As the rain came misting down, I struggled up the back steps of my small white house with grocery bags lining up and down both arms.  “Two trips are for sissies.” I thought to myself.  I get to the door only to realize that I had forgotten to get the house keys out of cavernous pocketbook before I got out of the car.  “Damn it all Hell.  I’m ‘bout to pee my freakin’ britches.”  I grumbled under my breath, as I sat the groceries lined along my right arm onto the wet steps.  “I really need to get an awning.”  I think, and not for the first time.  I never seem to think about it except at times such as these.  I dig around in my pocketbook and find the keys in the very bottom, underneath a bunch of other junk.  I awkwardly open the storm door to unlock the door.  I can hear my dogs barking inside the house and I know that they ain’t gonna wanna go out to use the bathroom – the dogs hate the rain.  I reach down, holding the storm door open with one hip, and grab up the wet bags from the steps  “I guess that’s one good thing about plastic verses paper.” I think to myself.  I finally get into the house and I plop all the wet bags down on the counter and sprint down the hallway to pee.  I do the peepee dance as I try to get my jeans unbuttoned.  (I wonder why it is that when you hafta pee so bad, it seems like it gets worse the closer you get to the potty??)  “Whew.”  I breathe a sigh of relief as I plop my ass down, barely makin’ ii.  Mayzelle and Wygenia, my weenie dawgs, are standing there staring at me, as usual.  “Hey Hazy Mazie.  Hey Genie the Weenie.  Whutchall been up to today???”  I pet both of them and their long bodies look like they could shake in two, tails just a waggin’.  I wish people would be as happy to see me.  I chuckle at that thought as I finish up and wash my hands.  “Y’all wanna go out???” I try to sound excited about it but the dogs don’t buy it.  They just look up at me, not even wagging their tails anymore.  Both have dropped their heads down a little, and have that look on their faces – like I’m leading them to the electric chair.  “Come on…y’all gotta go out.”  I grab their leashes off the nail beside the back door and I have to practically drag the dogs out to pee.  Genie hits the pine straw around the shrubbery as soon as her feet hit the wet ground.  Mazie on the other hand, has to sniff around to find her spot.  “Oh for Gawd’s sakes Maze…COME ON.  I’m gettin’ wet!!”  Finally, after sniffing around, Mazie finds a place suitable enough for her to place her peepee upon and up the steps we all go, back into the house.

I begin to put up my groceries, thinking not for the first time how damn expensive everything has gotten.  I empty all the stuff out onto the countertop and think to myself, “Those freakin’ chaps down at the Pig shore as heyull don’t know how to pack groceries.  What good does it do me to search out the perfect bunch of bananas only to have one of those little bastards put them in a bag with 3 damn cans of light red kidney beans???”  I sigh heavily, and mentally, I place one of my famous curses on the store.  I am really thinking about calling back down there and raising hell with the manager, but decide it wouldn’t do any good because he’s a bastard, too.  I mentally extend the curse to him, as well.

After putting the groceries away and giving the dogs a treat,  I go back to my “boodwah” and take off my clothes, including my bra – especially my bra – unleashing the two boobies, Ernest and Tubbs (Ernest is the left boob and Tubbs is the right boob, named Tubbs because it is bigger).  I have some big boobies – and I remember the time, while at the doctor for my annual physical that she saw my braw, hanging across the back of a chair and she said, “Dayum, Rae Nell, that ain’t a damn bra, that’s a volleyball net.”  I laugh out loud, because I KNOW that where ever she is right now, she’s recalling my unexpected visit to her office this morning.

Evenings are my most favorite time of the day.  Since it’s still kinda early, I put on my favorite pair of “South Park” flannel pajama pants that my sister gave me, and a loose fitting Mid Carolina Rebel’s t-shirt, just in case Deacon decides to come over – I can’t WAIT to call him!!  I head back to the living room, deciding to fix myself a cup of chocolate peanut butter ice cream before I call.  I plop down into my lazy lady recliner, with my ice cream, grabbing up both dogs before I put my feet up.  The dogs are wet, and they stink with the wet dog smell, but I don’t care – these doggies are my babies.  “What a day….” I think to myself. I gotta call Deacon and tell him what happened last night and this morning.  So I reach over for the cordless phone and I speed dial Deacon’s number.  I look at the clock to see what time it is and think that he should have had enough time to get home from work by now.  Deacon’s phone rings once, twice.

