Tag: Beloved yet Quaint

As I have mentioned, a couple of years back, Momma and I visited the place she had been born, so many decades ago. Although things have changed, things are still the same.  It seems the people born there all have an elephant brain. They remembers the most minute details of days gone by.  This is just one of the stories I felt should be told.

It was the late, great 60’s.  Life was about wearing the shortest mini skirts, plaid bell bottoms, tie die T-shirts,  and making ♥, not war.

In the days of flower power and Woodstock, Mr. Slow-Poke, a short, quiet, gray-haired, confirmed bachelor, drove his vintage automobile at a snail’s pace.

You could see him coming, a parade of frustrated motorists behind him.  Since it was a single lane, double lined highway in most sections, no one could pass him, because of curves, bends and hills in the roads that would hide the fast approaching traffic. As Mr. Slow-Poke drew closer, you could observe the white clenched hands on the steering wheel, the top of his head barely showing over the back of the car seat, staring straight ahead as he drove from his home to the high school, or back, to pick up his spinster sister, the Teacher from H-_-L-L. Not that she encouraged him to pick her up. His driving habits embarrassed her.  However, she was very caustic and demanding and didn’t mind using his services when it suited her schedule.  Poor Mr. Slow-Poke, having the Teacher from H-_- L-L for a sister.

And let’s be truthful, a lot of the students, talked and laughed at him, behind his back, knowing they would never have that problem when they got behind the wheel of a car.  They just were not farsighted enough to see that derision of some sort would find them, and they too could expect some form of ridicule to be heaped upon them, in their lifetime.

However, long before the Neighborhood Watch was in place, some busy bodies, with time on their hands and malice in their heart, would be staring out the window, see Mr. Slow-Poke on the road, in his car, a long line of cars following him and call the police.

 

Since the police rarely ticketed the speeders, they had plenty of time to devote to this slow-moving hazard, holding up traffic.  The two officers on duty grabbed their hats and rushed out of their office, to their black and white police car, shot guns securely fastened to the dash boards.

The police would take Route 1012 and quickly meet up with Mr. Slow-Poke and signal him to pull over.  The first order of business was to get the cars trapped behind him, (like they were in a funeral procession), on their way.

After directing the traffic to move on, the police would cross the road to once again patiently ask Mr. Slow-Poke if he knew why he had been pulled over.  Did he understand that it was a safety hazard as well as against the law to drive 20 miles an hour on the highway, through the main thoroughfare?  Mr. Slow-Poke always looked earnest and perplexed.  Not too many years back he had clomped along the same road by  horse and buggy. Though he said nothing, he worried if he drove over 20 miles an hour, he might lose control of his car and have an accident, fatal to himself or even worse,  others.  Could no one understand that?  What did they expect him to do?

The police would give him a ticket, good-naturedly tell him to pick up the pace and send him on his way.

Of course there were many observers and a sharp difference of opinion whether Mr. Slow-Poke, a law-abiding soul who never hurt a fly, should be so humiliated on a regular basis.  Some people even had a theory on why the police targeted him.  It was because they could never catch the speeders.  And they had ticket targets to be met if they wanted a pay increase next year. Unfortunately for Mr. Slow-Poke, at the rate he drove, the police could overtake him so he bore the brunt, bank rolling town coffers with the payment of endless tickets (he was totally law-abiding – except for of course, driving below the speed limit).

If there is a moral to this story, it might be that it reinforced that there are always meddlesome tattle tales who will stir it up, even in Shangri–La. No one is exempt from Bad Karma.  The Police must enforce the laws of the land, whether they agree or not.

Although Mr. Slow-Poke paid the tickets, he refused to change his driving habits till the day he died.  It was called Job Security for the police.  As long as there was a Mr. Slow-Poke, the police had a job to do. And the town coffers swelled accordingly.

 

Now, I am just a Jakita doggie but from what I noticed when I was last there, the highway now has been engineered to account for its environment, weather conditions and cars going faster than the speed of sound.  Still the world needs more Mr. Slow Pokes. It gives the community at large a chance to see the spec in another’s eye, even if they are blinded by the log in their own.

That is how the Two Legged roll… the way I humbly see it!

 

As you know by now, I am the Diva Calico Gen.  I have a great appreciation for all that glitter and glow.  That is why Jakita kindly let me tell this story.  It is the truth, nothing but the truth so help me Hannah.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, (oh, you heard that one already?), Momma had very smart niece, named Lovie, with a mouth that flowed, like a river, to the vast oceans, taking everything in its path.  Lovie knew it was her cross to bear.  That is why to this date Momma says, ‘As Lovie would say, I have got to learn to keep my BIG, FAT mouth shut.’ Don’t we all?

So listen up as I show you point and case.  RIP Daddy’s sister was visiting with her son, at the same time as Lovie.  The son in question was a virtual Jack in the Box (before kids were prescribed mood stabilizers),  jumping on and off the couch, flapping his arms, crowing, throwing cushions on the floor – just creating general mayhem.  Lovie was maybe four years old.  She looked at Momma’s sister-in-law and said, ‘If I had a kid like that I would not take him anywhere.’ She told it as she saw it. Yet still she was a bit of a manipulator, she never missed a chance to strategize ways for her own will to be done.

