No Excuses. J. Larry Simpson I
said, “I’m just glad to still be here.”
“Listen,” Alice said, “let’s just keep this to ourselves,” to which I nodded in agreement and never telling them I had already told my Bible-reading Granddaddy.
Grabbing some iced tea with the ice chipped off the big block of ice, we whispered a repeat of the story as Jeanie listened quietly. She didn’t ask a question but tried to understand.
“Larry, you will keep this secret, won’t you?” Barbara asked.
“Yes, I can. I will,” I said, having learned that phrase from Dad.
Jeanie just looked wide-eyed with a slight frown. She was only three years old.
I only saw one other blue racer in all my journeys.
A Granddaddy Lesson
“Lessons come hard but make life easier,” I read somewhere. It seems to be true.
Running around with Alice and Barbara, who were seven and nine, I was feeling pretty big. Besides, “cool” James, at his grown-up age, being born in 1936, taught me some “slick” behavior as I followed him around.
On the second Saturday of being in Arkansas, I came in from outdoors all full of myself, and Granddaddy Mac said, “Son, go over there and get me my pipe.” He loved his pipe.
I replied quickly, precisely, and definitively, “In a minute,” and I never looked up. I had lost my mind.
“Boy, what did you say?”
And I could hear some aggravation in his gruff voice. “In a minute,” I confessed, and I knew I had transgressed the law! Like a sheep killing dog, I tried to handle it, saying, “But, I’ll do it now.”
Too late.
“No, you won’t. Come here. Bend over this old knee!”
“Yes, sir,” and he then and there taught me a lifelong lesson. “Don’t cross the one with the power, especially Granddaddy!”
He bent me over his knee and spanked the hurting behind for what seemed like an hour. I was shedding some wet tears from shame and pain when he ceased. “Do you understand me now, son? Like Randolph Scott to his young companion in “Ride the High Country”.”
“Yes, sir,” as I fell into his arms, knowing I was wrong, and he was right while the tears rolled down my red cheeks. I could not stand to know I had disappointed Granddaddy and aggravated him. I was hugging him. He was hugging me. Correction with love.
“I’m sorry, Granddaddy!” “I’m sorry… I’m sorry.”
To which he replied, “We’ll be okay. I’m not mad.”
I was comforted and corrected. With his hands on my shoulders, he explained respect, honor, and duty. He did right, and I learned a life lesson even now sixty-nine years and a million miles later. He’s gone, and I thought I couldn’t live anymore when he died too young in 1961. The earth moved beneath my feet.
The Bull
“Larry, Jeanie, hurry, you’ve got a baby brother!”
The reason we were there had happened. Not having a clue as to where the new brother came from, Grandma Mac said, “His name is Troy David, named after your Granddaddy Mac.”
Jumping up and down, we celebrated, and then I asked, “When will we see him and Mom and Dad?”
Secretly, I had gotten very homesick.
“Four days. They’ll be here.”
Jeanie and I jumped up and down together, making a lot of celebration noise. Then we settled back in for the last few days of our Arkansas trip.
The next day was cloudy, and we’d had a little sprinkle. That ole dirt and clay was slick with the rain.
“Hey, let’s go see the cows in the back pastures,” Barbara suggested.
So away we went with a picnic lunch of bologna sandwiches and a jug of water in case we got too hungry.
So through the fences, past the blackberries, over stone by stone in the creek and through the fence to the red with some white cattle.
There were a few cows and calves that we could get close too. We rubbed a nice cow, massaged her ears, and scratched her back.
But we had to get back for lunch pretty quick. Through the fence, cross the creek and into the next parure, we went. We walked slowly, enjoying being together for one of the last times on this trip.
Suddenly we heard a thundering sound, limbs breaking, rocks flying, and as we turned back and here, he came. What! We thought he was put up. What? A huge rumbling and rolling bull! His horns had been cut but were still six to eight inches long. Weighing in at two thousand pounds, he looked like a mountain rolling at us. The dust was flying, and his snorting created a dust storm!
“Run! Run!”
We ran as hard as we could. The fence was getting closer, but so was the bull.
“Run!” Alice hollered.
I did keep up with my aunts, but the old bull wanted us. We had invaded his domain. Alice grabbed my hand and pulled me through the air, my feet hitting just every once in a while.
He was saying, “Leave my girls alone! Don’t come back!”
We made the fence with the bull ready to spear us. Alice went through, held the next wire open as fast as she could, and I flew through, and then came Barbara, screaming, “Bloody murder!”
The bull stopped, snorted, pawed the ground with his right then left foot, and shook his head as if to say, “No, don’t ever do it again” as “slobber” flew out of his flopping jaws.
We were safe. But when we went to the sharecroppers’ house, Grandma Mac asked, “What is it? You’re wet, dirty, and you look wild-eyed.”
Alice told her, and all my wonderful grandmother said was “You knew better. Get cleaned up, and no one will ever know.”
Thank goodness. Granddaddy didn’t know until they moved back to Memphis. He was okay that a lesson was learned, and that’s enough. That’s the way my wonderful grandparents were—“always have a good time.”
We did.
No excuses. Live life to its fullest.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.