“Come on – PICK UP.”, I mumbled under my breath.

After the third ring, Deacon answers, “Hellur Rae Nell, baybee…”  Deacon has the most Sutherun (as I call it) voice I have ever heard, besides my own.

“Hey Deak.  Whutchew derin’?”  I ask. (I doned told y’all, I’m Sutherun as a dern turnip green, my ownself)

Deacon replies, “Terlitbookin’.” This means that he is Facebooking on his iPhone while he’s sittin’ on his terlit.

“Oh my GAWD….I don’t wanna be talkin’ tew you while you takin’ a dern crap – ewwww, that’s jest GROSS.  Call me back when you’re done.”

“I done, fer Gawd’s sakes.  Whut’s on your mind???”

“Deak, you ain’t gonna BELIEVE this shit.”

Deacon chuckles, “Oh I’ll believe it…”  He has heard a thousand of my stories that have started off with those same exact words.

I begin to plod on ahead, ignoring the slight sound of humor in his voice.  I am giddy with excitement as the story begins to tumble out of my big and at the moment, loud mouth (the more excited I am, the louder I git – yup, that includes sex, too.) I know that Deak will laugh his ass off when he hears this latest Rae Nell story.

“Deak, you know I had that date last night with Hiram??”

“Yeah, I know.  I don’t know why you’d wanna go out with him, though, he’s such an asshole.”

“I know, but I was bored….now stop interrupting me.  Anyway, he picked me up, right on time, and took me out to eat supper at Captain D’s.”

I can hear Deacon laughing on the other end, “What a big spender….he’s a real gem.”

“Aw shut up.  I said I was bored…and just a little bit lonely….and just a whole lot horny.”

“Oh dear Gawd, don’t tell me…..”

“Oh yeah, baby…  We wound up at his place – which isn’t such a bad place for a bachelor’s pad.”

“Oh really, what did the décor look like??” Deacon asks.

“Look we’ll talk about the damn décor later, just LISTEN to what I’m ‘bout[MBR1]  to tell you…  Hiram pulls out a bottle of Crown – he might be cheap when it comes to some stuff, but he ain’t when it comes to his liquor.  We have us a lil drinky-poo or two and I get a more than a little bit tipsy and we wind up in his boodwah, in his bed nekkid.”

“Oh my Gawd.” says Deak.

I take a deep breath cuz I ain’t so proud of this shit either, but damn, a gal’s gotta do whut a gal’s gotta do.  “Yeah, well, anyway, Hiram tells me that his sister, Roxanne, had one of those home sex toy parties and he went, hoping to meet himself a nice gal there.  Well, come to find out, there were no nice gals there – surprise – but Hiram goes on back to Roxanne’s little spare boodwah where the sex toy representative, Delilah,  has all her goodies displayed for purchase and naturally Hiram buys some stuff.”

“Naturally.” I hear Deacon mumble disgustedly.

“He says he really didn’t pay much attention to what he got, that he was just trying to help Roxanne out with her sales so that she could get the big strap-on dildo.”  I can’t help myself – I have to laugh…  “So anyway, he makes his purchases, and the saleslady puts everything in a discreet small brown paper bag – the same kind they use at the liquor store.  Well, wouldn’t you know it that Hiram wants to try the shit out on me.  So, in morbid curiosity. I looked into the little brown bag, to see what kind of purchases he’s made and I see these anal beads – and I said “Heyull to the NO.” on those, to which he replied he bought them dayum thangs to be used on HIS SELF and I said “Double Heyull to the Naw.”  Homie don’t pay that shit.”  I can hear Deacon chuckling. “There was some strawberry flavored lube, a big black dildo, edible underwear and packet of little round nubby ring thingies.  I chose the lesser of the evil outta the 5 things and I asked Hiram what the nubby rings were for so he says that he’s supposed to put ‘em on his tallywhacker and they supposed to feel good to the gal and also keep his ding ding hard longer.  So, I think, Whut the heyull??  So Hiram opens the package and slips all the rubber rings over his cock.  I asked him if he was supposed to use all 3 at once and he said “Whut the heyull.” And I was drunk so I said “Whut the heyull.”, too.”  I can hear Deacon munching on something while he’s listening – he learned a long time ago to let me get it all out before he says much so as not to break my momentum.  “So anyway, we get down to business, and to tell you the truth, Deak, I really couldn’t even tell the damn thangs were on his dick….Hiram is not very well endowed if ya know what I mean.”

