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Mama Earlene’s Annual Christmas Letter from Shady Creek, Tennessee (2007)
Patrick Redding Merry Christmas, y'all! Well, it's been another humdinger of a year here, so let me just bring y'all up to speed on the happenings in our neck of the woods. I had thought the biggest news of the year would be my daughter Tina's wedding, but she and her new husband sort of took all the fun out of it when they just up and eloped (more on that later). As it turned out, we had bigger fish to fry when my brother Harvey tragically lost his life in a self-inflicted lawnmower accident. My brothers are talking about opening up a gun and ammo shop. You can never go wrong investing in artillery. People will always want to buy guns and shoot things even when money is tight. Yes, it is true that Harvey got run over by his own lawnmower. Those who knew Harvey well surely won't be surprised that he could manage to do such a thing, but for those who only saw him acting like the big fool that he was at family reunions and so on, I will try to explain what happened. You see, he had gone over to mow Mavis Claymore's big old yard in front of that new house she bought on County Road 141, and that is where he met his untimely end. Now, there have been some very unkind rumors going around, and I just want to set the record straight right now by saying that I do not believe for one minute those tales that Harvey died of a heart attack when poor old Mavis (bless her heart, she has Alzheimer's, you know) wandered out into her front yard without a stitch of clothing on. I also do not believe those other stories I have heard that he slipped and fell while he was standing on the back of the mower trying to peep into her bathroom window. Those who knew Harvey know that he is just not that kind of man; if he wanted to get a look at Mavis in her birthday suit, he would have just come right out and asked her. But all those wild tales aside, here is what I have been able to piece together about what really happened to poor old Harvey. In case y'all don't live around here, let me explain that for years we have had a string of massage parlors along County Road 141. They are unsightly and encourage bad behavior, but they do employ a number of our local young folks who might otherwise be standing around on street corners and selling drugs they stole from their grandparents. I like to think that it is better to work with your hands for an honest living, and that if you do not have the necessary skills to run a cash register or bag groceries, then working in one of the massage parlors might provide you with a steady income and keep you off welfare. At least that is what I told my youngest daughter Haley June when it began to look like she was going to flunk out of night school. However, they passed some kind of law at a town council meeting back in the spring, and Sheriff Mack closed down a bunch of them massage parlors (putting 25 people in the unemployment line, but I reckon that don't matter none to him) and it was while one of the deputies was in hot pursuit of one of the working girls that Harvey had his accident with the lawnmower. It seems that the deputy had chased the young lady out of her place of employment at the Bee Hive before she had a chance to get her street clothes on, and Harvey (who always had a soft spot for a naked woman in distress, bless his heart) jumped off the lawnmower and rushed right over to give her the shirt off his own back. He was so eager to help the young lady that he forgot to set the brake on the lawnmower, and it just ran over him before he even knew what was going on. (The mortician told us he probably didn't feel a thing, as drunk as he was.) So that is what happened, and I would discourage you all from repeating any of those tales we have heard people whispering around town. He was not sneaking out the back door of the beer joint and riding his lawnmower home in the hopes of avoiding another drunk driving charge like some people said. Nor was he out there at that cheap motel with a married woman like some other people said (Lynda Creedy is legally separated, not married, and besides, she was there with Bill Hicks, not our Harvey, at least not this time). To be perfectly honest, we all know that it was sheer coincidence that he was not up to no good when he got chopped into chicken feed by his own lawnmower, but he is gone now, and rather than speak ill of the dead we should all pray real hard that he has gone on to a better place, although I doubt it. Besides Harvey getting killed, our family was dealt another blow when little Haley June lost her job at one of the aforementioned massage parlors. She had been trying to go to night school to get herself a good job and support her two kids instead of living off her ex-inlaws like she has done for the past year, but she was never good at taking tests (except the home pregnancy kind, ha ha) so she had dropped out and got herself a job at the Bee Hive, where she had pretty steady work until Sheriff Mack closed the place down. It is a shame when the law harasses people trying to make an honest living. Little Haley June is talking now about moving out to Las Vegas, where she says there are better opportunities for people in her line of work. I have always told her she should use her God-given talents to the fullest but I do hope she does not decide to go way out yonder to work. By the way, thanks to all of y'all who chipped in to bail her out of jail so that she could be home with her children instead of sitting in the lockup with the rest of those old drunks and floozies. As for Haley June's sisters, Tina got married this summer to that Harris man, the drama teacher over at the community college. We had wanted to have a big wedding down at the church for her and invite all of y'all to it, but she pitched a fit and said she did not want all that fuss so instead of a nice wedding and reception with her family and friends, she and Harris snuck off and done it in some government office and went to Tastee-Freeze for hot fudge cake afterwards. She did not even take time off from her job at the garage to go on a honeymoon, even though I offered to keep the kids for her if they wanted to go off somewhere romantic like Gatlinburg. But anyhow, we wish Tina and Harris all the best and hope that her four kids will not run him off. Now as for Haley June's other sister, Sue Ellen and her husband Larry took a trip to Niagara Falls this summer. Everybody else in the family has always gone to Dollywood for vacation, but Sue Ellen has acted like she is better than the rest of us ever since she graduated from secretarial school. She wanted to see Niagara Falls so Larry rented an RV and they drove up there for two weeks with four of their six kids. Starla had band camp and could not go, bless her heart, she loves her clarinet and can play a pretty fair tune on it although she is getting to be awfully high-strung being around all those other band kids, and we are afraid she may want to go to college and become a music major if Larry doesn't put his foot down. Luke, their eldest boy, is still away in juvenile detention, so he did not get to go on vacation either, of course. We are hoping they may let him out soon since they say he has not tried to set any fires in about two months now. My brothers Cephus and Orly have managed to stay out of jail again this year, which might be some kind of record for them, staying out two whole years in a row. They are talking about renting one of the buildings out on County Road 141 and setting up a gun and ammo shop. I told them that you can never go wrong investing in artillery, that people will always want to buy guns and shoot things even when money is tight. I do not know if they will have any trouble getting a license to sell guns since both of them have spent so much time in jail, but I would not want to discourage them from their hopes and dreams by mentioning it. Also, I am tired of them asking me for money and would welcome any gainful employment that they might be willing to do since they spent all last year hanging out in the garage and working on a car which still will not run. Grampaw Bobby and Grammaw Ida are both in good health and good spirits. They get along a lot better since Grampaw Bobby moved into his own house with his collection of Nascar memorabilia. Grammaw Ida has him over for supper every evening, and on Fridays they drive into town together to get groceries and check out the flea market. Sometimes we even see his truck parked outside her house overnight, ha ha. She says she will not spend the night at his house because she does not care to wake up and see a life-size cardboard race car driver staring down at her. Mama is still about the same, bless her heart. She celebrated her 90th birthday this year with a box of cigars that drove us all out of the house for a day or two, but most of the time she is pretty good about sticking to the light 100's she switched to last year. She sends her love to all. I asked her if she had anything she wanted to add to our Christmas letter, and she said to tell y'all, "Light beer don't go with chicken wings," and, "Don't never marry a man who trades cars more than once a year." Anyways, that is how we are all doing here down in our little corner of the pea patch. Hope you and your'n have a real Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and as that little ol' Tiny Tim said, "God help us ever one." © Copyright 2007 Patrick Redding |