The Crab Chronicles

Letting Kids Explore

A video popped up in my Facebook feed this morning showing some young parents giving their three children permission to do whatever they wanted for one hour, every day. The parents explained how they decided to not supervise the kids for one hour a day. ONE HOUR a day. Now these were not babies or toddlers. The youngest looked to be about 5?

I had to laugh because my parents didn’t supervise me or my brother ever, unless it was to tell us to clean our rooms or do some household chore. Even then, we did it 98% on our own, knowing they would review our efforts when we were through. I was told things like “vacuum the stairs” and “clean the bathtub” and “load the dishwasher” when I was 8 years old. Nobody supervised but I knew if I did a bad job I would get yelled at and/or punished so I figured it out!

The young parents [both teachers, fyi] were amazed by how much their kids liked learning stuff on their own. Well, DUH.

Kids LIKE to explore the world. Why don’t parents give them the chance to do that nowadays?!?

Before I was ten years old I knew a lot of things, for instance:

• The taste of dirt
• How to catch and clean a fish [for frying, which involved beheading, scooping out the guts, and scaling it, which Dad taught me when I was 5 years old]
• What it felt like to climb a tree
• How to run really fast because I was barefoot and it was 100 degrees outside and I wanted to get into the grocery store
• The sensation of a caterpillar crawling on my arm
• How to water ski, alone, wearing just a ski belt [a thick rubbery belt that fastened at the waist and was far more comfortable that a jacket or vest]
• How to swim out of an undertow in the ocean
• How to make my own toast, scrambled eggs, soup, etc. – and we had no microwave
• How to comfortably and happily sleep in bed with my cat and/or the dog
• The terrifying wrath of Mom and Dad if I spoke to them disrespectfully, or bothered people in public by being too loud
• How to put braids or ponytails in my own hair
• The pain of scraping my knee to bloody bits because I fell off my bike
• The agony of a bad sunburn [though, to be fair, Mom always put Sea & Ski on us; we just didn’t always reapply it when we should have]
• How to paint a wall, put down vinyl tile, hammer in a nail or screw in a screw – Dad believed in teaching me the same stuff he taught my brother
• How to sew on a button
• how to iron my own clothes
• How to address, stamp, and mail a letter [when we moved away from my BFF I was 8 years old and we started writing to each other and kept corresponding for many years]
• How to plant and weed a garden, and pick the produce

Now, my parents supervised my learning of most of these things, but then we were free to do as we pleased.

Like most of the moms we knew, my mother didn't work outside the home -- but she worked her tail off inside it.

After my older brother and I got home from school and had a snack, we always chatted with her for a few minutes [which she insisted on] and then we were free to do as we liked until dinner. We knew we were supposed to do our homework, on our own, and not bother Mom unless we didn’t understand something. We knew after dinner we had to do the dishes. We knew if we went to a friend’s house to play that we had to tell Mom where we were going and be home before dark. How we got there was our business. We either walked or rode our bikes.

In the summer, Mom was not the Activities Director. We felt really lucky if she agreed to drive us to the swimming pool or pick us up from the pool. If she gave us money to buy a Coke or Sprite we felt very blessed. Most of the time we were told to drink out of the water fountain.

We had enough sense not to play in traffic, bring home snakes, destroy the furniture, etc. Punishment was unpleasant, far more than a simple “time out.” (Mom quit spanking when I was 8, but Dad never quit. I didn’t spank my kids because I didn’t want them to feel powerless and humiliated, which is how I always felt after a spanking.)

My own parenting experience was a bit different because I adopted a 13-year-old and a ten-year-old. My kids were not supervised every waking hour, though. Most of their free time was spent doing what they wanted to do. I didn’t allow them to just stare at the TV or computer screen for hours. They played a lot – inside and out. They had the same rule about not leaving the yard without parental permission.

Parents today face different challenges, of course. Too much screen time, for instance. My mother worried about me watching too much TV. When not in school I usually spent the early mornings watching The Andy Griffeth Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, etc. We only had 2 channels. When the reruns ended around mid-morning and the soaps and game shows took over, Mom turned off the TV and told me to go play. I didn’t argue about it.

Were there mishaps? Of course. I liked to eat Styrofoam. My brother liked to eat dirt. I once played in mud all afternoon and my clothes had to be thrown away. We fell out of trees sometimes and got the wind knocked out of us. My brother stepped on a nail once and had to go to the ER and get stitched up, and a tetanus shot. He threw a spear at me once and hit me between the eyes, giving me a concussion and blindness for a couple of days.

We often played so hard we destroyed our clothes and shoes. Stuff around the house got scratched up or broken. We were normal!

The world in 2024 is a far more complex place. I understand that all too well. I just think parents should not hover over the kids ALL the time. Give them a chance to explore and understand the world. Let them get dirty. Nothing is a better teacher than experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out my latest novel, Talking Back: Stories from the Big Hair and Pantyhose Years

I Earned This Face

I just read a post on Twitter/X by a young woman who couldn't be more than 35 and she posted on there and said "Do you ever look at photos of your younger self and just want to cry because you don't look like that any more?!" I replied and and said NO! I earned these wrinkles and gray hair. I am glad not to have to worry about my looks any more.

I saw Jodie Foster interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning and she is the same age as me and she looks it. She has gray hair and wrinkles! Good for her! Most Hollyweird actresses over 50 still have long hair and faces that look really weird and unnatural and they creep me out. [Courtney Cox and Julia Roberts, I'm talking to y'all...]

There's only one photo of me that I kinda wish I still looked like:

Then again, I was constantly worried about my hair, my makeup, my earrings, etc. I spent a ton of my life trying to look perfect and attract a husband and it was all a silly waste of time.

I think I am part of one of the last generations to be raised by pre-feminist mamas. My mom's youth was spent in the 1950's -- the decade she graduated from high school, graduated from college, got married, and had her first child. She faced a ton of discrimination. SHe was almost an "old maid" at 22! She wasn't allowed to wear pants to school even in college. Women were denied entry to management training programs because they would "just get married and quit." My mother never left the house without putting on lipstick.

