A Family Lore Story

My uncle Don was a pastor, quite a boisterous one too. When he walked in a room, his voice reverberated everywhere and commanded my attention in a good way. There was something about the way he carried himself that oozed self-assurance. He loved to be the center of attention, and I remember him as fun to be around. He was also a city boy and not wise to the country way of life.

 

My aunt Rachel, married to Uncle Don, was part of the cackling hens, a term of endearment given by my uncle Charlie to my mom’s sisters. They talked a lot. They laughed a lot. The four of them could go on for hours telling stories about each other and their loved ones. Although there are hundreds of stories, there are certain ones elevated to “family lore” status. These stories are so hilarious they never seem to lose their edge. In fact I compare the endurance of these stories to a comedian’s material. Over time the comedians work on volumes of material, trying it out on audiences and whittling their humor down until the gems remain. Such are the stories told by my mom and my aunts. We, the family, are the unsuspecting audience. And as there are new stories brought up every year around Thanksgiving, there are certain ones which make the cut year after year. No matter how often they are told, they always get a laugh.

One of the stories making the cut was told by my aunt Rachel. When she and my uncle Don were first married, they traveled from Charlotte to visit the parents in Loris, South Carolina. Now keep in mind Don is a city boy. Back then, he had no idea people still used outhouses. But alas, my Grandpa and Grandma were poor and indoor plumbing was still considered a luxury. Also since they lived in the country, there were no streetlights or even house lights to illuminate the night. Therefore darkness was indeed dark.

As my aunt Rachel tells the story, she can barely stop laughing. One night, uncle Don has the urge to go to the bathroom and cannot wait until morning. So in an induced slumber he awakes. He slips on his white-buck shoes. Uncle Don with only a t-shirt, boxers and white-buck shoes makes his way quietly through the house to the back door. Half asleep, he finds the door knob and slowly turns it, trying to keep the creaking noise to a minimum. Out he steps into the night, but the country night is so dark he cannot see anything. At this point, he makes a poor decision to opt out of going to the outhouse and instead heads over to the ditch surrounding the backside of the house. The ditch is wide and deep because my Grandpa ensures a proper ditch is dug to carry away turbulent rains.

Now this is about the time my Aunt Rachel is laughing so hard she can barely finish the story. I am sure she is picturing her husband in his t-shirt, boxers and white-buck shoes. Well, Don finds the ditch and almost falls into the black Pee Dee dirt. After he steadies himself, he prepares to relieve the urge pushing on his kidneys. As he looks up at the night sky and takes a moment to relax before the relief…all I can do is join in the erupting laughter as everyone knows the punch line about to be delivered.

You see, uncle Don did not realize there was an electric fence on the other side of the ditch.

A Green Ford Pickup Truck

12/02/10…There are many warm memories of my Grandma. I wish there were a few more of my Grandpa. He passed away when I was a senior in high school. For years he was bedridden by a stroke leaving him unable to speak or walk. My Grandma refused to place him in a nursing home and instead lovingly took care of him for six or seven years. I was only eleven or twelve when his initial stroke happened. Before the stroke, I do remember my Grandpa as a laid back personality. In contrast, my Grandma was the driving force in the family and a task master. Although my Grandpa was laid back, he was hardworking and strong as an ox, even though his small frame would suggest otherwise. Grandpa was a serious person but very tenderhearted and a God fearing man. I suppose my Grandma’s mischievous streak may have attracted him to her. Her humor and lighthearted look at life complemented his serious side.

 

Since the family business was raising tobacco, this meant life was not very easy, especially back in the 1940’s. The house they built together still stands today, although the landscape has changed. I remember when there were two barns near the house, a pig pen down a dirt road a ways, and a chicken coop. Later in life, they leased the land and I remember tobacco leaves still being grown. There were many drainage ditches around the property and my dad says Grandpa dug every one of them by hand. Now mind you, these ditches were not your normal size ditches. They were at least four foot wide by two foot deep. Every winter this was one of my Grandpa’s projects. My dad remembers the meticulous way these ditches were dug, almost as if Grandpa was a perfectionist in digging a proper ditch.