“Oh yeah,” Deak says, “I know exactly what you mean.”

“Well anyway, Hiram finishes, before me, and I’m just lying there, kinda disappointed in the whole damn thang.  Hiram’s trying to gather up his rings, when he discovers that one of the damn thangs are missing.  I said “WHAT THE HEYULL??”  So we started shaking out the sheets and with each shake my gut felt sicker and sicker….the ring was nowhere to be found, Deak.  Hiram looked at me and I looked at him and we both know the only other place the damn thing could be.  So Hiram goes to get his Maglite LED flashlight off the top of his side by side fridge and I laid back down, waiting in complete and utter dread.  Hiram comes back in and I assume the gynecologist position – not the doctor’s, but the patient’s.  Hiram gets down there and tries to look up in there and sure enough, he catches a glimpse.”

By this time, I can hear Deak choking on his chips and howling in laughter….Heyull, I’d be laughing, too – matter of fact, I am kinda laughing as I tell the story.  “So anyway, Hiram does everythang he knows to do to get the damn thang out, and believe me, so do I, but the damn thang won’t budge – it’s stuck.  It was already too late to do anything about it, so I just put all my clothes on, gathered up my stuff, and asked Hiram to drive me home.  I got out of his damn “old man pickup truck” barely saying a thing…let myself into the house and waited for him to drive off before I let the dogs out.  The more I thought about it the madder at him I got – and the madder at my own self I got – and I wondered what in the heyull was I going to do and already knew in my heart of heart’s that there was only one thing that I could do, and that was to wait until morning and call the damn doctor’s office.”

“Damn.” Was all Deak could get out between the peals of laughter as he was gasping for air – he tried to make it sound sincere, but I knew he was laughing his ass off at me and if the tables were turned, I’d do the same.  I decided to plod on ahead.

“So anyway, this morning, as soon as the doctor’s office opened, I called to see when I could see the doctor.  That nosey bitch, Rosalee, answered the phone.”

“Oh Gawd.” said Deak, “Of all the people.”

“I know.“  I said.  “I told her that I needed to see the Doc, ASAP.  And she wanted to know what the REASON was.  I told her that I wasn’t going to give her a REASON, that it was PERSONAL and that I would ONLY tell the Doc.  She didn’t like that shit, but I didn’t care, I stood my ground.  So she asked me if I could be there at 11 and I said yes.  I went into the restaurant for a little bit, and thank Gawd, things were going smoothly, so I was able to leave on time to get to the Doctor’s office.  By this time, I had broken out into a little bit of a sweat.  I didn’t have to wait long before they called me on back.  I had to go through the entire drill – weigh, temp, blood pressure (which I’m surprised wasn’t through the damn roof under the circumstances) and then began the questions.  I told the nurse, as politely as I could that it was a personal situation that I would rather discuss it with the doc.  The whole time I was sitting there, I thought, “I will nevah go out with that asshole, Hiram, evah again.” He was out and about, going about his daily business, and here I sat, fixing to be extremely humiliated.  So the Doc finally came in.  When I told her what was going on, I have to give the old gal credit, she was able to maintain her professional composure, which is a Heyull of a lot better than what I would have been able to do.  So she tells me I gotta take off my pants and underwear, use the sheet, and assume the position.  She goes and gets the pap smear thingy – that’s the thang they use to jack ya vajayjay open – the jaws of life – and she begins to explore my cavern in a way she ain’t nevah had to before.”  By this time I can imagine Deak across town, rollin around in the floor of his single wide, howling in laughter, but he’s doing a good job with his hand over the receiver, so I can’t hear him laughing – but I can tell he’s mufflin’ it.

