A Test of Patience

Did I tell you about the time your granny's mother come over to visit her daughter?  Stayed two years, she did.  Sam plum wore his wits clear to they ends tryin' to figure a way to get her to go home.  Now, Sam liked Margaret, that was your great grandma's name.  Nobody ever called her "Maggie" or "Peggy" neither.  She was Margaret Sarah Alexena Florabelle Chloe Ann Wilson, you know, of the East Branch Wilsons.  "You may call me Margaret," she says.  Anyhow, Sam did truly like his mother-in-law, but as he put it, "in shorter bits and pieces, no disrespect intended."  Now I for one don't rightly see how you could take her any shorter, 'cause she stood maybe four-foot five in those black high-top  shoes she allus wore.  But I'm strayin' all over the pasture.  Say, did you see that new bull Red Hurd got over in his south pasture?  Bee-yoo-tiful black thing he is.  Simmental.  Red got him offa Ayers over on the Huerfano.  That bull ain't no orphan, though, got a pedigree longer'n my left arm.  Red is proud as a Leghorn rooster just done the whole Plymouth Rock hen house.  But he ain't talkin' how much it cost him.  'Feard Maybelle will find out, I reckon.  Well, Bob Ayers did take his wife, Lou Ann to Galveston for a week, for what that's worth.  Both 'n'm  come home redder'n a Maine lobster been in the boilin' water.  Anyway, Doc Barrett says they'll live.  I know it is a sin to covet, but I really wish I had that bull.  Forgive me, Lord.

Anyway, Sam always was durn handy, and clever, too.  Now Margaret always had those shoes custom-made over to Manfred's in Knoxville.  And she always went in for a fittin'.  Problem was, they seem to never wear out.  The shoes, I mean.  So Sam writes to Arly over to Florence and asks him to send him a small piece-- six or eight square inches would be fine-- a small patch of doeskin.  Sam enclosed a envelope with a stamp, round-trip postage cost him six cents, a whole month's worth a horehound drops.  And he'd owe Arly.  So Arly goes over to Chipita Parsons-- you know her; Indian girl married Larry Parsons from up to Westcliffe.  Well, she cured doeskin the old-fashion Injun way; chewed it 'til it was softer 'n the cheeks south of the equator on a new born babe.  Well, he put a swatch a tad smaller 'n the inside the envelope and mailed it to Sam.

Now Sam had addressed the return envelope to hisself "c/o genl del, Holly."  So when Sam was over to Holly in June with a load of wheat, he stopped by the pee-oh.  Now the postmaster was Sam's cousin, Aaron Bell.  You know, Aaron come west along with Sam and Arly.  He was one of the Cave Cove Bells.  His granddaddy fit in the War of Northern Aggression alongside ol' Stonewall Jackson.  "Oh, oh, Sam.  Your lady friend writin," says Aaron.  "Mary finds out she'll peel your hide right offa ya."

Sam ripped the envelope open and flapped the skin right under Aaron's nose. "Ima make a coin purse for my grand kid," he said, whirled around and pushed through the screen door, but afore he let it go, the lie turned sour in his mouth.  So he looked back and said, "Aaron, I ain't a makin' a coin purse, and you kin mind your own bidness."

Now Sam put his plan into action.  See, Margaret, she left her shoes outside the blanket hangin' over the doorway to her room when she went to bed of a night.  So Sam, good man as he was, would keep her shoes cleaned and shined up, see that the laces were fit.  So he carefully built a thin strip a doeskin inside the toe a each shoe-- glued 'em in ever so carefully, even the cobbler wouldn't notice.  The idea was he'd add a strip each Sattidy 'til Ol' Margaret was concerned her feet had growed, and she'd have to go back to Knoxville to get a new pair fit.

But the very first week Margaret was so uncomfortable and annoyed, grumblin' takin' off her shoes, runnin' her hand up inside, that Sam's conscience got the better of him.  He determined not to go ahead with that.  And behold!  On Thursday, the in-law mama gets a Western Union from Mandy Hopkins back home.  Mandy was Margaret's closest friend.  Married Maxwell Hopkins when she was fifteen.  Had fifteen kids.  Well, Maxwell done all right, anyway.  Happiest couple in Kingsport, ever one said so.  "MARVIN BROKE FOOT STOP COME HOME SOONEST STOP M HOPKINS."

Sam ambled out the house, didn't let the screen door slam, and soon's he was outta sight the kitchen, he cut loose with the fanciest footwork you ever see.  Danced a jig right there in this garden, right where we air a standin'.  He was sorta singin', "God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.  Praise be to God!"

© 2013 David W. Lacy

Happy Birthday, Baby

Dear Beloved,

Old and broken, shattered pieces on the floor.  No, not a vase or urn, but the man who walked through your door.  He thought his life was over, nothing left to live for; but you picked up the pieces, reshaped them, glued them, and even more: you loved him, cared for him, gave him the life he needed.  Today he laughs and smiles and lives, he's so glad he heeded the gentle words you said and accepted the kind offerings that your love gives.  Let's go on together so long as we have life.  I know that in this walk the Lord has led: I am forever grateful that you've agreed to be my wife.  Happy birthday!

Love,
David

Today is BBBH's birthday.  The number associated with that, she says, is quite large.  Yes, I suppose it is, but as someone wisely pointed out, it is only a number.

