Remembering Linda

Sixteen years ago I met a high school freshman who, for the purpose of my story, I will call Linda. She was barely five feet tall and had a quiet little girl voice. Before long I found out that for most of her life, she had lived in a nearby city…until the spring before…when the court had placed her with a family in the neighbor hood surrounding the inner city high school where I worked. Linda was NOT a social student…I don’t ever remember having to ask her to listen quietly or pay attention. As she grew more comfortable with her surroundings, Linda opened up just a little….but, her focus was always on her school work.

School was a challenge for her. As the year progressed, her educational gaps became apparent. I pulled her school file and discovered that she had been to many different schools and that continually her instructors noted the lack of parental involvement. I was to discover that Linda was basically her own parent….not because she lacked a parent….because her mother was and had habitually been a drug user who more often than not ended up on the street. Linda, at 15, was a streetwise child struggling not to end up as her mother had. I don’t know where she lived during the first half of her sophomore year in high school but she was back with our school the second half of the year because I looked up one day as she walked in to my home room as a “transfer” student.

Her grades were not the best, but she rarely missed school. Sure, there were days when she hit my classroom closet at lunch time, but she was not alone. Many of my home room girls did the same. The closet always had “stuff,” stuff like peanut butter cracker packs, cheese cracker packs, microwave popcorn, pre-packaged juice packs, etc. along with paper cups, hot chocolate mix (that I mixed and put in a sealable canister) . There was usually a basket on my desk that many days held fruit…..and other such “illegal, contraband.” The girls knew my rules..if you find it, you can have it, reseal the container you opened, clean up any mess, tell me when you need more cups, keep the coffee pot full of hot water and don’t tell anyone out of this home room what is in the closet.

During my “off” period , if you need a quiet place to do your homework (and you do NOT have a scheduled class) , you are free to come into the room and work and listen to quiet music (I taught a foreign language along with English so my boom box/tape/CD player was part of my standard (personally owned) equipment. Linda was often there…sometimes to finish homework….many times to put her head down and catnap. By that time, I knew she was living out on her own and working at the gas station down the street. By junior year…many kids were out on their own…living in questionable conditions…in rooming houses…in apartments …wherever they could find a “safe” haven. I knew that some children were “push outs,” simply put out by their “parents” or “families.”

Linda, on the other hand, was a foster child caught in the situation where she was 18 by senior year. There was a program where these kids received a stipend for living expenses if they were high school seniors and actively trying to finish school. Combined with a somewhat meager pay check, Linda had rented a small apartment. True, the apartment was in a crime ridden neighborhood….but it was HERS. There had been a boyfriend involved but she had decided to end the relationship. The why and wherefore of the bust-up…I do not know. Graduation was less than two months away.

Linda had the weekend off from work and she decided to contact her mother. I would guess that she wanted to tell her mother about the child she was expecting…but I really do not know. The mother came from the town where she lived (caught the bus) and apparently was excited that Linda had her own place and would soon graduate from high school. The weekend was not to go as expected.

The angry ex-boyfriend showed up to confront Linda. He showed up with a gun and shot Linda on the sidewalk in front of the apartment. Then he ran….while Linda was dying in her junkie mother’s arms.

The news traveled through the school community like a too sharp knife. On Monday morning, the two faculty members who were “class sponsors” called an emergency meeting. The message was this….you are Linda’s family…you are her brothers and sisters…and as her family…there is only one thing you can do for her. The class was told…it is up to us to bury her..that is all we can do. It was spring and the flowering bushes outside the school were in bud. I had broken off a small limb and held it up before the class.

“This large branch represents you as a class. A thief came in the night and stole a budding flower from this branch, “ I snapped off a small branch, “a flower which was Linda.” The students were told what a “proper funeral” would cost. Within two days, by gathering nickels, dimes, quarters, dollars from each other and from the neighborhood…the students had raised the money and dispatched the principal to the funeral home to pay.

On the appointed day and the time, school busses pulled up in front of the school and the entire senior class climbed on the busses to go bid farewell to their classmate and as they marched out of the building, they warned the underclass students, “If you all come, you all better act right…because this is our sister!”
That spring was almost 13 years ago. Linda’s child would have been nearly 12 years old this fall….the school building has been torn down and replaced…and those of us who were her teachers have retired and/or moved on. I still feel her loss and I often wonder…what could we have done,,,to keep Linda…alive?

