Max - one of the wolrd's great cats

This is not Max; I don't think I have a single picture of that great cat. But it is a good likeness. It's from the American Longhair entry on petcyclopedia.com. At any rate, yesterday was National Cat Day and yesterday, today, and tomorrow are the days to focus on Glenn - so what better to write about than Glenn's magnificent cat, Max, named by stepbrothers after Maxwell Smart from Get Smart, the TV show. Max was pretty big - he probably weighed twenty pounds, and he looked like a tabby but had long silky hair and quite a personality. 

I didn't meet Max until he was nine. I was, too. But he came into Glenn's life as a kitten when they already owned a German Shepherd named Duke. Duke and Max, according to Glenn, immediately bonded. They would nap together and Duke would even carry Max around on his back! My stepbrothers look upon this time as a very special time in their lives. Duke was much older, and I'm not sure how long he had been gone when Mama and I entered the Burne household. At least a few years, I think.

The only person Max would snuggle with was Glenn. In the evenings, when Glenn had his nightcap, Max would sit in his lap and Glenn would pet him and Max would purr away. He was aloof with everyone else. He would jump up on the couch with me when I  watched TV in the den and always face away from me. He would let me pet him, but he didn't seem pleased about it, so mostly I just left him alone and observed.

Max was a mouser. He would spend all night outside. In the mornings, we would see him sitting on the window unit meowing at us. It looked hilarious!  So he spent his days lounging around the house and his nights exploring the creek. He would often come outside when we were all out there, too. Once when I was playing basketball in the backyard, I noticed that a blue jay was bothering Max. It kept diving at him. I guess it had a nest nearby and didn't want a cat so close to his babies. The aloof Max just acted like he didn't notice and lay in wait. The blue jay got closer with each pass. Still, Max waited. When the bird finally got close enough, Max killed him with one blow. Fortunately, he didn't eat the bird. I couldn't be very sad about it. Max gave the guy chances to leave him alone, plus my granddaddy told me that Blue Jays were terrible for people's gardens.

One night when I was 10 or 11, Glenn, Mama, and I went to Eastland Mall. We had dinner at Morrison's Cafeteria and then went to look at the pet shop. They surprised me by telling me that we were going to get a puppy! Mama asked me which one I liked, but before I could answer, she said, with love in her eyes "Look at this one!" "Her ear flops down just the way Beau's did." I looked up at the dog she had her eye on - which was much bigger than the puppy I had picked out - but she was really cute and she was doing her best to play with a ball in the confines of her cage - flinging it about and scrambling after it. We got to hold her and that was it. Katy, a Keeshond, came into our lives. She was a fluffy, grey, medium-sized dog whose tail curled up around her back. We brought her home with us and she went bounding across the kitchen into the den. Katy stopped dead in her tracks as Max arched his back and hissed at her. That was quite a sight, I had never seen Max act that way before. He let her know in that moment who's turf she was on, and while the level of bonding Duke and Max had shared never existed between him and Katy, they were civil to each other.

One of Max's favorite games would be played while Mama cooked dinner. As you know, cooking dinner lures dogs to the kitchen. Our kitchen table was round with an eggplant-colored table cloth on it. You remember the eggplant/antique green 70's look, right? Max liked to jump up on a kitchen chair and hide behind the tablecloth. He would wait for Katy to walk by the table and then swipe at her tail. She would try to figure out what had happened, so she would turn around and walk past him again. This pleased Max no end. He looked very smug about the whole thing and it was a delight to watch for a kid.

As time went on, Max didn't like to go out as much. He killed Mama's ming tree and I noticed that he had a new hiding place in the closet of the den. One day, Glenn was walking through the den and asked me what that smell was. I said that I didn't know, but Max just came out of the closet. To Glenn's horror, he had apparently been using Glenn's National Geographic collection as a litter box for quite some time. More and more, he slept in the laundry room and greeted us at the door instead of the window.

After Mama and Glenn divorced, Glenn had to go out west to visit his family for two weeks. He paid one of Al's friends to feed Max, and left the back door to the laundry room open so Max could go in and out freely. At this time, Max was 17 years old. He was no longer able to mouse or kill a blue jay with one blow. Glenn returned from his trip to find Max limp in the driveway. He said that Max waited for him and purred in his arms one last time as he passed away. Al's friend came running up after seeing Glenn's truck drive by. He admitted that he forgot to feed Max. After a 17 year life, one of the world's greatest cats died of starvation. We were all devastated that he had passed in such a horrible fashion. Hopefully, Glenn and Max are reunited now in a comfortable chair sharing a snuggle while Glenn enjoys a Bourbon and a Cigar.

"Let me rub some magic into your hand."

My grandmother was my grandfather's caretaker for about the last twenty years of her life. She never complained about it and met his strange demands with grace and love. I remember one time when I was at their house along with her usual breakfast of the tallest biscuits in the world, two kinds of bacon, sausage patties, ham, and eggs made to order - she made a hamburger patty. I asked her why she did that and she told me Granddaddy woke her up in the middle of the night and told her he really had a taste for hamburger. I said he should be happy with all that other food she cooked and she said simply - "Well, I don't mind, it's no trouble." She meant it, too. So, anyway, she got pancreatic cancer, and the summer I turned 14, I spent a few weeks with them and I knew something was wrong when she didn't have enough strength to make my birthday cake. She talked me through making my very first chocolate chip cake while she lay on the bed in the back bedroom, and she was so proud. She joined Carol and me in the kitchen for a slice. My birthday is in August and in September (1982) she left this world - leaving Granddaddy all alone.