So much of her self-worth had to do with what she looked like, and she tried to pass that on to me. I bought into it in my 20's and 30's, what I call The Husband Hunting Years.

When I adopted my daughter I realized she needed a full-time mom who didn't date, who would focus only on her, because that was not true of her birthmom. She deserved a full-time mother so I quit trying to find a husband, quit worrying about my hair and makeup and shifted into Mom Mode. Ditto for when I adopted my son a few years later. I had gained a lot of weight by then, which I regret of course, but the peace of mind I felt from not worrying about my appearance was priceless.

I think some moms are still preaching to their daughters that looks are super important and I don't agree with that. I think a woman should want to eat right and exercise because she wants to be healthy, not because she wants to "catch a man."

I am not against dating or marriage. Far from it. I am open to any guy who likes full-figured ladies with gray hair. I just won't turn myself inside-out to try to fit some idea of what I SHOULD look like.

I have sometimes reflected on the fact that if I had gotten married in my 20's and had biological children I wouldn't have ever met my children, and that would be truly awful. When I turned 60 I started thinking about all my life choices, good and bad, and I decided to forgive my younger self for the mistakes I made.

As my precious Memaw taught me, "Dee, do your best every day, all the time, and then you won't have regrets."

I've done my best. No regrets.

I earned all my wrinkles and gray hair. I earned and more importantly I LEARNED.

I also earned the ability to laugh at all my mistakes and foibles, and that's why I wrote my memoir, Talking Back, Stories from the Big Hair and Pantyhose Years.

One of my friends who read an early draft, who chose an entirely different path to career and motherhood, said to me after she finished it:

"Omg so much I can really relate to in my own life growing up and now. And future readers of this work of your will also relate as well."

That meant so much to me, that she could relate.

If you are a woman over age 50 you should be able to relate to a lot of things the book. If you're in the legal profession you should find a lot to relate to, and if you're a Southerner you should find it very relatable. If I've done my job right, though, you can be none of those things and still like the book.

You can click on Read a Sample, and scroll down to page 18, and you will get a good idea of the rest of the book. I try to mainly be positive and share funny stories but I mention some of the negative stuff in my life, not because I want anyone to feel sorry for me, but just because otherwise I think it wouldn't ring true. Check it out.

#memoirsofmoms, #funnymemoirs, #funnyparalegalstories, #storiesfromthesouth

The Christmas That Started It All

In my family we really don't give expensive Christmas presents but ironically, I am here today because of an expensive Christmas present. A diamond. My dad was really bad at selecting Christmas presents unless you told him exactly what you wanted. Mom figured that out right off the bat.

St. Patrick's Day, 1956, Atlanta Georgia

Elva Hasty was a young college graduate in her first year of teaching, living with her parents. Her friend Babs was home from college and she decided to throw a party for St. Patrick's Day, at her parents' home in Atlanta. Babs invited her good friend Elva, who politely declined because she didn't have anyone to go with, but Babs was persistent.

"There will be a guy there with no date, a friend of the family, Tony Thompson. He's a little older than we are but he's nice. Come on to the party and he can be your date," she encouraged young Elva.

Elva thought about it and decided since she had nothing better to do, she would go to Babs' party. She arrived at the house and was greeted by Babs. "Go on back to the kitchen. Tony's in there talking to my dad," Babs told her.

Elva went into the kitchen and Tony was deep in conversation with Babs' father and barely looked at her. Babs' father introduced Elva and Tony. Tony said hello and kept talking to the older man. Elva stood there for a few minutes and then went into the living room and chatted with some of the other party guests, but she felt awkward since she had no date.

Finally, Elva decided it was a boring party and she preferred to just go back to her parents' house where she could read in private. She was a voracious reader.

She found Babs and said "I'm going to call my dad to come pick me up." Suddenly, Tony was there. "I'll be glad to drive you home, Miss Hasty."

Tony was working as an accountant for a chain of grocery stores, the Big Apple Stores. His mother was a retired schoolteacher.

They dated for a few months, then broke up during the summer of 1956. They got back together in September.

In late November, Tony arrived at Elva's parents' home late on a Sunday afternoon, and Elva was furious. He had promised to be there hours earlier, and Elva had carefully dressed and fixed her hair and makeup, then then just sat, waiting on Tony. She didn't have a way to call him. He had moved back to Augusta and was just in Atlanta for a weekend visit. She didn't know the name of the aunt he was staying with, or the phone number. She figured he had probably forgotten he was going to see her, so she re-dressed, not caring how she looked.

Tony finally arrived, late in the afternoon. He found Elva wearing old dungarees and a tee shirt of her brothers, her face scrubbed clean of makeup, hair pulled back in a ponytail. He was surprised because she had never looked so sloppy before. He quickly realized she was furious.

"OK so listen up," she said curtly.  "I'm almost 23 years old and I'm not getting any younger. [Her aunt Miriam actually had her Sunday School class praying every Sunday that Elva would find a husband before it was too late!] I'm ready to get married and settle down. I want four kids and a dog, and I plan to stay home. If you aren't interested in getting married, that's fine, I won't waste any more time on you. If you are interested in getting married and starting a family, tell me now. I'm tired of waiting."

She basically gave him an ultimatum.

There was no dramatic proposal with him on one knee. No ardent declarations of love. Elva was ready to get married and he could either fish or cut bait. [Keep in mind that in those days, nice girls didn't sleep with anyone unless they were married and Elva was a nice girl.]

Tony agreed, but Elva wasn't done.

"I've been seeing another guy all summer and he says he's in love with me. I told him if he wants to marry me he needs to bring me a diamond. Same goes for you. The first guy who gives me a proposal AND a diamond, I'll marry."

