TATER

Lorelle and Audrey Cloud  were spinsters.  Sisters from a forgotten age, they were women that feared god, canned their own food, and always wore sun bonnets.  To a young  man of dubious moral fiber, they seemed to me overly devout, and pious to the detriment of their own happiness.  They were strict women, but kind.  Unyielding, yet gentle.  While I never felt a largess of affection from either of them, I knew somehow that they loved us in their fashion, and had our best interest (salvation) cloaked in their calico bosoms.

Audrey and Lorelle were sisters, daughters of Pearl and “Pappa”, My great grandparents on mom’s side.  They were two of five children, of which only three survived past their teens.  Pearl was a frontier pioneer, and participated in the Oklahoma Run with her parents.  Her people staked a claim with all the rest of the Sooners, Boomers, and Moonlighters, after President Harrison proclaimed the territory open for settlement with the Indian Appropriation Act of 1889.  Her family were Boomers as opposed to the railroad and other officious types who got to go in early and stake choice claims (Sooners), or the people who snuck into the territory under the cover of darkness to get a head start on a claim (moonlighters).  They ended up on a non-spectacular semi arid piece of prairie in western Oklahoma, which turned out to be good for cattle grazing, oil drilling, and little else.  The family scratched out a meager life in a sod house my Great Great Grandparents dug out of a hillside (small berm really, being that there were no hills to speak of).

They kept that land in the family for generations, even though they left it after a decade or so of hardship, bedbugs, near starvation, and other difficulties.  My knowledge of their history isn’t anywhere in the vicinity of precise, but I know they wound up back in Southeast Oklahoma after a time.  Pearl married and had a family of her own.  She lost her second daughter to illness at 14, and her youngest daughter to illness at age three.  My Grandpa Karl (the only son), Audrey, and Lorelle were the only ones to make it to full grown.  Unfortunately, as the kids reached maturity, tragedy struck again, and Dexter Cloud (Pappa) passed away, leaving the family destitute.  Audrey was the oldest, and moved back home with her mother and sister and took a job with the telegraph and telephone company in order to support them.  My Grandpa Karl married Frieda Smith (Meme), moved out on his own, and he too worked for the phone company as a lineman.  His checks were split between his mother and sisters, and his wife.

Lorelle was a free spirit, and wanted to break away from the clutches of her oldest sister, and the responsibilities that she knew would soon be hers.  She had a sweetheart she was in love with, and started to plan out the life she would make with her Beau.  She managed to keep her boyfriend under wraps for a time, fearing that her sister would ruin everything in an attempt to get her into a full time job, and away from a full time marriage.  Unfortunately for her, Audrey was a sharp cookie, and a tenacious woman.  She chased off that boy for good, and sealed poor Aunt Lorelle’s fate as a fellow spinster, and switchboard operator for AT&T.

I didn’t know about all this as a child, of course.  I did know there was a history though, and I knew the two of them had an unhealed scab between them that always seemed ready to bleed.  Of the two of them, my Aunt Lorelle was our favorite.  Our grandpa Karl died while my mom was a freshman in college, so we only knew his sisters, and of the two of them, it seemed that Lorelle was the only one we could imagine as a little girl.  Audrey was ancient from the day she was born.

My sister Heather and I used to have to spend two weeks during the summer at their house in Eufaula, two weeks we bitterly complained about the other fifty weeks of the year.

“But why do WE have to go!”

“Because they are your relatives, that’s why, and besides, they don’t have children of their own, and they love you kids.”

“But Mom!  It’s not our fault they didn’t have kids.  Why do we have to be punished for it?  It’s like a museum there, and there are all those weird pictures of Jesus and lambs on their walls”

That’s usually when we got the don’t fuck with me look of death, and the refined:  “That’s all we will speak on this subject.  Your are going, it’s been finalized.  You will behave yourselves, you will enjoy yourselves, and you will be kind to those dear women, do you hear me?”

“yes mam.”

“If I so much as hear a peep about you being rude while you are there, I will wear you out!”  (southern for a spanking)

“oka-a-a-y”  eyes rolling, and slouching away in defeat, my sister and I would commiserate with one another, and start trying to make plans on how not to get homesick, and games we could play while we were there.  We always made sure to pack lots of books, a deck of cards, and plenty of stationary to write home with.

Their home was modest, on a decent sized lot, and decorated from another century.  They had floral printed wool carpeting, and the aforementioned religious art hanging on the walls, a magnificent chiming clock, and antiques galore.  They had a piano we weren’t allowed to touch that was for hymns only, and lots of old lady things scattered about the house like lost memories. 

There was always that period of adjustment for us when we were dropped off, that lump in the throat and scared feeling of leaving the 70’s and entering the early 1900’s.  we were afraid to touch anything, were aghast at the saintly jesus portraits that always seemed to follow us with his tattletale eyes.  I just knew God was watching me, and not very pleased with my lack of scripture memorization.  I also knew that Audrey would make sure that we read our bibles and would require us to learn certain verses and recite them from memory for her.  She was always the man of the house, and would help us “settle in” by going over the rules of the house, and how she expected us to comport ourselves.  It was usually after these touching welcomes that Heather and I would lock eyes and try really hard not to cry.