Our family had to put him in the nursing home and he did not want to come to be near any of his children. He wanted to stay in Monroe County, Mississippi, as almost all of its residents do. My Aunt Cabby (Carolyn Ritter) and her children lived in Memphis. While, my Uncle Jim resided in Marietta, Georgia, and my family lived in Charlotte and Richfield, NC respectively. So, naturally, the care and keeping of Granddaddy fell mostly to my aunt and my three cousins. 

My cousin, David, was kind of an amazing kid with electronics. He told me that he had his own TV and radio repair shop when he was only 16. Now he's a big shot at the Memphis Airport. He was always helping our grandparents out on the farm - replacing fuses, repairing stuff, helping in the garden; he even put a swing up for me once.

To help Granddaddy live more comfortably in the home, and before "the clapper" came on the market, David knew how to rig up such a device. David had rigged up this "clapper" type device to the TV so that Granddaddy could turn it on and off by himself by just clapping his hands since his limited mobility wouldn't really allow him to control it any other way than asking for help every time. 

Granddaddy had a mischievous sense of humor. 

One of the nurse's assistants noticed that he had turned his TV on just by clapping his hands. She asked, "Mr. Rubel, how did you do that?" He replied: "Magic, want to try it?" "Come over here and let me rub some magic into your hand." Reluctantly, she approached his bed and let him rub her hand; then she tried it herself. She clapped and the TV went off. It frightened her so much that she just ran from the room. Mr. Stegall, my grandfather's roommate, and Granddaddy got a good belly laugh out of that incident - something deeply needed in nursing homes. 

So that's how my granddaddy got through his last year of life. 'Round about a year after Grandmother died, he became so bereaved that he went on to join her.

The Great British Baking Show

Grandmother Moss loved baking for others and she loved game shows. At least, she seemed to. She was such a kind person that most of what she did was for other people. My granddaddy was confined to the bed most of the time and I think game shows helped him have some interaction and kept his mind sharp. So she may have just kept those shows on for him while we all sat in the living room - the only air-conditioned room in the house, and shelled purple-hull peas. I don't know how she really felt about baking, but I know that she loved our reaction to her seasonal dessert spreads. Everything was completely homemade. I loved her coconut cake and Pam loved her chocolate meringue pie. As a special touch on that coconut cake, she would save aside some coconut milk and pour it over the cake when she took it out of the oven and it made it nice and moist. Yes, when I say homemade she even grated her own coconut. On Thanksgiving once, I remember running through the dining room and stopping to admire the display on the sideboard...Chocolate Pie, Coconut Cake, Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Cake, and Blackberry Cobbler. Each dish was as wonderful as the next. One of my co-workers at UNCC and I were talking about our holiday memories once and I told her about how much trouble Grandmother went to and then how tired she would be after dinner was over. I said maybe she should have just made less food and not stressed herself out that way. Pam - Pam James, not my sister said "But you never forgot it. She was making memories, not dessert." How right she was. I will never forget it.

So today, with this combination of game shows and baking in mind I watched an episode of The Great British Baking Show.  They made a version of chocolate pie - to my mind, they ruined it by putting mint in it and some flare called Italian meringue which no one did well and their meringue came out all gloppy, and in some cases not even browned. They made mincemeat pies which I don't recall having until I was a teenager in PA. Maybe I just blocked it out, I'm not a fan. This show was a contest between three bakers and the nice thing about it was that even though they were competing, they consoled each other when something went wrong and tried to help each other as well. Grandmother would have appreciated that kind of camaraderie.  Sometime soon, I'm going to try my hand at a chocolate pie. I have discovered that I need a hand mixer to make a good meringue. So I'll need to get one of those. I don't know what event this picture was taken at - but it was one of those times where she wore herself out doing for others.

"She's Catholic," she whispered

My Moss grandparents, like many other protestants of their era, were a little suspicious of Catholic folks. They were concerned about them because they believed that Catholics were guilty of idol worship. And suspicious of them because - well, I guess because they were unfamiliar. My Aunt Patsy - Uncle Jim's wife was Catholic and he converted. I remember Grandmother whispering to me "She's Catholic," in the same way she had whispered, "She smokes." It really didn't mean anything to me. I was a Southern kid who had never really thought about religions other than Methodist, Baptist, and Lutheran.

The summer I was eleven my church sent me for a week to Lutheridge - a camp for Lutheran kids in the mountains of NC. There we did a lot of studying about the bible and learned Luther's interpretations of the commandments and the rest of "The Small Catechism." I think Grandmama picked me up from camp and already had Pam with her. We went directly from camp to Grandmother's house in Mississippi. Grandmama and Pam went on to Memphis and I stayed with Grandmother and Granddaddy. (It is possible that I am blurring two memories). Anyway, Grandmother really enjoyed reading The Small Catechism. She told me that she had always liked reading books that provided a further understanding of the Bible. She had access to a lot of these kinds of books in her young and middle adult years when her mother had a house on the farm and kept a "travelling library" in her home. Before branch libraries existed, the county library would seek volunteers that would allow a room in their home to serve as a small community library. The selections would be changed out periodically. It was this library that provided endless reading for my mother and her mother and my aunt until Grandma West died in 1958. I know she moved to Monroe County around 1935, but I am not sure when she started keeping that library.

I work in the library of a Catholic College, Benedictine to be precise. And, at the beginning of this semester, I started going to pray for an hour each week at the Adoration Chapel. During my hour of adoration, along with prayer, I have been reading the My Catholic Life series. This series is a summary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It has been interesting to me. It breaks down the meaning of the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. It provides an explanation for different beliefs held by all Christians and some that are held by Catholics in particular. I wanted to read this series because I have been working at the college for seven years and I just want to understand the faith better so I can be more effective with Catholic specific questions. This series has a lot in common with the teachings of Martin Luther.  I wonder if Grandmother would have been open to reading about it? I think she would have enjoyed it if she had given it a chance. 

