Ramblings
in the Night
Grandmas
& Mamaws Part I
Grandmas. What can I say
about mine? Mamaw Pauline is my mom’s mother. Grandmother Ruby is my dad’s
mother. Two very special women. Grandma Ruby, was a firm follower of the rules.
Mamaw Pauline, was sweet & often shy. Both loved their families. They went
out of the way to make everyone feel loved and special.
Mamaw Pauline, she was just the most,
easy going laid back fun loving person. She loved to fish. She loved to go out
to the mouth of Santeelah lake were Snowbird creek dumped into the lake and
fish. When I was a kid she used to raise rabbit dogs, beagles. She had two
beagles, named Buster and Pepper.
I was
her first born grandchild. So. I was treated like a little prince. I caught a
lot of grief from other members of my family because of it. Which really it
wasn’t any of their business. Spoiled? Yes, I was, but not in a bad way. I
wasn’t a little shit that thought I had to have everything coming and going. I
didn’t know what designer clothes were until I was a grown man. But she treated
me super special, not by what she bought me, but by the things she did. Special
meals, cakes, pies, taking care of my laundry.
A
funny thing about my family. I know what I am about to say will strike some of
you as odd. But it is the truth. Mamaw Pauline and Papaw Jim divorced. But it
wasn’t a bitter divorced where they hated each other’s guts. They actually got
along fine after the divorce. Mamaw eventually remarried. His name was Clifford
Jenkins. Clifford was a nice guy. But back to what I originally was going to
say about my family. Even though my grandparents were divorced. My Mamaw still
cooked supper for my Papaw. Clifford
would go out to my Papaw house a few days a week. My Papaw had a garage that he
worked on cars next to his house. They would hangout and shoot the proverbial
shit. When Clifford would leave, he would always say, “Jim, I’ll see you at
supper.” Yeah, like I said, My family is
a little bit weird. But we love each
other.
I
remember once, during my rebellious teenage years. I was living with my Papaw
Jim by this time. My own parents were split up and getting a nasty divorce. I
did mention that I was rebellious, right? Yeah, I did. Well this was in the
80’s. So I have long hair nearly down to my ass. My ears were pierced.
Something that could get you beat up and called queer, when I was growing up
and a teenager. A woman named Francine cut and styled my hair. It was not a 20
minute, in and out, you’re done kind of thing. No, when I went to see Francine,
I was there for at least 2 hours. Sometimes longer.
On
this occasion I was at Francine’s and all the employees wanted to play with my
hair and do things to it. Some of Francine’s female clients hated me because my
hair was so curly. Anyhow I was there and the hunger pains hit with a vengeance.
So. I called Mamaw Pauline and asked her to fix me a couple of grill cheese
sandwiches and bring them down to me. That is an awful lot to ask of a
person. Yeah, I agree. But I was a teenager
and I ate several times a day. Well Mamaw being the loving Mamaw that she is.
Fixed those sandwiches and even asked Francine and her employees if they would
like a sandwich as well. That is just the kind of woman that she was. She
wouldn’t leave anyone out.
I
remember another time. I was a young man, in my early 20’s. I got a job working
at Stanley Furniture. Mamaw lived closet to the plant so I stayed with her most
of the time. I have this thing stuck in my head that if I am more than 10
minutes from work, then I am too far from work. Plus the fact that I hate to be
late for anything didn’t help either. I had been working at Stanley for about
half a year. I was pulling 10-12, sometimes even 16 hour days.
Well
I came home that evening late around 9:30PM.Mamaw and mom had put a plate of
supper back for me. I walked through the door and literally collapsed into my
chair in the living room. Mom went and heated up my supper. They had fixed fried
chicken and all the trimmings. My favorite meal of all time. Fired chicken,
gravy and biscuits, mashed potatoes, cream style corn, and a slab of onion. And
a fresh homemade from scratch peach cobbler. Man I thought I had done died and
gone to heaven. Mamaw asked me how my day was. I told them how it went. I told
them that I was wore out, from the long day.
