The Trick or Treat Travesty of 1951

I have always loved Halloween, and like everything else she did, Mom made it special. We never had costumes from a box. She made them herself. One particular Halloween remains vividly stored in my memory bank. I must have been about 7 which would make Tomi 5 and Ben 2. That year, Mom had made me a witch costume—hat and all—and Tomi dressed as a black cat, complete with whiskers and a long tail. Ben was a clown, I believe, but since he was a two-year-old, I had little interest in his existence at the time.


As much as I loved the magic of Halloween and adored to dress up, Tomi absolutely detested it. She, like all of us, enjoyed the candy aspect, but she hated to be costumed beyond her comfort zone—something that continues to be true—and abhorred a mask of any kind. In those days, masks were not plastic or rubber. They were constructed of a gauze-like material that had been hardened with perhaps a corn starch. Whatever their physical makeup, they got goopy around one’s mouth after a bit, and this was an irritation beyond Tomi’s ability to endure. I, on the other hand, adored both masks and green makeup. What can I say? Pretend is a world I have always loved to inhabit.


On Trick or Treat night, Mom took us up and down Front Street in Vanceburg as we lived at my Grandmother Pugh’s house at the time. (We called her Hama, and later, just Hame.) We’d just approached the alley by Nellie Himes’s home—across from the utility plant—when Tomi threw a hissy fit. By this time, we’d gone but two blocks, but Tomi's cat tail dragged the ground and sometimes tripped her. Added to that inconvenience, her mask had reached a very goopy stage. Plus, she said she was hot, and Tomi does not like to be hot, ever. “My hair is sweaty,” she complained. Mom tried to console her, but Tomi was having none of it. I became selfishly concerned. What if we didn’t make it to the Mrs. Danner’s house? She always gave us great candy!


Deciding to take matters into my own hands, I pretended not to notice that our little procession had halted at the alley and walked quickly ahead. I heard Mom call to me as I knocked on Nellie’s door, but I pretended not to. “Karen. Come here this minute!” she commanded. I continued to be deaf to her orders, thanked Nellie for my candy, and walked briskly on ahead. I just knew I could make it if I just kept going forward. Fears of consequences for disobedience were deadened by my love of chocolate, lots and lots of chocolate. I was really booking it when I heard Mom again, this time in her “I Mean Business” tone. “Karen Pugh! Stop this minute!” I brazenly ignored her again and continued on to what I now considered to be The Promised Land. (Little brothers and sisters can be such a nuisance to the oldest sibling.)


The next thing I knew, Mom was grabbing my arm and yanking me around to face her. “Did you or did you not hear me, young lady?” Wow! The “young lady” had come out. I knew I was in for it then, but I exacerbated my crime by lying.


“Hear what?” I asked, trying to look as innocent as one can while wearing green face paint, a black half mask, and a pointed witch’s hat.


Mom did her killer glare, kept my arm firmly in her grasp, and practically dragged me to someone’s house. The owner of that house stood there, haloed in the beam of a porch light and a glowering jack-o-lantern’s face. She, evidently, had been quickly enlisted to mind Tomi and Ben. “Mom’s gonna get you,” Tomi hissed. She no longer wore her mask and her tail had been knotted several times so that it no longer reached the ground.


Not giving up pretense for one moment, I looked at Tomi and said, “Why? I didn’t do anything.” Isn’t that the defense of every guilty child if there is no one else to blame?


Trick or Treat was over for for me that year. Mom carried Ben and Tomi happily walked by her side. I-- obviously the wronged one--plodded along behind. Mom didn’t even look around to see if I were there. She knew I would be at that point. Besides, it was getting really dark out.


Usually, when we returned from Trick or Treat, we got to sit in the living room, dump out our candy into a big bowl, and eat some of the loot. Not that year for me. As soon as we entered the door, Mom left Tomi and Ben with Hame and then looked at me. Joyce Elizabeth Stout Pugh was very petite and gloriously beautiful, but when she gave the mother look, I knew I had dues to pay. “March, young lady,” she said to me. Two “young ladies” in a single evening. I was in for it for sure.”


When we reached my bedroom, Mom told me to take off the costume and then report to her room. “Don’t let Tomi eat my candy,” I muttered. Let’s face it, as the wronged one, I felt all the more audacious. Of course, we adults know that this is nearly suicidal, but children don’t think that far ahead. I certainly didn't.


Mom initially said noting and went to her room, shaking her head. I could be a trial from time to time, I must admit. Within moments, I was standing in my underwear in Mom’s room, and she began removing the green makeup with her cold cream, being none too gentle, I might add. “You, young lady—Good Grief! Another young lady—don’t have to worry about your candy. You no longer have any candy.”


I could not believe my ears. I had no candy? How could I not have any candy? I had a pillow case over half full of candy, and I hadn’t even gotten to Mrs. Danner’s house. “Yes, I do,” I foolishly replied. Mom shook her head. "But where is it? Where did it go?” I could not believe my ears. I never had sense enough to let things go, not then and not for far too many years.


When would I ever learn not to talk back. “Your candy, young lady—There it was again—is in the trash can.


This travesty was beyond my comprehension. “Why?” I bawled. You can see that I was not too smart when I felt an injustice had been done. “It’s Tomi’s fault. She’s such a baby. We didn’t even get to Mrs. Danner’s house.” Mom’s non-verbal reply was quick and final. She took me by the arm, marched me to my room—practically dragged me--pointed to my bed, and still said nothing.


As I pulled up my covers, pouting and more than likely weeping—I was always quite the weeper—Mom said, “Good night. Say your prayers,” and then she shut the door. Just shut it! I was indignant. I was so misunderstood. So poorly treated. Punished without cause! How could she do this to me?


I could hear Tomi, Hame, and Mom downstairs, probably eating my candy, and having a grand old time of it. I thought about running away for the forty-eleventh time. I always featured myself to be a heroine done wrong, but the only time I actually did run away, I only made it to the Chevrolet Garage on Second Street.


I must have fallen asleep, because I never heard Tomi come to bed. She and I now have such a great relationship,and we have since we were teenagers, but at Halloween, I sometimes remember how she managed to do me out of my candy. I can’t bring that up though, or she will again blame me for breaking her leg when she bicycled into the back of a horse I was riding. Siblings: a blessing and a curse!