The Apple Tree Adventure

Granny’s not lookin’! Good.” Five-year-old legs and feet flew across the yard to the picket fence. Nomie pulled up on the bottom rail then looked over her shoulder at the house. “Granny’s still not looking.” Nomie pulled herself from the bottom rail to the top of the fence post. She didn’t remember the ground being so far away. She closed her eyes and jumped from the top of the post to the ground three feet below. Tumbling to her knees on the gravelly path, Nomie wanted to cry from the scrapes but if she cried, Granny would hear her…. And then she would be in trouble. “I’m not gonna’ cry. Only babies cry and I’m no baby.” She picked herself up and started across the alfalfa field. Ole Jim, Uncle Tom’s black collie, limped after her on his three good legs. She spotted a four leaf clover and stopped to investigate. A bumblebee buzzed nearby. Nomie did not like bumblebees.

She looked up the hill at her Daddy’s house. Daddy of course was not home. He was at work driving his big yellow Kentucky Power Company truck. Nomie knew that if Daddy didn’t work, lots of people would have no ‘lectricity and they would be calling 117 and asking for Harry. She didn’t like it when Daddy had to go back out to work at night just ‘cause people didn’t have ‘lectricity. Up ahead here was a nice place to sit under the walnut tree and if she sat there, Granny couldn’t see her and make her come back to the house. Nomie didn’t want to have to come back to the house…not yet. Ole Jim laid down in the alfalfa next to her and she put her chubby arms around his neck and hugged him. “Good Jim…you’re my favoritest playmate…. except for Nancy and Sue…and Paul…but I can’t go to Daughtry Hollow by myself. Anyway…I’m scared to walk by the graveyard…even with you. Some ghost might jump out the grave and get me!”

Nomie wondered if her stepmother was home. Having a stepmother meant that Daddy had a new wife but she guessed that was okay…after all her momma was in heaven…had been gone to heaven a long time. Granny had explained all that and after all…Granny was her Momma’s momma. Still Nomie didn’t feel right about the stepmother. She didn’t know why…she just didn’t …but she didn’t have to worry…she had Granny and Uncle Tom, and Uncle Carter, and of course, Grampa.
Her eyes wandered to the field by the creek where the well house stood. Then she looked up the hill toward the Daddy house and saw the apple tree. Daddy had sawed a limb off the apple tree but he didn’t quite cut it all off. Sticking out was a piece of limb with a sharp point . It sure looked like a good limb to turn a flip-flop on. Could she do it? Maybe if she held on to the pointy limb and the one next to it…that would work? Nomie headed toward the tree. Ole Jim stayed where he was, his tongue sticking out as he panted for breath. He laid his head on his paws and continued to watch the little girl.

Nomie looked up at the tree. It wasn’t very high so she started to climb up so she could reach the pointy limb. Now how could she turn this flip-flop? She turned around facing the tree trunk and thought of a way she could try. As her body turned, the sharp point of the limb caught the waistband of her shorts and tore a hole in the seat! There Nomie swung …stuck on an apple limb …bobbing from her shorts. She yelled for help. There was no answer. Finally her stepmother came out of the basement door with a dishpan full of water that she threw in the garden. Her father’s new wife did not look Nomie’s way and then she turned and went back in the house. What could Nomie do now? She yelled for help again and again and nobody came. The bees kept buzzing from blossom to blossom in the tree and….still, nobody came. Nomie waited. . Granny couldn’t see the back of Daddy’s house…. and besides, Granny didn’t know where she was. Nomie hung in the tree bobbing like a big apple. She didn’t like this…. Not a bit.

What could she do? Nomie reached out and grabbed the trunk of the tree and pulled herself closer. She heard the rip in her shorts. Granny was going to be mad…real mad. Nomie wiggled and her shorts ripped further She kept on wiggling and finally fell half way to the ground. How could she get out? Maybe…..if she pushed backwards? Nomie pushed away from the tree and fell backwards toward the ground….her feet caught in what was left of her shorts legs! She kicked harder and …one foot came out….she kicked again and….at last…she was free!

Her legs hurt…..Granny would be mad…..Maybe she ought to get her torn shorts from the tree…Nomie wanted Granny. She grabbed the torn shorts and ran through the alfalfa field toward the fence gate and her Granny. Nearly there…she started crying and screaming at the top of her lungs ”Gran…nee……..Gra…nee…Gra..neeeee!” Tears rolled from her eyes as she screamed and ran across the field…through the hay grass…toward the house…toward her Momma’s Momma screamin’ and …cryin’. Ole Jim limped along behind her his lame hind leg tucked up.Climbed down the wet creek bank, slid under the woven wire fence at the back of the garden, ran through the peanut patch all the way to the back door, Nomie screamed every step of the way. Gran…….nee, Gran….eee, GRANNEE!

