Category Archives: Aunt Betty Lou and Other Crazie Town Residents

She Didn’t Suffer Fools Gladly

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My mother-in-law, Althea, died last night.  She passed away quietly, and although I’m glad she didn’t suffer – passing away quietly was not the Althea I knew.

I first met her, before I was married to her son, at a little league baseball game.  Her eyes rarely left the field as she cheered the team on, yelling every line of baseball chatter at the top of her lungs.

After the game she turned to me and asked, “Which one is yours?”

“The shortstop.”

Her eyes lit up and she finally smiled at me.  “Oh, the one that hustles.”

She believed you should raise your children to be the best and, thanks to my son, I passed her test.  We’ve been friends ever since.

I have a lot of memories of time spent with Althea, but this is one of my favorites.  Every Labor Day we drove out to the small town where she lived, and spent the weekend. At one point I said I needed to run to the grocery store.  She said she’d ride along.  The streets didn’t have any stop signs so at each intersection I paused to make sure it was clear before driving through.

“What are you doing?” she snapped.

“I’m not really sure who has the right-of-way.”

“Well!  I do, of course!”

I have no doubt that was true.

Althea never had a thought in her head that didn’t come out of her mouth and most of those thoughts were about her children.  She was passionately proud of them, as well she should be.  She raised three of the most strong-willed, caring and loyal people I’ve ever had the pleasure to know.

John, Peggy, Jim – my thoughts are with you.

I Shocked the Sheriff

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I’ve had several subscribers ask how I got to be such a control freak (i.e. weirdo.)  It’s all quite embarrassing and I don’t know where to begin.  But, as I’m always advising my critique group, “You have to open a vein onto the page.”  So here’s a humiliating glimpse into my Crazie upbringing.

My mother was the world’s worst housekeeper.  In her defense, she worked full time and had eight irresponsible kids.  I remember that there was a chart of household chores that we were required to do each day. (My first attempt at control freak-dom?) One might expect that we came home from school and completed our chores, then went out to play.

Not us.  We jumped off the bus, ran inside and immediately planted ourselves in front of the TV to watch Gilligan’s Island and/or any other nonsense show that was broadcast.  Someone sat by the window that had a view of the hill Mom would be driving over on her way home.  We had to change lookout’s every day, because even though it was a perfect view of the road, it was not a perfect view of the television, and that’s just not fair.  When the lookout saw our battered green station wagon crest the hill they’d shout “MOM!”

Thus began the wild rush to complete our tasks before she drove, what couldn’t have been more than three minutes, into the driveway.  I distinctly remember one time when she walked into a smoke filled house.  Rather than bend over and pick up one of my brother’s socks that was lying on the floor, I decided to vacuum it up instead.  Luckily we had extinguished the fire before she got in the door.

Keeping up with dirty clothes was another task she never quite got control of.  She’d wash and dry them, then dump them on the dining room table.  When the pile began to slide onto the floor she’d call out “Clothes Folding Party.”  We sat in a circle and she held up an article of clothing.  One of us would shout out “Mine” and she’d toss it to us.

My bedroom was upstairs and rather than walk up all those stairs, I placed my folded clothes on the step, figuring I’d take them up with me on my next trip.  I never did.  I just picked out my clothes from the ones on the stairs and eventually they were clear…until the next clothes folding party.

When I was in high school our house was robbed while I was home.  I heard the thieves knock down the back door and I dropped to the floor of my bedroom to hide under the bed.  Only there was so much junk under there already, I couldn’t fit.  I had to run to my brother’s room and hide under his bed.

When the sheriff arrived, he took one look around and said “Oh my god, they trashed the place!”  I was too embarrassed to tell him the truth.

There you go, dear reader.  Mortifying and shameful.  Now you’ll have to excuse me while I go find a bandage for my bleeding vein.