Once Upon A Time

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Eastern Valley, there was a princess of rare beauty and talent. Everyone knew this was true because King William said so. The king’s first child, a prince, was born with an infirmity. When the young prince died, the king put his whole heart and life into the life of his little princess. He vowed that he would spoil her so rotten that no knight could ever steal her away. Every wish that flickered in her thought was granted. The king gave her jewels and gold and promised her land in the Dry Valley she loved so much. In return, the princess would play music nightly as the king drank his ale. The king drank much ale. He was full of melancholy and the ale and music soothed his aching heart. The loss of his precious prince was a blow that the king would never overcome.
The king and queen of Eastern Valley were from different worlds and spoke different languages. Thus the age old dilemma of husband and wife communications. They just didn’t understand each other. Sometimes they would ride amicably in the same carriage but usually their interests kept them apart. Miraculously, a second princess was born. Emasculate Conception.
The queen, an excellent seamstress and gardener, busied herself with the princesses. She took them to the Cathedral, to the art museum, and to the cinema. The king took the princesses to the pub, to the market and to the business district where everyone would see his girls. He was very proud of his heirs. Secretly, the queen determined the princesses would marry someone that spoke her classical language and would improve their station in life. The king also had high hopes for his princesses. He sent them to Mountain Brook to be educated with all of the other proper and privileged young women of the region. Lessons were forced on the compliant elder daughter. She learned to paint, and to play the guitar. She studied voice with two instructors and keyboard with four teachers simultaneously. The elder princess had a difficult time standing up to the oppressive and obsessed queen. The younger princess defied the queen and joined the Navy to see the world. She did very well for herself with castles in Florida and North Carolina. The younger princess is unsure whether she will ever move back to the family kingdom.
The older princess was a good and obedient daughter. She was mainly discreet and never embarrassed the king or queen publicly. In return for pleasing her parents, she too was able to travel the world. The princess felt she was very lucky.
The elder princess had her choice of suitors. But, the king hoped his eldest daughter would marry the financial planner from Atlanta or the Harvard lawyer or even the FBI narc. Unfortunately, the elder princess was attracted to men like dear ole dad. She wanted a man who was exciting, unpredictable and passionate. Robin Hood, Henry VIII or an occasional Don Quixote seemed always to be lurking in the courtyard. Henry’s path veered sharply after high school and the queen breathed a sigh of relief. Midway through collegiate studies, the princess contemplated marriage to Robin. A piano, of the grand kind, was promised if the princess would remain unmarried until after graduation. By that time, the princess had met the financial planner and did not want to marry anyone.
During the week, the princess sold castles and taught peasants how to play the piano and organ. On the weekend, she danced the nights away. The princess thought her life was perfect.
One day, a highwayman attempted robbery and assassination of King William. After that, he found life, love and happiness fleeting. The king became restless. He set out on a quest to find the meaning of life. In his search, he soon found a silver convertible and his Dulcinea. They spoke the same language, American Legion. He left his palace and princesses behind as he found himself, amazingly enough, in a trailer park. Everyday the queen assured her daughters, he would come home soon.
But he didn’t, and the elder princess acted impulsively just like her father. Robin Hood had first proposed six years earlier and numerous times since. The princess told him if he still had a death wish, she would marry him. She took his proposal off the table. They married the next day in the back room of the real estate office where she worked weekends. She held a potted poinsettia for a bouquet as the part-time minister-drugstore-clerk officiated.
Robin was exciting and dangerous. Sometimes he stole from the rich and gave to the poor. Other times, he stole and just kept it. He obeyed the laws of the land as he saw fit. The king liked Robin, but threatened to kill him if he made the princess unhappy. Sometimes the king and Robin drank ale together. Robin drank ale with everyone. Eventually the king and queen reunited and the princess realized her mistake. Unfortunately, the king died before he could execute Robin.
The princess hated the merry men with whom Robin Hood spent his time. They went to the forest every weekend to hunt furry creatures. One of the merry men, Little Roy, decided to help Robin with the bitchy princess. Little Roy thought Robin Hood would inherit the kingdom of Dry Valley at her death. Roy knew much about collecting from insurance. The carriage of the princess was sabotaged several times until she told the authorities that Roy and Robin were trying to kill her. Amazingly enough, her carriage never had anymore problems.
The first time Robin called the princess from a dungeon was the last time he called her from a dungeon. The divorce decree was nailed to the door before his bail was posted. So, Robin Hood returned to the forest from whence he came.
The princess lived happily in her kingdom in Dry Valley with her two little hoods for the next six years. Occasionally the princess would go to Atlanta, see the financial counselor, and remember why they never married. Then one day, twenty-five years after their last conversation, Henry called. Like a jester, he made her laugh. After a few months of laughing, they married. She moved away to the mountain where Henry had his castle and left her beloved kingdom behind. The little hoods moved to the forest with their father not wishing to move away with the princess. Henry, who had been through numerous wives, assured the princess that they were all evil wenches of the sluttty kind. The princess naively believed him. After a few months, the laughing stopped.
After six months, on the day set aside to celebrate Mothers, Henry pronounced that he would kill the princess. She had defied his laws and she must be punished. The princess fled to unknown territories to hide from his wrath. After a month, when Henry’s anger subsided, she returned to his castle where he promised things would be different. Eighteen months after their wedding, the princess moved from the castle on Sand Mountain and returned to her kingdom permanently. She thought it would be safer since she did not seem to be able to keep from causing him to behave badly. Unfortunately, Henry decided to move to Dry Valley also. He promised to prove that he had really changed. On their second Mother’s Day together, Henry screamed at the princess. “I should have already killed you!” She escaped death with only minor bruising. The Sheriff helped Henry find his way out of the county safely. The little hoods were looking to impale him.
For the next three years, the princess lived alone in her Kingdom of Dry Valley. At first, she was very lonely. She had never lived by herself. Then she began to enjoy the peace, quiet, solitude and walking naked in the house. Occasionally, she visited the financial planner in Atlanta but he had a problem with her marital status. Again, she remembered why they never married. Since Henry did not get the pleasure of beheading his wife, he would not sign divorce papers either. Maybe he was a trifle miffed at the grounds: performance anxiety.
Robin Hood got a little woods nympho in the forest pregnant and is now raising a wife and a pre-schooler. For ole times sake, Robin offered to help the princess with her marital situation. He proposed to dethrone Henry, permanently. The princess contemplated the ramifications of that proposition. After three years, Henry tired of his vendetta. The princess was finally free.
The two little hoods have their own merry men and women. One raises hell on the Southside of Birmingham and the other in the County of Chilton.
The princess is happy again. She has caller ID and rarely talks to the unknown or her mother the queen. The princess paints her world with flowers, songs and words. During the week, she designs gardens for the gentry. On the weekend, she dances the nights away. Her life is almost perfect.

