Ring It In and Bring It On

Midnight. 1/1/1977. I am standing at an open window in an apartment on the not quite, but just almost, seedy side of Lafayette. There was a bar across the street. We had no phone. If you had to make an emergency phone call, you had to go to the pay phone in the bar. I was 16, but that didn’t matter. It was Louisiana, back when the legal age was 18. I was a busty big girl at 16, I had no trouble passing for 18.

I was alone at midnight 1/1/77. I was very sad and in a morose mood. It had been a bad year, 1976, or a t least it ended badly. Evil Ann took our possessions and claimed them for her own and had us kicked out of the house we shared on a little side street in Broussard. We spend a couple of weeks in the Acadian Motel before moving in with one of Dot’s offshore/drinking buddies. Sybil was a floozy, Dotty West look alike, rode hard put up wet kinda gal. Living also in the two bedroom apartment was Sybil’s “Can’t commit to being a lesbian, I just like to say I am one” daughter and her ex-beauty queen daughter who could turn anything into an accessory. She was like the MacGyver of the Suzanne Sugarbaker set.

I was alone at the apartment, I had the bedroom window open and I stared out into the night. I could see the back of a pretty nice neighborhood. It was as if the houses were turning their backs on the low rent apartments and bars, shunning us like pissed off Amish people.

It was cold that night, I remember the fog of my breath when I exhaled. 1976 had seen me displaced, living out of Comeaux’s district, my mother had to drive me to school every day in a Ford that had no heater and would shimmy if you topped speed 35. The first round of firecrackers heralded in 1977, from the neighborhood. So 1976 had left the building, Thank You! The last few months had been so dark and unsettling that I could feel tears of relief pooling in my eye sockets.

From the right of me, in that neighborhood, a lone trumpet played Taps. I cried freely, it was such a high lonesome sound, so like my mood that it seemed providence had brought us together. The night was so calm and clear, no wind, everything completely still. Father Time ’76 crept away on tired old feet while Baby New Year ’77 crept in on unbruised dimpled knees.
New Years Eve has always had a sore spot with me, I always ended up alone, greeting the year with Dick Clark. Once married, I swore I’d never be alone New Years Ever again. Once back in Mississippi, I've never spent NYE alone.

From NYE 87-95, the New Years Party was at my house, it was muh thang. The ringing in of 1995 was to be our last shindig, there was a planned mutiny and I jumped ship before it could happen.
Now it’s not so important I be with someone at New Years minute. Long ago and fat away is the time I had a sweetheart to smooch at midnight. I’ve even slept through it a couple of years. I’m always a little sad at year’s end, an old friend passing. I’m always hopeful that the New Year will bring happiness.

Auld Lang Syne, the international "New Year" song, always makes me a little misty. The melody is haunting and beautiful and the words true. Happy New year to you and keep your old aquaintances close to your heart. Also, keep your heart open, you never know when a new friend is going to walk in.

Merry Christmas Y'all

It’s summed up best, I think, by Sir Paul McCartney. “Simply having a wonderful Christmas time.”

I had remarked, on everyone’s new favorite mode of communication, Facebook, or fb to the more seasoned hip readers, such as myself….ahem, that it was going a be a slim Christmas in the Vi house. A gal’fran commented that sometimes those are the best and that is the truth.


We ending up with not a big stack of loot, but a meaningful one, as there were no “standard last minute gifts”, but each reflected something we love. Those gifts give both ways. To the receiver, a new view of a cherish icon. I received a paperweight with a drawing of the Eiffel Tower under a glass dome. If you find yourself on my side of the bullpen, stop by my cubicle and I’ll show it to you. To the giver, the gift of knowing your choice and the story that goes along with how it came to you is something that will be remembered and told and retold. How the Eiffel Tower thing you had planned on getting because the giftee said back in August that she loved it, was sold at Kirkland’s and you found an even better gift at Pier One, and it was hiding under a display table. Something drew your eyes there, and there it sat. “Bonjour, I am over here.”






