There were lots of good parts to being a stay at home mom, but the downside was that money was scarce. Steak wasn’t on the menu when Max(ine) was around. That summer of ’82 we were growing Leonard the Goat. The rest of the provisions would be field peas and cornbread, field peas and cornbread and…..Steve provided for us well throughout his career as Ma Duke’s child, but sometimes the money almost ran out before the month did.  Our 15 acres of land included a Russian boar, goats, steak on the hoof[1], chickens, and a garden. Our land was our grocery store.  

With the advent of Max(ine) and Vivy, we decided that Leonard the Goat was going down. Steve and two of his neighbor friends took poor Leonard to the abattoir[2] at Fountain Inn outside of Greenville. They waited while Leonard was executed without benefit of a trial. Leonard died so that we could host a goat b-cue.  When Steve and I had a pig pickin’, goat b-cue or anything related to eating we invited the neighbors. They came bringing covered dishes and loads of young ‘uns. Our 6 ft. aluminum table went up for the food. Steve had a hole in the side yard to heap coal into, and a grate. We covered the hole with part of an aluminum roof to trap the heat from the fire. The goat was sandwiched between the aluminum roof and the grate.

Forty eight hours before Leonard was to be grilled, Steve marinated him to ‘purge the wild’ out of the meat.  See Marinade below.[3]After Leonard was fully marinated he was moved to the grilling site and was mopped intermittently with eastern North Carolina mopping sauce. [4] The mop had to be a sturdy stick as long as your arm with cheese cloth or a torn up sheet tied around the end.  Mop the inside and outside of the goat. Men, women, and children took turns and soon Leonard was a crispy critter with barbecue flavoring.

We were now nearly four weeks into Max(ine’s) visit. Steve’s mom, Grandma B.B. used to say, ‘fish and company smell after three days, our company was really stinkin’.

Steve developed a plan to send Max(ine) and Vivy back from whence they came. “I’ll go and get some cheap wine, and after the goat b cue, load the cooler with goat sandwiches and wine. I’ll ease Max(ine) into the notion of getting home sick to see his roots in the Lowgrounds.” He asked me to check our food money for the rest of the month to find out if we could buy him a bus ticket. I checked and reported, “We can only get them as far as Salisbury, NC, then they’re on their own.” Steve chuckled, “Well, if I get them relaxed enough they won’t pay any attention to the ticket, until the bus driver tells them they have to get off in Salisbury.”  That’s how Max(ine) and Vivy left the goat b-cue, very relaxed and full of goat meat. Steve put them on the bus in Greenville, of course, the bus would stop in Kings Mountain before it landed in Salisbury. We held our breaths through the next day. One dreaded thought was, ‘What if he cashes in his ticket at Kings Mountain and comes back?’

Apparently they did make it back to the Lowgrounds, Max(ine) called a few times after that. I would say, “Steve isn’t home” whether he was or not. Steve realized that Max(ine) in the house could become a permanent condition. This now infamous Massey event is a good lesson for not wearing out your welcome in somebody else’s house. You might end up with a wine headache and goat sandwiches.

I don’t know if Max Massey is dead or alive, but I pray that he made it from the Lowgrounds to the highest ground of all if he has passed.

In memory of a brown-eyed soft hearted man: Steve Massey

December 9, 1940-January 31, 1996

I do chase a lot of rabbits in these stories. They are necessary for the telling of the story, stay with me here!

Dateline—Hot as a firecracker August, 1980 on Blacksnake Rd. Easley SC—aka Coon’s Creek (the nickname for our 15 acre farm, complete with cow pond and a snaky creek.

“Hey Stevie, howsa boy!” Max Massey’s voice boomed over the phone.  “Long time, no hear from Maxine!”  Using their nicknames for each other was standard when these two first cousins exchanged greetings.

