While wandering the WalMart isles the other day, I spied an end cap display of small rubber dolls. These dolls closely resembled a doll Santa Claus delivered to my home when I was about 7 years old. The doll was about 9 inches tall, a soft rubber skin with eyes that blinked. Her mouth was shaped to take a bottle. She faintly smelled of baby powder.
A darling little girl walked by me as I was examining the doll. The little girl asked if "I was going to buy that doll?" I told her, " probably not but I might." Then I told her I used to have a doll that resembled this doll years ago when I was a little girl. She looked at me in amazement and said without blinking an eye "They had dolls like that when you were a little girl?" I said "yes". She looked at me with big eyes like I was lying. Once again I told her this was the truth. She wasn't buying that story. So I smiled saying, "Actually we had to pull rabbit heads off the little rabbits and stick them on a pole and put a dress on them and pretend they were dolls." I do not know where this came from...it just popped out, I wish it hadn't but it did. The little girl looked at me for a second, turned around and ran. I put the doll back and put my cart in high gear and was out of there, too. I have some obnoxious genes somewhere that just show up from time to time:)
After I got away from the little girl, my mind returned to the doll and Christmas. Each year, months before Christmas arrived, I was on the hunt for the perfect doll. I would examine every doll in the Sears catalog and in the Ben Franklin Store. As soon as I picked my favorite baby doll, a letter would be written to Santa. Mama wrote the letter for me until I learned how to print. I went into great detail to make sure Santa knew which one I wanted. I knew he was busy and I wanted to make it easy for him to pick up the right doll for me.
The year I turned 7, I decided I did not want a doll for Christmas. I was adamant... no doll would be found under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning. I had a list of other things I wanted, however no doll was added to the list.
Mama had no way of knowing this was a test for Santa Claus. I heard rumors there was no Santa Claus from some of the older kids at school. I was going to prove their theory wrong. I wanted a doll but I was not going to tell anyone this fact. Santa Claus would 'know' that I wanted a doll. He could pick it out this year...as long as it was a baby doll.
Thank goodness Mama ignored my wishes and bought me a small rubber baby doll. She came with a blanket and a bottle. In my mind she looks like the little doll in the first photo. She was perfect.
Instead of putting the doll under the tree, Mama placed her in the tree and toward the back. When I woke up Christmas morning, I did not see what I expected. There were the toys I had asked for but no doll. I just stood there looking disappointed. The kids were right there was no Santa Claus. Mama was watching me closely and before I started to cry she led me over to the other side of the tree. She seemed as surprised as I was, because there was my baby doll in the branches of the tree. I think that was my favorite doll I received as a little girl. I named her 'Susie'.
It would be another year or two before I gave up believing in Santa Claus. He still came until I was about 11 or 12 because my cousins Anthony and Darla believed in Santa Claus. That was fine with me. People have their whole adult lives to not believe in the magic of Santa. Children should be able to enjoy it while they can.
If I should happen to be in WalMart in the near future, and I will, I think I know a little rubber doll that just might find its way home with me. I will give the little doll to Jacy, my granddaughter and tell her this story. She has pretty much outgrown dolls but I think she will like hearing the story. Good memories should be shared.
I have learned a lot about myself ... again, during the past two weeks!! First, I hate hot weather. I do not play nice when it is 95 and I have a hot, metal hammer in my hand. With sweat dripping in my eyes and my hair soaking wet I am in no mood to hear, for the hundredth time that day, "You are hammering that nail wrong." Honestly, who cares how I hammer as long as I get the nail in the board!! Evidently Tommy cares...a lot. He says I am wasting my "energy" hammering nails too many times. I have NO energy so it doesn't matter how many times I hit that damn nail!!
Second item on the list, I am left handed...severely left handed and he is severely right handed. We are always in each others way. We cannot help this problem. When I set things up, I work from left to right. Tommy works from right to left. When we were taking measurements for the windows, I wrote down the measurements as he called them out...from left to right. The only problem he was outside the patio and I was inside...which made the windows backwards or upside down or something. I never did understand what he was so mad about. Apparently it was really, really wrong. I thought the problem could be solved by just going in reverse. However, when I suggested this little idea, it turned into a big cluster smuck and we called an early day. It was either that or he was going to kill me. Two days later the windows are in the right places and every thing eventually worked out. I knew it would.
