Actually, I don't remember my mom. She died in her thirities after spending years in a T.B. sanitariam. We later learned that T.B. wasn't contageous after the initial stages so all of those people being, for all intense and purposes, incarcerated in a sanitarium, wasn't necessary.
Moms pass on all kinds of gifts and skills to their kids. In my parents' generation, especially in the midwest, quilting was a skill that was passed from mother to daughter.
But in my case, nothing.
Except I'm a writer. And my mother was a writer. She grew up on a farm in Kentucky. Dirt poor, the 10th of 13 children.
At least three of them were writers. That used to puzzle me.
Years later when I studied the Southern Writers, I realized that many of them came from families where no one else could read, much less write.
Following is a poem that my mother wrote just before she was married. At the time she was writing fairly articulate articles from time to time for the newspaper.
This particular poem tells me about her talent and her wit.
Entertainin' Sister's Beau
When sister has a date sometimes
An' she's kinda late, you know,
She sends me in the parlor
To entertain her beau.
"Now don't you talk so much," she says
"An be a reg' lady."
An' 'en she keeps on askin'
Till finally I promises, maybe.
I sits upon the sofa in
A dignified sort of way,
An' I stick me finger in me mouth
Cause me don't know what to say
En he says to me, he says;
"Is your sister good to you?"
An' 'en that go me started,
An' he got tired 'fore I got through.
I tole him all the mean things
I could think of she had done,
An' when they ran out on me
I even made up some.
Course it wasn't lyin
Cause it was all fer his benefit,
But I'll not do it again,
Cause he didn't 'ppreciate it.
I never go in any more
Sis, she'd rather I don't
An maw, she won't let me,
So I just recon - I won't
But if I ever have a feller of my own
I'll tell him what I like
But I'm a very little girl yet,
So I'll kiss the family
Goodnight.
***
Moms pass on all kinds of gifts and skills to their kids. In my parents' generation, especially in the midwest, quilting was a skill that was passed from mother to daughter.
But in my case, nothing.
Except I'm a writer. And my mother was a writer. She grew up on a farm in Kentucky. Dirt poor, the 10th of 13 children.
At least three of them were writers. That used to puzzle me.
Years later when I studied the Southern Writers, I realized that many of them came from families where no one else could read, much less write.
Following is a poem that my mother wrote just before she was married. At the time she was writing fairly articulate articles from time to time for the newspaper.
This particular poem tells me about her talent and her wit.
Entertainin' Sister's Beau
When sister has a date sometimes
An' she's kinda late, you know,
She sends me in the parlor
To entertain her beau.
"Now don't you talk so much," she says
"An be a reg' lady."
An' 'en she keeps on askin'
Till finally I promises, maybe.
I sits upon the sofa in
A dignified sort of way,
An' I stick me finger in me mouth
Cause me don't know what to say
En he says to me, he says;
"Is your sister good to you?"
An' 'en that go me started,
An' he got tired 'fore I got through.
I tole him all the mean things
I could think of she had done,
An' when they ran out on me
I even made up some.
Course it wasn't lyin
Cause it was all fer his benefit,
But I'll not do it again,
Cause he didn't 'ppreciate it.
I never go in any more
Sis, she'd rather I don't
An maw, she won't let me,
So I just recon - I won't
But if I ever have a feller of my own
I'll tell him what I like
But I'm a very little girl yet,
So I'll kiss the family
Goodnight.
***