The Park Terrace

The last time I went to The Park Terrace, it was to see Loving Vincent with Mama. We knew that it would be the last time we would go to The Park Terrace because, after decades of service to the Charlotte community, it was closing its doors. We recalled waiting in line in the summer heat with Pam and Al to see The Empire Strikes Back. Loving Vincent was a wonderful animated feature film about the life of Van Gogh. A visual feast that took years to create - this film told the heartbreaking story of Vincent Van Gogh's life. In 2014, we had been to see the exhibit Van Gogh Alive at Discovery Place. This multimedia exhibit made you feel like you were in the Van Gogh paintings and even had a dramatization of Van Gogh's life at the beginning. To us, this film felt like an extension of that marvelous exhibit:
Van Gogh Alive: https://youtu.be/1jhUmOixt44

Last night, Steven and I went to grab some burgers at The Shake Shack and then we went to the reopened and redesigned Park Terrace movie theater to see The Current War. This movie is just the kind of film Mama would have liked. First of all, it stars one of her favorite actors - and her all-time favorite Sherlock - Benedict Cumberbatch. Also, all of the performances were great and the true story of powering the nation was riveting.

She loved to go to dinner and a movie. It's a simple pleasure, but as Bobby McFerrin sings "Simple pleasures are the best."

I have to say that the integrity of Tesla, Westinghouse, and Edison completely surpassed the businessmen of today. However, Edison and Westinghouse both exhibited the same kind of compromised values in the end. I highly recommend it, and I recommend The Park Terrace, too.

The Current War trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kue18AxK1tU

Lois Goodlink by Anita West Moss ©

Greenbrier Cemetery, Becker, MS

 Today, I'm continuing with one of Mama's journals. I'm skipping a story she started but didn't finish here. Most of my family knows the story of the mule and the lawsuit. At some point, this blog will contain all of Mama's stories.  Then there is a personal entry from June 25, 1986, after my botched jaw surgery at Temple University Hospital. What a horrible summer that was for me. She gets in a few good digs at my dad - referring to him as an "egomaniac," and a "shallow peacock." 

Then comes the entry about Lois Goodlink. Lois was Mama's best friend in first grade. I assume it was written around July 1986.

From the journal of Anita West Moss ca. 1986: ©
September 1948 - I am five years old. Mama says it is time for me to go to school like my sister and brother. Cabby says it will be fun. She says I can read lots of books. I say I don't need to go to school; I can read books at home and color already. "Yes, but you can't read hard books, and I am not reading you Hans Brinker. You'll have to learn to read it for yourself."

I say I don't want to miss the radio show I listen to with Mama. My favorite is Our Gal Sunday. it's about the poor girl from a mining town in Colorado who was trying to find happiness as the wife of a wealthy and titled Englishman. 

I cried so much that Mama did not make me go on the bus with all the squalling kids that first day. But the next day, she washed and curled my hair and dressed me in a bright yellow dress with a ruffle around the bottom of the skirt and a starched sash.  Then she put a yellow ribbon in my hair and said we were ready to go.

My teacher was Mrs. Whitehead. She knelt down beside me and told me how pretty I looked in my yellow dress. She showed me her picture books on a shelf and said I could sit in one of the little chairs and read. Three big boys sat nearby. Later, I learned that they had failed. They snickered behind their hands and made faces at me. One of them was Carroll Moffatt who went on to become a state senator. Mrs. Whitehead had her silky hair pulled back in a neat bun. She had beautiful brown eyes and a lovely lilting Southern voice. She speaks softly and Mama starts to leave. I see this, run to Mama, trying not to cry."Please, please take me home, Mama. I'll do my lessons at home, I promise." But Mrs. Whitehead says "Come look at the aquarium and the funny goldfish with black spots;" reluctantly, I go with her and try not to hear Mama leave.

I sit in reading circle beside a girl named Lois Goodlink. She told me she had also failed first grade the year before. She is pretty - her hair is reddish blonde and curled into Shirley Temple curls just like mine. "My daddy was kilt in the war." she says "My mama still cries about it. My granddaddy owns a store." Then we remember we played together once. My daddy stopped at the store on his way back from taking the cotton hands back to Aberdeen. He bought each of us a Chocolate Soldier and a Moon Pie. We sat under a shade tree at Lois's little table and poured the Chocolate Soldiers into the toy tea set and crossed our legs and pretended to be grownups. I like Lois a lot. She has freckles across her nose, a crooked, snaggle-tooth grin, and big blue eyes. She wears wine-colored corduroy overalls and says they are way too hot, that she is burning up. " "Uh-oh," she says, "Mrs. Whitehead is going to give us those dumb reading books about Dick and Jane and their ugly dog, Spot." "My dog's name is Prince," I says "but he's real smart. All my daddy has to say is "go get the cows, Prince'" and he lights out to the back of the pasture and brings 'em all back."

Mrs. Whitehead sees us talking, but she does not say anything that day. Later, she will keep us in at recess and say she is proud we are such good friends, but she'll have to make us sit next to the boys if we can't wait till recess to talk. We both blush and cry a little bit and promise not to talk. We love Mrs. Whitehead and don't want to make her sad. Most of all, we don't want to sit next to the boys. That first day Lois says she'll take good care of me. "Shoot, she says, you'll get used to it. I ain't scared. If any of them big boys bother you, just say "I don't give a cuss!" They just want to make you cry." Lois said she had a boyfriend in the second grade. His name was Carl Honeycutt, and they became sweethearts in the first grade. He passed, but they still sat together on the bus and went to the same church. She said I could sit with them every day. 