Ohhhh, I groaned in my head, “not him, not another marathon visit.”  Max and the rest of Steve’s extended family lived near the Princeton and Smithfield areas of North Carolina. The nearest town of any size was Goldsboro. Princeton was Max’s exact location, known as the Lowgrounds, along the Neuse River.  Smithfield has two claims to fame.  Ava Gardner[1] and Al Massey[2], see Boxrec for Al’s picture and bio. Incidentally, Al used to run in some of the same circles as Ava and Frank Sinatra[3] during their brief and stormy marriage.

Back to Blacksnake Road– Cousin Max(ine) was always down on his luck. I never knew him when he wasn’t. He roamed from his brother, John’s to ‘Tommy-tommy’ Massey, a first cousin, to his poor Aunt Lanie, to Steve, then back through the circuit again. Once upon a better life, Max(ine) had a house, a good job, and a family.  This was until he fell in love with a host of immoral, illegal, and fattening behavior.

One day, upon arriving home, his wife, Cissy, had dumped all his belongings in the front yard. He would have tried to get in the house, but found himself staring down the barrel of Cissy’s newly purchased shotgun. Cissy said she got it for squirrels and rabbits, but I’m thinking she was preparing to run Max(ine) off in grand fashion.

With no wife and young’uns, and all his earthly goods piled up in his rag tag car, he finally found a boarding house.[4]  Beset by his latest difficulties Max(ine) turned to strong drink and laying out of work. You guessed it, he lost his gainful employment and became the vagabond cousin of the Princeton, NC branch of the Massey family.

I wasn’t the following man’s schoolteacher! We had to have the garage door repaired.  The Sears repairman told us that one of our problems was that we did not have a ‘large’ enough motor on the opener.  I thought for a minute, and said that we had the largest one Sears made at that time, a 1/2 horsepower.  He shook his head and said, “Lady, you need a 1/4 horsepower.”  I responded that 1/2 was larger than 1/4.  He said, “No, it’s not. Four is larger than two.”  We haven’t used Sears repair since.  

The Dense Diner:   
My daughter and I went through the McDonald’s take-out window and  I gave the clerk a $5 bill.  Our total was $4.25, so I also handed her a quarter.  She said, “You gave me too much money.”  I said, “Yes I  know, but this way you can just give me a dollar bill back.”  She sighed and went to get the manager who asked me to repeat my request.  I did so, and he handed me back the quarter, and said “We’re sorry but we cannot do that kind of thing.”  The clerk then proceeded to give me back $1 and 75 cents in change.  

Space Cadet Crossing: I live in a semi-rural area.  We recently had a new neighbor call the local township administrative office to request the removal of the DEER CROSSING sign on our road.  The reason: “Too many deer are being hit by cars out here!  I don’t think this is a good place for them to be crossing.”

A Real Happening in Alabama: I was at the airport, checking in at the gate when an airport employee asked, “Has anyone put anything in your baggage without your knowledge?”  To which I replied, “If it was without my knowledge, how would I know?”  He smiled knowingly and nodded, “That’s why we ask.”

She has a job?: The stop-light on the corner buzzes when it’s safe to cross the street.   I was crossing with an intellectually challenged co-worker of mine.  She asked if I knew what the buzzer was for.  I explained that it signals blind people when the light is red.  Appalled, she responded, “What on earth are blind people doing driving?”
Sworn to protect us: I work with an individual who plugged her power strip back into itself and for the sake of her life, couldn’t understand why her system would not turn on. She’s a deputy with the Dallas County Sheriff’s office, no less.  

A Ford dealership in Mississippi: When my husband and I arrived at an automobile dealership to pick up our car, we were told the keys had been locked in it. We went to the service department and found a mechanic working feverishly to unlock the driver side door.  As I watched from the passenger side, I instinctively tried the door handle and discovered that it was unlocked.  ”Hey,” I announced to the technician, “It’s open!”  His reply, “I know. I already got that side.”

The last one is a classic: When I left Hawaii and was transferred to Florida , I still had the Hawaiian plates on my car, as my car was shipped from Hawaii . I was parking, and a guy asked me “Wow, you drove from Hawaii to here?” I looked at him and quickly said, “Yep. I took the Hawaii/San Francisco Bridge.” He nodded his head and said “Cool!”