Turkey Calling

You jive-time turkey. Why are you knocking on my door? I could care less if you are a Republicrat or a Demican…neither party means much to me. Beneath the skin you are all the same..standing on my doorstep in my neighborhood in which you do not live and which you would not enter after dark or in three out of four years…yet you cram my mailbox with all this unsolicited propaganda trying to twist my thoughts to your biased, narrow view of the world…and now you ring my doorbell with that fake two-faced smile pasted on your face…who do you think buys your line of rhetoric anyway…involuntary lobotomies went out of style with the civil rights era….you know during the Sixties…when your predecessors passed all those treating your neighbor fair laws which you say discriminate against you…yes, I guess those laws did discriminate against you because you were definitely unborn at that time and let us face this fact.. since the unborn can not talk…they have no voice.

Ah….you say you’re born now…and you want to help me? I guess you do want to help me…probably into the poor house which you closed last year because after all government would be better served fighting a war and killing off the young people..who bought your plan to force a lifestyle down the throats of a different culture, a different religion because after all GOD spoke to you personally last night or night before and told you that the only people who would be permitted through the Pearly Gates were clones of you and yours…….who spoke the same language in the same way with the same flat intonation at the same minute in the infinite universe…oh I forgot…there is no universe…the stars are only painted lights on the ceiling of that dark room you call a mind….where logical thought and compassion are criminals to be arrested as threats to your home….land ……security.

T-I-O-N

Somewhere. way back when in the beginning of our NATION
We forgot the logic of the original EXPLANATION.
Forgot when the ancestral elders left on their EXPLORATION
Across the sea, long and lonely far from the REVOCATION
Of their right to freely kneel and practice the ADORATION.

Today, distantly removed stands the new GENERATION
Of politically correct refugees from ultimate SALVATION
Isolated, angry and devoid of desire to begin RENOVATION
Of a cultural, spiritually, morally bankrupt CIVILIZATION
Locked in an unheard, unheeded, unnoted VOCALIZATION.

Out of the mouths of concerned babes comes this ORATION
Demanding, requiring, desperately needing a new DEDICATION
A new definition, a new focus of prayerful CONSIDERATION
Toward reclaiming the original GOD-centered INSPIRATION
Of the essential founding truths of our elders’ EXPECTATION.

In the names of Father, Son, and Spirit we pour the LIBATION
To insure for eternity the healing, nurturing CONSECRATION
Of the sanctity stated hallowed liberty driven DECLARATION
That we as a people stand before the world’s OBSERVATION
Under God, under liberty, without any further JUSTIFICATION!

Sunday, Someday Remembered by an Absent-minded Penitent

Bright Sunday morning sunshine pouring through the stained class windows of our church. The image of the Christ is backlit in all its glory…HE with HIS hands extended to one and all who come through the door and down the center aisle to pause and kneel before the altar. They are the faithful who come each Sunday, each holy day and some other days besides ..to salute the altar and then to sit in meditation on the meaning of FAITH, to communicate with our GOD on the meaning and responsibilities of life…to beg forgiveness for transgressions from the straight and narrow….to achieve a semblance of peace within each individual soul….

Sunday morning , the most divided day in all our world because each of us seems to believe that his or her house of worship is the only viable entrance to the Afterlife. I personally do not believe that there is a specifically allocated section of the afterlife sat apart for each denomination but I would also admit that I am probably in the minority because of the innate wish of many people to play a childhood game of “one up.” This is the game that leads one person to think that he is “better” than other people. As a child growing up in a tiny mountain community, I would listen on Sunday morning for the bell pealing from either the Methodist church or the Baptist church as the bells called their individual members to service. I have attended services in both churches. Then some new people moved in and built a Holiness church and I have attended services in that church also. As a matter of fact, my aunt, Sister Belle, preached in that same church one week.