Punk'd Nightmare

I am a control freak. I admit it. There are quite a few things that make me uncomfortable. I do not like un-invited company or people showing up without calling. I have an issue with those un-invited people wandering my yard picking up and relocating my stuff. I really don't like pushy people who ask to come in or ask to use my computer or my shower. One of my pet peeves is people not closing the bathroom door - not when you come out but when you go in! I really don't like people using my personal stuff like makeup or eye drops. Okay, I can be difficult but I have a happy life on the end of a road where nobody can find me. Most of the time. So with all these quirky things about me, there's no surprise that a nightmare would have these issues and more.

I was sitting in the living room going through bags of winter clothes to wash and summer clothes to get rid of. I was being very industrious. I look up and someone is pounding on my front door. At the door is a neighbor. I open the door and she is frantic.
"Please let me come in, they are after me, you have to hide me, I've been running through the woods and had to get away."
She runs inside my house. "Who's after you?"
"The police. My mother called the police and told them I was beating her."
Whoa, whoa, I have a BB gun, a pellet rifle, and an aluminum bat. I'm not fighting off the people pursuing her, especially not the police.
She said "Is that the police? I think I hear the police"
"I don't see anybody but you can't hide here."
She sees me on my phone and says "Don't tell my mother where I am."
I am messaging my sister so the deputies know who to question when they find my body.
"I'm not messaging your mother."
"Who are you messaging?"
"That's none of your business, I wouldn't even know how to reach your mother. We're not friends on Facebook."
"Why aren't you friends with her?" 
I have fallen down the rabbit hole.
She says "I'm sick. I have a fever."
Good grief. "I don't need you around me then."
"Oh, I'm taking antibiotics." yea right.
She is pacing from one end of my house to the other. Screaming at her phone and babbling.
Walks back into where I am now sitting trying to message discretely. "Can I take a cold shower? I got so hot running through the woods. I need a cold shower."
I told her I guess so. I go in there and put out a clean towel and face cloth. She asks me if I can come in there and talk to her while she takes her shower. Thought **** NO but said I have things I need to do. She paces and rants and whines and paces. I asked her is she was going to take a shower or not. She is in her own head and doesn't respond.
"If you are going to take a shower you need to do it cause you need to go."
I am taking a load of winter clothes to the washer and pass the bathroom. She is still talking, asking questions with the door open, sitting naked on the toilet! Lord help me. Okay, now I am freaked out.
"Wow, wow, this is cold. Which handle is the hot water? I turned on one but it was cold."
I promise you, there are only 2 handles to my shower. One is cold therefore the other is hot! Two seconds later she is standing there in a change of clothes using my hairbrush, MY hairbrush. The police are chasing her but she makes sure she leaves with a change of clothes?
"Have you heard from my mother?" 
Make it stop!!!! I go in the bathroom to pick up the towels and the towel and facecloth are still folded up and wet footprints are on the bathroom floor.
"Why can't they just love me for me? Why don't they want me to be happy? Why won't they load my stuff up and take me to Florida? I went off my meds about 3 weeks ago because I couldn't feel things while on them. I have experienced so many feelings since then. It's good to be able to feel things. Do you have any eyedrops?" NO
I'm feeling homicidal. PLEASE make it stop!!
"You need to just sneak back to your place and find a ride to Florida"
"I need to go to the bank."
Me - "Sorry, I'm not leaving the house today."
"I need a hug, can I have a hug? My phone's dead, can I borrow your computer?"
I think about then I was getting delirious. I don't really remember how I got her out of the house. My sleep was messed up for two days with flashbacks of dealing with a meth addict from several years ago.
She messaged me a few days later. "I'm back on my meds and antibiotics. Sorry, I scared you. I'm gone and starting my new life. Love you."  Hallelujah
As I recover, it gets funnier. I just wish this had been a nightmare or an episode of Punk'd instead of my crazy life.

Wishing Winter

    Do you ever find yourself wishing your life away? I do all the time. Now that I am retired I don't have to pray for the weekend to get here. Most days are like Saturday and I can do whatever I want. What I have been wishing away is the winter. One month is officially completed. Hallelujah! Since I don't technically count March as winter, I just have to make it through the next five weeks.

   I wouldn't say I hate the winter. It is a necessary evil for most of the things I love. It is the resting period for my perennials and the chilling hours for our Chilton County peaches. It is a time for planning the garden and looking through plant and seed catalogs. Winter can be a very busy time outside - weather permitting. There's the rub: the bitter cold, the northern winds, the sleet and ice. I'll grant you that one good snow is beautiful. A second snow might be acceptable. After that, no way. I live in the south for a reason. I don't understand how people can live in frigid climates or even why they would want to. 

   There are some good things about winter. Most of the time I don't worry about mosquitos, wasps, or snakes. It is great to work in the yard when it is in the 50s with the warm sunshine. Last week I cleaned out the garden. Burned corn stalks and okra stalks. Picked some volunteer greens. Soon I will roll up the fence and the garden will be ready for plowing. I am working on a new walkway in the front and steps for my new deck in back. Cleaning out the garage of things I thought I couldn't live without. Dismantling furniture for parts. "Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera."

   So far, it has been a very productive winter. I guess that is why I feel guilty about wishing it away. There is no way I can do everything in the 5 remaining weeks that should be done. I wouldn't be ready for spring if I had 15 more weeks. 😄 Spring is just so much more enjoyable with all the beautiful blooms, Easter celebrations, family birthdays, and planting the veggie garden. Until spring, I still have time to take advantage of what winter has to offer. A time to -

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 KJV

1 To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; 7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD Psalm 37:23

June 16, 2018
This morning I asked my sister if she wanted to meet me at a charity sale. I let her know when I was leaving and that it would take about 30 minutes to get there. I got to my gate and was met with quite a surprise.

Sent her a quick message that I couldn't get out of my driveway. She said her hubby could come but would have to go buy a new chain for his saw first. Told her I would get started on it and see what I could do. Went back to my house and got my trusty battery-powered, pole chainsaw. Just a quick plug for Kobalt, it is wonderful.

A very big sweetgum limb fell into a hackberry tree and also knocked down some pine limbs from a tree all the way across the driveway. The sweetgum limb is still wedged in the fork of the hackberry.

