Moving Day

Note to all my relatives:  This is a work of fiction very loosely based on events which may or may not have happened.


The morning of September 4, 1951 broke, as late summer mornings often do in Northern Alabama, with the sun rising through the ground fog.  Fog filtered sunlight made the transition from night to day a lazy occurrence much in keeping with the pace of life in  the Tennessee River Valley, and the South as a whole. The fog burned off as the sun rose above the trees along Spring Creek near our house..  It promised to be another sultry day. There was little rushing about.  Hookworms and heat set the tempo in the pre air conditioned South at a languid largo.
I was up at first light.  I threw my leg over the top rail of the crib, where I still slept despite having turned four that summer, and lowered myself to the floor.  I shucked off my pajamas and threw them back in the crib, then pulled on blue shorts and a white tee shirt with blue and red stripes. I reached back through the crib bars and pulled out my brown teddy bear, George, tucked him under my arm and headed toward the kitchen.   In my bare feet I padded down the long dark hall that connected the bedrooms to the kitchen, where I heard my parents talking.  Daddy never lowered his voice in consideration of those who might still be sleeping.  Every word he said was distinct; Mother’s voice only a murmur.  Daddy was issuing his orders for the day.
“The movers should be back at 8:00.  You need to have the children up and fed and the breakfast dishes washed and packed by then.  Have Patty and Nancy the strip the beds and pack the bedding.  It won’t be clean, but there’s no time to wash it.  I want to get a couple hundred miles down the road today, maybe even to Cairo, even though we can’t leave until the movers do.”
Without comment Mother got up from the table.  She took their plates and put them in the sink filled with steaming dishwater.  When she turned, she saw me standing in the doorway.
“Good morning, Mary Sunshine.  Get in your chair and have your breakfast while I go wake the others. Put your dish in the sink when you finish.”  She headed down the hall to get my sisters and brother up.
“Can I ride in the moving van, Daddy?  When are the men going to get here?”
While awaiting an answer, I clambered onto one of the gray vinyl dinette chairs at the table and poured some cereal into a bowl.  Daddy poured the milk in for me.  I put two spoons of sugar on when he wasn’t looking.
My father was a tall, slender man who wore his hair in a crew cut.  His hair was all black except for a patch right in front about the size of a quarter that was completely white. When he looked up from the road map he was studying, his blue eyes met mine.
“They’ll be here soon.  You’ll ride with us in the car.  They have to pick up some other loads and won’t get to Idaho until days after we do.  Now eat your breakfast like your mother said.”
My brother, Junior, was still buttoning his shirt as he joined us.  He was skinny and had his dark hair in a crew cut like Daddy’s.
“Dad, why don’t you just put her in one of those big boxes and let them put her in the moving van?”
While I really wanted to ride to Idaho in the moving van, I had been teased enough by my brother to know that if he suggested that I do something, there was a problem with it.  I didn’t understand how far it was to Idaho.  I still periodically insisted that I was going to walk to my grandparent’s house in Florida.
“Leave her alone and eat your breakfast, Son.  I want you to help me take the beds apart.”
“Yes sir, I’ll hurry.”
Daddy folded up his map and put it on top of the refrigerator with the other important papers he wanted to take in the car with us.
“I’m going to start with Mary’s crib. We’ll do your bed next,” Daddy said.
“Can I help?  I can hold the screws when you take them out.”  I jumped down from my chair and ran to the sink with the half eaten bowl of Cheerios.  I wanted make sure nothing bad happened to my crib.   Hearing that it was to be taken it apart was somehow scary.  So far, all the talk of moving out West where the cowboys and Indians lived and everyone rode around on horses was exciting, but kind of like make believe.
“You can help me until your mother needs you for something.”
My father knew better than to send me outside to play. I had a habit of wandering off.  There were many incidents involving me being found far from home by neighbors.  When I was younger, mother often tied me to the clothesline in an effort to keep me at home.   Sometimes the neighbor’s dog, Troubles, would come over and chew the rope through and off we would go.  Everyone in the small government village, where only TVA workers lived, knew each other and knew where I belonged. My oldest sister, Patty, fretted about what would happen to me when we moved to a place peopled only by strangers.  She said when Mother and Daddy bought our new house she would teach me the new address and my phone number.  She told me it would be as easy as learning how to wink.
Patty and Nancy were now up.  Patty had a dark blond pageboy and wore glasses.  As we passed in the dim hallway, she winked at me.  I squinted up one eye in what I thought was an excellent wink.  She laughed and said, “Keep practicing.  You’re getting better.”
“Happy, happy birthday,” I sang out.  “Is Tommy coming over to say goodbye?”
“Yes, he’ll be over on his way to work.”
Patty’s eyes and nose started turning red again as tears formed. Today was Patty’s eighteenth birthday. She was getting what she said was the worst birthday present ever, our move to Pocatello, Idaho.  Tommy was her fiancé.  Like many couples, they got engaged during their senior year at Sheffield High.  This fall, Tommy was headed for Naval Reserve training. Patty had been all set to enter the University Of Alabama School Of Nursing when Daddy told her she was going to Idaho with the family.   I overhear Mother tell Mrs Cosby that it was a wonder she and Tommy hadn’t skipped over the nearby state line to Mississippi where the legal marriage age was 15.
Nancy came out of the bathroom, wrinkled her nose and mimicked me by mouthing “Happy Birthday” to Patty’s receding back.  Our family had lots of birthdays close together.  Nancy had just turned 12 in August.   She still wore her reddish, blond hair in ringlets, or more accurately this morning, in rats’ nests.  She was dressed in green shorts and a cropped top with little flowers on it.
“I’ve got a lot to do today.  You’d better stay out of my way,” she hissed at me as we passed in the hall.
I stuck out my tongue at her and scooted into my parent’s bedroom where Daddy was already disassembling my crib using a screwdriver and crescent wrench.
“Good, here’s my helper.  You hold these when I give them to you,” He dropped several pieces of cool, dark metal into my hand. “Screw the nuts onto the bolts so they don’t get lost.”
I was proud to have such an important job.  Daddy said if I lost one, my crib wouldn’t stay together when we got to Idaho.  I held them tightly until he was finished.  He took them from me then counted them.
“Are they all here?”
“Yes sir. I was very careful.”
He put them in a little bag that he tied to the crib frame with strong jute string.
“When will the men be back to get the rest of our things?”
“In a little bit.  If you promise to stay on the porch and not wander off, you can go sit on the front steps and watch for them.  You come tell me as soon as they get here.”
While waiting for the moving van from my perch on the front steps, I saw Tommy’s car turn the corner and pull up in front of our house.
To be continued…




