Best Friends

I spend a lot of time with my two grandsons. We’re building memories.

Ever since seven-year-old Gabe was born, I’ve spent a night and the next day at his house. Usually, it’s Tuesday night and Wednesday. Sometimes the day varies, but I always see him at least once a week, unless I’m traveling.

Gabe started school two years ago, but I continue the practice. I play with his two-year-old brother, Matias, during the day and pick G. up from school. 

Amanda & Daniel, and the boys live about an hour’s drive from Ashville.  I have thought about moving closer to them. I know my daughter would love that. But I couldn’t live in a suburb again, and both boys love to visit my farm and my critters.  They enjoy helping me trim tree branches from my trails and playing with their riding toys in the driveway that circles my house. I’m 920 feet and hundreds of trees from any road, so I don’t worry about them accidentally playing in traffic.

First week of this month, Gabe finally got his wish to spend a whole week with me. We never stopped moving, often flopping into bed at midnight. I took him and his pony to Calera for his first riding lesson, took him to Chattanooga for three days of sightseeing, and came back through the lovely north Alabama town of Mentone on July 5th.

I had planned to pick up Mati that Sunday evening, but no sooner had we arrived home than his mom called saying he was driving her crazy wanting to see Gabe and Nana (pronounced NahNah). So we picked him up Saturday at our central meeting place, about a half hour drive for each of us. We headed to the Ashville square for my and Gabe's third fireworks display in two days. I had to watch from my car with windows rolled up and my hands over Mati's ears. He loves the bursts of color but he’s frightened by the loud bangs. We went to church Sunday morning, then Gabe’s Ashville friend came over Sunday evening and spent the night with us. We went to Spring Valley Water Park Monday, and all of us came home exhausted. Chalk up two more days of burning the midnight oil.

By the time their dad picked up the boys Monday night, I was worn slap-dab out. It took me two days to recover. But it was worth all the time and energy, especially when I think about something Amanda said a couple of months ago.

“I loved my grandmother, and enjoyed being with her,” she told me, referring to my own mother. “But I didn’t have the kind of relationship with her that you and Gabe share. Mom, you’re his best friend.”

I think my tractor's sexy!

     I spent several hours on my Kubota tractor last week, mowing grass in my pasture and down by my pond. I loved every sweaty minute of it.

My tractor is about 12 years old. It’s beginning to show its age, having sustained several scrapes and dents due to my driving. Sometimes I’m hell on wheels when I get on that thing. The first couple of times I tried to mow the weeds on my trails, I got off the trails trying to maneuver the cutter and became trapped in a tight space. I had to have someone come get me out. I’ve knocked the pier loose from its moorings at the pond, scraped trees, pulled up fence posts, torn fences and put a hole in the back wall of the shed where I park the tractor. 

Matias likes my tractor, too.

My most recent escapade was last week. I had the tractor down by the pond when the mail carrier came by. So I put my mail in my bucket and drove back up the hill, intending to put the mail on my porch. I’m easily distracted, though. So along the way I decided to push some dead tree branches off the trail through my front “yard,” the latter being  a euphemism for the scruffy area in front of my house. I noticed something whitish in the pile. 

“Hmm,” I thought to myself. “Maybe I’ve discovered where Maggie buried my butter dish.” It wasn’t until I got off the tractor and reached into the bucket to retrieve my mail that I realized I had dumped it out and pushed it into the pile of dead branches.      The “whitish” item was the box containing two copies of the photo book of my trip to Spain. I spent 26 hours and $40 each (plus shipping) making those darned books.  Now the back of each one is broken.

When I was shopping for a tractor, the late Charles Fouts of Fouts Tractor here in Ashville came out and looked at my property. He recommended a package that included a 32-hp tractor with hydrostatic transmission, rotary cutter, box blade and front-end loader or bucket, as I call it. I told him I didn’t think I needed the bucket. He replied, “Elaine, you’ll use that more than any other implement.” And he was so right. 

It comes in handy for mucking horse stalls, unloading heavy stuff from my pickup and cleaning out gutters, if the person helping me clean doesn’t mind being hoisted eight feet into the air. I sold the box blade last week, and we used the bucket to lift it out of the barn and onto the buyer’s flatbed trailer. It’s great for pushing dead limbs into a pile or carrying them to another part of the woods. Ditto for rocks I pick up in the pasture.

But the best use so far was getting my left front wheel out of a hole I encountered in my pasture a couple of years ago. I simply pushed down with the bucket, which lifted the tractor enough for me to roll out of the hole. When I got off the tractor and examined the spot that had trapped me, I discovered it was a sink hole several feet and two levels deep. I  filled it with rocks, an old tire, bent wire that was lying around, and a bucket full of loose gravel leftover from a previous project.

“Sexy” may not be the best word to describe my tractor, but it sure gives me lots of cheap thrills.

Snakes Alive!

Phillip displays velvet-tip rattlesnake.