Stay alert, these people walk among us, they vote, and reproduce!

Happy Friday!

      As I skid downhill past sixty and begin the climb to the next decade, sleep becomes a rare and luxurious event.  My late husband, Bill Coogler, could sleep in a straight chair with a loud television in the background, I must have complete quiet.  In addition to quiet, all conditions must be right.  Bill would cut down large forests of trees with his snoring apparatus nightly. I called it, “The Salem Chainsaw Massacre.”  Earplugs muffle the ongoing machinery somewhat.  The only real cure was to roll my sleeping husband to a side position.

In order to sleep, I must start on my right side, covers drawn under my chin with my ergonomically correct pillow placed smoothly under my right ear. I’ve been accused of being a “blanket robber” by both my late husbands and a few grandchildren as I pull and toss to gain the exact position necessary for my nightly nap.

A discussion of sleeping styles at a recent social event brought some interesting conversation.  One lady’s husband fights burglars in his sleep twice a year.  While in his dreamlike state, he pummels her face and grabs her shoulders. Since she never knows when the biannual event will occur it has led to separate sleeping arrangements in an otherwise happy marriage.  Another lady discussed the habits of a sleepwalking husband who gets up during the night to go to work.  She, very gently, leads him back to bed, then locks and barricades the bedroom door.

Also part of our discussion was a new sleep disorder called restless leg syndrome.  The affected person breaks into a run while sleeping and pedals as if on a treadmill. Needless to say, the other person in the bed is awakened by this nocturnal track meet.

However, I’m not convinced that restless leg is a new disorder, twenty years ago sleeping with my daughter was a gymnastics event.  Occasionally, she would spend the night in our bed when my late husband’s job took him out of town.  She flopped arms and legs into my face as I clutched the edge of the bed for safety. The day of her wedding, I expressed my sympathy to her husband and wished him well.  However, my lovely daughter is now experiencing her own version of my son-in-law’s snoring with the “Clinton Chain Saw Massacre.” I suppose each one of us has our own “sleep cross” to bear—may we rest in peace!

In every packaging engineer’s heart there breeds revenge against a mother who kept him out of the cookie jar.  Now it’s his turn to keep all mothers out of vacuum-sealed, shrink wrapped household items.  We are expected to prepare a meal on time while cutting, punching, and zipping our way into various cans, cartons, boxes, and bottles.

I now have family members who are doing laundry with their feet while wrestling with “E-Z” open containers and small children. Front loading washing machines are experiencing a boost in sales.   All of this happened because a dark-hearted packaging science major was banished from the cookie jar.

One night, in the tomb of midnight darkness I reached for a pill for my headache.  Trying not to disturb my late husband, I felt for the arrow I was supposed to line up, squeeze, and then push upward to release the contents.  POP! He woke up, next time, I’ll take it downstairs.

Life was simple before packages required engineers.  There was only one way into a container.  Now we must: push down while turning, line up at arrows, squeeze, zip tab at corner, pull tab to open envelope at perforation, and wrestle with shrink wrapped DVDs (my personal favorite). All of these contortions are supposed to be accomplished while some of us are being treated for arthritis, tendonitis, and carpal tunnel syndrome.  Send a care package of steel encased cookies to your nearest packaging science department.  The revenge should be wonderful!

Now, Steve Massey was afraid to tell me all this when it came down. To me, larceny was larceny, petit or grand! Ralph, our neighbor,  had towed a small camper from the hunt camp in Georgia that he and Steve belonged to. Babs and Ray moved from their school bus hacienda to the camper and were all settled in on our property. Now Steve had to study about how to get Babs and Ray off our property.

By now, it was July and the neighborhood had been inflicted with Babs and Ray for three months. Babs was nice enough, she didn’t wear any perfume, but you could smell her anyhow–just sayin’. Sometimes she would reminisce about her house in Franklin. Her eyes would get a far away look and she’d declare, “Ahh-h-h-h-h Steve, I’ve got a house way-y-y-y up on the mountain-n-n-n, it’s a beautiful hou-u-u-se!

