My Peelings Are Hurt, Gotta Go To The Doctor

I asked the little boy, “What will you be when you grow up?”
He looked at me seriously and without actually verbalizing the “Duh”, he said, “an adult”. I think he even rolled his eyes.

Kids, ya gotta love ‘em. I know I do! ( Beetlejuice) Who doesn’t secretly love hearing funny stories about themselves as children? It’s a complement when someone has “a story on you”, as we say down South.


Let me see, some of the precious things I did are pretty cute I guess, I don’t really hate any of them. I don’t remember this, but my mother used to take Toddler Vi to this diner lunch counter-y bar type establishment. Apparently, I made the rounds of the patrons which consisted of I don’t even know what and came back with gum, dollar bills, change and the loot one gathers as the result of being an adorable child. This was the early sixties, I don’t remember this specifically, but I do remember diners and cafes. The Blue and White Restaurant in Tunica MS is a prime example of this. Speaking of this fine establishment, I have another pre conscious memory story that took place here, but that’s a story for another time.


Here’s one of my faves. A school bus driving girlfriend was driving her bus along one day and a pick-up, going on the opposite direction, swerved into their lane, then right back into his own lane. She and some of the kids on the bus were speculating what may have caused the driver to do that. Was he drunk? Did he fall asleep at the wheel?

One little girl pipes up and says “Maybe he looked down and counted to four”. It has become a catch phrase. Some of you may have heard me say it.


Now for the fun part, embarrassing my children.


X2 took Chris down to the local ice cream parlor and when they were leaving, she grabbed a toothpick and stuck it in her mouth. “Why do you need a toothpick,” he asks. “Sometimes I like to chew on ‘em like a tough guy”, is the answer.


Mel and I were riding in the car, listening to the radio. A commercial for Cats record store comes on and the announcer says “in ‘Cat’s all over Memphis’.” Mel looks out, all around and says, “I don’t see any cats.”


More random kiddie quotes from our little family tree:

Mama, isn’t technology a wonderful thing?

You gotta watch me, I’m sneaky like that.

You don’t hafta be married to have a baby.

What’s so so security?

What’s a serial number killer?

Mama’s at the booty shop.

I think I’m ‘bi-sexual”, I’m friends with girls AND boys.

Ow, my feet have bones!

Are you a dumb blonde?

Come git me, ah’m daid.

People shouldn’t drink and drive…..how can they see over the cup?

I love that band Bootie and the Ho Fish

Ah the times I’ve embarrassed my mother and aunt. I can remember this one: I was 6, spending the summer with Auntie Virg and UncaHoney, in Duncan MS, the year is 1967. There is a family cook-out going on and I pipe up and say, “Did my Mama make this potato salad?” No, Auntie Virg explained patiently, Dot is in Louisiana, she could not have possibly made the potato salad. “I didn’t think so, this is awful.”

The Awful Potato Salad in question was made by Auntie Virg’s sister-in-law, Jean. Jean prided herself on her potato salad, was famed for it, in the family. Auntie Virg was mortified for many reasons, not the least of which was that Jean was sitting right next to her. Jean never liked me, I guess I don’t blame her.


Here’s one I did to Dot. Like most kids, I could crank the vocal cords and be quite loud. “You don’t have to yell, we aren’t across the street,” Mama would scold. Elderly neighbor comes over, little old lady, hard of hearing. She’s a loud talker, most hard of hearing old people are. Five year old Vi admonishes, “You don’t have to yell, we’re not across the street!” Luckily, I think the old lady was too deaf to hear it, but I got the “glance of doom” anyway.


I get a call from the school, I’ve got to get there quickly, Kindergarten Chris has bitten a ring on her finger out of shape and it is cutting off the circulation. I run into the office and upon seeing me, she screams, “you’re not gonna beat me, are you?” Right there in front of all the elementary school dignitaries.


In the same vein, I remember this as clear as yesterday. I was two and I had wet the bed, my great-grandmother was sleepily grumbling as she changed the sheets. “You ain’t gonna give me to the people down the road, are you,” I cried.



And in closing…this isn’t about a kid. I have one of those faces, I guess, that encourages total strangers to approach me in stores and ask me to help them. I was approached by an older lady, not doddering, just older than me.
“Haave yew evah taken a leave,” she drawled, surely she was raised in the deepest darkest part of the tri-county area.
“Yes, I’ve taken a maternity leave,” I answered.
She wanted to know if I have ever taken Aleve.