Living in the middle of the woods, you’re bound to encounter a few snakes. Yet I’ve seen surprisingly few in the 13 years I’ve been here. When I do come across one, my inclination is to leave it alone. Live and let live, so to speak. 

However, when Phillip B., a former tenant, and I discovered a velvet tail rattler under a tarp near my shed a couple of years ago, I decided he was too close to where the grandsons would be playing. So I asked Phillip to put him out of my (sic) misery.  Same thing with the nest of copperheads he found in my pond last year while cleaning out the cattails. 

The other morning as I was headed to the barn to feed my critters, I encountered what a first glance told me was a harmless black racer stretched out on a step in my retaining wall. He was as long as the step was wide, but not particularly large or menacing. “Hello there, fella,” I  addressed him, hoping he was the friendly sort. He didn’t answer back, at least not at first.

Poppa and Momma Copperheads found in my pond.
They had five babies in their cattail nest.

Then I noticed he wasn’t black all over, but had a yellow and black underbelly. The next thing that caught my attention was his tail, because he began to shake it at me.  Later, I discovered that many snakes try to mimic the sound of a rattlesnake to scare their enemies. At the time, all I could think of was a rattlesnake. I calmly turned around and walked back to the house for my camera and my George stick, which is what my former tenant, a Cherokee Indian, called the walking stick he used to traverse my trails. “George” was his euphemism for “snake.” But by the time I got back to my steps, George was gone. 

I guess he just didn’t feel like having his photo blasted all over the internet.

I'm My Own Grandpa

In 1947, a hillbilly duo named Lonzo & Oscar recorded a whimsical song entitled, "I'm My Own Grandpa." The convoluted story, which was later recorded by Ray Stevens and Willie Nelson, began when a man of 23 married a widow with a grown daughter. The daughter married the man's father. They had a child, who would be both the man's grandson and brother at the same time. You have to drop the “step” before most of the relationships, but the song does demonstrate how it is humanly possible to become one's own grandfather.

Paw-Paw (B.E. Edwards) 1984

I didn't have to go through all of that to realize that I'm becoming my grandfather. All I had to do was open a drawer in my kitchen and discover a trove of twisty ties.

Paw-Paw was my mother's daddy, and he lived to be 90. When he died in 1987, mom and I had to go through his possessions and clean out his house. It was in a kitchen drawer that I discovered his collection of twisty ties. Most folks are familiar with these little plastic, bendable "strings" that often come on bread wrappers. You can also buy them in rolls, although the only places I've ever found them are at garage sales and flea markets. They come in handy to close potato chip bags and bind lengthy cords on electric appliances, such as hand mixers, too. I rarely throw one away, but recycle it for another use. 

My grandfather had a drawer full of those little plastic ties. It looked like there were hundreds of them. He must have saved every one he had ever found. Why, I don't know. Perhaps he thought there was going to be another world war and twisty ties would be rationed along with flour and sugar.

Recently, I lifted the plastic cutlery organizer out of a kitchen drawer to discover my own collection of twisty ties. Although it wasn't nearly as extensive in size or color as his, it  made me think of Paw-Paw, whom I adored, and it gave me a laugh. 

Some women lament that they are becoming their mothers. Leave it to me to turn into my grandfather.

Scary Tales

Gabe the Zombie at Halloween

When my seven-year-old grandson was about two years old, I started making up bedtime stories. At first, they were tales about Super Gabe, who had all the powers of a superhero. When he tied his blankie around his neck, it turned into a magic cape that enabled him to fly. I made up a couple of “lessons” stories about saying “yes, ma’m” and other Southern politenesses. I made up a story about a gentle, helpful Bigfoot creature who lived in the woods next to my property.

Soon, he tired of those stories and wanted some scary tales.  There's an old, abandoned house down the road from me that was standing upright when I moved here 13 years ago, but has gradually fallen in on itself. That became our haunted house, where all sorts of ghosties and goblins dwelled, including vampires in the cellar. Down the road from that house is a boarded-up building that used to be a general store. It became the haunted store used by all the night stalkers who bunked at the shack. A rusted-out, windowless and tireless pickup truck in a neighbor’s yard became their vehicle of choice. Each time we drove by it, Gabe would whisper, “NaNa, it’s in a different spot now. They used it last night.”

Gradually, the stories got scarier and scarier. I was warned more than once by his mom, my daughter Amanda, that some were too much for his tender years, but Gabe kept insisting they were fine. I knew I had crossed the line, however, the day I told a story about the Chuck E. Cheese balloon in his room turning into a Chucky doll that ate little boys after they had gone to bed. That scared him so bad he couldn’t sleep in his room that night. His mom had another talk with me. I backed off, but gradually fell back into the “scary” mode. I think she has finally admitted defeat, because she told my brother last summer that Gabe was just like him and his sister, who love being scared by spooky tales and horror movies. Amanda can’t stand either.

