Hospital

I am sorry to be off the air so long. I were in the hospital for a few days. I woked up one morning feeling real good, like I always do, but by noon o'clock I were feeling real bad. Dorothy forced me to go to what they calls stat care and they forced me to go to the ER at the hospital. They said my blood pressure were real low and my white cells was real high and my left leg were red and swolled up. They checked for blood clots, but that were okay. I were diagnosed as having what they calls celleritis, a sickness what means you got infected areas underneath your skin. They hooked me up to tubes what they used to run medicine into my veins and they hooked me up to wires so they could tell way out at the nurse's desk if my heart were beating right. The medicine worked good enough to get me out and home after two nights. I can rest a lot better at home and since I ain't all hooked up to machines, I can go to the bathroom in a two step procedure instead of a twenty step I had to do in the hospital with all them tubes and wires what kept getting in my way. I want to get out and go sit in my boat and fish, but Dorothy in forcing me to sit still and keep my leg raised up. She's pretty much always right about stuff so I ain't gonna argue with her.

Amateur Artist

That boy, Charles Chandler, come to be a person what I talked to a lot while he were here in Harper. Like y'all know he were kicked out of Ole Miss for getting drunk and knocking down a statue of a confederate soldier what were a landmark on the campus. Me and Charles got to talking when he come into my welding shop. I made little works of art (deers to stake our on lawns, monkeys to hang from low-lying limbs, herons to stand on one leg out beside the lake) when peoples asked me to. Charles wanted to be creative, but he just were a few quarts too low to reach that goal. He brung some of the stuff he were drawing up for me to look over and he never come back to pick them up. At least when he come back he never asked to get them back. I am using some of them to show what he thought things looked like in around the old Chandler house. Today is one of his Aunt Marguerite, the one that were really named Margaret, but changed over to Marguerite when she moved off to the Canary Islands.

Aunt Clara

Well, the boy got out of the taxi and ambled up to the front porch. Like ever where else the grass were fresh mowed and he took in a smell what he were gonna smell a lot more of before he left Harper. Since the doorbell were all covered over with spider webs and such, he commenced to knocking on one of the double doors what were in front of him. He had to knock a bunch of times before this woman opened up. She were wearing one of them blue jeans jackets and a pair of them stretchy pants what was colored pink. And she had on a kinda greenish shirt and pink tenny shoes. It were real clear she warn't no slave to diets and exercise. "Hello, Charles," she said "You look like your mamma." Her tone of voice left him in doubt that this were a good thing. She took him into the front hall and he felt like Bette Davis in a old Civil War dress were gonna come walking in any minute. The house must have been pretty one day, but it seemed to have been left in a kind of hibernation for more than fifty years. She sent him up to the room where he was supposed to sleep and told him she would send up his lunch, she called it dinner, and he should stay up there and rest until he were called down to supper. All this got him thinking he were in a pool of quick sand and he were sinking real fast.

Taxi Ride

That boy knowed he had to do what his grandpa told him to, so he grabbed a taxi cab what were passing by in front of the depot and give the driver his great aunts' address. "Hum." said the taxi man. "What's that supposed to mean?" "You'll find out soon enough," said the driver. The thing the boy noticed on the way to the big old house were all the peoples out mowing yards. (You see down here the grass grows real rapid so we has to mow at least twice a week. If we gets a big rain, three times.) He seen all kinds of mowers: push, gasoline, electric, riding, even ones what could double for a small tractor. When the taxi pulled up in front of the address what he had give the driver, the boy couldn't believe his eyes. The house were big okay. In fact it almost looked like one of them southern mansions you reads about. But it were in real bad shape. It needed paint real bad and the gutters and shutters was just hanging like they was about ready to fall. He begin to see what his grandpa meant when he had told him his sisters needed a lot of help down at the old homestead. Lord, they was a lot to dol. He thought about boomer ranging back to Memphis after all. But then he remembered how empty his pockets was.

Next: Aunt Clara

Boomer Rang Trip

When our boy got down to Harper it were late at night and he didn't want to go straight off to his old aunts' house. He wanted to give hisself time to think things over. He counted his money up and bought a return trip ticket back to Memphis. Kinda like one of them things what you throw and they come back to you, a boomer rang, doncha know. They was closing up the depot so he walked up to the main street where he come upon this old hotel. He settled hisself down on a naughty hide couch and commenced to try to go to sleep. The old night porter woked him up and told him he would be welcome to stay there for the night but if he wanted to sleep he would have to get a room. Since he didn't have no money left after his return ticket were bought he knowed he had to keep awake. Three times he left the hotel and walked around the block looking in all the store window at the clothes, furniture, and novelties what was on display. All this time he were thinking about his grandpa and what he were gonna say when he had to confront him. It warn't gonna be none too good. So he decided to go to the depot as soon as it were opened up and cash in his ticket. He hope this would give him enough money for a taxi to where the old aunts lived. And it did.
Next time: Meeting the Aunts

Coming to Harper on the City of New Orleans

The City of New Orleans are the name of a train what runs between Chicago and New Orleans. It comes down the entire length of Mississippi. That's the train what our young man, what I was telling about a few days ago, climbed on and come to Harper for his incarceration in the house of his great aunts. He were taken to Oxford, Mississippi by Silas, one of his grandpa's hired men, where he picked up his stuff and then he were carried about 20 miles west where he were left off at the train depot in Batesville, Mississippi to wait for the train. This were back around 1960 and I myself has been to that station for the purpose of attending a Ole Miss football game or two. They had this old porter there what would call out all the stops the train were gonna make. He had a problem in that he could only name them as a group. So if you asked him is the train stopped in Jackson, Mississippi, he would call out all the stops. But anyway this boy got on the City of New Orleans 'cause there warn't much else he could do since his grandpa called all the shots and had took his car away. It were close to dark when the train got in so he went to the club car and tried to buy some beer. They wouldn't sell him none for two reasons: he were too young and they couldn't sell no beer or nothing with alcohol while passing thru the "dry" state of Mississippi. It were illegal don't y'know.

Fourth of July

We is celebrating the Fourth of July, what some peoples calls Independence Day. For y'all overseas what might not know, that's when the peoples back in 1776 decided to go their own way and cut off ties with England. They thought they warn't being treated fair and square by King George III and them what was in control. So they broke off and had to fight a war to get on their own. We is slow cooking pork steaks and ribs on the outdoor brick bar-b-q pit what I built down by the lake. Dorothy is making up some of her special sauce and potato salad, cole slaw, baked beans, and homemade bread. We has hot dogs and hamburgers for the young'ns. I don't reckon none of my kids or grandkids or great grandkids will be coming over, but we got a lot of friends and neighbors what always enjoys coming over for this special day. We got a bunch of watermelons, both red and yellow meat, cooling in the lake waters. And we has the boats all set up for them what wants to fish. I rigged up the stereo so it could be heard down by the dock and we got plenty of chairs and benches put out for watching the fireworks display and listening to John Phillip Sousa. I got a fellow who has relatives in Alabama to bring over a whole bunch of rockets and we gonna shoot 'em off as soon as darkness falls over the waters. All the rockets is positioned so they will fall in the lake and tomorrow we gets out in the boats and scoops 'em all up. We are expecting a bang-up good time. Wish all y'all could be here to take part.