 

As far as memories, there are few. I faintly recall riding on his John Deere tractor in the fields. Although the roar of the tractor was loud, it was a great thrill to ride. I also recall him being a quiet man around family, although my mom says when he went to church just down the road, he was anything but quiet. After the church service ended around noon time, he would sometimes stand and chat with the fellows until 2:00 or so. She remembers Grandma being annoyed with this. Why? Because the rest of the family was ready to get back and eat, but they could not leave until he was ready. I suppose for a man with six kids and a wife, and working from sunup to sundown six days a week, this moment with his peers was probably much looked forward to.

 

The other thing I remember about Grandpa was his snow-white hair. Styled in a crew cut, his bristles stood at military attention. Sometimes he covered his bristles with a gray derby hat. During our visits, Grandpa usually took time to drive us in his old green Ford truck to the country store down the road. This was a cherished experience. As little kids, the ole country store seemed miles away, but in reality, the store was less than a quarter mile down the road. It’s funny as a kid how everything seemed so big and distant more so than what it really was. Corn stalks blocked the view of the store from their house which I am sure added to the misperception. Regardless, there was an adventure to be had. Usually Grandpa would make us wait for what seemed forever before he took us. In eager anticipation, we waited and waited. When the time came, Grandpa in his southern drawl made the formal invitation. We jumped up and down for joy. Our feet pattered across the tile floors and our little hands flung open the front screen door. Before Grandpa could even put on his hat, we were already camped out in the back of his pickup truck.

 

As my Grandpa started the engine, all of us joyfully anticipated the ride. As if he knew how much this meant to us, Grandpa only drive 10-15 miles an hour letting us milk the experience. As the old truck made the way down the road, we snubbed our faces directly into the wind. What a thrill! With each jerk of the stick shift, laughter erupted as we hung onto the sides of the Ford for our dear lives. What an adventure! As kid’s imaginations are prone to do, I always believed we were on some great quest. Yes, getting candy was fun, but the experience of Grandpa driving us down the road is the memory I cherish to this day.

The Pedestal Runs aFowl

12/02/10…I admit I have been blessed with a loving family so I write from this perspective. Some of you may relate. I find it interesting how as kids we put our parents and grandparents on pedestals. From a child’s eyes, they can do no wrong and if they did do some wrong, surely it was justified in some way and we are quick to forgive them. It is a rude awakening though when one day we realize they are not perfect. That day usually comes in the early pre-teen years. We realize maybe they don’t know everything and just maybe they could be wrong about some things. As we reach our teenage years, it seems we swing too much on the other side of the pendulum. Maybe this is God’s way of helping us break from the nest, I am not sure. All I know is a day comes when we realize our parents are not perfect. Yet I think we hold onto our grandparents being perfect for a longer time, probably because they may not be around us as often, so the illusion remains intact longer. However, sometimes there comes a day of reckoning.

 

For me, I realized my Grandma was no longer perfect when she cut the head off a live chicken. That’s right. It was a traumatic event in my life. Please do not laugh. The story goes like this: at age 10 or so, I remember walking with my Grandma out towards the chicken coop. She said she was going to start dinner. Me, being a city boy, meant I did not quite understand why we were going to the chicken coop when we should be going to the grocery store. My Grandma was probably 67 or so at the time. Her gait due to her age was a little slow as she and I made our way from the house to the chicken coop. She made some small talk with me as we enjoyed a wonderful moment together.

 

I remember seeing a tree stump by a ditch on the way to the coop but really thought nothing of the tree stump. Such naiveté. I can still smell the black Pee Dee dirt and hear the cackles from the hens. In fact, the cackles of the hens sounded much like the slow southern drawl my Grandma spoke. As I stood outside the coop, my Grandma proceeds to go inside the pen and as the chickens rush around, she corners one and grabs it by the neck. Oh my I think to myself. She comes back out and closes the gate. Then she makes her way over to the tree stump where I am standing. The next moment happened so quickly I am still stunned to this day.

