MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL

Subject: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Thu Jan 08, 2009 4:27 pm

The following is an excerpt from my memoir, THE LAST OF THE SOUTH TOWN RINKY DINKS. It's the chapter about my mother, and it's posted here in honor of all of the strong women that post here, and for all of the strong men who miss the life that used to be. It starts with a poem, and then goes on from there. I hope you enjoy it.
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GOD AND MAMA

God saw Mama coming and He met her at the gate

He took her hand and said "Come on in, another minute would have been too late.

For tomorrow with the rising sun, Judgment day begins,

And tonight I'm closing Heaven down, you're the last one who'll get in."

"You're closing Heaven down," she said, "I just don't understand.

There can't be everlasting life, without a promised land?"

But God just looked at Mama and slowly shook His head

"I'm sorry, but I've made up my mind," were the only words He said.

Then Mama looked at God and said "Tell me, would You please,

Are all my friends and loved ones here, who meant so much to me?"

God smiled and slowly stepped aside and said "Just take a look."

And sure enough she saw them all, as He had promised in His book.

For a moment or so she stood there, and she smiled and waved and at them

Then she turned and started leaving, her expression sad and grim.

God gently touched her shoulder, and said "Is something wrong?"

And Mama wept, "I can't stay here, I don't think I belong.

For although my loved ones beckon, wanting me to cross the line

There are still too many precious friends that I've just left behind.

And I promised them there'd come a day when I'd be with them again

So if you're closing Heaven down tonight, I don't guess I'll come in."

When God saw Mama leaving, he touched her once again

And said "Don't turn away my child. Come, I'll lead you in.

And there'll be room for everyone, for you have made me see

As long as there is one like you, Heaven will always be."

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MAMA
(ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL)

Mama, this is from me and Helen and Ray and Pat. We love you, and there isn't a day that passes that we don't think about you.

* * *

There's an old Southern saying that fits Mama to a "T".

Used to be, when country people wanted to give a woman the highest compliment they could give them, they almost invariably said the same thing;

She's a Good Woman.

That's what they always said.

They always said that about Mama, and they were right.

Mama was a good woman.

Mama wasn't a big woman, at least not in physical size, but she was a giant in all of the ways that really counted. She had to be, in order to put up with all the hardships she put with, live without all of the little things she never asked for, and never expected to get, and most of all, she had to be a giant of a woman to have put up with a lot of the things Daddy did.

Now it's important that you don't get me wrong on this one. Daddy wasn't a mean man, not to Mama or to any of the kids, and to the best of my knowledge he never cheated on her, not in the fifty-nine years they were married. And I never once, not in my entire life, saw Daddy raise a hand to strike Mama.

He just wasn't that kind.

But Daddy was a stubborn man, opinionated and out-spoken, and a man that wanted his own way most of the time.

Daddy went fishing a lot, but seldom took us with him. He hunted, but we never went along. He went to Florida every five or so years to visit his brother Esco, but we never made the trip with him. He worked hard, and always kept food on the table, the bills paid, and clothes on our back, but the rest of his money he spent on whatever he wanted to. Which was usually fishing or beer.

And I guess that was all right with Mama, at least she never seemed to mind. She stayed at home and raised her kids, and seldom if ever complained about her lot in life.

That by itself is a testimony to the kind of woman she was. Maybe not by today's strange set of politically correct rules, but by the standards of her day she was a good wife and mother in every sense of the word.

I guess the best way to tell this story is to start by saying that Daddy was a carpenter, a good one, and he busted his butt for $1.50 or $2.00 an hour for years building and remodeling houses in and around Springfield. Daddy very seldom complained about how much money he made, but after I grew up I learned that he could have made a hell of a lot more money working somewhere other than Springfield. For some reason, it never occurred to me to ask him why he didn't pack up Mama and his family and leave the little one horse town. Years later I finally came to understand why. It's because Springfield was home. That's where most of the family lived, and where most of the rest were buried. Mama and Daddy couldn't leave Springfield, they had spent too many years there, and there were too many drops of their blood soaked into the South Town dirt for them to ever let go.

Besides, Mama let me in on a secret.

Once I asked her the question about leaving Springfield, and the answer she gave me is not what I expected. It took me a long time to accept it, but I guess I accept it now, and I'd like to pass it along.

Mama, why didn't you and Daddy just pack up and leave this old dried up little town? You'd have been a lot better off if you had.