That afternoon, I got on the bus with Lois. When I got off the bus, I could see her snaggle-toothed grin through the window. Prince was waiting for me. I ran down the long driveway with Prince, while Cabby sauntered slowly behind me. She had not wanted to get off the bus because she liked sitting close to a boy named Grafton Prenfro. She was a big, grown-up, highschool girl and not much fun anymore. My house had two front doors. Mama would keep one of the doors locked. We'd go in through the front bedroom. I couldn't wait to tell Mama that I'd made my very first friend.

Every day that year, Lois and Carl would save me a seat on the bus. We'd hug each other and play together at recess. Sometimes, her grandpa would bring her to my house on Saturday afternoon and we'd go with Cabby to the picture show. Cabby would sit with her boyfriend and hold hands in the balcony, but we'd sit all the way at the front and cheer when the feature came on. Red Rider and Little Beaver were our favorites but one time we saw a movie called  Lost Women that had women warriors, dinosaurs, and earthquakes. At the end, all the women and all the dinosaurs fall through giant cracks in the earth. The evil pagan priest tries to save his treasure and gets covered up with burning hot lava. Later that day, we played "Lost Women" all afternoon in daddy's barn loft. At Christmas, Santy Claus brought both of us beautiful cowgirl outfits - white with red fringe and boots and a red cowgirl hat. Lois said she was Dale Evans, but I said I didn't know who I was because neither Lash LaRue nor the Cisco Kid had gotten married yet, and I couldn't decide which one I was going to marry. Lash LaRue really appealed to me more because I liked the way he could use that cunning whip. Lois said why not the Lone Ranger. I said because he might be horrible under that mask and anyway Tonto gave me the creeps when he said Kimo Save. Then I said I'd just learn to use a whip myself and not get married at all. 

So first grade turned out a whole lot better than I thought. I learned to read hard books fast but had a hard time learning to print. My letters always looked squiggly. Lois could print prettier than anybody in our class, but she still couldn't read too well. So she'd help me print, and I'd help her learn to read with flashcards. 

When the last day of school came that glorious May, Lois and I hugged each other and cried. We were both scared because we were both going to have our tonsils out that summer since we both had missed school with sore throats and earaches. But we pretended not to be scared. Lois said "Mama n' Grandpa both said they'd give us lots of chocolate ice cream and red jello to eat in the hospital and that her Grandpa said he would buy her a bride doll 20 inches high if she would be a brave girl and not cry. And Lois said "Don't forget me 'cause we're gonna be best friends forever even when we get to be old, old ladies of forty and have grandchildren." " I hope you get that bride doll," I called as I got off the bus.

In June I got up one morning to the raucous singing of mocking birds. My daddy had been to the store already. He looked funny when he came in the backdoor. "Silas Moffett's little granddaughter is dead," he said. Mama looked back at me quick and asked what happened. I did not remember that Silas Moffett was Lois's grandpa. Daddy said she bled to death in the Aberdeen hospital the night before. He said some folks said that darn doctor who did the operating was drunk and the Moffett boys had to hold Silas to keep him from killing the doctor. They said the child's mama hadn't cried or said a word but just sat staring at the little corpse and didn't even want Guy Pickle to take her to the funeral home.

I still didn't really know who they were talking about, though. The next day Mama got me all dressed up like we were going to church, but we went a different way than the way we'd go to church. "There's Lois's stop." I said. Mama nodded but didn't say anything. "Are we going to see Lois?" I asked. Mama hugged me and said Lois was already in heaven.  "Why?" I said "Did she want to go with her daddy?" Mama said she guessed God needed her. "But she's my best friend; I need her." Then I decided Mama was lying. Lois wouldn't go to heaven yet. We both had to go to second grade when summer vacation was over. I remembered how proud Lois and I were when we looked at our report cards and saw how Mrs. Whitehead had written "Promoted to the Second Grade" on both of them. "My mama's going to be the proudest thing of that," Lois said. "She always said I could pass if I'd just listen to Mrs. Whitehead instead of jabbering all the time." When we pulled up to Lois's house, the first thing I saw was Carl Honeycutt standing beside a big water oak tree. He was wearing blue pants, a white linen coat, and a navy blue tie. He seemed to be cying but he had his back turned away and I'm not sure. "Lois'll think he's a sissy," I thought.  Lots of people were standing in the yard all dressed up for church just the way we were. We got out and went in the house. The living room was filled with flowers - the odor was overpoweringly sweet and made me feel sick.  A little white coffin was sitting in the middle of the room. Mama guided me over to the coffin. Lois lay there in a little white dress with blue lace. Her hair was curled around her face with a blue hair ribbon, but her skin was too white. You could barely see the freckles I loved across her nose. Her mouth looked funny, too - probably because I was accustomed to seeing her crooked grin. And I missed her big blue eyes. "Lois, Lois!" I cried out "Lois, wake up!" Mama tried to make me hush, but I started to scream. Lois's mother walked in then. When I saw her, I broke away from Mama and ran to her. She caught me in her arms and we both began to sob. I'll never forget those hard sobs - they seemed to come from the very center. She held me tight. "I want Lois to play with me tell her to please wake up, Mrs. Goodlink." "I know," she said "But my baby is dead. Dead! I hate God! I hate Him! First He takes my husband, and now my baby!" "Then I hate Him, too," I said.

