Subjects:
air resonated with the muffled sounds of a car backfiring. I hardly
knew either of them, he or Auntie. Daddy said he did it to get away
from her. That may be. Anyway, he left a fortune. A million, Daddy
said, at a time when a new Cadillac could be had for less than four
Today a Caddy is forty grand, Auntie is polluting the soil, my hair is
silver, and I can say with neither boast nor shame, that I have not
known another human critter whom I yet despise. Sitting at this
keyboard, I cannot name another. Surely one exists, I'm not that
angelic, but I can't produce one at the moment. This is not owing to
faulty memory; something much more splendid, and no credit to me.
But Auntie wronged Mom. A wretched soul, she wronged others, too; others
whom I love. Those happenings I've dismissed. But not Mom's.
We were the poor kin, the black sheep, victims of Daddy's wanderlust.
Poverty earns you that status when the others have money. And now an
injury prevented Daddy working, so Mom accepted the role of breadwin
. . .
with the same grace and humor that she accepted all of life. Tonight's beans and potatoes vary
from last nights only in the way they are prepared.
Mom bought a roast pan, an event the equivalent to most families
bringing home a new car. and helping Mom wash at the old
wringer-type machine. Though the youngest, and a male, I was
assigned the evening meals . Older,
with its porcelain chipped away in places.
How did she manage? That's a secret known only to moms, I guess. She set it on the center of the table and we
dragged up chairs and just gawked at it.
The house, a recycled army barracks, had neither inside walls, nor
plumbing, at first, but it was home. She made our
shirts and the patches for our jeans. Everyone
brought potluck, and Mom couldn't wait to take the roast pan.
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