I received the gift of appreciation. Economic circumstances have led me to be that lady that gives baked gifts. I’ve always heard that those were the best gifts, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. It certainly requires a lot of work, even if it is cheaper, by the time you add man hours, its value rises. Of course, the giftee doesn’t see that part; they see and experience yummy goodness (hopefully). I took Friday, Christmas Eve, off from work to prepare the buffet that preceded our gift exchange. The house filled with savory aromas, background noise provided by Turner Classic Movies with their Christmas movie line up. Mel and Sk8rBoi did whatever housekeeping chore I asked of them, and Mel never even complained or whined, that was a gift in itself. I’m proud to say my cooking endeavors were met with oohs and aahs and what Dr Frederic Frankenstein would refer to as “yummy sounds”.




Christmas is a magic time. Forgiveness comes easier; the kid in you comes out to play with all other kids that come out at Christmas time. In the sitting around and hanging out that comes after the gift blitz, we reminisce about crazy things we’ve done, how we found the perfect gift. We enjoy a second trip to the eats, maybe have a cocktail. Laugh, love and wonder at the things we learn about each other.




As I was helping Mel put her new down mattress topper on her bed, I noticed a quarter on the floor. “I’ve been practicing with that,” she said and took it from me. She began to roll the quarter through her fingers, clumsily, cos she’s still perfecting her moves, but it’s something I can’t do, would never have even thought of trying. I was amazed; it was an extra little Christmas surprise. This morning, waiting for X2 to pick her up, she told me how she had been practicing for three days as she rolled it over her fingers. Her Dad came in and began explaining how it is done. He’s an explainer, you know. Ask him the time, he tells you how to make a watch. Turns out, when he was Mel’s age, he also taught himself this trick. I’m always astonished at the things we inherit. This isn’t the first time Mel has exhibited X2’s phenomenal ability to self teach. This is a gift he passes onto his daughter through DNA. My gift to her is to the ability to make people laugh and the love of words. Mel’s gift to us? Showing us the younger version of ourselves with renewed hope and promise.





Christmas 1995, I received the greatest gift ever. News that I was with child. I found out Dec 23 that Mel was on her way. Very apropos, too, as I had prayed for this miracle and news of it came to me as we commemorate that most important birth.

Boast of Christmas Past

Well, friends and neighbors, the Yule Tide Season is in full swing. This Christmas is going to be small, materially, but we’ll do all right.

The tradition in my family has always been to open presents on Christmas Eve night. When we were kids, DoodCuz, DrCuz, Kat and I, we quickly ate our light supper, hot dogs usually, then sat in front of the TV in the den until the grownups decided that it was “time”. Many times, we’d hold the present with our name on it that most intrigued us, loving it before we even knew what it was. I remember reading the words “Head to Toe” through the paper on a present, and I went crazy trying to imagine what it could be. That was 1971. You couldn’t just type “Head to Toe” in a search engine, you had to sit there and wonder.

Most years we were able to successfully beg to one just one present Christmas Eve Eve. “Head to Toe” ended up being a Dawn doll with three wigs, short to long, hence head to toe. Dawn was a tiny Barbie-ish doll.

After presents had been exchanged, we played with our new toys for a bit, the grownups would gather round the table and play cards or a board game. Once 9:00 came we four kids piled up in Auntie Virg and UncaHoney’s king size bed. The adults continued their games, enjoyed a few cocktails and waited for Santa.

After Santa had arrived, we were woken out of hard achieved slumber to see what Santa Claus had left. It would be like 4am. We’d run out to the den and find our individual stack of loot. The adults stayed up, made sure we saw all the stuff, including stockings, and at some point slipped away to bed without our notice. When the sun peeked into the windows, with her rosy pink glow, we sacked out on the couch, or floor, our new favorite toy sleeping beside us.

Later, we would awake to Dot, Auntie Virg and Mama Lou in the kitchen, our Christmas meal prepared as if our late grandfather were supervising. Everything his recipe and the manner in which he would have made it. My mother worked to peel oranges slices, riding them of their filmy skin. Next she would chop pecan finely, pecans from Auntie Virg’s pecan orchard that conveniently came with the house. Auntie Virg was bravely chopping peppers and onions and cabbage for the hot slaw. Mama Lou attached pineapple slices to a Ham, them plunked cherries in the center of them. DOT made the potato salad, and it was good.

