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Sister Barbara and I
once got to wondering about this Santa Clause thing. We decided that
since he came down the chimney, maybe he was holed up in the attic.
We crawled up and explored it real well. By the time we had finished,
we both needed to go to the bathroom real bad. Well, it was dark up
there, so we did. When we came down, there were two brown stains on
the ceiling above Mom and Dad's bed. They never went away, and we
never heard the last of it.
Taking a bath
in the winter time was a major undertaking. We had to haul water up
from the well, way down the hill, heat it on the wood cook stove and
put it in a round washtub. We took turns, and being the youngest, I
was just naturally last. I was nearly grown before I realized bath
water was not supposed to be brown. Summer time baths were easy. We
had a nice round hole in the rocks down on the creek, a natural bath
tub. Once, a water moccasin took over the tub while Dad was taking a
bath, and ran him plumb up the hill.
I visited Aunt
Lula a lot when I was growing up. I always hollered, “Anybody
home?” She always answered, “Nobody home!” She always made the
best mackerel salad. Once, she found a dead civet cat in her well,
and since it was trapping season she brought it over to me. Now, the
civet cat is the first cousin to a skunk, but it had a good looking
fur, so I set in to skin it. When I made the first cut, it sprayed
all over me. I went in the back door of the house to wash up, and
everybody else went out the front door.
Gradually, I
graduated to helping Dad in the fields. Once, on Sunday, Dad decided
that the corn needed to be fertilized because rains were forecast on
Monday. Mom felt real bad about this, because working on Sunday was a
major no-no. It was the only time I was ever asked to. She gave me
money to go to the store and buy up a good supply of candy for that
day. I was carrying a heavy bag of ammonium nitrate, spreading it in
the middles, while Dad plowed it in behind me. Now, he was covering
two rows at a time, me one. So, I had to move twice as fast as he
did. It was a hard day. I figured up at the end I had walked thirteen
miles that day, double time. But I sure was full of candy!
A Two Flower
Man
There is one
man buried in the cemetery at Rover who, though he was not a Gillum
or a Lazenby at all, has always commanded so much respect in me that
his story must be told. RL Whitten. He was a friend of Elbert
Lazenby, Uncle Euriel's son. He almost became a member of the family.
When the war came along, Elbert was soon in action, as a radio man on
a bomber. His plane was shot down, and Elbert became one of many
casualties of war.
RL remained a part
of the Lazenby family. Elbert's sister, Delphia, had severe physical
limitations. They were permanent, and her life expectations were very
dim. As we all would be, she seemed to me to be deeply embittered
about her lot in life.
RL started dating
Delphia. They soon married, and RL, a nice looking man, a preacher
and a teacher, made Delphia his princess. He put her up on a
pedestal, waited on her hand and foot all her life, and to my
observations as a boy, was endlessly patient, and very tolerant of
her mood swings. And, he single handedly elevated her life to a level
far above anyone's reasonable expectations.
As a boy, I was
around them a lot. This was at a time when cousins still kept close
contact with cousins. I never knew what was in his heart, only what I
saw, as a boy. He was my greatest example of the supreme servant
nature, and I always reserve a little extra time, thinking about RL
Whitten, on decoration day. Along with an extra flower.
I have never
thought I had a deprived childhood, as some might think when reading
this. I had very few material things, compared to children of today.
But actually, I sorrow for them. I could walk out my back door, walk
forty miles south, and never see a house, maybe never see another
person, and never cross a paved road. Now I ask you, what child has a
back yard to compare with that? The adventures many children today
can only hope to see on television were lived out daily by Tooter,
Sammy, and me.
The
older I get, the more I respect my Dad, who I only knew as an old
man. A really, really hard working old man.
Me
being the youngest of my generation, born when my Dad was fifty-two,
only I, his helper, know fully how hard Dad pushed himself as an old
man. I never told him just how much I respected him, for working so
hard and so long, for so many years after he fully deserved to be
retired. Retirement, and living the easy life was a luxury he never
allowed himself.
Every
year I age, and every day I work, I respect my dad more and more.
It
would be nice if I could just tell him that, now. Now that I more
fully understand what he was going through. But, as a boy, all I
could see was that all those long hours of work we did were keeping
me from doing something that was more fun, like jogging down to the
river and fishing awhile. Or playing ball.
It's
almost shocking to me, sometimes, to think that when Dad was my age,
he still had eleven more years of hard work to do.
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