My father didn’t go to that particular service because as he would say, “I’m of a different persuasion.” I never did know exactly what “persuasion” that was but attending the service didn‘t matter because the Holiness church had a loudspeaker and the whole hollow had no choice but to hear the service in its entirety unless someone got in a vehicle and went across the river to Vinsontown. My stepmother, who was a Baptist, would rather sneak a drink than go to either one of the churches in our town. Her excuse was that she was a member of the church in Rivertown some 40 miles away by the highway, Matter of act my brother had her buried from that church . I was caught in an icestorm and even though I was on the way didn’t get there until after she was buried but I heard from another source that nobody came to the funeral because none of the members of that Rivertown church remembered her at all – not so surprising since she had moved from Rivertown some thirty years before Daddy’s service, on the other hand, had been quite different. An 84-year-old retired Free Will Baptist preacher from Vinsontown who had fought in the Big War with Daddy spoke over him and most residents of Yatestown, our town, and Vinsontown came.

Mountain people never seemed to much care what church a person went to. If there was a church in town and you felt like going..then you went and that was that. Sometimes people would fall out with either the preacher or somebody else in the church and change churches . Maybe other folks knew why the change took place and maybe they didn’t…neither the change nor the reason was earth shattering and life moved on. Life in those days was so much simpler than it is now. People had an innocence then that cable television and mass media have since damaged. Only occasionally do I hear a person speak with that distinctive manner of speech and the distinct choice of words that identifies them to another hill born person. Speech patterns may have changed but values and social actions are too inherent in our Appalachian culture. My adult children show their mountain heritage in the way they act, in how they choose their friends and in their personal values.

And on Sunday morning, on Holy Day morning, they scatter to whichever church draws their interest. My gospel music playing offspring will happily travel to whichever church calls him and his group to come and play. The group will join hands, Brother Rod will pray for Divine approval of their efforts and a joyful noise will be raised to the heavens. Sister Belle (my aunt) used a loudspeaker to spread the word but in these modern times the brothers of music have replaced the loudspeaker with an amplifier connected to both the electric guitar and the electric piano to make sure all the audience hears. The years have passed and methods have changed but the purpose is still the same. By sunlight, moonlight or starlight. touch the faith, let it shine through, let it be heard from the mountains to the hollows and beyond. Remind all of us of the values taught in our childhood and help us keep to the pathways that bring us into whatever building is dedicated for the personal communication with God that develops and strengthens our Faith, our so that within each soul we find peace and love for all His creatures.

The bells are tolling and we are being called to show our own belief in the right pathway to the whereafter. Please don’t ask me for specific directions because I can not give you a definitive answer. After all, I am the person who stood up and walked out the door of the church where a minister preached that everyone who went to another church across town was going to Hell because they did not come to his church. That particular preacher has slid on into the afterlife but I have not set foot in a building of his particular denomination in nearly forty years and I don’t think I am going back. The memory is a bit too prejudicial to me. In my current home town, I walked out of the church (which I claim) because I got really tired of folk looking at my black skin like I had leprosy or AIDS or some such incurable disease. Nor am I going to drive nearly twenty miles to the black church of the same denomination…where my children used to go to school. In that church I was sniped at and made fun of because of my Appalachian ways. No one there communicated with me until they wanted $5000 to build the new church…then they found my phone number. I , on the other hand, had lost my checkbook that day and couldn’t remember the way to the bank.

What I do find myself remembering is the Irish Catholic priest who came flying down a curvy twisty mountain road seemingly on two wheels of his raggedy station wagon because our house had burned and my oldest son had died…remembering the parish that reached out and took in a relatively new family in the community. That same priest who stopped in mid homily because I was carrying my baby son out of the sanctuary because he was screaming at the top of his lungs Father Rooney said quite forcefully, “Don’t you dare carry that boy out of this church..no matter how loud he gets…. He can cry here anytime he wants…” and Father waited until I sat down again before he continued . and continue he did …with HIS sermon!

The Unanswerable Question

This is a message I really can’t ever deliver. It is very personal.
Yes, you over there in your lonely suburban house.
Saw your grandson yesterday, the one you don’t know.
Nice kid –somehow he knows I’m related – same birthmark.
He keeps trying to figure it out – so he comes by my classroom.
Looks in – wondering – looks at me with questions in his eyes.
I’ve got no answers – just more questions, simple questions,
His name, his birthday, his daddy’s name, where he lives.
Questions I can’t ask.


Years ago I saw his daddy and I…..almost passed out.
Same height, same hair, same face just like his dead brother.
I sat there stunned and watched him move – a living ghost.
Hush! I told my child, close your mouth and shut up!
Went home, demanded answers from our aunt – who knew.
Got only a question in response – where’d you see him?
Then she said, “His momma wants nothing to do with us!”
Who’s he look like, how’d you know he was ours?



