The Secret of Lois

Sometime during World War II, a lady named Henrietta came into my family’s
life. She was a single woman from Michigan who worked for the Methodist
Church as a missionary in southern and south eastern KY. She was living in
Corbin, KY at a Methodist Society in a house they had built. All the women in
the missionary lived there together. A minister from Chicago was the President
of the society. He and his wife would attend meetings with the missionaries
several times a year. My grandmother and most of her family lived around
Conway and Brodhead, Ky. Two of my great aunts ran businesses at Boone and
Roundstone. They became acquainted with the mysterious Henrietta when
she showed up, pregnant, at my aunt’s tourist camp to rent a cabin. She didn’t
tell my aunts very much about herself. They were curious about where the
baby’s father was and wondered how she was going to be able to raise the baby
without the help of a husband or family. Henrietta was also wondering how she
was going to manage. She arranged for my great aunt Hallie to watch the baby
while she continued to do missionary work. Her work took her from Corbin, to
Berea, Richmond and Versailles.

The story has been told and retold over the years and most of the people who
were around then have since passed away. My mother was 18 years old in
1945. She was living at home with her parents in Conway. My grandparents
and my mother first learned about Henrietta and the little baby girl when they
visited relatives at Boone. The baby, whose name was Marloa Joy, was living
with my great aunt Hallie at the tourist camp she owned and ran on old highway
25, just before you crossed the Madison County line. Henrietta couldn’t make
it home every night, so my aunt was taking care of Joy almost full time. My
great aunt Margie was asked to take care of Marloa Joy for awhile. Aunt Margie
ended up taking care of Joy for months, not just weeks, that Henrietta and my
aunt had agreed upon. Aunt Margie had her own business and children that
needed her care. She was preparing to move to Louisville to be close to her
daughter. Everything about Henrietta and the baby was out of the ordinary for

Conway, KY in 1945. Before Aunt Margie left for Louisville, it was decided that
my grandmother would take over caring for the baby. Henrietta made a deal
with my grandmother that if Joy could stay with her, she would pay her seven
dollars a week. My grandparents agreed to this, Joy was about six months old
by now. She had spent those six months jumping from one family to another.

My Granny and my momma took Joy back to Brodhead with them. My
grandfather was a humble man who had no problem with having the baby
around. The poor little thing didn’t have any choice but to live with strangers.
They were good to Joy and began raising her in their home. When baby Joy
came to Brodhead to live with my family, there was a lot of gossip about whose
baby she was. Some said she must be my mom’s baby. She had probably
gotten herself pregnant, went away to have the baby, and was now back with
the baby. About the time Joy was born, Momma had to have an appendectomy,
so that really added fuel to the fire. No one in my family answered to the
rumors so my momma lived in disgrace when she hadn’t done anything wrong.

When Joy was about a year old, my grandmother was in contact with Henrietta.
Henrietta knew where Joy was living, but didn’t come very often to see her. She
would, however, write letters to my grandmother asking about Joy and Granny
would write her back. Granny kept writing letters to Henrietta, whose return
address indicated that she was living in Corbin again. Granny liked to tell her
how much Joy was growing and other things Granny thought Henrietta would
want to know. Granny had no idea what trouble those letters would eventually
cause.

Henrietta’s secret finally came to light. While she had been living in Corbin at
the missionary camp, she had become acquainted with a Methodist minister
and his family. Henrietta had become good friends with the minister and his
family. She was best friends with one of his daughters. She was close to the
whole family and called the minister and his wife, Mom and Pop. Although Pop
was several years older than Henrietta, she found herself caught in an affair
with him. When Henrietta could no longer hide her pregnancy, the minister’s
wife began to suspect that her husband and Henrietta had grown too close.

Other people at the camp had started whispering that the father of Henrietta’s
unborn child was the minister. The wife went through Henrietta’s private
possessions where she found the letters that Granny had written to Henrietta.
Apparently, Granny had given just enough information that the wife decided
she would travel to Brodhead to see this child for herself. She didn’t want to
accuse her husband and Henrietta of having a child together until she herself
was convinced. Henrietta had Marloa Joy’s named changed to Lois June hoping
to make it harder for the minister’s wife to find Joy, now Lois. Henrietta got in
touch with my grandmother to tell her that the minister’s wife had found out
about her affair with her husband and was threatening to come to Brodhead
to see if Lois even existed. So momma and granny hid anything that would
indicate that an infant was in the house. They covered the baby bed with
clothes and blankets, hid all of her baby clothes, bottles and toys. They had no
idea when or even if the wife would show up, but they were ready to deny the
existence of a baby in their home.

Shortly after receiving word that the minister’s wife may be coming to
Brodhead, someone knocked on my grandmother’s front door. Without having
to be told, my momma, who was helping my grandmother grind sausage and
had sausage grease all over her hands, grabbed up Lois and ran out the back
door to the barn loft to hide. Momma said although Lois was just a baby, she
seemed to know that she had to be quiet. She didn’t make a noise the whole
time she and Momma were hiding. Momma tried to wipe the sausage grease
off her hands, but it had gotten cold and hard and she only managed to get
some of it wiped off on her dress. Lois had it on her dress too. After awhile,
Granny came to the barn to tell Momma that the wife was gone; she and Lois
could come back to the house. The wife had looked in every room of the house
for a baby. She had also questioned my grandmother about Lois, but Granny
convinced her that she didn’t have a baby in her house and that she didn’t know
anyone named Henrietta.

After that day, the wife never tried to find Lois again.

My family moved several times through the years, always taking Lois with them.
Lois was a toddler now and had quite a temper. I’ve heard my family tell “Lois”
stories my whole life. She was very stubborn and would not do anything she
was told. She would have crying, kicking and screaming fits every time she
didn’t get her way. By 1948, my family was living at what would later become
our family farm on highway 1505. The post office listed the area as Hiatt, Ky.
Momma had met and married my Dad by then. Daddy was a construction
worker, so he and momma were living in different places, just wherever his
work took him. Granny enrolled Lois in school, first at Oak Hill, a one room
school close to their house, then later at Brodhead School. She was still a
handful, but going to school seemed to be helping some. Lois knew that my
granny wasn’t her mother, but she called her momma. She called my
grandfather by his given name, Tom. She knew Henrietta was her birth mother
and was always excited to see Henrietta the times she came to see her.
Henrietta had long since quit paying my grandparents the seven dollars a week
she agreed to pay them in the beginning. On one visit, she told my
grandmother that she had met a man who sang in the choir at the Methodist
Church in Versailles and she thought she might marry him. My grandmother
was prone to suffer from depression most of her life. Raising Lois was taking a
toll on her mentally as well as physically. When Granny learned that Henrietta
was now married, she felt that she had no choice but to write Henrietta and tell
her that she wasn’t able to care for Lois anymore and that she felt Lois needed
to be with her real mother. Henrietta responded by saying, “I don’t have to
take her.” This statement didn’t sit well with my Granny. She knew that
Henrietta didn’t want Lois, but Granny insisted that it was time she did right by
Lois. Granny told Henrietta that she and her new husband could give Lois more
than her and grandpa could, so in 1955, Henrietta agreed to come and take her
child to live with her in Wisconsin.