I was about twenty when I asked this question.

Mama would have been about sixty-two at this time, and her answer was typical of the way she always managed to get me thinking.

Would we? How do you figure, she replied.

Well, for one thing, Daddy could have made a lot more money in a city than he did here.

Maybe so. Probably so. So what?

So what. So what? You could have bought a lot more stuff that you wanted.

Maybe so. So what?

Mama, what are you talking about?

Honey, we didn't like the big city when we lived in Detroit back during the war, and we never did want to live in Nashville, so that only left Springfield.

Naw, Mama, it didn't. You could have moved to some other country town. It didn't have to be a big city. Any place would have been better than Springfield.

Mama looked at me for a long couple of minutes.

Honey, I don't know if I can explain it or not, but let me try. You see, there aren't any other country towns. All of them are Springfield. They've all got the same little shotgun houses, the same Main Street, the same movie house, and the same ball games. You can only do what you can do, no matter where you are. You can move a hundred miles away, or a thousand, and except for the weather, things are always going to be pretty much the same. You see, you can change towns, but it's a lot harder to change yourself. If we'd have moved fifty times, every little town would have had a bunch of kids that looked just like the ones in the town we just left behind. The schools would have taught reading and writing and arithmetic, and your Daddy would have still been a carpenter, building houses for other people.

So why move? It doesn't matter what a town's name is, they're all the same. That's because people are the same.

They laugh when they're happy, cry when they're sad, cuss bad luck, and give thanks to God for good luck.

So in my opinion, honey, it doesn't matter where people live. All country towns are Springfield, regardless of what name is written on the maps.

So, there's no sense moving around all over the map, when all little towns are the same. Besides, this is where everyone is buried. We can't just move off and leave them alone, now can we?

That's it. That was her secret. She understood that there is something about all of us that will cause us to live our lives much the same, regardless of what town we live in. We are creatures of habit, not very much given to change, and those habits and un-changing traits will determine what we do. And what we do is all that we will do, in whatever town we call home.

So the only thing that can really make you choose one town over another is where the people you love live, and where the rest of the people you love are buried, and that's why we never moved to some other little town.

Looking back, I think that's probably why I stayed there for most of my life too.

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Thu Jan 08, 2009 4:29 pm

PART TWO

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Mama and Daddy were married in 1919, and lived in Portland, Tennessee for a short while before moving to Springfield. When they did move here, it was in a horse drawn wagon, and it took them all day to make the trip. They packed up everything they owned and came to Springfield to make a better life for themselves. And I guess they did.

Like I said, Daddy was a carpenter, and a good one, and Mama stayed at home and raised the family. Over the years, she also helped raise a lot of other kids who lived in South Town.

She never once, that I can ever remember, failed to offer anyone whatever help she could give. She never turned anyone away from her door, and she always managed to find enough food to set just one more plate, every time someone came to our house hungry.

I don't recall her ever saying anything bad about anyone. Not that she liked everyone she knew, it's just that she didn't believe in saying bad things about people.

She gave advice when people needed advice, listened when they just needed to talk, and she always knew the difference.

She was a strong woman, she had to be, and once I asked her the secret of her strength.

I'm not really strong, she said, it's just that most of the time when something really bad happens there's only two ways you can handle it.

You can live through it, or you can kill yourself. I've always chosen to live through it.

I thought that made a lot of sense.

And Mama had to live through an awful lot.

She was the oldest in a family of sixteen children, and outlived all of them but one. That means she saw fifteen brothers and sisters die. (Note: I can only find thirteen children in any records, but according to everyone there are three more.)

Not only that, but she also saw three of her children and two of her grand children pass away, as well as both of her parents, Daddy's mother, and I don't know how many other relatives.

In one ten or twelve year period during the forties and early fifties, Mama lost eleven members of her immediate family. Eleven members. She lost both parents, two children, two grandchildren, and five brothers or sisters. That averages out to over one death per year, for over ten years.

Several of the deaths were exceptionally hard one's to deal with.

Mama and Daddy had four children, in this order.

William Norman was the first born, Carlos Odell, the one they called Kink, was born second, Shirley Ann, the only girl, was born third, and I was born last. Mama was 42 when I came along, and over the years many a joke was made about either Mama or Daddy, or maybe both, being middle aged crazy.