The next day over coffee, I mentioned to Tommy that I knew what our problem was...communication. We have none. He tells me what to do and robot and obedient person that I am...I obey. Not once has this ever happened in our lifetime together! Why does he think it will work now? I want to see a plan and then I can get it in my mind. He wants me to just follow his lead and fill in the blanks. When I fill in the blanks he really gets ticked off. I can't work this way. I am not wired to follow blindly. I need a plan...something visual I can see. I do not think this is going to happen. On the flip side we are more than half way done. When we get the window air conditioner installed, and the room stops resembling an oven, things will be much better, I hope.
Years ago after Tommy and I built the patio, I put a sign up that reads, "Psychiatric Unit". I placed it above the sliding glass doors..(which is another futile carpenter story. Here is the short version. Some how, when we installed the patio doors, I threw away the hardware for the door.) That could have happened to anyone. Actually, I am not even sure I did toss the hardware. However, I was blamed for the disaster. This event also explains the reason there is a wash rag stuck in the hole where the door lock should be. And that my friends was 20 years ago...neither one of us will budge on the lock. Actually, that isn't true. It happened so long ago we have forgotten about it. Plus we have become used to the washcloth being jammed in the hole. It doesn't matter to us any more. It is just another "Carter Story" we share. In reality we both have earned this sign and it has a permanent place anywhere we live.
This picture was taken before all Hell broke loose! See we can play nice:)
Yesterday was one of those days when I felt like crap!! My back hurt, my neck hurt, my hands hurt and my right toe for some reason hurt also. My mind was mush. Every answer to any question I was asked yesterday was a total delayed reaction. I had to wait for my brain to think of something sane to say. I had the patience of a dead rat.
I told Tommy how bad I felt and that I needed a day off to regroup. That was fine with him, he needed to rest also. We slept all afternoon.
The only human I had to interact with yesterday was one idiot several hundred miles away from Missouri. That interaction could have been avoided. We have an answering machine so there was really no reason to answer the phone.
I voted to let the machine take all calls. When I wandered into the kitchen...the phone rang. I automatically picked it up.
The caller was some man in Ohio who desperately wanted to talk to a woman named Lucille. I told him he had the wrong number, no Lucille lived here. He told me the number he was calling and it was indeed our number. I suggested that he might have written the number down wrong. He became a little snippy, implying he wrote exactly what Lucille had told him. I told him nicely, at first that Lucille misquoted the wrong number. He said, "Lucille wouldn't do that." That is when my middle finger jumped up and down for 3 seconds. I had lost control of it!!! Tommy looked at me and wanted to know who I was talking to and why on earth was I giving him the 'bird'.
I could not stop my mouth or my hand. This man was on my last nerve. I told him "for the last time, Lucille does not live here" and then I hung up! I also changed the message on my answering machine. It now says, "Hi you have reached Vicky and Tommy. If you are looking for Lucille...she does NOT live here."
Today we are both fine and ready to work. I haven't heard anymore about Lucille and as far as I am concerned...that is a good thing indeed.
From the time Mamamae was 7 years old until she died almost 80 years later, she thought she was responsible for the death of her mother. That untruth weighed heavy on her heart.
The photo on the left is one of two pictures I have of Mamamae and her mother, Virgie Muscovalley McAuliffe. She was the mother of three children, Fayetta, John Bill, and Marie, and the wife of John McAuliffe. They were a good Catholic family, just starting to build a life together. According to the family Bible, she was born on Sept.8, 1886 and died on April 23, 1914 at the young age of 28.
A measles epidemic had infected the Illinois town where the young couple lived. Vaccinations had not been discovered yet. When people got the measles there was no cure, a large percentage of children and many adults died from complications of this disease.
I remember Mamamae and I were once again sitting on the front porch talking. I liked to hear stories about our family. That day I asked my grandmother about her parents because I knew very little about them. Mamamae was not a talker. She kept her thoughts close to her heart. She thought for a minute and then very quietly said, "I was 7 years old when I brought the measles home from school. Everyone at our house caught the measles except Daddy...I think he was working on the river. We were all so sick. Mama took care of the three of us as best she could. We started to get better and then Mama got sick. She couldn't get better, the complications of the measles for Mama was meningitis. There was nothing the doctor could do for her. She writhed in pain. Her fever could not be contained. I tried to keep her face cool, but I couldn't. A neighbor lady came in to help me with Mama, John Bill, and Marie. Mama died within a few days."
At that time, the body of the deceased was put in a pine box and the living room was set up for a 'viewing area' for family and friends. Someone had to break Mamamae's mother's back to get her in a coffin." I can still hear the god awful sound of that crack." Mamamae said in a whisper. After a long and loud few minutes of silence from both of us, she went on to say she always felt like it was her fault.