The day that Henrietta was to come and get Lois had arrived. Lois was so
excited that she was going to be living with her mother that she just sit on
the porch steps with her suitcase and waited for her real mother to drive up.
The time that Henrietta was to be there came and went. Both Lois and my

grandparents were getting upset. Just as it was getting dark, Henrietta and her
husband showed up. Lois ran and grabbed her suitcase and left the only life
she had known in her short ten years behind. She told the couple she called
Momma and Tom goodbye and drove off in the darkness with her mother and
stepfather.

Henrietta and her husband moved to Lexington, KY where Lois went to high
school, graduated and later got married. She gave birth to twin girls and came
to visit us on a regular basis. I thought those two babies that looked just a like
were the greatest thing in the world. I hadn’t been around babies and now I
had two to play with.

Lois and Henrietta didn’t have a healthy mother/daughter relationship. They
never became close. Lois has told me how much she missed my grandparents
when she first went to live with her mother. Henrietta seemed to resent Lois
until the day she died. She told her own family that she and her husband had
adopted Lois. Lois questioned my grandmother about who her father was and
why she hadn’t always lived with her mother. Granny told her some things,
but most of the questions she told Lois to ask her mother. Lois had a lot of
questions to ask her mother, but Henrietta wasn’t willing to answer. She finally
gave her a picture of her father and told her his name.

Lois still visits mamma and me. She’s been there for us whenever we’ve needed
her. She comes and sits with me in the hospital if momma is sick or having
surgery. She eats holiday meals with my family since her daughters now live
in other states and don’t visit her often. She was there when my grandparents
passed away. Her life has been like no one else’s. Most of the main characters
have died and taken their secrets to the grave with them, but the secret of Lois
remains one that has been with me most of my life. It’s one that is dear to me
and is also dark and mysterious at the same time.

We all come face to face with strangers in our lives, whether it be a fellow
shopper, someone sitting next to you on a plane or in a waiting room, or the
salesman that comes to your door. We can’t tell just by looking at them what

their lives have been like. People see Lois everyday and others like her and
have no idea what they’ve been through. I like the old saying, “You never know
someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” When I meet someone
new, I have made a habit to give them a smile. It may be the only smile they
have received that day. God has blessed me with so many things and I thank
him daily for them. My family is one of my greatest blessings and I include Lois
as my family and one of my blessings.

The Guy in Short Shorts

Some of you may have already read this on my Facebook page.  It's so funny I thought I would share it again.

I’ve been lucky enough to hold several jobs in my lifetime.  I can’t say that I’ve enjoyed any of them very much, but that’s beside the point.  One of my many jobs was at Appalachian Computer Services (ACS) located in London, KY.  As I remember, it was very monotonous, and basically consisted of sitting in front of a computer for eight hours and keying in various information for different companies.  My cousin, Kaye, worked with me.  I think she liked the job better than I did or maybe I’m just more of a complainer.  It was a steady job with benefits, but I hadn’t yet learned how important that was and I don’t think I appreciated it like I should have. 

One Friday we were told we were going to have to work the next day and it was mandatory that we did.  I had already made plans to spend that day lying in the sun lathered in baby oil and iodine, working on my tan.   I felt put-out when the boss laid the work orders on us.

I rolled out of bed rather slowly as the alarm clock went off.  Kaye didn’t have a clock so I was to call and wake her up.  As I made my way to the phone, I remembered that it was April Fool’s Day and I had to pull a joke on Kaye.  It was 1978; we had just lived through two of the worst winters in the hills of Kentucky which gave me a perfect idea as what joke to play on Kaye.  As soon as she answered the phone I said, “Have you looked outside?  There must be three feet of snow, I don’t know if we can make it to work or not.”  “Oh no, let me go see.”  Then I heard her call me some bad names before she even made it back to the phone.  It was decided that I would drive and that folks is the basis for this whole story.

It was April 1978, my husband, Mike, and I had only been married a couple years and weren’t exactly rolling in dough.  Our car was a 1973 Chevrolet Chevelle.  It was gold with a blue door on the driver’s side.  The bucket seats were cool at one time.  They swiveled so it was easy to get out of the car, but the swivel thing was stuck so the seat swiveled all the time.  It was like riding the Tilt-O-Whirl at the carnival we had every year.  If you went around a curve or made any turns, the seat did too.  I was used to the constant movement and still find it hard to sit still when I drive.  Anyhow, we made it to work, put in our four hours and headed home.  The way I figured it, I could lie in the sun from one until whenever.  Despite it just being the first of April, it was warm, almost hot.  I knew some short cuts so we wouldn’t have to stop at all the traffic lights in town.  We were driving through one of the back streets when all of a sudden we heard a big thud, then the sound of metal on blacktop and the car’s engine was loud enough to make Dale Earnhardt proud.  I looked through my rear view mirror and saw the muffler and tail pipe lying in the middle of the road with a line of traffic already backed up behind it.  I knew that it would be hot, so I used my floor mats to pick it up.  I thought about just throwing the whole thing over in the ditch and head for home, but there were too many witnesses to see me littering, so I picked it up.  Now, what to do with it?  It wouldn’t fit in the trunk so we had no other option but to put it in the back seat and let the tail pipe stick out the window.  The whole time I was thinking, at least maybe no one will know me since I didn’t know many people from London. 

We made it to the interstate in our race car and were laughing about the whole situation.  After all it was Saturday, the sun was shining and we had a day and a half to do whatever we wanted.  I was in the passing lane when BOOM, thud, thump, thump.  I realized right away that the front tire on the passenger side had blown out.  I was going about 65 and it was hard to hold the car in the road.  I slowed and pulled over to the side of the interstate.  We were headed downhill which was going to make jacking the car up hard to do.  It wouldn’t have really mattered where we were, I couldn’t change a tire anyway and Kaye sure couldn’t.  I remember Kaye said, “What in the world else is going to happen today?”  We were about a half a mile from a Shell station that was off the exit. We decided to walk to the station and either call Mike or find somebody there that could change the tire.  I forgot to mention that I was about 3 months pregnant and wasn’t feeling 100%.  Kaye wasn’t looking forward to that uphill walk, but she didn’t want to sit in the car by herself.  So, off we went to get help. 