The way her children died must have been almost unbearable, and more than any parents should have to undergo.

Shirley Ann was the first of the children to die. She was a precious little baby girl, not quite three, and was Mama's pride and joy.

Shirley Ann had a penny. An Indian head penny. She kept it under the tablecloth on the corner of the eating table. Two or three times a day, someone would say something about her penny and she would go and check to be sure it was still there.

And it always was.

Shirley Ann died in Mama's arms as they crossed the bridge over the Cumberland River heading into Nashville. Shirley Ann had developed pneumonia and the doctor in Springfield had done all he could do. Their only hope was to get her to Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville immediately. Willard drove Mama and Daddy and Shirley as quickly as he could, but they didn't quite make it. Mama once told me that she was holding Shirley as tightly against her breast as she could, and that she felt it when the life left her tiny body.

Mama kept the penny in a little bag that she had in her small mantle cedar chest. Now and then she would take out the penny and sit and hold it. Most of the time she'd cry. She didn't know I watched, but sometimes I did.

I have the penny now. Sometimes I take it out and hold it, and sometimes I cry. I have a feeling that Mama knows I still have it, and how much it means to me.

It's a 1907 Indian head penny.

Oh yes, I have the small cedar chest too.

Carlos was fated to be the next to leave her.

Carlos was seventeen when he got into some trouble in Springfield, and rather than see him go to jail, Mama signed the papers for him to join the army. She regretted it the rest of her life.

Carlos was killed in a country half way around the world from Springfield, and Mama never forgave herself for signing the papers that sent him there.

Later, and more than once, she told me that if she had it to do over, she'd rather see him prison than dead.

The way he died was heartbreaking.

According to the story, he was assigned to a chemical division and had been on the front line for over thirty days without getting a scratch, laying down smoke screens between our troops and the enemy.

On the thirty-first day they were relieved, and the next day, while they were back at their base camp, one of his buddies was cleaning his pistol and it went off and Kink was hit with the bullet. He was eighteen at the time.

Mama got the first letter from an army Chaplin telling her about the accident;

Dear Mrs. Harp,

Your son has been shot, it read.

He is in bad shape, but improving.

The second letter was from the same Chaplin, about six weeks later.

Your son is much better, and is being sent home. He is on the way at this time, and should arrive soon.

The third letter came a few days later.

Dear Mrs. Harp, it said. We regret to inform you your son had died en-route.

Cold regrets on formal Army stationary, with only a few words of explanation.

That's a pretty cruel way to receive that kind of news, wouldn't you say?

I still have the small military style letters that told the story of his death. The army said Mama was supposed to receive the Silver Star, but they never sent her one. She did get a Purple Heart medal, and she kept it and the flag the casket was draped in, but she never got over the fact that she was supposed to get the Silver Star and didn't. I'm sure you know that I still have the flag and the Purple Heart.

Norman was the last of Mama's children to die. He wasn't yet thirty. When he died, it was also a under a particularly bad set of circumstances.

Norman was married to Eva Mai, and they had already lost their first child, a daughter named Vera Mai. They had a second baby girl named Mary Evelyn, and in 1947 she got sick. When they took her to the doctor she was diagnosed with tuberculosis. She only lived a short time after that, passing away in 1948. After the funeral the doctor decided to test the other members of the family.

Norman was found to have the same disease, in a very advanced stage, and died in 1948. He was 28 years old.

So Mama and Daddy lost a son and a grandchild, and Eva Mai lost a husband and a daughter, all in the same year.

In 1969, Mama also was diagnosed with TB, and spent over nine months in the tuberculosis hospital in Nashville. She got well and came home in 1970, and it wasn't long after that that a vaccine or medicine was found to treat TB. With the new vaccine you could stay at home, and not nearly as many people died from it.

Mama's brother Paul was killed during World War II while serving on the USS Birmingham. The way we heard it, the Birmingham went to the aid of another ship and took a hit herself from a Japanese Kamikaze plane, and suffered an explosion during the rescue operation. They said the decks ran deep with blood, and that most of the sailors never knew what hit them.

Her brother Boyd had a heart attack one day while laying concrete blocks. They took him to the doctor and the doctor told him he'd have to take it easy for a while.

He did.

He took it easy for about two or three days, then he went back to laying blocks. Said his family had to eat.

He never finished the job. Had a massive heart attack and collapsed on the job, some say with a concrete block in each hand, and there was nothing they could do to save him. He was in his forties.

