Who was...

[beach blessings]

In replying toanother thred...I was blessed to remember one of my favorite people in the world...The wonderfully English mother of 3-30A locals...Mrs Hilda!

When she passed a couple years back...we all wrote a book together called "Hilda-isms". She was a pistol...dance and drink with you until the sun came up...but boy would she set you straight if "she thought" you needed it (Secret..Her daughters haven't fallen far from the cocunut tree).

Hilda taught me one of the best lessons in life through one of her ism's if you may. It was "In Me Coush". I asked her what it meant once...she simply replied "Oh, you will find that spot when you are ready to truly get it". I did too! Riding down 30A on my way home one evening during sunset. The sunroof was open, perfect song on the radio, beutiful sunset and all of a sudden there I was...In me Coush! I called her on my cell to report, she just lit up with delight and simply said..."now don't go and forget it now that you found it".

Lesson: Slow down...Enjoy...Catch your breath when you can...Don't be so busy you miss the moment all togehter!

 

[DuneAHH]

Excellent thread idea DD!
:scratch: hmmm... this requires some thought... I'll be back!
.
.and Mrs.Rocket -- I too am lovin' your Grandma & your siggy!

 

[NoHall]

The list is too long, and involves too many wenches!

 

[Smiling JOe]

Ricky L. (I'll refrain from using last name) I apologize to any other Ricky L's who is not this particular Ricky L. This Ricky L isn't a Florida resident.

I first met Ricky's brother, Dennis, a dishwashing dope dealer who was caught red handed stealing some shoes. Dennis was a smooth character, except for the criminal behavior. Ricky, came into the picture a few months later. Thin wirey character, very rough around the edges. Ricky was a trip. I've listened to Ricky tell stories about anything from screwing goats to giving crack to ladies who would sleep with him. Ricky was a dishwasher where I once worked. Back during the days of smoking being allowed in buildings, servers would bring ashtrays back to the kitchen to be washed. Ricky had instructed the entire staff that if anyone saw part of an unsmoked cigarette remaining in an ashtray, they were to bring it to him. I remember seeing Ricky smoke plenty of partially smoked Capri cigarettes -- you know the thin lady like cigarettes. Ricky was also a bit of a wine mixologist at heart. He was often seen mixing the remains from wine glasses, coming back to the dishwasher. He seemed to enjoy making his own unknown blends of red wine for his own consumption. I'm not sure that I believe Ricky's goat stories, but at the same time, I don't doubt them, and yes, there were several stories. Ricky had a good heart, and would do almost anything anyone asked of him. He was just a little messed up. When he started smoking crack, he was really hurting. He'd still come to work, but he couldn't do much but sit on a bunch of empty glass racks, bent over, moaning in pain. To hear Ricky talk was something all of its own. To understand Ricky, one would need to take a linguistics class given by Ricky. For some employees, it took them two to three years to begin to understand him. I was often his translator. I used to tease the new employees by telling them, "if you think Ricky is bad, you should listen to Mike T." Mike T is probably as memorable to me as Ricky. They were partners at the dishwasher station. Michael was mentally retarded, and even I would sometimes have to ask him 8-9 to repeat himself, and I still couldn't understand him. It took me at least a year before I ever comprehended anything he said. Ricky says that Mike got ran over by a semi-truck when he was a baby, and that messed him up. I remember one time when we hired a new chef, the chef said something that upset Mike. To get even, Mike decided to start breaking dishes. He kept sending the racks of plates and glasses through the dishwasher (conveyor style), and he never pulled them off the line when they went through the wash. He just kept sending more through. When the racks reached the lip at the end of the line, they began to buckle, sending them over the edge, one rack at a time. I heard at least three or four racks of plates break before I ever determined what was happening. The last time I saw Mike, he was standing in the middle of a four lane road, wearing a three piece, all white suit, with a purple shirt and white tie, trying to cross the road. Bless his heart. There was no traffic coming, but he couldn't decided whether or not to cross, going back and forth a step from the center yellow lines. Now that I think about it, I did see Mike one time after that. I took him a bunch of winter clothes when he got kicked out of his house and moved into a little room of a piece of crap building. He was so thankful for the clothes. There was only a bare mattress in his room and a brown grocery bag on the floor with some stuff in it. Very sad.

The more I type, the more other people pop into mind. There is a crazy homeless guy nicknamed Screamer, and it wasn't because of his library voice. He had only one voice, very loud. I don't have a clue what his real name is. I still have a photo of Screamer and me climbing over a barbed wire fence into a cow field, somewhere in Virginia. I learned a many important life lessons from Screamer. The most important one is the generosity of giving, and how it goes in circles. Screamer's goal in life was to open a soup kitchen to feed the hungry. He said that no one in the world should ever go without food. Through my acceptance of Screamer, he also taught me how much influence a single person can have on many others. I also learned that fancy possessions do not make a person who he is. It's the heart and soul which make the person. Screamer, now he is a truly unforgettable person and one of my many teachers of life.