“The Doc can see the thang up in there.  What had happened is the thing had slipped off the end of his not so well endowed Johnson and sucked itself up to the wall of the interior of my vajayjay.  The Doc was perplexed at how to go about retrieving it, but like the trooper she is, she goes and gets some kinda thang that looked like a pair of skinny bent needle nosed pliers and went back up in there and got that “sucker” out.  I was nevah more relieved of anything in my entire life.  She asked if I wanted the damn thang back and I said HEYULL NO, I never wanted to see it again.  And I heard it as it hit the bottom of the trash can where I am quite certain she probably had everyone to gather around later to look at it after I left.  With eyes filled with mischievousness, she told me that she needed to go confer with another doc to see if I should take a round of antibiotics, “since[MBR2]  I’m a diabetic….” (I used my mockery voice when I said that.) “Deak, I know she could barely control her laughter as she left the room for me to get dressed.  When she came back, her face was flushed pink and I could tell that her eyes were red rimmed where she had been laughing so hard, she had cried.  She said in her professional doctor’s voice that the other doc didn’t feel that I would need any antibiotics, since the ring was fresh out of the plastic.  So I dropped my head down and headed to the check out.  I just wonder what code she put on the form for my damn insurance, as I am positive that there is no cade for “retrieving a rubber nubby sex toy ring from a patient’s vajayjay.”

By this time Deak was too far gone to hold back on the laughter, and as I polished off my ice cream, I was grinning myself, because I thought to myself, another crazy assed story to add to the heaping pile of unbelievable shit that had already happened to me throughout my life.  When Deak was able to catch his breath, he started singin’, “I fell in to a burnin’ rang of fye-ur…I went down, down, down and the flames went higher….and it burned, burned, burned….the ring of fye-ur, the ring of fye-ur…” and we BOTH howled in laughter.

The next morning, the sun was shining and I was glad to see it….and so were the dogs.  I decided to make a pot of coffee and eat a bowl of cereal instead to eating at The Dixie Tadpole, my restaurant/bar.  I am lucky enough to have a couple great managers, so I’m not tied down to the place like I was when I first opened it up.  God, I remember how tired I used to be after being there from sun up to way after sundown.  On Friday and Saturday nights, I’d be there half the night, too, because we always have live music on the weekends, and yes, we serve alcohol, but I do make people go out onto the big covered back porch to smoke.

I live in a small town named Prosperity, where everybody knows everybody – which has it’s good points, as well as bad – everybody knows everybody else’s bidness.  But when you get in trouble, there are a long line of good folks that wouldn’t hesitate to come to your rescue.

My little white house sits just outside of town, on McNeary Street.  The street turns in to Highway 391, once you get past the cemetery, heading out of town.  Everybody knows my bidness, course I ain’t nevah been one to try to keep stuff a secret either….I mean really, what’s the point?  I own up to my shenanigans and ain’t afraid to admit my mistakes or to take credit for my successes.

I have lived here all my life – my grandfather, who died when I was only 6 years old, was born in a house heading out of this town on Main Street.  The house burned to the ground many years ago.  My momma, 2 sisters, and my brother and their families all live close by and we all get together often – family connections have always been important to us.  I have tied the knot – twice – but it didn’t stay tied neither time, though I am still friends with them both.  I have a daughter, by hubby number 2.  She has always been my life – but she’s grown up now and has moved off to New York and is doing so well in her fashion design business.  Matter of fact, I’ll be flying up there this spring for one of her fashion shows.  She’s not married yet – says she hasn’t got time – and I don’t push that – I’m proud of the woman that she has become.

As I sit down at the table to have my coffee and cereal, I click on my laptop, to see what’s happening on Facebook.  Man, it’s better than any newspaper – anything I ever need to know – all I have to do is turn it on and search – and KAPOW – there it is.  I scroll down the newsfeed, looking for witty, funny stuff to pilfer for my own page – in just one small little way to bring a smile to someone’s face.  While scrolling, I see where the town has already started talking about our famous Christmas Parade.  The theme this year will be Christmas Country Elegance.  I almost spew my coffee over the screen when I read that, because this town is a lot of things, but “elegant” is not a word that comes to mind immediately.  I look to see if Deak is terlitbooking, and sure nuff – his little green light is on, so I click on his name to chat him up.

“Whutchu derin’ Deak??”                                                                                                                              

“Terlitbookin’  - Hay Rae Nell, whutchu derin’?”  He asks.

“Did you happen to see where the town’s already announced the theme for this year’s Christmas parade?  Heck, it’ll be here before you know it – it’s October now!!”

“Yup, I did.”, he replies.

“Christmas Country Elegance….I think it’s time fer us to make our dream of being in the parade come true.”

“Oh fer Gawd’s sakes Rae Nell, ain’t nobody got time fer that.”

“Yes, we DO!!!!  I think we should DO IT!!!!!”

“Lemme think on it…” he says.