After dinner, the food was left out for grazing. Christmas afternoon and night was a big munch/play/munch/play kinda thing. No VCRs and video games them, we had toys to play with and fight over. FAO Schwartz South was going on there and we disappeared until we thought of all the good food still prime for nibbling.

And speaking of no VCRs, if you missed the broadcast of Rudolph, Frosty and Charlie Brown, you didn’t get another chance to see if for 12 months. Back in those days, the TV Guide was the most important magazine in the house.

Schoolhouse Minuet

Did you know that December 10th is the date Mississippi reentered the union after the civil war? I only know, not because I’m a Mississippian, but because on December 10, 1971 I enrolled into Duncan Academy and the 6th grade class was having a Happy Birthday Mississippi party.

It was a sweet little school, the kind Francie Nolan gets to go to in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Grades 1-6, it was a stately old building, one long hallway through the middle, a auditorium with a stage and a library no bigger than a bedroom. The classes were small; there may have been 15 in the 6th grade class, including me. The desks were wooden, bolted to the floor, the desk top attached to the seat in front of it, think A Christmas Story, we even had a hole for ink wells. There was a cloak room and a radiator. It was very quaint.

Duncan Academy was a private school, right on old highway 61 (it was the only 61 then) at Duncan Miss, a little burg between Cleveland and Clarksdale. Smack in the middle of the Mississippi Delta. The last time I remember seeing the building was on a trip from Lafayette to Eudora back in the mid eighties, at that time it was a nursing home. The old gym was now a ramshackle structure, the old lunchroom not visible from the road, but probably was still in use. I think there may be a school on that site, I hope some of old building was renovated. I love old buildings.

The children who went here were the children of cotton planters, managers of cotton farms, and white cotton farm laborers children. Then there was Me, Dot and I lived with Auntie Virg and UncaHoney after the Hardy years came to a screeching halt. I was at the bottom of the social hierarchy, the poor relation.

I was forced to play girls basketball, I sucked, the most athletic thing I can do is sit on the couch and cheer the Saints or Cowboys on. We studied Mississippi history. That’s a bloody history, most of the material had to do with the Civil War. I don’t think Mississippi History taught these days concentrates so much on that, in fact I think it’s kinda glanced over. We took a overnight field trip to Jackson and met the Guv (see blog post “Picnic”)

The other big happening that year was the school play. When I say School Play, I mean ever’body. We sixth graders were the real stars, we had all the speaking parts. It was about a little country school putting on a school play, ah, art imitates life imitates art. Each class came up to “practice” their song for the “play”. My cousin, DoodCuz was in 3rd grade, and his class’s number was “You Get a Line, I’ll Get a Pole”. We had to wear Hillbilly clothes, cut off blue jeans and ropes for belts. We talked “country” (as if our real voices weren’t).

It was on a Tuesday night, I believe, and in the days before VCRs and such, Auntie Virg missed her favorite TV show, Sonny and Cher, to see our performance. I sat on stage right, all the way to the end, right in front of the audience, I looked at the footlights to keep from looking out at the audience. I didn't want to mess up like I had in the third grade. I was supposed to keep eyes straight at the audience, being part of a Christmas tree, wrapped in crepe paper, sitting on the steps leading up to the stage. But I turned and watched the play and the teacher leaned over and smacked my shoulder with a ruler, in front of everyone.

I remember standing at the black board in that 6th grade classroom, a fellow class mate making fun of the way I wrote an uppercase "D". I was the scapegoat in that small class. Later I would lash out at one of the girls I considered most hateful to me. My mother told me years later I had caused the girl's mother to have a nervous breakdown. I don't know if that's true, but I sincerely hope that it is not. That might not be a story for another time, it shows an ugly side of me.

