Nicknames

Terry, with Duck, Chicken and Goose


* * *

Southerners have a penchant for nicknames. Much more than anywhere else in the country, I think. When I was growing up in Carlisle County, Kentucky, it seems everybody and his brother had a one. Classmate James Earl was "Fuzzy," Roy Wayne was "Kayo," Glyn was "Mousey," James was "Peanut," Edward was "Bubba," Luke was "Lab." And would you believe "Catfish" had a son nicknamed "Minnow?"

I became obsessed with the subject, so I started a list. But the list kept getting longer. Then I suddenly remembered I once had a nickname. Terry called me "Goose." Pitty Pat was "Duck," and Mary Ellen was "Chicken." (By the time the above photo was taken, he had quit calling us those fowl names, thank goodness!)

I have a confession to make. I've nicknamed a few people through the years. But I didn't think about that until I was well into the list. I guess we Southerners just can't help ourselves!

I decided to do a post on the subject. But after the post was up, I kept thinking of more, so I took it down, added more, and submitted it to a literary magazine.

Nicknames is on the website of Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal. I hope you enjoy reading it much as I enjoyed writing it.

Happy Birthday, Mother!

She has the heart

that cares so completely.

She has the hands

that do things so sweetly.

She has the wisdom

that families treasure.

She has the love

that brings joy beyond measure.

Merry Christmas, Dear Friends

I heard the bells on Christmas Day,
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet, the words repeat,
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow~

Thank you, Frank.

Frank H. Chambers

(Photo: The Journal Star)

* * *

Sixty-five years ago, on December 16, 1944, one of the greatest battles in American history began: The Battle of the Bulge. Seven hundred thousand troops, mostly American, participated. And when it was over, on January 25, 1945, 19,000 Americans were dead, 47,500 were wounded, and 23,000 missing.

Fast-forward fifteen years: It is a cold, dark morning in 1960. I am nineteen years old and beginning my first full-time job. As I gaze at the tall, intimidating building at 43 East Ohio Street in downtown Chicago, I consider hopping on the next south-bound Greyhound and heading back to Kentucky. What's in store for me? Can I do the job? Will I mess up and be fired the first day? What will my boss be like?

As it turned out, I had two bosses: Cullen B. Sweet and Frank Chambers.

Mr. Sweet was a laughing, gregarious man with white hair. He was very kind, but I was a little uncomfortable around him, reluctant to ask questions, afraid of doing something wrong.

Frank Chambers immediately put me at ease with his open, friendly manner. He took an interest in me as a person, wanted to meet Carroll, hear all about my family in Kentucky. When I needed help, he told me what I needed to know, how to do it. When I was ready to throw up my hands in despair, he appeared and made things right.

"You're doing a great job, Brenda," he often said, "This letter is perfect!"

"I'm glad you changed the wording in this report, Brenda. It reads much better!"

He took Carroll and me under his wing, invited us into his home; he and wife Doris treated us like family. (I will never forget what fun we had one Saturday night playing cards, their two little ones, Margie and Johnny, giggling and playing nearby.) After we relocated with the company to Bloomington, Illinois, we often dined out together, went to their home for cook-outs.

In the mid-seventies, Frank took a position with the Nebraska Farm Bureau Federation and he and Doris relocated to Lincoln. A few years later, Carroll and I parted ways and Suzanne and I moved home to Kentucky.

After exchanging Christmas cards and letters every now and then, we lost touch. But I'm happy to say Frank and I recently reconnected and are corresponding frequently, catching up on each other's lives, reminiscing about days gone by. He is 86 years old now and still going strong. He has changed little in the thirty years since I last saw him.

I knew Frank had served in the Army in World War II, but I had no idea he had participated in The Battle of the Bulge. He kept a journal during the war and his younger brother saved all of the letters Frank had written him while he was overseas. He recorded his experiences on DVD and sent me a copy; he also sent me this story, which made the front page of the Lincoln Journal Star on December 16th.

Thank you, Frank, for your service to our country. And thank you for being such a good friend to me.

Life

Life is a process of becoming,

A combination of states we have to go through.

Where people fail is they wish to elect a state and remain in it.

This is a kind of death.

~Anais Nin~

A Peaked-Looking Housecat

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. There's nothing I enjoy more than getting together with family and friends, enjoying a big meal, visiting, reminiscing.

When I was growing up, we usually had Thanksgiving dinner at our house. The house was bursting at the seams, with various people in attendance from year to year, but Maw Maw Wilson and Maw Maw and Paw Paw George were always there.

Mother cooked a big turkey, made cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes & giblet gravy, corn, cherry pies. Maw Maw George brought sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows, green beans simmered for hours with fatback, pumpkin pies, a three-layer cake, (oftentimes jam). Maw Maw Wilson brought roast pork (so tender you could cut it with a fork), turnip greens, and apple pies, the likes of which I have never tasted since.