“Okay. I reckon I better git up from here and head on down to the restaurant to see whut’s goin’ on down there….the phone hasn’t rung the first time all mawnin’.”

“Okay – I’ll talk to ya afterwhile – I might run by the The Pole to grab a quick bit fer lunch.  I hope you know that I laugh every time I call your restaurant that.  Jest cuz I SAID you should work on a pole, didn’t mean you had to name it that jest to prove a point…I was only jokin’.”

“Well, you know how I like to make people laugh.  Besides dancing around a pole has always been a dream of mine – so I jest killed two birds with one stone and saved myself the embarrassment – cuz you KNOW I’dda tried it eventually.  I’ll see you afterwhile!!”

Deacon is my best friend and also my partner in crime.  He has a cutting sense of humor that sometimes gets him into trouble with people that don’t know him very well.  But everybody in this town knows him very well and everybody loves him – me most of all.  Deak and I met in elementary school, in the 4^th grade, when his family moved here from another state.  He was awkward and shy, and Lord knows I always had a soft spot for the awkward and shy peoples so I took up with him and the rest is history.  Deacon owns his own auto parts store in town and has done very well for himself, but still lives in the same old double wide, because he’s sentimental (the place once belong to his grandparents) and because he puts all his profit in buying old cars, fixing them up and reselling them.  He helped me find my dream car – a black 1959 Cadillac ElDorado Convertible.  She has white leather interior, white walled tires, and some bitching tail fins.  I ain’t sure what size the engine is, but it’s huge and she’ll shit and git, (Deak says 425 cubic inches or 7.0 in metric, whutevah in the heyull thayut means – Deak’s wanting to pull the engine and put in a Corvette LT1 engine which is 350 cubic inches, 5.7 liter, cause Deak says the 425’s too slow…). The whole while you cruisin in it you  feel like you’re riding onna magic carpet….love, love, love my car.

Deak can look at a dern part and tell you what year, make and model car the thang came off of.  He’s known far and wide for this – and also for the fact that he has rented out space for a small machine shop in the back, where my brother, Ocie, runs his own business.  My brother is a genius – he can make any part set before him.  So it is a match made in hot rod car heaven.  People from far and wide wait for their impeccable service.

I let the dogs out one more time and then head on out to the Caddy to head to the Pole.  It’s a pretty, warm day, and I know that there won’t be many more days like this because winter is just around the corner, so I decide to ride with the top down.  The leaves are changing colors and the sun is shining so brightly, it almost makes me feel like just cruising around and forgetting about work.  I had heard about this new fresh meat market that had opened over in the next town over and I think to myself what better time to go check it out.  As a restaurant owner, I’m always looking for ways to improve my menu and we serve only top of the line food – also I heard the dude that had opened it up was a real looker. (Okay, so maybe THAT was the REAL reason I wanted to go, but having a restaurant, you have to admit, is a good way of getting my foot in the door.)  So I call the Pole on my cellie and let my morning manager, Vernetta, know that I was going to cruise on over to check out the new meat in town – I mean meat MARKET – aw hell, same difference.  Vernetta said everything was running smoothly.  So I headed on without guilt.

