Mama's Vices

Actually, they weren't vices, Mama just had a little temptation a time or two.

For years, she told a story about slipping some of her mother's snuff as a child. When it made her sick, she slipped off to the watermelon patch and burst open a watermelon and ate some, which made her feel better. You would have thought that was a lesson she wouldn't forget.

Years later, she had another snuff story to tell. Older, living alone, she received a sample of snuff in the mail. One cold night, she was sitting by the fire and thought about how old folks used to say how much company snuff was. Mrs. Vencie, Mama's cousin who frequently visited with us for a few days, dipped snuff and always had her little black gum 'toothbrush' with her. So. Mama took out the sample of snuff, which would have been better dropped in the trash with the junk mail, and placed a bit between her lip and gum. Shortly, she was out on the back porch, sicker than a dog, lying on the floor. She said, "At first I was afraid I would freeze to death, and then I hoped I would, and soon."

Even funnier were her experiments with alcohol. She and Daddy went to eat supper with his daughter Frances and her husband, Lyle. Lyle opened a beer for himself and Daddy Mack, and being funny, opened one for her. Mama would never let anybody get the best of her or embarrass her. She took the offered beer and drank the whole bottle. It was never mentioned in my hearing about how funny the supper may have turned out.

Years later, she and Mrs. Ethel Morgan went to a really fancy wedding over at Athens. Mrs. Ethel was Mama's Sunday School teacher.

Champagne was served at the reception. I have to tell this in Mama's voice:
"Mrs. Ethel and I talked it over. We realized that at our age, we might never again have the opportunity to taste champagne. So we decided that just this one time, it would be all right if we each had one glass."
"Well, Mama, what did you think?" I asked.
"Oh, it was so good, we each had another glass."

Cheers.

The Frog Who Fell in the Churn

Mama used to tell this little story about the frog who fell in the churn. Today I found the same premise in a poem on a blog by someone named Suzanne.

Two frogs fell into a deep cream bowl.
One was an optimistic soul.
The other took the gloomy view
“We’ll drown,” he cried, without more ado;
So, with a last despairing cry
He flung up his legs and said “Good-by.”
Said the other frog with a plucky grin, I can’t get out, but I won’t give in;
I’ll just swim around till my strength is spent, Then I can die with more content.”
Bravely he swam till it would seem
His struggles began to churn the cream.
At last on top of the butter he stopped, And out of the bowl he gladly hopped

What is the moral? ‘Tis easily found -—
When you can’t get out keep swimming around.

Mama told it as, "he just keep kicking until he kicked up a little pat of butter to sit upon." Her moral: "Just keep kicking."

Dust to Dust

The house where I was born and lived until I was 18 or so, is all different now. It sold and was remodeled in the 1980s after Mama died. My mother would be so proud, except she would have added some kind of solarium/greenhouse for flowers.

The dirt road is paved, too. She would particularly like that. The old man who lived in the second house next, refused to agree to paving. Mama had this Dodge 'Duster' and she would speed up when she neared his house, so he got plenty of dust which she thought he
deserved.

I Have Become my Mother

Miss Audrey

Water Color

Mama's Papa, Joe
One of Mama's earliest memories is that somebody always had to run to the depot to get Papa's paper as soon as the morning train came through from Atlanta, eighty miles away. He died suddenly when she was 7. 'Papa's paper' was the Atlanta Constitution. It was a family tradition until we moved south in 1994. My brother still starts his morning with the Constitution.