When Gabe was three or four years old, one of the children’s librarians where we attend a weekly story time pulled me aside to tell me about a humorous incident at his daycare center. She had gone there to read a book to the children. It was about owls. When she asked the children, “What sleeps during the day and comes out at night,” little Gabe threw his hand in the air and yelled, “Vampires!”

That’s my boy!

There's no place like home, even for a goat

It looks like Betsy is here to stay.

Betsy is the goat that used to belong to my next-door-neighbor, Cathy. My neighbor died last summer, and when winter came and there was no more grass in her pasture, I took in Betsy, J.J. the donkey, and Molly the aged horse. The deal was that I would look after them until Cathy’s daughter, Misty, could get a bigger place to live. Then I would send donkey and horse to Misty and keep Betsy.

J.J., Betsy and Molly 

An attempt at adopting Betsy last November failed because she wouldn’t stay here without Molly. She kept jumping the fence and going home. So for several months I kept the gates open between my pasture and Cathy’s, and all of her animals and mine roamed freely between the two. All six of them were at my barn every morning at feeding time, of course. 

It was with great relief that I took Molly and J.J. to their new home over the weekend. Misty and her husband, Phillip, have a lovely house on top of a hill about a quarter of a mile from my place. They have 30 acres that are fenced and cross-fenced. They’re working on a lean-to shelter for the animals.

When I unloaded the pair, they didn’t waste any time before sampling the lush grass in their pasture. Every now and then, though, Molly would look out over the fence and whinny. I suspect she was calling for Betsy. Donkey acted liked he had always lived on that hill.

A friend feeds for me on Sunday mornings, but after lunch Sunday I made a beeline for the barn. What a relief to find Betsy there. She has been there every day since then. I guess she considers this home now. She seems to be at loose ends, though, as if she can’t decide which horse to attach herself to. I’m sure she’ll figure it out soon enough.

Late that afternoon I got the sweetest text message from Misty. After thanking me for taking care of the animals until her family got settled in their new home, she added: “It warms my heart this first Mother’s Day without momma knowing I have her horse here, and I bet she’s smiling about it, too!”

I don’t know about Cathy, but I’m grinning from ear to ear.

Homesick

Bent over a walker, the white-haired gentleman shuffled through the door leading to the restrooms. I smiled at him as he came back into the waiting area of the auto service center. I don't think he noticed.

I should have known that kindly voice when he asked a woman across from me whether she minded him sitting beside her. When he sat down, I looked him square in the face and recognition dawned. "Harold P.," I declared, although I used his full name.

This was the man who baptized me as a 9-year-old girl, who had performed my wedding ceremony and officiated at the funeral of my dad and my maternal grandfather. We hugged for at least a full minute. I was so excited, because I hadn't seen him in 10 years. We reminisced about the time when he was pastor of my childhood church. He and his first wife were good friends of my mom and dad, and our families got together often, even after he left that church.

A funny thing happened as we chatted. The years melted away, and so did the lines in his face and the white of his hair. I was transported back to the time when any problem I encountered could be solved by crawling into my daddy's lap or calling Harold. When I first met my husband, I told my parents that he was a combination of Elbert Hobson (my dad) and Harold. And Jack really did favor Harold, with his dark, wavy hair and receding hairline.

I couldn't believe how much he had changed. The last time I saw him, his hair was still dark and wavy. He had lost a lot of weight, too, and his clothes hung loosely from his large frame. He had always battled with obesity. He explained that the walker was temporary, that his left thigh had been in a cast for several months and he had lost muscle strength. When he got it back, he felt he would be able to discard the walker. When the service man told me my car was ready, Harold and I hugged again, and I didn't want to let go. We exchanged telephone numbers and promises to stay in touch. I intend to keep that promise.

I left his presence with a sense of sadness that I find difficult to understand, much less explain. I was saddened by how old he looked, how fragile, and by the realization that my parents would look like that were they still alive. They were two or three years older than he was. I was saddened by the fact that I hadn't kept in touch with this man who had been such a strong influence on my formative years. I didn't know his second wife had died four years ago. He's 82, so on the way home, I wondered whether anyone would know to inform me when he died.

I wanted to call someone and say, "Guess who I ran into today?" And that's when the sadness nearly overwhelmed me, because there was no one to call. Mom and Dad are dead. My husband is dead. My brother wasn't close to Harold, and my children barely know him. I was overcome with a strong sense of nostalgia. You might even say I felt homesick. What is nostalgia, anyway, but a form of homesickness? Seeing Harold and not being able to tell someone who knew him or who would care made me miss my mom and dad, my husband, my grandparents, even the aunts and uncles who were once such a big part of my life and who I thought would never die. It made me feel so mortal and so alone.

Ever since our chance meeting, a gospel song written by Dottie Rambo keeps playing in my head. "See the bright lights shine, it's just about home time, I can see my Father standing at the door," she wrote. "This world has been a wilderness, I'm ready for deliverance, Lord I've never been this homesick before."