from the family room brings me back to the here and now. Pork chops sizzling in the frying pan and the aroma of fresh bread fill the kitchen around me, and my son asks, “Mom, what are you cooking? It smells good.
The kids are putting together the puzzle from hell, as the faint sounds of Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn singing "After The Fire Is Gone" waft from the distant stereo in my bedroom. All three dogs are barking at distant heat lightning, and the baby’s fat brown legs kick with excitement every time they do. Rain drizzles as a tease of what’s to come. I feel content, even though I’m not.
Then, I get the bright idea to visit my mother. It would be nice for her to have some bread, and she is probably lonely. Since Dad passed away, she is always lonely. Swiping my lips golden pink, I grab the warm cornbread and some strawberry preserves—glancing in the mirror for a quick once over—and out the door I go. My sundress is swishing behind me, and the soft rubber under my feet feels good landing at the bottom of the porch.
Against my better judgment, I walk in her direction.
The sun just dipped below the horizon. Night has descended, but it is not deep dark yet. A slight breeze tries to cut the humidity and fails, but I don't mind. Focusing on nothing but the quiet evening around me, I walk the straight distance between my home and my mother’s.
Mother's front lights twinkle in the distance. As I get closer, whatever she has on the stove rushes out to greet me. My mom loves to be in the kitchen and is the epitome of a Southern cook: sticks of butter in everything, too much salt, and she always has an apron on. Aprons and muumuus are her favorite clothing items. I adore aprons, but prefer to wear them alone. Shoot me if I ever want a muumuu.
Soon enough, Mother appears at the screen door, not scowling, but not smiling. Uh oh! So much for a pleasant evening.
As she comes through the door I lean in to kiss her on the cheek.
"Hello, Ivey. Where's your umbrella?” she asks.
"It's only sprinkling. It feels good," I tell her.
"Let’s sit," she says, and I follow her lead to the rocking chairs.
Oh, brother! I have already let her down. What no umbrella?
This is from the woman who wears a shower cap out in public on a regular basis to protect her perm. I mean, she has this thing on her head while she’s running errands to the store and dry cleaners. The grandkids are delighted when she picks them up from school in a shower cap, particularly the teenagers. My mother always swims in a shower cap. I realize there is nothing that prohibits her from using the shower cap as a rain bonnet and swim cap, but it is a shower cap. I have never in my life seen her use an umbrella, ever. She should be asking me where my shower cap is.
"Did you take the kids to church this morning?" she inquires.
Scenting danger my pulse quickens. "Yes."
Then, like slicing butter with a hot knife, she continues, "Did the roof cave in?"
Boom. A glancing blow and it didn't even leave a mark.
Outwardly ignoring the comment, I keep talking as she lowers herself and looks up at me, but never sit. "You know we don't go every week. I don't want to go every Sunday, but dang, it seems like they are literally chasing us down in the parking lot to find out why we don't stay for the meetings afterward. They hound me as to why I don't come every week. It's just too much. The Bishop asked me about a month ago to make plans for him to visit our home. I think they are just being nosey. The church council wants to find out if I have a husband and where he is. They don't know what to think about us as a family, and on top of all that, sometimes I wear a sleeveless dress, a big no-no."
Without the slightest hesitation she replies, "Tell them you are a whore. Tell them you don't have a husband, and you are not coming to church every week." Her face isn't reflecting humor.
I stop and look at her dead on. Choosing my words carefully and buying time, I scramble for cover. Then comes the stupid question, "Mother, do you think I'm a whore?"
Smiling to herself, rocking chair smoothly creaking along, she sweetly states, “Well, if you are a whore, Honey, you are not a very good one, or you would have more money." As an apparent afterthought she adds, "But if you tell the church people that, well, I bet they'll quit askin’."
I am not stupid enough to take the bait again. "Good night, Mother."
Not sure whether to laugh or cry, but just glad to get out alive, I walk the dark street towards home without looking back.
Two: He Needs A Bigger Cone
Dogs are like babies: they all look cute, even when they aren’t, yet they certainly don’t act the same. Although, I never did see a dog—comparing equals to equals—that could outmatch a chubby bald baby with big dancing eyes.
Enter Hacksaw, a four-pound toy poodle.
We inherited “The Saw” at the untimely passing of his master, my uncle. We took him in, issues and all.
My uncle JL and his wife never had children before she passed away in 1977 so Hacksaw became his only loving companion for the most of twenty years. My uncle was a big, strong man— nearly six foot seven, just shy of three hundred pounds—and always dressed the same, in dark-blue denim coveralls. He was a former Green Beret and retired United States hero.
A toy poodle was an obvious choice for such a man. JL was a sight with his towering height and stern disposition and a tiny poodle in his big brown arms. Long before Hollywood starlets accessorized with posh pooches while window shopping along Rodeo Drive, he was never without Hacksaw and was always photographed with the poodle in his coverall pocket.
Hacksaw was a star in his own right.
Between his small size, his position at birth and the stress of the process itself, he was born with a fractured femur bone.
Their first night home together my uncle smiled as Hacksaw, ready for slumber, curled up on the baby blue cushion next to his bed. Morning came with Uncle JL’s roaring belly laugh and the instant name for this dog, as he looked over at a sleepy puppy with no cast on his leg. This little mutt had gnawed through his plaster cast and it was now discarded on the floor beside him.
After getting a new cast, Hacksaw learned to walk with the full-leg cast extending his right leg out, straight and stiff. Hacksaw did just fine in his cumbersome cast, but his gait took on a life of its own, kind of swirling him in a little circle, like a hurricane, and moving him slowly forward.
Uncle JL and Hacksaw shared their days and nights on a small houseboat, enjoying life’s simple pleasures in the tiny cabin and rocking along in the Key Largo currents. So not only did his little toy poodle swing his leg out in a circle when he walked, but he walked in a circle because that was all he knew.
When Hacksaw came to us, he had cataracts affecting his vision, diminished hearing, a chronic cough from my Uncle’s chain-smoking in close quarters and a horrible odor coming from his mouth. Well, after all, a dog nearly twenty is gonna have some problems.
It’s no wonder he gathered crowds wherever I took him.
You see,
