Memories

Donny and I were driving down highway 41 through Dalton the other week. We passed the old Coca Cola bottling plant and the bowling alley. I saw the little yellow brick building that used to be the State Patrol Station. I wonder how many people remember that. On up the street was a store standing where my favorite store used to be. Wood's Store used to be there. I always get nostalgic when I go by that place, even though the old building had been torn down long ago.


I told Donny about my favorite memory of going to Mr. Wood's store. Pawpaw took me and my cousins, Randy and Mike, to the store many times. We all lived near Pawpaw and he was a good and generous grampa who bought us plenty of candy and soft drinks. It was always a treat to go anyplace with our grandparents.


One time my cousins were all together so Pawpaw took us all to the store. Randy, Debbie, Stevie, Eddie, me, and probably Mike went to the store. I'm not sure Donna was with us. We all rode in the back of his old cattle truck. I remember how much fun we had riding along with the wind whipping around us as we all laughed and jockeyed around the back of the truck. We lived several miles from the store so we felt like we were on an adventure.


It's a wonder we didn't fall, or push someone out. Nowadays somebody would call the law on you for having a truckload of young ones, but when I was growing up kids must have had more sense because we rode in truck beds all the time.


When we got to Mr. Wood's, Pawpaw told us all we could get one drink apiece and some candy. We all swarmed over the sides of the truck and into the dingy little store. Woods' was unique because you had to walk into the store through an aisle with low tables lining each side filled with every kind of candy you could imagine. It was kid-friendly and heavenly. 


While Pawpaw went on into the store and talked to Mr. Woods we were squealing and arguing over which candy was the best and what we were going to pick. Pawpaw got a coke and propped up against the counter bragging about all his grandkids. He was telling the old coots that liked to hang out at the store who we were and who our parents were. Pawpaw acted tickled to death to bring us all to the store. 


After Pawpaw paid for our purchases we all climbed back in the back of the truck to wait. Pawpaw stood around smoking with the old men from the store and after they finished their conversation he took us home. 


What more perfect memory than that wonderful time that Pawpaw took us all to Mr. Wood's grocery store? 


I have to be honest. I don't remember if it said Woods on the store or Wood's so bear with me if you can remember and know the difference. 

As Always

PIO

Party Down Yall

I must have been a socially awkward teenager because my mother got it into her head one time that I should have a party and invite all my friends. I looked at her like she had grown two heads. Was she crazy? I didn't have lots of friends. I only had a couple of close friends and I didn't know anything about throwing a party. I think Moma was worried about me because I wasn't a social butterfly and she wanted to help me make friends. So we decided to have a party.

I told my two friends, and they told their two friends, and they told their two friends, and so on and so forth until everyone wanted to come to the party. My cousins, Randy and Mike, lived next door so all their friends wanted to come, too. Before long we had a crowd.

We played spin the bottle and I remember walking around the house with a boy named Joel. He kissed me. When we walked on around the house we came upon my dog, Rip. Rip was a German Shepard. We had him chained up at the corner of the house. He jumped at Joel and barked. Rip scared Joel to death. I should have taken note of that.*  All the boys had to maneuver past Rip to circle the house. It still didn't deter the boys from playing the game.

I felt nauseous the next day and blamed it on the kiss. I decided not to kiss any more boys.

I went into my bedroom during the party and caught a bunch of girls dousing themselves in my huge bottle of Ambush cologne that my mother had bought me. They were having so much fun they didn't care.

Daddy had piled an old dog house next to the creek to burn when it got dark for a fire. He had hooked the trailer to the tractor and piled hay on it for a hay ride. Daddy drove the tractor around the neighborhood and let the kids ride on it until everyone had an opportunity to go on the hayride.

The boys hung out around the fire together. Daddy tried to get them to roast marshmallows or hot dogs over the fire but they all refused. They didn't want to cook their food over a dirty old dog house even if it was on fire.

Everyone seemed to be having fun except for me and Moma. I was so busy making sure there was food and snacks for everyone and helping Moma keep everything clean that I didn't really have much time to enjoy my own party. While everyone was wandering around talking and laughing I was busy in the house. I started to realize that having a party wasn't as much fun as it sounded.

Moma had parked her Chevrolet Impala in the yard in front of the living room. There was a power pole in the front yard, too. We watched Bobby rare back and sling his RC cola bottle toward the creek. At least, I think that was what he was trying to do. The RC bottle hit the wood power pole and ricocheted sideways into  the windshield, causing it to shatter, then bounce towards the living room window. It barely missed.

Bobby started apologizing over and over again. Moma and I were worried about how Daddy would take it. We sat on the carport talking about the accident and wondering what he would say. When he came home Moma told him about the boy and the RC bottle. She said she was surprised because he didn't get upset about it. He said it could have been worse. He seemed to enjoy the party. 

They got the windshield fixed. The funny thing is, the RC bottle didn't even break. I wouldn't want to get hit over the head with one. They're tough.