 

[Smiling JOe]

I don't know how I forgot Scoopny (SCOOP-knee). I have no idea how to spell Scoopny, because I have never seen his name written, and that wasn't his real name anyone. If I had to guess, he got the name from working with a scoop aka - shovel. Scoopny was an elderly man, very thin, and very quite. I bet I heard Ricky L say more in one day than I heard Scoopny say in twenty years, but the man had a smile, especially when he stopped work in the garden or yard to roll a Prince Albert cigarette. I remember being 8 or 9 years old watching every move Scoopny made, rolling that cigarette. He seemed to take more pleasure in rolling the cigarette than smoking it. His rake would often be tucked under his arm when he rolled one. I always wanted to be doing whatever Scoopny was doing. If he was mowing grass, I'd be walking with him step for step. Tilling the garden, I was right behind him, every step.

Scoopny took a Social Security check and a Veteran Check every month. I have no idea what branch he served in or whether he was in a war. I seem to recall him being wounded while on duty, and that is why he got the veteran check. He also worked on our farm, but mostly in my grandma's yard or in our large garden. Like clockwork, with every paycheck, Scoopny would get liquored up and find his way into the ditch on the drive home from the "juke joint." I don't think he ever wrecked the car because he was never seen driving more than 30 mph, even when sober. He simply missed his driveway, turning in too early or too late. At least he didn't have farther to walk. Every Sat, or sometime Sunday, Scoopny would walk over to the house, borrow a truck or tractor to pull his car out of the ditch. His house was just across the street from our house. Scoopny did walk away from a crazy car crash down the road from the house. Investigators said that he had to be driving over 70 mph when his car ramped out of the ditch and severed a telephone pole. The car caught on fire and burned completely. Scoopny somehow got out of the car without a scratch on him, and he never talked about the incident. He just did his thing. I remember seeing Scoopny getting ran over by a calf one time when we were giving them vaccinations. (I say we, but I was just a young kid sitting on the fence, watching.) Scoopny got a broken color bone from that one, and a some major bruises, I'm sure, but he never complained about it. I also remember helping Scoopny put out a fire on time. I was in the yard, shooting birds and happened to see some flames shooting up from inside Scoopny's house. The front door was wide open and the flames covered the height of the door, but were inside the house. I ran down to try to get Scoopny out. It wasn't as bad as I thought, but there was a fire in the fireplace, and a big trail of fire from the fireplace onto the floor in front of it. His bed soon caught fire too. We managed to put out the fire with no serious harm or damage. Scoopny thanked me. I've never seen a man more energized. He told me that when he went to the store, he told the boy to put some fuel (diesel) in the can, but the boy must have put gas in it. He slung what he thought was diesel on the wood in the fireplace to light it up, but it ignited and the flame followed it back to the fuel can, creating a blazing gas fire. I learned a bit from Scoopny, especially the part about communicating and being careful of what you ask for.

 

[Paula]

LOVE this thread DD. What great stories on it. Here's mine.

My grandmother, my Nonna. She was Italian and lived in Italy during WW2 where her house was the Red Cross station on the front (the Gothic Line). She moved to the United states in her 20's to be with her husband, but then moved back to Italy for a while without him to raise her children in Italy and came back about 15 years later when the kids were grown (her daughters got married and stayed behind in Italy but my father came wiith her to help his parents with the family business - the luncheonette - in the US). Anyway, we grew up hearing stories that were very interesting then, but now are stunning when we think about the war as adults. I mentioned in another thread that Spike Lee is making a movie about the black "buffalo soldiers in Italy during WW2 and I think the movie, if it's like the book (The Miracle of Santa Anna), is going to be based on a fascinating story that she told us when we were little that I always remembered - I won't tell you what it is, though, because you'll have to see the movie which was filmed in the area my grandmother grew up in. When I read the part of the book that had this story that I was familiar with, I almost fell off my chair - OK, out of my recliner).

She swore in Italian a LOT and to this day I don't swear in English but I could be very comfortable swearing in Italian because those Italian swears are still music to my ears. She always lived in an apartment near us (and didn't have a lot of stuff) so she babysat my sisters and me regularly and we always felt comfortable just walking into her house at any time (no knocking, no calling ahead of time) and she had the best big hugs ever. My cousin says that he remembers going into her apartment as a teenage boy and getting one of her huge hugs and how it was strange for him because his face would get stuck between her big boobs - but he remembers these hugs very warmly). She was widowed when I was 2, so I always knew her on her own. She never learned to speak English (she said she passed the U.S. citizenship test by answering "Christopher Columbus" to every question and they let her in anyway), never drove, cooked amazing food, threw slippers at me when I misbehaved, told great stories, played cards for $ with her buddies and pokeno with us on weekend nights, always had some relative from Italy staying at her apartment until they got on their feet and were able to move on, told great stories that were sometimes kind of mystical, enjoyed eating watermelon and bread together, taught us Italian because we couldn't communicate with her in any other way, took us shopping and bought us matching dresses when we were little, and had a wicked sense of humor.

