Straw Hat

I wrote a longer version of this story almost eight years ago for a family reunion. My daughter did the illustrations. We printed it using Shutterfly and read it to the children (well really everyone, we just targeted the children). It was our way of sharing some stories of our family with the next generation in a way that might not bore them to tears. Each person that encountered Olivia read their portion of the story. There was a chapter for my mom and my aunt now both omitted for the sake of those not familiar with our family. Their stories have been incorporated into this newer version, however. This story is the basis for some of the flavor of my blog, I Just Made That Up, or It Really Happened. I have never shared it on my blog. Now the time has come, we have added more children to our family and i would like to improve the original before I add more to it. I’d like to take advantage of my writing friends and my Yeah Write friends for editing, suggestions, what works, what doesn’t. To that end, I am submitting this to Moonshine, because there are no rules to length and genre right?  Thanks for reading!

Olivia spied the old straw hat hanging in her grandmother’s house. It was just what she needed to finish her playing-outside-costume on that sunny, hot day. Olivia’s neck was adorned with a flower chain fashioned from morning glories and her wrists sparkled with golden bracelets. She grabbed the hat and placed it on top of her silky brown hair and skipped out of the house. She couldn’t wait to see what adventures waited.

A thrill of excitement hit Olivia as she spotted Aunt Hannah in the garden. She twirled and whirled her way over to her Aunt wondering what magical thing she might have found in the garden. Her Aunt was always looking for bugs, toads, and lizards and usually had some scary thing to show her.
“Hey Aunt Hannah, what are you doing?” Olivia bounced up and asked.

“Well look at you, Miss Olivia! ” Aunt Hannah’s blue eyes sparkled with laughter as she let Olivia behold the June Bugs collected in the purple beach bucket.

Olivia squealed with delight and shrieked, “ewwwww, what are those?”

“June bugs, I’m picking them off my roses because they like to eat them. Hey, I know that Hat!” Aunt Hannah said wiping her brow.

Olivia turned a pirouette and said, “Don’t I look pretty?”

“You look very pretty. That old hat that you have on your head belongs to a memory I have. “Before you were born, your great-great-grandmother, Lucille, wore that hat in her garden. Later in the evening, resting on her porch, her straw hat fanned the cool night air around her face.”

Her Aunt took the battered hat from Olivia and fanned Olivia’s small face, “Feel the breeze, Olivia? If I close my eyes I can almost smell the cool Georgia night air.”
Olivia closed her eyes but she only smelled, well nothing really. “No, Aunt Hannah, I don’t smell anything.”

Her Aunt smiled at her and said, “that’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.”

Olivia’s round brown eyes landed on the green-blue iridescent flash of a June bug, jamming the hat back on her head, she ran along.

Around the corner of the yard, Olivia ran, and bumped right into her to her Aunt Claire’s chair. “Olivia, you look just like a movie star!”

Olivia giggled because to her, Aunt Claire was so glamorous, “Aunt Claire, can I get tanned with you?”

Claire replied, “of course, put some sun lotion on so you don’t burn.”

Just then a quick breeze skittered the straw hat right off Olivia’s head, her Aunt’s sun-browned arm reached out and caught the hat.

“Hey, I know that hat, it belongs to a memory I have.” Olivia finished putting the lotion on her lanky arms and legs while her aunt told the story.

“When my mother, your grandmother, Ma Kay, was young she liked to walk down to her friend Beverly’s house to sunbathe on the roof of the porch. In those days they used baby oil on their skin to tan and lemons in their hair to lighten it. MaKay’s grandmother scolded the girls often, believing a young lady should have creamy white skin and natural hair. Many times MaKay would find her grandmother trying to tie this old straw hat onto her head before she went out to play.”

Before handing the hat back to Olivia, Aunt Claire held it up to her nose and breathed deeply, her eyes closed, her head tipped back in the sun. “Smell that Olivia? Baby-oil and lemons?”

But Olivia still did not smell anything. Aunt Claire smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.” Hearing her mother’s laughter, Olivia ran off to find her.

