just a little thing

This is a story about two Mothers, mine and a lady named Mrs. Johnson. But there’s way more involved than just a tale of two women.

For most of my early life I remember Mom had at least 18 long-sleeved white shirts per week to wash, starch, refrigerate overnight in a plastic bag, sprinkle, and iron. Long before the days of permanent press, she sat at the ironing board every Tuesday from just after the rest of the family left for work or school until lunchtime, when she started cooking whatever it was we would have for dinner, and then it was back to her chair and the electric iron that did not have a steam function but did have a wicked heavy black and white cord. As she ironed the shirts for Dad and my two brothers during the afternoon, she watched soap operas. Back then, most of the soaps were on for just fifteen minutes, with only a couple lasting for thirty. During the summers when I was out of school, watching her favorite as she sweated away in the back room of the un-air-conditioned shotgun house we called home, I learned about heartbreak and joy with long-suffering Nancy Hughes, Grandpa, Bob (the hard-working-good son) and Lisa (the scheming-conniving-lying-pouty-lipped-low-neckline-peignoir-wearing-oh-lord-how-I- wanted-her-wardrobe slut), and the rest of those usually endearing just like us but sometimes dastardly folks in Oakdale, IL.

As Mom got older, she was less and less able to do the chores around the house. My sister and I did most of them, but for a short time the ironing was accomplished by outside help. A wonderful woman named Missus Johnson (and, no, I never knew her first name) came each Tuesday to spend the morning in the den at the ironing board. It always gave me great pleasure to sit on the sofa and watch her work and listen to her sing gospel songs. I went to her home once, located on the “other side” of Georgia Road, down a little unpaved rocky crooked trail occupied on both sides by what we politely called “shanties.” Visiting Mrs. Johnson was a one-time-only thing, and thinking back I’m sure it had to do with Mom’s battle with ovarian cancer. During that visit I met Mrs. Johnson’s daughter. I sat out of the way in a plastic chair at their red-topped-chrome-legged kitchen table and looked with amazement at the myriad braids protruding from the little girl’s head, each tied at the end with a scrap of red ribbon. Well, there’s only so much you can do with looking around at your surroundings without looking like you’re looking around, and so I asked Maybelle if we could play with her dolls. She shook her head and said, in a no nonsense matter of fact tone of voice, “Don’t got no dolly.” I was aghast. In my world, every little girl had a least one doll to play with, most had several, including the one definitely not for play that was dressed in bridal splendor and sat glassy eyed upon my bed during the day.

We went back to my house at the appointed hour, me holding tightly to Mrs. Johnson’s callused hand as we crossed the busy street. I remember it felt so good I didn’t want to let go. And so, to humor me, she did not insist. Together we skipped down 52^nd Way, swinging our arms, singing Jesus Loves Me.

A couple of days later, I said to Mom, “Why doesn’t Maybelle have a doll?” “Who’s Maybelle?” Mom asked. “Mrs. Johnson’s daughter,” I answered. “I didn’t know she had a daughter,” Mom replied. “Oh, yes,” I continued, “Mrs. Johnson has to leave her at home by herself while she works, because there’s no one to watch her, but she says Maybelle is a good girl and never gets into any trouble. But when I asked her if we could play with her dolls, she told me she didn’t got a dolly. Why do you think that is?”

Mom was silent, lips set firmly together in a look I knew promised only bad news if I pursued the subject, so I dropped the idea of further discussion.

That Saturday afternoon, after Dad came home from collecting insurance premiums, the three of us got in the ’53 Plymouth and drove to the Downtown Birmingham Sears and Roebuck (or, as Dad called it, Sears and Rareback) located in what I always thought of as the end of the world. (The store was between 1^st and 2^nd Avenue North and 15^th and 16^th Streets.) Mom hobbled into the store, holding onto Dad’s arm for support, while I trailed along behind. The store was the biggest I’d ever been in and there were so many things to look at that I quite forgot who I was with, and Dad had to come find me. We left with Dad carrying a large paper bag and me holding onto Mom’s belt so I wouldn’t get lost again. Daddy put the bag in the trunk, but I remember he didn’t take it out when we got home. No, I didn’t ask what was in the bag; if I was meant to know, they’d tell me.
On Tuesday afternoon, when I got home from school, Mom called me into the big bedroom at the front of the house, handed me “the bag” and told me to give it to Mrs. Johnson after she finished the ironing. I confess, I peeked. In the bag was a beautiful bride doll, wearing a dress very similar to the one my own doll wore, complete with a flower circlet and tiny veil, and a little string of pearls around the dark brown neck.

I did as I was told. Mrs. Johnson opened the bag and looked in. The look of astonishment on her face was something I wish I could have captured for posterity. Now, frankly, I don’t remember if Mrs. Johnson ever came back to our house after that, but I will always remember that one particular day. It was the first time I ever saw someone laugh and cry at the same time.

