Kinfolk who just won’t leave…
by Dewayne Gore
My mother and father had been shopping the day my brother and I set the woods on fire. I don’t know that for a fact, but a large part of their time together was spent shopping or at the laundramat in Ocean Drive, S.C., now known as North Myrtle Beach.
It was usually a busy time at our house after mother came home from shopping. She was a world class cook and could have fed most of the world’s population with a single meal. She always loved to cook.
We were poor folks, a fact of which I was not aware until I started to school. The kids on my school bus let me know. We lived in a house my daddy built out of materials from houses he had torn down, but we always had plenty to eat.
Every Sunday after church services we would return home to a feast of a meal. It seemed company was always coming. I never knew who it might be or where they were coming from, but someone was always coming for dinner. They came from near, they came from far, but they always came.
I imagined in my young mind that my mother’s cooking sent out a beacon to the hungry, to the lonely, and to the underprivilidged. And to justify my conclusions, they came, they ate, and their kids stole my toys.
Ever had people you really didn’t want to see pull into your yard? We did, or at least I did. There was the X-family and their dozen brats who always came. They were the one’s who wouldn’t leave.
In my mind’s eye, I can still see a long station wagon pulling into our dirt driveway, with us rushing to the doors in excited gasps of “who’s that?” Our curiosity soon turned to “OH LORD! NOT THEM AGAIN”.
But, nevertheless, we’d rush outside to greet them as they evacuated their submarine on wheels. And exit they did. They just kept getting out and getting out and getting out. I’d think, ”Lord help me! I don’t have that many toys!”
They were the one’s who had three mean boys just a year or two older than me and my little brother. Yep, same one’s. And the couple of girls our ages with orange freckles and no front teeth, who wanted desperately to kiss us, even though we were cousins. And the mama who always smelled of snuff and liniment, grabbing me by the cuff to get some “sugar” from me. And the papa who lived to mess my hair up. And the seventeen year old daughter who wore her flowered dress much too short, her hair much too tall, and her cat-eye glasses much too often.
But, they were family, so we treated them as such. And treated they were. When they ever left, it was only after they had eaten all our hopes of having leftovers, talked away the current and past gossip, and their kids had stuffed all our toys under their car seats.
So, being thusly supplied for their journey home, they would eventually back out of the driveway. We would stand on the front porch slapping mosquitoes in the twilight as they waved goodbye and roared off on their trek to who knows where. I didn’t care, though, as long as they were leaving our house.
After company left we would sit on the porch for a while, listening to the crickets, frogs, and whipporwills. After growing up, I understand those times better; I believe mother and daddy were simply enjoying the ensuing peace and quiet after our company had gone home.
We had this old iron monster called a porch swing that I loved dearly. My mother sat in the swing and led the family in renditions of her favorite gospel songs. My sisters would join in, singing harmony.
My little brother and I would play in the dirt around the front porch while the family sang and united as one. I always loved those times. I thought God must have been smiling, what with all that good smelling food and fine singing going on down there. It was like the aroma of the moment flowed up in a cloud towards Heaven in the dark.
My daddy would take out one of his gasoline lanterns and light it. It cast ominous shadows about the porch and yard, and added a somewhat mysterious atmosphere to the occasion, especially with the sound it gave off. Anyone who has ever witnessed a gasoline lantern in operation is familiar with its unmistakeable hiss.
One night daddy was gone for some reason, and one of my older sisters decided she was going to light the lantern herself. Not knowing quite what she was doing, she called for my older brother to help her light it.
I don’t know what happened, or what went wrong. I did learn that my brother’s hair was highly flammable, and that he was a very fast runner; a fact I had not known up to that point in my life, but one which would come in handy as I grew older. Poor fellow. Well, no major damage done.
Those are the days I miss the most.
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