It took about 35 minutes to make a drivable path around the debris. I looked around at the mess. I was a sweaty mess. My clothes were soaked. My thought was "do I just go back to the house and forget shopping?" Maybe this was a "sign" I didn't need to go spend any money. (Like I need a sign to tell me that. lol) I thought about the situation a little more and realized no I needed to "Persevere." So I headed to the charity sale messy and sweaty. When it took 45 minutes to go 15 miles, I persevered.
My sister wasn't there when I got to the sale. I figured she had already left and I would just hurry through the building. She walked in a few minutes later. Traffic had her too. We found some really fantastic deals and a great charity that deals with disaster relief. Although we hadn't discussed it, we were both looking for a volunteer opportunity. We talked with volunteers who told us about their mission and history.
Driving away from the sale I realized how much I (we) would have missed if I had let the bad start to my day determine the rest of my day.

I worked clearing my drive a little more when I got home. I piled debris alongside my drive for about 60 feet. At some point, the hackberry tree is going to give way to the weight of that limb.

But Today, I Am Feeling Blessed

May 2018 
Hopefully, it will look like this again soon. 

Farm Accidents

7th Installment

There was a direct correlation in doctoring our animals and our personal trips to the emergency room. With a few exceptions, Danny and I did all of the shots and medications. Most things went smoothly, but a few incidents left lasting impressions. One time, Jessie had mastitis, a mammary gland infection, and needed a shot of antibiotics. I hated giving shots so I had the syringe ready for Danny when he arrived home late that night. He told me that I had to give the shot while he held her with a headlock. Timidly, I tried to push it in. Jessie stomped her feet and swished her tail thinking she was being attacked by a horsefly. Danny yelled, “Damn it, jab it in!” I jabbed it in her hip. She threw her head, shook Danny loose and caught him in the butt with one of her horns. She ripped his pants from the bottom of his butt cheek to his waist.  If the tip of her horn hadn’t been rounded smooth, he would have spent another night in the emergency room getting his buttock sewn up. As it was, her horn broke off in his jeans giving him a 10-inch scrape and bruise. All was semi well until Jessie and Danny locked eyes. In a fit of idiocy, he tried to cold-cock her. She shook her head to settle her brains and walked away. Danny spent the rest of the night in the emergency room with his broken hand.

  Over the years, there were accidents that didn’t involve animals, just not many. Danny was losing interest in farming. His eye wandered to the neighbor -  a skinny drunk with a passion for pulp wooding. They began accumulating equipment:  chain saws, pulpwood trucks, and skidders. Danny knew how to use them most of the time, but he had a passion for altering or adjusting equipment and disengaging safety features which he didn’t put much stock in. I was in the kitchen one evening when Danny went to the garage to sharpen his Stihl saw. He filed each little tooth and then cranked it up to try out on some nearby saplings. The saw slipped from his oily hands and fell, still running, slipping into his cowboy boot alongside his blue jean clad calf where the chain proceeded to eat his leg and jeans. The Sunday evening emergency room nurses knew us on sight. I think I still get Christmas cards from one of them. It will probably be here soon. 

  We never had dogs that earned their keep as Australian Shepherds do, but from time to time we raised popular breeds that Danny thought would be cash crops, like Black and Tan Coonhounds. Just as with the large animals, we did most of the doctoring ourselves. We earned a reputation with animals, not of being good, just of being willing to try anything. One time, a friend asked if we could help him dock the tails of a litter of Doberman puppies. I was squeamish, so Danny said he would hold the babies and Frank, the friend, would use the straight razor on their little tails. Unfortunately, Danny could not keep his grasp on them either. One puppy squirmed in his big hand and Frank docked Danny’s pinkie. We spent another night in the emergency room.

  Nowadays my farming is limited; no big farm animals and no accidents—except for the yellow jacket and hornets.

Unless you count the time my son held a match to the spout of the gas can. Whoosh. Another trip to the emergency room. Or the time he swung on a vine across the dry creek; fractured his arm in two places. Or the time he ….

Working for Food

It was beautiful today. This afternoon I filled a plastic bag with green weeds for the chickens. I have to be careful opening their gate because there is a Rhode Island Red who is quite eager to relieve me of anything I have when I walk inside. She will tear the bottom of the plastic bag apart trying to get at whatever I have. I had just walked through the gate & was trying to throw bits of weeds in different directions. Red ran between my legs and out the gate. My first concern was a yard full of dogs watching us. She stopped within a few feet and began to scratch around in the leaves. I tried to entice her with weeds, but she was not interested. She was so intent on moving the leaves that I was able to catch her pretty quick. 
This particular pen has chicken wire across the top so no leaves dropped inside last fall. From outside their pen,  I gathered about 5 or 6 small bags of leaves. When I dumped them in the pen, the chickens went crazy. They were so excited to scratch around the leaves and find the same feed or weeds that they had just walked over. 

Chickens were meant to forage for their food. 

It is very touching to see the rooster find a goody and call his girls over to share. 

I try to throw treats near the roosters so they can fulfill their role. 

                   Happy Chickens!

                                                                               Red is in the foreground. She usually sticks close to me.

Something to Crow About!

When the world was perfect, before the fall, before sin, there was work and it was in a garden.

God placed man in the Garden to tend it. 

Enduring Romance - A Man & His Mule

6th Installment

I should have known when my boyfriend, Danny, said I had “an ass like a saddle horse” and meant it as a compliment, that my husband, Danny, might have a perverse love of the equine species. Kate was my husband’s ugly, brown saddle mule, a higher class of animal than a non-saddle mule, as any mule aficionado would know. For some reason Jack, our beautiful Tennessee Walking Horse, did not hold the same attraction for Danny, I think Jack was too tall. Kate was short—just the right height; his feet could drag the ground like brakes or he could just stand up and let her walk right out from under him, saving that strenuous step of having to throw his leg over her. Kate and Danny had a suspicious relationship from the beginning. She was demanding, like a spoiled mistress. At first, it was a new saddle, then a new trailer. She went through more shoes than I did. I guess I was jealous, she had a standing date every Saturday night for coon hunting, a misnomer for sitting around a campfire getting drunk. A mule is a necessary piece of equipment on a coon hunt. They are sure-footed and sturdy for carrying the cases of beer.

  Danny had the bright idea he needed to train Kate to stand still while he shot from her back. She needed to become accustomed to the noise of a bullet whizzing past her ears. One Saturday morning while the kids and I were getting ready to go to the mall, Danny rode Kate across the pasture to target practice. What happened next I had to piece together, because both Kate and Danny were notorious liars. Luckily, I could tell when they were lying; she resembled a bad ventriloquist with her dummy. Danny had pulled the six-shooter from his holster, steadied himself and fired a shot. Kate barely moved. He patted her on her neck and holstered the gun. Then with a flourish Danny did a quick-draw; spun the pistol around his index finger; bumped the gun on his love handle; and shot himself in the butt. Danny, like a whirling dervish in the saddle, startled Kate, who then walked out from under him and trotted on home. Lucky for her, the bullet lodged in Danny’s rear and didn’t pierce her saddle. Danny hobbled home behind her. We dropped him off at the hospital on our way to the mall. I got a lot of mileage from that accident. He was the butt of jokes for months, years actually.