Hearing this story broke my heart. I could not imagine taking care of my mother and trying my best to keep her alive and then having her die. It is more that a little 7 year old girl should have to endure. I started to cry.
I really had a problem with this story. I knew it was true but I felt it was horribly wrong and unfair. They needed their mother. Mamamae went on to say that when her father got home, he was destroyed. When he left them to work on the river everyone was fine and happy. Aunt Marie was a little baby and Uncle John Bill was about 4 or 5 and she was in the first or second grade. In a matter of weeks he lost his wife, had to quit his job and had 3 little children to take care of. He needed help.
At 7, Mamamae inherited two children to raise until her Dad could make some other kind of arrangement. She said she was miserable. She hated changing diapers. She couldn't make Aunt Marie quit crying and Uncle John Bill would not mind her. She had no idea how to cook. I started crying again. I was about 6 or 7, I could not imagine having to do the things she did. I crawled up in her lap and I think we both cried. It wasn't often that Mamamae cried, that day she cried a lot. She rocked me, together we cried for a long time. We watched the traffic go by on Hwy. 51. Both of us lost in her story, wishing it could have been changed.
Her father eventually married a woman Mamamae called "Mama Jo". I don't think Mamamae particularly liked Mama Jo. She still had to take care of her brother and sister. She quit school in the 8th grade. She was needed at home to work. They moved around several times in Illinois and eventually settled in Cairo, Illinois. The impression I got from my grandmother was that after her mother died she was never really happy again, until she met Granddaddy.
Her father died when he was 45. I never heard how or why he died so young. I remember a few times after church we would drive to Cairo and visit Mama Jo. The only memory of her I have is where she lived. It was a three story house with crooked stairs. We had to climb steps forever to get to her apartment. I know Granddaddy did not like her and sat in the car. After the first time of climbing those stairs I sat in the car with Granddaddy. I didn't like Mama Jo either.
When Mama Jo died we went to her funeral. I slept through the whole thing. I always felt she should have treated my grandmother better, trying to allow her to have some semblance of a childhood. If she had, I might have stayed awake for her funeral!
When I look at the photo to the left it is hard for me to see Mamamae and Granddaddy. That is not the way they looked when I knew them. However, there they are as teenagers, husband and wife and parents. Granddaddy is holding my mother. Mamamae is holding the horse. Never in a million years can I visualize in my mind, Mamamae riding a horse, but she did and often.
According to my grandmother's family Bible records, they were married Oct. 3, 1925. Grandaddy was 17 and Mamamae was 18. I do not remember our family celebrating their anniversary...ever. They probably went out to eat or to Cairo dancing... or they did nothing. It was never talked about. I never knew the date until I was grown. I find that kind of strange, since anniversaries are very special days for my generation. Times change.
I do remember asking Mamamae once, how she met Granddaddy. I really wanted to know about their life. We were sitting on the front porch, drinking a couple of ice cold cokes with peanuts in the bottle, when Mamamae started laughing as she remembered their story. Mamamae left the home of her stepmother, Mama Jo, when she turned 18. She was young and pretty, naturally the young men came 'a courting'. She was living with family either in Columbus or Hailwell. She dated several young men after she began living in Kentucky.
One day Granddaddy rode by her house on a horse. He saw her sitting on the porch and slowed down to talk to her. She asked him, "Why he hadn't asked her out yet, when all the other young men had already introduced themselves?" She said Grandaddy was shy and mumbled, "I've been working and I thought you were taken." Evidently Mamamae let him know she was not 'taken'. That evening they began courting. A few months later they were married.
When I asked about their wedding, this is the story I remember her telling me. It is the only story I ever heard. Grandaddy, Mamamae, Aunt Sadie and a man named John Owens who was dating Aunt Sadie were riding in a buggy on a pretty October day. Apparently the couples drove to Squire Shaddrick's home and asked him to marry Mamamae and Granddaddy. And he did. At 17 and 18 they began their long married life together. The next May, Mama was born.
Two years later Uncle Gene was born. Granddaddy worked at farming, helping his mother and younger brothers. He worked for the railroad where he severely hurt his right leg. I think they were living in St. Louis when this happened. It was a wound that plagued him all his adult life. I remember seeing the deep, hollowed out scar become infected. Many a night he would come home with blood in his shoe because the wound had started bleeding again.