[Many years later, I asked Tony if he had loved her at first sight and he said YES! Elva told me she didn't feel the same; he was really skinny and not very good at communicating. Eventually, they became great friends. One of my best childhood memories is hearing them talking and laughing together at night, when I was supposed to be in bed asleep.]

On Christmas Day, 1956, Tony Thompson showed up at Elva's parents' house with a diamond ring and a proposal. She agreed to marry him. He casually said "I want to get married right away, and I want a BIG wedding!" Six weeks later, they were married at First Baptist Church in Atlanta.

That proposal and that lovely diamond ring are why my father's name was Tony Thompson, not Tom Bell.

 

left, Tony and Elva's engagement photo

right, a few years later, Elva with her children Bruce and Dee [me]

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you like interesting and/or funny stories, check out my latest book, Talking Back, Stories from the Big Hair and Pantyhose Years, available on Amazon

Chicago in the 1970's

I am a packrat when it comes to scanning in and saving photos. I have literally thousands of photos on my computer and I particularly cherish photos that bring to mind memorable events in my life. I love how I feel when looking at an old photo -- especially one I remember posing for, because it's like time traveling to that time and place. In the photo below, I remember the sense of triumph that we had finally reached our destination and I was so happy to see my cousins. It was a very hot day, and yet the wind made it seem not that hot. I instantly understood why Chicago is called The Windy City.

The trip to Chicago commemorated in the photos here was quite memorable.

Left, me and my grandmother Memaw Hasty and two of my Hasty cousins in Chicago, 1974. We drove from Knoxville to Chicago in a 1968 Impala with Memaw sitting between me and my brother on the back seat. Memaw wanted to visit her son Don and his family and stay for a while. She flew home a few weeks after we carried her up there.

I was 12 years old and I had never been to a city as enormous as Chicago. My uncle was an administrator at McCormick Theological Seminary. As part of his compensation, his family was able to live in a row house near the school.

For me it was a huge adventure. There were a lot of firsts.

I had never been in a car that long, for one. In those days it was about 9 or 10 hours. We played a lot of car games, sang songs, and told stories. My grandmother pulled out her crossword puzzle books and gave us all Chiclets.

Our family played a car game where we tried to guess the identity of a famous person based on asking yes or no questions. Memaw stumped us all. She said her Famous Person was a military man, last name started with S. We asked a lot of questions, for miles and miles, and finally gave up.

The answer? Colonel Sanders. Mom and Dad laughed about that for years.

From the houses to the train to the stores, Chicago was a fascinating place.

I had never been inside a brownstone -- I'd only seen them in TV shows and movies. The idea of building such a vertical home just fascinated me, and of course scampering up and down the stairs was fun. [Now, almost 50 years later, my knees hurt just contemplating all those stairs!]

My cousins and brother and I were able to get out and run around by ourselves, in a big city! That was major league fun, in my book. I had never been on a train. I had never been in anything like the Field Museum. I was used to museums that were enclosed in old houses, easily viewed in an hour or so. I could have spent a week in the Field Museum and not seen it all.

My cousins had the enviable life of freedom, and although to me the city was scary it was also fascinating.

We wandered into a little junky "antiques" store, the kind of dusty little shop one finds everywhere, and I found a blue bottle that I loved, the blue a rich dark purple-blue that reminded me of my mother's eyes. When we got back to the house and I showed my mother she burst out laughing. My Dad laughed. My aunt and uncle laughed. I was upset because I felt like I had messed up and I didn't know why. Finally, Mom explained that the writing on the bottle, "Strychnine," was a type of poison. I had never seen that word. None of us kids knew the word. From feeling proud at finding a cool present for Mom, I felt like an idiot.

We left Chicago and drove to Springfield Illinois, to see where Abraham Lincoln had lived for years, and visit his law office and his in-law's house, all of those places having been well preserved. I think we also spent a night in St. Louis, and my brother and I wanted to go up inside the famous arch, and my parents said NO. My mother was deathly afraid of heights.

I came home happy to see the mountains of East Tennessee, happy to not take any more long car trips for a while, but missing my cousins. It would be years before we would see them again.

 

If you are looking for the perfect Christmas gift, check out my newest book! Talking Back

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The BEST Thanksgiving and the WORST Thanksgiving

When I was a kid we had two kinds of Thanksgivings, the ones with the extended family and the ones with just the four of us. Over the years we would sometimes get together with my mom's two brothers and their families for Thanksgiving, but not every year. 

Left, about 1968 or '69, with my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. I am in front wearing blue pants and a red jacket.

The holidays with the extended family were always fun, because my mom and both aunts and my grandmother were all wonderful cooks. Nobody has ever equaled my mom's homemade dressing, as I explained in an article for The Cook's Cook a couple of years ago, Enjoy Elva's Cornbread Dressing. I was unaware there was anything other than cornbread dressing until I was almost grown. One year when it was just the four of us, Mom made a small pan of oyster dressing in addition to the standard one. It was delicious, but not something she did every year. In addition to the dressing, the Hasty Thanksgivings also included the standards: turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pies.

The BEST Thanksgiving was in 1970, when the family gathered at Amicalola Falls in North Georgia, and rented a cabin in the mountains. I slept on the floor in the main room with my cousins, in a sleeping bag, but I didn't mind. I got to play with my cousin Linda, and my brother played with Bill, her twin. We were all happy to be together. The food was marvelous, too, of course.

One of the highlights was my uncle Don showing all of us a cassette tape recorder. In 1970 that was hi tech, exciting stuff! He worked in the corporate office of GE and always got to use the latest techno wizardry. He recorded all of us kids, and some grownups, talking about the weekend. Years later, he and my aunt found that tape and had copies made and sent a copy to each family. I still have it. It's one of my most prized possessions. A few years ago I played the tape on an old boombox and I recorded a snippet of my grandmother's voice and it's stored now on my desktop, where I can listen to it any time. I love hearing her voice again.