  Kate was an innocent bystander with that accident, but she had a more active role in others. Whenever Kate and Danny got together, he usually got in trouble. One such Saturday, Danny stepped on a rusty nail. It didn’t cross his mind to take off his dirty boot or his nasty sock and clean the wound, because Kate was pressing him to go hunting and he couldn’t let her down. That night Danny and his buddies with their jennies went to the river to “hunt.” Danny guided Kate down a steep embankment and led her through a swift creek that made her nervous. (he walked) He sat around the fire, his foot beginning to swell and throb despite the beer and whiskey. If he only had a brain. Later, he pulled her through the creek and drug her up the hill to the horse trailer to head home. Danny hobbled in the house, in the wee hours of the morning, moaning and groaning. When the kids and I went to church, Danny called his dad to take him to the hospital. Staph, Strep, Gangrene, oh my. Twenty-nine days later, they let him out of the hospital.

  Danny liked to pass Kate off as an integral part of our farm, because occasionally he would plow a crooked row with her. If the cows or horses were out of the pasture as they were much of the time, he had a good excuse to saddle Kate and herd them up. One day, Kate decided to go to the creek on the back of the property. When Danny couldn’t run her down on foot, he jumped into my F-150 and sped across the field. Kate thought they were playing chase. She kicked up her heels and just like the cartoon of a jackass with both back legs in the air; Kate kicked and dented the front panel of the truck, my truck. It’s a good thing the freezer was about full, Kate nor Danny would fit in and I couldn’t see wasting his sorry a@@!

      Years later, Kate was mentioned in the divorce petition. Not as a contributing factor or Danny claiming her as his - he was going to leave the vile creature with me. No, one of my demands was that they ride off into the sunset together. Only fitting. 🤣

Farm Animals

5th Installment

  Animals are an important part of farm life. Animals are to a farm what children are to a home; a lot of trouble, a lot of money and usually a contributing factor in divorce. Our animals were much like our children; they wandered the countryside unfettered. Fences, we don’t need no stinking fences. Danny didn’t believe in any sort of boundary or constraint such as laws, marriage, underwear. Danny did not want to restrict or hinder our animals in any of their creative endeavors either. Chickens roosted on the deck railings; Geese slept under the outdoor furniture; Jessie, my milk cow, came to the back door to beg snacks; Rooter and Porker, two hogs, chased my truck down the drive like 500 pound puppies. They waited with bated breath for me to open my door and throw some fast-food morsel to them. Neighbors were a little put off when Rooter began to chase their cars. Danny said he would rather die than be locked up, so we ate him, Rooter, that is.

  Some things really do taste like chicken, besides chicken. Rabbit is one of them. I inherited my dad’s rabbits when he died, but could not look at those big bunny eyes everyday and know they were sentenced to death. We gave most of them away, but a few made it to a picnic.

  Of all the offensive smells on a farm, nothing quite matches a goat.  We had common goats, the basic kind that eat tin cans and climb trees. Later, my husband brought home a pregnant Nubian milk-goat. I delivered twin kids by myself. I had come a long way from the girl who fainted when first seeing a colt being born. The kids were unable to nurse because of her malformed teats, but this was typical of the “good deals” Danny brought home. I learned how to milk the stinky thing until we could pass her on to the next unsuspecting friend.  

When I was young and stupid, I wanted to raise milk cows. I started with two six-week old calves, Betsy, a Jersey, and Jessie, a Holstein. They were a present from my husband for my twenty-fifth birthday. I bottle fed them the first few months and fell in love with their big-old, brown cow eyes and sweet-feed breath. At about twenty months, they were ready to breed. I borrowed a bull from a cousin and waited for nature to take its course. Month after month, I was disappointed. I found out Betsy was a “gomer,” a Biblical reference. In current vernacular, she would be a “ho.”  No pregnancies, she just liked doing it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to feed the slut, so she went the way of all the troublemakers, the freezer. My sister said we were the only people she knew who ate their pets. On a farm, the animals have to pay their way.

  Jessie eventually became pregnant by a Santa Gertrudis. Lying on the ground, I held her head and cried with her as the vet used his calf-puller. The calf was too large for her to deliver and died during labor. We then chose adoption. I got a male calf from the local dairy. Naturally they wouldn't part with a girl. Jessie took one sniff and said "no thank you!" Her motherly instinct left something to be desired. The only upside was she produced plenty of milk.

  For the next baby, instead of borrowing a bull, I went shopping through the semen catalogue. I picked out a real stud and arranged a tryst for Jessie and “The Inseminator.” He was a strange man who made his living impregnating cows. On that Tuesday afternoon, he arrived in a good-looking dual wheel Ford. In the bed of the truck was a large refrigeration unit. When he opened the cooler, a white cloud of cold air wafted out. It reminded me of the dry ice we used to put in cauldrons for Halloween. He reached inside and brought out a semen-filled vial that he called a straw. We walked across the field in silence. Jessie was tied at the barn chowing down on a bucket of sweet-feed. Besides the small vial, Mr. Inseminator had what looked like a plastic suitcase of sorts. He opened the case, pulled out a black rubber apron and slipped it over his head. Then, he dramatically put on pair of rubber gloves that went up to his shoulders. Jessie and I were both fascinated with his performance. But she lost interest real quick when he lifted her tail straight up in the air with one hand and proceeded to stick his other hand up her butt. I thought the procedure would be a little more tender, special. Instead, it was violent.  He slung a handful of crap from his hand. Then he clenched his jaw, grunted and thrust his arm again. I backed up a little. Maybe I should leave them alone; I sure didn’t want to make it a threesome. Despite the head gate, Jessie did a lively two-step. Mr. Inseminator danced along with her while slinging more crap. Gobs and gobs of the stuff had to be removed before he could insert the semen. Jessie did not get off on any of this; he definitely did not appeal to her. The Inseminator was the only one that got anything out of the arrangement— a perverted rush and a lot of my money. Jessie and I just got screwed - no satisfaction, no baby. We chose celibacy after that.

 Jessie had a  great sense of humor!