Sweet Sugar! Why Don’t You Love Me?

John is the nicest person in our family and always has been. Ask anyone. This niceness does not make him a good judge of pet character. When he was four or five, he chose a kitten from our Jezebel’s litter that was the meanest cat known to man or woman. (Jezebel was the cat Cartier and Andrea Reis found on the elementary school playground and kept in their locker until after school. Yes, that crazy and perpetually pregnant cat.) Sweet Sugar was beautiful with long hair and black, white, and caramel splotches marking her fur. But, as Mom always reminded us: “Pretty is as pretty does.” Sweet Sugar was beastly ugly under those terms. If belonging to John couldn’t turn a creature’s disposition to the rosier side, there was little hope.

Every time he picked her up, she scratched the living daylights out of him. Loving as ever, John kept trying to win her affections. At the July Jubilee of 1988, John decided to enter Sweet Sugar in the pet show. As he placed her on the table to be judged, she clawed his face, leaving long, red, bloody stripes down his face. “Sweet Sugar! Why don’t you love me?” he cried. Instead of being supportive, Gavin and Samantha started teasing him with continual taunts of “Sweet Sugar! Why don’t you live me?” Big sister Cartier wasn’t much more help as she told him that Sweet Sugar was the Devil’s spawn, which, in turn, terrified him. By the time I reached the four of them, John was crying, Sweet Sugar was hissing, and Samantha and Gavin had to be reprimanded. “Tai Kidwell’s kittens won, just because they were in a basket with a bow on it!” John said, pitifully.

“Tai Kidwell’s kittens won because they aren’t the Devil’s spawn,” Gavin retorted.

“Gavin!” I said, sternly, drawing out his name to “Gav un!” stress on the second syllable. (When John was first talking, that is how he said Gavin’s name: two syllables said slowly, firmly, and sternly. Wonder why?) I grabbed Gavin’s shirt at the shoulder, reprimanded him, and so Samantha giggled. “You’re in trouble! You’re in trouble!” she sing-songed.

“Knock it off, missy. And I mean it!” I returned, not at all like the television mothers talked to their children. Cartier rolled her eyes and interjected something like “Good times,” in a voice dripping with sarcasm. I glared at her and gave her “the look.”

The other three kittens from that litter were named for the Aristocats as we had just seen the movie. Cartier had Marie, a beautiful white kitten who didn’t live long. Gavin’s was Berlioz, a pretty little gray kitten who followed Cartier’s close behind, resulting in two pet funeral services that month. Toulouse, the furry yellow kitten, lived to be fourteen, and Sweet Sugar died of meanness, I would imagine, after about a year or two of making John’s life miserable. However, Toulouse and Sweet Sugar are the two we remember most often. Just last night, Gavin and I were laughing about Sweet Sugar and how dreadful she was. I commented that John was the only person I knew who would continue to treat a cat like her kindly, and Gavin came back with, “Sweet Sugar! Why don’t you love me?” Good times indeed.

It’s funny how those little fleeting vignettes from life leave such a lasting impression. The nastiest cat we ever had supplies us with wonderful moments of fond reminiscing to this day. All any one of the kids has to say is, “Sweet Sugar! Why don’t you love me?” and we have those delicious belly laughs that bring tears to our eyes. But I must say, if any of you are reincarnated as an animal, pray that you come back as one of John Esham’s pets. There is no better life, I assure you. Just ask his rescue dog, Roxie, for references.

"Somebody Busted My Duck!"

When my children were younger, we had the equivalent of a zoo, but only a few of these pets were chosen by us—or, to be more specific, chosen by me. Most either arrived unannounced or were dragged home by one of the children. Let me begin with the latter.


When Cartier and her friend Andrea were in elementary school, they “found” a cat on the playground during recess. To “protect” the cat, they put her in their locker, which explains a great deal about the issues this cat had throughout her very prolific life. Cartier brought her home in her back pack, and a very few days later, she delivered her first litter. I cannot even recall what Cartier called her because I always called her “Slut Kitty” in my head and “Jezebel” aloud. I was able to find homes for this first litter and planned a trip to the vet to have her spayed as soon as the kittens were weaned. However, when I arrived home from school the day I had planned to take her to the vet, she had run off to "cat" around enough to return home pregnant, again. She was quite the tramp but had beautiful kittens. We had four more litters before I was able to nab her after procreation, kitten birth, and weaning and before she set out on another floozy adventure. With the fifth batch, I’d run out of friends and friends of friends who’d take all of the kittens. We therefore had to keep four of these. We had just seen The Aristocats, and so three of the four were named for the kittens in the movie: Marie, Toulouse, and Berlioze. John named his Sweet Sugar, and she was anything but. She was a pretty kitten, and so John decided to enter her in the July Jubilee pet show on the courthouse lawn. She didn’t win. She did scratch the dickens out of John’s face during her showing. He walked over to me after the show, dejected that Sweet Sugar had not won and forgiving of her for bloodying his face. I was not too fond of that cat, but John did not hold her bad behavior against her.


We also had a big old dog of nondescript lineage that dropped in one day and stayed several years until his demise. For no particular reason, one of the kids named him George. He was a good old dog with a wonderfully kind personality. George never hurt the kittens and rarely barked. Sadly, he, like Jezebel, Sweet Sugar, Marie, and Berlioze, eventually fell prey to the speeding cars on Route 10 in front of our house. Gavin and I had to create a hammock of sorts from large leaf bags to get him off the road and to our pet cemetery, and we both cried all the way up the long driveway.


The only pets we had that came to be the bane of my existence—and no, it did not include Slut Kitty--were the ducks. One Easter, a well-intentioned person gave the kids a “gift” of four little ducks. Had I known about a gift of four ducks before they arrived, I would have nixed it in short order. As it were, the man brought them while the kids were out in the yard, and those darned ducks were adored before I could say “No.” (Mom smiled and said, “What goes around comes around,” reminding me of the time I brought home Kutie, a “free puppy” from the Feed Store. Kutie was a much-loved mutt by me, but she dug holes in the yard like a fiend possessed.)