The
smells of the food being heated up, made my mouth water. My stomach already
thought my throat had been cut. I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. I was
starving to death by the second. When mom brought the food over to me so I
wouldn’t have to get up. I dug in with gusto. Like a ravenous dog. Both of them
kept telling me to slow down. I finally finished eating and washed it down it a
ice cold glass of mountain dew. Set back and patted my belly satisfied that I would
live another day….lol..
I was
as full as a tick on a dog's ear, I had eaten so much, so fast. I tried to bend
over and untie my boots and take them off. Well I had eaten to much and trying
to bend over with a full stomach was not pleasant feeling. So I straightened
back up and decided to wait until my food, had had some time to digest. Mom and
Mamaw had watched me grunting and groaning trying to take my boots off and had
already told me to wait a few minutes. So I picked up the days paper and
decided I would read it while I was waiting.
A few
moments had passed and I was deep into the reading paper. When all of the
sudden I felt something at my feet. Low and behold there they were my Mom and my
Mamaw down on their knees untying my boots and unlacing them. So I could take
them off. Well the site of this was so comical that I burst out laughing. Let
me say right here, that it was not the best thing I could have done at the
time. I was so shocked that they were attempting to take my boots off my
feet. When they looked up and saw me
laughing, they both got mad, finished jerking my boots off, and then proceeded
to just about beet me to death with my own boots. And all the time they were
fussing at me for laughing. Which made me laugh even harder.
Let me
finish this with one last story. I was still working at Stanley Furniture. I
had been there a couple of years. And I had made some good buddies. Where I
grew up nearly everyone hunted. I loved to hunt, and still do. Only one thing I
liked more that hunting, and that was watching WWE or WCW wrestling. And the guys
I worked with liked wrestling too. Well, at the time I was 6’ 2 “tall. And I weighed
a whopping 140 lbs. Yes, I was a stick figure. I was cool with that. There was a guy at the plant named Tommy. He
was about 5’7” and weighed somewhere between 250 and 275 lbs. For reasons that
have now after so many years have escaped me. I agreed to a wrestling match
against Tommy. It was to take place in my Mamaw Pauline’s yard after work. We
got off work at 3:30PM everyday Monday through Friday. This particular day was
a Friday. Well small town everybody knows everything that goes on in it. By the
end of the day. There were close to 50 people that were going to be there to
witness the wrestling match.
Mamaws
house set on a rise about 6 feet or so above the yard. At 3:35 PM I pulled into
the driveway and 15 cars pulled in behind me. The other cars another 30 or so
pulled over on the street or wherever they could find a place to park. Mamaw and
Mom went into hostess mode. They started bringing out drinks and snacks to all
these guys from work. All the time thinking what in the world is going on.
Until my buddy Randy filled them in on what was getting ready to take place. Tommy
and I were both already in the yard getting ready to wrestle.
I
just knew I could beat him even though he outweighed me by a hundred plus lbs.
Boy was I wrong. We wrestled for about 15 minutes, both of us soaking wet from
sweat. We were sweating so much we could grab ahold of the other good enough to
hold on make the other submit or get the pin for the win. Tommy made a wild
swing at my legs. I knew if got me down I was a goner. I jumped back and when I
did I landed wrong and down I went. And Tommy like kung fu panda pounced on me.
And pinned me right then and there. Mamaw and Mom on the porch just hooting and
hollering along with everyone else. It was like the main event. Even the police
showed up to what. I looked up after it was over and Mamaw was looking down at
me from the porch shaking her head. But there was a big ole smile stretched
from ear to ear on her face. She had had as much fun watching me wrestle, as I
did wrestling.
On
the 13th of May 2002 she passed away. Due to complications from open
heart surgery. It was the day after Mother's Day. I spent the last 3 weeks of her life by her side while she was
in a coma dying. She was 73 years old. She has a birthday coming up this month.
She was born on the 27th day of June 1929. She would have been 88
years old this year. She is never far from my thoughts.
I
have decided to split this into two separate tales since this first one was so
long. I have added a photo. This is of my Mamaw Pauline (in RED) her brothers
Brad, Ray and sister Truby. The photo was taken at Rattler Ford picnic area,
back in the 90’s at a family reunion.
Written By: David M. Shuler
06JUNE2017
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