HOME SWEET HOME: THE WHITE HOUSE

Grandpa and Skitch
Photo By Uncle Cless or Uncle Tressell

THEN:

  Many of our family stories begin with, "At the White House," or "At the Green House," but they have absolutely nothing to do with Washington DC or a warm place to grow plants. We named where we lived and often it was just christened by the color of the home. Here are some of my many memories of one of these magical places...

  We lived at The White House when I was two and three. I remember my third birthday party was held outside on the lawn and my cousin Ramona was there. She grew up to be a very good friend, but at that time she was an infant on a blanket and not much fun at all. I told my first lie that day. I dropped my ice cream cone when I was behind the well and told my daddy that I needed another. He asked, "Did you eat that one already?" I'd been renamed "The Spiller" by my mother and was loath to be in trouble for another mess, so I just nodded yes. Daddy gave me an ice cream, but I'm betting that he found the other one on the ground behind the well. 

  I remember my first pets. We had Flame a small red horse that would spend the rest of my childhood with me and be more like family than any other pet we would ever have. I had a blind "pony" dad called him, but Dad actually avoided buying ponies. He said they were ill nurtured, and would buy for me, instead, a mixture of horse and pony. I don't remember the blind pony's name, but I do remember that daddy lied to me too while we lived there. He told me that my blind pony ran away from home with a herd of wild horses when, in actuality, my pony fell over a cliff and died.  I also had a puppy named Snow White that did not live to adulthood. We had a smallish dog named Loverboy who killed all daddy's little "diddies" (baby chickens) one spring. We came home and the chicks he had left by the fire to stay warm were now little yellow balls of deadness that littered the living room and were stuffed into the couch cushions like morbid prizes waiting to be discovered. I cried over the dead diddies. I was very angry at Loverboy that day, but perhaps not as angry as dad. And then there was Snoopy I, II, and  III. Dad says he replaced Snoopy at least twice. When the dog died, Pop would go back to the man he got Snoopy from in the first place and get me another Snoopy, a brother or sister to the original Snoopy. Daddy couldn't stand to see any of us cry. He found it much more acceptable to just go find another dog, cat or chicken and tell us it was the same one. The first Snoopy was deliberately ran over by my sisters' bus driver. Looks came home furious and crying. I'm surprised my dad didn't go find the man and whoop him.  At least once Snoopy was a Snoopina because I remember wondering why his stomach looked different and where did that pink thing go to anyway?

It was at The White House that I learned to ride a tricycle like a wild woman, faster and faster, around the pot bellied heat stove, across the porch, through the house. My cousin Becky, Ramona's older sister, was one year older than me, and Becky had a tricycle too, but she wasn't used to hers yet. I remember feeling happy when the adults noticed that I rode my tricycle much faster than Becky rode hers. I didn't know the phrases "Speed Demon" or "Dare Devil" yet, but I certainly was both.

     While we lived there, Lila taught me to pray, that other people could not see me if I could not see them, and how to eat an icicle that she broke off the roof in the dear of winter. She, Sandi, and my cousins taught me to sing about a crazy man from China and how to talk in Pig Latin. Sandi taught me to sing "On Top of Spaghetti". (Instead of "On Top of Old Smokey" and it would be years before I realized that was a corruption of another song.) Sandi would cuddle me on her lap while we watched Star Trek, or snuggle me up under a blanket and rock me in the rocking chair on the porch while a thunder storm raged all around us. Once it rained in the front of the house and not at the back. I ran back and forth, from one door to the other, amazed at this miracle.

     The house had a small door, up higher than my head that eludes my memory even now. I remember it as a place that dropped off into darkness, like a boxed up hole to hell, but my parents don't seem to know what I'm talking about when I bring it up. Perhaps it came from a dream I had while living there. 

     I remember being sick and listening to the soundtrack from "Mary Poppins" and eating chicken noodle soup. I would not have the opportunity to watch the movie until I was a teenager, but I loved the music. I was not in the best of health, overall, and woke up several times a year with one or both of my eyes "matted together". I would cry and someone, usually my mother, would rush and get a warm washrag for me to hold to my eye until I could open it. I remember it as a horrible way to start your day.