Now back to the ducks. Yes, they arrived as adorable little fluffy yellow ducks, but they grew up to be big white mean ducks that molted all over the back yard and stole food from the cats. George was even terrified of them, and not without reason. When those darn ducks were not eating the cats' food, chasing George, swimming in our little pond, or quacking their heads off, they were molting. And let me tell you, you cannot rake up duck feathers. Our yard sometimes looked as though someone had shredded toilet paper all over every square inch of grass. It was not pretty.

I hated those ducks with a passion, but the kids, and especially Samantha, loved them. I grieved over George when he was killed and was sad when the cats went, but those ducks were wily. They did not go near that road except for once. On that occasion, I learned of the carnage when I heard Samantha shouting to me from her bedroom upstairs. “Somebody busted my duck!” she yelled. She was only four or so at the time, but she knew what she had seen. While in her room, which had two dormer windows that faced Route 10, she had seen a car hit one of the ducks. By the time I looked out the front door, feathers were still wafting through the air. Samantha was not so much sad as she was angry. She wanted justice and someone arrested. “That car killed my duck!” she kept protesting, hands on hips, a scowl on her face. I finally had to pretend to phone the sheriff to lodge a “police report” about the duck murder.


Because of the number of years we lived in that house and the vast numbers of pets we had—dogs, cats, ducks, turtles, and goldfish—pet funerals had reached the state of high art with all the pomp and circumstance the kids could muster.


Behind the garage, there was an area for the horses. In front of this fence, we had a private pet cemetery, and by the time the duck was busted, the funeral rites were quite formal. The kids would put the deceased into a suitable box wrapped in a blanket or tea towel—or in the case of Ophelia the goldfish, encased in a plastic bag. They next dug a hole of adequate depth, and, with great solemnity, interred the pet. After the grave was covered over, Gavin both preached the sermon and sang the hymns. (It was no surprise to any of us that he became an actor and performer since he had been honing that skill for years, using us as the audience.) While Gavin preached—sometimes quite lengthy sermons—and sang--always more than one hymn--the rest of us served as mourners. Flowers were then placed on the grave and a hastily-cobbled-together cross was stuck into the ground. One year, Samantha even printed up programs for the event. Yes, the Esham family knew how to give a great funeral.


But of all the pets we had over the years, Toulouse—one of Jezebel’s last litter--was the most loved and longest-lived. He was with us for nearly fourteen years. Toulouse was a big fluffy yellow cat with a laid back personality that bordered on California surfer cool as he distained any traditional cat pastimes like chasing a ball of yarn or batting at a string. No, Toulouse liked lounging on the chairs or couch and bird watching, and frequently, he watched television with the kids. When Samantha and John were in high school, their friends found it endearing and amusing that Toulouse, who by then had a weak lung, slept draped over the arm of the couch. However, when some of Samantha’s guy friends mocked him too severely, they incurred her wrath in no uncertain terms. He was, after all, technically her cat, but all of us loved him. The day Toulouse left—he was an in-an-out cat—but didn’t return, I knew he had gone off to die. By then, we were living in a subdivision, having left the other house and its pet cemetery a few years before. But I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit that I would have liked to bury Toulouse with all the honors he deserved. He was one great cat and one I remember fondly all these years later.


A few years ago, after I had had to give away the cat that came with me to Florida because he would not stay inside as was required by my condo rules—he’d knocked out all the screens on the front breezeway and had begun to spite pee on the carpet—Cartier mused that she understood because I had never liked pets. I nearly blew a gasket. “I’ve never liked pets?” I shouted, my voice dripping with righteous indignation. “Are you kidding me? We’ve had cats, kittens, dogs, turtles, fish, two horses, and four damned ducks! Most of them at the same time! We had a zoo, for Pete’s sake!”

Cartier’s reply—and she excels at wit and sarcasm—was choice and typical of her: “Sounds like somebody busted your duck, Mom.”

The Great Cookie Bake Disaster of 1987

Remember the Waltons? We were not the Waltons, not by a long stretch. However, sadly, I didn’t always remember that. And this brings us to the Cookie Fiasco of
1987, a most tragic affair from which we all continue to suffer a little PTSD whenever holiday cookies are mentioned. It all began when I had a vision of the five of us—Cartier, age 18; Gavin, 12; Samantha, 8; and John, 5---baking and decorating Christmas cookies together. You can already see where this is going, can’t you?


A quick reality check might have saved us all, but I never administered that check, Mr. Reality and I sometimes reside on different plains, as it were. I should have sensed trouble when I cheerfully announced this feat and Cartier rolled her eyes and sighed deeply. She was a pretty good sport for an 18-year-old being held against her will. Perhaps I should have seen how wrong it could go when Gavin, the 12-year-old who featured himself to be a creative artiste, began to chatter about what great designs we could make if only we had more colors and some food paint. Sense should have taken out a bat and hit me over the head with it when Samantha--only 8 but bossy enough to earn the nickname “Queenie” from her older sister—grabbed an apron and began to tell the other three what to do and how to do it. Poor John, as always, stood there, looking around and hoping that it wouldn’t end as badly as he knew it must. He was only 5 but always wise beyond his years. His only comment was, “Maybe we should just play Monopoly!” He knew a disaster when he saw it.


But no! I had had a vision of us standing around the kitchen table, decorating the cookies that I would bake. There would be joy and laughter as Christmas carols played in the background. From time to time, we would stop and sing along to a favorite, perhaps “Frosty the Snowman.” You can see how deluded I become from time to time, can’t you? I mentally write these wonderful little scripts, and then no one else follows the plot I’ve written. It’s as if they are all on different page, and besides this, they all take direction poorly!


The night before the fiasco, I made sugar cookie dough, rolled out some and cut out various shapes, using the new cookie cutters I’d purchased for the occasion: a Santa, reindeer, tree, star, bell and snowman. I envisioned a tree with green icing having silver beads carefully applied; a Frosty with raisin buttons and chocolate chip eyes and nose, a bell with bands of different colored icing. I must have been delusional.


The next morning, I baked those cookies, put them on drying racks, placed four cookie-covered racks at the four stations I’d set up at the table. I filled bowls with chocolate chips, raisins, and silver beads and placed them in the middle of the table, easily within reach of the four stations. I strategically placed the shakers of multi-colored, green, and red sprinkles next to the bowls. In additional bowls, I put out white, green, red, and yellow icing I’d prepared. Next, I placed spreaders at each station aside a plate. This was a well organized disaster; you may be assured of that.