Of course Daddy was going through all of this too, and I imagine it was the hard times and heartaches as much as anything else that turned him to drink. And did he ever drink. Daddy loved his beer, and he drank a lot of it. But he was one of those rare persons whose bodily composition was such that beer didn't seem to bother him at all. He could drink beer for hours on end, and almost never showed any signs of having had a drink at all.

Whiskey was another story. Whiskey made Daddy drunk, and you could tell it. But he didn't drink very much whiskey. He would now and then, but mostly he drank beer. He knew Mama wouldn't say very much about beer, and he also knew she hated to see him drunk.

I've seen Daddy drunk on many occasions though.

I remember we went to town one Saturday afternoon and Daddy parked the car down on Richard Street, which is two blocks from Main Street. We went to the Midway Cafe for chili and then went to the show, and somewhere along the way Daddy got hold of a pint of whiskey. He drank most of it at the show, I guess, and by the time the movie was over, he couldn't remember where he'd parked the car.

Mama wouldn't tell him. She didn't want to ride with him when he was drunk, and she surely didn't want me in the car. So we walked home. It was only about a mile, the weather was warm, and no one would bother us, so we walked home.

Daddy walked back to town the next day and found the car and drove it home, and never mentioned it again.

Daddy chewed tobacco, but he didn't smoke. He worked in the tobacco factories in the fall, stripping it and grading it, getting it ready to sell. Now and then, he'd bring home a few large leaves of tobacco and twist it into home made twists. He kept the twists hanging in the back room at the house, and now and then he'd take one down and cut off a piece and stick it in the top pocket of his bib overalls. That was some of the strongest tobacco you could ever imagine. If some of the kids today who take delight in Copenhagen or Skoal could cut a big old chaw off of one of Daddy's home made twists and stick it in their mouth, it might change their minds about using tobacco.

Daddy was born Birtle Odell Harp on August 8th, 1901, and passed away on Valentines day, February 14th, 1978. He always told us that he was a direct descendant of the infamous Harp Brothers who raised so much hell and killed so many people in Southern Kentucky and Northern Tennessee in the late 1700's. I’ve traced the connection and the names seem to bear out his story, so I have no reason to doubt that he was correct when he said the Harp family had some very bad blood.

I know there were a few strange things about Daddy, and one of the strangest came some thirteen years after he died.

For most of my life, whenever I did anything that particularly pleased Daddy, his only response was "Well, alright son." He always said the same thing.

In 1981, Helen and my fourth child was born.

Derek Andrew Harp, named in part after my grandfather, was born September 9, 1981 at Jesse Holman Jones Hospital in Springfield.

Helen and I were at the hospital, and Helen's sister Magdalene was staying at our house with our daughter Nikki. The only other person at the house was Mama, so that meant that the only people at home were women.

At about ten minutes before midnight, I called home to let them know that we had a beautiful baby boy.

I dialed the phone and listened as it rang at the house.

It was then something really strange happened.

A male voice answered.

Hello, the heavy male voice said.

Not thinking, I happily replied;

It's a boy, we have a boy.

And the voice answered;

Well, alright son.

Then I heard another receiver picked up.

It was Mama.

Mama, we've got a baby boy, I said.

That's wonderful, Honey, I'll see you soon.

Mama, who answered the other phone?

Why no one answered it, Honey, she said, Everyone is asleep.

But...

I went back into Helen's room, where she was just now beginning to come out from under the influence of the medication.

I stood at the foot of her bed as she began to wake up, and her first words were;

Donald, Pappy knows we have a baby boy.

Helen, like some others in the family, always called Daddy "Pappy."

And those were her very words. Still half asleep from the medication, she somehow came to with Daddy on her mind.

Later I told her the story of the telephone.

* * *

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Thu Jan 08, 2009 4:30 pm

PART THREE: THE LAST PART

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Mama smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. And later, sometimes she smoked two packs. She smoked for over fifty years, and they never seemed to hurt her at all. I guess cigarettes, like most bad habits, affect different people in different ways.

Once, when Mama was eighty-one, she got sick and had to go to the hospital. When she drifted off to sleep, the nurse came in and took away her pack of cigarettes.