I still don’t know his name, our aunt wouldn’t talk
Any more on that subject, though she talked on many more.
Now, I understand why she wouldn’t speak and séances do no good.
My classroom is empty now, I don’t teach there anymore.
Your grandson will stop, look in, and find no answers,

Don't Tell Me Who I'm NOT!

Brother in blood , don’t dare try to tell me who I’m not!
Such a sad, sorry, misguided and boring argument .
Your face’s reflection in the mirror
Seems much like mine,…but you can not,
Will not recognize my Appalachian Soul.


Sick and tired I am of people telling me
I don’t exist and who I’m not.
I am BLACK and I am MOUNTAIN BORN!
Seven generations of my people have
Walked these meandering mountain hollers.


My dark eyes and ears see and hear your games and
Read them sadly for your blind ignorance
Which sees only my obvious African face.
While your mouth spews contempt and hatred
For my Appalachian heritage.


You played games of disrespect with your elders.
Would not recognize mine as they walk by.
Those long gone folk who climbed the mountain
To build and light the schoolhouse fire.. for children yet unkmown.


I have walked my mother’s steps and the footsteps of her elders,
Always remembering the lessons of my grandmother’s
Peach tree switch which taught respect for all living beings.
Listen well and don’t try telling me who I’m not!
I am proud, black, and Appalachian, and most of all, I am ME!

Farmer's Market on a Long Ago Saturday

Bumping shoulders, dodging small running children, tripping over curbs, grabbing Dorothy Susanne’s hand, tugging the wagon carrying Jay-Jay and Brad a.k.a. the twins.
Hot baked bread from Wisniewski”s Bakery smelling of butter, sesame, garlic, onions; smell of fresh Indiana melons (cantaloupe) sliced for sampling…melon which came in the back of a pick-up truck…not in a semi-trailer….melon picked in the dark…just this morning.

Huge stuffed Raggedy Anne and Andy like dolls with brown faces and tightly kinked hair and dressed in colorful kinte clothes. The little old lady who got even with me because I told her that her dolls didn’t look like my kids. Now the dolls do look like my kids. She laughs…she knows I’ll buy.

Vendors and customers in constant communication…hearing bits of conversation…how many…how much…fresh fruit for sale….will you negotiate?……idling diesel engines of the watermelon trucks from south Georgia….Can the twins have some candy?….Will they ever just be Brad and Jay-Jay instead of the twins?…Think I’ll scream if one more person tells me my identical sons are cute…I think I’ll scream.

Artists market….sculptures for sale…..African masks….busts of small children…flat framed carvings…..woven mats of many colors….Running into Marvin Vines...my artist friend…..he sketches the kids and me…talking about how I should get LeMaxie Glover to sculpt the children’s heads…wishing later that I had because too soon LeMaxie is dead and we have lost another important black voice…

The quilt lady asking about Herma Mack Henry….who used to be my landlady but stayed around to become my elder friend. She’s off to Columbus to visit her little sister and will be home next week. I’ll be back to Market with her…and she’ll leave with bargains…she always does.

Seeing my used to be landlady for the garden site in Spencer Sharples Will I be needing the site in the spring…if so her husband will plow it and fertilize it for me….and oh yes, next summer the rent will be $30.00…Dorothy Susanne tugging my arm…Mommy, will that bad old goose be gone….the one that flogged my baby’s legs….before our Dobie jumped out the van window and chased him off?!..No, the farm lady tells her the goose is gone..he’s in the freezer now waiting for his starring role at Christmas dinner!
Through with the market…putting the kids in my orange Volkswagen van…struggling to put the wooden Radial Flyer through the sliding door…its nearly 8 a.m…..can I get the kids to go back to sleep? Don’t know..turning north on Monroe headed toward Collingwood and the Old West End. See you next Saturday!

Here We Go Again!

I have finally figured out the mystery! The most important button on my television remote is right in the middle and is labeled with four letters of the alphabet. Those important letters are M-U-T-E! As we enter this election year, I suspect the mute button is going to get a lot of use. The only button that will get more use is the OFF button!

Shakespeare said it best - "much ado about nothing." The politics in these United States of America has eroded to the point where the prevailing winds are so much hot air without substance. The hot air successfully camoflages the underlying vicious intent of the perpetrators jockeying for power positions. These same perpetrators obviously slept through world history classes in high school and beyond because they are rushing to repeat the mistakes that led to the fall of the Roman Empire.

