A Two-Seater Outhouse

 

I hope for nothing, I fear nothing - I am free

 

Life is the dream from which we wake to the reality of death.

 

Summers with my maternal grandmother are some of my most treasured memories: corn fields, rabbit hutch, well water, coal heater and pickles.

 

She lived in the country in a long house covered with roofing shingles that looked like red brick, with a crawl space that set the house up on cinder blocks. Overhanging the road was a large mulberry tree, and a sour apple tree grew beside the dirt driveway.

 

So many wonderful memories retained all these years later, play like a picture album across my mind. There was the red checkered tablecloth with condiments in the center, her bed that sagged in the middle and the black cat under the coal burning, cast iron heater. This all-too-brief time in my life leaves me with wonderful food for peaceful daydreams.

 

> Her well water was a favorite drink of mine and I remember her saving enough at night for priming the pump, next morning, in the winter to get it started.

 

> There was a two-seater outhouse that I never did understand. I cannot imagine sitting in passing conversation with a fellow traveler. Under the eaves of the outhouse was a wasp nest that always gave me cause for concern. I remember my youngest uncle's rabbit hutch and the glorious cornfield that she hoed every morning at 5 a.m. in her straw sunbonnet. I was always excited to help.

 

> Inside the house, the kitchen held the galvanized metal water bucket with the rusty enamel ladle everyone shared for a quick sip. There were two cast iron heating stoves, one in the eating area, the other in the living room at the other end of the house. This one served to heat the two upstairs bedrooms in the winter because heat rises. In between was her bedroom and a makeshift pantry with a curtain that hid the shelves of canned goods.

 

Aunt, Grandmother, Mother

 

> The two bedrooms upstairs had beds heaped with blankets in the winter. One bedroom was occupied by my mother's youngest brother with the other generally reserved for visiting grandchildren. Behind the heater in the eating area was a fourth bedroom reserved for one of my older cousins who stayed more with grandmother than her own mother. In a small mud room off the back of the kitchen was the bucket used when it was not convenient to trek off to the outhouse. That was one cold metal bucket that left a ring around your butt if you sat on it. And, you better sit down squarely if you didn't want an overturned bucket.

 

> Grandmother had been an only child and wanted a large family. She lost three children at birth, two were twins. Nine babies survived that she and Grandfather raised through the Great Depression.

 

> I loved visiting. One summer, Mother called to ask if she would get to see me before school school resumed. "Are you ever coming home?" Every opportunity to visit Grandmother was accepted with great enthusiasm. Her country residence was always an adventure of monumental proportions. Every bit of it was adventure to this city girl and Grandmother was in her element with grandchildren around.

 

To be continued  . . . . . 

* This autobiography begins with "An Ordinary Childhood" posted Dec. 30, 2024

P.S. About Mother

 Not perfect:

She was not perfect and didn't pretend to be. She loved the night life and dancing and I saw her drunk more than once. "Cold milk" she would demand on a morning after. She was a champion at nagging. Even though she had a tough shell, there was that tender heart that got her taken advantage of many times.  

The nagging made me crazy! She was a very clean house keeper. Working long hours meant this chore fell to the oldest girl - me. A few quotes I remember fondly: "You call that dusting?", "I work seven days a week to put food on the table and you won't even run the vacuum." "Just look at the mess in that room. How can you stand it?" (In defense of myself, it was dusted and the bed was made. She had fits over clothes left draped over a chair.) Here is one everybody thinks was so cruel: "I don't have to take this. Your father left and so can I. What would you do then? You're gonna wake up one morning and I just won't be here." I remember waking and tip toeing to her bedroom door to see that she was in her bed. There were times that I thought, "Beat me; just shut up and beat me." But all this nagging got the job done.

 

STORY: In prior text I stated how she only had to shame me but I remember the two "floggings" I did get. I was about eight years old the first time. She had gone off to grocery for bi monthly shopping. Grandfather was taking a nap. May brother and I were in the cellar where laundry was hanging to dry. We were there with a coffee can and matches. My sister wanted to "play" too. We told her she was "too young". We had our little "bon fire" in the coffee can and fled upstairs when we heard Mother coming home. The "baby" was mad at my brother and me for not letting her "play" so she tattled on us. We were sat down on the sofa for the nagging lecture as Mother was boiling out of control from fear of what could have happened. Since I was oldest, I always had main responsibility for everything. When she could not control herself any longer, "Get up to your room, I can't stand looking at you." As I hung my head in shame and passed her, she lit into me like a flock of birds; slapping and scratching with those tallon-like nails of hers. It was fear for our safety that brought this out in her. Next time, I was about ten years old. My sister and I were arguing, she called me a bad word and turned her back to run. I lashed out and caught her in the middle of the back with the bottom of my palm. She began gasping for breath and turning an unnatural color, as I just stood there with my mouth open in shock. Mother came around the corner "What the h___ is going on?" (Oh yeah, Mother could swear, too.) "She called ma a b____." (Kids swear when no one is listening.) She took one look at my sister and let loose that flock of birds all the way to the stairway as I ascended to my room.