We lived with Auntie Virg and UncaHoney through the winter and in spring Dot got us an apartment in Merigold, Mississippi. We only got one channel, Channel 6 out of Greenville/Greenwood. I spent a lot of time listening to the radio. There was no FM then, not in this area. I listened to WHBQ out of Memphis. Popular songs of the day were "Brandy", "Vincent", Jackson 5 and Osmond songs. "Doctor My Eyes" "A Horse With No Name". I remember my bedroom in that little apartment when I hear those songs. I am instantly transported back to a lonely 11 year old reading Tiger Beat and 16 and Rona Barrett's Hollywood magazines.

What ever happened to Rona Barrett, anyway?

Thankful

Thanksgiving is about what is in your heart.

I was noodling around on Google, having just made Google Chrome my browser of choice, and was taken aback, almost to tears, by putting the street I lived on in Brandon Mississippi in the mid sixties, into Google Maps Street View.

This is the house my step-grandparents and step uncle lived in, my step father was raised here. I love this old house, it holds so many good memories. I didn’t know for sure that it was now abandoned, when I saw the mail box lying on the ground, that’s when I knew. I had a little catch on my throat. Like when you hear some doddering old thespian has died. Scanning further, I noticed the trash heap beside it. Mom would have never stood for that. Not at all.

Mom and Pop and Freddie. My step-dad Hardy’s family. I loved them in a way that I could not love Hardy. Well, not Pop, he was a little creepy in an Uncle Festerish type of way, but he never paid much attention to me anyway, thank goodness.

Dot married Hardy in October 1965, three weeks before I turned 5. Dot always said a daddy was my 5th birthday present, but he terrified me. He was so big. The only grown up man I knew was a bent over Great Grandfather that I loved dearly. This man was tall and large, with a deep voice and a quick temper. He terrified me and I avoided him at all costs.

I remember the night I met Mom. It was cold and wet and we were wearing jackets. We came in from the wet night into a glowing living room. The glow came from the gas space heater, you don’t see those much anymore, but they were wonderful. It was so cozy, snuggled down in

the sheets, lying on your side so you could see the grates on the heater glow with the orangeyellowblue of the flames. Nothing bad could happen to you, bathed in that golden light.

It was late and we went straight to bed. We slept in the bedroom Hardy and Freddie shared. It had two double beds in it. I slept with Freddie, while Mama and Daddy (I called him that their entire marriage) slept in the other bed. Freddie was 12 years old, 12 years younger than Hardy.

The next morning we woke to the smell of bacon and biscuits cooking. I had been living with great grandparents for as long as I could remember, they were old when I came along. I don’t remember what I ate for breakfast in those years, but it couldn’t have been that exciting, I can’t remember any breakfasts. I do remember the noon meals, though. This home cooked breakfast with all the trimmings, right down to sliced tomatoes blew my little mind.

Later, I was left alone with Mom while Dot and Hardy were off somewhere and Freddie was at school. Pop worked at the Vickers plant. She sat at the kitchen table peeling apples. She offered me a slice, but I wanted the whole apple, and I sassed her, something I’m sure Mimi and Granpa always put up with cos I was their precious angel, and they were both masters at sarcasm, so it was kinda inbred. Anyway, she literally turned me over her red checkered apron and swatted by behind. I was outraged, I had never been spanked, in memory, I was everyone’s darling.

After I sulked around for about an hour, she brought out some things she said I could play with. One was a big black purse covered in those colorful little half beads. This isn’t very politically

correct, sorry, but there was a little black ragdoll that looked like a “pick-i-ninnie”, but I loved it. I had lots of dolls back at Mimi and Granpa’s but I think some where packed into a box in the trunk if the car. The piece de la resistance, was a coon skin cap. I had to treat it like a Holy relic, or I couldn’t play with it. When I was bored with those, she gave me Piggly Wiggly bags and crayons and I colored in their logo pig. Later, I was allowed to rummage through her jewelry box and try on her jewelry. It was only costume jewelry and she only wore it to church, but to me, it was like a treasure chest.

Later that day we traveled southwestward to Lafayette Louisiana where we settled in the apartment on Surrey Street. We went back to Brandon for Christmas and I remember it well.