“Oh my god, why are we here, and what in hell’s name are we going to do for two whole weeks?”  “Bible verses?  What the fuck?”  These were our thoughts as we stood on that busy carpet, took in the old lady smells of roses and talcum, and heard the ominous tick tock of the ornate clock, counting down our two weeks, slower than tar on a cold roof.  After the warden discussed policy, Aunt Lorelle would guide us to the chrystal candy dish where we were permitted to pick from the assortment of old lady hard candy.  These weren’t root beer barrels or bottle caps, these were lemon drops, cinnamon balls, hard colorful ribbony candy, peppermints and salt water taffy.  Sometimes they would also have those coconut neopolitan chews, that always stuck to the wrapper, and left your fingers sticky enough to attract lint.

Aunt Lorelle would then show us her fabulous Victrola Cabinet which she converted into a game chest, and have us choose something to play with.  She was kind, and fun, and always took pity on us in regards to the regimentation her sister preferred.  There were all sorts of things like Scrabble, Wahoo, and puzzles.  There were those boxes with steel marbles in them that you would have to tilt this way and that to snake the marble along the path from start to finish.  She had etch a sketches, water colors, and paint by number kits.  We didn’t mind that the paintings were all religiously inspired, or that the coloring books were Parables.  We were just looking for ways to feel like children, in a house of husks and shadows.

The saving grace of that house in Eufaula was the dinner table.  Aunt Lorelle and Aunt Audrey could cook like nobody’s business.  We would wake up and stare at them as they brushed their uncut knee length hair, braided each other, and wrapped those plaits into tight buns, that sat perfectly on the crowns of their heads.  We knew that they would be off to the kitchen to start breakfast.  They would prepare eggs and bacon, homemade buttermilk biscuits with blackberry jam (almost everything grown and prepared from their garden) fresh berries with cream and sugar, home made apple sauce from their apple trees, a bowl of fresh shelled pecans, orange juice, glasses of unadulterated milk, hash brown potatoes, sausage links, and home made cinnamon rolls.  My sister and I squirming in our seats through grace as our eyes bugged out of our heads at the vast bounty of deliciousness spread out before us.  Repeat this scenario at lunch and dinner, with delicacies that melt in your mouth (southern specialties cooked to such perfection, that 35 years later you drool at your keyboard in a state of desire).  The verses were our penance and the dinner table our salvation.

My great aunts were remarkable in many ways, and they taught us how they got by with their orchards and gardens,  They showed us the rain barrels they used to collect water.  My aunts insisted that they only wash their hair with rain water.  They showed us how they scrubbed their laundry, put it through the wringer, and hung it to dry.  We helped them can vegetables for winter, and make jams from the plum trees and berry thickets.  We hung rubber snakes in their fruit trees to keep the birds at bay, shelled black eyed peas, pecans, and shucked corn.  We went shopping in town, and got to ride around in their VW pop top camper.  Though they never would be confused as hippies, it’s amazing how similar their aspirations were.  Hippies trying to return to the land, and my Great Aunt’s whom never left it.  They traveled all over the United States and Mexico in that camper, and were always showing us pictures of their adventures.

My sister and I discovered two Three wheeler bikes in their shed, and my aunt Lorelle got them ready for us to ride.  They were like giant tricycles, but had a chain, gears, and brakes just like a bike.  They were so novel to us that we spent hours driving around Eufaula, and sometimes all the way to the lake.  When it got especially hot, we would ride with my aunts to the swimming areas, and spend the afternoon swimming inside the red roped bouys.  We were always on the lookout for water moccasins,as we had had several close calls over the years there.

We would say our prayers at night, and stay up and read for awhile.  My sister and I would whisper after the lights went out, and talk about all the strange things we did that day.  Amazed that they didn’t have a washing machine that cleaned the clothes automatically.  Amazed at watching them tat lace, quilt, and do embroidery.  Every beautiful thing they had in that house, from the frilly drapes, to the beautiful bedspreads, were hand made with pride and care.  My Aunt Audrey still had a wood burning stove on her property which she used for baking, and would describe how she would bake bread by how many pieces of kindling she would add to the fire.  We marveled that her pies and breads were so perfect, with so little modern convenience.

Before we knew it, we would be playing a game of wahoo with Audrey and Lorelle, and there would be a ring at the door.  The rest of our family would come spilling in, with my dad dragging ass at the rear; bashful to come in, and all ready to turn on his heal and leave.  We would share one last incredible meal together, talk about all the things we did and the stuff we learned before piling in the station wagon and heading home.  My oldest sister and baby brother teasing us because they didn’t have to stay the two weeks, and us ignoring them and talking about all the cool things we did. 

Somehow those two weeks melted into a blur of days, disappearing quickly like recess and summer break.  My Aunt Audrey changing from stiff to pleasant, and Lorelle from old maid to school girl.  Heather and I changed by them without our complicity, and certainly without our later admittance.   We acted happy to escape from them, yet inside we felt renewed, and as full of possibilities as all that crisp blank stationary rattling in our suitcase.