I then retrieved my pastry chefs from various locations in the house. Cartier had to have the phone pried from her hand, which exacerbated the snit she was in. Samantha rounded up the other three. “Okay, you guys. Mom says come to the kitchen right now,” she ordered in her Queenie take-no-prisoners tone. Gavin came willingly, and John followed with a hang-dog look, going to a doom he knew awaited.

As they entered the kitchen, I beamed, explained how this wonderful experience would go, and turned on the Christmas carols. “This is going to be fabulous,” Cartier mumbled, her lips dripping with disdain as she sat at her stool.

“I get the green icing and all the silver!” Gavin announced.

“I’ll be the boss of the decorations,” Samantha admonished followed by, “John, you sit over there. That’s my seat.”

“Good times, Mom,” Cartier groaned.


It didn’t take but minutes for everything to go so terribly wrong. Gavin and Samantha wouldn’t share. Shocking, I know. “Mom! Make Gavin stop hogging the silver things.”


“Mom, John’s eating the chocolate chips!”


“Moth-er, if you want me to waste a Saturday night playing like I’m John Boy Walton, make Gavin stop hogging all the decorations.”


“But Mom, I’m making a beautiful Christmas tree like the one in Rockefeller Center! I need all these supplies. Besides, Cartier’s looks boring.”


“As if I care,” she returned as she slapped yellow icing onto a bell.


The bickering intensified, and someone grabbed a bowl from someone else, and red icing splattered onto the wall. “Look what you made me do!” screamed Gavin.


And things went from bad to worse. Right in the middle of “Silent Night,” I shouted, “We’re supposed to be having fun!” An explicative might have been inserted.

“Not my idea of fun,” Cartier groused.


“Well, it’s Gavin’s fault,” Samantha retorted.


“Everything’s always my fault. You blame me for everything!” Gavin shrieked.


John came up to me and said, “I’m sorry, Mom. This is not turning out, is it?”


My response was, “Everybody out! Get out of my kitchen! This was supposed to be fun!” I was not up for Mother of the Year, that’s for sure.


All four took this as a cue and bolted from the kitchen, leaving me standing amid the decorating ruins. I saved the six or seven cookies that were somewhat decorated and put them onto a clean plate. I then dragged over the trash can, and, in a few grand gestures, dumped out the remains of one of my many “It seemed like a good idea at the time” projects. Just for emphasis, I tied up the trash bag and stomped out to the garbage barrels with it, heaving it in with tears in my eyes and disappointment in my heart.


I wish I could tell you that I learned some kind of lesson from this debacle, but I hadn’t and still haven't. I could tell you about the Great Christmas Tree Adventure of 1988 or the Wonderful but Misguided Tour of Christmas Lights Idea of 2005, but that would be too painful. My children would be happy to regale you with all the ugly details, as they love telling and retelling the “Remember when Mom” tales. I’m just glad their psyches have healed. Mine hasn’t.

Shattered Childhood Dreams

I, like everyone else, soon learned that if something sounds too good to be true, it is. My earliest recollection of this sad fact of life involved my trying to acquire the necessary equipment to facilitate life as a spy. I had previously wheedled a magnifying glass from my grandmother, but I needed more. And then one day, I saw a magic decoder ring advertised on the back of a Superman comic book. The moment I saw it, I just had to have it. Mom warned me, kindly, that it wouldn’t work as it was described, but I knew better. Surely Superman wouldn’t allow false advertising in his comic. No. It was undoubtedly the real thing. I just couldn’t believe my luck. I had stumbled upon something fantastic, and not just any old ring but a ring that decoded magically. I saved my allowance and even did extra chores to earn more. Once I’d accumulated the necessary funds, Mom took me to the post office to buy a money order. I carefully clipped the order blank, put it and the money order into the envelope, licked the flap, and sealed it. I painstakingly addressed the envelope and dropped it into the mail slot.


After one or two days, I began to haunt Mr. Bonner, our mailman, every afternoon. “Is it here yet?” He’d smile and shake his head. “Be patient,” he’d say. “Give it time.” It took over two weeks, and I had nearly despaired, but it came. Racing inside, I eagerly ripped open the packaging and took out a very cheap-looking plastic ring painted silver. “I’m not worried,” I reassured myself. I concluded that it was designed to look cheap so that evil spies would not recognize its true purpose. Sadly, it took less than a day for my belief in the ring’s powers to be thoroughly dashed. There was nothing magic about it. It didn’t decode anything, and it broke while I was riding my bike.


I wish I could say that that was the last time I had to learn a lesson about distinguishing fantasy from reality, but no, it was not. I’d seen cartoon characters safely “parachute” from high places using an umbrella several times. Bugs or Daffy might be fleeing some adversary, and then, suddenly, reach what seemed to be an impasse. When all seemed hopeless, out of thin air, an umbrella would appear. The character would then pop open the umbrella and gently float through the sky, descending gracefully to the ground. I dreamed about this, imagining the freedom of floating through the air, the touch of a gentle breeze brushing my face. (I have always been susceptible to magical thinking.)


And so, not having learned the lesson of “too good to be true” from the decoder ring, I decided I could master flying. I snatched Mom’s green umbrella from the stand, climbed the apple tree next to the garage, and hoisted myself onto the garage roof top. (I should note here that this was no ordinary climb since I had to do it while securing an umbrella under my arm.) I stood there, surveying the yard and garden, looking for the largest clearing in which to land. I knew I would need lots of room to make a safe descent since I would obviously waft a bit in the air currents, just as the cartoon characters did. Having made my choice, I held the umbrella aloft, popped it open with a flourish, and without hesitation, leaped off the roof.


I did not waft. I did not float. What I did do is fall, swiftly and awkwardly, and hit the ground with a thud that nearly jarred my teeth loose. Gravity, not air currents, had prevailed. It was anything but a soft landing. Why I didn’t break something must have been a testament to all the milk Mom made us drink. Although the landing knocked the breath out of me, I must have yelled pretty loudly on the way down because as I began to struggle to catch my breath, Mom came flying out the screened porch door.