“Olivia, you are just the girl I was looking for,” her mother said.

Olivia began climbing up on the picnic table and jumping off over and over again, “Mother do you like my playing outside costume?”

Her mother smiled at her warmly and with a soft, sweet voice said, “I do love your costume, it’s the perfect thing to wear while planting seeds, would you help me with these?”

Olivia climbed onto the picnic table bench, rolled up her sleeves, pushed back her old straw hat, bracelets flashed in the sunlight, eager to begin helping her mom push the seeds into the dirt filled pots.

Reaching for a watering can Olivia’s hat brushed her mother’s arm and her mother said, “Hey, I know that hat, it belongs to a story I remember. A long time before you were born, when I was a girl just about your age, I helped my great-grandmother, Lucille, plant tomato seeds in little pots in the house. It was early spring, which meant it was still cold out. But my great-grandmother wanted to have tomatoes big enough to plant outside when the weather turned warm again, so we started our little plants from seed there at the kitchen counter. After we planted them I would go over to her house every day to water them and see if they had sprouted yet. It seemed like forever until they sprouted but when they did, they grew so fast and before I knew it the time had come to plant them outside. My great-grandmother showed me how to plant them in the cool damp earth, how to fertilize them with crystal blue miracle gro, and how to pick off the “suckers” so that the tomatoes would grow strong and tall.”

Mother’s long beautiful fingers lightly touched the brim of the hat on Olivia’s head, she closed her eyes and said, “Smell that Olivia? It smells just like sweet damp earth, and the fresh green smell of tomato leaves.”

But Olivia couldn’t smell it, she shook her head, no.

Mother just smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.” Now Olivia, ran off to find her grandmother, MaKay.

Spying MaKay under a plum tree, she snuck up on her and yelled, “BOO!” The basket of plums she had collected scattered to the ground.

“Olivia you scared me!”

MaKay reached out to tickle her while they bent to gather up the plums. Olivia’s hat fell on the ground and MaKay picked it up, flipped it over and began to put plums inside the hat.

“Hey, what are you doing? That’s part of my playing outside costume!”

MaKay replied, “Of course it is. Hey, this hat belongs to a memory I have. I once used this very hat to put plums in at my grandmother, Lucille’s house. She always let me pick plums from her trees when it was time to make plum jelly. We filled up so many pans and buckets of plums that sometimes we had to use this old hat to hold more. After we washed all the plums for my grandmother, she would bring them in. The kitchen and soon the whole house would be filled with the sweet candy smell of simmering plum jelly.”

About to take the hat back from MaKay, Olivia said, “MaKay, I bet if you hold this hat and close our eyes you will smell something.”

Playing along, almost afraid of what smell Olivia had in mind, MaKay leaned in, closed her eyes and smelled. “Olivia, I smell plums do you?”

Olivia did smell plums but only because MaKay had just poured some out, so she said, “I don’t think I smell old plums from your grandmother’s yard.”

MaKay smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.” About that time, Olivia noticed the porch swing was moving so she ambled over to investigate.

Olivia was feeling a little sad that she could not smell any old memories in her now enchanted straw hat. Sadness banished quickly when she realized her sister and cousin were hiding under the swing. As she got closer she realized they weren’t hiding at all, just trying to catch a little green lizard. When Olivia’s sister, Mia saw her, her mouth dropped open glimpsing the beauty of Olivia’s playing-outside-costume. Her cousin Autry’s boyish grin had nothing to do with Olivia’s finery and everything to do with the lizard pursuit. Unable to ignore the temptation to catch a lizard in their bright green lizard-catching-net, both girls forgot about the costume. The three set off on their imaginary safari looking for the elusive lizard. They crawled through sweet smelling jasmine, lifted up scratchy dry dune grass, and combed the freshly cut green lawn. They never did find that lizard again. Instead, they ended up in a heap leaning against the side of the house giggling. Olivia slipped some of the shiny bracelets onto her sister’s arm. Autry plucked one of the flowers from Olivia’s chain and inhaled deeply before trying to eat it. Boys are weird thought Olivia.

