family – Page 85 – beckycochrane.com

Legacy Writing 365:64

Today this remarkable woman would have been eighty-six, and I know that if she were alive and in good health, she’d still be:

making me laugh

giving me things to think about

jumping up to dance

telling stories

watching the news

getting into political arguments

lending me good books

reading good books

making me cry

wishing she could understand the TV remote

bragging about her grandkids/great-grandkids

dreaming she could travel to Europe again

sewing

missing my father

missing her parents

worrying about her kids

doing a crossword puzzle

driving me crazy

trying to find the right picture frames

plotting her next move

sneaking chocolate

balancing her checkbook to the penny

cleaning something in her house

especially vacuuming

doing something nice for me

baking biscuits

craving seafood

thinking

always thinking

Born on the same day as my mother, this young Pisces:

Happy birthday, Timmy! Still love this photo and you.

And happy birthday to the other people in my life born on March 4. It’s a big day!

Legacy Writing 365:63

These days, if this picture of your seven-year-old was put on the Internet, someone would threaten to call Child Protective Services because:

YOUR CHILD IS STANDING ON A CHAIR!

YOUR CHILD IS PLAYING WITH FIRE!

And you’re taking pictures of her while she’s doing it! We’re all gonna die!

Speaking of playing with fire, I can tell that I’m holding my mother’s Zippo there. Did anyone else, like me, love to snap open your parents’ Zippos and smell the lighter fluid fumes?

D’oh! Another reason to call CPS!

That china cabinet was one my mother had custom built when my parents bought the house in Georgia. It was her china cabinet for a long time, then when I was a teenager, she painted it white and put it in my bedroom. First it held my Dolls of the World collection, then my hippie stuff like incense burners and such, then books. Later she stripped off the paint, restained it, and used it again herself. When I was in graduate school, she gave it to me once more. Only in my many moves, it ended up in my brother’s apartment and he didn’t want to give it back. So I had to get a partner-in-crime to help me re-steal it when he was out of town. Heh.

It sits in my dining room today holding an eclectic array of serving dishes and all the liquor nobody ever drinks. Except that time Lisa from Iowa took a shot when we were playing 1000 Blank White Cards.

Legacy Writing 365:62

Friday night after dinner we were talking about trucks–pretty sure trucks are what all Southerners sitting around the table on a Friday night talk about, with lots of extra syllables, of course–and I mentioned my brother’s truck that he bought in the early 1980s and had for a zillion years. Which is proof to me that Nissan makes a good truck. I realized that a photo would make for better show and tell, so I snagged this one of four little badasses doing Occupy Nissan decades before that phrase had meaning.

Gina, Sarah, Daniel, and Josh

I remember this trip too well. I was supposed to meet my brother at a specific time and place in Tuscaloosa to ride with him and Daniel to Kentucky to visit our folks. Only I’d been out partying with a friend the night before and ended up crashing at her place (hey, Kathy M!), and I was in a wretched state when I showed up.

Still, off we went. Daniel had to sit in the tiny extended part of the cab on a hard seat, while I stared blearily from the passenger window. Then Daniel suggested we stop, pronto, and he jumped out to be carsick. I surrendered the passenger seat to him and made the trip there and back riding mostly in the bed of the pickup. I don’t think you can do that anymore, can you, at least not on interstates?

A different photo from this visit generated Facebook buzz with my nieces, especially about Gina’s Mork shirt and Sarah’s Spiderman shirt. They attribute their bad fashion to getting Josh’s hand-me-downs, but I’m not so sure. Gina was quick to say, “Nanu nanu.” I think she’s definitely alien.

Here’s another shot of the Nissan a few years later. David and our friend Debbie were coming or going from some crazy thing like skiing. At least they’re not wearing bad T-shirts.

Legacy Writing 365:61

All the women in black and white
Fill our attics and dusty albums
Are tucked inside manila envelopes
With diplomas and marriage licenses

All the women in black and white
Took jobs for their country
Went without silk stockings
Wrote letters on men’s hearts
All the women in black and white
Well lit and softened
Hair brushed out from pin curls
Look wiser than their years

All the women in black and white
Our mothers and grandmothers
Have mysteries in their eyes
And secrets in their smiles

Compound on Leap Day

I’ve been watching everything in our yard, trying to assess how much damage was done by last year’s drought and the winter that never came. Not a single freeze. The redbud flowered and now is leafing out, but I think it has a couple of branches that need to be removed to promote the tree’s health. One azalea bush in the front bed is blooming; the others aren’t. However, Tim’s azalea has exploded.

We’re still in drought conditions and will probably endure another heinous summer of dry heat. I’m not even going to hope for grass until conditions return to normal. If they never do, I’ve vowed to cover the dirt with artificial grass. This idea is met with derision and eyerolls from other people living on The Compound. The dogs don’t care. I say if it’s good enough for zillion-dollar sports fields, it’s good enough for me. It’ll be like the Pixie Vs. Squirrel Super Bowl out there.

