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Little Green
Onions
By Abraham Lincoln
What do old people think about? At 80 plus I seldom think about my
future because the road ahead is one we all take and there are no rest
stops along the way. Sometimes I think of myself as that last piece of
tape on the roll wonder if will I be enough to finish wrapping this
package.
I catch myself thinking about the many things already done and
forgotten until I just remembered how I could have done a better job. I
never blamed myself for being the way I am but I do give credit to
those who made me into an image that suited them.
I used to be mean as hell when being mean came over me like some evil
SOB dumped left-over dishpan water on my head. I cussed a streak
looking for signs of disbelief but the ones I wanted a reaction from
never reacted--"He's acting just like his mother."
My mother was a saint and my dad cussed and chewed Mail Pouch chewing
tobacco. My dad never laid a hand on me but mom knocked me out in front
of Sunday visitors using a coal shovel. I woke up laid out on the bed
and the visitors were gone. I don't remember getting an apology but I
never teased mom in front of Sunday visitors after that.
My dad had problems with women in general. I think he thought they were
all made for him to try out but I didn't know at my prepubertal age
what sexual relationships were all about.
My mother and father were divorced before I was old enough to go to
school. I can remember mother pushed and shoved my father backwards
until he stumbled and fell, butt first, into a bushel basket of glass
Mason canning jars without suffering a single cut--I guess it must have
been mother's angelic touch that protected him.
At that early age I remember one Sunday dinner when we all sat around
the small kitchen table to eat and my dad mentioned, "The gravy is
almost cold" and my mother shot up out of her chair, grabbed the bowl
of hot gravy and dumped it into my father's lap.
I have no idea or just forgot what she said but I am positive it was
sarcastic and had something to do with giving him something to talk
about.
I met the town mayor shortly after that because my dad went to his
house and dragged him back home to lay down the law to my mom.
But most of what was said was over m y head and I stayed out of trouble
at the table until I had finished eating my piece of fried chicken.
Mom fried chicken to a rich brown color using fresh lard out of the
crock. A lot of meals were fried using leftover grease in the cast iron
skillet from when she fried side meat or jowl bacon.
The bits of meat mixed with the grease could be mopped up on a slice of
bread--it made a great sandwich that mom wrapped in a piece of waxed
paper she saved from bread wrappers and I took to school for my lunch.
In warmer weather the boys saved the wax paper and sat on a piece and
slid down the metal slide. Enough wax came off the waxed paper to make
the slide as slick as a sheet of ice. Older boys dared little kids to
try out the slide and those who did were shot off the end for a couple
of feet before landing in the dirt.
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