In the fuzziness that was my stunned thought process, I heard Mom shout, “What the devil just happened?” Needing pity, I burst into tears, but she was looking at the inside-out remains of her green umbrella lying to the left of me. There was a long pause, and then she said, “I don’t see any blood. Can you stand up?” Hands on her hips, she looked at me, incredulity and a bit of wonder on her face. “Why is my umbrella broken? What were you doing, Karen?”


I tried once again for a pity party, marshalling up fresh tears. It was a no go. Mom came down to my level, looked me dead in the eyes, and demanded, “Karen Pugh! Tell me, right this minute, what did you do?”


I gave the most logical explanation I could master under the circumstances, but I evidently wasn’t all that convincing. Mom stood, slowly shook her head, and sighed deeply. “It’s a wonder you didn’t break your neck.” (Neck-breaking was a possibility for many things I did: riding a bike with no hands, running on the stairs, swinging on a rope swing…. Any deed of daring-do precipitated the same question from Mom: “Are you trying to break your neck?”) After learning of my most recent neck-breaking-possible deed, she just shook her head, patted me on mine, and said, “What am I going to do with you?” I fervently hoped the answer was “nothing.” She walked back toward me, said nothing more, picked up the umbrella remnants, and carried them out to the trash barrel.



This was a lesson I did learn the first time and immediately. When a six-year-old jumps off a garage roof, assuming she will float through the air, she won’t. Once I’d pulled a Road Runner sans an anvil on my head, the dream of my flying was forever shattered. From that day forward, I’ve done all my flying in a plane piloted by someone else. It’s the only way to go, believe me.

Youthful Indiscretions and Witch Hunts

Perhaps I am recalling my childhood through an idealistic lens, but—at least to me—times were easier then. Summers were wondrous and magical, a time when we went outside after breakfast, came in briefly and begrudgingly for lunch, then left again, not to return until the 5:00 whistle blew. After supper, we were out again until summoned home at bedtime.

I grew up in a small town where everyone knew everyone else, and so parents didn’t have to worry about us children as we played and explored all over town, including some places that would have horrified our parents. Had we done anything at all remiss--trust me--someone would have ratted us out before we even got home. That happened more than once, and one time in particular, resulted in a three-day indoor imprisonment.

We rode bikes in the middle of Front Street, roller skated on the smoothest sidewalk in town near the Red Bridge, and climbed a huge sawdust pile left by the sawmill at the edge of town. We hid in big old maple trees and pelted other unknowing children with buckeyes we’d collected for just that purpose. If anyone cared when we filched a ripe tomato or pulled up a baby carrot from a neighbor’s garden, washed it in their pump, and ate it as we took a short-cut through their yard, no one ever complained or told on us.

There was, however, one transgression that landed us in hot water. The three Plummer boys—Mitch, Mott, and Bill—and the three Pughs--Tomi, Ben, and I--were obsessed with the woman who lived in a small white cottage on one side of the Red Bridge. The smoothest stone sidewalk in town was located directly in front of her house, and most often, she ignored us. However, from time to time, she came out and shooed us away, scolding us for being so noisy, noisy enough to “wake the dead,” as she reminded us many times. (In retrospect, I understand why she might regard six or more children skating back and forth in front of her house, shouting and laughing uproariously, a bit of a nuisance. But at the time, the Pugh and Plummer children viewed her behavior through eyes veiled with wild imaginations fostered by reading Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and countless tellings of ghost stories after dark.)

Because this woman was old—to us—and very thin, had a slightly stooped posture and fly-away grey hair worn in a messy bun, we speculated that she might be a witch. She did look like a witch—at least as we imagined a non-Halloween- costumed witch—and, more telling to us--she had cats. Lots and lots of cats. We couldn’t have been more certain that she was a bonafide witch had she flown by us on a broom. The more we whispered about this in our clubhouse—an outbuilding behind the Plummer’s—the more determined we became. We had to prove that she was a witch. We whispered, plotted, and planned how we could find out for sure, once and for all. But how?

Mitch, the Plummer boy my age, knew for a fact that witches did not eat real food. Mitch was very convincing when he made this declaration, and so we did not question the basis of his expertise. The planning began in earnest at this point. Mitch and I were savvy eleven-year-olds and were not about to do anything that might get us, personally, into trouble. Mott and Tomi were good lieutenants but not ever willing to be our flunkies. Our Ace in the hole was the knowledge that all four of us could con the two youngest—Bill and Ben—into doing whatever we told them to do. We gave them the directive: "Once we get to the witch's house, we'll hide in the back yard. You all gotta run up and tip over her tash can." (Why didn’t they defy our authority? Because they were five and gullible, and we had counted on that.)

On the night selected for the raid, we left after supper on the premise of catching lightening bugs after dark to rendezvous with the Plummers by the swing set. Since stealth was a must, we slipped off for her house, taking all the back routes: up the ally, across three back yards, maintaining our cover behind hydrangeas, holly hocks, and overgrown forsythia bushes, and finally down the little bank and across the little stream over which arched the Red Bridge. We scampered up the bank to the side of the little cottage, and then army-crawled to the back yard.

Mitch, Mott, Tomi, and I lurked in the shadow of a large japonica bush and sent the two five-year-olds on their mission. We just had to see what was in that trash can. Bill and Ben ran up to the can, and one of them did not brake soon enough. He bumped into the metal can, and it banged against the drain pipe, causing a clanging clamor that would have indeed awakened the dead. The two little boys raced back, giggling uncontrollably--both winded and a bit terrified--as we whistled and frantically gestured, “Hurry up! Run fast as you can!”


The suspect charged out her back door, and we knew she had seen us. But we had seen enough. Our case was made. Strewn across her yard were several tins of cat food. Exhibit A! She didn’t eat anything but cat food. It was official. And then she called out to us, wiping away any trace of our momentary exaltation, saying, “I see all of you,” in a calm, controlled voice, “and I know exactly who you are.” With that, she returned to her house.

And then we ran down the bank as we’d never run before, slipped and slid, and leaped across the stream. We clambered up the next bank, and ditched the short cut, opting for the solid pavement of Front Street. We needed an optimum surface for super speed. I felt as though I might fly and almost forgot why I was running, until I heard her. “Karen! Tomi! Ben! Get in here right this minute.” Simultaneously, we heard Mrs. Plummer giving the same command to her boys. Our gooses were cooked and we knew it.

