memories – Page 159 – beckycochrane.com

Christmases Past, No. 3: Our cat, the legend

One Christmas both my father and my brother were stationed overseas (different countries), and we were a household of women. Well, except for the dog and my sister’s cat, Joe Willie. Here’s Joe Willie as a TV-obsessed youngster:

He got his name because of his four white feet. Quarterback Joe Namath, who led Alabama’s Crimson Tide to a 29–4 record over three seasons and later had a stellar career with the New York Jets, was known for many things, including his white football shoes when the rest of the Jets wore black. Joe Namath also had a reputation as a ladies’ man, and our Joe Willie was as legendary in our neighborhood.

These were the days before we knew to spay and neuter our pets, and therein lies a cautionary tale.

I’d like to think my sister took this photo because she was feeling the Christmas spirit as Mother and I decorated the tree. But I suspect she was documenting that once again, I’d robbed her closet for something to wear, because that’s her wool shorts-and-sweater set. Thanks, Debby! It’s probably about the last time I could fit into your clothes.

Once our tree was decorated and all the presents tucked beneath it, we decided to go with Mother to a party at some friends’ house. As we were leaving, we encountered a female cat on the porch, crying at Joe Willie in the window and begging him to come outside to…play.

“Nope, he’s staying in tonight,” my mother said. “You’ll have to find another boyfriend.”

What she failed to consider was that Joe Willie wanted to go out and…play. We came home to a tree all askew, ornaments scattered around it. Even worse, we had to get a new tree and my mother had to rebox and rewrap all the gifts. This Christmas is always referred to as “that time the cat peed all over everything.”

May your Christmas be cat urine-free.

Christmases Past, No. 2: Of Mice and Twins

During Christmas break my freshman year of college, I rode a bus from our North Alabama town to Augusta, Georgia. Who knew a trip of 220 miles would entail eighty-eight hours, seventeen propositions from stoned high school boys, soldiers on leave, and old men with pint bottles in brown bags, and an unexpected sprint between Atlanta’s Trailways and Greyhound terminals lugging my hot pink Samsonite that certain of my relatives would love to have today as “vintage?”

But I was on a mission, so no travel annoyances were too great. My sister was pregnant with twins who were due ANY MINUTE.

Anyway, that’s what I told myself. The doctors weren’t so sure, but what the hell did they know? They’d gone from saying two babies to four babies to one baby to two babies (you know, there was a time we didn’t have ultrasounds to show us everything going on inside our bodies). Since I’d been forced to go to a piano lesson the afternoon nephew Daniel was being born, and nephew Josh was born in a foreign country called New Jersey, I was going to BE THERE when the twins were born.

Allegedly I was in Augusta to help my sister. I’m not sure what that was supposed to mean. I could divert Josh, wash dishes, and help with other household tasks, but mostly helping meant asking my sister if she was in labor yet. I’m sure that was the best part of HER Christmas. Or maybe it was when I talked her into letting me make chocolate pudding for the sole purpose of getting a photo op with Josh.

Then there was the night we were playing cards at the kitchen table and I began shrieking because I saw a mouse. My brother-in-law Wayne (the one who sacrificed himself on the altar of tuna salad sandwiches) actually had a history with the Cochrane women and mice and went in noble pursuit of the little rodent with the vacuum cleaner. Events went something like this:

Me: There he goes! Get him! Get him!

Debby: Wake up Josh and I’ll get you.

Wayne: DAMMIT!

Me: He ran inside the cabinet! Get him!

[Wayne pokes inside the cabinet with the vacuum cleaner hose.]

Debby: Are you trying to clean him or kill him?

Wayne: SHIT!

Me: Are you in labor yet?

The mouse escaped unharmed. Debby didn’t go into labor. A few days later, all of Josh’s grandparents and my boyfriend arrived to celebrate Christmas with us. Somebody got this toilet seat, providing my mother a chance to pose:

Note the drum under the tree. Josh is now a brilliant blues drummer, but back then, he was also happy to get some wheels:

And I got no babies before I had to go back home and get ready for my return to Tuscaloosa. Those wretched twins weren’t born until January 14–but their delayed arrival was the ONLY time they ever disappointed me.

Me with Sarah and Gina when they were the age I was when they were born.

Hawk like

This is the tree UNdecorated.

I’ve had to watch it like a hawk today, because I think it could be foster dog Penny’s first Christmas tree, and she’s found it very alluring. Can’t wait to see what happens when it’s covered with ornaments!

Every year when we unpack ornaments, I have stories like, “THIS is the one Hamlet and Brutus chewed up” and “Here’s the one Pete pulled off the tree…” Even tangible reminders of when they’re not perfect give us things to smile about when our dogs are gone.

Pretty Penny.

Recovered Treasure

The other day I was looking for something in the garage. The only thing that scares me more is Tim’s walk-in-closet. That isn’t Tim’s fault. I’m scared of that thing even when it’s empty–for no apparent reason.

I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I found lots of other stuff. A sketchbook and some Prismacolor art markers from my late friend Steve R, some sketches I did back in the eighties, and this little painting on a piece of scrap wood:

It’s something my nephew Jess painted, no doubt when his mother and I were going through a crafty phase in the early nineties. I understand why I kept it–I really like it! Now it’s going to hang in my office.

Christmases Past, No. 1: A Horse With No Name

I’ve been digging around in the vast photo archives and thinking about Christmases past. I told Tim the other day that I’ve now reached that point in my life when I’d be inclined to sit on the front porch and ramble on about the past, except we have only two months of the year in Houston when the weather, mosquitoes, and palmetto bugs cooperate. Plus I can’t coerce the dogs to sit still and listen to me.

So maybe I should change the name of this journal to An Aries’ Rocking Chair.

I’ve never made it a secret that I adore all of my nephews and nieces, and the firstborn of these was Daniel. I was thrilled by his birth one November until I figured out at Christmas that he knocked me right out of the family baby slot and sucked up a sickeningly large number of presents. Still, he was pretty cool, and it was his age two Christmas when we had a true meeting of the minds.

He woke up that morning to find this:

And so began the family effort to offer horse names for his consideration. My sister is the horse person in our family, and I’m sure she gave him lots of appropriate suggestions. None of them stuck.