After two days in the car we would finally arrive in Calhoun, Kentucky. Mom just called it home. I loved the moment when we pulled into the driveway. I knew Gramma would be watching out the window as anxious as I was. And then she would open the door and stand on the porch. We went to her, she didn't come to us. She would be wearing her house dress, stockings, an apron to cover the house dress and huge chunky heeled lace up black shoes. These were old lady shoes in my childhood. I assumed that when you got old, say 30, you had to wear these shoes much like I had to wear the ugliest saddle shoes on earth. Gramma's hair was always done. When she dressed up she wore powder and lipstick. Otherwise she was always naked faced.
There was no real hugging or squealing, that was not proper. We did the polite quick hug, we kids were not picked up and twirled around and around in her arms as I always envisioned. But I was thrilled to be there in what I considered a mansion and just watch her. Gramps, as he finally got to be called after Gramma died, would appear on the porch chewing on his cigar, his constant companion. I always got the impression he wanted to pick us up and twirl us around but Forrest wouldn't like that so he didn't.
By the way, I never actually called her Gramma, she was Grand Mother and Gramps was Grand Dad. I am surprised she wasn't Grand Mother Dear or Darling. Kentucky is different.
My dad called her Forstie. She hated it I could tell. She liked my dad but I believe she never thought he was good enough for Dorothy Glenn. No one was good enough for Dorothy Glenn except the hometown, high school hero, old boyfriend, Billy. I heard a lot about Billy in Calhoun but never met him. I wish I had. I would love to know the guy my mom dated in high school.
The neighbors, Miss Nan and Mr. Tom, would step out their side porch to say a quick hello and invite us to come call later. This means visit. Mom's arrival in town was news worthy. Really, it was in the paper for years DOROTHY LEACHMAN MURPHY to return home for a visit, with husband Arthur C., an engineer at Convair, with their two children, etc.
The first day in Calhoun was strictly family. Formal dinner of ham, fresh green beans and corn, home made bread and Karo pie. Karo pie is pecan pie without the pecans. We would sit on the side porch after dinner and talk. Well, I would listen, brother would read. Bedtime was early because in Calhoun you rise with the sun.
Day two we would spend the morning taking turns in the one bathroom. We had to get dressed up because people were coming to call. To see Dorothy Glenn. This was fun if it was my mom's friend, Judy. They grew up together and Judy is a hoot. She lives in Owensboro, the BIG city, but her family still was in Calhoun and her husband's in Rumsey. She smoked cigarettes but not in front of her parents or in-laws. I remember being at Judy's mother's house, playing with Judy's kids and seeing her smoking out the bathroom window. I thought that was so funny. She was an adult who was afraid to let her mother see her smoke.
Judy is also the person who gave me snapshot of what mom was actually like as a girl. From what I had heard, mother was born tragically premature, was a miracle when she survived and then she was perfect. No,Judy, mom and their friends Claire Marie and Weegee were little, spoiled brats. Cute brats but brats none the less. Judy had great stories of them stealing a horse, hitch hiking into Owensboro, breaking into the school to steal chalk. Mom almost seemed like a real girl. Judy could also tell these stories with such hilarity and unique phrases that I adored her.
Judy would talk about the boys they went out with. One of them she described as, "crazy as a june bug caught in the porch light". She was a little bawdy and talked ninety miles an hour with quite an accent. Mother never sounded like she was from Kentucky. I am sure she had that corrected out of her. Gramma was proper. Judy would say "damn", tee hee. She talked about the formal dresses for dances and where they would go, "kissin' and sayin' no" with their gentlemen callers.
You know that game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? That is Kentucky. Every one is related in the most bizarre twists and turns that you have 3rd cousins twice removed and relationships even more complicated. My mother is an only child but she had "double first cousins". I thought this meant twins at first. NO, two of my grandmother's brothers married sisters from the adjoining farm. Their off spring were double first cousins.
Old people would start showing up to call. Dressed in suits and dresses and hats. There was talk of dozens of double named people I had never heard of and the family tree description of how Johnny Lee was a cousin. He is a 4th cousin removed 7 times.
This is when I would go crazy. INSANE. Finally, brother and I could be excused. We could put on regular clothes and play. Only there was nothing to do until dark. Then we would catch jars of fire flies and be thrilled. Set them free and start again. We could have walked the few blocks to the river and looked at it. That was too far. Mother also had that thing about everything killing or maiming you. We could drown, we could be kidnapped by pirates and held for ransom. We were limited to the yard and the yard next door, The Epley's, Miss Nan and Mr. Tom.
They had a huge cauldron in their yard on a stand over a fire pit. I thought, "witch". Gramma explained the many uses of the cauldron over the years. Before they had electricity she and Miss Nan shared the cauldron to boil laundry. Hang the clothes on the line, take the clean white shirts and give them and "bluing treatment". When the laundry was dry they would sprinkle, starch and iron everything. Then the cauldron would be cleaned out and used to make burgoos and stews for church suppers. Laundry and food, a multi purpose pot for sure. They also had a chicken coop. I had never seen such a thing. It looked like a very short, long shotgun house. They built a house for chickens? No, used to be a slave house when Calhoun was part of some farm or some rich man's land. Slave house. Right there, next door to Gramma. Even as a tiny child I thought that was sad.
One day we would always go to Owensboro to see Uncle Ham and Sister and eat mutton. This was always a thrill. These are not people, they are characters. Uncle Ham. Before I met him I pictured Porky Pig in a suit.
No. He was a hilarious, sweetheart. And a funeral director.
Childhood nightmares are made of this.
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