I have a set of butterfly wind chimes that my great-niece Morgan gave me when I spent time with her in Gatlinburg a few years ago. It hangs in my office door with another set of chimes my sister-in-law Janet gave me for Christmas one year. When the ceiling fans are on, the chimes provide nice music. Ever since she was a little baby, they’ve fascinated Hanley. Today she let me take a new photo for comparison purposes.

Hanley, 2009

Tim and Hanley, 2012

As they were leaving:

Hanley: Bye, butterfly!
Becky: Bye, Hanley!
Hanley: Butterflies don’t talk.
Becky: That was ME!
Hanley: (same facial expression I get from certain people when I talk about artificial grass)

Legacy Writing 365:60

Tim tweeted a link to an article about Chrysler’s return of the Dodge Dart. I’ve mentioned my family’s Dodge Dart in other posts (2006 and 2011). Really it’s a car my brother and sister know more about because it was before my driving years. If I have the story right, it was customized to the specifications of another guy in the ROTC department of the college where my father was teaching at the time. When he was deployed and either couldn’t close the deal or needed to sell it, my father bought the car. I’m sure the smaller size appealed to my mother, who never liked driving our ginormous Chrysler because she thought it was cursed.

The customizing was what made it the perfect ride for a teenage boy: the engine was more powerful than the standard factory engine. More pick up. More speed. My brother implies that my sister’s making up her stories of terror with David behind the wheel, racing trains and such. I don’t know. He looks like such an upstanding young man next to the Dart.

I have a birthday coming up if someone wants to buy me one of these. The car, I mean. I’m satisfied with the brother I have.

Legacy Writing 365:59

She was probably in first grade here, the same year my brother was born. The photo's a mess because my father carried it in his wallet.

Daddy carried this one in his wallet, too. I don't know if this is her high school or college graduation photo.

She's with her high school sweetheart. On this Christmas, I'm three, and I swear I remember adoring them both. The books on the table next to Jane Jane, and the art on the walls over the fireplace: I still have all of those.

Here, Daddy's meeting her first child, a son.

By now I'm in college, and her second child is a daughter.

My Cousin Rachel was one of my first role models. I love her laugh and her sense of humor. Her honesty. It’s effortless on my part to summon up her beautiful Southern accent and the way she says certain words and phrases. When I was little, I wanted to do everything she did and be her, with her gorgeous clothes and endless (to me) boxes of shoes. I wanted to play the piano like her, so her long-suffering mother, who also played, would let me bang on it when I went to visit. I even wanted to grow up and marry her boyfriend Charles.

She was always kind to and patient with the little girl who idolized her, and my parents were crazy about her. My brother and sister were in her wedding to Charles. She and Charles are still together and as gracious and fun to be around as ever.

She’s one of the most beautiful people I know and still one of my role models. Happy birthday, Cousin Rachel!

Related: Cousin Rachel’s Wedding

Legacy Writing 365:58

I’m pretty sure that you could search the planet and not find two better human beings than Tom’s sister Katie and her husband Michael: compassionate hearts, great senses of humor, pleasant dispositions, impeccable manners. I mean, if it weren’t for Katie’s strange choice of graduate school (Auburn) and Michael’s bizarre enjoyment of running in marathons, I’d call them perfect.

For a while in the 90s they lived in Dallas, a distance close enough that we could see them occasionally. Of course, when they came here, they had to endure the company of the single being who wasn’t impressed by all their fantastic qualities: Pete.

Pete didn’t like most people, but he did have a “Tolerate” list, and most of Tom’s family made that list. Katie, however, did not. We can trace their first run-in to a visit at the Tom Family Home, when his brother held Pete toward Katie, expecting what, we’re not sure. But certainly not expecting Pete to be willing to take a bite of all that sweetness. From then on, Katie and Pete kept their distance from each other. Including a 1999 visit, when Michael got to enjoy his round of Pete adventures. While Michael sat on the couch, Pete would jump up and stretch out next to him. He’d even let Michael pet him.

Proof.

Then, for no apparent reason and without warning, Pete would become his bitter enemy, growling and otherwise threatening him. As Michael wrote later, “With Pete, it is always a new experience.”

Katie fared much better with Stevie, who, much like Katie, was always ready to be a good friend.

Today is Katie’s birthday, and I hope it’s filled with Stevies. And if there’s a Pete or two, I know Michael will run interference. Happy birthday, Katie!

Legacy Writing 365:57

Speaking of trips (as I did in Saturday’s Legacy Writing post):

I was shopping the other night when I decided to take a detour through the CLEARANCE! section of a discount retailer. I rarely find anything I want there, but you never know. I spotted this on the shelf. I don’t routinely buy collectible Barbies. You may think otherwise, as you’ve seen photos of a few on my blog, but trust me, compared to what’s available every year, I have only a modest number. Their premium prices scare me away. Plus I’m not a collector in the true sense of the word. I always remove my dolls from the boxes and mess with their hair and redress them, which renders them mostly worthless in the world of collectors. And do I really need more dolls? (Well, yes, always, but I believe I’m the only person on The Compound who feels this way.)