Mia wanted the hat too, so she took it off her sister’s head and placed it on her own. At that moment, a slow smile turned the corners of Olivia’s mouth up. Reaching over to straighten the hat on Mia’s head, Olivia asked the little ones, “Can you smell the jasmine and green grass on that hat?”

Both Mia and Autry sniffed the hat, “we don’t smell nothing but straw.”

Olivia just smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s just a memory and I have only just given it to you.”

Mama Ciele

Rangy, rows of Pecan trees drip over my rural route,
sweeping me along in a direction there about.
A blush of red peeks just ahead,
my destination marked by roses, memories from my head.
A tiny clapboard washed in hints of green,
the crowning glory a porch now seen.
Delighted wings take my heart I am home, I am home.

Wrapped in the comfort of a time-worn chair,
She gently combs and plaits my hair.
Joining the buzz of night bug, cicada, and katy-did,
comes the rain on tin answering prayers most bid.
She hums a tune without words ’bout leavin’
‘If we never meet again this side of heaven…”
Peaceful wings take my heart I sing, I sing.

Work-worn hands yet easy and fine,
smoothing  cool sheets  on the line.
Flashing blue eyes twinkle and spark,
with tales of fantasy, I hate when it gets dark.
Time for bed, falling asleep counting knots on pine walls,
her soft snoring just down the hall.
Shining wings take my heart I dream, I dream.

 

Epilogue:
Gone now, an emptiness left in time and space,
progress stands in her home’s place.
I hum a song with no words, a little blonde boy,
snuggles close with his toy.
I look at my own hands, work-worn, nails torn,
I am content yet I mourn.
Gentle wings took her home, took her home.

Dragging Canoe

I think every family has some legendary tale repeated from generation to generation regarding some scandalous ancestor or ancestry. Perhaps even several stories float about in most families as they do in mine. One such historical narrative in my family was so “bad,” that a division opened up in our family. Those who believed and those who denied.

I am the daughter of one who believed  and was willing to claim the story. I remember it from the earliest years of my life. My father, whom I called Daddy, was a great fire maker, banjo picker, singer, storyteller and beer drinker. These talents usually came together four or five times a year when my uncles, aunts, and cousins would gather at my grandmother’s. The fire would signal the mothers to come out from the kitchen and the kids to settle down after the excitement of chasing fireflies. The men picking and tuning banjos and guitars promised a different kind of excitement, one that I can still feel stirring in my chest at the sound of a banjo and the smell of smoke. My cousins and I got to stay up late on these occasions, blind eyes were turned to us as we snuck sips of beer from our daddies and sips of lime daiquiri from our mamas. Soon the singing would begin.

Everything from Bobby Goldsboro and Roger Miller to Hank Williams and Johnny Cash was played, we hummed when we didn’t know the words. As the drinks flowed the music got messier, there was more humming and a general mellowing prevailed. It was then that the stories got trotted out. Against the background of soft strumming, Daddy told about the Cherokee Warrior Chief who led raids on southern colonists. His story was bloody and scary in my memory, the details vague except for the final statement always directed at me, his only child, “And that’s the story of your great-great-great grandfather.”

The days of my childhood were long gone when I started seriously researching my family’s genealogy. I always remembered that one story and that I might have Cherokee blood running through my veins, so I was ever on the look-out for the proof.

Five years ago, while on a cemetery expedition I found a memorial marker that read,
Nathan Ward
Sara (an Indian).

I knew them to be my fifth great-grandparents, I did not know she was “an Indian.” Soon after I discovered the division in our family. It seems that a living second uncle of mine was so outraged at the thought of “an Indian” in his family tree that he re-wrote history in his book. He did this with the support of many on his side who no doubt had heard the stories. I do not understand the depth of prejudice that would lead someone to deny their heritage. I have never been persecuted or discriminated against in any real way so I will reserve judgment of my uncle on this issue and I will not name him or the title of his book. I will, however, point out that he has perpetuated a mistake in our family tree by giving Sara an entirely different set of parents. He wrote the book about twenty years ago and it has been used as a reference for almost that many years. Further, he fought the historical society who placed the memorial marker in the old cemetery, he did not want Sara to be noted as Indian. The advent of records on the internet and the more recent DNA projects have proved that my uncle’s book at best is in error, at worst may be peppered with lies.