     This is where we lived when I took my bath, most of the time, in the kitchen sink. And a few times my mother washed my hair by hanging me out of her lap and over a wash pan. I would sit facing her on her lap and she would lean me back over her legs and wash my hair. I thought that was great fun!

     I got a toy piano from Santa, and even heard bells ringing as he "flew away", but I didn't really believe in him. I liked the story though, and so I played along with it. Stories had quickly become my great loves. My father used to tell me stories most nights and my favorite was "The Mule That Ran Away From Home" (More commonly know as "The Brementown Musicians".) I always asked my father if the mule, dog, cat, and rooster (each in their own turn) remembered to pack their toothbrush when they ran away. They always did, even though Dad reminded me that the rooster didn't even have teeth. This was an interactive story, for the "bushes" the thieves ran off to was my hair, the "roof" the rooster crowed from was my chin, and the fireplace where the cat lay was my ticklish little neck. 

     It was here that cousin Joonie pretended to throw me out the back door and frightened me. When my cousin did not hand me over at first command, my father, whom I now know is not a big man, took my arm to steady me and drew his first back at Joonie. Pop said, "Give me my baby!" 

     The cousin said, "I'm not really going to throw her!" 

     "I know you aren't. You're going to give her to me. Now!" 

     The cousin had been drinking and didn't realize or care that he was terrifying me. Pop cared. Pop got me out of his arms pronto and I clung to my safe daddy with determined little arms.

     I lived at The White House when my favorite doll came into my life. One of Aunt Nancy's daughters gave me "Cuddly" and she became my near constant companion and the only doll I carried with any regularity. My second favorite was Drowsy. When I heard my parents talking about going on vacation, I gathered up Cuddly, some cream and sugar for my "coffee" and got in the car. I was ready to go. 

     I also took Aunt Nancy's purse to her because I'd seen pill bottles in it. How often I'd heard my mother talk about keeping things out of my reach because I might "take them". Her words had me convinced that some horrible compulsion sometimes came over children when they saw pill bottles and they opened them up and gobbled the medicines down like candy. I handed Auntie's purse to her and said, "You better put your pills up, Aunt Nancy, or I just might take them." She laughed, pulled me into her arms, and ruffled my blond curls. 

Lila met her future husband while we lived at The White house. Johnny was six years older, 20 to Lila's 14. He brought me a big blue ball and my mother a set of dishes on one of his first visits to see Lila. She would marry him less than a year later, at the grown up age of 15, and give him a child by the time she was seventeen, though he had told her he was unable to have children. Her leaving would cut my heart into. She, more than anyone, was my teacher, my companion, my joy and for the rest of my life, I would miss her near constant presence that I had become so happy with.

     The only grandparent I would ever know lived with us for a while there, and I do remember I loved him. I also remember that he hated loud children, and noise, and movement, and I had ever to pretend I was an adult in his presence. Since I would never be that kind of adult, this should have been no small feat, but I liked quiet more than most children and actually did a pretty good job with the task. As a "big girl", I was allowed to carry his supper plate to him now and then; he always ate from the same plate, a green one with a scene on it. Even then my mother called it an old plate but mostly it was referred to as "Papaw's plate." I ate from it for years after he died. As a teen, I would feel the loss of grandparents, especially a grandmother as I never had one of those even for a few short years and I felt so alone in the world. Still, I have determined that I will BE the sort of grandmother I always wished to have. I will be the ear to listen, the shoulder to cry on, the whispered, and kindly, and good advice. I will be unconditional love, a fellow believer of magic, a night light in their minds eye. I will be gingerbread cookies, gingham aprons, songs, stories, and kisses and hugs. I will be all these things for my grandchildren, and much more. I will be the grandmother that listens to modern music, dances, and paints her toenails. I will be the grandmother that doesn't scold over "bad words" but simply cautions that some people are quite funny about those words. I will be Acceptance, and a reminder that you can be an old soul and keep a childlike spirit. All this and more, will I be, if the Lord blesses me to do so, for my grandchildren, for as many years as I possibly can! And one day, I may get to tell them about my grandfather, and The White House I lived in, and my grandfather's special plate. 

Grandpa's Plate