Where Roads and Rivers Lead

 

                                                                        Cold Run Creek

 What is this?  Are these segments fiction?  Did you make up all this?  What are you going with this? Is there more following?  So many questions, so here is a scanty explanation. 

When I visited my parents back “home” until my father’s death in 2005 and mother’s in 2011, we always did these few traditional actions, without fail. I had a sense that these were essential rites that we absolutely must do.

We always went to Pam's Cafe, and ate catfish or buffalo carp “fritters”, deep-fat fried, served with two slices of white bread, a big slice of strong onion, and cocktail sauce at Pam’s, the best and only restaurant in their town. Dad always had a cup of the blackest coffee I had ever seen at that time.

Pam's Cafe in Pleasant HIll, IL

The waitress, usually a wild exotic teenager who grew up to be a worn-out waitress--Wanda?  Betty?, brought refills of coffee by.  She never asked if my father wanted a refill; he would tap the cup on the saucer to let her know.

My folks always sat in the same corner table that gave them the best view of the front door.  That way they would know who came or left, and then they would tell stories about them to me.  Oh, those stories. What these old wrinkled people who walked through those doors had done with their lives could make a sailor blush.  

Spring Creek Bridge

We always went across the “new” Missouri-Illinois Pike Bridge that spanned the Mississippi River (The River)to drive up Hwy. 79 in Mih-zer-uh (Missouri).  

The bridge was built in the early 1920's and opened up for traffic with a Gala Potluck. He was only six years old and had to pee.  Badly.  "Ma" told him to pee over there on the slope next to a tree.

Well, then.  He was  in his best clothes--knee pants, high socks, seersucker jacket--and just as he was getting his business done, he slipped on the long grass, sliding down the slope into the mud.  That is all he told me about that.  

We would drive up and around that road until we came to the places to stop—could stand there and look down The River and its spots of little islands.  Each stop gave us a new love for The River.

Gazing out at Mississippi River from Missouri side

And we always went to visit  the cemeteries.  My father’s side of the family was buried in the small Nebo Cemetery in Illinois, while my mother’s side were buried in the sizable Crescent Cemetery in Pleasant Hill, Illinois. The farm where we lived for 40 years was a mile north of Nebo Cemetery.

The most interesting things about these places are that I did not know 97% of its occupants, and I really didn’t care.  My folks would walk around looking at headstones, talked about what those people did in life, and my father would speculate whether or not if they made it to Heaven. 

His staunch opinion was they did not.  In fact, my father generally believed that most of the people he knew were damned to hell.

Every cemetery in our county was decked out for Memorial and Veterans' Days. The flags above wave in Crescent Heights Cemetery, Pleasant Hill, Illinois. 

Nebo Cemetery became interesting to me when two of my brothers were buried there in 1997 and 1999. I would go by myself in my rental car to place silk flowers at their graves, talk with them a bit, and look around the corn fields, at the rusted abandoned train tracks, and try to remember the town as it was in my childhood.

Now, I cull volumes of photos of those visits and relive it all with stories my folks told me. Connecting those memories with faces, and reading letters not meant for my eyes have connected me with a totally different world one hundred years ago.

                                                                                                                                                                 ***My mother and grandmother told me stories about their lives, when I was a grown up.

                         

In Preacher's CreeK: Work in Progress

 

                                                                  Kent, Ellen, and Willie 

Criminals at large

After Jesus saved me from the burning fires of Hell, me and Kent got sick.  Man oh man.  We were so sick.  Mom said we had strep throat and ear infections.  Bottles of pretty pink medicine stood in the old Kelvinator.  Before we took the first spoonful, we thought this was gonna be great stuff, like peppermint candy.  But, we were wrong, very wrong.  It was bitter and chalky.  Mom had to chase us down, throw us on the floor, and straddle our bodies.  With her free hand, she poured the awful sludgy liquid down our stripped throats.

           After doing that once or twice, Grandma took hold of our arms.  “You cut that out, you hear me?  You’re not babies!  Your mother can't be chasing you around like that!  She’s tired enough…” We had stopped listening by then, but Grandma had set us straight: don’t run, take the medicine, and swallow it.  No one ignored Grandma.  She knew all sorts of things, and had a way of getting down into one’s face and staring them in the eyes. Maybe because she was part Indian, I believe Grandma could tame a wild bull.  No, we did just what she told us.