Each trio was quarantined to their own house for three days and nights. We couldn’t see anyone but our own siblings and our families. There was to be no television, no friends, no phone use, no art, and no radio. In our house, we were permitted to read encyclopedia, Field and Stream, McCall’s, the newspaper, and books regarded as classics by Mom. There would be no Nancy Drew for me during my incarceration, and I didn’t ask. This was hard time and shame.

Mom made us feel as rotten as we should have for pre-judging someone, for invading her privacy, and for lacking “any modicum of human decency and compassion.” She reminded me, in a sorrow-laced voice, that I had failed to set any kind of example as an older sister, and for days thereafter, I heard several adages over and over: Pretty is as pretty does; Judge not that ye be not judged; As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

The night of the crime, we climbed the stairs, shame-faced and contrite. Mom came in to hear my prayers and to tuck me in. She kissed me on the cheek, turned to leave, then turned back and looked at me, shook her head, and sighed, “Karen. For Pete’s sake. I don’t even know what to say. You had better do some serious thinking about this.” I hated to disappoint Mom. That was a far worse punishment than the confinement.

Once released, the six of us biked, climbed, swung, and explored. We played cowboys, Hide and Seek, and Swing the Statue. We did not skate again that whole summer, not on the smoothest or any other sidewalk.

This past summer, while I was visiting friends, I walked down Front Street. The Plummer house has been torn down. My childhood home is in poor shape and has been converted to apartments. The maple tree I climbed has been cut down. The Red Bridge is no longer red, and that little white cottage is gone. Maybe Thomas Wolfe had it right after all.

I stood on the still-very-smooth stone walk, looked out on the Ohio River, which runs parallel to Front Street, and remembered my youth with a poignancy that brought a lump to my throat. Then I recalled what we had done to a lonely woman whose only crime was to scold rambunctious, rowdy children and to provide shelter for homeless cats. I couldn’t even remember her name. I didn’t need my mother to tell me anything. Over five decades later, I could hear her voice saying, “Karen, what were you thinking?” I wish I could say that that was the last time she had to ask me that question.

Mama Drives to Florida under Duress

My mother had more intestinal fortitude than any other woman I’ve ever known. In the summer of 1958, she loaded her mother, a weeping and love-lorn fourteen-year-old, a pre-teen, a nine-year-old, a toddler, and our claustrophobic cocker spaniel—Happy-- into a yellow Pontiac station wagon and began the long drive to Deland, Florida.

Mom had to do all the driving. She was the only one who knew how and was licensed to do so. (The practice driving that Tomi and I had done in a carry-all in a nearby parking lot did not count. As a matter of fact, had Mom known about that, she would not have been happy at all.) Mamaw rode shotgun with our heavily drugged cocker spaniel at her feet. Tomi and I occupied the middle seat, and Ben and Mort were relegated to the backward-facing car-sick seat where Ben made faces at the cars behind us. Mamaw had never driven and was, therefore, a very complacent passenger. Tomi was disgusted with me since I was continually weeping mournfully about our moving and leaving my boyfriend behind. I wept; she rolled her eyes at me. Mom ignored me, but Ben enjoyed taunting me with, “Cry baby, Karen,” and “Boohoo. Karen lost her boyfriend,” the latter repeated sing-song until I hit him. Mom then told me to “Knock it off,” whereby I considered using that prompt as an okay to knock off Ben’s head. Mom then threatened us with the age-old Mom question: “Do you want me to pull over?”

When we drove into Tennessee, Ben began to read, aloud, all the signs announcing upcoming attractions. “Crazy Charlie’s! Five miles!” “Stucky’s! Can we stop? I wanna pecan log.” “Look! Indian Eddie’s Fire Works! Roman candles. I want Roman Candles!” He was driving me crazy and distracting me from my mourning rites, and so I shouted, “Mom! Make Ben stop!”

This time, she did drive into a dirt parking area by a road-side stand. I can still see her clearly. She wore a crisp white dress covered in big green polka dots and belted with a wide green patent leather belt. She had accessorized with green and white spectators with three-inch heels and white earrings the size of silver dollars. Neatly coiffed and wearing red lipstick, she looked beautiful. But the expression on that beautiful face was scary. She opened the passenger door and commanded: “Everybody out!”

Ben immediately climbed over my seat, kicking me in the head. Mort, a clueless toddler, did the same, thinking a wonderful new game had been initiated. Tomi mumbled under her breath—she was a master of this—“I didn’t do anything.” I stepped out, careful not to get dirt on my new sandals, and feeling righteously indignant because, as far as I was concerned, “Ben started it.”

Mamaw got out, stretched, lit up a Pall Mall, and wandered away from the fracas. Happy lay in a drugged stupor in the floor of the front seat. Mom, arms akimbo at her tiny waist, glared at us and said nothing—nothing for what seemed an eternity. We three older children were squirming, but Mort, oblivious to all, played in the dirt. Finally she spoke: “We have to get to Marietta, Georgia, by supper time if you all want to swim. Now I’ve had just about enough, you all. Karen, for Pete’s sake, stop crying. It’s getting on my last nerve. This isn’t a picnic for me either. Tomi, I can hear you muttering. Stop it. Ben, stop being obnoxious. Leave your sisters alone. Now, all of you, get back in this car, and I don’t want to hear another peep out of you.”

That’s all it took. That little woman had a tone that left little doubt about her message. She meant business, and we knew it. Peace prevailed, for a while. Until Happy awoke from her stupor.

Please understand: Happy really did have claustrophobia. She had chewed out of a heavy cardboard box when she was a brand new puppy. Once, she had been put into an out-building while she was in heat, and she chewed off the corner of a solid wooden door. She became frantic the only other time we had tried to put her in the car to take her to the vet. The local large animal vet made house calls on our dog. And so, when it was decided—by the Powers that Be—that we were moving to Florida, there was never any doubt about our taking Happy with us. She was a part of our family and much loved. However, Mom had to requisition several bottles of liquid tranquilizers to make this even possible.

It was about an hour after we had been read the Riot Act in a parking lot that Happy awoke. She came abruptly to life--barking frantically and jumping from the front to the back seat in an attempt to find an exit. “What next?” Mom sighed, looking at the car ceiling in silent prayer.