I reached over to turn the tunes up – Aretha Franklin was belting out “Respect” and I began dancing in my seat and singing along at the top of my lungs.  I love to sing.  I’m not the best, but I don’t totally suck either.  We have karaoke occasionally at the Pole and I’ve been known to crone a song or two every time.  I always wanted to sing in a band, but honestly, I never thought I was that good.  But it feels good today and everything is just going smoothly.  Tunes are sounding good, the sun’s shining down and the Caddy is floating like a cloud over the highway.  I have my visor down, touching up my lipstick and I have my cellie on my shoulder, talking to Deak letting him know that I’m headed ovah to check out the new meat – of course he’s mad because I didn’t stop by to get him – he likes checkin out the new meat, too…  I was startled half to death when I heard the siren behind me.  Looking in the rearview, I see I’m getting pulled over, and glancing down at the speedometer, I can see why.  Damn it all to hell – I know better than to speed along this damn road.  I am soooo pissed at myself.  “I gotta go Deak – I’m bout to get a damn speeding ticket!!”  I pull over on the shoulder of the road, turn down the Temptations as they were singing “Poppa was a Rolling Stone” (damn, one of my favorites) and reach for my purse to get my license and concealed weapons permit and then reach for my insurance and registration in the damn glovebox.  By the time I get it all together, I look over my left shoulder and there stands none other than the Sheriff.  “Hey Shuruff.” I say.  “How ya doin’ Rae Nell?”  he says.  “Well, I WAS doing FABULOUS.”  “You ain’t nevah gonna learn to lay off the gas on this thing are ya.  I swear, I don’t know what Deak and Ocie were thinking when they put you behind the wheel of the car.  They should’ve known your leadfoot would get the best of ya.  I been trying to pull you over for about the past 2 miles, but you been so busy talking on that CELLPHONE and putting on that LIPSTICK that you didn’t even notice.  That’s why I had to blast you with the siren”  “If I start crying right now, Shuruff, would you please, please, please not write me a ticket?  My insurance company’s just looking for the chance to dump me.”  By this time, I’m adjusting my cleavage and rubbing my lips together so get good coverage on my lipstick, and hikin’ my skirt up a tad, to flash him a lil bit of my leg.  “Where ya headed in such a dern hurry Rae Nell?”  “I was headed over to Chapin to check out the new meat market.  I want to see if they had anything I could use at the Pole.”  The Sheriff is a regular at the Pole – Hell, most everybody in town is a regular at the Pole.  By this time the Sheriff has glanced over everything – and I do mean everything, and he’s grinning and I know in my heart of hearts that he ain’t gonna write me a ticket – Glory Hallylooyer.  “Well, slow it down a little bit darlin’….I sure would hate for anything to happen to that purty little head of yours.”  “I sure will Shuruff.  Hey, I’m planning on cooking some of my famous homemade doughnuts on Saturday – I know how much you like ‘em – why don’t you stop by??”  “I might jest do that Little Missy. Now, you get on to where you were going, but drive within the speed of sound, okay???”  “I promise I’ll use the cruise control, Shuruff.”  And just to top it all off with a cherry, I give him a little wink.  He pats his hand down on the door panel and steps back and I know that’s my cue to peel out….which I don’t really “peel out”, I pull off kinda slow and I wave at him and he’s waving to me and shaking his head as he turns to head back to his car.  I love him – he is truly a good man – and I don’t mean that because he let me off the hook, although that does add to his charm – but he is truly a nice guy and is willing to try to help anyone that is willing to try to help themselves.  He’s a dying breed and we are lucky to have him in our county.

I roll on – slower this time – and make it to the market without further incident.  There’s a bright Clemson Orange 1970 Corvette Stingray sitting in the parking lot and already I’m in L-O-V-E, love.   I reach up, pull down the visor and reapply my red lipstick.  I take the scarf off my head and shake my dark head of curly hair, I grab my purse, and get out of the car, being careful not to scar my heels in the gravel parking lot.

As I walk up to the meat market, I see that the dude has named it “Leave it to Cleaver” and I can’t help but laugh.  A man with a sense of humor, I already have bells and whistles going off inside my head – and I’ve heard them before – and I always ignore them….against my better judgment.

When I open the door, an old fashioned bell rings and a voice from the back yells, “I’ll be right with ya!!”  As I look around, it’s easy to see that I like the place already.  The meat cases are lined with delectable cuts of meat and there’s a fresh seafood counter, as well.  He’s also had the locals to bring in their fresh produce – and he even has some fresh mountain apples – which I love, so I go ahead and start picking through them for the ones I’m going to buy.  I love me some crisp apples – and I know that I’ll eat one on the way back up the road to The Pole.

The meat man come out from back wiping his hands dry on a cotton white cloth.  I’m kind of surprised by his looks – I guess when you think butcher, a certain image fills your mind….well, this was a different image I was seeing all together and what I was seeing was indeed HAWT HAWT HAWT.   But I try to get a hold of myself when he looks at me with a half grin on his mouth and says, “How may I help you?”, because in my mind I’m thinking of a hundred and fifty thousand ways he could be helping me – and even a few other ways that I could be helping him…  I think, and not for the first time, that maybe I need to back off the hormone replacement therapy stuff….

Lord have mercy have I made my share of mistakes when it comes to men.  I’m just like everyone else that screws up, I blame it all on my upbringing – it’s all my parent’s fault that I’m so screwed up in the head.  I grew up in a family with 4 chaps, me being the oldest of the brood, a gullible mother, and an alcoholic controller with a “way with words” for a daddy.  Both my grandfathers were alcoholics, too.  So, it stood within reason that I would follow in the women of my life’s footsteps.