Linda recently sent me a copy of some of the home movies her dad made that weekend and I got such a kick out of seeing those. I had forgotten that I was a Hot Mess. I am constantly turning cartwheels and jumping around and pretending to be a ballerina. I had forgotten I was such a lively kid.

My grandmother was a prankster, all her life, and I never really knew that until that weekend. The second night, she announced she was going to bed early, then snuck out of the cabin and went to her car and put on some old clothes and a wig and hat, and then came and knocked on the door, cigarette dangling, and asked my cousin Robert for a light. (She wasn't a smoker, in reality.) Always polite, he said "I'm sorry I don't have one, but maybe my dad can help." My uncle Bobby appeared, took one look, and knew it was Memaw. He kept bending down to see her face, and she kept dropping her head down because she didn't want him to see it was her, which was pretty hilarious (we all agreed later) because Bobby was 6'3 and Memaw was 4'11! I stood back and watched it all, fascinated. Years later, long after Memaw had died, Mom told me of some of her escapades as a young girl and even as a young mother, including dressing up as a vagrant for Halloween, with a friend, and playing practical jokes on all the neighbors.

The summer before that had been particularly awful for our little family. My mother had been in the hospital, very ill with blood clots in her legs, Daddy had to have emergency hemorrhoid surgery, my brother had been horribly bullied at school, and I had been sick with pneumonia for 3 weeks. Thanksgiving with the family was a welcome change.

The Thanksgiving in the mountains was the last time all of us would be together with my Memaw and Papa Hasty. We didn't know it then, but in January of 1971 our family would move to Knoxville, Tennessee, and be about 4 hours' drive from my grandparents, and my uncle Bobby and his family. About 18 months later my grandfather would die, as a complication of surgery on his hip.

In the coming years there would only be a couple of get-togethers of all the Hastys, as the distances were too great, then of course all of my generation grew up and scattered across several states.

So that was the best Thanksgiving.

The worst Thanksgiving was actually comical, in hindsight.

My brother married a lady who I won't name here but she was very strange. I think she was Bipolar, or something. She was always making crazy plans that she insisted would come to pass but they never did. After my father died, around 1997 or 1998, my brother and sister in law came to my mother's house in Augusta for Thanksgiving. They had no children, but two dogs, who came with them, all in one car. Mom and I were there, working on the big meal to be shared that night. We were all in the kitchen, talking. Sis said that on Christmas she and my brother would be in Colorado, either in a hotel or camping. That struck me as odd because my brother hates camping, and Colorado is a long way from South Carolina.

After my sister in law made her bizarre announcement, I looked at my mother, and she looked stricken. Mom always wanted her children home on Christmas -- the only time she was really insistent on that.

I said "Have you all made reservations? Booked flights?" I suspected it was just another wild idea. Oh no, she said, but it was going to happen. I said "Well couldn't you just wait until the day after Christmas maybe? or before Christmas, so y'all could be with us on Christmas Day??"

"But we want to go to Colorado for Christmas!" she insisted. I looked at my brother's face, and he looked super annoyed, like this crazy plan was news to him.

"I'm not saying don't go, I'm just saying be flexible with the dates," I said.

I wasn't yelling. I wasn't visibly angry, just annoyed. I knew my mother was on the verge of tears, anticipating two holidays being ruined by my sister in law -- a new record, for her.

Instead of engaging in a discussion, sister just screamed at me "You are SUCH a BITCH! We're leaving!" and she grabbed her two dogs, and her car keys, and hustled out the back door. I had never seen her move that fast. My brother looked horrified.  "I'm sorry, Mom. I would stay but I'd have no way to get back to Columbia," he apologized. He had to literally run out the door, as his wife was already backing down the driveway. He told us later he had to yell at her to get her to stop so he could get in!

So that year it was just me and Mom, and Mom was very upset. I think we ended up just eating canned soup or sandwiches.

Fortunately, a couple of years later my brother divorced the Crazy Lady.

The one really good thing to result from that awful Thanksgiving? I never saw my sister in law again. Haven't see her since, and that was about 25 years ago. I hope I never see her again. My brother divorced her but they stayed friends. They still occasionally meet for lunch. She actually had the nerve to tell him she wanted to be friends with Mom again, about 15 years ago. Brother mentioned it when visiting us. Mom said NO WAY. She had welcomed my sister in law to the family and treated her like her own child, but when Elva was done with someone, she was DONE. She never forgot, did forgive eventually, but was quite capable of cutting someone entirely out of her life when they didn't act right.

I think sis was/is mentally ill, and my brother eventually came to agree with me. I did exact a little revenge though, as only a writer can. In one of my books there is a character that is a total screwup, an obnoxious young woman who acts like a ho, and I gave her my sister in law's name.

To all y'all out there, I hope your Thanksgiving is lovely, and you are with family and/or friends. It will just be me and my son, and that's fine. We will just eat a lot [pork roast, as we aren't wild about turkey] and watch movies all day.

Check out my new novel Dancing in the Wreckage, on Amazon

Working Hard

As a child, I was bad about blurting out inappropriate or odd things at inopportune moments. Sometimes it was funny. Oftentimes, it was not. I liked to push the envelope and was often accused of "talking back" -- in other words, saying rude and/or disrespectful things. My parents had a very low threshold of tolerance for backtalk from me and my brother. I was thinking of that recently while listening to an audiotape of a long-ago Hasty family get-together. My 8 year old voice can clearly be heard saying to my grandmother "But you all were rich Memaw, Mommy said you were rich growing up!"

My grandmother, Wilma Butler Hasty, ignored me and went on with what she was saying. When I heard myself years later I cringed, because I could imagine the awkwardness of how my beloved grandmother must have felt. She grew up in a wealthy family, yes, but in the 1920's her family lost their money. My grandfather lost his major league baseball job in 1924 and went out west and played for minor league teams for years, before coming back east, and then in 1929 everyone lost everything.

We can all complain now about inflation and high prices but the Great Depression was far worse.

