Hold Everything Lightly #5 {Summers}

Everything about my childhood was not grim. 

Mother with her odd mountain wisdom and cunning, think Hatfield and McCoy cunning, decided to send me to Hangingdog for the summers.

Hangingdog, a community in extreme western North Carolina was where mother grew up and where my uncle and aunt maintained the family farm.

 Kenneth and Judy had two daughters one two years older and one two years younger than me. I was perfectly sandwiched between those girls. Uncle Kenneth farmed the land full time and Judy worked in the larger town of Murphy part time. They ate everything they grew and seldom went to a store. They had chickens and pigs. I remember Judy once exploded a chicken all over the ceiling with a pressure cooker. It took days to clean bones off that ceiling and I am still wary of pressure cookers. They grew beets and canned beets and we ate beets every day. Judy made me eat beets and I detest them. 

Try eating beets once or twice a day for three months.

Judy came from a wealthy Murphy family and was quite eccentric.

 She talked different, her speech was precise and elegant. Not a mountain dialect at all. Not like mama and Kenneth. She was thin, tall and had a long face and long, long straight black hair. She looked a lot like Cher. The driveway to the home place was winding and long and the place was isolated at best. Judy would mow the grass stark naked. This was rather alarming to me. She had me embroider Pot Pocket on her jean pocket. I do not believe it was a joke. The county they lived in was a dry county and allowed no liquor or beer sales. But no worries, the moonshine flowed bountifully from those mountains. I tried it once in the back seat at the drive-in theater in Murphy. White Lightning indeed.

 I have never tasted ignited gasoline but that is a good analogy.

When I was in my mid thirties Judy called and said she had a quilt of my grandmothers.

 She and Uncle Kenneth had been divorced for many years by this time. I drove to Murphy to get it. Judy looked much the same, long black hair flecked with grey and she still had that voice. She had always been passionate about antiques and the past. The house, upon my arrival, was brimming with vintage and antique items. To the degree that we could barely walk through the rooms. We made our way to a back bedroom and she opened an old steamer trunk and took out eight quilts and handed me one. She said it was grandmothers. I am confident she knew the correct quilt. She also offered me a job as a nurse. I turned her down as I had no desire to relocate, but there again, Judy always had the ability to surprise. It is entirely possible her motive was to get me there to care for her family member but I appreciated the quilt. My cousin has given me numerous vintage items of my aunts over the years and I treasure them. Perhaps my love for things of the past was sparked by Aunt Judy.

Judy died far too young, Kenneth is still with us and my cousins reside in Texas.

"Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts, when God pries your fingers open."

                                                      ---Corrie Ten Boom 1892-1983

To read other parts of the series click on HOLD EVERYTHING LIGHTLY at the top of the page.

Thank you for reading

Olive