by Henry Dale Duke

Story #1
Poorly

My families roots stretch deep into the hills of Kentucky and many of my formative childhood years were spent visiting and listening to those folks. Since my part of the family was a splinter group that “moved north” they were hospitable but not completely unforgiving for my mothers wanderlust. Since they wrote her off as a lost cause, whenever I was alone with them they would point out some obvious faults with living outside of Harlan County.

“Dale, I hear Stella is “poorly” again.” My aunt Florence was doing something in the kitchen, in fact I don’t think she ever left the kitchen.

“Yes Aunt Florence, she has something bad.” In Harlan County you were “fair”, “poorly”, or dead. You could be “improvin’” but that was a huge stretch even for the most optimistic of my family. A simple wisdom seemed to cover most things, and in the dark world of illness when you got sick, you got better, or you died. Sometimes I think wisdom is rediscovering simplicity.

“Is she in the hospitable?”

“No. She is home with Uncle Leo.”

“Well Dale, she will either be improvin’ or not.”

Now here we have a lesson in wisdom that I would like you to consider. A lot of it has to do with giving things names. When we do this we divide our world into smaller and smaller pieces that require us to learn where they fit in our life. From this, this giving names to things, we find contradictions, which then divides people up into different groups. People love to get together in-groups and fight with people in other groups. Compromises have to be made to get anything done. I suppose that’s why Leroy and Russell still called us “yanks.” Though they remained concerned about us, we were still a different group and occasionally that boiled over into some disagreements.

My Aunt Florence was telling me that my great, great, grandmother was Lou America Casebear Capps. She had married Ben Capps and they had seven children. Six boys and one girl to be exact as I can make it. She said that three of the boys fought for the “Stars and Bars,” and three fought for the North. My Aunt Virginia chimed in with, “That ain’t so.”

“Why ain’t it so?” My Aunt Florence said with a discernible edge to her voice.

“Because Ethan never fought at all. He was a family embarrassment,” replied Aunt Virginia.

‘I swear by the grave of my mother that it is so. He fought.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.” This argument rings pleasantly in my ears even today. Some say, “American by birth, Southern by the grace of God,” and I tend to agree.

If I could go back I could tell them that Ethan Capps did fight for the North. I found his description from the Andersonville Prison Camp where he was a few of the lucky that survived. I suppose before long my memory will play tricks on me and I will think I was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. I suppose it will be argued endlessly, somewhere in the south, while baking bread.

Oh! My Aunt Stella? Well… she was poorly for 29 years with cancer. The doctors told her she would not live a year. In spite of that my mother and she lived side by side through marriages and divorces till finally in 1980 she did die.

When my Aunt died Florence wrote me a short note from her kitchen. It simply said, “Bless her heart.”

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Story #2
I Wonder What Makes People The Way They Are

My aunt used to say that whenever she was confronted by a perplexing personality. She had a few things that she did that mystified me. She was mild mannered and rarely got angry, but she could not abide anyone saying “Do you follow me?” She would stand up and be counted. She would never say why it bothered her, only “I do not like that expression…please do not say it to me again!” She was also fond of the word “intricate”.  Whenever she was painting or driving in heavy traffic she would tell me, “Now Dale, don’t bother me, I am in an intricate spot.” She was also married to my uncle Leo.

Uncle Leo was a business man and retired magician that spent the 30′s in “Doc Dodo’s Medicine Show.” They worked the southern circuit near Louisville, Kentucky. He settled into a shoe and clothing store business in our town and managed to raise 5 adopted boys after he and my aunt married. He was also known to the fire department as a “fire bug.” Now this is not to be confused with an arsonist. He did not light buildings on fire or tried to do harm to anyone. He just burnt our farm down every spring…we always managed to save the buildings…but the woods and fields sure took a beating…literally. Every year he swore off having a little fire to burn off the dead grass and brush piles. But “fire bugs” are “fire bugs” as the fire chief said…so the family learned to overlook this little flaw in his character. We also learned the number to the fire department before anyone thought of 911.

One day when my mother was working I was in my aunt and uncle’s charge while they shopped in downtown Louisville. All in all it could have been a worse day until my aunt stepped in that gum.

I will never forget the look on her face as her shoe peeled slowly off the pavement with each step.

“Leo…this is no good.” “Do you have a knife?” she was looking for a place to sit and found a bus stop bench. Always helpful Leo said “Hon…No.” I saw my chance to get some points with my aunt and piped up.

“Nina…I have my scout knife!”

“Now there’s a good boy, give it here.” She took off her shoe and examined the pink glob on the bottom of her heels. My uncle was kind of ignoring the whole thing…I think he was playing with a matchbook as I remember the scene more clearly. My aunt started to try to scrape the glue like gum from her shoe. I have to admit it was a mess. She sweated in the humid heat of August in Indiana and became more and more agitated. It was like someone was humming “Do you follow me?” in her ear as she worked.

“Is it coming off Nina?” I asked hopefully?

“Now Dale, I am in an intricate spot.” She was composed and dealing with the problem as only she could.

That’s when I learned a small thing like a gob of gum can ruin an almost perfect day in this world that gives and takes.

“Dale, I have never said a swear word in my life or taken the lord’s name in vain…”  She was working furiously at the gum now…her mouth was pulled into a sardonic grin and her hat was bouncing around on her head as she scraped….”But if I ever find the dirty $#@-&^-@#$%^ that spit out that gum I’m gonna kill him.”

Yup. It’s the little things that happen that make us what we are. Would be killers of gum chewer’s, chronic brush burner’s, writer’s and businessmen all inhabit this part of the galaxy….. that seems to be bent…. just a tad off center.