            Days, maybe years went by.  Sometimes we lay on the living floor like abandoned old dogs, floppy and worm-infested. Other times we stretched out on Mom big bed, flattened out like dried earthworms, twisted in agony. Our tongues lolled out when we were thirsty, and Mom lifted our heads, giving us cool water.  We were so grateful to our Angel Mom.

                                       sickness in the 1950s
                                   

          Then one day we woke up and got out of our beds with a new energy.  The pink bottles had to be finished up, but on this day, we felt better, good almost.  We put on clothes and even talked to each other as if we were real humans and not worn-out, mangy hound dogs.

 

           Those days were hell for Mom.  We were pestering her for everything: to go out to play, to have something to eat, and whatever our minds could think up.

            As if that weren’t bad enough, we discovered how to open the flour bin while Mom was hanging up wet diapers outside. The flour canister rested on the table, open and inviting. Scooping up handfuls of flour, we danced around the kitchen, soon surrounded in a fog of flour.  Flour burst into the air, a cloudy flour mist. The more flour we grasped and threw, the whiter the mist which meant more floated in the air.  Glorious!

                           my brother and I were born in the same year. Diapers?

Syracuse.com

 With a grand sweep of his arm, Kent sent the salt and pepper shakers flying to the floor, the sugar bowl skittering across the table until it crash-landed on the linoleum. Why he did this, I do not know, but that was the way he did things.   

Startled, we glanced up at each other, fearing that Mom heard the noise and would come hurtling through the door.  We peered out the screen door and saw Mom and Mrs. Jennings chatting about tomatoes in the garden. When they got onto the subject of tomatoes, they could be out there for hours. Diapers could dry in the basket, it has been known. 

We heard Mom saying goodbye to Mrs. Jennings, and coming through the back screen door.  With giggles and anticipation, we hurried out the kitchen, and peered around the corner.  It was like Christmas morning, all the waiting for something really big to happen.

Boy oh boy.  Then Mom burst through the screen door and screamed. Our  art project had failed. Mom did not disappoint us one bit.  She dropped the laundry basket, and let out one long big holler.  “KENT!  ELLEN!  Get yourselves in here r-i-g-h-t-n-o-w!”

Once the table had been wiped up, the salt and pepper shakers replaced, and a new sugar bowl put on the table, we cleaned up the flour footprints that mysteriously had traveled through the house and the flour handprints that had appeared on the walls.  

I cannot tell much more beyond this, as we found ourselves neck-deep in a heap of trouble, bad trouble.  The following hour rang with words I can’t repeat, tears that would not stop, and fierce regret that we considered Mom's flour bin as source of inspiration.  That is all one needs to know.

                                                       laurelleaffarm.com

Then Stone Faced Mom threw a patchwork wool comforter down on the floor in front of our black and white television.  She gave us firm directions about what we could do, what we could not do, and “…you will not move off this comforter, not one inch…”  Then Mom stalked back to the kitchen, where mutterings and pot banging was heard for some time.

We sat there in silence in front of a black and white television show.  Our free-wheeling lifestyle usually had me and Kent out on round-ups and bloody battles during this time of the day, so beyond our regular cowboy shows at night, we didn’t watch TV.  

As we slowly grew interested, we saw a horribly disfigured man gazing lovingly at a beautiful dancing gypsy girl named Esmeralda. Esmeralda, Esmeralda.  I said the name over and over in a whisper.  The name rolled over my tongue and filled my mouth with wonder.  Esmeralda soon joined my list of beautiful ladies: Loretta Young, Donna Reed, and Mom. Now there was Maureen O'Hara.

                                                    1939 Old Hollywood films

This is a semi-true story, but mostly true. Our poor mother saw a lot of action during our childhood.                                                                                     

 

Brother Donnie, Robert, Susie, and Willie

Carrying the milk pail

 Well, after Billy was born, the whole routine of our lives was thrown into something that resembled Bob’s bedroom.  Everywhere I looked was a pile of clothes and dishes, just like his room.  Bob had a wall behind the headboard, and that was where he wiped his boogers.  Before Billy, Mom wiped down that wall almost every day, but now his boogers reached as high as I could reach on the wall.  Bob was so proud and showed it off to Donnie, who said he had a booger wall, too

 Deanie Smith  and his family had moved to their newly built house out toward Hunter’s Cemetery.  Bob and I visited him twice before Billy was born, and admired the new features of the place.  Turquoise tile covered the bathroom walls and floors, and I mean everywhere.  The toilet was also turquoise and the sink, too.  The windows even had a frilly turquoise print.  I half expected some sort of netting under the print, but I guess Deanie's mom didn’t like netting either.