When Mama woke up, the first thing she did was reach for a cigarette. Not finding the pack where she'd left it, she quietly got out of bed, put on her robe, and went out into the hall. Slowly she made her way to the nurse's desk, stopped long enough to spot her pack of cigarettes lying on the table behind the desk, and then walked behind the desk and picked them up.

I think these are mine, she said, and walked back to her room.

Later the doctor came in.

Mrs. Harp, he said, you've got to quit smoking. They're very bad for your health. It's been proven that smoking will kill you.

Doctor, I'm eighty-one years old, I've been smoking over fifty years, and I don't expect to live forever. Got a light?

The next year, she went into the hospital again.

This time with a circulation problem in her right leg.

It was February.

After two days of examination, the same doctor gave her his diagnosis.

Mrs. Harp, you have almost no circulation in your right leg. I'm afraid it's going to set up blood poisoning.

What are you telling me, doctor? she asked.

Mrs. Harp, I think we're going to have to take off your right leg just below the knee, or you may die from the infection.

Doctor, would have the nurse get my clothes?

Didn't you hear me? Mrs. Harp, he inquired. If we don't remove your leg, you may die.

I am going to die, Doctor, one day, all of us are. But I'm not going to die right now, and not from blood poisoning. And you're not going to cut off my leg. I was born with two legs, when I die, I'll die with two legs. Whether it's tonight or next week, or next year. But Doctor, I know that in about a month the weather will change. We'll get a few nice warm days and then my circulation will be fine. We'll just have to doctor it till then.

And that's what they did.

A homebound nurse came by the house three times a week and gave Mama therapy for her circulation, and when the weather broke, her circulation got just fine. She didn't die that year, or the next, and when Mama finally died, it wasn't from blood poisoning, and she still had both legs.

Mama had only completed either the ninth or tenth grade in school, but she was one of the smartest persons I ever knew. She had an appetite for reading that never diminished. She read anything and everything she could get her hands on, and remembered almost everything she ever read. She worked the daily newspaper crossword every day for years, right up until the time she had her stroke.

And she passed that love of reading on to me. We didn't have television, and instead of listening to the radio, Mama would hold me on her lap and read to me. Mostly she read the daily newspaper. In fact the first word I said was "Popeye."

Mama swears I knew my letters before I was three, and could already read two or three word sentences. She took great delight in holding me up to the window of the bus on our way back from Detroit and having me read highway signs to the other passengers. I was somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-eight months old.

Mama also liked to write. I used to have a few little stories she wrote, but the last time I looked they weren't with the rest of the things I've managed to keep. I don't understand why, because I never throw away anything like that. I guess I inherited my love of writing from her as well, and I only wish she could have read this book.

Mama dearly loved Elmer Hinton, a columnist who wrote for the Tennessean, the daily Nashville newspaper, and she wrote to his column on a semi-regular basis.

Once when Mister Hinton went on vacation Mama missed his column, and wrote him a poem upon his return. He published Mama's poem in his column on Thursday, October 10, 1963. The poem follows.

"I want to say I'm glad you're back,

I liked your fill-in but he seemed to lack

Your brand of corn, and corn I dig,

From the hill to the still

To the very last swig.

About hootenanny...

It makes me long for a gun that will shoot

For that kind of stuff, I don't give a hoot."

* * *

Mama also won five dollars once by writing a letter to Mister Hinton's column explaining her feelings on war.

I think it's safe to say that 21st.Avenue wouldn't have been the same without Mama.

She was the one the kids talked to when no one else would listen, and the one who talked to them when no one else paid them any attention. She always made time for people, regardless of how little time she had to call her own, and she never condemned folks for bad habits or bad judgment.

She fed people, she let people sleep on her floor, and she took them in out of the cold when they had no place to warm up.

And she was loved for these things.

I could write about Mama for months and never say all I wanted to, and probably never capture her spirit at all. She was such a multi-faceted person that to try to categorize her would be a pretty stupid thing for me to do. I'll leave you with one more story of Mama, and let you draw your own conclusions.

* * *

All of us always depended on Mama, and she was there each time she was needed. At the most heartbreaking times, she held us together, and she always held us close to her heart. Shirley Ann was resting in Mama's lap when she died. Kink's last letter was to Mama, and Norman was lying in Mama's bed when he drew his last breath. Mama held Daddy's hand right up to the last, and they would have been married for 59 years the year that Daddy passed away.

She lived her life for all of us, and never, not once, asked for anything at all from any of us.