Mamamae and Granddaddy were married 45 years, when he died suddenly on Oct. 29, 1970. Granddaddy was only 62 years old. Mamamae lived a long time, well into her 80's, after Granddaddy passed away.
This is the way I remember my grandparents. They gave me unconditional love. The best present a child can ever receive.
This isn't all of their story by any means, it is the beginning. I want to share their story with my family and friends. I was blessed beyond measure to have had them in my life.
To be continued...
When I was about 5 years old, I got an idea in my head that my father was going to mail me a gold watch. Mama and Daddy had been divorced since I was born. He was working in construction somewhere out West. The chance of him sending me a watch were slim to none. The chance of him knowing I wanted a watch were nonexistent.
When I would ask questions about Daddy, my mother would say, "Honey, he is away working. He can't come home right now." Apparently that satisfied me until the next time I became curious. There would be long 'spells' when no one knew where Daddy was living. Then like magic, Daddy would drive up and surprise me with a visit. He would stay with Mama Pearl and Papa John, his parents who lived out in the country. I always stayed with them when he came in to visit. I loved those visits, and I loved Daddy very much. I will forever be grateful that Mama allowed me to love Daddy. She could have easily kept me from loving him, but she didn't. She never talked bad about Daddy in front of me. Mama knew how to keep a secret. I would be in my 60's before I knew the whole story and I wouldn't swear I know it all now. I also did not learn any of it from her. I do know she loved him too... she always did.
When it came to the watch, it did not make any difference to me that I had not seen or actually talked to Daddy in over a year. I knew he was mailing me a gold watch...I just knew it. When I told Mama she was surprised to learn I wanted a watch. I had never mentioned wanting one to her. I was 5 years old and could not tell time. It would be years before I learned how to do this. All the hoopla about the watch was news to her and did not seem important until I started praying for the watch and checking the mail daily.
I remember she asked me all sorts of questions about this 'watch' that I would be receiving in the mail. I knew exactly what kind of watch Daddy was sending me because he described it to me. This news really bothered Mama. She had already experienced my year with my 'imaginary friend Billy'. Then I ran around with Jesus for awhile and Mamamae was sure I was going to die. When I started talking about the watch and Daddy I think Mama, Mamamae and Granddaddy all got nervous. None of them wanted an invisible 'Daddy' moving into their home...especially Granddaddy.
Each night before I went to bed, I said my prayers. Apparently this was a good time for me to describe this gold watch in great detail to Jesus and Mama. They both knew I wanted it to have an elastic gold band so it wouldn't fall off my arm. It had to be gold and have all the numbers, that I could not read, written in black on the face of the watch. I would 'remind' Jesus... Daddy said the watch was in the mail and I would get it soon.
The saga of the gold watch and me went on for several weeks. Finally one day my watch came in the mail. Everyone was shocked except me. I knew it was coming. It was everything Daddy told me it would be.
Years later, Mama, Daddy and I were sitting around telling stories and someone mentioned the watch. I remember asking Mama if she bought the watch and pretended to mail it to me. She said "No, I was going to do that if you didn't drop the subject but then the watch came in the mail." I asked Daddy how he knew to send me the watch since we hadn't talked, except in my imagination. He said that he didn't remember how that came about. He knew he was in Tulsa working and one Saturday night he walked by a jewelry store and thought, "I bet Vicky would like a watch." He went in and bought it, mailing it the following Monday.
Daddy and I had a very strange relationship. When it was good it was 'very, very good and when it was bad it was horrid,' very similar to the old nursery rhyme.
As a child, I gave Granddaddy a shirt for Father's Day. When Tommy and I married, Father's Day became his day. That is the one day that never really belonged to Daddy. We celebrated it but in my mind it was never his day. Last Sunday was almost half over before I could shake the feeling of loss. Eventually it all came together in my mind. Finally, he was with Mama. He was where he was supposed to be, knowing that fact was at last enough for me. Hopefully, next year I will not dread the third Sunday in June. It is time I laid the past to rest, remembering the good times and letting the rest go. I think that might be the best Father's Day present I could give to each of us.
Finally, proof that aliens do exist!!! They have been hiding in plain sight in Florida!!
Much to Floridians surprise the small aliens are reproduced inside the passion fruit flower... that in itself is kind of ironic.
Surprise!! Surprise!!...they really are green...with big eyes, long ears and a quirky smile.
So far they appear friendly.
Will keep everyone posted if any new developments occur.
This is where my mind goes when I do not want to do laundry!!