In the grand scheme of things it was nothing big, just a little thing. Nobody covered it on the news. There were no selfies involved. Just two mothers, two daughters, two dolls, and one small act of kindness.  But they are all joined for eternity and the memory of it has affected my life's choices for these 60+ years. I've never told this story before; today seems like the perfect time.

creaky knees and tiny trees

For years and years Mama had a tiny green ceramic tree, decorated with little glass tubular inserts (that always came loose and wound up rattling around in the box) and sat on a Styrofoam ring with a light bulb you could plug in and see a faintly discernible glow and watch closely to make sure nothing caught on fire. I asked her (only once) why we didn’t have a live tree and she said it was just too much trouble, always sweeping up drying needles, and then trying to figure out a way to dispose of it.

Fast forward 20 years, hubby is in the military and there were babies in my house. Our first Christmas back in Alabama, we went out to the farm at Locust Fork and chopped our own, dragged it down the hill to MawMaw’s house and then attached it to the top of the station wagon for the trip back to Maxwell AF Base. Unfortunately we didn’t think to cover it with a sheet or anything and it was a sorry bedraggled mess by the time we got to Montgomery, not really worth messing with, but he was proud and so we persevered. About the time we hung the last antique mercury glass ornament Midnight The Devil Cat jumped smack in the middle, sending it crashing to the floor, razor-sharp shards flying everywhere. So much for that.

For the next several years (as we PCS’d from State to State, base to base) I bought fake stick-together trees and decorated them with clip-on-wooden birds, crocheted yarn wreaths, plastic icicles, popcorn strings, and play-dough-baked ornaments the kids made in school. Even after kitty crossed the rainbow bridge, the shiny glass ornaments stayed packed away. Not quite as esthetically pleasing but the kids liked it and that was all that mattered. One year I wrapped empty matchboxes and jewelry boxes and set them under the tree, only to find the next morning that number-one-son had decided to find out what was in them and left them scattered among a nest of paper scraps and shredded bows.

The first year I spent by myself, I didn’t intend to have a tree at all. But one of the girls at work gave me a tiny fake one (guess she felt sorry for me) so I set it on a brass and glass table next to the patio doors at my beach condo and enjoyed watching the ocean roil as a backdrop.

Married again, celebrating the first Christmas together in the BIG HOUSE, it was a live tree for me, with all the pretty ornaments, but by then there was another cat in the house, and even though the tree was tied to the wall, it only gave him purchase and the freedom to climb at will; after several of the shiny lovely things died tragically on the concrete floor, I decided wooden ornaments were best.

The year hubby was in Iraq, I sent him a tabletop tree (which some youngster no doubt enjoyed after he rotated out) and bought another tiny one for myself, both decorated with red/white/blue ornaments.

The next year, when he was on the border, I took a tiny one for the 3-day weekend and brought it back home with me.

For the last five years we’ve had no tree in the house larger than 14 inches. Oh, there’s a six footer in the garage, wrapped in plastic and stored in its taped Garden Ridge box, but as I get older, I find it increasingly difficult to muster the will/strength to drag it out and fluff it up and hang the Battenberg lace angels and Lillian Vernon porcelain doves and then three weeks tear down and pack up and store in the attic. My creaky knees know tiny trees are best. And I have become my Mother.

vampires

Recently a friend and I were talking about alarm clocks. She says she keeps hers on the other side of the room, so when it sounds she has to get up to turn it off. And once she’s up, she just stays up. That made me think about the alarm clock in my bedroom. I can’t remember the last time it sounded off. I’ve become so used to the one on my cell phone, the one by the bed is simply redundant.

 

But it also brought to mind how much electricity we use unnecessarily. They’re called vampires, power-sippers, electricity drains, or several other less affectionate terms. What it amounts to is that electronic devices with a light to show they’re “on” are using electricity. If you want to use less, unplug.

Why do I care? Because I want to reduce our footprint. We don’t plug in the coffee maker until it’s time to make coffee. And we don’t depend on a timer to make the coffee for us before we get up in the morning. Frankly, I don’t care if the clock on the Mr. Coffee shows the correct time or not, after all, there’s the digital one on the microwave and the digital one on the stove, and neither of those can be unplugged. All they’re really good for is making me aware of how many devices in the house must be reset after one of our all-too-often spring and fall power outages.

There are clocks in both spare bedrooms; no one (besides myself) ever goes in there. So why have a clock running if no one ever looks at it? If we have guests, it’s a small matter to plug in and reset. So, they stay unplugged until needed.

Now, the downside of this is that if the device has to be re-programmed each time it loses power (such as with some older model televisions) you might not find it worth the small amount of savings you'll get from going "unplugged." But if you're into saving the planet, it's worth thinking about.