Mama told Mrs. Goodlink I could ride in the car with her. Carl rode with us, too. We watched the man lower the coffin into the red earth at Greenbrier Cemetery. Mama took me home just across the cotton patch from the cemetery and tried to get me to sleep, but I kept seeing Lois's pinched white face on the white satin pillow.

As the summer wore on, I would visit Lois's grave every day and put flowers on the little mound of dirt. A couple of weeks after the funeral, I watched while they dug up the little white coffin and put it inside a shiny copper vault. Then they buried the vault and put up the tombstone - a white angel with its wings spread. On the back, it said she was born in 1942 and died in 1950. There was a nice little picture on the back. Lois had her hand under her chin and that crooked smile I loved.

Within two months poor Mrs. Goodlink died, too and was buried next to Lois. Folks said she grieved herself to death. Then I had two graves to visit and keep supplied with flowers.

End entry - AWM

I remember that Santa Claus also brought my sister and me cute little cowgirl outfits when I was 5 and Pam was 7. I imagine these gifts helped Mama remember her dear friend. A friendship that stayed with her throughout her life. Rest in Peace, Lois Goodlink. We will not forget you.

Granddaddy's Fez

Well, it didn't work out to have the neighbors over this evening. Steven said we should wait until one of the Pierce days falls on a weekend to socialize. We did celebrate our own happy hour, though. I made some cheesy bread and we enjoyed that while we were getting dinner ready. 

Thinking of them celebrating happy hour is fun for me. I have been on phenobarbital almost all of my life to control my epilepsy. One time, when I was still pretty young - 7 or 8 - Grandmama told me that she and Granddaddy used to take it, too. I asked her if they had seizures, too. She said that no, they used it to go to sleep after they had been out late. She said that when Granddaddy was in the military there were always parties that they had to go to so they would take uppers to stay up late, and phenobarbital to go to sleep. The Army just gave them drugs for free. No wonder people of a certain age long for it to be the 1950's again.

They always continued with their parties long after Granddaddy retired from the Army. He was a freemason and became a Shriner, and of course, they have great parties. Grandmama told me they were three sheets to the wind in this picture.

A toast to my irritable, yet fun-loving grandparents. Cheers...

My Pierce Grandparents

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow are my days to focus on my Pierce grandparents. 

Granddaddy was all about making and keeping money and providing for his family. He never just had one job. He always maintained multiple sources of income and was a frugal man. He enjoyed keeping a garden and fixing his own vehicle. He struggled as a young man to get a college degree against all odds. He had a father that beat him for studying. He was forced to do so in secrecy and once he lost his eyesight for a few days after studying by candlelight for many days in a row. He ended up getting his Bachelor's of Science in Chemistry from Mississippi State and got a job with Monsanto Chemical Company in St. Louis in 1933. He married my grandmother on October 19, 1935, when he was 25 and she was 17. In 1936, he bought a farm for his parents and siblings in Steele, MO and lifted the family out of poverty. The family had been devastated financially by the boll weevil infestation of 1916 that ruined cotton farmers across the state. Granddaddy was always kind to me, but he was harsh, to put it mildly with his wife and his children. He enjoyed socializing, though, and he was funny and smart, and by all accounts "the life of the party," and a terrific host. He and Grandmama were both strong personalities. If Granddaddy thought he had married a shrinking violet when he married a young girl from Amory, he was in for a surprise.

Grandmama was also a bit harsh with those she loved. Actually, she was highly critical of people she didn't even know. She was obsessed with keeping a clean home and her house always looked immaculate. She and Granddaddy fought a lot. They shared, though, the love of entertaining.

So, to honor them this week - yesterday, I took care of my bills, today, I will clean my home thoroughly, and tomorrow, I'm going to have some of my neighbors in for happy hour.  Some of my fondest childhood memories are of happy hour, which they always celebrated as a daily ritual. They made manhattans and served cheese, crackers, and smoked oysters. My house will never be as immaculate as Grandmama's was because I have two dogs, but I'll do my best.

Dr. Burne

Glenn Stephen Burne, Ph. D. was my stepfather and really, my primary parent from age 9-15. He was a very interesting man. Those Dos Equis commercials always reminded me of him, and incidentally, he always requested that beer in Mexican restaurants far before those commercials were made.

My days to contemplate Dr. Burne (which I called him until my daughter was old enough to speak - when my two-year-old was calling him by his first name, I followed her lead) were the 17, 18, and 19. Of course, today is the twentieth and still, I haven't written anything.

I decided to start with two books - neither have I read in full, but shall in time, as a way to "visit" with Glenn. He was a professor of Irish Literature, among other things, and told me that if I wanted to read Joyce I should start with The Dubliners, which is a collection of short stories. I have Glenn's copy of James Joyce, The Viking Portable Library, published in January 1947. It's a hardback with his name inscribed and an article about Mama tucked just inside the cover. He checked the stories from The Dubliners that he was probably going to use in a class. One of those stories was called The Encounter, and it was pretty creepy. Initially, it was about boys enchanted with the Wild West and Detective Stories who wanted to set out on an adventure. That part was great, and I think it may have inspired him to look more closely at explorers and travel logs as well as to actually seek out adventure in his own life. Joyce writes: "But real adventure, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad." The creepy part came in when they "encountered" an odd man who wanted to talk with them about how many girlfriends they had and how it would please him to whip bad boys. Yuck! I guess pedophiles have always been out there and Joyce allows the boys to escape before things escalate.