 

Actually, I think I am trying to repress the memory. As I stand looking at Grandma, Grandma produces an axe. The chickens head is laid against the stump. Suddenly, in a stupefied manner, I begin to connect the dots. As if on cue my mouth drops in disbelief. My Grandma raises the axe and in one fell swoop, she cuts the chicken’s head off. The chicken’s body goes into convulsions and bounces around the yard doing the chicken dance (sorry couldn’t help myself). Bits of blood are flying into the air and I receive a little splatter on my face and arm. In disbelief I just stand there in shock watching this chicken body dance across the yard. Then I look over and see my sweet Grandma. I see her holding the head of the chicken.

The Kitchen Expansion

12/02/10…I suppose I am in the grieving stage of grief. My grief is because my Grandma passed away after 97 years. She was the root of our family. Every Thanksgiving family members from Oklahoma to Florida traveled to her tiny little farm in Loris, South Carolina. There is some poetic irony she passed away three days before Thanksgiving.

Dessie Caines birthed 4 daughters and 2 sons, which later in life turned into an extended family of 61 current family members. In my thoughts, I can only remember my Grandma as Grandma. My earliest memories of her are around age 10 or 12 and at the time she would have been around 67 years old. Therefore I only remember her as an old woman. I write old because she was. I only remember her with gray hair which became whiter and whiter with age. And indeed, at 67 one is usually showing one’s age. However my Grandma, in spirit, was anything but old. She had a mischievous streak about her, even into her nineties. She loved nothing more than telling a good story of mischief. However, there was a problem with her stories. She hardly ever finished them because she got so tickled. She knew the ending and was already laughing at what she knew was coming. Of course everyone around her started laughing because she was laughing. Sometimes we had no clue regarding the ending, but surely it was funny so we all erupted in laughing along with her. This is why she was a great story teller. Although I always heard the same ones over and over like a television repeat, the stories never got stale.

My Grandma was born in 1913. She died in 2010. She never got her driver’s license. She never drove a car. When she married my Grandpa, Parlett (PT) Caines, she moved into a house and lived in this same house until her death. My mom and some of her siblings were born in the front room of this house. Today the house still stands, albeit with some renovations over the years, some lovingly done by her offspring, and then there were some done by her own choosing. One funny story she told was the time she wanted to expand the kitchen. PT, my Grandpa, told her she could not take down a wall. She asked why. He said because the wall is load bearing, and if she did knock it down, the whole house might cave in. However, my Grandma did not take no for an answer. She was adamant about taking out the wall. My Grandpa argued and argued with her, but to no avail. So what does my Grandma do? Her attitude was, well I’ll show you. Once PT left the room, she proceeded to take a sledgehammer and starts demolition. However about halfway into the demo, the ceiling starts sagging under its own weight and my Grandpa, whom by now is furious, rushes back in to shore up the ceiling before the whole house caves in. At some point I am sure he said to her, I told you so. And I imagine my Grandma’s response was shrugging her shoulders and reveling in the fact there was no more wall. She had her expanded kitchen.

Grandma Caines 1913 - 2010

11/30/10…Her skin became old and her hair gray…hunched over she became. Her eyesight failed and her flexibility became taut. I wonder to myself…isn’t this a picture of a root? Because a root is not very pretty nor is it very flexible. But a root is strong and the sinews of a root are deeply embedded in the ground. In fact, out of this old root sprang forth a marvelous myrtle tree, one which many of us climbed on.

And the root stayed put all those years never learning how to drive. From it sprang forth a family with its members spreading everywhere. Year after year went by and still the root stayed put. When the myrtle branches became broke or damaged by the storms, sometimes by our own doing, the root patiently waited as our branches grew back. Every year we were reminded where home truly is. Every year we were reminded of the importance of family and the joy in living life simply.

            For there is hope for a tree,

            If it is cut down, that it will sprout again,

            And that its tender shoots will not cease.

            Though its roots may grow old in the earth;

            And its stump may die in the ground,

            Yet at the scent of water it will bud

            And bring forth branches like a plant. Job 14: 7-8

This is the prayer for our family. As our root is now in heaven, the danger of the myrtle tree being cut down is possible. However, for now our family puts this thought to the side. What we rejoice in and look forward to is the day when we see our root in all the full radiant beauty of her youth. In fact, no longer we will see her as a root…as our Mom, Grandma, or Great Grandma. Instead we will see her as a breathtaking woman reveling in the glory, and the splendor, of the marvelous light…