Mama was born Lena Viola Walker on February 19, 1899, and died June 12, 1985, at the age of 86. She always joked about being "one year older than time" because, being born in 1899, she was always a year ahead of whatever year it was.

She died in the same way as she lived, watching after one of her kids.

This time it was me.

As I’ve explained several times, it was typical of many in Mama's family to develop heart problems early, and I'm sure she spent many hours hoping that it wouldn't catch up with me, but it did.

On January 14th, 1985, at about 9:30 AM, at the age of 43, I suffered a heart attack. It was bad enough to send me to the hospital for twelve days, and it was along around the first of February when I finally got back home.

Mama was waiting.

She walked the floor, and she stood by my bed, and she held my hand, and sometimes she cried.

One day, in mid February, her tiny body finally gave in to the temptation to shut down. She stood by the couch in the living room, in plain sight of the bed where I lay, and took one look at me, turned toward the couch and collapsed. She had suffered a massive stroke.

We had always said that we would never put Mama in a nursing home, but her condition was such that there was no way we could care for her at home.

During the next few months, I suffered several more, less serious, heart attacks, and Mama remained unconscious.

In early June, I had another, more serious attack, and had to go back into the hospital. On June 5th, the doctors at Centennial Medical Center in Nashville performed an angioplasty on my heart, which nearly cost me my life.

I went into the operating room knowing that the procedure was potentially dangerous, but that almost everyone made it with very few complications.

An angioplasty is where they insert a tiny balloon type device into an artery of your heart and then inflate the balloon, thereby opening the artery and allowing the blood to circulate better.

It should have been rather simple.

But not this time.

When the doctor inflated the balloon the first time, the artery opened just fine. When he went to the second blockage and inflated the balloon, the first place he had worked on collapsed.

I actually heard the nurse say;

He's fibrillating.

Damn it, sometimes it doesn't pay to understand what people are talking about. But I did.

I felt, rather that saw, some one lean over me and pound on my chest, trying to re-start my heart.

They had to use the electric de-fibrillaters and shock me three or four times before my heart finally picked up the beat and kept going on its own.

This was sometime between eight and nine o'clock AM.

At exactly that same time, in the nursing home in Springfield, Mama had a relapse, and had to be rushed to the hospital.

I lay in the hospital in Nashville until June 12, and Mama lay in the hospital in Springfield the entire time.

When I was released, I didn't even stop at home, I went straight to the Springfield hospital and to Mama's side. I sat there with her for several hours, until finally I had to go home to rest.

The strangest thing happened at the hospital.

For the first time since she'd had the stroke, Mama woke up that evening. I sat there holding her hand, and unbelievably her blue eyes opened and stared up at me. Her eyes were clear and filled with much more emotion than mere words can ever say.

Donald? Honey, are you all right? Softly and tenderly she whispered the words.

Yes Mama, I'm fine. How do you feel.

I feel just fine now, Honey, just fine.

Her eyes closed again. Those few words and she was satisfied.

At about eleven thirty that night, they called from the hospital to tell me that Mama had died.

I wished it was me instead.

There is one thing of which I am totally convinced.

Mama was only waiting for me to get over the worst of my illness before she turned loose of the fragile hold she still held on life. She knew what was going on with me, every step of the way. Her love transcended the physical aspects of the stroke, and somehow she stood watch on the last of her children until she knew everything was all right. Then, reassured and ready to go, she turned loose.

I once had a dream that Daddy came to get Mama, and she was hiding from him. The night she died, I swear they were both standing at the foot of my bed, watching me sleep.

I'm reasonably sure that they're together again, and she's watching over her family from whatever home God prepared for her.

My mind, my imagination, and most of my personality was shaped by Mama, and there isn't a day that passes that I don't stop and look at her picture, and know that she is still with me, and always will be.

* * *

Mama, this book is for you. I know you're reading over my shoulder as I write, and if these words please you as much as I want them to, then I'll be satisfied.

More than anything else, Mama, I love you and I miss you. I'm sure you know that all of us that are still here miss you just as much. Helen talks about you often, and I sometimes catch Shelly, when she visits with us, staring at your picture, and I know she is remembering. Jason hardly ever says anything about the past, but when he does it's always about you and Daddy. Nikki and Derek also remember you, although they didn't know Daddy, and now and then they ask me some little thing and I find myself parroting words you spoke to me at some time or other. And so you see, your influence lives on, and always will, in our hearts and in our actions, and the things you taught us are passed on time and time again.

