Those of you who are on my Facebook may have seen my recent post, announcing that I was going to do a series of stories about my grandmother. In order to remind those who saw it, and inform those who did not... I would also like to include stories from any of you who knew her. As I stated in my Facebook post, I would really appreciate you emailing me your stories, so I can share them in this blog and like I said, I can either cite you as the author or publish your story anonymously, whichever you choose. If you like, you can type it up in a word document and send me the file, or just send it as a regular email message. Which ever you prefer. Just send it to: horsemanclif@gmail.com
I think of this series as if it were a painting where each of us can contribute our own unique colors from our own unique perspectives. I can't help but believe that the more people I can get to contribute, the more special this project will be! Plus, I know some of you knew her many years longer than I did, so I know you will have some stories I have never heard before and one thing is certain... any story about grandmother is an interesting story!
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Chapter One: The Hole in the Bucket
Grandmother was a real Bad-Ass!
There... I said it. And for some strange reason, I suddenly have this image in my mind's eye that mouthfuls of beverages are currently being sprayed across computer screens, all across the land. Furthermore, I would almost swear that I also just heard a chorus of coffee mugs, tea glasses, coke bottles, and maybe even a beer can or two, just hit the floor. Why? Because I know most, if not all of you thought this series of stories was going to be about a wonderful little woman who most people knew as "sweet little Mrs. Peacock"... that saint of a human being who never raised her voice, never had an unkind word to say, never took part in gossip and certainly never used profanity! That industrious yet simple woman who always worked hard, dealt fairly and honestly with everyone, knew her bible front to back and was above all reproach. The truth is, she was absolutely that woman! So you can relax, I am not going to say anything that would ever tarnish that image of her. It just turns out that she was so much more than the person I just described and it is that "much more" side of her, that most of these stories are about. Because you see... underneath that meek, humble and understated exterior, was a stone cold killer! A genuine super hero with the heart of a lion! A being of supreme intelligence who could see and hear through walls, outrun a rabbit, out shoot a sniper and out muscle a mule! So as you run to get a towel to clean off your screen and contemplate how on earth I could ever use such an obscene label to describe "sweet little Mrs. Peacock", I want you to consider this... I can absolutely guarantee that by the end of this series, you will agree with my assessment. No other descriptive label would be adequate.
I do not know where my grandmother came to possess her super powers. I suspect it possibly could have happened when as a young girl, she was struck by lightening. The story goes that she was standing in a doorway between two of her brothers, when lightening struck her and killed the two boys. Maybe when that happened, she absorbed what ever special gifts and talents her brothers might have possessed, to carry on. Perhaps we will never really know for sure. However, there is one thing I do know with unquestionable certainty. The only "blemish" in my grandmother's super hero cape was the fact that the poor woman couldn't cook worth a crap!....(Bless her heart) And with that, let's get to the story.
"The Hole in the Bucket":
When I was a young boy, grandmother lived in a small wood frame house that faced north on a few acres, just west of the city limits of Odessa, Texas. Grandmother was a real estate agent who owned her own business. She was a very frugal woman, so her little house served double duty as her living quarters and her office. This actually was a good idea, considering it was located on one of the busiest streets in the county. Anyway, grandmother's property was subdivided into several lots. She had a rent-house on the lot adjacent to hers and a various assortment of other structures and outbuildings on the other lots as well. Right behind the left side of her house was an old two-story wood-frame house that was really nothing more than a garage on the ground floor with a small, two-room apartment right above it. She always parked her car in the garage and she would occasionally lease out the apartment. Throughout the course of her real estate dealings she was continually acquiring a vast assortment of "treasures". She would typically have these priceless items stacked in piles, in the lot directly behind her house. There were stacks of all kinds wood and doors and pipe and just about anything you could imagine. Going further back into this lot, her chicken coup was located on the west side of the lot and directly across from it to the east, was where she always kept a huge hole for burning her trash. The hole was generally about 4 feet deep and about 6 feet across, and about 8 - 10 feet long. Naturally, there was always a nice mountain of dirt right next to the hole. This was also the lot where she always kept her garden. In addition to the garden, she had some fruit trees. If I remember correctly, she had a peach tree and maybe a fig tree or two and she may have also had plumb and apricot trees, but I really can't remember for sure. At any rate, if you were to turn a young boy with any kind of imagination loose in that lot, he could create just about any kind of world he could dream up! Naturally, as a kid this was my universe. Any time I wanted to go mountain climbing, I headed to the big mound of dirt by the trash pit. This was also a good place to drive a toy jeep or jump a bicycle and it also provided great cover, whenever you got caught in a heated shootout with the bad guys! If I wanted to ride a bucking bronc, I would just hop onto the barrel we had hung from the roof of an old shed and if I wanted to camp out, there were plenty of mesquite trees in the back of the lot, to tie up which ever horse I had decided to ride. In those days, I had a choice between three horses to ride wherever I went. My first horse was "Midnight" and he was a solid black shetland pony. Midnight could be pretty ill-tempered at times so I often rode one of my other two horses instead. Their names were "Thunder" and "Lightening". Thunder was the bigger of the two and oddly enough, his mane was the exact same color as a mop head. Lightening was definitely the fastest between the two of them and his mane, which happened to be the same color as broom straw, was always sticking straight out, as if it were being blown back by the wind. He looked fast, even when he was standing still!