Farm Equipment

4th Installment 

  Good equipment is essential on a farm. Our largest purchase was a John Deere 2150.  I love that tractor: 45 horsepower, diesel, live PTO, roll bar, seat belt and a gentle vibration better than any washing machine. It was so peaceful to bush hog a field or plow a garden; no screaming kids or spouse; this was probably the only thing Danny and I ever agreed on. When we divorced, he gave me full custody of the kids and agreed to pay more child support than the law required, but for 10 years we have battled for custody of my tractor because my lawyer neglected to put the serial number in the divorce decree. At present, Danny has the tractor and I have the attachments. But, it’s not over yet.

  Many small pieces of equipment make daily or specialized chores easier. A cute salesman talked me into buying a head gate, which is pretty much what it sounds like. When a cow sticks her head in the opening, the spring-loaded gate closes on her neck to hold her in place. Ideally, the gate is placed at the end of a narrowing chute contained in a corral. The cow is led with feed into the corral and herded into the chute. It works wonderfully in theory. Danny missed the part about the corral and chute though. His idea was to put the head gate free standing in the field. It was a little harder to herd a cow in to it that way. There seemed to be a force field around the gate that repelled our cows. With all of Danny’s injuries and the hospital deductibles we had to pay, we could have built that corral.

  What would farming be without crops? A heck of a lot easier. Over the years, we tried growing just about everything but settled into the rut of the tried and true: corn, peas and okra. My Dad especially liked to plant corn. He loved to give it to all of the relatives, friends and his bartender. Some corn was sold. Some corn was put in 55-gallon drums for feed and some corn was for making moonshine. Daddy and his friend, Billy, built a whiskey still and placed it inside their playhouse, a gutted Greyhound bus. The big still with all of its coiled copper tubing sat proudly in the front glass window of the bus’s make-shift kitchen. I was accustomed to Daddy doing crazy things and figured this was another phase he was going through. One Saturday, I had some Auburn students coming to shoot lines as to where we should put a lake. They were going to show me what needed clearing and how and where to build the dam. I didn’t think too much about it when  two dark blue cars with gold state seals pulled in the field in front of the bus. I knew the government cars were from the Conservation Department but Daddy about had a conniption. He thought the “revenuers” had arrived - one of the few times I got the best of him.

 Ray McClinton with his son, Perry, working on old tractor.

Farm Help

3rd installment

The family that farms together  - stays together, or some such nonsense as that. When you’re farming, there isn’t much time to get into trouble. Farming kept us busy. The only full time laborer we ever had was a transient named Chuck. He fastened himself to my husband as did stray dogs and drunks. Danny had the bright idea to bring Chuck home to live in our RV. Chuck had red, curly, clown hair and the kind of teeth kids buy for Halloween. Chuck was a tall skinny drunk, the kind that stands on the side of the road in the rain with the sign, “Will work for food.” Chuck was “that kind,” although that was not how my husband found him. I think they discovered each other across a crowded, smoky bar room; the beginning of their meaningful relationship.

  Chuck came to live with us to be a farmhand and my husband’s new best friend. Danny added the handyman position to Chuck’s resume to quell my objections to his constant presence. Because my husband traveled a lot with his work and was basically inept when he was at home, I needed a man to help with the farm chores. Danny gave me Chuck. I should have asked for a stray dog.

  Early in the morning, I would see Chuck walk across the field with Danny’s shotgun. Mid-morning he would return, grinning like a fool and swinging a couple of rabbits by the ears. He scared me. It wasn’t that he was intimidating, I could probably have taken him or at least stood my ground in a tussle, but he reminded me of a carnie and I found everything at the circus scary, except the animals. My young sons were thrilled with Chuck; they thought Bozo had moved in with us. In the evenings, Danny would spend hours in the RV “explaining” to Chuck the next day’s chores. I’m sure Danny did most of the talking because Chuck was a stutterer. Beer always helped their communication process though.

  Chuck got a bright idea. Bright ideas were catchy around our house - I found out later Danny was the contagion. Chuck thought if he had a truck he would be able to help haul feed and supplies from the co-op. So, with a skill saw, some plywood and black plastic, Chuck turned his classic blue Falcon into something totally, unbelievably ugly, but vaguely resembling a truck.

  Two heads are better than one. Then again, there is always that exception to the rule. Danny wasn’t much on rules and would be the first to agree that he was exceptional. Ever heard that saying, “If he had half-a-brain he’d be dangerous?” Chuck and Danny together bordered on half-a-brain. Somehow, one evening their conversation over beer naturally progressed to castration. I thought about it occasionally but in a different context. Danny had seen it done to a cat and thought they could do it to some young hogs.

  “Well, we need to get a stove pipe. It has to be snug fit. We’ll put the front half of their body in the pipe with their butt just hanging out. They won’t be able to move. ” 

  Chuck looked confused. “Www...wh...what? Th...th...that’s not h...how...” Obviously, Chuck wasn’t drunk enough yet.

  “Just sharpen your knife tomorrow and make sure you have plenty of lard.”

  “L..l...l..lard? 

  “Mountain oysters for dinner ‘morrow night.”

  I made Chuck nervous, which was okay because he made my skin crawl. Our contentious relationship must have reminded him of the wife he had left, because at the end of summer he announced he was going back to Florida to see her. Danny cried.

Adventures in Raising Fowl

(2nd installment from stories written about 12 years ago.)

I guess I had about every kind of fowl at one time or another. I asked Danny for a white gosling for my birthday.  He bought a dozen of them. Instead of having one goose that would follow me around like a pet, we had a pack, a herd of marauding geese. Actually, it was a gaggle of geese, but gaggle sounds fun like giggle and they weren’t the least bit funny. They were some of the meanest things we ever owned. My youngest son, Clint, stood toe to toe and eye to eye with them except it was usually beak to back, their beaks and toenails on his back. Clint would check to see if the geese were at the front or back door before he went outside and use whichever one was goose-less. They scarred him for life, he’ll forever be afraid of down.

  One of the geese was a leg flogger similar to what small dogs do, but a lot scarier because of an eight-foot wing span and a beak reaching about crotch high. At one family get together, I was standing with two uncles talking when the flogger walked up to one of them, Uncle Morris, and started nuzzling his knee. I knew what was coming next but couldn’t stop it. The goose latched hold of my uncle’s leg and proceeded to scale the pants with strategic beak and claw placement. Uncle Morris tried to slap away the serpent-like head that was bobbing in front of his face, but he was no match for the goose. Taylor took the broom that we kept for such occasions and began to beat them both. The goose lost interest. Uncle Morris just lost it. The bad thing was this uncle was married to the aunt that had been attacked by my raccoon a few years earlier in much the same manner, a mating frenzy.

