving to Memphis to work until Jim and I could get married.

Jim and Mom

Moved in for temporaries with my late brother's best friend and his wife and daughter. Way out from town. Job hunting was almost impossible, and I had no transportation. So, I rode to work each morning with brother's best friend and made my few rounds, and back to their home. On weekends, I would ride to work with him, and we would go rodeoing with his girlfriend and a married guy. They were pretty good and made enough to cover our expenses on the road. Brother's best friend's wife stayed home. (Needless to say, that marriage didn't last.) Summer was lots of fun for me. I learned to ride and learned to ride barrels. I learned a lot about sex and cheating. I visited a lot of little po-dunk towns in Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee. I met a vet who gave me phenobarbital for my migraines.

Summer ended and I moved into the YWCA downtown - better to job hunt. I would wander down to Court Square and drink coffee with the sailors from Millington. Later, when I had my own place, we'd do more than drink coffee, especially since I don't drink coffee. But I finally found a good job agency and got a job as assistant editor of a trade magazine.

Now, one thing I haven't talked about much is being sick. I had a lot of respiratory illness during my childhood and had rheumatic fever during my junior year of high school. the illness continued, and I missed some work, but I was very good at my job and my mentor-boss was great. However, when I returned from vacation after my first year on the job, I was fired because they were reorganizing the magazine and didn't want a woman as editor - the only position that would be open. LOL Of course that was 10 days before the law was passed that made discrimation because of gender illegal.

That year at the magazine is a blur. I lived with a college friend until she became pregnant and moved back home. I lived with Sue's sister for a while until I couldn't take the other roommate's obsessiveness any longer. I lived briefly in an unfurnished apartment. During an acute bout of illness, Mom came to Memphis and moved me into a furnished apartment in a house with an old lady who yelled at me whenever I made the least noise. And, when she thought someone was spending the night, she threatened to throw me out.

I bought a 1949 grey Chevy and drove it for over a year with a temporary tag...back and forth from Memphis to Columbus, where Mom lived.

I moved into an apartment owned by a man I met at a bar; I lived downstairs; he lived upstairs, and I was not his official girlfriend. But, I thoroughly enjoyed his red carpet and his tape deck - one of those old big ones that you had to build yourself. One day, he told me that a friend was coming to town, and could she stay with me for a while.

Carol moved in. One Sunday when some college friends were visiting (including the college gossip), I answered a knock at the front door to discover two very butch women, very dirty, standing at the door. Carol's friends. They had all been in the Navy together and all discharged for being lesbians. My friends departed quickly, and I was scorned on campus thereafter.

Carol and I got an apartment that was the entire upstairs of a house near the bus lines. Her friends visited. We took in boys who had been discharged from the Navy because they were gay - kept them until they could get enough money to go home or to go to work and find their own place. We took in one woman who was incontinent, put her bed in the dining room, and finally had to ask her to leave because of the smell. She was very nice, but we didn't have a washer/dryer.

I had a pet skunk (descented) who liked to ride horses with me - would hook his claws into a pad on the top of my shoulder and flatten himself against my body when we rode. We had cats and a rabbit once. They all used the same litter box and ate the same food.

College

Ummmm, my roommate had transferred from Sophia Newcomb, a women's college in New Orleans. She was shy and depressed. I would sneak out of the dorm after study hour was over, block the fire door open and go to the "Old Goose" to buy snacks for me and others on the floor. A raincoat over my gown was "dressed" for that occasion. And, we discovered that we could sign out for the library at night, go in the front door of the library and climb out the back windows, reverse the process when we had wandered as much as we wished.

My best friend, Yogi, and I wandered a lot. The Dean of Students, Margaret Goen, drove an ancient black sedan, and she would often give us rides when it was raining and we were both trying to shelter under Yogi's wonderful wool cape. The image of friend means a tall, blonde girl in cowboy boots and a long blue wool cape (that she sometimes let me borrow). Jumping ahead: she eloped in our sophomore year, and we didn't see much of each other; then they moved away. Last year, she returned to my life, and I'm grateful.

Sue divorced and convinced Mom to move to Memphis and study computer programming. Back then, that meant hard-wiring boards. Sue and Mom both completed the course, but neither found jobs as the computer industry had moved faster than the training. Sue worked as a waitress at Toddle House. I was in summer school at Ole Miss, studying how quickly I could drain a bottle of rum or case of beer or whatever alcoholic.

One weekend a girl from my dorm asked me to drive her to Memphis to pick up a friend's girlfriend. We went in the friend's car, and we were late. It was a stick shift; so I was the only one around who could drive one. Seems like it was a 1954 Ford that he had "hopped up." And, we flew, at least until the head gasket blew, and we limped into a garage in a tiny town just off Hwy. 55 about 15 miles from Memphis. The garage was filled with good ole boys, and we convinced some of them to tow us back to Oxford. I sat in the back seat with one of the boys and she sat in the front seat with one or two others. We spent the entire time fending off probing hands, and praying for our safety. But, we were delivered safe and sound to our dorm and told the boys that we would be willing to see them next weekend. Bad news bears. The following weekend, they actually showed up at the dorm - all cleaned up and ready to date the college girls. I don't remember what she did, but I hid in my room and bribed the girl at the desk to say that I was ill...and I was - scared silly.

That summer was one of the worst bouts of my drinking. I was failing history (world civ), and the night before the final exam, I took a bottle of rum and a big glass bottle of Coke and went to hide in the cubby where we partied in the woods. I had our car because I was moving home the next day. I do not remember returning to campus, but I do remember walking into the classroom to take the exam thinking "Well, this is it - all over now." The professor was either very sympathetic or the answers just flowed from my drunken brain; I made a D in the course. I lost my honors at MSCW because of that D and the scholarship that went along with it.