Last week through the magic of DNA, large scale genealogy projects and other documentation, I have discovered that Sara, my fifth great-grandmother was Naky Sara Tatsi Canoe Brown Ward daughter of Cherokee Warrior Chief Dragging Canoe. Daddy was right with the exception of a few greats. I have been telling anyone who will listen about this discovery. I have also been singing these lyrics over and over again, “Cherokee Nation, Cherokee tribe, so proud to live, so proud to die…” In my head, I sound just like Cher who sang my favorite version of this song. I imagine my dad singing along, minus the banjo.

Royal Rose

The bar-b-ques were one of the few chances Lucy had to glimpse a tangible piece of her past – her grandmother’s dishes. One of her cousins could always be counted on to flounce in flourishing one of the coveted dishes laden with corn bread or freshly sliced tomatoes. The dish would claim a prime location on the table in spite of its humble holdings. A whole set of Royal Rose china belonged to their beloved grandmother. Every time Lucy saw them tender memories of her grandmother and her own dear mama engulfed her heart.

The last memory of both her grandmother and mother together was Christmas day when she was five. The glow of the candle-lit table provided the perfect backdrop in her mind. Nine places were set. Her grandparents sat at each end of the large oak table, her mother to the left of her grand-dad and her father to the left of her grandmother, she and her siblings filling in the rest. The table was covered in finely embroidered white cotton cloth. She was given the honor of carrying the gravy dish to the table, she remembered carefully placing one foot in front of the other in an effort to not spill a drop. Her mother and grandmother smiled quietly as she successfully placed the dish on the table. The memory ends there. Her sweet mother would be dead by Valentine’s Day and both her grandparents would be claimed by influenza Christmas Eve four years later.

When her grandparents passed, her uncle – her mother’s brother – a dentist and only surviving child of her grandparents swooped in and packed up “the good stuff.” This included the lovely set of pre-depression china. After her mother’s death her father, a farmer, had sent her and her only sister to live with her grandparents. This arrangement lasted for two years until her father found another wife. Those two years turned the five-year-old Lucy into a stoic and mature almost woman. She was the one who had lovingly washed the china each Sunday after dinner for the last year. Now her silly, childish, spoiled cousins, one a year older, one a year younger than Lucy would possess the precious dishes.

At age thirteen Lucy gave birth for the first time to a son, she was unwed, her father forced her to give the baby away. Lucy had been raped by the neighboring farmer, who was married with children of his own. At fifteen she was married for the first time. She quickly gave birth to a son and a daughter all before her third wedding anniversary and her nineteenth birthday. The bar-b-que was scheduled for the day after her 20th birthday. Already showing with her next child she did not really feel like going; but, she could not miss the opportunity to see which dish would appear on the table in a mocking gesture made by her ninny cousins. They could never know that what they thought of as a stab to her heart was really a gift. A gift filled with the shimmering glow of candles on a table abundant with love and food.

She stopped cold when she saw the chipped edge of the square moss rose serving bowl. Over her shoulder, she heard the grating whisper of her cousin. She learned that many of the dishes had been broken during their recent move to a bigger house. This was the last bar-b-que with her mother’s relations she ever attended.

She told me this story  when I asked why her oddly matched serving bowl had a chip in it. She also told about her quest to collect rose patterned dishes; over the years collecting two different sets of rose patterned china, each called Royal Rose, one from Japan, one from Germany. She never did find any to completely match the original china made in Poland. As for the chipped dish, she stole it at that last bar-b-que, unable to bear the thought of any more harm befalling all that the dish represented.

I am Lucy’s granddaughter and I have just passed on sixteen place settings complete with three serving bowls, one with a chip; two serving platters; salt and pepper shakers; and a gravy bowl to my daughter along with this story. While telling the story my four-year-old granddaughter wandered over, sat down and listened with wide eyes.