Church and state should not be mixed in my opinion. Each one of us has the right to choose a church which exemplifies our personal religious beliefs. I have two friends whose personal religious beliefs preclude them from eating pork. Should either of them visit me, I have enough respect for both women to serve no pork when we share a meal. That is common courtesy and neither of them wants to enact a law that keeps me from buying and/or eating bacon, sausage, and ham or an occasional pork chop. Religious freedom literally says that both women are free to believe what they wish and I am free to believe what I want. The fact that I respect their belief choice does not mean I have to live by their choices.

When my son invited a friend to dinner and the friend happened to be a vegetarian, common courtesy for his beliefs shaped a meal without meat. I did not see a guest with strange beliefs, all I saw was a six foot tall young man in his twenties who would be hungry at the end of the day. Since he could eat most non-meat dishes, I simply made sure there was enough food on the table to feed 2 hungry twenty-something men!

Was this a big deal? Not in my belief set. Common sense and common courtesy prevailed and I put a meal on the table that fed both men. The friend later said to my son that for the first time in his adult life, he was invited to a friend's house and was able to share an adequate meal. He seemed amazed. I was glad he was well fed but.....I was also embarassed that this young man would have been so, to me, disrespected in previous social encounters. Has common sense and common courtesy become so outdated?

The only person I have to live with is ME. Could I publicly and or privately humiliate a guest in my house? Being kind and/or considerate of others costs me nothing but being unkind and inconsiderate to others ultimately costs me my personal self respect.

That being said...I must label myself as hopelessly old-fashioned. I do not plan on losing friends because they attend a different church on Sunday, Saturday, or whenever. I also do not intend to argue with anyone over who is walking on a pathway to heaven or whose prayers are heard first. By the time I find out, I probably won't be on earth anyway and there won't be much I can do about it. My beliefs center on the rule..."Do unto others as you would have others do unto you!"

Mean spirited politics bring out the basest instincts in people. Am I supposed to let my neighbor and his children starve because his factory closed and he has no job? Is my neighbor supposed to die because he has no or inadequate health insurance? (That is why I have so much respect for a friend of one of my kids who practices medicine in a community health center in a major city. His patients need adequate access to health care and he works hard to provide it!) Over the years I taught in poor neighborhoods, I saw few doctors who treated the least wealthy and I know how many of my students depended on Planned Parenthood for medical care of the most personal sort.

Often I think of a young man I knew, who worked any job he could get (none especially high paying) to help his widowed sister support her family. He got sick and went to the emergency room in a large hospital. They prescribed antacids and generally ignored his complaints until his very young niece pitched a fit and made him go to another hospital...that same day. That hospital took time with him and correctly diagnosed his cancer.....it was aready too late. He died within the year. His crime...he was poor and uninsured...and now he is dead along with a dear friend of mine from a small Appalachian town. Her cancer was also diagnosed too late and the doctor who failed (refused) to treat her in the early stages of her illness because she couldn't pay....still "practices."

I also think of another physician I know who gathered two friends and went to the Dominican Republic (after the Haiti earthquake) with a plan to sneak across the border to look for a physician friend who had been on a missionary trip to Haiti. They did not find their friend...they found people who needed help...and promptly rolled up their sleeves and went to work. That physician has my eternal respect....he (and his friends) did what needed to be done!

That said....I think I'll move on.

A Not-so-Modern Christmas Story

Maree stood quietly in the front room window watching as the snow flakes fell through the early afternoon sky. The first flakes were lacy and as the storm grew heavier, they soared and floated softly on the wind currents. As the snow fell Maree whispered a silent thankful prayer for the for-sure coming white Christmas.

In the back room the fir tree was already decorated with bubble lights, colored balls, tinsel and the lighted family cross was hanging in the window. . The tree’s lights were plugged in and shining and a few wrapped packages were tucked under the branches. The smell of fresh cut cedar filled the room and the house. The outside temperature was dropping and the snowfall grew increasingly heavier. The once lacy flakes changed shapes, became smaller , and filled the darkening winter sky. Maree continued her lone vigil watching thoughtfully as the winter storm closed around the house, the smoke house and the cellar tucked into the side of the hill across the road.. As she watched ….the young neighbor woman from the next hollow came trudging down the mountain road followed by her two young daughters struggling to place their tiny feet in their mother’s tracks. The young family walked on past the small house and soon the watery car tracks on the lower mountain road were the only visible patches of uncovered ground and then gradually, they too became invisible. The snow came steadily down and in the distance a lonely hound dog bayed. Except for the hound dog and then the miles-off whistle of the westbound Norfolk and Western passenger train ……on the eastern side of the Big Sandy River in Epperson Hollow, there were no other sounds.