Afterward, the men retired to the living room, lighting up their pipes and cigarettes as they settled back in their chairs for the afternoon. The kids rushed out to play, and the women stayed at the dining table, lingering over coffee and dessert.

One sunny Thanksgiving day, when I was about nine, my brothers and sisters were playing baseball. I didn't want to play. I was no good at it anyway. So I stayed inside, skulking here and there, evesdropping on the adults.

There was nothing much happening in the living room; the men were talking about farming and politics. The women talked about politics, too, and they reminisced. But my ears really perked up when I heard more interesting tidbits: Geraldine had a spell last night. It was a bad one, Toy said. Node Morgan's wife ran off and left her kids. Poor Miss Eda had one of her nerve attacks in church last Sunday. She's not doing any good.

"What's a nerve attack?" I said, "Where did Node Morgan's wife run off to?"

"Brenda, what are you doing in here?" Mother said, "Go on outside and play with the other kids."

"You need to get out there in the sunshine," Maw Maw George said, "You look kind of peaked."

Peaked?

I rushed to my bedroom and gazed in the mirror, searching my face. Was it serious? Did I look sick? Outside, I could hear the smack of the bat and my brothers and sisters cheering.

"Come on, Brenda," Terry called through the window, "We need another player!"

"I told you I don't want to play!"

And then I thought about my peakedness. Maybe baseball would help.

I rushed outside, where I was soon up to bat. Terry tried to show me how to hold it, but I grabbed the bat and held it with both hands directly in front of me.

"I'll hold it however I want!" I said, "Just throw it!"

He suddenly spun around and threw the ball.

I dodged, but the it hit me on the arm. So I threw the bat down and headed toward the house.

"Where you going?" said Mary Ellen.

"The game isn't over," Pitty Pat said.

"I don't feel like playing. I'm peaked."

"You are not!" said Mary Ellen, hands on her hips, "You're just using that for an excuse!"

Pitty Pat stared at me, a thoughtful look on her face. "You don't look peaked."

"I'll tell you what she is," called Terry, "She's a housecat. A peaked-looking housecat!"

* * *

Happy Thanksgiving, dear friends. And God bless.

Memoirs

I know I have been neglecting my blog again, and I apologize to my readers. I've been working on my memoirs.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

Part I - Windy City

I was mesmerized by my co-workers at 43 East Ohio Street, who welcomed me into the fold with open arms. I had grown up in a small town in Kentucky where everyone was white and Southern Baptist, girls taught to keep smiles on their faces, be nice to everyone and keep their personal lives to themselves. Most of the Chicago girls were Catholic, a religion that was unacceptable down home. Or at least in our little community, where backwoods preachers ruled with threats of eternal agony in the lake of fire to those who questioned their doctrine.

The girls knew nothing about keeping their personal lives to themselves; they didn’t care what they said or how someone took what they said. Most of them smoked and drank and were fond of saying, “Oh, my Gawd!” in response to just about everything. They were kind and caring. And they were not hypocrites. I began to rethink my religious upbringing, and, for the first time in my life, question it.

Down on the fourth floor, Carroll was getting a rude awakening. Marie, his boss (whom I nicknamed "Helmet Head"), was a wild-eyed, fifty-something spinster who wore her bleached hair in a heavily sprayed pageboy. She ruled the accounting department with an iron hand, and nothing anyone did pleased her. She yelled, stomped and threw fits when everything wasn’t going to her satisfaction. Some days she went into frenzies and yelled so loud that she could be heard from one end of the fourth floor to the other.

Each day, on our way home, Carroll had another story to tell about Helmet Head. She had jumped all over him or a co-worker, yelled at someone for a mistake, or made a mistake and blamed someone else. One day she ran out of her office, glaring at Carroll and others in the department. They hadn’t done anything wrong, so she reared back and kicked the file cabinet. She blamed them all when she broke her big toe.

* * *

Since Carroll and I had no money, we were short in the clothing department. I had three outfits, a blue shirtwaist dress and a two-piece floral green dress with a peplum and straight skirt. They were seconds; I bought them at a factory in Southern Illinois for three dollars each. The third was a beige sheath wool dress with a short matching jacket, the neckline trimmed in fur, which I splurged on when we went to a company banquet at the Edgewater Beach Hotel. I rotated the outfits that whole winter.

Carroll owned two used suits, a black one, the trousers of which were long enough for a six-foot man (he was five feet, four inches tall). When they were altered for him they just cut off the legs, and if he raised his leg you could see his Fruit of the Looms. He called them his “Knee Straddlers.”

“Looks like it’s the Knee-Straddlers today," he'd say, pulling on the wide-legged trousers, or “Can’t decide what to wear today; oh, I think I’ll wear my ‘Panama Suit!’”

The Panama Suit was a very light gray flannel, almost white, which reminded me of Humphrey Bogart's attire in “Casablanca.” His wool topcoat, given to him by a tall friend in Southern Illinois, sported tiny blue checks on a cream background, and it fell to his ankles.

“We should have it shortened,” I said.

“Keeps my legs warm," said Carroll.