I could not drive home; so Mom, now back in our tiny town and keeping Marty, got someone to bring her to Ole Miss and got me. I did not get out of bed for several days after that.

Sometime the next week or so, the doctor told Mom that she had nephritis, an incurable kidney disease, and would be disabled. We had no income. I had a little bit of money left from my part of my brother's estate. I asked if she could withstand a move; the doctor said yes. So, we drove immediately to Columbus, where MSCW is located, and I rented a small apartment. I don't remember how we moved, but we did. And, I entered school that fall as a day student.

Mom subsequently recovered enough to get a job at the new Cable Company as the office person - a job she kept until she retired at age 68. The company grew as did her responsibility, and she had a staff of 10 when she left.

Sue moved in with us. I gave up my bedroom to Sue and Marty and Mom and I share a room. Mom decided we couldn't afford to live there and moved us into the projects. I began drinking heavily again and riding my bicycle everywhere. I made lots of friends with guys at the airbase, and we danced and drank our way through a year.

More personal history♦

Telling my story in my blog is easier than telling it over the phone to my best friend. So here goes - for her sake and the sake of some good mini-stories.

Near the end of my sophomore year in high school (1961), my drunken Dad began to get violent. He grabbed Mom by the wrists and shook her. Sister in law Sue and I got on either side of him with iron skillet and butcher knife and threatened to kill him unless he quit. We moved the following week. I took final exams two weeks early, and Mom found a dump truck driver who would move us into my grandmother's empty house (she had recently remarried). Mom, Sue and baby Marty drove there in our 1949 Ford and I rode with the trucker to show him where to go. As soon as Mom got out of site and we got on the highway, he pulled over and said he had cancer and the drugs he was taking made him so sleepy he couldn't drive. Could I drive? I was 15 years old, but I'd been driving since I was 12; so that wasn't really a problem. Between tractors and the old flatbed truck we had, I figured out the system quite well. He went to sleep in the passenger seat, and I drove the two hours. We switched drivers just before we got there. He needed the money badly, and I was hooked on driving anyway.

We had no money, no job, little food, and were living in a town of 150 people- so no jobs either. I went to work as a waitress that summer. Grandmother (Mema) gave us what little was left in her local bank account. We stretched it a long way. My brother sent regular checks from his job as a welder's helper with the pipeline. My sister-in-law screamed at the baby. My mother was horrified and somewhat helpless. She was paralyzed by the fact that she had finally left my father, a home, and a job. Of course, that really was a small price to pay to keep us from killing him.

I flirted with the local bootlegger who came regularly to the cafe for lunch. What fun! He was good looking, and his wife was reputed to be on the lookout for his running around. So, when she came in, I slipped out the back door and stayed gone until she left. LOL Did she really think a 15-year-old was competition? Probably not, but it was fun for me.

My brother died in November of that year, and I can't even begin to talk about that on these pages right now. After so many years, the pain is still there.

Sue and Mom hit a horse on the interstate coming back from Christmas shopping in Memhphis, and I found bits of glass in my Christmas presents - they were wrapped and in the back of the car at the time. Mom carried a forehead scar the rest of her life, but both of them survived without too much damage. The car was totalled. The horse was dead. Now, they do have fences to help keep the animals off the road.

Age 17 the dress was white with bright red lace over it

I made friends in school for the first time in my life, and they visited in our home. We had lots of fun that junior year of high school. I had two boyfriends, went to the junior-senior banquet, wrote the prophecy and worked on the school newspaper - including running it off on the ditto machine.

Sue went back to high school with me the following year as a senior. I sometimes rode the school bus and sometimes rode with Sue. Mom got a job as a bookkeeper in a small furniture company; so we were getting by. Marty, the baby, had convulsions with fever and we were so far from a doctor that he lost his hearing as a result of the high fever. He was a good looking tot! Sue remarried sometime that year, and Marty lived sometimes with Sue and husband and sometimes with Mom and me. I started drinking with my next door neighbor that year.

The smoke house behind our house caught on fire that year, and the volunteer fire dept. hoses were rotted; so all we had to wet down the house to keep the fire from spreading was a tiny yard hose. The preacher was screaming, "The house is gonna go, the house is gonna go." Mom was panicking. I told the preacher to shut his damn mouth. So the following revival, I was told that I would join the local Baptist church. The preacher dropped me as he was dunking me, and I personally think it was a deliberate reprisal for my cussing. Of course, the religion didn't last long; they kicked me out the church because I started a teen club where we danced!!!! They said I had to quit dancing or leave the church. So I left. My Mom's buried in their cemetery, but we had a graveside service; I won't go back inside that church.

At Christmas that year, Mom and I went to Texas to see the man who had tried to save my brother's life. We were two days late getting me back to school. The high school principal tried to suspend me for being late. I said cuss words to him because several other girls were not back for school yet. The superintendent of the schools stepped in, converted my trig class to business math and pronounced that I had enough credits to graduate. I had already been accepted at Miss. State College for Women, and so I moved into the dormitory January 1962 and began college classes.

Unfortunately, Mom had her heart set on seeing my walk across the stage and receive my diploma from high school. So, between final exams at college 70 miles away, I traveled back and forth to attend the baccalaureate (Sunday afternoon church celebration of graduation)and Monday night graduation. Then back to college on Tuesday to finish up exams. I made honors that semester. End of installment One