As I said, Babs didn’t own any perfume and it was July. By that time in our lives, we had an inground swimming pool built. The pool was motel size and Babs liked its looks. One day as I looked away from the dishwater in the kitchen, there was Babs, with her bathing suit on, in the swimming pool with a bar of soap.  Of course, the camper had no bathing facilities, but I was the unhappiest camper of all that day. My husband’s ear was bent to breaking by the time nightfall came.

“Yes, I’ll tell them to leave, but where will they go, Ann?”

“Back to the ‘Big Cheese” on 93, my children don’t need to see her bathing anywhere!”

The problem was to be solved a few nights later. After Ray found out his singing career was over he grew quite depressed. He quit singing love songs to Babs and became joined at the hip with James aka Jim Beam. Babs began to start her own friendship with Jim. They got in some kind of argument one night. Babs gave Ray a concussion with an iron skillet and Ray retaliated with his prized guitar. The camper began to rock and roll and the noise hit our house—probably 400 feet from their domicile.  Steve called on Easley’s finest and they took the bloodied lovers to jail.

The last we heard of the two of them was about a month after that. Ralph, feeling sorry for them, went to deliver a pan of Sybil’s Pickens County fried chicken to the door of the Big Cheese. Just as he was about to knock on the door, the screaming and shrieking started. The two of them were cracking bourbon bottles over each others heads. Ralph fled the scene, with Sybil’s chicken, and called Easley’s finest when he returned home.

We never heard from either of them after that. Someone did say they thought they saw Ray in Anderson at the unemployment office, but couldn’t be sure it was him.

Ralph, Sybil, Steve, and Ann truly did take a stranger in and clothe, feed, and transport him and his girlfriend. The Bible tells us that the poor will always be with us and we’re supposed to help out. But we learned that we had to be careful not just to give a hand out, but a hand up. Somewhere, up on the mountain-n-n-n, there’s a house, it’s a beautiful house… God bless those two, I sure hope they found Him on the mountain, or anywhere.

Dateline Black Snake Rd., Easley, SC- 1980′s—Shh! I’m writing this post without my children’s knowledge. They never wanted anyone to know about the legend of Babs and Ray. By the time it’s published on the site, it’ll be too late.  It’s too good to keep–I crack myself up!

As I mentioned in my previous post, my first late husband, Steve, loved animals. He picked up stray cats, dogs, and humans. Some of the humans were long lost and down and out cousins. We’ll get to Max and Fritzie Massey later.

I’m not exactly sure how Steve found Babs and Ray, but I think one of our neighbors found them living in a school bus while he was hunting. Our neighbor, Ralph, and Steve shared everything-bear, deer, and Babs and Ray. Back in the day, Highway 93 from Easley to Liberty was quite deserted. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s kudzu covered everything. It seems that Babs hailed from Franklin, North Carolina and literally ran away from home, leaving four children and one divorced husband behind. She and Ray met at a bus stop at the corner of Walk and Don’t Walk near someplace right inside the South Carolina line. Without a car and very little to eat, they began to walk. It’s a long walk from the state line to Easley, South Carolina, but they had some luck with hitchhiking.  There right off Highway 93 was their lover’s nest–the big cheese AKA, a rotting school bus.

Along came Ralph, our neighbor in search of Bambi’s father. While there was no deer in sight, he was startled to spot blonde, buxom, Babs and fragile, thin, Ray moving around the tangled brush that was their ‘yard.’  Ralph introduced himself and with that introduction fell victim to this star crossed couple’s problems.

Ralph decided to take Babs and Ray home to introduce them to his wife Sybil and Sybil’s cooking. Sybil could flat fry some Pickens County chicken and smother it in gravy from cholesterol city.  Babs and Ray got very comfortable with Ralph and Sybil, to the tune of three weeks! Ralph took Ray to the unemployment office, the grocery store, and a barber. Soon, it became apparent that this power couple was losing their electricity with Sybil. She was ready for them to leave–or she was going to. That’s where Steve and Ann Massey got into the picture.