My very first childhood memory is of standing in the front seat of the family car, between my daddy, who was drunk and driving, and my mother, who was probably not even 18 years old yet.  I think the reason that this memory is burned into my mind is because we were being chased by the police.  I still remember that the police car was white and had a huge set of lights on top – red and blue – and the siren was a low, slow, wailing type.  My daddy’s car was faster, so he got to Moses Ruff’s trailer park, turning in practically on two wheels, and coming to a screeching halt in front our single wide trailer.  He rushed us into the house, where he headed straight to their bedroom, stripped all his clothes off, down to his white fruit of the looms. When the police came knocking on the door, daddy tried to play it off like he’d been at home asleep and was not out driving his car at all that day.

My next childhood memory is of me, momma, and MawMaw going to bail my daddy out of the town jail, where as life has a strange way of making things come full circle, as my “years into the future” first ex-husband’s grandfather was sheriff.

My childhood, when I look back on it, was fabulous compared to what I know some people go through.  We never went hungry, had a roof over our heads, and bed to sleep in, and clothes and shoes to wear - all the basic essentials.  As chaps, we had each other, and that’s about it.  As far as good direction, that came from our grandmother, MawMaw, for the most part.  Some was provided by our other grandmother, Gorgeous (yes, that is what she taught us to call her…).  But Gorgeous moved away with my aunt, uncle, and cousins when I was still young and was not really as present as I would’ve like her to be.

Gorgeous was a very unusual type of grandmother and she had me spoiled rotten.  I used to go spend the night with her and we’d stay up late at night – she would let me play in her make up (I still use the same face powder she used because the smell of it reminds me of her) and she’d paint my finger nails and toe nails, and we would watch old movies on TV and eat popcorn – and not that microwave crap either – this was BM, Before Microwave, so I got the Jiffy Pop in the lil aluminum pan with a handle…..a miraculous thing for me to watch.  Gorgeous loved to watch “The Lawrence Welk Show” and so I grew up knowing who they were and I remember the bubbles and all the lovely women dressed in the beautiful dresses, and also seeing all the lovely ballroom type dances and listening to them all sing.  I guess, looking back on it, besides Cindy Turbeville, a gal in my elementary school’s class who’s father was the head football coach at our community college, Lawrence Welk was my first real “touch of class” encounter.

Late in the night, after all of our shenanigans were over, Gorgeous and I would lay in bed and she would tell me stories of her life in the circus.  She told us all that she was a trapeze artist – and of course we believed every word that came out of her mouth – even though the bit about the circus was a bald faced lie. I would listen intently as she would tell stories of the beared lady and the dog faced boy and my imagination would just go wild.  In reality, in her early adult years, my grandmother was a model.  Her pictures appeared on the fronts of several magazines, showcasing everything from tractors to cars to clothes to quilts.  My grandmother Gorgeous was married to Big Bad Daddy Jake, who as I mentioned earlier, was born in a plantation style house on the outskirts of Prosperity, on Main Street.  He was a drinker, and he was the type that would get angry when he was drunk.  As a child I can remember many times that my Gorgeous would have to wear sunglasses to cover up black eyes, and run to the dentist to get a tooth replaced that he had knocked out.  I hated his guts.  So when he woke up dead one morning in their bed in their house on Douglas Street, right off Main Street, in Newberry, I can’t say that I was sad to see him go.  I was only 6, but the things that I had seen was enough to already make me have a hard exterior when it came to men and my mother had to practically drag me into the funeral home to see him.  I can remember that they were all standing around wailing over the loss and I simply walked over to a chair, in my last year’s Easter dress, hat, shoes, and gloves, and picked up a magazine and took a seat beside a table with a lamp.  It was my little 6 year old way of saying “Fuck you Big Bad Daddy Jake, I hope you rot in Hell for what you did to my Gorgeous.”.   Yes, I was VERY opinionated even back then and also very strong willed.