Days of Road Trips Past

8 a.m. tomorrow, I am officially on vacation. Well, really, it’s a staycation, cos I be po’! No, no trip this year, but I remain hopeful that there is a Mardi Gras in my future. Anyway, it’s my mind that needs rest and travelling requires thinking and concentration.


So, in lieu of a road trip, I will regale you with memories of vacations past.


My first official vacation, by official I mean renting a camper and being gone a whole week to a place I’d never been before. Dot, Hardy (my step dad 65-71), his parents and brother and me. We took out in a Pontiac Bonneville, hauling a pop up camper, from Brandon, MS to the great Smokey Mountains. I was 8.


The next Vacation I remember was 1972. I was staying out in Alligator MS with Auntie Virg and UncaHoney and the cousins. We piled in the ol’ station wagon and just lit out, no destination in mind. We ended up in Muskogee OK. We had adjoining rooms, and the sliding doors opened out to heaven, to my 11 year old mind, that was a huge blue pool and a tiny kid pool. I had never been in an inground pool, prior to this, all my swimming experiences included sandbars of reservoirs, the Big Muddy and plastic pools, oh and a washtub at a very very young age. I thought it was the most beautiful ever, especially at night, after it was closed, and I would open the drapes and just stare into the calm blue depths. The lights in the pool walls glowing seductively. We stayed there at least two nights, we got room services and swam and shopped and sang “Okie from Muskogee” to the top of our lungs, till we were shushed, lest we disturb the other guests. From there we went to Missouri, went to a cave, went to Blythe Arkansas where Auntie Virg and UncaHoney fell in love with the lounge act at the Ramada Inn, a duo of singing sisters called “The Pedagogues” So we stayed there quite a few days. We went home with their album and listened to it constantly the remainder of the summer.


1987, Dot, Chris and I took out in a new station wagon and landed in Branson MO. We didn’t see any of the Branson sights, we went on through to Silver Dollar City, then we hit the now defunct amusement park, Dogpatch, in Dogpatch AR. We spent the last night in a little mom and pop hotel in Newton AR. The restaurant was awesome, it was straight out of the early sixties, I don’t think they had ever redecorated.


2003, I take my kids and cousin Brit to the thriving metropolis of Lake Arthur LA. We had rented a car, and since my car had no a/c, I kept the one in the Enterprize Saturn up on full blast and by the end of the trip I had the worst ear infection of my life from the vent blowing right into it for a week. It took me months to get over it, but before my ear tried to kill me, the girls and I toured the two state capital buildings in Baton Rouse, toured St, Martin de Tours, that little museum next to it that was once a college, the house out at Evangeline Longfellow Park, drove by my old places of residence and the ol’ Alma Mater. Leaving the Wainright clan and headed back east, we stayed in Lafayette where I poured over the phone book trying to find an emergency clinic open on a Sunday. I could have sworn when I left the city in ’86 that they had those, but they didn’t in 2003. We headed on to Natchez and by chance I decided to go another way, cos I try to avoid Baton Rouge as I always get lost there. So we left for Opelousas, turned right when we got there and in a couple of hours, found ourselves driving past The Myrtles. So, we toured THE MOST HAUNTED PLACE IN AMERICA…..(several places make that claim) then rounded out in good ol’ reliable Natchez. In one of the antebellum homes, Chris got stuck in a priceless antique hoop petticoat, that was pretty funny until we realized it was a priceless antique, then after we got it off, unharmed, it was funny again.

Our ultimate vacation (so far) came in 2006 when we drove from Memphis to Arizona. It was supposed to take two days but took four as we spent an entire day in New Mexico driving in a blizzard. The day before we were in Elk City Oklahoma enjoying a wonderful Route 66 museum, in summerlike weather. The horrible day of snow driving up mountains was worth it, when we stayed in the El Rancho Hotel in Gallap New Mexico. We went down the “Mother Road” stopping at attractions, including the giant rabbit in Joseph City, A couple of days in the old homestead, then we went to the Grand Canyon Railways Resort, where we swam in an indoor pool, then had to bundle up in coats to go back into the hotel through a snow bank. We rode a train to the Grand Canyon and had a bus tour of the rim. Back in Yavapi County, we toured the ghost city of Jerome and ate in a whorehouse.