Mom pulled onto the side of a two-lane highway somewhere in rural Georgia. Mamaw, in her pretty purple and pink voile dress and heels, helped Mom corral the hysterical dog--who, at this point, was yapping shrilly, salivating profusely, and clawing at the air—and held her so that Mom could open her mouth and pour in some tranquilizer. We older kids felt like giggling at the slap-stick scene we were witnessing but thought better of it. Only Mort, too little to know better, stroked his blanket and wailed, “Mommy hurt Happy!” Tomi and I eventually shushed him as we recognized that Mom had her hands full enough.

After Happy had settled into a peaceful lethargy, Mamaw and Mom leaned against the side of the station wagon under the blazing Southern summer sun and lit up a cigarette. Stepping back into the car, Mom took out a hanky and wiped her brow, combed her hair, and reapplied lipstick. Looking over at Mamaw, who was repairing the damage to her French twist, Mom smiled and said, “Ready to head ‘em up and move ‘em out?” That was Mom, a woman of unmatched poise wrapped in a pretty little package. She had grit that few guessed just by looking at her.

Mom maintained her sunny demeanor, even when we ate in a restaurant next to Smith’s Motel, even while Ben grabbed all the little pats of butter, ate them, and said, “Yum! Cheese!” I muttered something appropriate for a fourteen-year-old akin to, “Gross!” and Tomi rolled her eyes. Mom just smiled, inhaled deeply on a Viceroy, and sipped a cold gin and tonic. Day one was done.

When I think of the times I was at my wits end on the thirty minute trips from my house to Maysville or Portsmouth, I simply marvel at my mother’s ability to maintain composure and control in the most exasperating of circumstances. How did she do it? She was definitely made of tougher stuff. No doubt about that. They just don’t make them like Joyce Elizabeth any more.

Stop the Car! I Wanna Get Out!

Had other pioneers followed my lead, no one would ever have crossed the Rockies. I’d have gotten out in one of the square states. I had a difficult time making car trips with my four children. No way would we ever have gone further than Kansas.

I don’t know how my mother did it. My dad was a naval officer and was assigned to a new base every two years or so. Dad flew in. Mom loaded up the car with the dog and the three of us children and drove across the country: from California to Florida; from Florida to Rhode Island; from Rhode Island back to California. These were the pre-interstate/pre-air conditioned car days. Squirt, our black cocker spaniel, rode in the front seat with Mom. Tomi, Ben, and I rode in the back seat and squabbled. “Ben’s on my side!” “Tomi’s touching me!” “Mom! How many more miles?” “Are we there yet?” “I gotta go, bad!”

To fully appreciate this scene, you must picture my mother. She was barely five feet tall, very petite, and quite beautiful, inside and out. Even when we made these long cross-country treks, she wore a dress—usually a full-skirted shirt-waist waist, three inch heels, earrings, lipstick, and mascara. We all adored her, as did everyone who knew her, but she had a no-nonsense way about her when vexed that could stop us cold every time. As children, we suspected her of being Rubber Woman because she could reach into the back seat and swat any of us while driving. That arm could fly out of nowhere!

From time to time, Mom pulled to a screeching halt, threw open her car door, ripped open ours, and commanded. “Get out of this car. Right this minute!” We all did, looking as sheepish as we could manage, and she read us the riot act. And that little lady was not one to be trifled with. She had a glare that could freeze a grown man in his tracks.

Once, as we drove through a sleepy little town in Georgia, the three of us were being especially rambunctious. Mom had already swatted us several times and told us more than once, “Knock it off!” But we felt pretty secure at that time. We were in a town full of people. There was no place to pull off, and so we continued to bicker. Oh, how we had deluded ourselves with this false sense of security. We had foolishly underestimated Mom once again.

She slammed on the brakes right smack dab in front of a courthouse where three old men sat, talking on a park bench. This was not a parking place but the middle of the street. Her door flew open and out she came. Our door opened, and out we tumbled onto the pavement. (We’d been wrestling on the floor.) “I’ve had all the nonsense I’m going to take from you all,” she said through clenched teeth but in a frighteningly firm tone. The tone and the look left us no doubt about the trouble we were in. “Turn around,” she said, and we did. She gave each of us a swat on the bottom, then said, “Get back in that car, and I don’t want to hear another peep. Do you understand?” As we nodded obediently, the men on the bench applauded, whistled and said something like, “Way to go.” The three of us didn’t utter a sound until we reached the motel that afternoon and remained subdued until we hit the swimming pool.

The farthest I ever drove my children was from Kentucky to Florida. I drove on a multi-lane interstate in an air-conditioned car, but I wasn’t even out of Kentucky before I was ready to turn around and go home. “Gavin’s on my side!” “Samantha’s touching me!” “Gavin’s making a face at me. Make him stop!” Cartier, the teenager, fell asleep before we left the driveway, and John, the youngest, just tried to maintain his status as Switzerland. On the Tennessee border, I pulled into the rest area. While the kids were in the restrooms, I took out a ballpoint pen and drew lines on my back seat. (Yes, I know. That reeks of Mommy madness, but I was a little nuts by then. We weren’t even halfway to Orlando, and I was already cracking). When the kids returned, I assigned places and dared them to move any part of their bodies beyond their spot. It worked for a while, but not long enough.

The next day, we drove the rest of the way, but I was soon weary of the backseat war that had resumed. As I sped along the interstate, from time to time, when the noise level had reached a deafening level, I reached into the back seat and swatted whomever I could reach. Then I heard Gavin whisper, “Next time we stop, I want another seat. I mean it. She can’t miss me in this swat seat.” I then laughed, and we made it the rest of the way.

When we reached the condo, I had but one more ordeal to undergo. I’d rented a big car-top carrier in which I’d packed all the clothes except the overnight bags. This was one of the many things I’ve done in my life that seemed like a good idea at the time. (I have told my best friend that my epitaph should read, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”) My vision had been the ease of packing all of the clothes into the big carrier from which we could easily unpack. Plus, it wouldn’t take up so much room in my station wagon. However, I had to get it down, which was much more difficult than it had been to heft up since a neighbor had helped me to do that. Cartier was about five feet tall at the time, and I am just a bit taller. Cartier and I tried to ease it off, but first I was slightly wounded by a snapping bungee cord that left a big gash on my thumb. We almost had it, but then it slipped and fell to the ground, spilling the contents everywhere. Cartier, a teenager somewhat appalled by traveling with this little circus, said, in a voice dripping with adolescent sarcasm: “Great. Another Beverly Hillbillies moment.”

