>>> Item number 7007 from WRITERS LOG9212C --- (165 records) ----- <<< Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 10:35:48 JST Reply-To: WRITERS Sender: WRITERS From: Mike Barker Subject: SUB: A Country Tale a quick reminiscence. any clues as to the right way to write "Gran'ma"? Comments, anyone? I'd especially like to know how to end it - I'm not pleased with the current ending. [BTW - this is a fairly accurate sketch of what I remember from that visit, although I may have mixed in some pieces of other visits inadvertently - i.e., this is "real life", not fiction.] A Country Tale uncopyright m. barker 1992 1695 words The night that Gran'ma became a radical was a Saturday. Friday night after work, Dad drove us from Washington, D.C., over into the heart of Ohio, arriving in Essex late that night. Gran'ma was waiting, and welcomed us all with three kinds of pie and hot coffee, served around the kitchen table after Dad and I put the leaves in so it was big enough for everyone. Then she bustled us into beds, my parents in the back room, my sisters on the sofa-bed unfolded before we got there, and me on the roll-away beside the table. When we woke up, she had a farm breakfast ready for us. Hot biscuits, ham, bacon, eggs, everything served hot from the range in the kitchen without a pause. Then we walked around town a little while she cleaned up, saying hi to people in the ten houses that make up Essex, visiting briefly with the young couple that bought the general store from Gran'pa and Gran'ma, looking at the truck garden behind the house, and enjoying the crisp air quietly stirring across the farms all around. It never takes long to walk around Essex. When we got back, Gran'ma insisted we have a little snack before helping her with a few chores. Just a sliver of pie left for each of us, she insisted as she set wide slabs on saucers before us and filled coffee cups. Somehow, we forced ourselves, and sat back, replete. Then she explained that this year, she and Gran'pa hadn't felt up to changing the screens for the winter. Oh, and there's something blocking the drain on one side of the house, and she wouldn't let Gran'pa climb the ladder to look at it by himself. So now that we've had our snack, maybe we could look at it. So we three men laughed and went outside. Taking down the screens was easy, but the plastic from last year was rotten, so we had to go in to Richwood and buy new plastic before we could finish. Dad scrambled up a ladder while I held it and Gran'pa pointed out where the water jumped out of the drain when it rained. Sure enough, there was a branch, with matted leaves, stuck in the drain. When Dad pulled it out and dropped the black mess down to me, we listened to the gurgling whoosh as back-upped water poured down and laid a deposit of tarry grit in Gran'pa's carefully cleaned concrete rain gutters. Gran'pa laughed and got the broom he used in the toolshed, along with some old newspapers, and we cleaned up both the branch and his rain gutters. When we got back in and washed up, Gran'ma had dinner ready. Other folks might call it lunch, but Gran'ma always had dinner at noon for hard-working boys. Gran'pa stirred three spoonfuls of sugar into his iced tea, as he had done as long as I can remember. We held hands and prayed together, then Gran'ma bounced up and brought platter after platter to the table. Country-fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, fresh biscuits, and more. And somehow we coped with the generous helpings Gran'ma heaped on our plates. After lunch, everyone got in Gran'pa's old black DeSoto. He drove with verve, and Dad pointed out various farms along the way, asking whatever happened to the families that lived here and there. Many were still living there, although a few had moved or been sold. In Richwood, we stopped into the hardware store and looked around while the clerk finished talking to the people who were there first. Then he got a great big smile and walked over, hand extended. "Bob Barker! It's been a long time, hasn't it?" Dad shook hands, grinning. And we all got introduced again, although I could swear I'd been introduced to this clerk at least once a year since I can remember. And he still calls me Bobbie, just like almost everyone in Richwood and Essex. As far as they're concerned, "this must be Bob, Junior." After a while, Gran'pa and I picked out the plastic we needed and brought it up to the counter. Dad and the clerk were still exchanging memories, gossip, and chuckles, but wrapped it up fairly quickly. The clerk glanced at the plastic and commented that it was late to be changing the screens. Gran'pa said he saved it for us to do. "City folk need to do a little work now