A Slight Tilt of the Head

The color enhanced black and white photograph remained on her bureau more than thirty years after the subject’s death. A smooth man’s face with kind eyes stared out from the photo. His head slightly tilted with a subtle wry smile faintly playing around his mouth. A stranger to this man might mistakenly guess this to be a handsome man with a good joke to tell. Those who knew him and his life knew the cocked angle hid a secret. And the not quite smiling eyes spoke of pain rather than joy.
His name Walter Greek Daniel, my paternal grandfather. I loved to examine his picture as a child. His violent death occurred about ten months before I was born. I learned his story slowly and secretly over the years. My grandmother loved him and never allowed a negative word about him to pass her lips. She also did not tolerate it from others. The very first story I heard led to my fascination with his photo.

I was about five when I overheard my dad tell someone, “The best thing that ever happened was when my father got pushed down some stairs in a bar fight where he lay dead drunk  They got him to the hospital too late. My old man managed to survive but not for long, he died a few days later in the hospital. I knew Mother would be safe.”
This little snippet of information grew in my mind to legend with a more romantic flair. You see my dad was somewhat of drunk also. Handsome and charming but a drunk none the less. So I took the secret words, considered the source and reinvented it as I gazed at my grandfather’s photo.
“Dashing family man risks his own life in the effort to save a mysterious stranger from the perils of a dimly lit stairwell after a night of dancing and drinking. Sadly, our hero survived only hours after his fall. Wife and daughter were beside his bed as he passed into glory.” This would be the headline story if my musings came true.

I needed a hero. Even a generation old hero was better than the non-hero dad I thought I had. Turns out my dad would be a hero, but I would not know that until his death nearly thirty-five years after my early fascination with the photo on the bureau. As a child, I lived varying miles from grandmother’s house but every summer we visited. Every summer included a meditation-like visit with my grandfather’s photo.

As the years passed I heard more secret stories. My grandfather did drink to excess and laid very rough hands on my grandmother, my dad, and my aunt. Two younger children, both boys, my uncles escaped most of the abuse. At a young age, he was involved in a serious car accident, this would have been in early 1930’s. The accident left him with a crushed check bone that left his face sunken under one eye. It caused him a lot of pain and he was known to grimace quite often with the sharpness of the pain.

Now I look at that same photo and know that he hated the crushed side of his face and always tilted his head to minimize the effect. His slight smile more of a sneer. I also know that my aunt forgave him and looks forward to being reunited with him in heaven. She prays every day that he found a way back to God in those last hours of his life. I know that if it weren’t for him there would be no me. One more thing, sometimes a slight tilt of the head is just that but sometimes it hides a secret.

My grandfather really was found at the bottom of the stairs in a popular bar. He did drink. He did abuse. He also taught school. He told good stories. He was not happy. He loved my grandmother a lot. She loved him. This is all I know for sure.

Vera’s Last Night

Y’all know that spooky look faces take on when sitting around a fire at night? Well I guess as good as I can recall that’s how we all looked. Maybe it reckoned in what happened that night, maybe it didn’t. I do know what I’m about to relay is best told around a fire just like the night we all remember as Vera’s last.
They was three brothers born to the same mother and one brother born to the second wife of their daddy. Born Georgia farmers during the great depression little coin passed through any of their hands. Food was what they grew or killed or traded for. They worked hard and early on their daddy included the scarcely bearded boys in is his nightly liberation. Weren’t much to do after dark but drink a drink and play a tune in the firelight.
Daddy always called it liberation, “heah them croakers? Gettin’ on ta liberation, lawd, lawd, I’m a ready.”
Now is the time I think I should name these folks, else you won’t know who is who. Raiford was the oldest, followed by Eugene, EB and Clarence. Their daddy, Ezekiel Boston, was knowed by most folks as Boss. Boss had a sweet young wife who gave him six children before she was 25. Four of ’em made it to be grown but by that time their mama, Annabelle, had joined her two little angels. Next Boss chose a coarser, sturdier wife, she gave him nine more young un’s. Her name was Gussie. She liked to dip snuff with a pretty spoon, I cain’t never forget that. The only naming left is the wives, Vera went with Raiford, Gladys went with Eugene, EB didn’t have no wife then and Clarence had Nell. Oh and me, I am the baby sister of Raiford, Eugene and EB. Clarence is my baby, Gussie had him but gave him to me cause I cried over how pretty he was.
On that night, my brother’s was full grown men. They had took to selling corn liquor across the state line up in South Carolina and had just came back from a real good run. Daddy had the fire lit and he were just getting his old banjo turned up. Vera was a little put out because the boys (they got called boys till our Daddy was gone from this earth.) was late and missed supper. So she and Gladys was back in the kitchen cleaning. They wanted me to help, but I didn’t. Though I was mostly grown none had picked me as a bride yet. Daddy said I was too pretty for pawin’ at.