Glenn wrote a book about the great explorer, Richard Burton, the first white man to ever record anything about Mecca, and likely the first white man to see it at all.  He had a dream of taking his sabbatical and going out to his boat every day to write. Instead, he wrote his book at our kitchen table and he stayed home to take care of me before I was diagnosed with Crohn's and no one really knew if I would live or die. My 13-year-old self had gotten up to  100 pounds, and my 14-year-old self was 75 pounds. I remember how excited he was to read about Burton's journey to Mecca. He told me all about it. So, of course, the other book I  am reading is Richard F. Burton by Glenn S. Burne.

It gives an About the Author section:
After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, Glenn S. Burne studied in France for two years and subsequently received his doctorate in comparative literature from the University of Washington. His publications include a book on Remy de Gourmont, a volume of translations of Gourmont, and a book on Julian Green, along with articles and reviews on modern French and American literature. Professor Burne teaches modern literature at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he served as chairman of the English Department from 1971-1977. He is a member of the Southern Comparative Literature Association, the Modern Language Association, and is past president of the Philological Association of the Carolinas.

I think a better description is given of him in the first part of the preface he wrote describing Richard F. Burton: "Every historical age produces a handful of men and women who stand so far outside their societies, whose personalities and careers are so brilliant and bizarre and their achievements so great that we can rarely account for them - we can only stand in awe of them." Glenn was a true Renaissance Man. He was trilingual; a decorated Lieutenant who served in the Pacific Theater of WWII on an LST, a sailor, a cyclist, a scholar, an outdoor enthusiast - I was honored to know and love him.

She works so hard...remembering Grandmother Moss

Yesterday, I had to go to Winsotn-Salem and co-present a poster session at NCLA with Bradley Baker about our game nights.

I thought about the one letter I have from my grandmother and how proud she was of Mama. Mama often presented at conferences. But not just little poster sessions, like I do. She held breakout sessions and was sometimes the keynote. Grandmother said "She works so hard on all of the programs she's been telling me about, I'm so proud of her." she wrote. I know she would be proud of all I have achieved, too. 

It's always bothered me that no one really thought of Grandmother as having achievements. She was more than a homemaker, and that in itself is a hard job. She was an excellent cook, more than a gardener - she was herself a farmer. In fact, my aunt told me that when Granddaddy was in the war, she still made sure that the cotton crops got put in and harvested during the three-year absence. She was also a seamstress and for her last 18 years on this earth, she was a full-time caregiver to my granddaddy who became an invalid following a number of strokes. I'll never forget her, and the glow of her love never fades.

Maus /Moss

Tuesday I had to review a graphic novel for my awful, but last class of the Instructional Technology master's I am pursuing. Maus by Art Spiegelman depicts the true experience of the author's parents' survival of Auschwitz. This book made me reflect on how WWII affected my grandparents and my mother. Granddaddy served as an MP in Le Mans, France. All of his photos say Requeil France, which I think is the territory where Le Mans is located. No notable battles that I could find took place there. But as horrifying as the experience of reading about the Holocaust is, how much more horrifying must it have been to be in Europe when such atrocities were taking place? I can't imagine. I know it affected my mother a lot to not meet her dad until she was three.

One good thing came out of my granddaddy's time there. He formed a friendship in that French town with a family named Noiseau. They exchanged letters for years after the war, and my mother wrote to their son Roger. He is an author, and the whole family is talented. We have been honored to meet his grandson, David as well, and my niece traveled to Le Mans to see this family and see where my grandfather was stationed. 4 generations of maintaining an international friendship - I think it's pretty unusual and lovely. 

My new heating pad

Today's post is about my Granddaddy Moss. Granddaddy was born on November 2, 1907. He worked hard on his family farm from an early age and eventually bought his siblings shares and it became his farm. At age 38 in addition to running the farm, he also worked at the Ordinance Plant. He invented something or other to improve some piece of weaponry and he didn't get credit for it. So he quit. Well, you couldn't quit a job for the war effort in the 1940s unless you went to fight. So he was drafted and he became an MP in France. He was a strong young man, but by age 58 he was an invalid. He suffered 13 strokes and eventually died of an aneurysm in 1983.  That brings us to my heating pad.

Granddaddy used a heating pad a good little bit because he was in constant pain. Bless his heart. He got around, though. Even though he hardly ever moved from his bed he still drove to church and drove into town. He'd sort of fall into the car and Mama and Daddy made my sister and me promise that we wouldn't go anywhere with him. They didn't share their concerns with him or Grandmother - and besides shelling peas and guessing what color the next car would be that passed the house there was not much to do on the farm. Pam and I were always happy to go with Granddaddy to the barber and to Wal-Mart where he would offer to sell us for a nickel. He said he could probably get a quarter for Pam since she was older and could work harder. No, we begged - don't sell us, and he'd just laugh.

Back at home after falling back into the car to drive us home and lifting his own leg up to position it near the pedals he would get to feeling pretty bad again. Grandmother would set the heating pad up for him after rubbing him down with Ben-Gay - which you are not supposed to use together - but they did all the time.

My back has been really messed up lately so I got a heating pad that even has a massage feature today, and I am feeling a little better now. I think Granddaddy would have enjoyed it.

Great Mysteries!

Yesterday, Sunday, October 13, I spent a good chunk of the day reading. Just reading and hanging out with my dogs. Occasionally snacking. It was a good day. Just the kind of day Mama would have appreciated.

Over the summer, I read the first book by Allen Eskens: The Life We Bury. Oh. My. God. This book was just the kind of mystery Mama would've loved. Multiple plots, and anything but predictable although, I will admit she was a lot better at predicting endings than I am.  She read about 100% more and let's face it, it was her profession to analyze literature.