At that point in my life I had no idea what the Great Depression was, or how hard my grandmother had to work, for years, first to keep food on the table when times were tough, then to put her children through college. Finally, in her 60's, she stopped working a regular job but she worked hard as a seamstress, sewing dresses for me and my mother, and other family members. Memaw made all of my school clothes, for years. Little girls had to wear dresses back then, and children's clothing wasn't cheap. Memaw had 5 granddaughters, 2 daughters-in-law, and many siblings and nieces, nephews, etc.

I was blessed that Mom told me many stories about the remarkable lady I called "Memaw." She was an amazing person. Smart, funny, energetic.

I wanted to share three anecdotes about my grandmother, that made a big impression on me.

When I was  about 7, Memaw said to me: "Always do your VERY BEST, every day, Dee. Always. Then at the end of the day, FORGET IT. Then you can sleep." She was right. If you always give every task 100%, you don't have to worry about regrets. I'm sure there were things in life she regretted, but she didn't dwell on them. She just did her best and got on with it.

VERY valuable life lesson, there.

Memaw may have grown up rich, but she lived through The Great Depression of 1929-39 and she had three kids to feed and a husband who restlessly changed jobs about every year. They didn't always live in places with indoor plumbing. There wasn't always any family around to help.

During the Great Depression, Mom told me, hobos [homeless men] would often come to the back door of the house asking for a handout. Memaw never just gave them handouts. She would ask them to do something, and then give them some food before sending them on their way. The chore might be pulling weeds, or sweeping the porch, or whatever they could do, but she never turned anyone away hungry. Of course, most of those men were just out of work, not alcoholics or mentally ill. They were usually just good people who were trying not to starve. Mom said the hobos would carve symbols or numbers into a tree or fence or somewhere in front of the house to signal that it was a place with kind people who might give a person a meal.

When Mom was small, at one place where they lived, there was a tiny school but there was no cafeteria. Every day at noon the kids were given an hour to walk home and eat lunch and walk back. A lot of those kids had no lunch waiting for them at home. Memaw got together with other mothers and worked out a plan so each mother would take a turn every week or two, and bring food to the school and serve it to the kids. It might be only a sandwich and an apple, or a plate of beans and cornbread, but each child [in the entire school] got fed, each day of the school year.

My mother was a wonderful storyteller, and I was so lucky that she told me many stories about Memaw. I am thankful I knew her, and she spent a lot of time with me when I was a child.

Memaw worked hard, but she also laughed a lot, and she raised her children to be hard workers, but also to hold onto their sense of humor and to not dwell on past mistakes or misfortunes.

Most importantly, she had an abiding faith in God, and she passed that along to us all. She didn't just talk the talk, though. She was kind and generous to everyone, and although she could be a bit demanding in restaurants she was never rude, and I never heard her raise her voice.

The older I get the more I appreciate her profound influence on me. I wish I could have a visit with her. I have an audio clip of her telling a funny story and occasionally I listen to it, just to hear her voice. I played it for Michael yesterday and he listened thoughtfully and said "She sounds a little bit like Granny." So true. The apple didn't fall far from the tree.

I still talk back, and still occasionally put my foot in my mouth, but I apologize and I don't lose sleep over it.

The Teacher That Changed My Life

Have you ever thought about the adult who most influenced you when you were a kid, who wasn't actually related to you? [I'm not talking about parents, siblings, grandparents, etc.] In the years since I walked out of Cedar Bluff Middle School for the last time in June of 1976 I have often thought about Catherine Gettys.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that the most memorable teacher I ever had was an English teacher. She was my homeroom teacher in 5th grade, and the English teacher on my team in 6th and 8th grades. About 90% of what I know about English Grammar, punctuation and spelling I learned from Miss Gettys. Of course, nobody called it "English" - it was "Language Arts."

Cedar Bluff Middle School in Knoxville in 1972 when I started 5th grade was very different than school is today. There were no computers anywhere. Girls being allowed to wear pants to school was a very new thing! Proper clothing for kids was strictly enforced. All grades [5th through 8th] went out to recess at least once a day. Parents were never asked to spend hundreds of dollars on school supplies. I usually got a new notebook and some pencils at the start of every year, and maybe a new lunchbox. We had Art and Music classes every week. We had PE classes several times a week, and for that we had to "dress out" - wear shorts and tee shirts, not our good "school clothes." Big treats were being able to watch movies once in a while, or field trips. Sometimes Drama students from the nearby University of Tennessee would do plays for us in the gym, and I loved that. I sang in Chorus every year, and loved "Mini Labs" -- fun classes like Fun Foods and Chess and Sign Language. I went there to Cedar Bluff Middle for four years, 5th through 8th grades, 1972-76. I was taunted about being fat and there were some boys who sometimes verbally bullied me, but otherwise those years were good.

There were teams of four teachers for each grade. We learned Math, Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts. Teams had 5th and 6th graders or 7th and 8th graders.

Things didn't start well with Miss Gettys. I was in 5th grade and it was her first year teaching. She had 35 rambunctious, intelligent fifth graders, and we were not shy or quiet. She was usually even-tempered but every so often she got so frustrated at our inability to be quiet that she was screamed at us. Sometimes other teachers had to come in and make us "quiet down." We were told by Miss Gettys as well as other teachers that we were the worst-behaved class in the entire school -- which I found mortifying. I was a shy bookworm and I didn't misbehave. I told my mother my frustrations but she couldn't do anything to help. Her wise counsel was always to mind my own business, do my work, and be respectful. My mother had been a teacher before she had kids.

I admired Miss Gettys. I liked her handwriting and copied it until mine looked like hers. I admired her for her appearance. She had a trim figure and curly reddish-brown hair. Her face still showed freckles. She wore a lot of jumpsuits, which were very popular then, cute jewelry, and occasionally a colorful scarf. Daily, she looked fashionable. I also always remember her with a large cup of coffee in her hand.