My other grandfather, PawPaw, he was a different kind of drunk.  You would never know what kind of drunk he was gonna be – one day he’d be thumping the Bible, the next day he’d be shooting out the light bulbs in the house with his pistol and the next day he’d be pulling his own teeth with a pair of adjustable pliers, and yes, on occasion being abusive towards my grandmother, which ended when my daddy, his son, got old enough to fight him back.  Though my MawMaw never divorced him, after one particular sting of his meanness, she did stop sleeping with him, and they became something other than a husband and a wife.  PawPaw was the kind of a drunk that you didn’t really wish dead, but you wished to save, because when he wasn’t drinking you would catch a glimpse of the good hearted man behind the exterior.  He loved his dogs, loved to paint signs, and loved to play the drums.  PawPaw did “get saved” from drinking when he almost drank himself to death and MawMaw had to call an ambulance to come and get him and he was transported to the VA hospital in Columbia, where he stayed for several weeks in rehab.  When he came home, he was a different kind of a man.  He was softer around the edges – he took up time with us and we all have fond memories of staying up late on Saturday nights with him watch HeeHaw, WWF wrestling, and if we were able to keep our eyes open, Ladies Roller Derby racing.  He loved to watch Lassie, Gunsmoke, anything with John Wayne, and The Carol Burnette Show.  He still dressed the part of the cowboy, with his Wranglers and his cowboy hat and belt buckle, but the pistol had disappeared – by his hand or MawMaw’s, I will nevah know.

Mawmaw was the one that always made sure we had what we needed.  When Daddy’d get drunk out playin with his country and western band on the weekends, and wreck the family car and wind up in the hospital and us with no income, she’s the one that would somehow scrounge up the money to pay the electric bill, while momma would head down to DSS and get us signed up for food stamps so we wouldn’t starve to death.  Mawmaw would have to drive her because Daddy wouldn’t allow her to get her driver’s license until I was a teenager.  I guess he was afraid she might try to escape.  MawMaw was the glue that help us all together.  I still remember her good fried chicken she’d fix every Sunday and rice and gravy and green beans and macaroni and cheese pie.  The only thing she never mastered was the biscuits.  She would usually always let them burn on the bottom. But we didn’t care.  Breakfasts at her house always consisted of grits, eggs, and those same biscuits, and some sort of meat.  Even though it sounds gross I remember that Beverly meat in the can – it tasted good to me.  MawMaw could also make a mean salad out of potted meat to make sandwiches.  She was always making a big pot of Pintos and a pone of cornbread and she’s cut up a fresh onion, or have some hot peppers out of the garden.  She had a garden every year and from it she would make the best vegetable soup and pickles you ever had…plus she’d can green beans and freeze tomatoes.  She also made our clothes, as we were truly poor.  She’d go out and buy some polyester material and go to town – making us shirts, skirts, and whatever else she could whip up.  She was constantly scrubbing on my neck – saying that it looked like it was rusty or dirty and when I got older she finally realized that it was the color of my skin.  She’s the one that taught me to shave my armpits and wear deodorant and she’s the one that took me to get my haircuts over at a beauty shop in the one of the mill villages in Newberry.

Most all my family worked in the cotton mills at some time or other – that is how they came to be here all those years ago.  MawMaw says that they walked here from the mountains of North Carolina, looking for jobs in the cotton mills.

The other thing that MawMaw instilled in us all was the importance of going to church.  It didn’t matter how late we had stayed up with PawPaw watching wrestling and women’s roller derby, we were getting up to go to church.  Back then, things were different than what they are now.  We actually WANTED to go to church because we didn’t have anything or anywhere else to go.  It was a social outlet.  Chaps these days have too many other things vying for their attention and church is not always a top priority.  But it was back then.  We did EVERYTHING through church; vacation bible school, Sunday school, hay rides, haunted houses, revivals, Bible studies…..if the doors were open, we were supposed to be there.

My aunt and uncle lived over in Clinton and as a child, I would go and spend lots of time there during the summer.  Judy was my daddy’s sister and her husband’s name was Tommy.  They had 2 children, my cousins, Charlotte and Bubba.  Every summer we were expected to help with the gardening – I can remember shelling butter beans until my thumbs hurt.  But I also remember walking along dirt road, looking for blackberry bushes and picking them and eating as many as I picked and having the dark purple juices stain my hands, arms, and usually my clothes, too.  There was a huge soybean field back behind their house and we would play out in the field.  They were the same way about church…Lord have mercy.  We started jokingly calling their house “John T. and Judy P.’s Prison Camp and Spiritual Retreat”.

Anyway, all of these things, and much more, shaped me into the sick, demented person that I am today.