The Drouillard House
We often sat on the front porch of the homeplace after dinner, listening in the dark to “brother” — the oldest of mother’s siblings — talk the Bible into flesh and blood. Sometimes, the stories turned to the mansion down the road built for a southern belle who shocked Nashville society with her marriage to a Union officer in September, 1864.
Relatives and friends of Mary Florence refused to attend her wedding to Capt. James Pierre Drouillard, an Ohio native and West Point graduate. So they moved west, to the hills and hollows of Cumberland Furnance, TN. Eventually they were accepted back into the Nashville fold. In the next century, mother’s friends lived in that home. The girls would drift slowly down the three-story spiral staircase, practicing for their grownup lives. So did I, once, when mother took me there.
So I always wondered about the girls as they moved along the stairway toward long-ago beaus waiting in the foyer. Did they see the faint outlines of a man in uniform standing in shadow? A wisp of a forever love conjured by bedtime stories and the embedded memories of a magnificent old home.
Punishment
“She took a hammer and smashed my game. Hard, all to bits. It was a punishment.” He sat in the backseat, strapped in, his face to the window. Then his eyes met mine through the rearview mirror. He saw something, a flinch, a startle, maybe. “I deserved it,” he said. “Really I did.”
Another day, they were laughing. They could have been brothers, the two cutups. We drove past a stand of trees and then it was quiet in the car. “Have you been to that graveyard?” Asking me, this time. I had no idea a cemetery was in that neighorhood, hidden somewhere amid well-tended yards and fine, old houses.
“There’s a little boy’s grave. I go when I’m riding my bike. He died a long time ago, but somebody leaves teddy bears. And cookies and things. On the boy’s birthday? There are always cookies. I don’t touch them.” I asked why he went there. “I like to,” he said. “And it just makes me really sad.” I held my eyes steady, steely straight ahead. I kept clearing my throat. Finally I said all I could say, “It makes me sad too. It’s nice of you to think about him. You know, you are such a good kid.”
We haven’t laid eyes on him in years. But I still can see him, sitting at the grave of a long gone boy. The living keeping company with the dead.
Concerning events in and around Anoka, MN
This is so depressing/infuriating that I actually recommend putting off reading until you have time to decompress afterward. I took it in two chunks.
“This isn’t something you kid about, Brittany,” her mom scolded, snatching the kitchen cordless and taking it down the hall to call the Johnsons. A minute later she returned, her face a mask of shock and terror. “Honey, I’m so sorry. We’re too late,” she said tonelessly as Brittany’s knees buckled; 13-year-old Sam had climbed into the bathtub after school and shot herself in the mouth with her own hunting rifle. No one at school had seen her suicide coming.
headline of the day
Sesame Street: Maurice Sendak “Bumble-Ardy” Animation
Inspired by Josh’s Maurice Sendak post (and by Casey’s link to the “Fresh Air” interview with Sendak).
photo out of context
Blues in the Night
There’s a twisted thread that leads to my recalling this song, but I will not even try to unravel it, merely to recollect a boy named Danny Stevens, whom I knew when we were age seven or so, who used to sing this song as he loped down the halls of our school.
Except he only kept repeating the one line:
Muh mama done tol’ me
Muh mama done tol’ me
Muh mama done tol’ me
Muh mama done tol’ me
Danny also used to say to his classmates, “Shu-u-t up. Beat-cha brains out.”
At the end of second grade, Danny and his family moved to a state he called Organ.
tweet of the day
Fun fact: Bullies in high school called me Shamalamadingdong.
— M. Night Shyamalan (@MNightShyamalan) January 5, 2012
from the comments
My Aunt Audrey was a telephone operator in the sticks of Tennessee. We would visit relatives and I would get on the phone to act out, forgetting about Aunt Audrey or just being defiant. Until I heard a distinctive voice that I was sure was her say, “No playing on the telephone, Miss.”
Mr. C. said that even earlier, all calls had to go through the operator. So if you were trying to reach them, the operator might say things like, “You won’t be able to talk to them until Tuesday. They’ve gone to the river to see Nam Becky,” or some such.
I still am convinced telephone operators know everything.
from the comments
My sister made up bedtime stories when I was little she called “Fortunately, but unfortunately.” Essentially they started like this: There was a princess living in a castle. Fortunately, she had a cat. Unfortunately, the cat smelled like rotten eggs. Fortunately, she loved the cat. And so on.
I like to think the telling of the stories raised her IQ. I also hope she has learned new storytelling methods for my nephew.
I am posting this post
because to now I have posted 1964 posts. So this will be 1965. And that was a beautiful year. I was just old enough to know that I wanted to be a grown-up woman. In 1965.
At least one of those grown-up women in the movies. Or to have a hit record.
Have you seen this?
Wait until about the 4:45 mark…
from the comments
My parents are a doctor and nurse respectively and both would like to donate their bodies to science. They both agree that they would not like any medical intervention to keep them living longer. Also, my dad has tendencies to not get medical attention when needed. I was a day away from being admitted to a hospital with pneumonia, as both parents thought I just had an upper respiratory infection. I’d like to see an article about children of medical professionals and their thoughts about dying.
NPR’s Winter Songs: Bill T. Jones on Schubert’s ‘Winterreise’
As cold weather descends on most of the country, we’re asking for winter songs — songs that evoke the season, and the memories that come with them. So far in our [NPR] series, we’ve heard some lighthearted or slightly wistful tunes, but this next song goes to a far icier place. It’s the choice of the celebrated dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones.
His winter song comes from “Winterreise,” — or “Winter Journey” — by Franz Schubert. It’s a song cycle about a solitary traveler in a savage winter whose heart is frozen in grief. Jones chose the last song in that song cycle: “Der Leiermann,” or “The Hurdy-Gurdy Man.”
“For me, it’s the musical arrangement underneath,” Jones tells All Things Considered host Melissa Block. “It speaks about a bleak landscape. And this bleak landscape takes me back to a day when I was in fourth grade out on the edge of town, looking at a snow-covered highway many, many yards away from my window — I should’ve been paying attention, but I was dreaming.
Toddlers fight to the death!
(thanks, Sarah)
Texts from Bennet
The tumblr claims it’s real. I don’t believe it, but that doesn’t matter.
headline of the day
‘Mahna Mahna’ came from a porn film
image out of context
quote out of context
If you identified with the kids from The Breakfast Club when it came out, you’re now much closer to the age of Principal Vernon.
tweet of the day
Grandma’s vagina
from the comments
Last night my long-time friend Allen shared his recollections of a Dallas children’s TV figure known as Uncle Tiny, whom he dubbed Uncle Tiny the Obscure, as none of the rest of our gang remembered the man. Allen recalled having seen Uncle Tiny in person at Kiest Park in Oak Cliff, where Uncle had “a small trick pitcher from which he poured a seemingly endless supply of 7-UP.” Allen was impressed. “Uncle Tiny was cool.”
“Mr Peppermint died!”
read the email message I just received.
Mr. Peppermint (Jerry Haynes) hosted a long-running North Texas children’s TV program. He was a kinder, gentler Icky Twerp. He was also the father of Gibby Haynes.
from the comments
It’s as though all of the world is so new to her that the transformation of a part of Glasgow into Philadelphia doesn’t register.
Quote out of context
Bert, who is fascinated by pigeons and gets easily upset
– Pete