Steve Massey had cow brown eyes that looked pretty pitiful when he wanted a favor from me. I was vulnerable to his request to bring Babs and Ray to our house. Steve had discovered that Ray could sing. In one of the trips he and Steve made back to the school bus hacienda, Ray produced a guitar. He began pickin’ and strummin’ and I have to admit he was pretty good. Ray was a cross between Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, but with the mellow quality of Mel Torme. (If you’re younger than 50, Google, Mel Torme).

Steve and Ralph settled on a plan. Somewhere in Pickens County they found a recording studio–where in the world, I don’t know.  Steve decided he was going to pay for Ray to make a demo tape and his performance would take him to…yes, Nashville!

Stay tuned for the conclusion of the “Ballad of Babs and Ray.”

   Easley, SC 1980’s–The good thing about coasting over the hill is there are many awful experiences for me to look back on with a chuckle.  My first late husband, Steve, was an animal lover, wild, domestic, or farm, cheap or expensive, he surrounded himself with the animal kingdom.  All homework and housework was suspended so that we could watch “Wild Kingdom” on television.  Marlin Perkins became a hero to our children.

At one point, on our farm, we became the parents of two goats.  Steve named them Kathy and Rigdill, he loved to give pets and people unusual names.  Kathy and Rigdill were being raised for goat-b-cue.  Instead of our usual pig pickins’, Steve wanted to try goat pickins’.  These creatures decided to strip our land of all vegetation before they were sacrificed for meals. They did most of their dining at night, as if they were guests on a cruise ship.  Crashing through shrubs, they tore leaves, stems, and roots for their frantic feast.

Steve became fearful for his prized Better Boy tomatoes.  He decided that wire fencing would insure the tomatoes’ safety while the goats grew into more choice dinner material.  This worked as long as we remembered to close the gate leading to the tomato garden. Since this is not a perfect world, and we had two small children, the inevitable happened.

Growing tired of the midnight bush buffet, Kathy and Rigdill found the carelessly

opened gate.  Steve was awakened by the commotion of overturned feed buckets and kicking hooves.  He woke me at 2 a.m. and urged me to get up.

“They’re into my Better Boys!”

Groggily, I snorted, “It’ll make ‘em better boys, let me sleep.”    Nevertheless, I got up to be a helpmate to my husband and chased the goats. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the misfortune of trying to catch a runaway goat, but this activity should never be tried at home.

I had a “too close” encounter with our chain link fence and got tangled in the tomato cages.  After losing my Sunday School words, I spouted off three options:

1. Get rid of the goats.
2. Get rid of me.
3. The goat-b-cue was about to begin.

Not wanting to attend a fire at night, and figuring the human kids asleep in the house needed a human mother; not a nanny goat substitute, Steve decided the goats were about to become history. The following day, the goats were loaded into a neighbor’s truck bound for goat glory land. Their final send-off, after visiting the slaughter house,  was a large goat-b-cue cremation attended by Easley neighbors and North Carolina family.  I hope Kathy and Rigdill enjoyed their last South Carolina vegetable garden buffet.

I will refer to the Bishop as Larry and not by his real name. Any other reference would incite a loud thump from my grandmother turning over in her section of Salem Moravian Graveyard. The name has been changed to protect the innocent, shrouded in pink-hued guilt, as well as my associate membership in the above church.

Pastor Larry serves a church whose members are aging rapidly. The pastor’s services were needed for two families touched by death, one of them being my brother-in-law. Without an assistant, the Pastor was experiencing the overlap of memoirs, service schedules, and bulletins.

The day after my brother-in-law’s Saturday funeral, my sister and I stepped into Pastor Larry’s office.  I glanced at the funeral bulletin for Monday’s service.  The newly departed lady was born the same year as my brother-in-law. What an odd coincidence, I thought.

Upon returning home, I checked the date’s accuracy with the newspaper’s obituary and found there was indeed a mistake.  I called Pastor Larry with the necessary correction.

Feeling good that we had helped the pastor avert disaster, Jean and I visited with family.  Before we left her house for dinner, my sister spotted another problem for the pastor.  The departed lady’s memoirs were neatly tucked away inside my brother-in-law’s memoirs from Saturday’s service.