Daddy was red-faced and singing a tune I ain’t never heard. I  could see Vera bent over the sink through the little window on the front side of the house. She looked like she was singing along, I remember thinking how she knew the words. Mostly Daddy sang songs we all knew, my favorite, Keep on the Sunny Side, that Carter family just made me so happy ever-time I got to listen in. Our uncle had a radio at his house, he was a dentist, not a dirt farmer.
Back to that last night…
In the middle of that new song a sharp crack rang out, it echoed in my head for a good bit after. My brother’s and my daddy tore off into the woods, shouting for us to get back in the house.

Daddy hollered, “Make sure Vera is alright.”

Nell, me and Gussie run up on the porch just as Gladys was running out the door. She looked white as a ghost and the cat had got her tongue. She fell into a faint right then.
Gussie screamed out, “Gladyses been shot!”
But it weren’t Gladys, it were Vera.
Nell told us the news,”Vera’s dead, shot right through the head!”
Never did know what happened, my brother’s reckon some revenuers was trying to send them a message. Maybe they followed ’em back after the run. I keep thinking about that song, I never heard it again, but ever time I hear a love song it reminds me of Vera’s last night. Daddy died a few months later after a bout of melancholy. Raiford ain’t ever been right since. I take care of him now.  I never did find no husband.

The narrator is my grandmother, she was actually married four times. My great-aunt really did got shot in her kitchen.  The rest…?

 

This World and One More

“What that boy done was the furtherest thing I could imagine. Lawd, Lawd, this world and one more.”

The eighth decade of her life finds her living alone for the first time.  Her fourth husband uncomfortably settled into the home a few weeks ago.  She welcomes the solitude and the little things like tossing out the plastic sheet under the dining room chair. His chair, the one where he ate his last home cooked catfish dinner. That last supper flits into her awareness, a prickle of loss nags. Still, replacing the recliner, headrest stained with years of vitalis softens the sharp edges of regret.  Theirs was no great love affair. An odd companionship to stave off both loneliness and financial hardship. And yet – you don’t live with someone for two and twenty years without some attachment of heart, good and bad.

The quiet house calms her twitchy nerves. She can eat when and what she wants. The volume on the console television set just for her ears. Windows wide open, or a little heat on according to her needs only.  A few weeks into this new found contentment she notices the yard needs mowing. The last storm  brought down a few tree limbs and the water pipes are shaking the house down. Her years have not been easy. Born poor, early tangles with pneumonia, bronchitis, and lack of health care, left her attached to supplemental oxygen around the clock.

Help arrives in the healthy form of one rakishly handsome nephew straight out of back country Georgia.  Actually, a grand-nephew, the youngest grandson of her niece.  He is sweet and makes quick work of the chores. He eats like a half-starved colt. This makes her happy, feeding people is one of her joys, especially people who know how to keep food on fork from plate to mouth, no plastic sheets necessary.
He enjoys watching the afternoon stories with her (General Hospital, One Life to Live, and All My Children). He also laughs along with Hee Haw and The Carol Burnett Show.  He takes her fishing. He fills her portable Oxygen tanks.  The least she can do is encourage and fund the occasional night out with his friends. The once a week night out does not worry her, he is always home by sun up and never complains of being tired.  She never meets his friends.