The first Thanksgiving I can remember was in that warm, cozy kitchen. Dot and I watched the parade across the street, in a house we rented when we came back from Louisiana for good (for good, the Dot and Hardy Years, cos I’d be back in 1974.) Dot made peanut butter and crackers with a large marshmallows on top. These were put into a low oven and browned, then served with hot chocolate. About noon time, we trekked down the hill, to Mom’s. Hardy was already there. He had been there all morning. He went there every morning. He was a Mama’s Boy.

Not surprisingly, Dot cared little for Mom. You can see in this 1968 Christmas dinner photo that Mom is mostly hidden by Uncle Fester, I mean Pop. That is an old family trait of cutting peeps you dislike out of cute pics, we are a strange bunch. Only an O’Brien would make everyone hold their pose while they positioned the most beloved person in the room out of the picture. Dot had to use an old timey brownie with those golf ball shaped flashbulbs, bulbs people, not even a flash cube!

Also, my mother wasn’t fond of Freddie, but I thought he was a total blast. He was only 7 years olderthan me; he was more like a goofy big brother uncle. I had UncaHoney, the stalwart of uncleness, but this uncle was goofy and funny and had a box full of comic books under his bed. He called me

“Puddin’ Head” I was once bitten by a neighborhood dog. Freddie lost his head and shot the dog. The little dog partially visible at the bottom of the photo, Nubbin was then whacked by the owners of the collie that bit me. It was like a horse head in your bed. If that ain’t love in Mississippi in 1970, I don’t know what is. Somebody call Jeff Foxworthy.

If she disliked Mom and Freddie, she downright hated Pop. Pop had been in WWII. He was active in the VFW. He drove a blue Dodge. He smoked roll your own Prince Albert cigarettes. He didn’t wear his teeth when he was at home. He drank Budweiser. He was a pretty good sport, I guess. He was funny.

I am very thankful I had them in my life. They came into my life when I was young. They were there Oct 65-Nov71.

I am also thankful that Dot, Chris, Mel and I made a pilgrimage back there in July of 2000. We drove up to the little yellow house. I got out of the car and carefully opened the old gate. I walked up the thin concrete walk that I still have scarred knees from falling there. Mom opened the kitchen/front door before I could open the screen door. “Can I help you?”
“Mom, it’s Vi”

Grow Up!!!!!!!!!

Here it is, 2:14 am cdt. It is my b'day, but technically, since I was born at 3:03 am, I'm still 49.

But, seriously, Folks, for all my mullygrubbing this week, I am not really as bummed as I put out there. I know 50 isn't old, age is just a number, you're as old as you feel.....cliche's, I got a million of 'em.

They say you can never be too rich or too thin, I'll never be either one of those, but, I don't mind, I've had a helluva good time. I've done some stupid, crazy shit. I try to be a decent gal, I like to see people smile and laugh. The ability to make people laugh is the greatest gift God gave me. I strive to be compassionate, fair, honest.....blah blah blah, yak yak yak......boy scout much?

Its 2:36 now, gotta hurry up and get back to sleep, so I can fall asleep 49 and wake up 50.

Ta, for now, Auntie luvs u. Xoxoxox

Closer

50 years ago today……

Dot was cooking pork chops and when turning one over she dropped it onto the floor. She threw the fork she was turning it with, across the room. Her mother took her to the hospital.
This was the magical October of 1960. You went into the hospital 3 days before you even went into labor, got knocked out with twilight sleep (which in retrospect is probably best as I weighed almost 10 pounds) and went home a week later when a baby who had spent her first week of life hamming it up in the nursery.

Apparently, my Irish/White Trash gene kicked in early. As seen in this early photograph of me anticipating the attacking of the cake, which would surely begin any second.

Here I am at two, a little more sophisticated and doing a Bette Davis impersonation.

Upon further research into my birth to 2 year picture trail, I discovered I could be quite the “pissed off baby”.

I learned to chill at any early age. Kick back, enjoy a tudge of milk, and watch Beverly Hillbillies.

Enjoy a smoke,

oh what? You’re not supposed to eat it?