Jean called Pastor Larry; “I found the memoirs for Miss Mary at my house.”  The frazzled pastor sighed in relief, “I’ve been looking for them all afternoon, when can I come get them?”

“We may be out late tonight; I’ll tell you how to get in through the burglar alarm.” Confidently, the pastor wrote down the directions (or so we thought), and bid us, “Good Night.”

We returned home that evening to unsettling news.   The pastor, in an attempt to rearm the burglar alarm, activated it.  The neighbor across the street, Doug, also a member of Pastor Larry’s church, was alerted by the alarm service.  Doug contemplated packing a firearm to relieve my sister of the late night bandit, but changed his mind.  Doug was just in time for the flashlight search and interrogation of his beleaguered pastor, clad in Pink Panther Pajamas; pink cocktail glass drawings scattered throughout the rosy ensemble.

“Do you know this man?” Winston-Salem’s finest questioned Doug.

“I sure do, he’s my pastor.”

“Uh-h-h, uh-h-h,” the patrolman replied with some skepticism as he beamed his flashlight on Pastor Larry’s pink ensemble.

“I’ll need to see some identification.” Reaching into the Pink Panther Pajamas Pastor Larry found his clergy I.D. badge in blush colored pockets.

“Wow, and a bishop besides,” the law officer exclaimed.  “I guess you can go.”

Without a doubt, the officer’s story got the attention of his colleagues at the precinct on a slow Sunday night.  Winston-Salem’s finest let Pastor Larry off the hook, but this writer/associate member of his church has enjoyed this dangle.  Pastor Larry and his wife took a much-needed beach vacation later that same week.  My sister made sure he had new pajamas to take with him!

Addendum: At a later date, during a ministry meeting, I presented the bishop with a framed galley copy of the above story from the Daily Journal, Seneca, South Carolina.Those who were present hadn’t heard the story. It brought the church down–in more ways than just one! Lol Pastor! Last tag!

Revealed: Lane 'Baby Bish' Sapp and my granddaughter Emily Coogler

My sister, Jean, had been on top of the family pedestal as the only child. I rocked her world when I came on the scene. To seek revenge, she enjoyed wreaking havoc with my happy childhood.

We had a long hallway in our house with my room at the end.  Jean carefully calculated when I would be making my way through the corridor.  Uninvited, she would use my room as a cover to scare the young life from me. When I reached the end of my walk, she would leap from my room and yell, “a booger’s gotcha” and laugh sadistically as I screamed in fright. This was especially entertaining to her on school holidays.  She also thrilled at kicking me under the table at a meal, then yelling as if she were the one who suffered the injury.  When Mama couldn’t pin the source of confusion on one person we were both punished.

However, I managed to score the ultimate revenge with Princess, my pet parakeet.  My sister suffers with a lifelong fear of birds. She declares it happened while watching Hitchcock’s, “The Birds” at the Carolina Theater.  Two boys set a grocery bag full of wrens loose just as Tippi Hedren was getting pecked and bloodied.  She fled the theater with a bird phobia that haunts her to this day. I could get a really great scream reaction from Jean if I played with Princess outside of her cage.  Horrified, she locked herself in her room or escaped to the backyard.

Unfortunately, Princess developed a skin fungus on her leg. The torturous itching caused her to chew on her leg until her foot became a stump.  This development allowed me to repay my sister for all the times she jumped from behind walls and doors in the dark of night.  I gave Princess an additional name, “The Green Scarecrow”, and began to open the cage more frequently and allow my one-legged pet to fly freely, (but slightly lopsided.)

Jean’s frightened screams were just reward for the grief she had caused me.  One morning, six weeks into her illness, a very stiff Princess was found on her back, one leg up in her cage. I made sure that Princess received the Rites of Burial in the Moravian Church.  Mama donated a purse she was ready to give away as a casket.  My “Green Scarecrow” received her eternal reward for a job well done.

The Green Scarecrow Owner (left) and the Screamer (Right)