  To thin the flock, we gave some of the geese to unsuspecting former friends.  Of course, the final straw came when one of the ganders flew up in Danny’s face.  He took his six-shooter out and blew that sucker away. Freezer Food. 

  Rhode Island Reds, "Domineckers," ones with top knots, ones with feathers on their feet - I love chickens of any sort because they are such fun to watch. Chickens enjoy sharing the moment of a friend’s found treasure then trying to take it away. After all, they are just chickens and everything has a pecking order. It was like an Easter egg hunt everyday with my free-range chickens. Luckily they were creatures of habit and tended to lay in the same spots. 

Our first dozen chicks were first run which means someone at a feed store grabs a box, puts newly hatched chicks in it, and a couple of months later you know what sex they are. Unfortunately, out of our first dozen chicks, there were only two hens; two hard ridden hens. One rooster is normally needed to “service” a dozen hens for biddy production but roosters are superfluous for egg production. Those poor featherless girls didn’t have time to eat or sleep let alone lay eggs. Danny didn’t have the heart to ring the roosters’ necks, so he and the .22 put eight of them in the freezer. 

  Turkeys were my best-behaved animals. They’re not nearly as stupid as the jokes imply; I never had a single one drown in the rain. I guess there are reasons why they lay over two dozen eggs in a clutch and only one or two reach maturity. The turkey moms are easily distracted and the babies are slowly picked off or lost in the woods. Turkeys are not quite the majestic bird Benjamin Franklin professed either, but when that gobbler strikes the ground with those wings, fans his beautiful tail and puffs out his chest, it is an awesome sight. Bird dogs eventually wiped out my small flock and broke my heart. Death is an ever-present part of farm life.

An Interesting Life

I was listening to a radio talk show while driving home this evening. 

He said something that caught my attention. "Lead an interesting life." 

I think over the years I have had some pretty fascinating adventures. 

But as with beauty, "interesting" is in the eye of the beholder. 

(1st installment from stories written about 12 years ago.)

Ridge Circle Farm, sole proprietor, female, farmer, that’s me: Lady Farmer. I guess it’s better than being the farmer’s wife, but not nearly as much fun as being the farmer’s daughter. I was a farmer’s daughter for a short while. My dad was a gentleman farmer, part of the landed-gentry. His farming involved the weekend trips to feed the cows someone else tended and pick the corn someone else planted. We had picnics, barbecues, quail hunts and dove shoots. Not quite the fun I heard farmer’s daughter had, but it wasn’t quite farming either. The real farming came later when I moved from the suburbs to the country.

  Once upon a time, there was a farmer’s husband. He was handsome in a red-neck sort of way, with curly black hair and green eyes that could talk me in to most anything; I blame those cursed pheromones. I cured that problem with a nose job and he became my ex-husband. Taylor, my oldest son, was born before Danny and I lost our collective mind and moved to the country. Taylor is a city child at heart. The pulse of the Birmingham’s Southside beats through his veins. He was fearless on the farm; fighting geese and protecting his little brother. Now, Taylor is a neurotic urbanite. He might as well move on to some unnamed northern city. My younger son was born after we began farming and as with most of our farm animals, his birth was at the wrong time in the wrong place. The lady at the 7-11 store told me that castor oil would coax that baby right on out and I thought it was worth a try. So, I drank two small bottles of castor oil, had two hours of labor, and then had to listen to two people in the truck saying, “you can make it, you can make it.” Of course, they were wrong. Clint came into this world raising hell. He’s a carbon copy of his dad. It’s nice to know I’ll always have a part of his dad with me forever, lest I forget the twenty some-odd years I spent with Danny. As a child, Clint was afraid of everything. Now, he is invincible, just like his dad.

 Fencing was first priority when we moved to the country. In order to string new fence, the vines, brambles and other underbrush had to be removed. One memorable Sunday, Danny and my dad were clearing around an old barn. Clearing is a euphemism for what drunks do with a lighter and a can of gasoline. I thought the fire was spreading too quickly. They assured me they could handle it. Our barn was not in imminent danger, just the Tree Farm on the other side of our property. Daddy, a short man with short little legs, was running in every direction at the same time trying to beat out the flames with pine boughs. As I stomped the jumping flames, I could hear Daddy under his breath, “**##**+# sh*t.” That was the evening when we met our neighbors for the first time. We also met personnel from two fire departments, Rangers from the Alabama Forestry Commission, and a Chilton County Sheriff. Neighbors’ kids brought marshmallows and played around the embers. Welcome to the neighborhood. We have a reunion around a fire about every three or four years, any sooner and there would be legal ramifications, i.e. jail time.

                          Seeing the humorous side has been important for surviving this life. 

Danny liked to read my stories about his crazy antics because he had a good sense of humor. 

Danny died at the tender age of 56 - just like my dad.

Ancient times - 1979

Treats

Food is intrinsically tied to Southern culture. Smells and tastes and treats are linked with our fondest memories. Of course, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are big feasts and traditions. But what about the small things? What food makes you smile?
Rarely does anyone leave my mother's house without a homemade cookie. She has about 4 canisters in different places so that there are always some somewhere. Her specialty is tea cakes - crispy and not too sweet. She also makes good Toll House. Because pecans are so expensive, she keeps a hidden canister for cookies with nuts. Those are for the adults because kids will eat anything.
When I was little, my dad's mom was addicted to Hershey's kisses and kept a bowl by her bed. Occasionally she would share and that was a real treat.
My other grandmother babysat us at our home. She and I would gather up loose change and walk a couple of blocks to Week's One Stop. It was our little secret. Granny Lucas liked Coca Cola and my mother didn't keep them in the house.
I don't remember eating any treats when I would visit Granny Lucas's home. They were poor. Not knowing the full details, now I would guess they were probably very poor but I didn't notice. They lived much like all the other country folk around them. My big treat was to go to the neighbor's and get roasted peanuts. I can still smell the fragrance of roasting nuts and see the smoky old fireplace in their dilapidated home. Aunt Kitty and Uncle Ben were the Colored neighbors. (Back then, Colored was the respectful way to refer to African-Americans.) All adults were either Mr. or Mrs. unless they were kin or close friends, then they were Aunt or Uncle. I don't remember seeing peanuts growing on their property, but Aunt Kitty seemed to have an endless supply. Uncle Ben raised hogs and was always eager to show us his new piglets.
When I went to Aunt Pallie Mae's house I could always expect boiled peanuts. Any time of year.  She had them in the big freezer and shared freely.
My dad will always be linked to grilled steaks - not your typical treat. Steaks were the answer for every visitor's meal. Daddy also had his favorite spots to take us. A strawberry shake from Highland Bakery. Greek Salad from The Bright Star. Bar-be-cue sandwich from the Stadium Grill. But the food that makes me smile I got with him at Woolworth's lunch counter. We would sit on the stools. They would place a glass of water on a napkin in front of me and ask what I would like. "A banana split, please, and no chocolate."

