Bang! You're Dead!

As the aunts, grandmothers and mama quietly sat on the porch, drinking coffee, my cousin Timothy and I were busy with a game of Cowboys and Indians in Grandma Polly's yard.  I was the best tree climber of all the cousins, so I had perched myself high up in one of Grandma's Tung Nut trees.  Timothy looked up in the tree and shouted, "When I shoot you, you're dead!"  "Okay," I replied.  Then pointing his finger straight at me, "Bang!" he screamed.  Obediently and right on cue, I let go of the tree branch, going limp as a dead person should, and fell out of the tree, splat, onto the ground.  The fall knocked me unconscious.  Hearing Timothy's scream as I hit the ground, the ladies rushed out to the place where I had fallen, to see what Timothy had done to me.  When asked, he simply said, "I shot her."  Well, with that, the ladies became hysterical, yelling and screaming at Timothy! "What did you shoot her with?  Where did it hit her?" 

Believing for a second that his finger had been really loaded, Tim looked at his finger, showing it to the women and said, "my finger."  And seeing that I was regaining life, they started laughing uncontrollably when they realized what had really happened.

Timothy and I went on to play, and this time, I was a nurse, giving him a shot, just because he had shot me earlier, I took one of Grandma's big thorns off her oldest rose bush and gave him a stick with it in his arm.  He ran to the ladies, immediately, crying, "she gave me a shot!"  When I showed them the thorn I had stuck in his arm, I got in trouble!  Proving, you can never trust boys!

Christmas Memories

“Goodbye Joe, I gotta go, meo myo!  Son-of-a-gun gonna have big fun on the bayou!” I can still hear daddy in his big number, crooning out the words to “Jambalaya”.  He had been playing his guitar all night with the others, patiently waiting while each of my uncles played their favorites.  I had been waiting all night as well.  The men got together with their harmonicas, their guitars, their accordians and their favorite tunes at my grandma and grampa’s house on Christmas Eve.  It was a family tradition.  All my cousins and I would listen intently for the age old tunes, a mixture of old southern, cajun and Irish songs as well as all the Christmas favorites.  I loved the look on my daddy’s face as he began playing “Jambalaya”.  His eyes lit up.  It was like something out of a movie! 

Growing up, I can remember no other times that made me feel as good, as secure or as happy.  The food was always potluck and delicious.  Mama and Grandma  worked for days making their traditional desserts.   My favorite was their famous Japanese fruitcake.  Oh, I didn’t like to eat it, I loved to watch them make it, grinding the coconut from the real coconuts because they had to have the milk from inside to make the frosting.  It was a huge process and just one of the traditions they shared. 

There were loads of fireworks brought in for the kids to shoot.   Grampa had built a gigantic bonfire in front of the house out by the road, where we lit the fireworks and otherwise kept warm.   But I preferred to stand by the performers, waiting for my chance to join in.  My grandma’s living room was sparkling with Christmas, and the smell of the food set the scene for a wonderful time to be had by all!

Gifts were exchanged at some point in the night.  All the wrapping paper was thrown into the fire, lighting it up like a bonfire! 

Afterwards, the Uncles and my daddy would start up again, singing until way past the time when we children were snug in our beds, in anticipation of Santa’s arrival.

My Bug

We grew up modestly.  Our home was a three bedroom house, barely one thousand square feet.  But we owned it and the piece of land where it sat.  Joining our land on either side were my grandparent’s houses, which gave us plenty of room to roam.  The summer before my senior year, Daddy promised me a car.  I had learned to drive the family’s Chevrolet Impala, a big car for a small country girl.  So you can only imagine how we felt when my brother and I were on our way to school that first day in my Bug!  I had already purchased a “Keep the Faith, Baby” bumper sticker for it at the KOA Campground store out by the Interstate and we were good to go.  It was game day and I was pretty sure my brother was real proud of me, as he glanced at me in my cheerleader uniform.  We were going to school on our own wheels!  I couldn’t have done it without my brother, though.  You see, Daddy bought the car for $200.  It was several years old, but looked REALLY good when my brother and I got it shined up!  However, I really couldn’t have driven it without him.  It took both of us!  While I was driving, he was busy holding it into fifth gear!  It was the poor old Bug’s only flaw!  The gear shift wouldn’t stay in fifth gear.  Junior’s hand got pretty tired while we were driving that first day, but it was all worth it when we pulled up into our own assigned parking space at Pearl River Central High School.  I was a Senior and he was only an eighth grader whose sister was Miss Teen, a Cheerleader, Editor of the Yearbook, Class Treasurer, Member of the Beta Club, the FHA, and Hall of Fame, but most importantly, that day, the driver of a Volkswagen Bug.  Little did he know, she was also a member of the “I joined everything because I couldn’t decide what I want to do” club. However, I took school work very seriously.  I was an excellent student, number four in my graduating class, even won the Crisco Award that year in Home Economics.  I was a friend to all the boys on the football team, but never dated any of them.  I really loved all of them!  I was proud of every win we took from the opponents and cherished every sweaty victory, when those boys carried me off the field.  But they had a dark side and showed it, on the very first day I drove my very own car to school.  The minute I came out of sixth period class, Junior came running up to me yelling, “Liz! You are not gonna believe that them boys did!” 

“What boys?” I asked, trying to get in a word. 

“Them football boys!”  he yelled, almost hysterically. 

Running all the way out to the assigned parking space we had been so proud of that morning, we saw her, the Bug, there, still in her parking space.  Only now, she was lying at rest on her side.  She was almost grinning at us as we approached.

Furious, Junior was stomping around, doing nothing but circling constantly around the Bug.  “What’re you gonna do?” He asked, pacing.

About that time, Jay, John and some of the other football players approached like nothing was wrong.  “What happened here?” Jay asked, grinning, along with the rest of ‘em. 

“Put it back on its wheels!” I demanded, stomping my own foot, hard, “Right NOW!  My daddy’s gonna kill you!” I shouted.

By the look in my eyes, they knew I was dead serious, so they literally lifted it up and set it back upright.  Upon close investigation, I noticed not a scratch or dent was on the Bug.  “Thank you!” I shouted and Junior and I got in the Bug and drove off. 

We sat quietly all the way home, Junior holding the Bug in fifth gear the whole way.  But as we sat in silence, we both knew that this was a story we would tell, over and over again for many years to come- but today, not to another soul, especially not to our parents!