Hanging on a Nail

 

Sometimes I wonder how I became me, but then I remind myself how I was raised by parents from two different worlds. My mother was raised on a small farm in a one-bedroom house, with five brothers & sisters. Her parent were Quakers. They were kind, quiet, and peaceful, with little motivation to succeed beyond survival.

On the other hand, my father was born in an apartment above a pool hall, bar, and liquor store his parents managed. My father's dad, Em, was an entrepreneur and an ass-kicker from the get-go. He was a wheeler-dealer and did well financially.

Gram was quieter and, unlike Em, refrained from profanities. However, it was best not to get in her way, especially if she was riding her horse.

And my young life was totally different from my three siblings due to Polio. I spent several years in hospitals and therapy, away from my family.

I will share a few life experiences in my blog, plus writing tips, short stories, photos of beautiful places, including Sedona, 

where I now live, and maybe share an easy recipe as I dislike cooking. Sorry, I feel it's a waste of time when I could be doing something more exciting and long-lasting.  

As a child, I loved to climb.  My first climbing memories were of circling all the rooms in a house without touching the floor.

 I climbed up the sides of doors by placing one foot on each side of the doorway and straddling upward.

Climbing Doors

 One would usually find me on top of cupboards, cabinets, and even refrigerators. In my mind, snakes, or alligators crawled in masses below. 

    A kind uncle once said to me, "You never learned to walk."

    Indignant, even at two, I said, "Es, I did."

    "Nope," he said. "You only learned to run or climb."

 

Hanging on a Nail

Sometimes I wonder where my thoughts and actions originate from, but then I console myself by remembering that my parents were from different planets. It’s a wonder their children, including myself, didn’t grow up to have personality defects. Well, the others do, but I’m perfect. 

Wish I could be a fly on the wall, if & when, any of them read this post. 

What fun that would be…or maybe not. We get along, but in my humble opinion, we constantly look at each other, shake our heads, and think, “What the hell?”

            Our mother was raised in a small home with five brothers & sisters. Her parents, farmers, were first Quakers, and then Evangelical Christian. Our father, on the other hand, was born in a small apartment above a pool hall, bar and liquor store that his parents owned. Pa was an entrepreneur and an ass kicker from the get go. Gram was somewhat quieter and unlike Pa, refrained from profanities, but it was best not to get in her way, especially if she was riding her horse. I have written half of a novel about Pa and Gram, but at 500 pages, it will have to become two books. My other grandparents were kind & loving people, but not near as exciting.

            So, with that in mind I'll share a few of my life experiences in my posts. 

As a child, I loved to climb.  My first climbing memories were of circling all rooms without ever touching the floor. Besides climbing up the sides of doorways, one would usually fine me on top of cupboards, cabinets, and even refrigerators.  In my mind, snakes or alligators crawled in masses below. 
A kind uncle once said to me, “You never learned to walk.”

Indignant, even at three, I said, “Es I did.”

“Nope,” he said. “You only learned to run and climb.”

                                                         Barn Climbing

I'm reminded of one climbing incident often due to a  large round scar. Our family lived on a ranch/farm in Colorado, and at one time we had a tall red barn. My kittens, I had 26 at one time, would crawl half way up the loft arches on the inside of this building. To rescue them from falling, I’d often climb up the sides after them.

One time, when I was five, I did just that and soon realized, as I clutched the barn support sides with both my hands and bare feet, that I was no longer vertical, but at a dangerous angle to the floor of the  loft. I screamed for help for a few minutes, but realized that my mother, the only person home, could not save me because she was frightened of heights. So, I tried to climb down. I fell, but did not reach the hay below. Pain riveted in my right thigh. A large barn nail had penetrated deeply into my leg. I was literally hanging from a nail, twenty feet off the floor. I heard a vehicle drive into our yard. I screamed louder than ever. One of our farm hands ran up the stairs to the loft and saw me there. He grabbed a ladder and rescued me. My mother cleaned out the wound then spanked my bottom and warned me to never climb in that barn again. But I did…someone had to save the kittens.

Red Ants and Clotheslines

It's fasinating to listen and observe the different species of birds flitting between the tall trees that surround our rental property. Each morning, I sit on  our screened porch and listen to the larks, chickadees, treecreepers, wrens, kinglets, grackies, mockingbirds, cardinals and more. The state bird is the beautiful, Northern Red Cardinal.


Insects are numerous here too, but to me are mainly disgusting, six+-legged creatures. Did you know that at any given moment, each of us 
                                                are within 3-6 feet of a spider?   
The est. number of different kinds of insects in the world range from 1-10 million.  Yikes!  

                                                                                                         
                                                                                                       In particular I dislike RED ANTS. 

When I was 9 yrs old, I lived on an isolated farm in CO,  near NE  & KS borders. 


One day my mother needed to do an errand, and said she would return within an hour. She told me to watch over my 8 mo. old  brother, Dee, while I hung a basket of  freshly laundered clothes on the clothesline.                                                                              

She carried my brother to the base of a clothesline pole and perched him on top of a blue blanket she'd laid on the ground. I handed him toys and a small, yellow plastic container of Cheerios. Mom hurried to her car, and drove away.  It was 95 degrees outside and windy. Dee wore only a diaper.

It was difficult for me to maneuver the clothes onto the lines since they were far above my head. I hefted a concrete block from one spot to another, in order to stand on it, hanging one item at a time. 

Diapers, shirts and towels blew out of my hands, so many frantic chases occurred to retrieve the flying items.  I was still crippled from polio with a 3+ inch difference in the length of my legs. To make my baby brother laugh, I'd exaggerate my duck-like walk and quacked. He giggled with glee. 

At first, my brother played contentedly while I tried to finish my work, but then he started to wail. I jumped off my block and handed him a toy. He screamed louder. I picked him up and noticed his diaper was wet and red ants were crawling all over the damp cloth. 


Opening the large safety-pins that held the diaper in place, I was horrified to see hundreds of the large red insects. My mother accidently had placed him on top of an ant hill.

Throwing the diaper to the ground, I hobbled into the house with brother in my arms. Now the nasty things were biting me too. Quickly, I placed my charge into the kitchen sink and ran cold water on his body. Of course, he screamed even louder, but slowly I removed and smashed each one of the Red Devils to death.   


My mother came home a bit later and found both my brother and me plopped on the living room couch, with tears on our cheeks. At first she was irritated that I had not finished hanging the clothes onto the line, but when I removed my brother’s clean diaper and showed her the hundreds of bites, she hugged us both. Then she applied a soothing ointment on our red welts. 


This horrifying experience left a lasting impression on me.     I hate Red Ants.