I picked her up. No sticker anywhere. Usually when I see the collectibles in a discounted area, they’ve been left there by some parent or spouse who says, “It’s HOW much? I don’t think so.” But on a whim, even though I wasn’t buying anything else and had to stand in line to find out, I took her to the cash register and had her scanned.

SHE WAS OVER FIFTY PERCENT OFF!

I smiled all big and the guy said, “Is she worth something?” I answered, “She’s not worth anything except that NOW I WANT HER.” So she came home with me, and the next time I get my two Elvii out of doll storage, she’ll get to pose with them. And she’s prettier than they are. Which is ridiculous, because when Elvis was at his best, was anyone prettier? Okay, maybe Ricky Nelson.

But my trip through CLEARANCE! is not the trip I’m talking about here. When I was a young lass, my parents and I visited my mother’s brother John and his wife Fran, who lived on a lake outside Memphis at that time.

Uncle John in an inner tube, my mother holding an oar in the boat, and some other person who I can’t identify. I know it’s not Aunt Fran because she had HUGE hair bleached white-blonde at that time.

My aunt and uncle had this massive RV in their driveway, and my parents and I stayed out there–it was our own little guest suite. For some reason, Uncle John kept calling his wife “Frannie May” and my mother “Dorothy May.” One morning he heard me talking, and looking around and not seeing anyone, asked to whom I was speaking. I pointed to their German Shepherd and said, “Princess May!” He loved this so much that from then on, she was Princess May, I was Becky May, and my father became Billy May.

Me with my hair in curlers and wearing a Clemson T-shirt that I pilfered from some sibling or another.

One afternoon, Aunt Fran took my mother and me into Memphis in her big ol’ Cadillac. We went to the daycare center she owned and which her daughter managed. And then we took a side trip to Graceland. The gates were closed, but Aunt Fran whipped up to them so we could get out and stare at the house. And I’m not sure I was even born yet, because at that time, Elvis was still very much alive and was in residence.

He didn’t come out to see us though.

Legacy Writing 365:56

We were sharing stories the other night about vacations or trips we took–or were forced to take–with our families/parents when we were young. At some point I said, “Yeah, I did a lot of eye rolling and complaining because that was my job as a teenager, but secretly I loved those trips.”

One in particular that I remember was when my parents decided to take a car trip along the Natchez Trace Parkway. I think we only did the Mississippi section, and I believe for at least part of our trip, two of my mother’s brothers (Buster and Gerald) and their wives (Annie Mae and Lola) were with us. I got to sit in the front seat a lot while my father drove, which meant I had control of the radio (AM only, back then), and I can still remember which songs played over and over. I’m sure that drove my parents crazy.

In my scrapbook, I have a lot of brochures and postcards from places we visited: in Jackson, The Old Capitol State Historical Museum, where “Miss Charlotte Capers” was Director, the Capitol, the War Memorial Building, and the Wildlife Museum. I have napkins from places where we must have slept and eaten along the way: the Albert Pick Motel in Natchez and the Friendship House Restaurant and Lounge: “Host to the Gulf Coast,” “Six Minutes from Biloxi,” “Six Minutes from Gulfport.” Both are gone now; apparently Hurricane Camille took the Friendship House. (Bitch!)

And in Vicksburg, we visited the National Military Park. Of course. I had two parents who were history buffs–plus my father taught American history and military history. Battlefields were definitely part of any Cochrane Tour, and I remember my father explaining how General Grant strategized and restrategized to take control of Vicksburg from the Confederate forces, which he finally did on July 4, 1863. (Bastard!)

Almost 17,000 Union soldiers are buried in the National Cemetery, and a staggering 13,000 of those are unidentified. They either died in Vicksburg or died elsewhere in the South and were reinterred in this federal cemetery. Because at that time, federal cemeteries were for those who died “in service to their country,” soldiers fighting for seceded states couldn’t be buried there. In the Vicksburg City Cemetery, Cedar Hill, approximately 5000 Confederate dead–only about 1600 of them identified–are buried in the Soldier’s Rest section. Ultimately the rules were changed so men who’d served in the Confederate Army but died years later could be buried in federal cemeteries. The Vicksburg National Cemetery also includes the graves of those who served in later conflicts, as well as some of their wives and children.

One of the stops on our tour included the Alabama Memorial, commemorating the men and women of my home state during the war. (And in the South, when we say it, it’s “The War,” and we mean only one.) Here, my parents and I are tiny people standing on the monument. I just love that my mother was tromping around national parks and cemeteries in heels.