I noticed, as we started up the ramp, that there was a truck just sitting on the road side.  We were busy talking and walking and didn’t even look at the truck as we passed it.  “You girls having trouble?”  The voice startled us since we didn’t notice someone was with the trunk.  We turned to see a young man with long hair, short cut-off jeans and no shirt.  He was sitting on the tailgate putting his shoes on.  I noticed that his license plate said Michigan.  It never occurred to either of us to be scared of this stranger.  We turned and walked to where he was sitting explaining that we had a flat and couldn’t change the tire.  He wanted to know if we had a spare and that was the first time I had even thought about that.  I replied, “Well, I don’t really know, but I think so.”  He told us to get in the truck with him and he’d be happy to change the tire if we had a spare.  We just crawled into the truck with him like we had known him for years.  I sat beside him, Kaye sat by the door and I was still thinking, “those are really short cut-offs he’s wearing.”  He told us what city he was from in Michigan and I told him I had a sister-in-law living in Detroit like there was a chance they knew each other.  I wanted to tell him I was pregnant, but I thought he probably wouldn’t be interested in that.

We got to the car and I unlocked the trunk praying that I had a spare tire.  I did, but it looked worse than the tire that had blown out.  Mr. Short Shorts got the jack and tire tools out and began to take the wheel off.  For some reason he crawled under the car with just his lower half sticking out.  I have no idea why he got under the car to change a tire, but there he was.  Kaye was still giving me a rough way to go.  She was complaining to no end standing there on the side of I-75.  I turned my head to tune her out for a minute and when I did I noticed that not all of Mr. Short Shorts anatomy was tucked away in those little cut-offs.  I tried to get Kaye’s attention, but she was over in the weeds by now.  I motioned with my head for her to come over to me, but she didn’t catch my meaning.  I was laughing by now and thinking that this stranger from Michigan really thought he was something.  Imagine the nerve of him showing his junk right there on the side of the road.  He just laid there under the car, cars zipping by on one side and Kaye behind me in the weeds complaining on the other.  Funniest thing I ever saw.  It never occurred to me to be afraid that this pervert might harm us.  Finally, he crawled out from under the car, picked up the jack and headed to the trunk to put everything away.  I followed him and asked how much I owed him not thinking he was actually going to tell me an amount.  I mean, us hillbillies never charged for doing a good deed.  He wasn’t a hillbilly though and said, “five dollars will be enough.”  Oops, now what, I didn’t have any money.  I asked Kaye knowing she didn’t have any either, but I was hoping that somehow she had some stashed away.  “No, she said.  I don’t have a dime to my name.”  I looked at Mr. Short Shorts with the most pitiful look I could muster.  He looked in the trunk and said, “I’ll just take two tapes then.”  Mike had a case with all his eight track tapes in the trunk and Mr. Short Shorts took Bachman Turner Overdrive and Steppenwolf.  Shoot! Mike was going to kill me, but first I was going to kill him for letting his pregnant wife drive a ticking time bomb of a car.

We bid our angel in cut-offs goodbye and started on the last leg home.  It being warm, we had the windows down.  I was screaming at Kaye because she couldn’t hear me over the roar of the engine, that she had missed the indecent exposure show, which she didn’t believe, and discussing that our families were probably worried to death about us because we were about a hour late by now, when something went flying out the window on Kaye’s side.  Now what?  Surely that wasn’t part of the car.  Guess what? It was.  It was a fake wood panel that was beside the small back window.  We figured it wasn’t very important because the engine was still running…loudly.

By now I was thinking what could happen next.  The gas hand didn’t work so I assumed we should be running on empty very soon.  By the grace of God, we made it home about 2:00.  We pulled in the drive-way making enough noise to wake the dead and with the tailpipe and muffler hanging its head out the window.  We thought our mothers and Mike would be standing in the yard wringing their hands with worry, but they weren’t.  We went inside excited to tell our story and everyone was so busy talking they never even looked up at us.  I said,          “Were you all worried about us being late?”  Mom said, “No, I didn’t even know you were late.”  At that, I lost it.  I started telling our story, loudly because I had gotten used to screaming by then, and almost in tears.  The whole family busted out in laughter, especially my
“worried” husband.  I was so mad.  When you’ve had a day like I had just had, you have to blame the husband, right? 

As I look back on that day, I think the worst part was that my mother and my aunt, both widows, wanted every detail about Mr. Short Shorts. 

We never worked overtime at ACS again and I’ve never had another flat tire. Thank God.

The Greatest American Hero

Someone much smarter than me once said, "You pay for your raising when you have your own children."  If that is true, my first born is paying a huge debt right now. 
Kyle Michael Childress came into this world at 12:41 p.m. October 10, 1978.  I was well versed in the horrors of childbirth thanks to my mother and grandmother.  I think they were in a contest to see who had the hardest labor and delivery.  Granny had my mom on March 2, 1927, there was 3 feet of snow on the ground.  The doctor rode a horse up a hollow to her house, he said in some places the drifts were up to the horses belly. Then her story went on to the pain part and it sounded unbelievable, but if Granny said it, it must be true.  Mom's birth story was equally as horrible.  She was in labor all night before she went to the hospital.  They put her to sleep, so she doesn't remember me being born.  When she woke up, her blood pressure had dropped and the nurses were talking loudly to her and raising the window blinds up and down. I assume they were trying to excite her in order to raise her BP.  The obstetrician who was supposed to deliver me had gone to the Ky. Derby so another doctor delivered me.  He wasn't even an obstetrician, but a orthopedic surgeon.  That would be horrifying enough right there.  So when I woke up on the morning of October 10, with a little discomfort in my back, I wondered if it was labor.  But, I thought it was going to hurt way more than this.  Mike insisted that I wasn't in labor because he thought I should be screaming like they did on t.v. so he decided he wanted to go to work and would take me to moms until I felt better.  I agreed, but when I got up off the sofa to go get dressed, my water broke.  Now, Mike is one of nine children, he's actually number six, so you would think that he knew when a pregnant woman's water broke there was no turning back, but he still insisted I wasn't in labor.  I finally convinced him that maybe we should go to the hospital and let them check me out.  This is where our adventure with Kyle comes into play. 
Naturally, I was indeed in labor.  I went through the process of being admitted and endured the awful prepping that was required back in 1978.  Back then epidurals were for the wealthy or the ones with really good insurance, so that meant I didn't get to have one.  Things progressed normally through the morning, but around noon the nurse announced that my baby, we didn't know if it was a boy or girl back then either, was going to be born feet first, which is called a footling breech. The doctor sent me   for a x-ray, something else I bet they don't do today, to see how big the baby was and if I could have it without a C- Section.  From that x-ray, he determined my baby was going to weigh about five pounds and he was going to try to deliver it first and if things went wrong, he would then do a C-Section.  The nurse who examined me asked me if I wanted to now the babies sex, I said, "Sure, how can you tell?"  I'll never forget what she said.  "I know what it is because I can feel him."  Since a footling breech was rare and the mom delivering naturally was even rarer, I had several doctors and interns in the delivery room with me.  Mike opted not to go in so it was me, a nurse and six doctors.  Kyle literally walked into this world left foot and leg first, left shoulder second, next his head, right shoulder next and finally his right leg and foot.  He weighed 5 pounds 4.5 ounces and was 18 inches long. When I think back on it now, I don't know if I should have thanked the doctor for not jumping in and giving me a C-Section or if I should have sued him for malpractice for the trauma Kyle and I went through.  