Since Deanie lived out so far in town, Mom didn’t let me run over there with Bob, who had his Little Silver tricycle and could pedal there faster.  Bob’s knees were rubbing the handlebars, and I knew the way things worked when it came to hand-me-downs.  I soon would inherit the trike, and I would paint it bright green.  So, Bob went to Deanie's house alone, by himself, without me, leaving me behind.  My heart broke each time I watched his back as he pedaled furiously along the buckling sidewalks, and sometimes I hoped he would tip over and get scraped up, so he would have to come home.  But that never happened.

 

It was just me and Mom with Billy, who by now was called “Bill” by everyone else but me.  Someone who so disrupted my life and changed everything I knew deserved a big name.  During the day, Billy was a charmer and I could tell that Grandma had chosen him to be her favorite.  It wasn’t difficult to see why.  He had wispy blond hair and blue eyes, with round red cheeks.  He stuck his tummy out to be tickled and kicked his legs as he laughed.  I tried to do these tricks in front of Grandma Carter, as I lay on the floor at her feet, but she just stepped over me.

 

At night, Billy would be in my old crib, sleeping with his diapered bottom up in the air.  Mom and Dad would stand over the crib, looking down at him with such deep happiness and love, while I watched from my own little bed not three feet away.  They kissed his downy soft cheeks and patted his back.  Then Mom would come over and give me a quick kiss on my hair somewhere, pull the covers up, and say, “’Night, sugar.”  Dad just left and turned off the light.  I would fall asleep, feeling like I had disappeared from the family, and no one noticed.

 

Even the morning routine, where I used to sit on Dad’s lap and helped him drink his coffee was over.  Sure, Bob would go over to Mom and get his hugs, but Dad’s arms were full holding “Billy” and talking to him.  I slunk up into my chair until Dad looked up and said good morning like he was talking to some stranger on the street.  I don’t think my head could hang any lower than it was then. 

 

After a while I knew what would happen next: my brothers would eat and run out to play. Deanie would show up at the door on his brand new shiny red tricycle and Bob would run off with him; Dad would go to milk Blackie; and, I would mope around the back yard where Mom could keep an eye on me.  No prison could ever be as bad as this.

 

I guess someone had noticed my beaten-wet-dog expression one particular morning, because when Dad stood up to go milking, he looked directly at me and said, “Sis, you wanna come with me to milk the cow?”

 

Did I!  You betcha I wanted to go with Dad to milk the cow.  Bob and I had never ever gone with him to do this chore, and now I was going to go with him.  “Hurry on up and get your clothes on!”  Dad said with a crooked smile, giving Mom a look.  She looked at him with an expression on her face that clearly said, “You’d better know what you’re doing, buster.”  I think Mom and Dad could talk to each other without using words.  I ran to my room and put on a clean tee shirt with a clean blouse, over clean pants.  I put on clean socks and then worked my feet into my tied sneakers.   I grabbed a fresh bandana from a drawer and took it to Mom.

 

Mom tied it around my head, and gave me the power words that I could never ignore.  “Do what your dad tells you.  Be a helper.”  I nodded, while my feet were dancing on their own, ready to run alongside my dad’s long legs.  Dad put on his John Deere cap, and moved it to the side, looking like he did on Memorial Day.  He picked up the sterilized bucket with its lid, and kissed Mom, full on the lips.  I looked down, a little embarrassed, like I had just seen something I wasn’t supposed to see.  Then Dad looked at me and said, “Let’s go, Sis!”  Such simple words, but they made me so very happy.

 

He took my hand and let me carry the milk pail with the other.  I skipped alongside his long stride, swinging the pail, and talking as if I hadn’t spoken in a hundred years, or longer.  I talked about everything that came to my mind, and it was a rambling expression of a four year old who never had had the sole attention of an adult in her whole young life. 

Dad smiled and nodded, and I knew he wasn’t really listening, but I was holding his hand, and he let me carry the milk pail all by myself. 

feeding a calf

Timelessness

The thing about childhood is its timelessness. One day it is the birthday. Next week it will be Christmas and a few days later it will be Halloween. Easter? Just after midnight. All this was a child’s life until a Big Yellow Bus pulled up and the once-little children marched up the steps, lunchboxes in hand. Realism flattened them with a brutal calendar, ruling a child's life.