 

 I love remembering these stories. Mother was human and didn't pretend otherwise. The only apologies I remember was during the time of depressed confusion brought on by menopause. She did not apologize to her children. 

 

 

 

Grandfather used to say, "She lets her heart rule her head." She took in stray kids that my brother and sister would bring home. She got them jobs and gave them a place to sleep. Sometimes it worked out and sometimes she had to turn them out again for stealing or lying. She always had a soft spot for our father. My step-mother had the means to go across state lines and get him to court for back child support. The court ruled he had to pay for his first family first. He came to Mother with papers and asked her to sign them relieving him of any back or future support for his three children. She put the proposal to us, "He hasn't ever given us any support and we manage. He surely can't pay if they put him in jail" was her reasoning and we agreed. She signed the papers. I believe a large part of her decision was because of the love for him she never got over. You can't choose who your heart will love.

 

When I was around forty years old, I was living in a small house behind Mother's. She would knock on my door almost daily telling me I needed a break from my drawing board. We would go for ice cream and coffee or sit in her wooded backyard and watch her pet rabbit forage through the clover. On one mild summer afternoon we were sitting with a cold beer and girl talk. Out of the blue, came the story of rape. Many years prior, she had been on a date, drugged and raped. I had a baby brother somewhere that had secretly been put up for adoption at his birth. Oh God, my poor dear mother ! ! ! What a horrific thing for a woman to go through and keep secret all these years. Grandfather had helped her hide it from us kids and Dad's mother with lies. Mother loved her children, hated lies and had some strong moral beliefs. "I couldn't afford another kid. It was all I could do to take care of the three I had." I totally understand and loved her more.

 

To be continued . . .

Mother Knew Her "Heathens"

 and she loved them.

The first time my mother said, "I love you", I was twenty-six years old. She didn't have to say it. I knew it; we all did. She knew each of her children as individuals. That is exactly how she related to us. She used her understanding of us to discipline and mold us into adults. I can recall very few instances of physical affection. Mother never hugged us in our childhood. At least, not after she became a single mom, on her own, and began long work hours.

 

 I don't remember her ever physically disciplining my sister - "the baby". Mom seemed more protective of her. My sister has always been super sensitive with a big heart and eventually developed that hard shell of defense against a mean world. As she got older, Mother took the role of friend and advisor. Karen lived with Mother well into her twenties, when Mother remarried and Karen shared an apartment with a girlfriend. Their relationship always seemed more like roommates with long morning talks over coffee. I was always a little jealous.

 

 She proudly referred to my brother as "My Son". I remember a hairbrush, yardstick, ping-pong paddle and countless other objects, on separate occasions, that broke when she tried spanking him, which left him in mocking laughter. We all thought he was protected by the greatest of guardian angels. Mom often said how he reminded her of our father. My brother was always up to something, a big tease with a grin that said, "I am the cat and, yes, I swallowed the parakeet - So?". Always curious and fun loving, Jerry cheated at games and tormented his sisters relentlessly. We loved him completely.

 

 

 

With me, she only had to say she was disappointed. I would slink out of sight in shame and embarrassment for days, then try harder than ever to be what she wanted. I lived to see her proud of me. She has been gone from this life for around 20 years and I still ask myself daily, "What would Mother approve of?". She haunts my life in the best possible way. As I have grown in faith, I have come to relate to God in much the same way, what does He want of me?

 

Mother demanded respect, bragged on us every chance she got and never ridiculed.

 

I don't believe she ever gave a thought to our American Indian heritage. We grew up "white", in a white culture, in a white collar, Midwestern city of one million people (at that time). Her mother is the one who told me of her heritage and many years later my curiosity led me to research.

 

A workaholic, she instilled in her children the proud desire to make our own way and ask for nothing. To her credit, she never degraded our father for his lack of support. "We don't need his help; we are just fine on our own", was her standard comment.

 

It wasn't until I was in my early thirties that I noticed she read the Bible. It kept moving from her easy chair to her bed table. She always remarked about "a mother's prayers" and told us we should decide for ourselves, in our own time, what road we would take.

 

STORY: When I was too young to remember, a priest came to our home. (Remember my father's mother was Catholic.) My father never went to church and I suspect Grandmother was behind the visit from the priest. Mother welcomed him in and offered coffee. The priest was visiting to explain that since our father was Catholic, his children would be raised Catholic. Ooooh! He had no idea of the mother he was talking to. She insisted he leave immediately and not return. She "explained" that her children would be making that choice for themselves.

To be continued . . . .