Maree had watched the young family as they passed the barn, the turning place and finally disappeared around the curve by the giant elm trees in front of Miz’ Virginia Moore’s abandoned house. She then walked thoughtfully to the back sitting room where her grandparents rocked, talked and whiled away the afternoon. She stood briefly before the fireplace between her elderly grandparents. Finally, she spoke. “Grampa, that young Miz’ Daggs just passed the house…” Her grandfather’s ninety year old gray blue eyes cut in her direction and he silently waited to hear whatever she was going to say..”I heard tell that her husband is up in Ohio…Columbus or Mansfield or somewhere up there…. looking for work and she’s over the hill with her two girls and ain’t got no Christmas tree. Her cousin Pearlene.,…you know Pearlene….she’s in the other sixth grade class at school….well, she told me that they’ve barely got any food in the house. Too bad we can’t do something for her and the girls.”

“What’re you thinking about Sis?” the elder asked after a thinking pause. “You got something in mind..else you’d never mentioned it.”

“Well, ….I got plenty of clothes upstairs that Granny’s been saving…stuff I’ve outgrown.. Those little girls don’t even have any galoshes …they’re walking in their mama’s tracks trying to keep their feet dry. I know I got at least two pair of galoshes I can’t wear no more..my feet’re too big.” The old man listened and nodded and then held an almost whispered conversation with his tiny blind sprite of a wife as she sat in her rocking chair beside him. The coal fire in the grate crackled a bit as a lump split and fell to the bottom of the fireplace. The two old ones rocked companionably, silently, a while longer.
Finally, the old grandfather spoke, “Sis, what you plannin’ on putting the stuff in?”

“Uncle Tom brought home a big feed sack the other night. It’s clean, Cousin Alfred brought it in town from the farm and Cousin Ellen washed it. Bout big enough to make the two little ones a dress apiece and it ain’t been split yet cause it’s the only one we got of that print.”

The old one nodded his head and rocked some more. “It still snowing? Then maybe you’d better prop your sled on the front porch and go ahead and get working on filling that feed sack. Then find you a little box and put some of that Christmas fruit , nuts and candy in there from out of the pantry. Then you get back to the window and watch for her to come back up the road. Your Granny and I’ll handle the rest.”

The child nodded and left the room. Soon she was back at the window watching the snow fall and keeping an offhand eye on the curve beyond the barn. The Seth Thomas clock on the mantel ticked loudly on toward late afternoon and the rocking chairs in the next room creaked on the linoleum floor. Occasionally, the older couple could be heard murmuring softly to each other. Maree didn’t say much else…..she just kept her vigil by the front room window. Finally. she saw what she was looking for ..the young mother was coming up the road carrying a brown poke full of food and the two young girls were following close behind her. Maree pushed the lacy curtains together and slipped into the next room to tell her grandparents.

The old grandmother spoke softly, “You tell that young woman that me and your grandfather …we want to speak to her right away and she’s to bring those younguns’ out of the weather. Then you keep quiet as a mouse..”

Maree grabbed her coat , tied a wool scarf on her head before she went out the front doorand down the walkway to the gate. As the neighbor family drew closer….she opened the gate and called out, “Mis’ Daggs….Gramma and Grampa said for you to come in here right away and to bring the girls.” As she finished the speech, Maree turned and headed toward the door, turning once to make sure the young family followed. As soon as the woman and children were inside the house, she closed the door, pushed a rag rug over the crack at the bottom and pointed toward the sitting room. “They’re in the other room…back there.” She pointed toward the open door.

“You sent for me, Miss Mary and Mr. Grant?” the young woman asked shyly.

“Come on over here by the fireplace and get warm. ” The elder couple rocked patiently while the young woman and her children moved into the room and toward the warmth of the fire place.. After a silent moment, the tiny grandmother spoke again. “Me and my husband……well,,,,we have to see to the raising of our grandchild, Maree, here. Her mother, our daughter, well she died a while back but you see, there is nobody else but her daddy and her uncles…and we just wouldn’t hold with sending her away from home…even though her older sister wanted her……..so, we’re raising her.”

For the first time, the gray headed grandfather spoke, “Those boys….they just spoil this girl something awful….and it’s not fitten’. Right now…we need your help ‘cause this girl hasn’t pleased us…not one bit…and she don’t deserve much of a Christmas…and until she behaves better, she’s not going to get much.” There was finality in the older man’s voice as he looked directly at the younger woman..