Miss Gettys' main contributions to my life were twofold. One, she taught me everything I know about how to write a proper, grammatical sentence. We diagrammed sentences for hours, on the board. Subject verb agreement was important. Commas were wielded appropriately. Paragraphs were built solidly and God help you if they were weak. I rarely cracked open my Harbrace because when I read the rules of grammar and punctuation they usually mystified me. I learned how to spot a bad sentence a mile away, though. It helped that I read voraciously and was always several years ahead in reading ability.

In 6th grade, her classroom was chock full of photos and drawings, and we could earn extra credit by writing paragraphs or stories describing what was depicted. I loved doing that. It taught me how to analyze an image, and how to think creatively. We didn't have letter grades but the good grades were "EP" (excellent progress) and "SP" (superior progress). I always made EPs or SPs in her class.

In 7th grade I had the misfortune to be in the homeroom of a Language Arts teacher who was a nice man but very ineffective as a teacher, Mr. McCormick. Worse, the 7th graders were divided up at the beginning of the year and classified as either being smart or dumb -- of course those terms weren't used but it was obvious. Math was my weakness and because I was terrible at it I got put in the dumb class. It was humiliating and I was miserable. I don't think I learned anything in any classroom that year because the kids were so awful the teachers made no real effort. Lesson plans were ignored by most of the kids and classrooms were zoo-like.

I was on a different team in 8th grade and I was much happier. Over that summer, all the kids grew, and I went from being freakishly taller and bigger than anyone else to being among the shortest in class, at 5'3. We had a good group of girls and we all got to be friends. They were a lot of slumber parties that year.

Once again, Miss Gettys was my English teacher.

In 8th grade I started calling her "Catherine" instead of Miss Gettys. I don't know why I did it and I don't know why she put up with it. I remember tedious classes in grammar and punctuation, and more sentence diagramming, but also chances to write creatively.

Every year, each team awarded prizes for every subject. You could either win Most Improved or Best Student. In 8th grade I wanted to Win Best Student in Language Arts. I worked hard all year and Made SPs every quarter. A poem I had sent in to Read Magazine was actually published! It was a national magazine for kids. Another one of my poems was published in a collection of children's poetry by the University of Tennessee. I was chosen to be on the newspaper staff at Farragut High School while still in 8th grade, which thrilled me. I had been a writer for my team magazines in 7th and 8th grades. I felt like I deserved to be acknowledged as the best English student on my team.

The day came for the awards to be handed out. I remember sitting on the floor of the gym and hearing all the names called out. Finally, they got to the Language Arts awards for our team. I won! I was furious though because I was named Most Improved in English, not the Best.

I remember stomping angrily up to take my award from Miss Gettys, not looking at her, so terribly upset that I went home and cried. My parents couldn't console me. The boy who won was a smug jerk that I couldn't stand. [I think today he is a car salesman.]

[above left, me in 5th grade, and right me in 7th grade]

It was really childish but I was angry at Miss Gettys for years. I held a major grudge. I never got over that Most Improved prize humiliation. I think it fueled my desire to write because I wanted to prove to Miss Gettys that she was wrong to give me that "most improved" award. I published a memoir about my daughter's adoption in 2009 and I sent a promotional postcard to the school after seeing online that Miss Gettys was still teaching there. I wanted her to see me as a published author, not some pitiful chubby kid who never amounted to anything. I addressed the card to her.

She probably never imagined that I would eventually become a published writer with an extensive portfolio, or that I would publish novels on Amazon. I also utilize my writing skills daily in my job as a litigation paralegal and I've written a sourcebook for paralegals, Paralegal 411.

I Googled Miss Gettys a few years ago and she was still teaching at Cedar Bluff Middle School but she had switched to teaching Social Studies. Her students loved her. I long ago forgave her for not giving me the prize I had felt I deserved. She gave two things far more valuable -- the ability to proofread and edit like a pro, and a love of creative writing that caused me to get an MA in Creative Writing and to eventually become a novelist.

If I can find her on social media I'd like to send a link to Miss Gettys, to show her that she had a huge influence on my life, and to thank her for everything. I don't think she ever had children of her own but her impact on her students was profound.

We need more teachers like her. Below, my 5th grade class. I am not in the picture because I was sick that day.

Check out my latest novel Dancing in the Wreckage.

Stopping a Child's Tantrum

Not long before she died my mother and I had a very illuminating talk and she reminded me of something she did when I was a small child that had lasting repercussions in my life. I was telling her about something I'd read about the best way to deal with a child who was having a meltdown, putting them into "time in" instead of "time out" and she listened very thoughtfully. "I did that with you," she remarked.

"What? I don't remember that." Then she reminded me of her tantrum strategy.

I was the baby of the entire family. All my Thompson cousins were 5-10 years older. All my Hasty cousins were 2-12 years older. Often I was the youngest child in the neighborhood.

When we lived at our wonderful old house on Heard Avenue in Augusta I was 1-5 years old. It's the first house I remember. It was built in the early 20th century and had a big front porch, with a swing. Sitting out there, watching the bees and butterflies in the flowers, was peaceful and lovely.

I always wanted to play with the bigger kids, play on an equal basis with them. My two best playmates were my brother Bruce, 2 1/2 years older than me, and my BFF and next door neighbor Joanne, about 18 months older. So often, though, I couldn't keep up with them intellectually or physically.

I would get frustrated and have screaming temper tantrums. I could throw quite a tantrum. I've always had a BIG voice, even as a little kid, not to mention a flare for the dramatic.

Mom developed a strategy born of desperation, I'm sure. She did what would now be called a "therapeutic hold" - a controversial technique but one that works.

When I launched into a tantrum, she would pick me up and go out to the front porch, getting me away from the older kids, and sit down on the porch swing. There, she would quietly hold me and swing, while rubbing my back. I can remember that very well.

I was a fighter. I always wanted to fight, and beat my enemies. [Good preparation for spending decades as a litigation paralegal, now that I think of it!] The older kids became "enemies" when they excluded me, intentionally or unintentionally. Bruce and Joanne loved me but I know at times they viewed me as a nuisance.

