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- Happy Mother’s Day to Four of Them with Grit in Their Craw
The photo below the poem shows the three sisters and their mother, my grandmother, “Granny.” She was the grandmother to the herd of us and she attended to all of us, helping out our own mothers when needed. The two sisters, my aunts, were second mothers for me. i honor all of them, today especially, but pretty much all of the time.
Ode to Three Sisters and Their Mother
The old lady came busting out of the old century;
where she had been
an exquisite china doll of immeasurable beauty;
young men chased her
to allowable limits in the Victorian South
after we turned from reconstruction
while Teddy was roustabouting with Spain
in that little skirmish we often forget.
Remember the Maine.But Granny came busting out;
fire in her belly, grit in her craw, pluck in her spirit, gleam in her eye;
with the handsome man who won the chase,
taking her and his bloodhounds
to the retired circuit rider’s farm out on the pike
where Granny’s circuit rider father would
preach occasionally without the horse or mule
in the hamlet of Lebanon,
smack dab in the middle of Tennessee,
Where some bright folks built the square
over a cold water spring
they discovered in “Town Creek”
in yet an earlier century.…and the children would come around wartime,
dropping among the years of the first big one
we resisted until the Luisitania
took its hit and sank like a rock;
…and the children came,
five in all until one died
as young family members often did
in those pre-antibiotic days.
The handsome blood hound man who chased
criminals through the woods
took his own hit,
a decade after the war.
So the little maelstrom with grit in her craw
packed up the chillun’s and the belongings
making the trek to the groves
of central Florida
for a couple of years to
escape the sinking of the hound man
and the attendant feelings thereof.In thirty-two, they came back home,
each with some grit in their craw.
Granny, the queen of grit,
went to work,
taking care of those who needed care
outside the family in order
to take care of her own.…and the children grew up early,
cooking the meals, washing the clothes, cleaning the house,
gathering eggs, milking the cows, pulling the weeds;
before playing ball,
earning money until
they went to college in the little town,
or went to work,
or both.The second big war came, again
in a wave of terror,
This time in an atoll’s pristine harbor,
taking hits, sinking to the shallow harbor depths.
Remember the Arizona.
The brother went off to war after marrying
a woman of another religion from down the road,
west a bit, in the big city.
He flew a plane named after his lady Colleen,
returning to the Tennessee hamlet, still
with fire in his belly, grit in his craw, pluck in spirit, gleam in his eye
before leaving for the orange groved paradise
he found on the southern trek several years before.The preacher man was gone;
The hound man was gone;
The brother was gone;
The three sisters and their mother,
fire in their bellies, grit in their craw, pluck in their spirit, gleam in their eyes,
with their three new men
stared at the world,
staring it down straight in the eye,
wearing it down with their labor
until the world cried “uncle,”
admiring their fire and grit and pluck.There were circles entwined with circles of family;
the circles orbited around the threes sisters and their mother:
all was well.
…and the world rolled on;
Granny finally gave up her pluckish ghost with grit in her craw;
no longer would she braid the waist long hair,
tying the braids atop her head
as she had done for so many years;
the three sisters rallied with
fire in their bellies, grit in their craw, pluck in their spirit, gleam in their eyes.The grandchildren of the matriarch
spread with the four winds, remembering.
When the circles got together,
the three sisters remained the constant,
demanding the world stay in their orbit,
and the world was warm with laughter and love and
a sense the world was safe
as long as they all inherited
fire in their bellies, grit in their craw, pluck in their spirit; gleam in their eyes.
The world is older;
Granny is gone;
the youngest sister recently joining her,
the oldest failing fast:
The three sisters leaving us slowly with
the fire waning to embers, but still there is
grit in their craw, pluck in their spirit, gleam in their eyes;
staring down the world.Such a lovely world they have shown us.
Aunt Bettye Kate Hall, Aunt Evelyn Orr, my mother Estelle Jewell, and Katherine Prichdard, our grandmother, and “Granny” to everyone (1971).
- Mothers
Maureen and i come from a long line of mothers with grit.
Maureen has inherited grit, beauty, and love from her mother.
She is, to put it mildly, incredible. She is the mother of Sarah and the other mother to Blythe and she loves, supports, and relates to each of them without condition.
She and her sister Patsy are like mothers to each other.
i love her.
Of course, my mother was pretty phenomenal as well — more about her in a later post.
And then, there was another mother, Blythe’s mother Kathie. There was no limit to her love for Blythe and grandson Sam.
She and my mother deserve a white rose today.
And she loves her mother. - Cloud Nine
There used to be such a place named “Cloud Nine.” It was in San Diego in September 1982 somewhere on El Cajon Boulevard.
JD Waits and i were moving Maureen’s furniture. Her apartment mate moved to another town and Maureen was looking for another apartment. In the interim, she was going to move her stuff to her father’s garage while she searched. JD and i were in the Coronado Cays and we volunteered to move her stuff in JD’s pickup from Banker’s Hill to Lemon Grove. En route, we passed that place.
JD spotted it and said it truly was Cloud Nine. Then he explained”
“Well, it was a beer bar downstairs, a massage parlor upstairs, and a motel in the back.”
Yep! Cloud Nine.
- Freeman’s RuleFreeman’s Rule
Circumstances can force a generalized incompetent to become competent, at least in a specialized field.
- Short Whine
i have been away for a while. But yet another senseless attack on customers /clients/patients has been looming large in my mind.
i have purchased a number of items at stores and on-line recently while simultaneously going to a bunch of medical appointments (the price and bane of this old man aging). Almost every one of these has produced a request for me to fill out a “feedback” form (they used to call them customer feedback forms). i could have spent the bulk of my days filling in numbers, describing my experience in several ways.
This hacks me off. if i want to give a business (and they are all businesses now because money is involved) feedback, i will do it vocally, my own email, or a letter. It will not contain endless charts for selecting numbers from 1-10 or 1-5 or whatever. i will let them know if there was something or someone i especially liked or or something or someone i thought could be improved. A stronger description might be used for a super star or, on the other end, a employee that was awful. The reason would be included.
i now delete any such requests. You don’t want me in your data bank. And i don’t want to be there.
