I enjoyed your piece very much. Yes, we're all 'mongrels' and we're all marked by some off-hand remark somebody close to us might have said years ago. We rarely remember or take to heart the compliments--only the digs. They're called 'digs' because they hurt!
Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is one of my favorite movie comedies and one of the few that I never get tired of watching. I laughed so hard the first time I saw it I literally twisted my gut and had to walk off the pain later. But 'hillbilly'? I don't see that at all. There's something to offend everybody. The jobless hippie mama's boy, the fish-wife mother-in-law, the insufferable know-it-all, the full-blown lunatic, the imperious Brit, the overbearing husband, the simple-minded cutie, the dumber-than-dumb thieves, the crooked cop--and so on.
To me it's one of the most perfect comedies of all time. And Jimmy Durante, too. So thanks for the memories!
Hi this is Suzanne, I'm the one in the picture with her belly button showing. I can't believe my mom let me leave the house like that! And boy do I remember Grandma Nettie as well--she died with her boots on, as they say. I have to give her a ton of credit though, raising 11 kids as a single parent (you think that'd be hard these days, try doing that in the 1920's!) and keeping a farm going as well. Grandma Nettie and I were not friends by any means either, but those genes made me tough. And as far as blessings and curses, I believe, too, that curses can be turned into blessings--it's all about the choices we make, and I thank God for that freedom.
Mixed blood yes. My father, a worldly and scholarly man is also of hillbilly descent, full of outlaws and poor farmers of cotton and growers of wool. Once he told me on the way to the cotton gin, a very large horse drawn haul, representing the family's toil of 5 days, had overturned and spilled it's contents completely on the gravel dirt path. Well the cargo was as good as gone because to have salvaged anything would have meant the risk of carrying a small pebble to the gin and causing a spark and endangering the income of themselves and the entire community of Blysville.
In his teens he joined the US Air Force and met a beautiful young debutante daughter of a 3 star general under Franco's regime. He married her and brought her to St Louis and in 1967 their first-born was baptized Michael.
They are no longer together but still a part of my daily life, thank God. Now my family is also a mixture of Mexican- Americans and African-Americans. Of course during family feasts and celebrations we don't use those terms as the jokes fly out one after another as long a the kiddoes aren't around.
It's a beautiful, grand, mad web that we are in, and prolly my greatest blessing is to be linked in.
You probably redeemed yourself in Nettie’s eyes that day you walked her to church. You kept her safe and didn’t let her become a fallen woman. That must have been when she swapped the curse for a blessing. Or perhaps that’s when you did the switch yourself, and it just took you some years to realize.
Ah, found it! Okay.
I enjoyed your piece very much. Yes, we're all 'mongrels' and we're all marked by some off-hand remark somebody close to us might have said years ago. We rarely remember or take to heart the compliments--only the digs. They're called 'digs' because they hurt!
Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is one of my favorite movie comedies and one of the few that I never get tired of watching. I laughed so hard the first time I saw it I literally twisted my gut and had to walk off the pain later. But 'hillbilly'? I don't see that at all. There's something to offend everybody. The jobless hippie mama's boy, the fish-wife mother-in-law, the insufferable know-it-all, the full-blown lunatic, the imperious Brit, the overbearing husband, the simple-minded cutie, the dumber-than-dumb thieves, the crooked cop--and so on.
To me it's one of the most perfect comedies of all time. And Jimmy Durante, too. So thanks for the memories!
Hi this is Suzanne, I'm the one in the picture with her belly button showing. I can't believe my mom let me leave the house like that! And boy do I remember Grandma Nettie as well--she died with her boots on, as they say. I have to give her a ton of credit though, raising 11 kids as a single parent (you think that'd be hard these days, try doing that in the 1920's!) and keeping a farm going as well. Grandma Nettie and I were not friends by any means either, but those genes made me tough. And as far as blessings and curses, I believe, too, that curses can be turned into blessings--it's all about the choices we make, and I thank God for that freedom.
Mixed blood yes. My father, a worldly and scholarly man is also of hillbilly descent, full of outlaws and poor farmers of cotton and growers of wool. Once he told me on the way to the cotton gin, a very large horse drawn haul, representing the family's toil of 5 days, had overturned and spilled it's contents completely on the gravel dirt path. Well the cargo was as good as gone because to have salvaged anything would have meant the risk of carrying a small pebble to the gin and causing a spark and endangering the income of themselves and the entire community of Blysville.
In his teens he joined the US Air Force and met a beautiful young debutante daughter of a 3 star general under Franco's regime. He married her and brought her to St Louis and in 1967 their first-born was baptized Michael.
They are no longer together but still a part of my daily life, thank God. Now my family is also a mixture of Mexican- Americans and African-Americans. Of course during family feasts and celebrations we don't use those terms as the jokes fly out one after another as long a the kiddoes aren't around.
It's a beautiful, grand, mad web that we are in, and prolly my greatest blessing is to be linked in.
You probably redeemed yourself in Nettie’s eyes that day you walked her to church. You kept her safe and didn’t let her become a fallen woman. That must have been when she swapped the curse for a blessing. Or perhaps that’s when you did the switch yourself, and it just took you some years to realize.