and then, you know." We all chuckled, and left in a flurry of smiles, waving hands. Gran'pa offered to treat us at the soda fountain in the five and dime, but we waved him down, rubbing tummies that were packed from more food in one morning than we'd normally eat all day. So we piled back into the DeSoto and went back out to the house. The men started to put up plastic, covering the porch first, then working our way back around the house. The minister from the church stopped by, briefly, driving from the church out to visit. He was pleased to see us, and we all stopped working for a few minutes to walk to the car and say hello. The eight windows and three doors of the frame house were quickly covered with winter plastic. We stepped back inside, and Gran'ma wiped her hands on the apron covering her cotton print dress. Then she shooed us into the bathroom, telling us to wash up, she'd have fresh pie and icecream in just a minute. For a brief moment she reminded me of my grandmother who had lived in that same house and shooed us out to the pump beside the kitchen door to wash up before eating in much the same way. After that snack, we sat down, the stove in the corner pouring out a warm blast, and "let our vittles settle." Gran'ma read the Richwood Gazette, carefully scanning each of the ten pages. Gran'pa quickly nodded off, his mouth open, his snores unmuffled and loud. Soon we all joined him, a family chorus that perhaps Gran'ma enjoyed as she rocked. Supper was fried chicken, with double-baked potatoes, corn on the cob, watermelon pickles, cornbread, and pecan pie, with some left-over slivers of the pies we've had earlier. Just a light supper, since we'd been napping. It would be years before I would figure out that Gran'ma served mashed potatoes at dinner, then packed the leftover potatoes back into the carefully saved skins to make double-baked potatoes for supper. Afterwards, Gran'pa settled into his lounging chair and tipped it back, the little footrest popping out. He lit his pipe and watched T.V. briefly before nodding off again. I picked up one of Gran'ma's Reader's Digests and leafed idly through it for a while. My sisters squabbled for a few minutes about what to watch, then settled down, one on each side of my mother. Gran'ma stepped out of the kitchen, drying her hands. She looked around, then said "Bob? Mike? If you've got a few minutes, I'd like to talk to you both." We looked at each other, then at her. Her white hair was a halo of brightness with the light behind her in the kitchen, and she had taken off her apron. She waved her hand at the kitchen table, so we get up and moved in there. She sat down and folded her hands, looking at them for a moment. Then she looked at Dad. "Bob, can you tell me just what this Anita Bryant is fussing about?" Oh, oh. This was when the queen of orange juice endeared herself to the U.S. public by coming out strongly against homosexuals. I was suddenly very, very glad that she'd asked him to explain, not me. I decided that I would have to keep a straight face while he explained homosexual sex to his mother, although I expected it to be amusing watching Dad bring up Gran'ma. He shifted a little in his seat, then started in. "Well, Mom, you.. you know that most men are happy with women. That is, most men love women. But, you see, Mom, some men just aren't.. no, that's not right.. some men find that they would rather spend their time with.. maybe Mike ought to explain this." My own father turned to me, and I just stared at him. Somewhere inside I think I was screaming "Coward!", but mostly I just didn't want to be there. And then Gran'ma said it. "Wait a minute. I know that some men love other men. Why, do you remember John Carey and Phil Winslow? They bought the Cooper place out west of here some years ago. Mike, you wouldn't remember them, of course, but your dad should. We all knew they were lovers, but they worked hard and were good, friendly folks, a part of this community." We both had turned toward her. Behind her I could see the framed copy saying "God, grant me the strength to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference." But in her face, I was surprised to see that my country Gran'ma was angry. "Now I want to know what right someone from Florida has stirring up folks against good people like John and Phil. What they do in their own farm is their business, and I don't understand all the fuss." I think Dad laughed first, but I'm not sure. Then he took a deep breath and said "I don't understand it either, Mom." That's the night that I learned my Gran'ma was a radical. A church-going, Reader's Digest reading, country woman who thought for herself. God bless her. -- The End --