When Kyle was 6 weeks old, he developed colic.  I would say a severe case of colic, but any case of colic is severe.  He cried for what seemed like 24 hours 7 days a week for about two months.  Thank goodness Mike has a big family because it took a lot of people to walk around carrying one screaming, tiny baby.  We tried catnip tea, a Coca-Cola to make him burp and whatever other remedy we heard about.  Oh what I would have given for gas drops or gripe water that's available for colicky babies today.  Finally, about Christmas time, he quit crying, but he still didn't sleep.  He never sleep through the night ever.  He's 34 and his wife says he still can't sleep through the night.  I was so used to getting up with Kyle 2 or 3 times a night that when I had my second child, I thought something was wrong with him because he actually slept.  Kyle didn't sleep during the day either.  He might take a fifteen minute nap if we were lucky.  You had to be completely silent because the slightest little sound would have him up.  When he was three, he woke up at night to drink Kool-Aid.  I was thrilled when he was big enough to drink his Kool-Aid without waking me up to tell me about it.  

When Kyle was four my grandmother, the woman Kyle called NaNa and loved dearly, passed away.  She was having chest pains, but insisted it was indigestion.  Finally, we talked her into seeing a doctor.  Kyle came with us out to the car wanting to go with us.  I remember she told him that he better stay home and play.  She said she and I would be right back and we would bring him something. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. She was admitted to the hospital on Thursday and died in her sleep on Sunday.  Kyle could not understand why she didn't come back like she promised.  We were at a loss for the right words.  It became apparent that he was experiencing severe anxiety about her passing, he was a different child.  One night, just two months after my grandmother died, Kyle woke Mike and me up screaming.  We assumed it was a bad dream, but he started having them regularly and they were very disturbing.  He didn't even look like himself, you couldn't wake him up, he spoke words that were not words at all, just a lot of gibberish.  He would look right through me and scream, "No Mom No" over and over.  He wouldn't stand still, we actually chased him from room to room trying to hold him hoping we could calm him some.  These episodes were pretty frequent and were having an effect on Kyle.  He would be tired for a couple of days after.  Once I couldn't wake him at all so I actually took him outside and sat him down in the snow which finally woke him up.  We took him to a pediatrician who ordered tests to see if he was having seizures.  Those tests came back negative.  The diagnose turned out to be Night Terrors.  We had never heard of this, but after reading up on it, we realized it described Kyle to a T.  Everything said he would outgrow them.  He finally did, but he was 13 before he stopped having them.  I still think they were triggered by my grandmother's death.
So now you know that Kyle and sleeping did not go hand in hand and it turns out he had bad luck when it came to automobiles also.  When Kyle was 22 months old, I took him to Mt. Vernon to the Dairy Freeze for an ice cream cone.  In those days it was not mandatory that a baby be in a car seat.  I was driving a Plymouth Valiant.  Sometimes the door handle didn't latch and if you didn't notice it, you could drive until you went around a curve and your door would come open before you realized it wasn't latched.  That day at the Dairy Freeze, I put Kyle in the front seat, locked the door and gave it a good slam.  I even checked to see if it latched.  Kyle was standing, yes I said standing, beside me eating his ice cream when we went around a curve and the door flew open and Kyle looked like he was actually sucked out the door into the street.  I felt like I was in slow motion.  It seemed to take forever before I could stop the car.  I remember looking and no one was behind me or coming in the opposite direction.  When I looked through my rear view mirror, Kyle was standing up in the middle of the road crying.  Some nice lady had saw the whole thing from a side street and had gotten to him before I did.  She handed him to me and said, "I think she will be okay."  I told her he was a boy and thanked her.  I headed straight to the hospital.  He stopped crying as soon as I held him.  All I could see wrong with him was his diaper was tore off and his little white shoes that all babies wore then, we scraped.  He had one little knot on his forehead.  He didn't like the Doctor very much so his exam was hurried.  The Doctor told me to watch for internal bleeding and a concussion.  If he developed these I was to bring him back.  Duh!! I just wanted to get him home.  God was riding with us that day.  Kyle was fine and I kept him buckled up from then on.

When Kyle was barely 3, his brother Neil was born.  That delivery was a piece of cake.  Still no fancy epidural, but he didn't walk out and he slept.  Things were good.  The day after we brought Neil home, my grandmother was staying with us.  She drove a 1974 Gremlin.  It was bright yellow.  She had bought it for me when I was in high school.  When I got married, I gave it back to her.  Our drive-way was on an incline and Granny parked at the top of the drive-way.  Our neighbor had come down to see the new baby.  While we were busy talking and holding Neil, Kyle got away from us.  When the neighbor started to leave she said, "Hallie, who in the world is driving your car?"  We both said, KYLE! at the same time.  Sure enough Kyle was driving that Gremlin.  He had pulled it out of gear which started it rolling back down the drive-way.  When it was going too fast for him and he didn't know how to stop it, he decided he should just jump out of the car.  So he jumped. The car made a turn and ended up in the tobacco patch.  God was with us that day too.

Bryan Houk, Jason Brown, Kyle Childress 

8th. Grade Dance.

 Kyle has a cool mullet.