Anyway, when I threw a fit Mom got me away from the other kids and that was a blessing. I thought of her as a huge, strong person, and I was astonished to grow up and see she was petite [5'4] and not very strong, actually.

Once we were seated on the porch swing, I could not get down, off of her lap, until I went through several steps.

1. I had to un-clench my entire body and stop crying.
2. I had to get my breathing back to normal. Sometimes I had to endure Mom wiping off my face with a cold wet washcloth.
3. I had to listen to Mom telling me not to let the other kids bother me -- or her explanation of why the tantrum was the wrong response to whatever was bothering me.
4. I had to just sit quietly for at least 5 minutes, while Mom rocked. Sometimes we would sing, or she would sing to me.
5. I had to laugh. Mom made a sort of puppet with her hand, sticking her thumb between her index and middle finger, and did the funny voice of Thumb-bum. I had to listen to Thumb-bum tease me or say funny things until I laughed.
6. Finally, I had to promise to behave myself before I was allowed to get off her lap and go back to playing.

Now, I didn't know as a small child that my mother was unusual. I didn't know she had taken many classes in psychology, including child psychology. I didn't know that she found her two children endlessly fascinating and she studied how to help us to have as happy and stress-free a childhood as possible. I'm sure there was fierce protectiveness because she knew there would never be more children. She had wanted four kids but fibroid tumors in her ovaries made it really difficult for her to get pregnant and led to a hysterectomy when I was still small.

She was a brilliant person and I know at times she found it really difficult to be a stay at home mom, stuck in a house all day with two small children. Dad was very tight with money so there was little extra for fun activities. I feel very lucky that she was able to be at home with us, though. She essentially taught me how to calm myself down, and not let the bigger kids destroy my peace of mind.

To all you young parents out there, God Bless You. If you find yourself dealing with tantrums, try a loving "time in" plus therapeutic hold, and see how that works. It will eventually get better. If you're lucky, you might wind up with a child who can calm themselves down effectively even when you aren't with them.

#thebestwaytocalmachild, #dealingwithchildhoodtantrums, #therapeuticholds, #timeinforkids

Traveling Then and Now

As a child, I used to wonder why my mother never set off on a trip without a really big straw basket filled with kitchen supplies and snacks. I went through that basket one day after my mom and I moved in together and it still held coffee, Vienna sausages, straws, wet wipes, Woolite, paper napkins, salt and pepper, a jar of nuts, plastic cutlery, and I don't recall what else. I asked Mom why she had always carried all that on trips and she looked puzzled and said well her mother had carried the same basket on all trips, plus blankets, and it made a lot of sense.

My grandmother Memaw Hasty was the greatest grandmother a future paralegal could ever have. She was meticulous about being prepared for any situation. Travel by car was seen by her and my grandfather as a grand adventure. Of course, cars back then were prone to flat tires and they might sit on the side of the road for hours if there was no spare, or the jack didn't work, etc. Restaurants were not always available, even if you'd been traveling for hours and were ravenously hungry. My memaw's travel basket meant if she and her fellow travelers were stranded they could survive on the side of the road for hours or even a day or two, if necessary.

While researching for my book Return to Marietta, Mom told me that when her oldest brother Bobby was a baby, Memaw missed her family terribly and a couple of times she drove by herself with infant Bobby from California to Georgia to see the family. She packed the travel basket and blankets and canteens of water, and of course a loaded pistol.

I had forgotten about canteens. They were small tin water bottles carried by soldiers. Before bottled water, one carried a canteen of water. We always had one around the house, though Mom was more fond of a thermos.

I thought I would reminisce a little about how much travel has changed in the last hundred years or so, since the summer is when most of us take long car trips. [below, my mother and grandparents, sometime around 1942 or thereabouts, on a trip]

This is from my mother's memoir, Singing to the Cows:

"Fast food as we know it now did not exist until less than 50 years ago. There were no expressways. We drove on two lane roads, through small towns or through big cities glutted with traffic. So if a family was traveling, they might find something to eat or drink at a gas station – or maybe nothing but a soda and package of peanuts at best. My mother always carried snacks, water to drink, wet wash cloths, first aid supplies, etc. Most often, we had a thermos of sweet tea mixed with fruit juices. For a longer trip, there would be a full meal. Back then, the food was certainly better and cheaper and no waiting in line. I carried big beach towels because they could serve as tablecloths, wraps, etc."

I remember my dad packing the station wagon for us to take on trips and getting all the suitcases in the car, and then his look of consternation when Mom came out carrying the travel basket for him to put in the car. "We don't need all this stuff!" he would fuss.

Sometimes the trips were much shorter - basically day trips. My grandparents loved to picnic. Nowadays people don't picnic that much, probably because of the proliferation of fast food places. Even as a child [1960's] I remember driving back and forth to Atlanta and there was a little restaurant somewhere on Highway 78 where we always stopped and ate, but it was a regular restaurant and there was nothing fast about it.

Anyway, here are some of Mom's picnic memories.

"My parents, as well as the rest of the family, just loved going on picnics. They had a system of what to carry and just how to pack it. This was mostly before Tupperware, Styrofoam, canned drinks, and lots of convenience items. We did have a large thermos jug which would be filled with a combination of sweet tea and fruit juices - delicious! Also, there was no plastic wrap or foil – but waxed paper was fine. The food was about what one would expect: fried chicken, potato salad, ham, fruit salad, slaw, cold biscuits, usually a pot of green beans with ham hock, and someone always brought a wonderful home baked cake, and cobblers, and pies. They kept the old tablecloths for picnics. We always met at the Atlanta area parks that had nice picnic tables, most often with thatched appearing roofs, or a pavilion. The adults would sit around and visit and the young folks would take long walks around the park, after the meal."