Somewhere shuffled in there was summer vacation, Oh, Thank you, Dear Lord! Summer vacation opened a world that had always existed but never had been recognized in our own child world, wedged in between Easter and maybe Valentine’s Day. But now, the power of bikes and open streets called. I have missed you so much. Come, join me. Spin your wheels. Have band aids at the ready.

We were not yet part of the Big Yellow Bus crew. No, the calendar deemed that we were too young. Someday we would have lunchboxes and climb up the steps to the glory of education. But for now, we could just gaze at a future, hands clutched on handlebars.

We watched our brother Don as he tore out onto the street with other nine-year-old boys. They laughed while my brother Robert and I stood by his trike in the grass until all that could hear was their laughter and crickets. Riding a trike along narrow sidewalks held so little joy that our faces dropped down to our feet and dragged on the grass. So, we pedaled along the sidewalks with Robert taking on the pedals, long strong legs while I stood on the back with my skinny girl legs

Maintenance repairs were on the calendar, the all-knowing calendar which said that those streets needed some work, coated with hot black tar. The bikers would be grounded just like the rest of us with trikes. The big boys ran off to play in the creek, enjoying freedom of nine-year-old. Our faces drooped.

While the trucks sprayed the new gravel on the streets, Robert and I lay in the grass listening to workers swear, watching them smoke. At least they were happy in a greasy black tar world. We instead scratched at mosquito bites and chewed on peanut butter sandwiches held by our grimy hands.

Next day, it was stinkin’ hot. That’s what Mom always said when it was hot like this: It’s stinkin’ hot. When it was that bad, plants fried, and black tar bubbled in puddles on the road. What Mom had to say about that was a stream of instructions and threats about our future existence if we disobeyed and charged into the black tar on the road.

We nodded with solemn faces. Of course. We wouldn’t go near the black tar. Shoot, that would be crazy. When Mom sensed our level of obedience would be nearly complete, she stood up and away, returning to whatever she normally did. We took off as fast as Robert’s legs could pedal, over stretches of uneven sidewalk and through still stinkin’ hot air.

Our zeal hit a full stop when it was clear the length of our adventure was about 100 feet. Being stinkin’ hot, Robert’s five-year-old legs and my four-year-old strength gave out and no adventures could be had. And this is where everything gave out and a new decision had to be made. This is sad part of my memory when we concluded that something new and exciting needed to occur.

It did as we pulled up by the Christian Church where a wedding had just occurred. All the congregation had headed to the schoolhouse where a reception was set up in the cafeteria. How were we to know the photos and photo opportunities were capturing the joy of walking down the church steps and through the fluffy bridesmaids’ gauntlet. It was ignorance on our part, never having been to a wedding and seeing tradition play out before us.

I sensed vibration filling Robert when he had a miraculous and an inspired idea. He did a U-turn, trike lined up at the wedding party. Oh, Robert!  Mom said, we can’t, we shouldn’t…But we took the jump, and made a decision.

 He geared up some strength and veered into puddle of bubbling tar, tires picking up as much of it as possible. Robert swerved left, heading straight for the gauntlet of pink chiffon dresses and rented tuxedos. Before they perceived any threat, Robert tore through the line of pink ladies, who were now screaming.

The hot tar sprayed off the wheels, splattering hot tar on the field of fluffy dresses and black tuxes. I can still hear the screams and the words that flowed from the tuxes-up men. They had a large vocabulary. While the air was filled with anger and dismay, we took off.

Adrenaline filled us both as we disappeared behind Lena Foote’s house and through the thick bushes separating Lens’ garden from Mom’s.  Robert was so fast, and I squeezed his shoulders, giggling in his ear. The screams and profanity grew fainter as Robert swung the trike into Dad’s old car shed, stopping it with sheer ease.  This is where good decisions had to be made.

 

Robert had a hiding spot he used frequently, and we crawled into it, waiting for police sirens to visit the wedding party. The volume of the screams lessened until it stopped. Dead silent. That was when we examined our clothing to see just how badly we had been sprayed ourselves.  Nothing, nothing at all. We were pure, sinless and safe.