“Like my husband said, we need your help,” the blind grandmother continued. “This girl don’t deserve much of a Christmas. My husband and I…… we went through what the boys bought for her and we decided she’s not going to get any of this stuff. So….we put everything we don’t want her to have in that feed sack over in the corner…what we want you to do is take all of it away from here. Make sure you take that box of fruit and candy and such too,,,,she’s spoiled and don’t need any of it!”

The grandfather added , ”Will you do that for us? We’d be most appreciative and maybe…just maybe…Maree will be a better child next year. Now, Maree’s sled is propped up on the front porch. You just load that bag and the box and your kids on that sled and take everything on over the hill to your house. You can drop the sled off next time you go to town…Maree won’t be needin’ it…..like we said, we’re not pleased with her and until she learns how to act…she’s getting nothing. Maree….now you quit your listening….. and you just get along upstairs and stay out of grown folks’ business!”

Maree lowered her eyes and left the sitting room heading through the shotgun house toward the dining room. The elder grandfather got out of his chair to help the neighbor woman bundle the children back up and then walked out with her to help load everything on the sled. When he came back into the house…Maree was back downstairs sitting on the stool by her grandmother’s feet.

“Girl gone, Grant?”

“Yep…she’s on her way and the baby girl is riding the sled…..she was about ready to cry but I didn’t give her a minute to say anything. Glad you sent Maree out of here before her face gave everything away. I don’t want that young woman to feel beholden to us in any way…..no sirree.”

His wife nodded in agreement and then spoke to her grandchild, “Maree, go get me and your Grampa an orange out of the box in the pantry. Good thing you kept your eyes and ears open. I expect those children wouldn’t have much of any Christmas at all if you hadn.t….you put any toys in that sack?”

“Yes’m….the girls have a doll apiece and a little teddy bear and knit hats and scarves for all of them….I’ve outgrown so much stuff this last year…ain’t no need of me keeping it….” The elder couple reached out for each other’s hand , nodded silently in agreement and went back to rocking. The lights on the Christmas tree brightened the room as the evening darkened and the snow storm grew heavier.

Outside the snow kept on falling until it finally covered the foot tracks and the sled path of the family from the next hollow. Off in the distance the locomotive whistle of the evening train sounded and night began to fall. Christmas was coming soon.

Marked Baby Fingers

At some point in our young adulthood, usually in our early teens, we let go of the childhood notion that the adults in our lives are infallible and make no mistakes . We go to school and we have begun to acquire what we consider real world knowledge. About that time…we decide that the adults in our lives don’t know and haven’t learned as much as we have. That is a dangerous age because as the old saying goes incomplete knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I was no different by age 12 and one day (in my total ignorance passing for knowledge) I smarted off to Granny….busily telling her that it wasn’t possible for a baby to be “marked” before it was born. To my surprise, my grandmother giggled and laughed at me

“Why are you laughing at me?” I demanded.

Granny was laughed so hard that tears ran down her cheeks. “Learned that at school, did you?”

I remember answering that yes….that’s what I learned in science class. Then she called outside for Grampa to come in. He was told what I had said. There I sat….waiting to be told to go get a peach tree switch because I had gotten sassy with Granny . Then came a story that I have never forgotten.

Granny was pregnant with Uncle Jack. The other children were playing in the front room near the fire place. Uncle Charlie was outside helping Grampa because he was nearly 16, so he and Grampa were not in the house. Uncle Carter was about 8, Momma was 5…nearly 6 and Uncle Tom was 3. The three younger ones were running and playing when somehow Uncle Tom fell into the fireplace and burned his hand. Granny ran in from the kitchen and snatched Uncle Tom out of the fireplace. The index finger and thumb were the only fingers not burned and blistered. Whatever remedy our elders knew for burns was applied and the injury was bandaged with muslin strips. Uncle Tom’s burns eventually healed but he was never again able to completely straighten those three fingers. Of course…I knew about the curled fingers that never straightened and I sat there wondering where the story was going.

Then Granny dropped her bombshell….”Have you ever looked at your Uncle Jack’s hand?” I did not know what she was talking about and she didn’t tell me anything except that I should look carefully at Uncle Jack’s hand when he came home next time. Several weeks later my youngest uncle showed up and I flew out to meet him by the front gate. I asked if could see his hand almost before he got out of the car. He held his hand up and to my amazement the same three fingers (as on his older btother's hand) were curled into his palm….the same fingers neither man was ever able to straighten out completely.

Enough said!