Also when he was three, we noticed his left eye was turning in when he looked at things that were close.  I really noticed it when he ate.  Every time he looked at his food on the fork before he took a bite, his eye crossed.  Then the teachers noticed it when he was coloring or looking at books. After a really good Opthamalogist examined him, it was determined he had two different conditions.  Actually he had very little vision in his right eye which caused the left eye to strain to see, when the left eye got tired, it gave up and crossed toward Kyle's nose.  Surgery wouldn't cure it, it wasn't a "lazy" eye.  Wearing a patch for awhile and getting glasses was the plan.  So at three Kyle got his first pair of glasses.  He loved them.  We never had any trouble making him wear them.  He could see so much better that he didn't want to even take them off to go to bed.  They were always dirty or falling down on his nose, but he didn't take time to fix them.  One time he lost them and Mike ran over them with the lawn mower.  I can't count the extra lenses we've had to order.  When he played sports he had to wear goggles.  He didn't care much for them, but a lot of the pros were wearing them so that helped.  He went through a stage where he was very embarrassed to take his glasses off.  His eye crossed immediately and the kids in his class made fun of him.  When he was a freshman in high school, he got contacts.  He looked so good in them that nobody ever made fun of him again.  
That same old Plymouth struck again later that year.  By now, he didn't like to wear clothes.  His daily outfit was Star Wars under- roos and cowboy boots.  No shirt. He also wore a towel around his neck for a cape and loved to climb trees.  He thought he was the Greatest American Hero which was a TV show that was on at that time.  The main character was a Superman type man who didn't have all the powers to be a true super hero, so he would try to fly and end up hitting the wall.  Kyle hit every wall in the house several times when he played Greatest American Hero.  We tried to make him stop because he was hurting himself.  Thank goodness the show ended.  
The summer before Neil was born, the boy hero decided he was also going to be Tarzan. One day I found him in our yard at the very top of a maple tree.  He wouldn't come down saying he wasn't done yet.  I was 7 months pregnant as well as being only 5'2''.  I didn't threaten to spank him because I knew that wouldn't work with him, I planned on coaxing him down and then spanking him.  One of our friends, who just happened to be a Ky. State Trooper, drove by the house and saw me in the front yard talking straight up to a tree.  He knew Kyle too well.  He turned around and came back, he yelled, "Is that boy up that tree?"  I shook my head yes.  Kyle really liked the policeman so he came right down for him.   By the time he got down from the tree, I was too tired to even spank him.  God was with Kyle that day.
Kyle also had a knack for falling and needing stitches.  The last time he needed stitches, I didn't even take him to the E.R.  I used steri strips and put him back together myself. 
When he was in the eighth grade, he played on the high school baseball team.  Each year the team would travel to Cocoa Beach, FL during Spring Break. My mother, my son, Neil, my cousin, my friend who had a son on the varsity team, and myself followed the team down to Cocoa one year. The eighth grade didn't get to play very much so they had time to pass the ball some or watch the varsity game. We were watching the varsity play while Kyle and one of his friends was in the dugout with the team or so we thought.  I noticed that Kyle wasn't around us very much, he hadn't even asked for money which was a big tip off that something was up.  On the way to the car after the game, I got a good look at Kyle and his eye was swelled shut, a huge knot was above his eye and the print of the seam on a baseball was embedded in his forehead.  "Kyle, what in the world happened to you?"  Turns out him and his friend were messing around with the pitching machine, Kyle walked in front of it just as the friend sent a 95 mph pitch out of the machine.  They said it didn't knock him out, but I think it did.  Dr. Karen Saylor was also on the trip.  She looked at his eye and forehead and said if the ball had hit him from the side, it would have driven his skull into his brain.  He looked like Frankenstein the rest of the week.  He had a ball scaring all the little kids in the pool.  Also that year at Cocoa Beach, NASA was sending up a rocket.  All the parents and the team were going to meet on the beach to watch the launch.  It was about 10:00 so it was dark.  Kyle and a friend walked to the beach with the rest of us, but after that, he disappeared and so did his friend.  At first, I wasn't too worried since I knew he wasn't alone.  I just thought they walked down the beach, but when the friend came back without Kyle, then I started to panic.  Seems they had gone for a walk down the beach by themselves, but the friend started thinking about mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer and had got scared and turned around and came back.  Kyle did not.  We all started walking down the beach calling Kyle's name. After it seemed like we had walked miles down the beach, we saw a group of hippies gathered around a campfire singing folk songs.  Something lead me to get a closer look at that group and sure enough, sitting right in the middle of their circle was Kyle.  When I asked him what he was doing there he said, "I don't know, I didn't know where you were and that bunch of people looked like people you would hang around with, so I went to see if you were with them."  
Kyle got his driver's license on a Friday and drove to Louisville on Saturday to a Metallica concert.  The first time he drove on snow, he slide off the road and landed in a field.  When he was in college, he was in charge of the lights for a New Year's Eve party at Berea College.  It was 1999 and all the talk was that the world would end at midnight.  Berea College Alumni were gathered in the gym for the party and Kyle thought it would be so funny if he turned the lights off at midnight.  He did and 200 elderly folks about had major heart attacks and strokes.  His boss was not amused. 
He worked weekends at Renfro Valley as an usher for the country music shows.  One night all the ladies in the bathroom started screaming.  Someone ran in to see what the problem was.  It seems a snake had found it's way in.  Kyle got all the ladies out, got a gallon jar and picked the snake up to put it in the jar when it bit him.  It was just a little Garter snake, but management insisted that he go to the hospital and take the snake with him.  He was humiliated, but went anyway.  It was determined that he was fine, but the snake died right after it bite him.

I just realized this story could go on and on.  Trouble has always followed Kyle.  Even on his honeymoon.  He and his bride flew to Jamaica.  He got water in his ear while he was snorkeling and suffered with an earache the whole week.  God was with him through all that too. 
In spite of being born under a rain cloud and he may be a little jinxed, his dad and I are very proud of the man he has become.  He graduated college with a degree in Industrial Technology.  He works in the Graphics Design Dept. of the Trane Co. in Lexington.  He's stays busy, he still can't sit still.  He works out faithfully with weights at the gym at Berea College and also jogs. He still loves Metallica, loves concerts and loves going out on Saturday night with his wife to the movies. He helps his wife clean house, helps with his children.  He's a little OCD when it comes to his cars.  They are washed and detailed every Saturday.  He can do a little bit of anything.  He helped build his own house.  He laid the ceramic tile and the hardwood floors himself.  He's good with technology and occasionally he will even change diapers. He has an eye for fashion. He usually picks out his wife's clothes and she's always satisfied.  He loves his huge Childress family.  Doing things with his family is very important to him. His son idolizes him and I'm sure his baby girl will also. God has blessed us all with Kyle. 
As I wrote this, it dawned on me that most of this wasn't Kyle's fault, but rather ours, his parents.  We should have had a car seat, we should have had safer cars, we should have been stricter, and we should have never let him out of our site.  God, please continue to be with Kyle as he now has two children of his own to raise. 

Jack  Brody and Layla Wade

The Bridal Show

Through the years, I have worked at several jobs. I've been a data entry clerk, a secretary at a car auction, washed library books, a hairdresser, an instructional assistant, a high school secretary, a Program Assistant, an Accounts Payable Clerk, then back to the Program Assistant.  I loved working at the high school.  I retired in 2005 and I still miss the kids and the staff.  