All travel ends the same, you’re tired of being a tourist and just want to sleep in your own bed. The trip to your vacation destination seems to take forever, and the trip home is even longer. By the way, here’s a tip for Southerner’s traveling west. You ain’t gettin’ no sweet tea in the eatin’ places.

Well, Ah Deau De Clare

I’ve just re-read The Stand by Stephen King. The uncut edition.


I am a more careful reader than I was in my younger days. Back then I rushed through a book, anxious to get to the end. Now, I’ve lived more, I can relate to a book in a different way, it speaks to me, by experience rather than curiosity.


Another book recently re-read is Gone With The Wind. I know, I know, drippy Old South romance novel, racist, “I don’t give a damn, tomorrow is another day” stuff. Blah, blah, blah….yak, yak, yak .

When I read GWTW as a teen, I had lived with it all my life, because, my mother loved the book. However, when my mother read it, she was a teen. It was an “old” book even then, as it was originally published and made into a movie the year she was born, so I guess she had grown up with it too.
I was told that the first movie I ever went to was GWTW at the tender age of 2 months at a drive in. That viewing slips my memory, but I do remember seeing it at drive ins and dusty old theaters each time it was re-released to theaters, and Dot and I would always go together.


Before this new fangled VCR craze, you could see GWTW once a year on CBS, like the Wizard of Oz. It’s sort of a rite of passage to me, my mother loved it and I loved it, and it was something we always had in common. When Mimi, Dot’s grandmother was sick in bed, I remember trying to read to her, I tried to read GWTW to her, I was six years old. I got probably through the first sentence, maybe, I mean a six year old’s vocab in 1967 is somewhat innocent compared to a 2010 six year old. So, If I could stumble through the first sentence, as a seasoned 1st grader, certainly I had no idea what it meant.


My next attempt was age 12. I skipped through some parts, disappointed when I could not relate a passage to the movie.


I finally read it in its entirety at age 15. Mostly while I was babysitting the LeGrange kids, way out in the wilds of Broussard LA. That was a sweet gig, the Dad would pick me up on Friday night, and I’d sleep over Fri and Sat and stay till Sunday afternoon, when I would go home with a $20 bill, good wages in 1976. The Mom and Dad stayed out late and got out early on the weekends, we never saw them come and go. But, I digress, badly.


I read it here and there in the years hence. But, I got the most out of it this last time I read it, about 6 months ago. When I read it when I was young, it took me back to a place I had heard of my entire being, the grand and glorious SOUTH!, by cracky! It lets you imagine that you are the most popular girl at the barbeque, you find out about southern history and antebellum south’s customs and what was expected young ladies back in the day………waaaaaaaaaay back in the day.


When you grow up and read it as a 49 year old adult, it’s a whole ‘nuther ball game.
First of all, Margret Mitchell wrote an astounding novel, I’m not talking just the story everybody gets from the movie, I’m talking back ground things. You call it cinematography in the movies, I don’t know what you call it in books. She only has this one novel, but she poured herself into it and she deserved every award she ever got because of it.


After you’ve grown up and experienced some struggles, come to terms with yourself, warts and all, learn a few things about loyalty and dogged devotion and worry and developed your survival instinct, read it again. When you read as an adult, when you can relate to worrying about making ends meet in hard times. Forget the movie, just use it as a frame of reference for reading the book. So that you know where you are when you’re attending the Twelve Oaks Barbeque. Reading it as a teen, then as a seasoned veteran of life may be the best way to get the most from it, as the heroine is 16 at the beginning and 30ish at the end.

So, I started out saying I read one book and ended up giving a book report on another. Sorry about that, it just flowed along, I couldn’t stop it. I recommend both books. Next time, The Grapes of Wrath. Movie versus book. Class dismissed.

Girl Friday

I bet you been thinkin’, “now, why don’t she write”. (Dances With Wolves)

Hay Ya’ll!!!!

I’ve been sick with the crazies for a couple of weeks, med tweaking, stuff like that there.
Anyway, hopefully I’m back, I know it had to be tragic without my fabulousness. HAHA


Right before that, my fab hi skool bud and her hubs, stopped by on the roll thru back to Cajun Country and we enjoyed a 3 Margarita lunch at my fave Mexican restaurant. It was great and when I go to La, I am looking her up!