I love to gather all the fixings and have banana split parties for my company. (guests)

Banana splits are pretty, creative, have almost all the food groups, what???, delicious, and fun.

They are a temporary cure for whatever ails you. I promise you will feel better.

 Share a banana split with people you love.

Make a smile and a memory.

Reminiscing

We do not live in a vacuum. Everything we do affects those around us. Every decision has consequences - immediate and everlasting. Two men decided to rob our family business. The ripple began.

Since a lot of family and friends liked my Daddy's Clouds, thought you might like this true account.

The Letter

It came in the mail last week, an official letter from the government. I put it on the table with the rest of the bills. I just was not ready to deal with it. I’m still not ready. In June for the last couple of years, the letter has arrived like clockwork. Everyday as I have re-sorted the mail trying to decide what to pay, I have been confronted with the letter. I get a knot in my stomach when I think about opening it and the old wounds.

In December of 1976, my world turned upside down. The month started badly and only got worse. Two of my dogs were injured in a very rare and freak attack. One of them, Dago, was very special to me. Several years earlier my boyfriend, Danny, and I had rescued the wiry-haired pup from the highway. I had thrown open the passenger door and scooped him inside just seconds before he would have become road kill. Since then, my whisker dog had thanked me daily with his presence and protection. In that first week of December, a mountain lion had traveled southward along the railroad tracks, mauling and mutilating pets and livestock. Dago, who had a bit of a Napoleon complex, fought fiercely to defend his neighborhood, but was no match for the mountain lion. Dago spent almost a week in the hospital due to the loss of both ears, and severe facial and shoulder wounds. Blackie, my not-so-bright hound, fared much better. He received only superficial wounds on his hind flanks as he made a hasty retreat. I was happy to have them both home and safe.

My attention turned to preparations for a trip to the Soviet Union with my college Russian Civilization class. With only one week before departure, Mother and I had been shopping all day that second Friday in December. Normally Mother worked full time in my dad’s pawn shop. But being the owner’s wife had a few perks like occasionally playing hooky. When we arrived home, Mother called the pawn shop to remind my dad that they were supposed to go visit his dad in the hospital. That week, our family had a close call with my granddaddy. As far back as I can remember, Granddaddy had had a cigar growing out of the side of his mouth as a permanent fixture. He finally removed the cigar when the doctors removed his jaw and the cancer attached to it. The prognosis for him looked good.

Mother was calling to remind Dad about their plans. Usually the pawn shop closed by five and after a quick beer at his favorite local pub, Dad would wander home. To make it on time for the visiting hours, he would need to take the direct route home. I was in the kitchen when mother made the telephone call. After her first words, I knew something was wrong.
Dad’s small store, Bank Pawn Shop, had only three full time employees besides my family. Willis and Dee worked in the front part of the store with the guns, knives, and jewelry. Debby and my mother worked in the office at the rear of the store. My dad was the jeweler and pawnbroker and the personality that kept everything afloat. His casual customers called him “Mr. Banks.” The long time customers called him “Mr. Mac.” But for those who really knew him, he was Perry. That Friday, things had been slow so Dad let Dee and Willis leave early. At a few minutes before five o’clock, Dad and Debby were in the closing ritual: all diamonds and guns of value had to be put in the vault every evening; money counted; and the window displays had to be emptied. Alarms, steel bars and iron mesh were not enough of a deterrent for would-be burglars. Normally it took about thirty minutes to shut the store down. When the two men walked through the double doors, Debby was reaching into the window display closing jewelry containers. Dad had walked into the vault to put away a tray of blue velvet boxes, but heard the bells jingle as the men walked inside. One of them stood near the door looking around at the work boots and toolboxes. The other man looked in the glass display cases as he ambled toward the rear of the store. Dad called for Debby to come to the vault. He then left the ornamental iron-caged office to wait on the men. As he had for the past fifteen years, Dad stood waiting patiently, watching the customers browse through the two long aisles of the store. He was suspicious of these men; they never made eye contact; they walked without purpose. Over the years, there had been several attempts to reach over the case to snatch, grab, and dash. Some had even been successful, therefore Dad tried to watch carefully. After a few minutes of “shopping,” the men again assumed their original positions with one man at the front door. The other one approached my dad at the display case where the handguns were housed. The young black man—later identified as Leon Foy - leaned forward, elbows on the counter, and mumbled something to my dad. Then as if in slow motion, Foy stepped back and pulled his revolver. With no time to wage the consequences, my dad, a short man with the severe Napoleon complex that seemed to run in our family, acted from the gut and pulled a .38 Smith & Wesson from his pocket. Unfortunately, Foy had already taken aim. All but one of my dad’s shots went wild as Foy accurately unloaded his gun into my dad. The wounded assailant and accomplice fled from the store empty handed as Debby screamed into the telephone for help. Daddy slumped to the floor, never losing consciousness.

It was a strange voice that answered the phone. The pawn shop was laid back and any of Dad’s friends might answer the telephone in a pinch, but all knew to say, “Bank Pawn Shop” when greeting a customer. Instead of the customary greeting, Mother heard a tentative hello. She said, “Let me speak to Perry.... This is Doris. Who is this? ...  I’m his wife, Doris McClinton! Who are you? What’s going on?”

Mother went pale as her color drained. She held on to the receiver waiting for someone with authority or information to come to the telephone. She looked at me and whispered that something had happened. I stood with my heart in my throat watching, trying to read her face.
“This is Doris, Perry’s wife. . . . What has happened?”

The conversation was short. Returning the receiver to the cradle, mother turned to me and said in clipped, controlled words, “There’s been a shooting. Your daddy is on the way to the hospital. We have to leave right now. You’ll have to drive.”

“Has Daddy been shot?” I whispered.

“Yes.” I could barely speak. “How is he?” I asked.

“I don’t know, they said we need to hurry.” Mother was eerily calm going through the motions of getting her coat and purse.

“I can’t drive, Mother. I can’t.” I hurriedly called Danny who lived a few minutes away. He wasn’t in from work yet so his dad volunteered to drive us to the hospital. Mother and I rode like zombies in the car as he took his dear sweet time on the back roads to downtown. He chattered constantly totally unperturbed by the situation. My irritation with him kept my thoughts occupied. The obvious was too difficult to handle.