One day in early July, I came riding in from the range (back corner of the lot) on my trusty steed, Lightening. It was lunch time and since I had spent all morning, single-handedly slaughtering a whole tribe of renegade comanches, I was pretty cotton pickin' hungry! Lunch time at grandmother's house was extremely important because this was when I was most likely to have a growth spurt. Grandmother had a juicing machine and she had somehow figured out that if I were to drink a certain amount of her homemade juice, I would grow really, really fast! So whenever I would come in for lunch, she would have me back up to the ice-box (refrigerator) and she would mark my height with a grease pencil. Then she would have me drink a couple of glasses of juice and without fail, I would actually grow as I drank that juice! One time, I grew a whole quarter of an inch, in only one day!!! I'm telling you... grandmother was a real genius for figuring out how that juice would make me grow so fast! I can't imagine why, but for some strange reason carrot juice always seemed to work the best. Anyway, back to the story... So I was galloping back to the ranch on Lightening, when I happened to notice something a little odd, lying on the ground. "Whooooaaaaa!" I called out to Lightening, and pulled him up to a sliding stop. Both Thunder and Lightening were such good horses... you could leave either one untied and they would never run off! Anyway, I quickly jumped off my horse and knelt down to investigate exactly what it was I had seen. Much to my surprise, I had just found a huge rocket! I have no idea how that rocket found its way to grandmother's back yard because as far as I knew, nobody had shot off any fireworks on her property that year. Needless to say, I didn't waste any time pondering how it got there, I was just as excited as could be to now have it in my possession! My only concern was that the rocket was not entirely in one piece. It didn't appear to be broken, but the nose cone and tail fins were not attached to the body. I didn't let this dampen my spirits though, because I knew grandmother and I could fix whatever was wrong and have it ready to fly by nightfall.
I'm almost certain I did not drink any juice for lunch that day because at that point, I had much more important things on my mind than growing! In fact, I was so excited I'm not totally sure I even ate at all! As predicted, grandmother and I managed to get that rocket put back together in one piece and it sure enough looked like it was ready to fly, whether it was or not. We decided to wait until after dark to light it off because we both knew that any rocket of that size was going to put on one heck of a show and we wanted make sure we would be able to fully appreciate it, in all of its splendor!