Six months pass. The police come after dinner and arrest him.  He and his friends have accepted payment from a man. In return they will shoot his wife.  The wife lives, they are caught and the nephew is sentenced to 13 years in the penitentiary.

My grandmother called to tell me the news. “What that boy done, was the furtherist thing I could imagine. Lawd, Lawd, this world and one more,” she said in shock, disbelief and sorrow.  Soon after, my mother moved in with her. Her peace was gone, but the chores were done.

*”This world and one more,” a phrase I heard often growing up in Georgia. I can’t seem to find a lot about the origins of this idiom. When I heard it, it often referred to amazement or sorrow over a thing that had just happened. Sometimes, it could be used to refer to an oddity, such as a calf born with two heads.  I think it must have some relation to the idea of an afterlife. If we can’t understand this life, how will ever understand the mystery of the next life? A Google search reveals that a Jazz band out of Chicago recorded an album of nine songs, the album title is “This World and One More.” I do not know if any of the band members have southern origins but I do find confirmation that my southern grandmother was not the only one to say this.

Phoebe Jane

My Darling Daughter-in-Law,
By now you will have heard that I have took ill. Many come up to my porch to see the contrary old lady finally getting her justice. Just last week I had to toss biled water on a few of them. Gave me a laugh and did feel some better for a piece. I count myself lucky to make it out to my ol rocker and take the air for a good spell. However, I do find the breath in me comes harder at night and believe my time to be nigh.

I write to you now dear one some advice as I can’t be assured of seeing your sweet face again.

As you know my “dear” son’s father was reported dead of fever soon after leaving with his regiment. That rank smelling excuse for a commander came by not too long ago to chaw a bit with me. He again recollected how that May of 1861 my husband took sick at the first camp they set to. Fearing a spread of disease, he was forced to set him up on some folks eager to help our loyal sons. The commander tells me again the queerness of it being just the one fella to up and die and having left those at home in a state of well being. That first-rate raskal’s eye gleamed with knowledge, but for now he ain’t told my secret.

I have ever regretted that my son took so much after his daddy and their people. The devil does hide behind all that charm. If I had knowed it sooner I believe I would have warned you off. I reckon the devilment comes too late to be seen or we both would have turned out differn. The truth of it is, even the war came too late for me else I would not be setting here about to tell you the thing I did.

I woke up one bleak winter day just knowing it was him or me. I was much wearied of the pain that would split my head as the great ignorant hand would strike it. The laudanum dulled my caring but not my pain. Misery was no longer welcome in my house. Even the good Lord must see a thing must be done. Fasting from gravy on my plate I spilled it generously over your father-in-law’s meat. He was happy enough to eat it night after night, too greedy to figure it the source of pains that gripped him of a night. I stopped for awhile, guilt giving me a gripping.

War news was spreading and the 45th Infantry from our county was formed up. They were set to head east towards Richmond. I thanked the sweet Lord and his blessed Mama that I would be waving goodbye to my torment. His last night he come in, liquor on his breath. He left me with a shut up eye that stayed swolled up for weeks after he left out. I made him a heaping plate of his favorite biscuits and gravy.

I know you will find in my words some of your own plight. This is my advice to you…take yourself to church, pray some. Love up on your girls, praise God you ain’t got no boys. Then go out on the porch and call up all the sorrow you have in your heart, weigh it out. Toss that grief to the wind. Go on in the house and make you all some supper. I have enclosed my recipe for gravy.

Your ever loving and not long for this world mother-in-law,
Phoebe Jane

It is true that my great-great grandmother was Phoebe Jane Ward, born Dec. 10, 1838 and died on Christmas day 1916. Her first husband Mr. Cox died of fever soon after heading off with his regiment. She later married my great-great grandfather Mr. Sheppard Lee Daniel, civil war veteran. The photo is the home of my great – grandfather Benjamin Ward Daniel, the son of Phoebe and Sheppard, Phoebe died in this home. I made the rest up.