So, anyway, yesterday was the 16 year anniversary at my job. Yeah, 16 years ago I was fresh faced 30something “career girl” (Wong Fu) driving a 83ish yellow Toyota Celia with a broken speedometer and an awesome sun roof. I once got two tickets in 20 minutes in two different counties, in that car, Miss Carlett. I also spun out on 61 in Tunica one icy morn during ICE STORM ’94! Almost hit a cop. Ah, dem was da days.



This job has lasted longer than the combined time consumed by my two failed marriages. Heck, it passed that milestone 5 years ago. I found out about the Oklahoma City bombing and watched the O.J. verdict in the canteen. I was at work when my boss called in a said that a plane had just flown into one world trade center tower and while he was on the phone, the second tower was also hit. Katrina filled the house with storm refugees and displaced co-workers from coastal properties.


In sixteen years I’ve owned 9 cars, had 4 addresses, had 3 operations (one was a c section) 4 pairs of glasses, 3 tickets, voted for president 4 times, been to 10 funerals, done 7 different jobs at ye olde place of employment, took 9 trips out of state, went to 15 concerts and three weddings (hmmm). I’ve lost hair during the aftershock of an illness (thank God, it grew back to its thick uncontrollable self) went through a Bible thumping 3 times a week church attendance phase, was a blonde for awhile, went through a horrible stressful experience with my second ex-husband’s second ex-wife,( heretofore known as Bat, cos that is what she is as crazy as) got to see part of a movie filmed.


Whew, what a roller coaster life is. It’s got hills and valleys, ups and downs, fast paced breath stopping action. I’ve gone from having three television station reception to having internet access in my pocket. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you realize you ain’t seen shit.

Que Sera Sera

We come to potential crossroads in our life.


Maybe I’ve been thinking of something for quite awhile without realizing it. I’m heading to a milestone, age 50, and I’m a little contemplative on the kind of Crone I am going to be. I am not going into my senior years quietly and sedate. My mother mired herself down in age and appearance until she disappeared and became a caricature of a miserable little old lady. I don’t intend to live a second of my life miserably.


What is the difference between a milestone and a crossroads? To me, milestones cannot be avoided and crossroads are conscious choices.


There are many milestone birthdays. 30 is a big one, and when I turned 30 I had a 21 years old boyfriend who eventually became X2.

(One reason for the happy faces in the pictures in the previous blog entry “50 is the new 30”, be sure to read it, tell your friends and neighbors.)

I turned 13 living in a fairytale world of living with two loving parents, a little brother and 2 baby sisters, going to a private school with tiny classes and teachers who cared. In a picturesque house, on a quiet little street, in a little southern town. Substitute Aunt and Uncle for Mom and Dad and cousins for brothers and sisters and you have the Brady Bunch year of my life. It was the last traditional family relationship I was to be part of and I was just a bit player, playing the part of Cissy in Family Affair for one normal year, the year I turned 13.

18 finds me a career girl in Lafayette La. Fresh out of high school, in my first job. 21 finds me the same way, an answering service operator that lives with her mom, only name of the workplace have been changed.

25, I’m a young mother and wife in Lafayette. And 30, I’ve already bragged about. 40 wasn’t all that great as I was dealing with many issues involving a newly ex hubby and visitations of my precious little girl with a (there is no way to describe) soon to be step-monster.

I can’t say how I’ll spend 50. Life is so volatile that in the five months I have left of age 49 could drastically change, abrupt change always seems to happen when you feel the most secure, and that’s why you have to maintain an “edge”. Listen to your Auntie Vi, folks. Auntie knows, Auntie understands.

Louisiana Trilogy

I lived a majority of the first ¼ century of life in South West Louisiana.


Even though I am not a Cajun, I do have traditions and ideals I learned in Cajun households. I spoke with a Cajun accent for most of my first 25 years and I still say some things in the accent because they just don’t mean the same thing without it. The first time one hears “Cajunese”, those who are not lucky enough to have spent any time down Lafayette way, it had to be repeated and explained. That’s okay, it’s part of the charm.


So, I have a deep love for my old stomping grounds. I’ve lived in Broussard, Abbeville and Lafayette. I’ve bar hopped in Breaux Bridge, St Martinville, Mamou, Catahoula, Intracoastal City. I started first grade in Lafayette and graduated there, too. I go back every two or three years. I always go to the St Martin De Tours church. Drive by my old homesteads on St Pierre St and John Wayne Dr.