I remember Mom sometimes persuading my dad to take picnic foods on trips so we didn't have to eat fast foods, but he was always impatient and grouchy with the whole idea. Standing outside and eating sandwiches out of the trunk while cars whizzed by and Dad grumbled was not fun, at all. (Maybe that's why I have never understood tailgating. Eating out of the trunk of the car just doesn't appeal to me.)

Even just in my lifetime, taking a trip has changed dramatically. I can remember driving for hours without a gas station in sight, and my dad pulling the car over so I could squat and pee, with the car door and Mom hiding me from the sight of anyone coming down the road. We always carried paper napkins and/or toilet paper in the travel basket, for potty emergencies.

My dad taught me how to change a tire when I was 18. I was amazed to learn later that not all girls could change a tire, or check a car's oil, or add water to a car, or use cables to jump start a car. Dad wanted me to be prepared.

Here's what prompted me to write this blog.

My son Michael was asked by a friend, a chef, to drive to SC this weekend and help with the cooking for his niece's quinceañera. Michael had never driven 2.5 hours alone before and I tried not to freak out. I was driving 6 hours back and forth to college at the age of 19, but Michael has just never needed to drive anywhere alone before. I asked him if he wanted to take cold drinks, a flashlight, etc. but he stopped me before I recited a long list of stuff and said "Mom, if I need anything I will just stop and get it?!" like DUH, Mom.

He called me when he reached his destination, as I had asked.

Even today, when I travel I take my version of the travel basket, for emergencies. I advise y'all to do so also. Picnics are nice, too.

#travelinglongago, #twentiethcenturytraveltips, #familypicnictips, #familypicnics, #packingfortrips, #cartripslongago, #cartripsofyesteryear

Stories from The Past

My dad grew up in a tiny town near Augusta Georgia, Hephzibah. As a child, the word "Hephzibah" was always associated with my uncles and funny stories. The stories were simply part of my Thompson life, and I never realized how lucky I was to be related to three very smart, very funny, Southern men. My father Tony Thompson and my uncles Lewis and Bobby were what might be called "old school" today. 

I shared some memories of our family in a story published in Salvation South today, Cordelia's Giggle.

My uncles both served in World War II. Bobby was in the Navy. Lewis was in the Army and fought in the South Pacific. I was born years later. Both of the men I knew were tall, easygoing, affable, guys. It's hard to imagine them in a war, getting shot at or possibly shooting at someone else. Now my dad was a very different guy, a dynamo of energy. It wasn't hard to imagine him in a war because he loved all thing military and pushed my brother to go in the Army.

However, unlike his two brothers Dad was never in a war. I always assumed he was in the Korean War but when I was cleaning out my house to move a couple of years ago I found letters he wrote to his parents while in the Army and they were dated 1954, after Korea had ended.

Dad spent most of his mandatory military service running around Europe every time he got leave. He was stationed in Germany. The photo at left shows him and two friends on the French Riviera. The letters are hilarious, because he was so young [24] and from a tiny town, and he missed his parents a lot.

When I was a kid, I noticed that whenever Dad was with one or both of his brothers, the Hephzibah stories would often get told. Whiskey was often consumed during the telling.

The most memorable storytelling occasion happened in 1974, just after Christmas. My cousin Chris was visiting his father's family and Lewis and his family had been to Rome, Georgia to see his wife's family, and we all converged for an afternoon at an Atlanta hotel, for lunch. Below is one of the black & white photos made by my uncle Lewis that day.

I was 12 years old. All my cousins and my brother were older. It was the only time we were all together, unfortunately, because Chris lived in California and his visits were sporadic. At the time, Chris was working as a plumber or carpenter or something, but he later went on to an illustrious career as a TV and movie writer and producer. I don't know if he realized that he got a lot of his humor from the Thompson side. 

In the article I wrote about my grandmother Cordelia, I got a kick out of talking about the funny Hephzibah stories, but I wanted to also carefully explain that she raised three fine men.

Cordelia Henderson Thompson didn't have an easy life. She was an "old maid schoolteacher" about 31 years old when she met and married Grandaddy. In those days, if a woman wasn't married by age 25 she was an "old maid" and unlikely to ever marry, according to the social rules of that time. She was very smart, loved to read, and loved to make photos. Dad said she always carried her little "Brownie" camera everywhere, and because of that I have some wonderful old family photos like the one below, of Cordelia and her youngest son Tony, my dad.

She married my grandfather in 1923. He was not educated and he didn't have any money, but it was a true love match. They raised three sons during the Great Depression, watched two of them go to war, and died in the late 1950's. Thompson had been a professional soldier for many years and although he was a small man [about 5'7, 135 lbs.] he was fierce and he had a temper.

Cordelia was gentle. She was very ladylike, and proper. Although she married her opposite, she loved him very much. Mom said she used to talk about him all the time after he died, and her heartbreak was evident. They were married for 34 years, until his death from emphysema complications in 1957, a few months after my parents' marriage. 

Most of what I know about Cordelia I learned from my mother. She only knew her about 2 1/2 years but she grew to love Cordelia and happily named me after her, three years after Cordelia's death. My name, Dee, is a shortened version of her name.

Some people -- including my own cousins -- think I am really weird for finding my family so fascinating. I feel like I am lucky to be a product of two old Southern families, and stories of my ancestors fascinate me. I got that from Dad. He was always organizing family reunions, always on the hunt for old photos and memorabilia, and very reverent about family history and lore. There's nothing wrong with that.

I feel like all of us are products of the DNA of all our ancestors stretching back for generations. We may look back at them and think they lived such different lives  than we did but that's not entirely true. My grandparents lived through two World Wars and The Great Depression. Life was a lot harder in 1923 when all four of my grandparents got married, but they wanted the same things we want. Home and children were important. Faith was important. Good manners were very important. Stories were important. I am proud to be a product of all of my grandparents, the ones I knew (Bob Hasty and Wilma Butler Hasty) and the ones I didn't know, Thompson and Cordelia. I carry their genes in my body, but more importantly, I try to carry on family traditions and tell the stories, so the next generations will never forget them.