The Magic of Plums

When I was a girl I worshiped my grandmother. Lillian Lucille Adams Lee, Mama Ceile to me. Salon styled hair with a curl on her forehead just so. Skin so Soft and Roses Roses (Avon’s top seller in the 60’s) wafted in the air about her. Sleeping-in at her house was allowed and I often woke to the whispered cussing peppering her stories on the phone with her sister Jewel. The first sign of my stirring removed the pepper and added more sugar to her conversation. Shortly, the call would end.

Long summer afternoons spent at her house in Georgia were some of the best days of my girlhood. There was a lot to explore and if I got hungry there were the plums. My memory tells me that her plum trees gave fruit from April until September, books tell me that is not possible. Magic is the answer. Tight skin holding back sweet sticky juice just waiting to explode with that first bite. Rivulets of plum juice stained my arm from wrist to elbow. Even now a good plum will transport me back to a sun-warmed picnic table piled with the little round beauties. Magic.

I am now the grandmother. I like to believe I am styled in the fashion of Mama Ciele. I do have her ample and soft lap. I am known to whisper swear words within earshot of my little grands. I do not smell like her, I waft my own scent of lavender and patchouli, my generation’s signature smell. I had plum trees for a short while.

It took three years and 6 plum trees to finally yield a small crop of plums. Three trees died, three thrived. For one glorious week my granddaughters came to stay with me. I let them sleep in. They explored and gorged on sweet plums. “Dress-up” was the favorite game. I tucked them into bed each night and then stood listening to their little giggles and demands of more pillow room. That week added to the magic memories floating before me each time I indulge in the fruit of my childhood.

I had to say good-bye to the plum trees and the vision I had of grandchildren coming home to Ma Kay’s house (Ma Kay, that’s me). I have traded that life for one on the road in an RV. Traveling in an RV was a guilty dream I have had for years. The freedom from daily family obligations, the freedom to reinvent myself if I wanted too. The freedom. I never thought to realize this dream. The ties that bind are too strong and I love my ever-growing family fiercely. Fate intervened with a solution. An excuse for hitting the road. An excuse to help with the guilt of telling my mom we would be leaving the house next door to her. An excuse that came at great cost to my husband’s health.

So here I sit, reminiscing the past and looking forward to this summer. In less than a week we will be camping near three of my grandchildren. They will be spending their spring break with us in our RV. We will explore, have new adventures and who knows maybe find a plum tree. Magic!

Walter Benjamin Daniel

My daughter and her family are visiting Washington DC this spring break. They will be visiting the usual must sees in DC and the surrounding area. I am excited for them, my grand-girls are ten, seven and four. I think even the four-year old will be impressed by the things she is about to see. I remember going to the 1965 World’s Fair in New York city and I was only four. I wish I could go with them…

One of their stops will be Arlington National Cemetery. It will be the first time my daughter and her family will visit the grave of my father.

He died eighteen years ago on March 22, he was buried March 31, 1997.

My Dad, Colonel Walter Benjamin Daniel United States Army, Silver Star recipient, Vietnam War Veteran passed away in his 57th year on my youngest daughter’s birthday. Nine days of progress style memorials beginning in Georgia took place before he finally reached the Chapel at Arlington. He was honored at each stop by the many brothers at arms gathered during his 31 years in the Army. He left behind a small family, his wife, a step-daughter, me and three granddaughters. All three granddaughters belong to me. His funeral family entourage consisted of me, my step-mother and step-sister. We were exhausted. We had done a good job of listening to countless “hero” stories that needed to be told by those who were there. Each tale found us hanging by a thread as the embarrassing and unseemly tide of tears threatened.

We rode in a black sedan behind the caisson carrying my dad’s casket. We passed tourists as we processed to the grave site. Many stopped and saluted. My step-mother, the hardest hit by the nine days of mourning rituals that demanded stoic patriotism, began to tell us that we could all be buried in Arlington if we wanted. Apparently there is a tradition of burying spouses and children with the veteran. One on top of the other. Nearing hysteria after the heart wrenching ceremonies we began to laugh. Grateful for tinted windows of our sedan we laughed at the image of each of us stacked on top of my dad in death. We laughed until we finally cried.