Last Sunday I was driving down Boyds Creek & I saw these two old ladies out in the yard. One was pointing to a particular plant in her flowerbed, and the other was peering at it & nodding sagely. They wore polyester pant suits, it looked like to me, with their hair sets & big-enough-to-notice-but-not-big-enough-to-be-tacky necklaces. I slowed, and resisted the urge to stop & watch them, or better yet, join them. They reminded me SO MUCH of my great-grandmother, my Mamaw. I was fortunate enough to have her next door until I was in high school. She loved her flowers. There were several flowerbeds surrounding her home, taking up most of the yard. She had a huge sage patch, and she grew dill, and tended the biggest aloe plant I have ever seen (For those of you that have seen mine, think x3). She also had this magnificent Christmas cactus that blossomed so hot pink it didn’t look real. Anyway, any time she had company, that was part of the ritual: touring the gardens. No matter how many times you’d previously visited, or how recently, you still had to observe the growth of her “cannies” (gigantic leafy red plants with enormous stalks I always thought were hideous), her prizewinning elephant ears that I could hide behind until I was ten, her millions of tulips, the weeping peach tree she was so proud of…the list goes on & on. The inspection could last an hour or more. She had cherry trees, a crabapple tree, shamrocks, a rosebush that served as the border for the vegetable garden (the front field where I rode my horses in later years), and some weird pampas grass stuff we never did really figure out what it was. Anyway, the irises are blooming in profusion now & remind me so much of her. I always wanted so badly, in my childish way, to pick them all & put them in a vase to enjoy inside. She always gently reminded me they best thrived outdoors and we could enjoy them longer out there. She would make me a banana milkshake & let me watch whatever I wanted on her TV. She was a feisty old lady, never failing to speak her mind. She traveled to Hawaii once, bringing back a pallet of pineapples & muu-muus for us all. Plus hundreds of strands of silk-wrapped beads. She adored Hawaii with all their exotic flowers. Her favorite song was “The Battle of New Orleans”. She always had a passel of cats, all outside, and all underfoot. She had a white Persian inside for awhile that would sit on her lap after she bathed it to be dried with a blow dryer. That was the only cat that would not tolerate me for any amount of time.
Spring makes me think of Mamaw, and smile.
I could not have been more wrong.
I bit into what I thought was a delightfully sweet red pepper….and immediately my eyeballs began to sweat. I thought, well, I can fix this by eating a bite of mozza…rella & tried repeatedly stabbing it with my plastic fork. It refused to be impaled. Desperate now, I pick it up with my fingers & popped it in my mouth.
It was a plump clove of garlic.
Gary is watching all of this transpire from two feet away with a mild expression, much like a cow chewing its cud from the safety of its pasture while the farmer is electrocuted by their fence. I had no water because who needs water with mozzarella salad? I dash to the fridge in the small engine department. Luckily, I had both water & mountain dew stockpiled. I gulped at both as soon as I got the lids off. Shooooweeee!!! I will be more diligent in my shopping next time.
Most women, I think, grow up dreaming of having a baby. They think about it all the time, starting with a fantasy about what their husband will look like, where they will meet & fall in love, what type of fairytale princess wedding gown they will wear & the flowers they will carry…then where they will make a home. Depending on their husband’s profession, these women may be envisioning a plush apartment in the city, or a colonial with a picket fence in the suburbs. They may even be aspiring to a grand greek revival mansion on the river. I can identify thus far. But when they start thinking about the little ones…and they’ve got the names picked out & what order they may have them, & how they’ll decorate their bedrooms…well, that’s where my dreams always ended & another one started.
As surely y’all know about my proclivity to devouring books, it should come as no surprise that I dreamed of my own library. Walls of books. Stacks & shelves towering on every available surface, too many to count. Books of all types: old, classic, leatherbound editions; mass produced paperback fiction; history books; college textbooks; journals; coffee table photographic books, you name it. I wanted them ALL. I wanted a red wall, & a warm rug, & a leather chair. I wanted a Tiffany lamp & a box of kleenex when emotions were running high. I wanted a cozy blanket & a candle to burn.
And guess what?
I got it.
I’ve had such a room since I cleaned out the spare bedroom about four years ago & pulled up the carpet to reveal the honey colored hardwood floors underneath that I bruised my knees on for two weeks. I would come home from work & pull staples & scrape at rubber carpet mat that was stuck to it from years of being covered up & walked on. I scrubbed with pine sol & brillo pads & wax to get it presentable. I grunted & groaned & strained to bring in my bookshelves, followed by my collection of books & then I bought more. I have hauled in more as the years progressed & my cases are jam packed & the shelves sag under their weight. I am proud of my library. It is like my life’s work. Laugh all you want, & I know it’s not the same as creating another human being & raising it up right, but I’m not destined for that. Here is home. And here I have sat all day, nestled in my cocoon of books & favorite possessions, & I have been content & happy. It has been quiet, no lollipops stuck in anyone’s hair, no pancakes to fix, no shoes to be tied. If this sounds lonely, I have painted it wrong. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to fix supper, or take a shower, or go to bed. I want to stay right here. I don’t get to enjoy this room nearly enough. It never fails to bring me peace. Build your happiness with what you may.