Katrina hit me hard, emotionally. We took hurricane refugees into our Casino Hotel, as did all the other casinos in the area. We set up computers at our bell desk so that they could file their FEMA claims online. I worked, telling them where to find things, help them use the computer is they needed, gave directions to Wal-Marts. Most of the people that visited during my shift were from Plaquemine and Metairie and many of them had homes underwater. They were in disbelief. They were still too shocked to grieve, it was still new. Let me also acknowledge the damage and loss in my home state of Mississippi.


Rita was even worse for me cos it actually affected areas where I had lived, loved, partied and dined. Also Rita hit Lake Charles harder and that is where my BBF Van and many of her progeny are.


Now there’s this oil spill tragedy. I haven’t followed the story a lot, but I don’t have to see media footage to know that it is tragic.


This is a hauntingly beautiful song about a flood in Louisiana in 1927, but it also fits recent water catastrophes.





Thanks for the idea. Deanna.

Daddy, Don't You Walk So Fast

I am one of those people who does not know their father.

My mother and father were married. When Dot found out she was pregnant, she decided to leave Kenny. Her side of the story was, “he wouldn’t hold a job, I was always supporting him. I’d rather support two people than three.” So, as I’ve always been told, she left him at 2 months pregnant, the divorce was final when I was 18 months old.


I am my mother’s only child. I am my father’s second of six. It’s so weird to know that you have brothers and sisters, probably all living right there in Memphis, and I have never met them. Two boys and two girls, with wife 3. Another brother, son of wife 1, is Hispanic. I have never been bothered by White/Hispanic relationships because I knew my older brother was the product of one and though I’ve never met him, I feel a loyalty to him. It’s subliminal. He grew up not knowing his father, too. Back in the late 50’s/early 60s, there was generally no joint custody or visitation or anything like that. I can’t speak for Larry (that’s his name) but my mother chose to remove herself from Kenny’s life and she was very successful in that. Dot tells me Kenny was abusive to Larry’s mother. Kenny was not abusive to Dot, but that’s another story for another time.


I did connect with my father eventually, sort of. I met him formally when I was 9. I was visiting Mama Lou ( Dot’s Ma) in Memphis, summer 1970. I convinced her Dot said I could meet my dad if I wanted to. Dot says she never said this, but somehow I got that idea and I went with it. Kenny came over to my grandmother’s house and I got the shyness and Mama Lou was stuck talking to him for two hours while I cracked pecans at the table and cut up with a neighbor girl. I never heard the end of that one, lemme tell ya.


When I was 19 or 20, I was working at Answering Service of Lafayette, and during an idle time at the old western electric switchboard, I got Kenny’s number from directory assistance and rung him up. His mother-in-law answered the phone and he was not there, so I said “Tell him his daughter from Louisiana called” and hung up. Now I try to imagine the shock I gave that old lady and it must have caused quite a fracas in the Kenny household.


The next attempt occurred when I was 22. X1 and I came through the Midsouth on our way out west so he could meet my aunt and her family. I tried calling him then, on a payphone in Southaven, but I didn’t get an answer.


It was when I was 30 that we finally met and I heard his side of the story. All those years Dot was insistent that I have nothing to do with him. Auntie Virg convinced her that it was only right that he should know he had a grandchild. So I finally had the official okey dokey to proceed.


Kenny was thrilled to hear from me. He came down to the motel in Hernando, where I was a desk clerk and we visited, then after I got off, we went for cokes to talk. He still had feelings for Dot, she had broken his heart. He didn’t know where I was. In this internet age, it’s easy to find someone, back then it wasn’t easy. His wife had been jealous of my mother and she kept him from searching too seriously, so that’s how it goes.


The story does not have a Waltonesque ending, sadly. He was willing to start some sort of relationship, but I believe his wife discouraged it. If I could tell he still cared for Dot, certainly his wife had been harboring ill feelings their entire marriage. He came out to the house, (he and Dot got along fabulously, Dot was flattered that he still cared, it was quite a boost to her ego.) took me and Chris to movies, invited me to a family reunion which I slunk out of, and Chris and I went to dinner at his house one night and his wife was less than charmed. She was rather cold to me and I can understand why. I had given Kenny photos of me and Chris, which he had proudly displayed on his home mantle. His wife and Daughters were outraged and demanded we be taken down. It was a nice try, but it didn’t work out.