I had wanted to cry, to scream, but then I remembered my mother’s fortitude. At that moment, I thought about what Cartier had said and began to laugh. The five of us scooped up the clothes in our arms, and entered the elevator looking like hapless vagabonds. A nice looking couple already in the elevator looked at us somewhat aghast, and I started to giggle—one of those giggle-in-church kinds of giggles, when you don’t want to laugh and then do laugh all the harder. Cartier was further disgusted with her mother. The younger three weren’t too sure how to react. When I walked into the condo, I threw the load of clothes I had in my arms high into the air and laughed aloud. Finally, everyone else laughed. The good times had begun.

But trust me, I never would have made it over the Rockies—you can take that to the bank. I am not made of the same mettle as Mom. Never was. Never will be.

Happily Ever After: The Bedtime Story

The bedtime story is a treasured ritual handed down through generations in my family. My mother read to my brother, sister, and me. Mamaw read to her. Great-grandmother Sarah read to Mamaw. I come from a long line of maternal story readers, and I read to my children until they wouldn’t let me anymore. Nevertheless, I do admit—without shame—that I try to cajole my way into reading The Night before Christmas, aloud and with feeling, every Christmas—at least some of the Christmases when I am able to make everyone feel guilty enough. Now I have my grandson, Boone, as my Ace in the hole when it comes time for The Night before Christmas. He’s still young enough to think I’m fabulous. So there!


I dearly loved to hear my mother read to us at bedtime. Every night, Mom gathered Tomi, Ben, and me into one of our rooms and chose a book. That woman had fortitude. Our readings were laced with, “Ben, stop hitting your sister!” “Sit down, Tomi, and listen.” “Karen, stop squishing Ben.” (Ben always accused me of squishing him if I sat too close, but he hogged the view of the pictured page. I rest my case.) In spite of that nightly struggle, she read: “Emmeline! Where have you been?” from A. A. Milne’s “The Good Little Girl.” At the end, the three of us would chorus, “And the queen says my hands are perfectly clean!” at which point we dissolved into a laughter that took a few moments to quell. She read The Brownie Stories to us from the same book from which Mamaw read to her. But Mom was magic with “How the Elephant Got His Trunk,” from Kipling’s Just So Stories. When she did Crocodile’s voice, she whispered in a most sinister fashion: “Come hither, Little One.” The Bi-Colored-Python-Rock-Snake’s language of a very large vocabulary was read with a wonderful sibilance. When the Elephant’s Child had his nose clamped between the crocodile’s pointy teeth, Mom read his plaintive words while holding her nose for the full nasal effect. It was divine. I copied her style when I read to my own children and do the same for this next generation. I’m not quite as good as she was, but I do a passable job. Regardless of my expertise, it is entertaining for all of us.


I don’t get to read to Boone as often as I like as we are several states apart. However, I do have Tomi’s three grandchildren for a weekly audience. Since my most cherished childhood memory is listening to my mother read “How the Elephant Got His Trunk,” I can recite large portions of from memory. Since my children loved this story as much as I did, I bought the book for my six-year-old grand-nephew, Will, and I have the pleasure of reading to him. He thinks it a bit long, but I do all the animals in different voices and persist. I think I’m wearing him down, even though it is a book with no colored pictures and only one or two black-and-white sketches. I do not surrender easily. Will and I have a deal: I read two books of his choosing, and then he listens to one of mine. When he was younger, I lovingly—all right, sometimes begrudgingly--read about trucks and dinosaurs, even heavy machinery, just for the chance to read from Kipling or A. A. Milne’s Now We Are Six or a Dr. Seuss of my choosing. We now take turns reading, he to me and I to him.


Five-year-old Carter, named after my daughter, is not an easy audience and definitely no fan of a picture-less story, but I finally found the Fancy Nancy series and am winning her, too. Carter, like Fancy Nancy, appreciates an ensemble. Last week, she wore a green and white ballet dress with a very full skirt, multi-striped knee socks, hot pink shoes, and accessorized with a red patent leather purse. Carter is a very fancy girl. When she was younger, she was the kind of story listener who wore down some less intrepid than I, but I remembered Mom’s persistence. At one point, Carter only allowed one page of a book read aloud--over and over--or she let me start a book, then chose another for me to begin. It wasn’t easy, but I read whatever she would endure, and now we are up to two or three books on the nights I babysit. In the not too distant future, I plan to trot out Kipling again. I am not a quitter.

Three-year-old Charlie is currently into train books, but he has a few other favorites, including a favorite of every child to whom I’ve ever read: Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. Okay, so Charlie doesn’t fully appreciate the rhythmic lilt I give to the story. He likes it because he is quite fond of monkeys. I’m all right with that.


When Boone was born, I gave him Kipling’s Just So Stories, A. A. Milne’s Now We Are Six and When We Were Very Young, favorites of mine and all of my children. I gave him John’s favorite book--Old Hat, New Hat; Cartier’s most loved--Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb; Gavin’s choice--The Things We Saw on Mulberry Street, and his mother Samantha’s--Green Eggs and Ham. Boone, who was not quite 18-months-old when I last read to him, is a very good audience. I started reading to him on his first day home, and yes, it was “The Elephant’s Child.” He was three days old. How could he have protested? He, like many children who have experienced books from birth—his parents read to him nightly--will look at books himself during the day, from time to time. That love of books begins early. Lately, he’s a bit of a menace to pop-up books, but all others are carefully tended and loved.


I taught English for many years and was always so sad when I heard a student profess a hatred of reading. I can understand why some may not gravitate to some of the required novels. Crime and Punishment isn’t for everyone. But when people tell me they detest reading in general, it breaks my heart. Those children missed so much young and may continue to miss more as they grow up, unless something catches their fancy. I am eternally grateful to J. K. Rowling for her creation of Harry Potter. Those books alone have roped a whole new generation into a love of reading that they will carry with them throughout their lives.


Read to your children. That is a gift that costs nothing if you borrow books from the library and little if you buy them yourselves. Those readings are magic to the young and cherished memories for the old. Fostering a love of reading is a gift beyond price. For me, it has been a life-long love with very happily-ever-after memories.