The Red Flannel Rag

stepped on top of the dishpan and stomped it beyond recognition. Then she quietly

cleaned up the sticky mess. My brother, Larry, also witnessed this trauma and

remembers it to this day.

Dad had a short temper after he returned from the war, so Mom didn’t trust him

with our discipline. She took care of that herself in a variety of ways depending on

which of us needed her attention. Quietly and calmly she shaped each of our lives as

needed. I can still hear her say to me when she caught me in some bad behavior, “Go get

me a switch off the lilac bush and bring it here.” She learned e arly in our lives that Larry

and I responded to a lilac switch. My sister, Brenda, always changed her behavior after

a good lecture. My younger brothers, John and Warnie, were brought in line by a few

whacks across the buttocks with the fire shovel. If any of these methods failed, she

simply said, “I’ll tell your daddy when he gets home.” We all responded to that warning

because we remembered the width of his belt — at least ten inches in my memory — when

he took it off and used it.

As I think about my m other now, I realize she didn’t have many close friends

other than my Aunt Ethel, Uncle Shirley’s wife, and I doubt that she ever really confided

in anyone. Most of her conversations with other women were about cooking and

sewing. I know that she listene d to Aunt Ethel’s problems while they cooked on

Sundays, but I never heard her talk about her life to anyone.

Mom seemed more inclined to spend time with her children than with women

her own age, but she also never told us much about who she really was, about her

feelings as a person other than a mother. I know there were dark secrets in her younger

life, because evidence revealed itself in the things that made her angry and the things

that made her cry.

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