So there we were... grandmother and I just chomping at the bit, waiting for nightfall. I can't remember now exactly what it was but when we put that rocket together, I seem to recall there was some kind of issue with the fuse. Whatever it was, it led us to believe it might not properly ignite. Being that the rocket was all we could think or talk about anyway, it was only a matter of time before we contrived a plan to test that fuse. To be honest, grandmother was a little hesitant about our plan but in the end, she deferred to my overall expertise and vast knowledge of rocket fuses. So the plan was... I was going to light the fuse, while grandmother manned the kitchen sink faucet. If the fuse lit like it was supposed to, then all we had to do was extinguish it and wait until it got dark. I suppose if it didn't light, then we would have attempted to make a fuse, which might have made for an even more interesting story... As it turns out, this was one of those large type fuses that were simply too big to just pinch out between your thumb and fingertip. Not to worry... I had grandmother manning the sink and if that fuse lit correctly, all I had to do was stick the burning tip under the running water from the faucet. Our plan was so well thought out, we even had the water running before I attempted to light the fuse. So really, all grandmother had to do was turn the faucet off when I was done. As I stood by that kitchen sink, with a lit match in one hand and a super sonic rocket in the other, I was in the prime of my life. At nine years old, I was on top of the world and I was supremely confident in my skills as a man and as a pyrotechnical expert. I mean after all, hadn't I just completely wiped out an entire tribe of renegade indians just that morning, all by myself?! Fortunately, I survived what happened next and can now give this testimony. Let me start by saying that all of the indians and bad guys I had whooped and killed up to that point in my life, did not prepare me for that single moment in time, when that fuse ignited in my hand! When I touched the flame to the end of that fuse, it just kind of turned black at first, and then in a flash, that thing went off like a sparkler! The only problem was, that sparkler was only about one inch long!!! As grandmother and I stood by the sink, with the sparks from that fuse flying everywhere, I looked at her and she looked at me while our eyes grew wider than a set of toyota hubcaps!!! Suddenly, the running water that was right in front of me, had no significant meaning. I looked down at the fuse which was now only three quarters of an inch long and shrinking fast! And with that, I was in full blown panic mode!
It is very interesting when you share a moment of extreme danger with someone. The communication between the two of you suddenly becomes very laser and there is no longer any use for words or gestures. Everything can be said in a nanosecond, with only the eyes. This was a language that grandmother and I spoke very well with each other, possibly because we had already used it so many times before. So I looked at grandmother and my eyes say to hers, "OH CRAP!!!!.... I never imagined this would happen! What on earth am I gonna do now?!!" I distinctly remember grandmother's eyes looking at me and responding with, "OH CRAP!!!....I don't think the water will work!!! What are you gonna do now?!!" I look down... only a half of an inch of fuse left!!! So I look up at grandmother again and my eyes say to hers, "OH CRAP!!!... Not much time left, what do I do?!!" Grandmother's eyes look at me and say, "OH CRAP!!!...I got nothin'!!"
As I stood there, I was absolutely sure I was going to die and grandmother would also probably die and even if we somehow managed to survive, her house was certainly going to burn to the ground. So I look off to the side and over in the corner, grandmother had several of those old galvanized 5-gallon buckets, laying in the floor. She put all of the fruits and vegetables in them that she picked from her garden and fruit trees. I look from the buckets to the fuse. Down to a quarter of an inch! I look up at grandmother, then at the buckets, and then back at her and my eyes say to her, "OH CRAP!!!.....I'm going to throw this thing in one of those buckets!!!" As I was turning toward the buckets, I caught a glimpse of grandmother's eyes responding, "OH CRAP!!!!.....Hurry up and throw it and let's high-tail it outa here!!!" So grandmother takes off running, with me only a half a step behind. As I'm running, I make a quick turn and flick the rocket into one of the buckets, just as the fuse completely disappears!
There was an opening in one corner of the kitchen that led into grandmother's office/living room. We both head toward that opening at a dead sprint and as soon as we get close enough, we dive head first into the office! Once we make it to the comparative safety of this room, grandmother quickly dives under her desk and I make a mad scramble to get under the couch! At first, all we hear are a soft whizzing sound and all we see is some light smoke. Then... there is nothing. No sound, no smoke... all seems to be clear! We both begin laughing nervously, as she comes out from under her desk and I make my way up from underneath the couch. Grandmother's eyes and mine are still in danger mode when we look at each other and our eyes say, "Whew, that was a close one!"
Right about the time we were brave enough to go back into the kitchen and survey the damage, something that sounds an awful lot like a train whistle starts blaring from kitchen! I look at grandmother and she looks at me and her eyes say, "OH CRAP!!!!!.....Run for it!!!" At this point, my eyes are no doubt saying, "OH #%##@!!!!.....We're gonna die!!!!" We run toward the far corner of the room as we hear a thousand eagles screaming, while being chased by a blaring locomotive! Mounds of smoke are now boiling out of the kitchen that are so thick, we can barely find our way across the room! When we finally make it to the corner, we dig in close to the floor and hold each other tight!!! Suddenly, a jet airplane lands in grandmother's kitchen, while bone-jarring thunder and multi-colored lightening bolts boom and flash, again and again!!!! I scream but nothing can be heard over the machine gun blasts that are now peppering the walls in the kitchen!!! I look at grandmother as she looks at me and our eyes communicate nothing but sheer terror!!! We are so paralyzed by fear we find it impossible to even cry, as the battle of Armageddon rages in grandmother's kitchen!!!