I am about 3/4 of the way of the first part of the second book - The Shadows We Hide. It is also very good. I will let you know if it lives to the first one. So far, it's off to a great start. Again, with multiple plots and lots of twists and turns.

Joker & IT Chapter 2 - Spoiler Alert

Yesterday, the bulk of my day was spent watching IT Chapter One and Chapter Two, and Joker. Mama loved to spend time watching and analyzing movies. She even took a film class led by Terry Frazier when she was in her thirties. She was very methodical in her later years about her entertainment choices and enjoyed watching all the movies of one director or actor or reading all of the books by a certain author. She was essentially leading courses for herself, especially in the summer. So she would have enjoyed a themed movie day.

Joker was a wonderful movie - she enjoyed Comic Book movies - in fact, one of my big regrets is not going with her to see Black Panther. She really wanted to see it. Joker showed how a mentally ill man was continually mistreated until he descended into complete madness and justified his killings because of the mistreatment he received. He became the face of a movement against the wealthy. Mama would have really enjoyed talking about this movie and its indictment on the abandonment of the concept of noblesse-oblige in today's "aristocracy," which really doesn't exist anymore. Aristocrats typically also prided themselves on intellect. Today's American wealthy only focus on wealth and they seem to have complete contempt for those less fortunate than they.  This movie champions the rights of the underprivileged and access to healthcare, albeit in a way that unfortunately glamorizes murder.

Mama was also a sucker for a Stephen King movie - good or bad- she just enjoyed the experience. She loved Christine - the whole concept of a jealous car just tickled her. I think she would have also enjoyed the IT movies. These movies juxtapose real monsters with the actual monsters we are faced with every day - control freaks, bullies, and abusive domestic situations.  She did not mind a cheesy horror film. She was a teenager in the 50s and early 60s, after all. She grew up with The Thing and The Blob, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and she loved them all.

1986 Journal Entry - Anita West Moss

One way I can still visit with my mother after her passing ( she always disliked that term) is to read and record all of the wonderful journal entries and stories that she wrote. Reading her words is a great comfort to me because it sounds just like her. Her voice comes right through. So here is the first journal entry in a journal that she kept from June 1986 until February 1987. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10x6-95L_3tLcMPB1NJvVyTJyKCaZhw32l-nWG0cZvQg/edit?usp=sharing

June 18, 1986, written during Heather’s high school graduation

I tried to start keeping this journal in May, but somehow I’ve lost it - perhaps in a motel
in Wheeling, W. Va., perhaps in a Stuckey’s someplace. Anyway, this has been the most terrible year of my
life. Rod McGillis and I split up after three years. What a liberation to admit that he is finally a selfish,
childish bastard and that I am fortunate to be rid of him. But it hurt terribly and threw me into an acute state
of depression. Though I have not entirely recovered, I am no longer paralyzed.

In May after school was out, I went to a retreat at Wild Acres. Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of
the Mississippi was in view. I took long walks, wrote, and met some colleagues I had not known before. The
most memorable of these was Phillip Johnson of the Math Department. He married a year before I did, but
we had never met before. We took a wonderful hike and then sat together all afternoon talking, talking,
talking. He is happily married but I like him very much and believe I’ll see him again. In fact, he left me a
note before departing on his trip.

Glenn and I went to Topsail Island for several days and reenacted our beach rituals - hours on the sand
and in those wonderful waves. I desperately want a house on that magnificent island - for myself and for the
girls, but the question is always money.

Now I’m sitting at Heather’s graduation. I left home on June 11 and spent the night at Jellico, Tennessee.
The only notable event was a friendly tag game with an amiable truck driver. The mountains were splendid
smokey blue, just as they are supposed to be. The next day, June 12, I stopped and visited my Aunt Alice
in Lexington. One month ago she sustained a serious fall and crushed her left hand. I visited with her for
two hours. She told me that her live-in nurses knew more ways to spoil good food than she had ever
dreamed possible. She also told me about Aunt Lou’s courtship with Uncle Eugene Mattox - how she and
Aunt Lou were sitting under the walnut tree one morning in early June and how an encyclopedia salesman
came to the front door and wanted to sell Grandma some encyclopedias. He was a WWI veteran just home
from fighting the Germans in France and still wore his uniform - a Lieutenant’s Uniform. Grandma Moss
said she knew nothing about encyclopedias but her daughter might. Aunt Lou came and talked to him and
Aunt Alice stayed under the walnut tree drawing sketches of the pink gladiolas growing in the garden.
Bejeweled hummingbirds blue-green and brilliant visited the gaudy blossoms one by one, and Aunt Alice
wanted to draw them, too. Aunt Lou came back, Aunt Alice said, her dark lovely eyes flashing and her
creamy complexion aglow with a rosy blush. “I’m going to marry that man,” she exclaimed, “He’s tall and
handsome, a college graduate and a veteran. He graduated from Miss. Southern, just as I am going to.”

Aunt Alice paused in her sketching, “Why, you’ll never see him again.” Aunt Lou replied: “Al, this is love.
You’ve heard of love at first sight? Well, this was three times as fast.”

“But, you are engaged to Connie Riggins.” “Not anymore.” Aunt Lou said.

