Dialing Up the Past

Just spent the last 3 hours on the phone with my oldest sister in Virginia. We had a walk through of our childhoods and I laughed until I couldn't laugh anymore. Some of the highlights:

Riding in the car with our grandparents and I asked, "does anybody want a Reese Cup with a worm in it?" Our sister Becky immediately said, "I do!" Moments later there was scream and Becky said, "it does have a worm in it." My grandfather nearly wrecked the car, my grandmother snatched the candy and by our best guess, it's probably sailing over China now. I was probably 6 when that happened.

Kay recalled the 3 worst whippings she ever got. One was for being in the neighbor, Mrs. Bean's garden and refusing to come out after my Dad told her too. He had to go after her. Second was her moment of complete stupidity when she slapped our Mom. The long arm of Dad came from around the corner to get her that time. Third time was when she convinced a 4 year me to eat these berries. Yeah it was pretty bad as I was rushed to the hospital with a stomach full of poisonous berries. I almost bit the dust that night as did my sister.

We laughed about Becky's cat "Rosebud" who adored Becky but also bullied her. This cat would sleep on Beck's head and if she moved the cat would bite her. One night the cat decided to sleep with me. I went to move the cat out of my bed and the darn thing bite me, I muttered a four letter word, and Becky speaks up, "don't hurt her." I shot putted that cat across the bedroom and she landed on the dresser. All the noise caused our parents to come running because Becky was screaming at this point. I'll never forget Becky crying over that cat because she thought she was hurt, well hell I was the one bleeding....could anyone say band-aid?????

Then there was the time Kay nailed me into the apple tree. That made Mom mad, might have been because she had to climb the tree to get me out?

When we were younger we all slept in the same bed. One night we had been jumping on the bed and our parents had repeatedly warned us. The bed broke and when we heard out parents feet hit the floor, our 3 asses hit the bed and pretended to be asleep. The bed was cockeyed and we were sliding off of it but we were "asleep." We all three got a spanking that night.

My grandmother use to get her hair fixed every Thursday. It was one of those updo type beehive deals. She came back after getting it fixed and I told her I'd fix her hair. She sat there and let me completely destroy what she had just paid to have done. They use to make the cans of color spray for hair and Granny always had a can of "Gray". I used the entire can on her head, combed her hair all over the place...she had the Don King look going before Don King. When my Papa got home he said, "Rube what happened to your hair?" She told him I fixed it, he gave me $5.00 for doing such a good job. The next day, she paid to have her hair fixed again.

Our grandparents let us get by with just about anything. Let me rephrase...Kay got by with 90%, Becky 95%, me 150%. I was the darling angel baby. My Papa didn't think I ever did anything wrong. He'd give me quarter for every pine cone I picked up out of the yard and another quarter to throw them at my sisters and Granny. He gave me $5.00 for sticking one in my Dad's mouth when he was asleep snoring. Being that this was my Mom's parents she didn't find the humor in him paying me to be "bad."

Enough for tonight....you just had to be there....but I still style hair for $5.00 and under!