BBBH and vanilla, Port A, Texas, 27 Feb 2013

_____ty ess eye ex

"13"

A year ago today I wrote a glowing tribute to my wife and the twelve happy years of marriage we had experienced together.  I prefaced the article with the above picture, and I repeat that here now because 1) we don't look any better today than we did then, and 2) it is quite possible that this is the most recent picture of the two of us together.

So.  Today is our thirteenth wedding anniversary.  The number won't seem very large to our contemporaries in this walk down life's pathway, but to two people who were well into their sixties before they started this adventure, it seems pretty significant.

This thirteenth year was no less tempestuous than any of the previous years, but the love is stronger, and if we live long enough we'll let you know how year fourteen went, in, say, about 365 days.

I still love you, JoAnn.

p.s. It turns out that there is a more recent picture, and I've used it before, too.  We were in the jewelry store, just before Christmas.  And here's how it was done.

She took a picture, I took one; and here we are!

Boy Meets Girl #T

 It was more than sixty years ago. Opal had friends. One of her friends had a friend who lived some fifteen hundred or so miles away. Opal was “eligible,” and the friend’s friend, whom we will call “Ed” because that was his name, was also single. Both were in their early twenties but neither had yet met the love of her, or his, life.

I do not know how the arrangements were made, but the mutual friend “hooked them up” by way of the US Mail. Opal and Ed started a correspondence. The letters were frequent and apparently, though I never read any of the letters, the level of sharing of intimacies increased with time. And time passed and a love-of-my-life feeling developed between the pen pals. A date was chosen and Opal began planning a wedding. Keep in mind that Ed and Opal had not yet seen each other, though I do believe that pictures were part of the mail packets.

My father, whose name was not Sam, was known among the younger set as “The Marrying Parson,” for many of the young people who had been his students asked him to officiate at their weddings when the time came. Opal and Ed asked Dad to perform their wedding ceremony. I had a small part, too, for my friend Wes and I were honored to be chosen to act as ushers.

The week of the wedding came. Tuesday afternoon the plane which brought Ed from California to Colorado arrived. That evening Opal and Ed met for the first time. This allowed them Wednesday, Thursday and a portion of Friday in which to date one another and for Ed to meet Opal’s friends and family. The rehearsal and associated festivities were scheduled for Friday evening, and the wedding was to be on Saturday afternoon.

But every story has a hitch, or a twist, or an unexpected turn of events. Or sometimes the story turns out just as one might have anticipated.

Hair Today, Hair Tomorrow

If it seems to you that these people look somewhat familiar and yet they are much too young to be anyone you know here in Perfect, that is understandable.  It is a much younger vanilla with his young bride, for this was taken about a month before our marriage.

My hair is much whiter, and so is the 'stache.  The eyebrows are still black, though!  The furrows are a little deeper and possibly more numerous.  But I can still rise from bed in the morning and for that I am truly grateful.

The Lady, though, hasn't changed all that much.  You said I'm angling for points?  Shame on you.
What has changed is the length of the hair.  She has adopted a much shorter style, not so much to be stylish (she is a fanatic about looking her best, and I am glad of that) as to follow the convention that older women should have shorter hair.

So last evening she said to me, "I'm thinking of letting my hair grow again.  What do you think?"  Which brings me to the point of  bringing such personal stuff to the blogosphere.  I am asking those of you who are of the feminine persuasion, "What do you think?"

jsyk, BBBH is a professional cosmetologist.

Glassware, Gewgaws and Jimcracks

On the way home from the coffee house we stopped in Swayzee, "The only Swayzee in the World," or so the sign says as you enter the town.  The reason for the stop?  I am a prince.  BBBH likes, nay loves, to cruise antique shops.  I can cruise every aisle in a 2000 square foot shop in less time than it takes her to peruse the first display case.  For this reason, although we enter the store together, we do not "shop" together.

I find looking at the stuff mildly interesting, and sometimes memories are triggered.  But although a blue and white Swiftning can once sat on our pantry shelf, I have no interest in purchasing an empty can for several times the original cost of the product.

Sometimes there are items which we still own, and thus we make the "Oh, wow! look what our junque is worth!" comment.  When Beautiful mentioned to the Store Lady that we had a number of Hummel figurines like the ones displayed, the SL offered to buy our collection, and would pay one-half the prices she was asking in the store.  That is probably fair, and may well be the best offer we'll ever get; but do we want to sell?

So anyway, in a matter of thirty minutes I had done the entire store, and it is a rather large store for the sort of thing it does.  I told Beloved I was leaving and went to the car where I was asleep in a matter of minutes.  I awakened to her voice asking me to open the door.  Indeed.  She was laden with two large grocery sacks, which, as I placed them in the vehicle, I observed were quite full.  Of what I could not tell, for everything was wrapped in plain paper.

The picture above is the only thing I took from the store, and I did not purchase the item but merely captured its image.  When I saw the title I immediately thought "Melina Mercouri," even though the artist's rendition does not much resemble her.  On the back of the sheet music there was printed the assertion that this was "the most recorded song ever" along with a list of the many artists who had done it.  I'll take their word for it, for I would never have guessed that.

BBBH so wishes she had a buddy with whom she could "go antiquing" instead of the wet blanket who simply doesn't know how to have fun.  But I did take her to the store!

I do have good taste, though.  I was rather taken with a certain chocolate slag glassware of which there were many pieces displayed throughout the shop.  Unfortunately, the prices of the individual pieces ranged from $80 to $900; and the ones I most liked were at the top of that range.