When Lovie was 3 years old, she wanted pierced ears.

All her French cousins and girl friends had pretty little earrings but English Protestants were told that if God wanted holes in ears to stuff glittery earrings in, they would have been born that way. Lovie’s Papa was French Catholic, she was baptized at his church. She deserved pierced earrings as much as the next little French Catholic girl did, even if she was only half and half.

Well, you know parents – they have places to go, things to do. They largely ignored her pleadings.  That is why Lovie lamented daily to her grandparents, her Momma’s Mother and Father, who thought that anything Lovie wanted was what she should receive, no questions asked.  One day, after lots of Lovie’s complaining and cajoling to see if her grandparents would bite, Momma’s father came up with a sure-fire plan.

‘Just wait a second Lovie, I will go get the hammer, you go get those pierced earrings of yours that you got last Christmas….  I’ll tell Grandmama to hold you down, because I know you are going to be hollering and carrying on something fierce, then I will hammer those suckers in your ears. Done and done’ Now Lovie knew when she was being teased so she left in a huff (the Lovie-Boom-Booms) and said not another word to her grandparents about pierced ears but she indignantly told her mother about Grandpapa’s plan.

After hearing Grandpapa’s creative solution to the dilemma, it was somehow decided to set up an appointment at the one and only jewelry store in town, so as to ensure

Lovie’s nightmares of being chased by a hammer wheeling Grandpapa would cease.  A plan was made and executed to get Lovie’s ears pierced by those who actually knew how to pierce ears (without a hammer).

That is how, Lovie told us, she got those shiny, golden hoops, that wink and shine in the sun, in her ears, like all of the pretty little French girls. Ah, yes, Lovie may seem to live a charmed life but she had her battles, along with the glory.  It is a long story but there was a lot of laughter along the way.

Now, I am just a feral cat, from humble beginnings (even if I am the Diva Calico Gen). You know, (big sigh), I would love to have teeny tiny pierced earrings to go with my pink petal eyelashes and peak toe kitten sling-back-heels.  How can we achieve this? Lovie would find a way.  Any suggestions, good and faithful readers?

Email:  housekeeping@gmail.com  OR

As you can well imagine, with a father who stuffed Momma’s full of stories of the animal kingdom, she and all of her siblings would have a passion for pets.  It still is hard for them to go to a Pet Store or even worse, the SPCA and see those little critters, in pens, like jail cells, not understanding why they are captured, their eyes begging to be rescued. Still today, the family can not watch SPCA Advertisements or Reality Pet Rescues, or they sit and weep. The problem is, they have so many pets at home already, it defies logic to take in another mouth to feed, more vet bills and four more paws to clean up after. Listen to the tale of why Momma has irrefutable proof that befriending strays is part of her complicated DNA.

One day, Momma walked in to her kitchen and saw five of our six cats, sitting on the kitchen table, napping in the sunlight, (it was before my time – they would not get away with that behavior if I had been there). Suddenly, Momma remembered something from her childhood, so many years ago. She saw her present unravel as her mind traveled back to a journey in her youth.  It occurred to poor Momma, that she had turned in to her father’s old maid cousin who had more cats than, well: ‘There was an old woman who lived in the shoe, She had so many children (see cat – interchangeable), she didn’t know what to do.’

Once a year, on a summer Sunday afternoon, all of Momma’s family would pile in the car and travel down the coast to see their dear spinster cousin.  The whole way down, my Grandmother-God-Rest-Her-Clean-Soul warned, that they would not even accept a cup of tea from that woman because her house was so filthy from the flea-bitten cats that covered her every table, couch, beds or any other surface, that suited their purposes.

As the family trooped into the house, they caught the unmistakable smell that comes from male cats marking their territory.  Cousin Sally would be so happy to see them, so grateful to be actually interacting with humans, that it made them feel mean-spirited to refuse her bland refreshments. All of the children, for once sat in silence, thankfully letting the adults carry the conversation, in order to avoid breathing in the foul, stale air that permeated the house.

Momma tells me she has no idea what happened to all those cats when Cousin Sally joined the Family Circle in the Sky.  As the old folks would say, ‘Blood is thicker than Water’ and, Momma, being  like her father before her,  has never learned the ‘Just-Say-No’ when it comes to strays. The more beaten up and woe-be-gone it is, the more Momma loves it.

Who am I to stand in judgement of Momma?  Still, I keep practicing my most annoying, loud big girl woof to get the feral felines, the heck out of Jakitaville. Cats, I have noticed hate incessant barking (accept the crew that were already on-board when I made this my Forever Home – they just walk up and bat me in the face with their clawed paw, which roughly translates to ‘shut-uppa-your-face’ and I do, but not without first tattling on them to Momma.

You tell me. Has Momma been blessed or cursed with the genes of her father and her  Spinster Cousin Sally, Once-Removed?