Still fearing a reaction for our parents, we casually wandered through the kitchen door and headed to the bathroom to wash up. Again, we saw no evidence of our carnage. Instead we held our breaths, anticipating police to storm through the house and grab us by the scruffs of our clothes. Nothing. We sauntered back out the door and rejoiced, laughing.

Our folks never knew about this.

It was not until some 30+ years later that we told them about this event, this glorious event. What? We never heard anything about this. Are you serious? Yes, why yes, we were. I could even show them where the tar streaks still crossed diagonally over the sidewalk. God is good. He always provides.

Hidden Secret

 

In Preacher’s Creek 

Secret in the Barn        S.E.Kane        May 8, 2014 

It was a story that begged the telling, but could not bear to be spoken.  Yet, seventy years after it came to pass, it was time.  It was released and so was the teller. 

 

They were old women now, the both of them, sitting at the kitchen table with coffee and pieces of apple pie.  Louise was the maker of the pie, it was her house, and it was her kitchen.  Her older sister Grace suddenly shrank into something heavy from within.  “Girl, I gotta tell you something.  Something that happened to me, and I must tell someone before I die.” 

 

Louise was stunned.  Grace was never a keeper of secrets, but this one weighed heavily upon her.  Louise leaned toward Grace, placing one old veined hand over another’s old veined hand.  Grace squeezed it and looked into Louise’s eyes, as her own eyes streamed quiet tears. 

 

“You went off with Ma to Quincy to buy new shoes, and she dropped me off at Uncle Lew’s house.  She said I could play with snotty cousin Velma while you all went off.” 

 

She paused and blew her nose into a hanky. 

 

“Well, me and Velma were playing in the barn when her three older brothers showed up.  Lyndle was holding a stick and a bread wrapper.  Velma giggled and said that we were gonna do something fun, really fun! 

 

“The brothers made me stretch out on the barn floor with Harold and Melvin holding my arms down.  Whatcha you doing?  Whatcha you doing?  I got real scared.   

 

“Lyndle grabbed my legs, spread ‘em wide apart, so Velma could kneel between ‘em.  Then Velma…” Grace gulped back tears, her voice turning ragged.  “Velma put the stick into the bag wrapper, and she told me this was gonna be real fun, ‘cause she’d seen her ma and pa do this all the time. 

 

“Velma put that stick in my woman parts.  She gave me a big grin.  Then she shoved it all the way in.  I screamed and screamed and screamed.  Aunt Lydia opened the kitchen door with a dish rag in her hand and she called out What you kids doing out there?  Come outta that barn! 

 

“The boys ran off as Velma pulled the stick out of my woman parts.  The bread wrapper was all bloody, and Velma turned white.  She said You wipe yourself off and go on home, now!  She threw a dirty rag at me, and ran to the horse trough to wash off. 

 

“I put that rag in my old bloomers and tucked it up as tight as I could.  Then I ran home.  ‘Member our old house, just down the road from Aunt Lydia’s house?  Well, I barely got there, I was so weak.  Ran up the stairs and filled the tub with water.  I soaked in it, and it turned pink.  Emptied the water, poured more water, emptied it, until the bath tub water was clean.” 

 

Louise was silent, the front of her apron wet with tears and her eyes opened wide.  OhGraceohGrace…. With hands over her mouth, Louise shook her head.  No..no..no..no… 

 

“I knew where Ma kept the pads for that time of the month and I put one on.  Took my bloody clothes out to the pump, rubbed them and rubbed them.  They would come clean.  So, took ‘em down to the creek and threw it all in the muddy water.  They rolled down the creek with the mud covering the blood. 

 

“When you and Ma come back, I told her I was bleeding, it was my time of the month for the first time.  She was happy, called me her my big girl.  I never told her, never told anyone ‘til now. 

 

“Something was tore inside, but it musta healed.  But that’s why I never had babies.  The doctor told me that the tear got infected and ruined my uterus. Ernest was just as happy, since he was a selfish son of a bitch who drank more than he did anything else. 

 

“So, that’s it.  That’s what I had ta tell you.”  Grace cleared the table, while Louise couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.  “I’ll do the dishes, you just go rest now.  You look darn tired.”  She paused and looked out the kitchen window.  “Looks like we got a storm coming.  Want me to bring in the laundry?”  And without waiting for an answer, Grace picked up the clothesbasket, going outside to bring in the underwear.