When we arrived at UAB hospital, it was not like in the movies. The people were not nice and helpful. They were too busy trying to save my dad’s life to care about our concerns. They said they were getting ready to wheel him into surgery and “no” we could not see him. I needed to say so many things. In the movies, they always have closure.

As we stood in the emergency room hallway talking to the doctor, I caught a glimpse of my daddy’s gurney heading to surgery. I knew with one quick glance why she did not want us to see him. His crimson face was caked with dried blood. I could see the hole in his neck. Breathe, breathe.

Doctors use a roundabout way of saying but not saying things. The doctor said that I might want to call in the family. As she walked away, a nurse presented me with the bag of Daddy’s clothes. His pants, shirt, underwear, and even belt had been cut from his body. Bullet holes were in every piece of material. The clothes smelled of blood. They were saturated with it. I felt nauseous and faint. I looked at my mother and realized I had to be strong. It was my turn to take care of her. For the first time in my twenty-one years, it wasn't about me.
In the waiting room, my mind raced. Who did I need to call? Aunt Lillian. She was loved by everyone and knew everyone’s telephone number. She would get the word out to my mother’s family and give me any phone numbers that I needed. My dad’s sisters both lived out of state and his mom was visiting the one in New Orleans. How do you tell someone that her brother would probably be dead by the time she arrived? When Grandma answered the phone, I tried to go through the pleasantries but she knew something from my voice. I thought it would be better for my aunt to break the news because at the time I thought 66 was old and fragile.
Each telephone call became easier as I became numb. Each repeating became less real, more surreal, a story — someone else’s story. Within an hour, family started arriving at the emergency room. Before the night was over, the almost fifty friends and family could not fit into the waiting room. We overflowed into the cafeteria where everyone tried to ignore the elephant in the room. As with a wake, there were lots of stories. Perry stories. “Doris, do you remember when Perry . . . blah, blah, blah?” Laughter would erupt, nervous laughter. Periodically a doctor or nurse would come talk to us for a minute and give encouragement as to how the surgery was going. The men tried to alleviate tension with nervous talk and laughter. The women seemed much more comfortable with silence. Daddy’s best friends, neighbors, my mother’s brothers, my cousins that he had employed at the pawn shop through their teenage years, people whose lives he had touched over the years - banded to hold my family together.

Sometime during the wee hours of the morning, a surgeon said my dad might live. The surgery was not over but Daddy had been very lucky. He had been shot six times with a total of eight holes in his body. There were holes from his neck to his thigh. Some bullets had shattered in him, while others went through him. By the grace of God, no major organ, other than a lung, had been hit. Daddy would carry a bullet in his lung for the rest of his life. The surgeon said my dad should have died from so many shots at close range and they were still looking for fragments. He had lost a lot of blood. They would know more by morning. My first deep breath in eight hours almost overloaded my oxygen-deprived brain. I felt weak to my knees. I hadn’t cried yet. I couldn’t cry yet, I still had to be strong for my mother.

About daylight, Daddy was critical but stable. In less than a week he would walk out of the hospital to my car. On the way home, we detoured by the pub for his beer and for him to show his war wounds. Daddy said he wanted to see which holes were going to leak.
For nearly a week, I tried everything possible to get out of the trip to the Soviet Union. How could I go? Everything in me wanted to grasp firmly to my life and not let go. Dago, my granddad and my dad were all in their respective homes recuperating. We survived the first two weeks of December. Mother said if I could get the money back from the travel company, I could stay home. Fate took control and two days after Daddy left the hospital I left for the Soviet Union.

Three days before Christmas, I arrived home from Moscow. I was excited to show my gifts and souvenirs to the family. Everyone was in the living room, except Dago. When I called for him, the room went silent. He had died. The autopsy showed gangrene had reached his brain. I had reached my breaking point. The tide of pain and fear that had ebbed in my heart now flowed from me. I finally cried. For three months I cried.

It’s all coming back, it’s all coming back to me now.
The letter is still on the table waiting, intimidating. The Alabama Department of Corrections Parole Board. For over twenty years, I had not given a thought to Leon Foy. For the last two years as an “interested party” I am forced to relive one of the worst times of my life. If I had a crystal ball, maybe I would know what to do. I don’t want to go to his hearing. I don’t even want to write a letter to the board although every other day my mother asks if I have mailed one yet. How do I know if he has served enough time? He did not even go to trial for my dad’s shooting. He was convicted of murdering a customer at a different store that he robbed. I am reasonably sure that the murdered victim’s family would still oppose his release. My dad, who died from an unrelated illness, has been dead almost as long as Foy has been in jail. My wounds and anger are gone now. As much as the memories hurt, I only have to deal with them that month in the summer. If Daddy had died from the shooting, I probably would feel differently now. But the more I think about it, I realize everything my dad did after the shooting was colored by that traumatic incident in his life. In return, I reacted to the ups and downs he suffered. At a time when I had never heard of the problem, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I was living with a sufferer. Some of the most awful things that happened in my life and in our family can be traced to my dad’s near death experience. Do I want to punish Foy for  the onset of my dad’s middle-age crazy phase? Or my first marriage and divorce?Then there was the sense of immortality that my dad achieved from his survival. If six bullets could not get him, why should he worry about his blood pressure? I guess I am still angry at Foy. He is alive and my dad is not.

Maybe Foy has changed, jailhouse religion. We never got a letter of apology though. He had no skills to make a living at twenty years of age, what is he like at forty-five? How has he spent these last twenty years that my dad and his other victim did not get to enjoy? Did he put himself through college with the law books in the prison’s library? Why did he get to live? How many lives does one have to destroy before . . . ? There are so many questions left unanswered, but the answers won’t bring back my dad or change the past.

My sister called to see if I had mailed my letter to the parole board. She too was in a quandary, not sure what to do. I guess I had hoped Joanna, a psychiatric nurse, would tell me what to do. My mother tells me everyday what to do. She would like to rip Foy’s head off, where as my sister and I would just prefer to stick our heads in the sand and never have to hear his name again. If they let him out of jail, I won’t receive any more letters. Then again, if they let him out he might just be on the evening news.

When in doubt, don’t. I didn’t know what to write to the parole board, so I didn’t write anything. In fact, I never even opened the letter this year. After a few weeks of being shuffled with the bills, the letter found its way to the burn pile. Outside, the fire licked up the letter and other discarded papers. My anger burned again, fueled by years of repressed rage. It will never be over. It will never be over.

My life today is intertwined and entangled with that fateful Friday in December; all the memories and all the consequences. Only a few more months and it will be summer again. The government letter will be here soon, with all the memories and pain. Once again, I will cry.

Written in 2004

Don't know or care what happened to Foy but the letters stopped arriving.