Mother's Day Weekend
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Since I've lost the two moms I had, I decided there's no better place to spend Mother's Day than with dear ol' Dad. I met him and Martha at church, and afterwards, Martha had to take off to do in-law stuff, so Dad & I went by and picked up a lunch at the local supermarket deli & took it back to his house. By the time we'd finished lunch, there was a steady rain coming down. Yep, there was a pillow calling me for a nap. I laid there about five seconds watching it rain and was out like a light.
After naps, Dad & I visited the rest of the afternoon. He told me all about the cotton gin that they ran when he was a boy in Arkansas among other stories of his youth. I really enjoy those.
He said that on the days his dad, Ben D., was going to gin cotton, his hired hand would fire-up/build-up some steam and blow a whistle at five o'clock in the morning. This whistle was so loud, it could be heard 12 miles away.
He said that the people up in the mountains couldn't hear it, but they'd come out of the mountains to ask a neighbor in the valley, "was the gin whistle on this morning?"
So, if you heard the whistle, you could take your wagon load of cotton to the gin. And Ben D. would gin all the cotton that had been brought in even if it was nine o'clock at night before he got to it all. Ginning season meant seven days a week and long days for the weeks it lasted (starting around the end of August, into September).
I remember Mom telling me about taking cotton into town when she was a little girl. Somehow, this honor was singularly hers, as she was the only one of her siblings that got to go. She said it'd be dark when they left. She'd ride up in the wagon load of cotton where it was all nice and soft. Did she tell me she could see stars? Then after the cotton was ginned, her father, Pa, would let her buy some candy at the store before heading home. I asked her what she would get and she said that it usually didn't matter as long as it was pink. Pink was also her childhood preference for medicine.
I guess that will do for my mother's day story today.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
The most constructive thing I did today was to groom the cat. Rented a couple of movies. Many, many movies use Christmas to show passage of time. When we were watching such a movie, either Gene or I would exclaim, "a Christmas movie!" I know, I know. It sounds dumb but it is just yet another one of those silly things you do with a best friend and another thing to remind you of that big hole in your heart that comes along with being a widow.
And one of the movies I rented really was a Christmas movie and a tearjerker. It was The Family Stone, LINK, with Dianne Keaton and Craig T. Nelson, a good enough movie but probably not a good choice if you lost a loved one in the last couple of months. It's been long enough that I didn't end up in a puddle or anything, but it did bum me out a bit.
Since I've lost the two moms I had, I decided there's no better place to spend Mother's Day than with dear ol' Dad. I met him and Martha at church, and afterwards, Martha had to take off to do in-law stuff, so Dad & I went by and picked up a lunch at the local supermarket deli & took it back to his house. By the time we'd finished lunch, there was a steady rain coming down. Yep, there was a pillow calling me for a nap. I laid there about five seconds watching it rain and was out like a light.
After naps, Dad & I visited the rest of the afternoon. He told me all about the cotton gin that they ran when he was a boy in Arkansas among other stories of his youth. I really enjoy those.
He said that on the days his dad, Ben D., was going to gin cotton, his hired hand would fire-up/build-up some steam and blow a whistle at five o'clock in the morning. This whistle was so loud, it could be heard 12 miles away.
He said that the people up in the mountains couldn't hear it, but they'd come out of the mountains to ask a neighbor in the valley, "was the gin whistle on this morning?"
So, if you heard the whistle, you could take your wagon load of cotton to the gin. And Ben D. would gin all the cotton that had been brought in even if it was nine o'clock at night before he got to it all. Ginning season meant seven days a week and long days for the weeks it lasted (starting around the end of August, into September).
I remember Mom telling me about taking cotton into town when she was a little girl. Somehow, this honor was singularly hers, as she was the only one of her siblings that got to go. She said it'd be dark when they left. She'd ride up in the wagon load of cotton where it was all nice and soft. Did she tell me she could see stars? Then after the cotton was ginned, her father, Pa, would let her buy some candy at the store before heading home. I asked her what she would get and she said that it usually didn't matter as long as it was pink. Pink was also her childhood preference for medicine.
I guess that will do for my mother's day story today.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
The most constructive thing I did today was to groom the cat. Rented a couple of movies. Many, many movies use Christmas to show passage of time. When we were watching such a movie, either Gene or I would exclaim, "a Christmas movie!" I know, I know. It sounds dumb but it is just yet another one of those silly things you do with a best friend and another thing to remind you of that big hole in your heart that comes along with being a widow.
And one of the movies I rented really was a Christmas movie and a tearjerker. It was The Family Stone, LINK, with Dianne Keaton and Craig T. Nelson, a good enough movie but probably not a good choice if you lost a loved one in the last couple of months. It's been long enough that I didn't end up in a puddle or anything, but it did bum me out a bit.
posted by Ms. Judy at 6:59 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home