Teenage parties are not going to turn out well. It doesn't matter how well you think you have things planned. Some idiot is going to do something to show everybody else he is the biggest idiot and something's going to get broke, or set on fire, or blown up. That's probably why I didn't want to have any more parties.

Well, Moma did talk me into having a pajama party one time . . . .

*Love on the Run, January 2011


AS ALWAYS PIO

That's A Downer

Hey Man, don't ya  just hate it when something or someone brings you down? Like the young folks used to say, "Chill out, Man!"

I hate the feeling of anger. It can consume you. I don't like that red hot feeling that comes over me when I am angry. I become enraged and want to lash out. I have tried to learn to contain and control my anger for a very long time. I am sorry to say that I have been so angry at times that I have made a total ass of myself in front of others. I can't do anything about my behavior in the past but I can try to control myself and learn not to overreact when I become upset.

I was probably a horrible mother when the kids were young. I would lose control and harangue them when they incurred my wrath. I had to work very hard to learn to control my temper and not become a total bitch. I practiced tough love with the boys and demanded they obey me. I whipped them and grounded them and watched them like a hawk. I tried to make sure I knew where the boys were at all times. It didn't endear me to the children but I did love them. I told them I loved them often. Don't think I was a heartless mother. I just wanted to keep them safe and thought it was my responsibility to keep them out of trouble. They still did things that drove me nuts. I couldn't watch them 24-7. You can't hold your child's hand forever. They're bound to make mistakes. That's how you learn. Right?

I used to tell Scout and Colt and their buddies that if anyone got hurt I wasn't going to take them to the hospital. I told them I would just throw them over the fence into the woods and let the coyotes deal with them. Scout's buddy Allan started calling it Edgewood Insurance. I recited the rules to them often, especially when they were doing something dangerous or stupid like boys are prone to do.

Scout said that Allan wanted to have a pine cone battle one day and Scout told him it would be okay as long as nobody got their eye knocked out. (Another one of my oft repeated chants to my sons.) He said Allan threw a pine cone and missed him but when Scout threw his pine cone he hit Allan in the eye. He thought "Oh oh, Pam's right."

Colt told me that he knocked his shoulder out of socket one time when he was skateboarding. He was so afraid to tell me that he fell back hard on the ground to knock his arm back in place. He said it hurt like the devil but he didn't want to come home and face me with his injury. I would tell them they better not get hurt or sick because we couldn't afford to go to the doctor.  I had no clue they were that afraid of me.

Scout began to test me when he was a teenager. I was always ordering him to do this or that or the other thing. One day Donny said something about Scout growing up and his comment caused me to have an epiphany about my son. My eyes were opened and I realized that if I didn't do something to change my relationship with my sons they might not love me when they were grown. I realized I didn't want that.

I still bitched and moaned but I learned to take it down a notch. I finally found Flylady's website and started hearing her soothing voice in my head. I gradually began to change my thinking. I tried to look on the bright side instead of focusing on the negative. I started feeling happier. Getting older and learning that life isn't fair and if everything is good you should thank your lucky stars and not let anger take over you, also helped.

One of the few times I got anything out of pitching a fit was when the electric company came down and pruned my Magnolia trees without my permission. The tree was not interfering with the wires. The tree cutters were quite nice to me until I started being nice, then oddly, that was the last I saw of them. We got some mulch out of them.

They prune the trees along the highway in stupid shapes. They call the cutting style the Shigo method but I called it the Shitgo method. The huge oak trees along the highway are shaped like goalposts or tuning forks with wires running through the cut out crown. Some trees are too close to the lines and would look better trimmed back to the trunk but I'm not an arborist so my opinion doesn't count.

My cousins teased me about being fat when I was young. I put up with the teasing from my cousins, Mike and Randy, because they were always teasing me about something. I was used to it even though I didn't like it.

Daddy and his brother, Bob, used to go camping together in the mountains when we were kids. Daddy and Bob loved trout fishing. It was very cold so there was always a campfire. Someone had been baking potatoes in the fire in tin foil. We were all playing and running around the fire.

Randy started calling me fatty and other names and Stevie started teasing me, too. I became furious. They were ganging up on me. I wanted to lash out at them but I didn't  know what to do. Eddie made the mistake of standing in my face and calling me fat. I thought Eddie was the sweet one! I grabbed one of the hot potatoes off of the picnic table and smashed it in his face. He screamed in pain. I was busted. Some of the grownups had seen what I had done. I was sorry that I had hurt Eddie. He was the baby boy. I really liked him. I don't know why I went ballistic on him, but I did. I just became angry, like the Hulk, only I saw red. I was ashamed to be that mad.

I hate being angry. Anger can cause you not to think clearly. Anger doesn't solve anything. Some people know how to deal with their anger and express their anger calmly and logically. I believe that anger begets anger. I wish I could shield myself against anger. It can't be good for you. It burns up too much psychic energy and can make people sick. Being angry depresses me.

AS ALWAYS

PIO