After being trapped in our little make-shift foxhole for what seems like hours, the whole world suddenly goes eerily quiet. The only sound that can be heard for miles, is the ringing in our ears. We refuse to move, still petrified by fear. Even the faces in the pictures on the walls appear to be afraid! We remain in our two-person cocoon, frozen in the ringing silence as the smoke slowly begins to dissipate.
I have no idea how much time has passed but I think I am viewing about the tenth re-run, of my life flashing before my eyes, when I feel grandmother's death-grip on me loosen. I loosen mine in return and we stand in trembling silence for another ten minutes, as we wait for the circulation to return enough where we can move again. The entire house is now full of smoke, so we open the doors and windows to let the air clear. We then tentatively make our way back to the kitchen to survey what was sure to be extensive damage. Gingerly, we slowly poke our heads into the kitchen and are greeted by a smokey haze and the putrid odor of burned gunpowder. Astonishingly, the only noticeable change is the smoke! There are no machine gun holes in the walls, the table and chairs have not been blown to smithereens, and the water is still running, mockingly, in the sink. We take two hesitant, non-committal steps into the kitchen, both of us clearly braced for another "OH CRAP!!!" moment. In my mind I'm thankful that everything appears to be okay for the moment but I just know when I get to the corner of the room, I'm going to find a hole in the floor the size of a Volkswagen, where all of those buckets had been sitting. Consequently, I am a little anxious about the ramifications of grandmother's anger, when she finally realizes all of her buckets and the fruits and vegetables they contained, have all been destroyed. I make my way through the lingering fog, to the last known location of the buckets and as I approach, I sense the fog suddenly lift and the clouds separate to reveal the golden sun! All of the buckets are still there!!! I can't believe it...it's an absolute miracle!!! As I move closer to the buckets, however, I see that one has not survived the ordeal. Apparently when I threw the rocket, it landed in a bucket that was about three quarters full of peaches. Not surprisingly, the top layer of peaches had been burned to a crisp and now looked like peach-sized charcoal briquets. What was shocking however, was that the rocket had effectively burned a perfect two inch hole, clean through that galvanized metal bucket!
The next thing I know, grandmother and I are laughing so hard, we can barely stand or see through the tears in our eyes!!! It was one of those long, deep belly laughs that makes your sides hurt for days! I have no doubt that rocket would have put on a beautiful show that night, but it wouldn't have been anywhere near as memorable as the show it put on in grandmother's kitchen that afternoon! The one thing I remember grandmother saying about that event was..."If we live to be 90, we'll always remember the hole in the bucket!"
Daily Clifton-ism:
The universe is an impartial supermarket and if you refuse to accept anything but the very best, then that is likely what you will get.
Darn Good Grub:
Daddy's Dirty Rice
* I normally double this recipe for 4 people or more*
1 lb ground beef
1/2 finely chopped white onion
1 pk Earl Campbell's Hot Links (cubed) Comes as 2 shrink wrapped pks. Just use 1 unless doubling
1 pk Zatarain's Dirty Rice Mix
1 can whole kernel sweet corn
2 Tbsp virgin olive oil
1 pk shredded cheddar cheese
Add cubed hot links and chopped onion to ground beef. Brown then strain off grease.
In a large pot, add all contents from the can of corn and olive oil to the correct amount of water as listed on the Zatarain's box and follow remaining instructions on box.
Serve in a bowl or on a plate with cheese sprinkled on top.
Yum, Yum, get you some!
Message from God:
Romans 6:21 "What benefit did you reap at the time from those things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
Words of Wisdom from Grandmother:
During times of trouble, you can always find something to laugh about.
Okay friends that's it! Sorry it's been so long since my last post but I hope this was worth the wait. Thanks again for stopping by! CHJ