I left the Central Office in 2003 after six years and went back to where it all began, the high school. I worked with a good friend in the Youth Service's Department.  We shared our office space with the attendance clerk, also a good friend.  I'm sure it didn't take long for the principal to realize maybe he had made a huge mistake by putting the three of us together.  We loved to have fun and before long, students and staff found out that our office could be a "happy "place.  It was a busy place too, sometimes too busy. Somedays we didn't have time to eat or take a bathroom break.  The three of us were good friends at school and also out of school.  When the attendance clerk announced she was getting married to the most eligible bachelor in the county, we were excited for her.  She had always wanted a church wedding and thankfully so did her groom. 
They set the wedding date for June and we started planning in January.  She asked her teenage daughter to be the Maid of Honor, and the Youth Service Director and Myself to be her bridesmaids.  This was going to be so much fun.  I was a bridesmaid in several of my friend's weddings back in the day, but us three ole gals were getting on up in years. I was the overweight bridesmaid.  The other three all together didn't weigh as much as me.  The thought of standing up in front of a church full of people while standing beside those skinny things, kind of made me sick.  

The bride picked her dress out first.  I went with her for support and to offer my opinion.  She had no trouble finding her dress, we all liked it as soon as she put it on.  According to T.V. and newspaper adds, there was going to be a bridal exhibit in Lexington one weekend so we made plans to go.  We thought we might get some good ideas since we didn't have any ourselves.  We left home early so we could spend the day. We were also hoping we would find some bridesmaid dresses we liked.  The show was going to be held at Rupp Arena and when we pulled into the parking lot there were several cars there.  We put on our lipstick, combed our hair, tossed back a breath mint and headed inside like the girls from the show, "Sex and the City."  We opened those big doors to Heritage Hall and went inside.  Several people were shopping and milling about.  We didn't want to ask directions to the show, we all felt sure we knew our way around.  So we headed down the hallway that we assumed would lead us into the bridal show.  Giggling and twisting all the way, I started to notice that there were a lot of men in the crowd.  Men who looked like real men, farmers and construction worker types.  I expected to see a lot of just-out-of-college and engaged looking ladies as well as ritzy looking matrons with teased, blonde hair and a lot of diamonds, but I didn't see anyone at like that all.  I remember saying, "What's with all these men?"  I even saw one guy pulling a air compressor.  My partners in crime were beginning to wonder also.  We noticed the exhibit hall up ahead on the left, but when we got there the sign out front said, "Discount Tool Sale."  This kind of excited us because all three of us are the "fix it yourself" type.  We decided to look around awhile and ask the check-out lady where the bridal show was.  

We got a little carried away in the "Discount Tool Sale" to say the least.  We just couldn't pass up a bargain.  My bridesmaid buddy bought a lawn wagon.  It was big and heavy.  Very awkward to carry around.  She asked a young guy working there to help her get it out to her vehicle.  We also asked the lady who checked us out about the bridal show.  She wasted no time in telling us, "Oh, that's next weekend."  Duh!!  We found this to be typical of the three of us and quiet funny.  We had came to see a bridal show and ended up at a tool sale.  We were going to make the most of our day by going to the mall and trying on dresses, but first we had to get that big purchase out to the vehicle.  Coming out wasn't as easy as going in for some reason.  We thought we had just walked straight through the doors and down the hall when actually we had ridden an escalator.  We must have been talking because none of us remember riding an escalator upstairs.  Anyhow, now we had our little helper pulling what we had bought on a yellow dolly.  He was quiet taken with us three silly ole ladies who thought everything was funny.  He didn't realize how hard it was going to be to get all that stuff and the dolly down the escalator, but he soon found out.  Apparently, he had never worked at this job before because he had no idea what he was doing.  We tried to help him as much as we could, but we had a serious case of the giggles and didn't give it all we had.  We pulled the dolly onto the top step, jumped on the escalator, held on to the purchases and still messed up.  As soon as we started going down, the boxes on the dolly came loose and rolled all the way down the escalator, knocking feet and legs of other shoppers all the way down.  We tried to catch as many as we could, but most were too heavy and were moving pretty fast.  We were yelling, "look out and heads up" but most people didn't heed the warning.  During all this, I remember looking at the nice young man still holding on to a now empty dolly.  He looked scared to death.  He was even a little pale.  We made it down before he did and started trying to pick up the boxes.  Some were still under a man's feet.  He had to hop over the boxes to get off the escalator.  Needless to say, these shoppers didn't seem to pleased with our actions.  But, we still thought it was funny and getting funnier by the minute.  Finally, our helper and his empty dolly made the exit off the escalator, much to his embarrassment.  We loaded all our stuff up and since we felt bad for the young man, we all three helped him push the dolly.  

We made it to the van and got our stuff loaded, thanked our dolly driver and climbed in.  Then things exploded.  We all three laughed so loud and so hard that the van was shaking.  We cried our mascara off it was that funny.  Each blamed the other for getting the dates mixed up.  Looking back on it now, I'm sure I was the one who got the wrong date.  I'm good at that. 

We hurried over to the mall thinking we'd be coming back several more weekends before we found what we liked, could afford and would fit two sticks and a fat lady.  But, that's where we were wrong.  We found the perfect dress as soon as we walked in the door of Dillard's Department store.  We even found shoes too.  A nice lady helped us try on our dresses and offered her advice.  The dresses were strapless, so she thought we could use these foam things to wear instead of strapless bras.  We tried those on and were quiet pleased with the outcome, so we each bought a pair.  

The day of the wedding finally came.  It was sunny, warm and perfect.  We had appointments to get our hair and make-up done which was a luxury for us.  We had a grand old time laughing and telling how we went to a tool sale instead of a bridal show.  We arrived at church still having fun.  We gathered in one of the Sunday school rooms to get dressed.  Everything was going great.  I put my foam things in my bodice and was quiet proud of how I looked.  My fellow bridesmaid however, wasn't sure of hers.  She was a little bigger than me in that department and thought maybe the extra padding made hers look too big.  The rest of us in the room, and there were a lot of people in there, convinced her that she needed to wear them, so she did.  

The time had come to start the show.  We had to walk outside to get to the vestibule where we were to line up and wait to make our entrance.  Just so happened that there was a mirror hanging in the vestibule.  We checked ourselves one last time before we went down the aisle.  I looked as good as I was going to get, but the other bridesmaid still wasn't liking those foam add-on's, so she took them out right there in church.  I looked at her and whispered, "where are you going to put them now?"  I don't think she had thought that through because she began looking around for a place to put her foams.  There was a pretty, high backed chair in one corner, so she lifted the cushion and placed her foams under it and was then ready to march down the aisle.  

The service was beautiful.  It had a few moments that made us laugh, but hey, it was great.  The minister was a wonderful man and a good preacher.  He was overweight, but didn't seem to mind.  He actually made jokes about his weight at his own expense.  After the ceremony, we were all milling around before going to the reception, I reminded my bridesmaid buddy not to forget her foam things.  She said, "thanks for reminding me, I'm going to go get them right now."  We both turned and headed toward the pretty chair where her extra parts were hidden and both stopped dead in our tracks.  The preacher was now sitting in that pretty chair and he was squashing her foams flat.  Why stop now, we had laughed about this wedding for months anyhow, so we roared one more time for prosperity.  We hurried to the reception to tell the bride that the preacher was sitting on the foam things.  We had to wait forever until he got up to go retrieve those things.  They were now shapeless.  Oh well, she didn't like them anyhow. 