One thing you will find typical.

When Nikki’s baby girl was born in 2000, she was a 7 month baby and only weighed 4 pounds. She is named Braxten, and she and Nikki live with us.

When Brax was first learning to walk and talk, I once told her a story about her “Nenie” and later that day I found her looking at your picture.

I walked over.

What are you doing, baby.

Nenie, she said, pointing at the picture.

We hadn’t told her which one was you.

I suppose your love is never far removed from our home, and I think even the children, or maybe especially the children, understand that.

Ray has read much of this book as I was writing it, and there is no doubt in my mind that he and Pat miss you and Daddy as much as anyone does. Eva Mai is and always will be his mother, but first, last, and always, he still calls you Mama.

As the last of your natural born children, and as one of the last of the South Town Rinky Dink's, I dedicate the stories, the memories, the laughter, the tears, and all the rest to you.

If I know you, I'm sure you'll enjoy my small effort at telling about the things you loved so much.

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Thu Jan 08, 2009 4:31 pm

To see more, visit the website at

http://www.southtownrinkydinks.com

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Thu Jan 08, 2009 5:15 pm

The love for your Mama and family shine, my friend! A wonderful tribute to them.

Thanks for sharing,

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Thu Jan 08, 2009 5:17 pm

E. Don,

What a remarkale woman--I love your Mom. I like your Dad too

As usual, I love your writng and your singing and your arguing also.

Glad your heart is still going--keep it that way! lol!

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Thu Jan 08, 2009 10:38 pm

My God, Don. I'm can barely see because of the tears. What a beautiful story and thank you for sharing it.

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Fri Jan 09, 2009 5:08 am

Don,
that's a wonderful tribute to your mother. It is also a tribute to you as a loving son. I knew there was something special about you.

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Fri Jan 09, 2009 5:13 am

What a wonderful story, Don. I can just envision your parents loking down, your father saying "Well, alright son" and your mother beaming brightly with tears in her eyes.

Thank you for sharing this part of you with us.

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Fri Jan 09, 2009 6:17 am

The telling of that story could not have been improved upon, Don. It came from the heart, that's obvious, and I'm sure a million people in a million places will be saying that sounds just like . . .

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Fri Jan 09, 2009 10:43 am

Don,

Your story gave me chills, smiles and tears. Thanks so much for sharing your wonderful story!

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Sat Jan 17, 2009 6:54 pm

Very special.

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Mon May 11, 2009 8:41 pm

As another thread is talking about mothers, and as I have already posted this here, I thought I'd bring it back to the top, just for those who may not have read it the first time around.

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Mon May 11, 2009 8:53 pm

Thank you!

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Mon May 11, 2009 8:54 pm

Perfect. I have great respect for your talent.......I hope your new publisher takes the new book to blockbuster status.

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Mon May 11, 2009 9:13 pm

Thank you. BTW, I'm not really upset. I know exactly what you're talking about when you talk about friends.

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Tue May 12, 2009 5:01 pm

Dear Don,
I have told you before, you write the words that connect. Connection is the name of the game, I think. Words that connect to hearts, to brains and emotion so that what you have written and what they have read is what you meant.
If a reader can see through your eyes, that is almost as good as if they can feel through your heart. You are a magic man with words and conjuring up the visions your heart feels.

Love,
Betty

Subject: Re: MAMA: ONE WORD SAYS IT ALL Tue May 12, 2009 5:21 pm

NPR was interviewing an author who just wrote a book about being middle class black in the 1950's in Sag Harbor, a story that many people did not know. It is a "coming of age" story from the point of view of black young people of wealth, caught between two worlds, the impoverished black one and the middle class white one yet quite wealthy and connected in their own elite society. I mention the interview because the discussion and the phone calls from those who read the book said it didn't matter whether you were white or black, young or old, the characters in the book were so very alive and real that the reader of any race or color identified with their trials and tribulations, worries and successes, etc. I believe that is one of the true arts of writing as mentioned by Betty: the power to connect at an deeper, human level to feelings, emotions and ideas beyond the daily patterns and familiar things. An experience in a story can be far removed from my own, yet pierce my heart and touch my soul. For that piece of emotional connection, I am grateful. It is validation of life.

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