Maggie and Moseby, Part Two

Part Two
Maggie was perfectly content being an only cat.  She had her choice of the fine perches in the best windows.  She had her own dish and clean water bowl with no other cat to gross out when she stuck her feet in.  There was a spot in the sunshine on the front porch just for her.  The dust bath, hers alone.  Best of all was the warm air vent in the kitchen.  It was her ultimate luxury. When the furnace was on, she would press up against it and writhe in ecstasy.  When I went to bed, there was her solo spot by my feet in warm weather and by my back in cold. Maggie went in and out and in and out on demand.  If she wanted cat company, she could go next door to visit Grace’s indoor cat Phoebe, through the window. Most importantly, she could ignore me completely and not worry about some other cat getting held or petted instead of her.
I didn’t see all this cat contentment.  I saw what I wanted to see.  I thought that since I was gone all day and often in the evening, Maggie must surely be lonely.  I knew just the thing for her, another cat.  I was wrong.
Maggie was not pleased when I found Moseby in the free ads and brought him home. Like Maggie he was already neutered.  He came from a family with a new baby.  A gray tabby weighing in at over 12 pounds, Mose was a big guy.  Compared to Maggie, a giant.  When I brought him home and let him out of the carrier, he bolted for the basement door like he knew where he was going.  He hid out in the basement for three days before putting in an appearance upstairs again.  I didn’t search for him.
From the beginning it was obvious that Mose fancied himself a lap cat. At that 12 pounds in the summer and more in the winter, he was a lap full.  It was hard to read or knit with him draped across my lap.  There was no place for book or yarn.
Cautious, maybe even a little cowardly, Mose didn’t seek confrontation so Maggie worked her will on him from the beginning.  She was a lot smaller than he, so she had to use her wits.  Since she was a lot smarter, the contest evened out, like the time she got even with him for taking her spot in the bathroom. Maggie had the custom of accompanying me to the bathroom every morning and sitting on the edge of the tub.
Like many cats, Maggie was fascinated by water.  She would bat at the stream coming from the faucet as the tub filled.  She also enjoyed standing in the bottom of tub retreating as the water rose and approached her feet.
Not long after Mose moved in, he began joining us in the bathroom.  Much to Maggie’s disgust, he usurped her place on the edge of the tub.  One morning, Mose was late arriving for the morning ablutions.  I was already in the tub.  Maggie was in her old spot on the edge.  Mose came in a jumped up next to Maggie.  There was enough room for two to sit comfortably, but like kids who can’t share the back seat of the car, Maggie left when Mose arrived.  This particular morning, she jumped off in disgust and went over to sit on the scales. As she sat, she stared at Mose.  Then I saw a gleam in her eye.  Before I could react, she launched herself and rammed the unsuspecting Mose right in the side, unseating him and dumping him into the tub.  He and I shot up from the water. I was as frantically trying to protect myself as he was trying to find something dry to land on to get out of the water.  Water flew.  I yelled. Mose yowled. Chaos reigned. Maggie smugly watched, then tail held high, walked sedately out of the room.