Upon returning from lunch, I retrieved from my purse all the essentials for coloring my lips back in & laid them on my desk. I had a few customers walk up, so I was waiting on them & here comes Gary. Not everyone knows Gary, so allow me to paint you a mental picture:
Bull in a china shop.
Does that do it?
Alright, so here he is, hovering. “Did that guy come in & pay for that trailer?”
“I don’t know, I just got back from dinner.”
“Well, he said he might be in today, or he might wait till next week. He ain’t pickin’ it up till one day next week anyway, here’s his title. It’s an 8×10–”
“Let’s write the item number on here, what is it?” I asked, reaching for a pen.
“Three-zero…no wait, let’s see…three-seven-zero-zero…hey! Wait a minute! What IS this?!???!” Unbeknownst to me, he had picked up my Clinique lip liner, thinking it was an ink pen.
“Gary! That’s my lip liner! Dang!”
The customers were hee-hawing & I was too. What a Gomer. Have a nice day.
I am an intact human. My body is reluctant to part with any of its apparatus. I still have my wisdom teeth, tonsils, gall bladder, & appendix. But not for long! February 20th I will be bidding farewell to my wisdom teeth. (I hope I don’t lose my smarts in the process) Naturally, I’m terrified.
Two funerals in two days is too many. It makes you think about your own mortality, that’s for sure. Rex Pitner was killed on his tractor Tuesday evening, but by all accounts he went quickly & doing what he loved. I will miss Rex. He was a big man, which if you judged by looks alone you would think he was easily riled. That was not the case. He had an easy smile & loved to kid me. I dished it right back out. I never saw him angry, which is something, because he was in the stor…e at least twice a week (& despite our best efforts, we typically end up eventually ticking you off one way or another). He never ever ever had an ink pen & always wrote a check. I didn’t mind loaning him my pick-of-the-litter ink pen because he never failed to give it right back. If it hadn’t been disrespectful, I’d have liked to slip one in with him tonight. Hate for him to be unprepared 
😉 Happy Trails, Mr. Pitner.
Most of you remember him as “The Mule Man” at Silver Dollar City and later, Dollywood. Somewhere, my mom has a picture of he & I together in front of the mill, me grinning like a mule eating sawbriars. Later, when I came to work at the Co-op, I was astonished when he came walking up to buy sweet feed. I hadn’t thought about him in twenty years, & thought he was long gone to heaven. He was OLD when I was little! But here he was, just acting like a normal person, shopping at th…e local feed & seed. I remember after he left, I was beside myself! I had just been in the presence of a real celebrity!!! Gary & Judy were laughing because he was just a regular mountain man to them, & unbeknownst to me, had lived right over the hill from me “in the valley” years ago (& missed it desperately, as he would tell anybody that asked).
Red, indeed, was a regular customer, I came to know soon after. I was always dazzled to wait on him & would engage him in conversation every time I had the opportunity. He worked at The Mine in Governor’s Crossing for awhile & would regale me with stories of the tourists who remembered him from their vacations in years previous, taken with their parents. And now here they were with THEIR kids, & had to have a picture with Red 🙂 I adored him and his wife, a sweet soft-spoken woman that reminded me so much of my great-grandmother. She has light grey hair that she wears in little pincurls, & printed polyester blouses, & carries a change purse. Just like my mamaw did. They knew my great-grandparents, & during one of my last chats with them we got to talking about my family. It was a nice visit. Red said, “We-ellll, we better git on outta here & letch yew git back t’werk. It was nice seein’ ya, there.” & he was gone. You can see Red at the Paul Murray gallery, or you can ask just about anyone in Sevier County for their story about him. Or any kid who went to Dollywood in the ’80s. He will be missed by many, including me. It’s never easy to lose a customer, especially one you have 30 years of memories with.
Yesterday is evidently known as “Blue Monday” due to the majority of the workforce getting back to the grind after time off from the glittery, glamorous, holidays. Also the realization of how much was spent on said holidays. However, in true procrastinator fashion, today was my Blue Monday. I finally got the last-and largest- of our Christmas trees torn down and stored. It is so depressing. The house is so drab. Johnny, to the contrary, likes it. He’s not a fan of clutter, which technically, I will concur, Christmas creates. That’s the only time of year my library is in a state of disarray. And that makes me a little crazy. Anyway, in addition to my depression over the loss of decorations, I am still puny. I have not put one little toe out into the Polar Vortex today. My book is draaaaaging. And I did not cook. That should tell you something. Pass the kleenex. *putting my blanket over my head*
