The Red Flannel Rag

laughed and said, “The cure won’t work unless you get mad.” That statement did not

help my humiliation; however, in a few weeks, the wart was gone.

One summer she grabbed my little brother, Warnie, when he wasn't wearing a

shirt. She looked at his naked back and said, "Looks to me like you've got the 'tetter'."

That was her term for psoriasis. She spit a glob of snuffy saliva in her hand and rubbed

it on his back. He was furious, but to this day he credits her with his "tetter" going away

in several weeks.

She believed in spending part of her life in an altered state of consciousness with

her first drug of choice, moonshine. So she contracted with her son, Uncle James, to

leave a pint of moonshine in her mailbox each Friday evening. She gave him two dollars

for each pint. She sipped at the bottle all weekend until by Sunday dinner she was able

to communicate more freely as she lifted her apron to wipe from her lips any telltale

signs of alcohol.

One Sunday she disappeared before the noon meal. The grandchildren were told

to go find her and make sure she was okay, but not to disturb her. I led the small search

party into the woods and pastures until we located her. She was lying in a blackberry

patch, sleeping like a baby. Her hands were neatly placed with palms together under her

cheek, and her apron was perfectly straight as she lay on her side. All was well as she

slept off her altered state. We went back to the house to report that she was fine. There

was no further discussion, no condemnation, no shaking heads, so when she walked in

later in the afternoon, life went on as usual.

Grandma Molly gave me treatments for undergrowth, warts, and boils; more

importantly, she gave me her stoicism, her fatalism, her quiet resolve that all things

come to a natural conclusion. In 1971 when she was eighty-six, she stopped eating and

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