Family Secrets

My extended family is just about as colorful as they come. Not so much on the surface, because they are definitely traditional, religious, reverent, scholarly, conservative and can seem at times even boring. It is for this reason that I have always found a fiendish delight in discovering some part of any one of them that has stubbornly refused to give in to the demands beset upon those who have been bred, born and raised in the ways of the old south.

Almost to a person, they have unveiled to me through the years small indiscretions, indecorous actions – inexcusables, if you will. Nothing major mind you, just minute quirks and deviations which might cause an upturned brow and furtive glance if known to the gentry at large. I have observed that individually they seem to have a decidedly contumacious attitude, both deliberate and unyielding about these small quirks, as though they were closely guarded lifelines defining them as unique.

Where I come from you don’t have to stretch the cloth too much to raise eyebrows. Saying “damn” will do it…mowing the grass on Sunday will do it…not going to church will do it. It’s not that the people are overly judgmental – or at least that they mean to be, it’s simply that they were raised that way, they raised their children that way and that defines their world. I only say this so that I don’t imply that my family is populated with mass murderers, thieves and rapists.

One of my earliest memories is standing with my grandmother in the back yard of her mother’s home as a pick-up truck pulled up next to the house. Two men got out of the truck, walked around to the back, pulled my grandmother’s brother, Uncle Murray, out and carried him flat on his back into the house. I asked my grandmother what was wrong with Uncle Murray and she said “Oh P, Uncle Murray’s bad sick”. Those were her exact words. Years later when that memory came back to me accompanied by the memory of the smell wafting towards us from Uncle Murray, I realized he was drunker than Cooter Brown!

That’s the sort of little delightful indiscretion I’m talking about…nothing big, just that my family was human even if they didn’t admit it. My grandmother knew very well what liquor was even though I never ever heard it mentioned in her presence.

I have a great aunt whom I suspected for years of having some deep dark secret. Never could get anyone to spill the beans about her. They’d just shake their heads and say Aunt Lorraine had always been different. Boy, my imagination went wild on that one.

I was talking to my mother once about her older sister who was extraordinarily beautiful when she was young and married an equally beautiful young sailor. I asked mother how they met and she replied that she wasn’t sure just where they met, but she was pretty sure they used to go “honkeytonking” quite a bit – everybody used to talk about it”. Although I could never pry another word out of mother, I used to look at my aunt in an entirely different way as she harmonized in church on Sunday mornings. Those were the little indiscretions I loved to hear about. It made them all so much more interesting.

One of my favorite uncles called several years ago and announced he would like to come and visit. We were both surprised and thrilled that he would make the trip, since it was well over 3,000 miles and he was in a rather advanced stage of Parkinson’s Disease. He would be making the trip alone on AmTrak and would tour the southern part of the states coming out then return across the northern states, altogether a three week trip for him.

George and I looked forward to his visit, as he is very flamboyant, full of stories and loves to laugh. He’s only thirteen years older than I and we’ve always been close. BUT, he was bred, born and raised you know where. I, on the other hand, left there early on and never returned except for visits. I’ve always lived pretty much as I pleased and never anywhere close to my family.

We have an established lifestyle which we find comfortable and we are accustomed to having a glass or two of wine each evening. I wondered aloud how my uncle would handle this – or better yet, how WE would handle it. George said “Well, I suggest we say that we are going to have a glass of wine and would he like to have one”. While I knew this made sense, I felt a sense of dread in even broaching the subject with my teetotaling relative.

We arrived at the station at the designated time and got he and his luggage loaded into the car while he entertained us with tales of his adventures travelling out west. He was pleasantly surprised at the ease with which he made the journey, the wonderful people he had met, the beautiful scenery and the delicious food on the train.

“Ya know, those attendants just couldn’t do enough for me. If I didn’t feel up to going to the dining car they were happy to bring my food to my room. My favorite time though was every evening before dinner when they had the wine and cheese tasting in the club car. I sure learned a lot about your Pacific Northwest wines. Do you have any at home?”

I’ll tell you about the rest of the visit sometime.