Maggie and Moseby


Part One
For the first time in my life, I was living alone. I was 44 years old.  Living alone was lonely and scary but, once I got used to the solitude, I enjoyed it. Even so, there were times I missed having another beating heart around.  I determined that once I owned my own house, I would get a low maintenance presence to talk to.
Finally, I bought a house.  Once I settled in, I decided the time had come to get a cat.  When I checked the “Free” section of the classifieds in the Capital Journal, I found an ad which read, “Free cat to good home. Two year old black and white female, neutered, declawed.”  I called. The family who owned her had two toddlers and they were moving. Two good reasons to get rid of what a harried mother saw as just another mouth to feed, yet another mess to clean up. I took my own kids, who were visiting for the weekend, along to check out the cat. We all approved, so we brought her home and named her Maggie.
In keeping with typical cat coping behavior, Maggie overwhelmed by the new surroundings, disappeared as soon as she was set free in the house.  That evening before I went to bed, I decided to find her to make sure she was okay.  It was then I discovered I was losing my mind.  I looked everywhere a cat could possibly hide.  I moved furniture, peered up the chimney, and rattled the windows and screens to make sure she hadn’t slipped through one.  I opened closed doors, closets and drawers.  I called, “Kitty, kitty, kitty,” the whole time. I found no cat.  I looked, then looked every place again, carefully poking and tipping, sliding and feeling.  I listened for purring and the very soft thud of cat feet.  I heard neither.  She wasn’t there.  She wasn’t anywhere.
Had I really gotten a cat? I thought I had.  My kids had gone, so I couldn’t check with them. She’d vanished.  Where had she found to hide without a trace?  I checked the entire house again.  No cat. Impossible.  I was really, really beginning to wonder if I had rounded the bend and lost it this time.  ­­There was no trace of a cat except for the food, water and litter pan I put out.  I must have imagined her. Living alone was getting to me.  There’s a word for imaginings so real, but I wasn’t going there.  Instead of worrying any longer, I went to bed to sleep on my dilemma.
About 2AM I awakened to a scratching and rustling very close to me. My bed was directly under a large open window.  I froze, barely daring to breathe.  I listened hard.  The noise came from inside the room.  I lay very still.  Rustle, rustle, rustle.  Then the sound of fabric tearing and a thud. A small thud like a small cat would make when landing.
I turned on my bedside lamp.  Out from beneath the bed, where I had looked at least three or four times, strolled Maggie. I jumped up and got down on the floor to peer under the bed, fully expecting to see a secret cat trap door slamming shut.  Instead, I saw a corner of the dust cover on the box springs hanging down.  That must have been the tearing fabric I heard.  Maggie had discovered a small opening and crawled in  to hide until she felt safe enough to come out.
I picked her up and stroked her.  I felt like I held my restored sanity.

To be continued…

The Last Canyon

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We were headed home from a week in southern Utah where we had spent many hours hiking and ohing and ahing at many canyons and formations.  We stopped to get gas and to grab a quick lunch at a sub and pizza shop.  As we were starting to eat, an unusual looking man came in and went to the counter to place his order.

Don’t look.
I’ve already seen it and I’m trying not to.
Yuck.
Oh, no. Now what’s he doing?
Jeez, how gross.
Has he finished ordering yet?
Now what?
He’s filling out a contest form?
Oh, ick. Hurry up. Can’t you write faster?
Oh good.  Here comes a cop. Maybe he’ll say something to him.
I can’t believe it.  He hasn’t said a thing to him. If that’s not indecent exposure….
He’s not going to do anything.  Probably doesn’t want to do the paperwork.
Or he doesn’t think anything of it.
Gross. Pull up your pants.
Shhhh.
I don’t care if he hears me.  He’s the one who should be embarrassed.
Why do they do that? It can’t be comfortable having your ass hanging out like that. I can’t imagine a woman doing that and not caring.  Ever heard of working woman’s crack?
Yeah, they call it cleavage.
Oh, yeah. And guys break their necks to get a better view.  Can you imagine wanting a better view of that?
Gag.
Oh, good.  He’s sitting down.
Finally.
Can you imagine showing off your cleavage if it was covered with pimples and sprouting pubic hairs?
Please.  I’m trying to eat.
If cleavages looked like that, sexual harassment would come to a screeching halt.
No joke.
Well, I can tell you this.  I hope that’s the last canyon like that I see for a good long time.
Me too.
You finished?
Yeah, let’s go.