That couple have been happily married for several years.  The three of us no longer work at the high school, but we are still good friends.  I think about that wedding a lot.  I remember how uncomfortable those shoes were, what a good time we had and of course I remember those flat foam things.  I wonder what ever happened to them. 

Don't Worry, Be Happy

When I began this blog last week, I had attentions of writing only funny stuff and I still will do that.  For some reason I feel the need to talk about something that is not funny, suicide. All that's been on the news the last couple days is the suicide of Mindy McCready, a one time country music star who took the wrong path to addiction.  Apparently she was handed the troubles of Job and she took the easy way out.  I was just watching Dr. Drew, her therapist, talk about suicide.  One sentence stayed with me, "If you have someone in your family that has committed suicide more than likely another family member will also commit suicide."  I know this to be true first hand.  Before Mike and I were married his uncle, Luther Childress, went to the home of his brother Jesse.  He sat down and talked to Jesse's wife awhile. He asked her to go get him a cup of coffee.  While she was in the kitchen, she heard a gunshot.  She ran to see what was wrong and discovered Luther dead in the chair from a gunshot wound to the head.  Seems Jesse always kept a pistol in the end table by the chair, Luther knew this and used that gun to kill himself.  There were no warning signs, at least not that anyone noticed.

Mike and I hadn't been married very long when we got the word that his uncle was found dead in his mobile home.  He too had shot himself in the head.  He was divorced from his wife and the family knew he wasn't taking it well.  He shot himself on Tuesday, but wasn't found until Saturday when a nephew went to check on him.

In 1977, I was working at my job in London.  We had moved back to Rockcastle Co. from Louisville and Mike didn't have a job yet so we were living with my mother.  My desk was beside the door to the outside, so I saw every car that pulled up.  One night in October, I saw my mom and grandma pull up.  They had come to tell me that Mike's Dad, Cecil Childress(Pete) ,had been found dead.  He had shot himself in the chest.
My father and mother-in-law had a rough marriage.  They had separated several times, but my mother-in-law couldn't provide for the nine children she had without Pete so she had to endure a lot for her children.  Pete decided to open a grocery store so he bought a building on highway 25 south between Mt. Vernon and Livingston. It was in that store that he killed himself.  A customer wondered why the store wasn't open since his truck was there.  He walked to the side of the store, looked in the window and saw Pete lying on the bed.  My brother-in-law, had to identify him.  Like the others, he showed no signs that suicide was on his mind.  We saw no depression or sadness.  By now, we were all stunned by the fact that 3 brothers had committed suicide within 10 years.  Pete's death was very hard on the family.  Losing a father by suicide was very hard on Mike.  None of us could understand why. After all that the Mike and his family went through, we never thought one of them would do the same.

In 1988, I was working as a hairdresser in Mt. Vernon.  I had my own shop with two stylist and myself working.  I went to work one day just like always, happy that my business growing, my boys were healthy and Mike had a good job.  Somewhere during that day, my life changed.  I began to feel sad and I had no reason to be. I was short tempered and hoped I didn't have customer because all I wanted to do was go home to bed.  That sad feeling was with me all the time.  I had saw my father suffer with depression.  I was just about six when I would make the trip to St. Joseph in Lexington with mama and daddy for his Shock Therapy treatments.  I didn't understand why my daddy didn't act the same after these trips, but mama assured me it would make daddy feel better.  So after two weeks of the sadness I went to Dr. Jack Lewis, the same Dr. that treated my dad.  He sent me to a psychiatrist in Lexington right away.  I remember him saying to me, "I saw your dad go through this and I don't want to see you go through it too."  I spent 21 days at St. Joe.  I was diagnosed with clinical depression and started on a round of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds.  I took Prozac when it was brand new.  It did help some, but not enough. I felt so guilty about not being there for my boys.  Mom and Mike would attend school functions etc, since I wasn't able to go anywhere.  I would end up being hospitalized two more times.  I had to sell the beauty shop and try to get myself together.  Times were tough and I didn't know exactly what to do next. I took a job at Rockcastle Co. High School in 1990.  I was able to work there for fifteen years before I became unable, both mentally and physically to work.  I retired on disability in 2005.  I have good times and dark times.  Recently I was told I had Rapid Recycling, which is a form of Bi-Polar.  Just the name rapid recycling explains it.  I go from zero to sixty in five seconds.

November 13, 2008 found me doing pretty good.  I have Fibromyalgia also,but that November neither Fibro or depression were bothering me.  We had our first grandchild, Jack, that past May and I helped babysit him and Neil and Ashley had just gotten married in August.   I was in the grocery store when my cell phone rang.  One of  sister-in-laws had called to tell me she had heard someone in Mt. Vernon tell her that Mike's brother, had died.  We thought surely that wasn't true.  No one had called us.  I then called my sister-in-law, who lives in Louisville where my brother-in-law and his wife lived.  When she answered the phone I knew right away it was true.  I stood in the middle of the grocery hearing how my happy go-lucky brother -in-law had went into the garage while his wife was at work and shot himself.  I don't remember much about that afternoon.  I know I didn't buy anything and I remember thinking that I had to call Mike because if the word was out on the streets he would hear it like that.  I called Mike just to tell him to come home, but he knew something was wrong and assisted that I tell him.  When I did, there was silence for what seemed like an hour.  Once again we had lost someone too quick. Someone who made the decision to leave this world.
I am left to worry about my sons.  They have inherited some bad genes on both sides.  I have told Mike and the boys several times that I worry about how much suicide and depression in our families and make them promise to get help if they start feeling sad or anxious.  They always laugh and tell me I'm crazy. 

Everyone goes through the blues every now and then, but depression is the blues triple time.  You see no future, you have unreasonable thoughts, you abuse prescription meds just to take yourself away for an hour or two, and your family and friends don't understand.  People have said to me, "Just make yourself be happy.' or "What do you have to be depressed about?"  My favorite one is, "Honey, just take it to the Lord, you must not have enough faith."  This illness is not something I chose and I'm doing all I can to fight it.  I just hope and pray that it never gets so far ahead of me that I can't see the light through the darkness and plan a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  I want to leave you with a line from a song by John Mellencamp, "Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone."

 www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

I wish you love

Happy Valentine's Day!!

After celebrating 37 Valentine's Day since I married my husband, Mike, I have to say I can't remember most of what we did or what gift I got from my him.  Twice I got roses.  That's all I remember.  So, the lesson here is, we make a big deal about this day that we're never going to remember down the road. 