Later that month my daddy hitched Grandma’s horses, Henry and Dixie Jane to the buggy and took
Aunt Lou to meet the train at the Frisco Depot in Amory. She had gone to Aberdeen, the county seat, and
taken the exam after completing the 10th grade. Then she got a job teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in
Acker, Mississippi, the original county seat of Monroe County. The first county in Mississippi, the site of the
Chickasaw Cession. Aunt Lou taught at what had been the first courthouse in the state where
Tishomingo was tried. He was the last of the Chickasaw War Chiefs. He and his people had to leave the
lush lands of pine-covered North Miss. and go West to Oklahoma. Most died on the trail of tears, but that
tragedy was 70 years behind Aunt Lou, a sturdy, full-bosomed, yet graceful young woman determined to
better herself. When I talked to her at age 92 in the nursing home, she said that Martha Virginia Duke had
not wanted to marry William Richmond Moss because he could neither read nor write and she was ashamed of him. She did not want to marry anyone but wanted to get an education at the Female Academy in
Oxford, but she couldn’t, even though she was smart and could recite Shakespeare and the Bible and
Pilgrim’s Progress and even went to meetings of the Dickens Society later. So she encouraged Aunt Lou,
the smartest and quickest of the children to get an education.

Aunt Lou had to browbeat the big hulking country boys. My daddy was just a boy of ten and had to drive
her to Acker everyday. “By Ned,” he told me, “She’d put their heads between her knees and whoop the
fool out of them, but they’d settle down, and try to read one word at a time with a big, rough finger moving
under each word as they’d sound out the letters. But since I was her little brother, she figured she’d have to
make a dadburn example out of me, so she whooped me more than any of the others. But she said she’d
learn ‘em all to read and write or kill ‘em one. And By Ned, she taught ‘em all, too. Judge Ashley says if it
hadn’t been for Mary Lou Moss he would still be nothin’ but an ignorant fool who couldn’t even read or
write his own name. There’s a lot of men in this county that’ll tell you the same thing. Some of the biggest
men in Amory or Aberdeen.”

They paid Aunt Lou $35 dollars a month, and she saved it up to pay her fees in the summer term. First
at Blue Mountain College, and next at Mississippi Southern.

But that June morning in 1918 Aunt Lou was too excited to worry about the country boys who had
caused her to come home and throw herself into Grandma’s arms and cry in the winter. She had a new blue
dress with a delicate pink-rose print and a roll-brimmed hat faceted in pink, and she thought now and again
about Mr. Eugene Mattox in his uniform. He had stared at her and talked seriously to her about his plans as
if she were an intelligent person. Now and again she would remember Aunt Alice’s remark that she would
never see him again and feel a cringe of sadness. But when she arrived in Hattiesburg, he met other young
ladies who lived just as she did. They all studied hard during the week, but took long walks after supper
everyday and dreamed and planned and hoped for a better life. All the girls had known only a hard life in
rural Mississippi up until then. 

One Sunday after Chapel Aunt Lou had a date with a young man named Peyton Fergus
(even though she was engaged to Connie Riggins). Six girls were joining Mary Lou and Peyton for a
“Kodaking” party. As she came out of the dormitory she saw a tall young man in uniform lounging against
the oak shade tree. At once Mary Lou recognized Mr. Melvin “Eugene” Mattox. Peyton Fergus was waiting
for her and the girls, but she went over to ask Eugene if he would like to join them for a picnic and the
kodaking party.  Eugene said he’d like that very much. Later, when I was a little girl, sitting under the same walnut tree by
the garden, Aunt Lou said young Mr. Mattox made sure he stood next to her and had his picture taken
with her. Aunt Lou said, “He took that picture home to Fulton and showed it to his father and said “That’s
the girl I’m going to marry,” even though we were both engaged to other people.

That fall Eugene took a teaching job in math, and Aunt Lou got a better job teaching at Boggan
Schoolhouse. Her salary jumped to $60 a month. “I thought I was rich,” Aunt Lou told me, “but I was
saving and still had only two dresses to my name.” Six months later Mary Lou Moss and Melvin
Eugene Mttox were married in the Greenbrier Methodist Church. They finished teaching the school year
and then went to George Peabody in Nashville to get their master’s degrees.

End of Entry

Typed by Heather Pierce Smith on October 11, 2019, 18 months after the death of my wonderful mother

About this Blog - All Content on this blog is copyrighted ©

This blog will be a way to stay connected with those who have gone before me and who I hope to rejoin one day. Each day I will read something or do something to allow these dearly departed to live through me and then blog about it. Ten days a month will be about my mother, fourteen days a month will be about my grandparents: The Pierce’s and The Moss’s, and seven days a month, depending on whether or not there’s a thirty-first will be about my stepfather, Glenn Burne. I will start this blog on October 11, 2019. A year and a half after the loss of my Mama. I want to spend at least that much time with her – which by my calculation a year and a half is roughly 549 days. To spend that amount of time with her, plus a little more – and not exclusively dwell on her- which I think might upset me too much – I will keep this blog for five years. October 11, 2019 – October 11, 2024. The focus will be about my wonderful mother, Anita West Moss.

All Content on this blog is Copyrighted ©

Here are some photos of my mother:

Here are the days I will post about which relative(s):

Mama  10, 11, 12, 13, 23, 24, 25, 4, 5, 6                   

Moss Grandparents 14, 15,16,26,27,28,7                  

Burne  17, 18, 19, 29, 30,31,8                       

Pierce Grandparents 20, 21, 22, 1, 2, 3, 9

And here are the themes that will be discussed in my blog posts:

Mama: Dine Out, Live Performances, Movies and Books, or her stories, Current Events – Now, here’s the point, Gossip – Listen to this!

Moss’s: Homemade Southern Food, Read the Bible, Tell Stories, Game Shows, Play Dominoes or Clue

Burne: Gourmet Cooking at Home, Listen to Records and Dance, Go Out with Friends, Study or talk about his work, Get Out on the Water

Pierce’s: Celebrate Happy Hour with Neighbors, Catch up on Celebrity & Actual News, Read before Bed, Make a Good Breakfast, Play Scrabble