I met Mike February 28, 1975, so I missed that Valentines with him, but by the next year we had already been married six months.  That year, 1975, was a busy one for me.  I had a new boyfriend, graduated from high school, got married and moved to Louisville.  The first Valentine's Day we shared was February 1976 and that year I got red roses.  After that it was over 20 years before I got roses again, they were white. I don't remember what year that was, but I must have been good.

Sometimes Mike has asked me what I want and I have always come up with something.  I go for the practical things that we really need.  One year for Christmas I asked for and got a kitchen sink.  Lately, if he asks me what I want I've been replying, "I would love it if you would quit smoking."  Then the next time he asks, I change it up a little and name another one of his bad habits that I wish he would give up.  His answer to this is, "I will quit when you quit eating or lose 50 pounds."  He's such a romantic. This year I got him something I had never gotten him before, 2 packs of cigarettes.  I always said I would not enable him to smoke, but I racked my brain thinking about what to get him that he would really like, so cigarettes it was.  Also, that's a really expensive gift.

I always expect something for Valentine's Day, but the last couple years, I've just gotten a card.  Cards are nice too.  At least he thought of me.  I was thinking about Valentine's Day and how my boys celebrate it.  Kyle is a romantic, he's always coming up with ideas to surprise his wife, Melanie. He takes her out every weekend.  But, Melanie is not that much of a romantic, from my point of view that is.  To her Valentine's Day is all about her children, which I appreciate so much.  She has spent a week getting Jack ready for his party at school.  Jack signed all his cards himself.  She made chocolate chip cookies and gift bags and cards for all his classmates and the teachers.  Neil, well he's a little bit romantic.  Not as much as Kyle, but more than Mike.  He's taking Ashley out for dinner this year and maybe a movie.  They live in Georgetown and don't have anyone close to watch the boys so they can go out every now and then.  I'm going to visit them Saturday and watch the boys so they can get away for awhile.  Ashley is a romantic.  She actually should have married Kyle.  She's also a lot like me.  We were both born on May 4, different years though.  Maybe it's our zodiac sign.  I never believed in those much, but I will agree that Ashley and myself think alike. 

I hope everyone gets something, a hug, a text, a kiss, a call, a ring, roses, candy, stuffed animals kitchen sink or whatever you ask for on this Valentine's Day.  If you don't have anyone to remember you on this day, I will.  I wish everyone, old and young, a Happy Valentine's Day and many more. All of us are loved.

The Ghost Lady

My sweet mother-in-law, Tessie Childress, loved to tell ghost stories.  If she ended up with 6 or 7 grandchildren on a Saturday night, she would dress up, take her teeth out, jump in the room and scare poor kids into going to bed.  She always told all of us that there was a ghost of an old women in her in house.  She had seen her several times and so had several of her children.  There was unexplained noises like the sound of chains and windows and doors would shut on their own.  According to Tessie, the ghost lady's favorite spot was in a small rocker that sat next to the wood stove.  Tessie claimed she had heard her putting wood in the stove, except it wasn't the stove that she had now, it was the old stove that was there when she moved into the house.  It apparently made a different noise when you opened the door.  The lady was said to have died in the house and was "laid" out in the front bedroom for viewing which was common at the time of her death.  I didn't believe in ghosts, but still enjoyed hearing Tessie and her boys tell about their experiences.  Tessie also had a habit of telling really scary, scarier than normal, stories if she had a pregnant daughter-in-law whose due date had passed.  Tessie claimed she could scare them into labor.  I actually think that happened once, but I don't remember which sister-in-law it was.

When Mike and I got married, he worked in Louisville at General Electric.  I was 18 and he was 22, much too young to be married.  We picked out an apartment, moved in our hand me down furniture and waited for the magic to begin.  Mike worked second shift which meant I was stuck at home alone. Two things bothered me,  first, it didn't feel like home to me and second I was scared to death.  We didn't have a phone and only had one car, which Mike drove to work.  Remembering Tessie's ghost stories didn't help much either.  We both disliked Louisville and our life there so much that as soon as Mike got off work late on Friday night, we would pack the car and drive 2 1/2 hours home to our mamas.  One of those weekends home, we were spending the night at Tess's.  It was winter and there were so many quilts on the bed that once you got in you had to sleep that way all night because you couldn't turn over because the quilts were so heavy.  Also, we slept in the bedroom that the ghost lady died in.  Sometime late into the night, I woke up needing to use the bathroom which was in the back of the house.  I would have to go through the living room, the dining room and the kitchen to get to the bathroom. It was pitch black dark and I knew I would fall over something trying to get there and I didn't want to wake anybody up by turning on a light, so I opted to try to go back to sleep.  Well, that didn't work, I absolutely had to go.  I thought about waking Mike up to go with me, but once he's asleep he could sleep through anything, so I let him be.  I felt my way through the house, found the bathroom without falling or breaking anything.  On my trip back to bed, I felt somewhat secure since I had made it through the dark maze once already.  Feeling around for the door to the bedroom, my foot hit something and I realized I was off kilter and was touching the chair sitting by the stove.  Using my hands to feel my way around, I felt something soft and hairy.  What in the world was that?  I felt around some more and then it came to me, the ghost lady was sitting in her favorite chair and I had my hands in her hair.  Yikes, she will grab my hands any minute, run.  I did run, more like lunged, for the bed.  I lifted up ten pounds of covers, jumped in bed, and covered up my head.  I was so scared that I felt faint.  I really had to get Mike awake.  But, like I said he was hard to wake up and this night he seemed dead to the world.  I laid there for hours afraid to move.  It was a good thing I was on my way from the bathroom, because if I hadn't visited it yet, I wouldn't have needed to anymore once I petted the ghost lady.  Finally daylight came.  When I heard Tessie get up and go to start breakfast, I was brave enough to go to her and tell her about my experience.  On the way to find Tessie, I had to pass the chair.  Surely she wouldn't be sitting there in the daylight.  I turned my head slowly to gaze at the chair just to make sure and that's when I saw IT.  Hanging on the back of the little rocking chair was my winter coat which had a fur collar.  The collar was at the same height as a dried up little ghost lady's head would be if she were sitting in the chair.  How dumb could I be?  I had let my coat scare me to death and lose out on a night's sleep.

Now, I am the kind of person who can laugh at herself and this was a good time to do just that.  When everybody came for dinner that day, I told my ghost story.  I've been in this family for thirty-seven years.  I've seen sister-in-laws come and go, watched babies grow up and have babies of their own, but no one will ever let me forget the night I became acquainted with the ghost lady.

Tessie passed away in 1997, almost twenty one years after my scare.  She must have told that story a hundred times or more.  I think it was one of her favorites.  I miss her and I  miss the old house.  Her sons built her a new house and tore the old one down.  We wondered if the ghost lady would make the move to the new house, but she didn't.  I think we all kinda missed her, but wouldn't say so.