The photo is of her in Italy with her 4 kids (my dad's second from the left) a few years before the war. When we go to Italy, we still visit with My Zia Alabama (Aunt Alabama and I have no idea whey they named her "Alabama" who is now almost 90). My grandmother looked stern in photos (you didn't mess with my Nonna) but to me she was the happiest, warmest, most grounded person I knew.

 

[audie]

old colgate - he was a drunk that lived up the hill from our house when we lived in town and i was little. he pushed a wheelbarrow all over town and when he would feel like passing out just lay down in his wheelbarrow. he always managed to pass out in front of mom and dads garage in the back. mom would get so mad, one time she bought like 20 packs of the multi colored daisies you could stick in your bathtub to keep from slipping when showering. we covered old colgate, and his wheelbarrow in multicolored daisies stuck on with industrial adhesive. even to the bottoms of his shoes.

 

[Smiling JOe]

audie, that is hilarious! daisy stickers on the wheelbarrow. I know a guy who pushed a bicycle all over town, but a wheelbarrow? That is funny. (I used to have some orange, green and white daisies in my brown bathtub.)

 

[NoHall]

Fine. I'll bite. The one I'm going to tell you about isn't homeless nor does she do drugs (although she has threatened it,) and she is probably the one who sparked my love for SoWal.

When I was a junior in college, I un-declared my music major. I had no idea what I wanted to pursue at that point, but I was sure that I didn't want to stay in music. Problem was that you're supposed to declare a major when you're a junior, not undeclare it. I decided on religion, knowing that I would change it to something else as soon as I figured out what it would be.

I had to take Intro to Philosophy. I didn't really want to--I wasn't into all that "if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it" kind of crap. But on the first day of class, this tall, thin, bleached-blonde, very tan woman comes striding in and goes straight to the board, apologizing all the time in her husky voice for the location of the class, for being late, for some snafu that we all quickly forgot because she was making such an entrance. Without breaking her stride, she picks up the chalk and begins to write, still talking:

385-6065
​

"That's my home phone number. If you need anything at all, you call me. When I first started teaching, I was always shocked at the end of the semester to find out that someone in the class thought that I hated them the entire time. If you're mad at me for something, call me. Just don't call after nine because that's when my husband Billy and I get re-acquainted."

"This course is about love because all good courses are about love..."

I changed my major to Philosophy almost immediately and Ginger Justus became my adviser and my life-long friend. I had lunch in her office every day for the next two years--she ordered pizza for us. The woman taught me to think. I once asked her how many degrees she had, and she told me, "Oh, honey, I don't know. It doesn't matter." But I knew that she had a B.S. in biology and another one in English and that she was valedictorian of her law class at Vanderbilt. (Since then she has earned her doctorate in philosophy.)

But she also gave me lots to think about. She taught me that a good southern girl should read Gone with the Wind every 4 years. She taught me to appreciate poetry, although I could never muster up her love for it. (She and her sister Becky play golf together, and shout lines of poetry as they tee off.) I still visit her when I go to Nashville, and she's always doing something new--she gets together with her sister and her friends once a week and they drink wine and paint. That little group also inspired her to become a songwriter. The last time I stayed at her house, she said she had been to the Bluebird Cafe and wondered how hard it cold be to write music, so she started writing.

I said that she doesn't do drugs, but she told me she has thought about it before because she really wants to have a genuine mystical experience and she thought mushrooms or something might facilitate the process. But they also might hamper it. As far as I know, she still smokes long, skinny cigarettes. Couple that with her blonde hair with dark roots, her long, fast stride, her husky voice, and the red convertible she tears around in (a BMW named Scarlett) and you understand why my family calls her Cruella (although they're quick to add that she's the sweet version.)

I loved to just hear her talk. She walked for exercise, and I went with her once. She could walk a 5 mile loop in 45 minutes and never stop talking. She knew the given name of every dog on the loop and the botanical name of every tree. She had ranked the 15 most embarrassing things that ever happened to her, and she actually enjoyed telling all of them but #1. She said that she couldn't tell me about #1 until after I graduated, because it was so incredibly embarrassing that she couldn't bear to see me in class knowing that I knew. It had something to do with Elvis, and she really, really loved Elvis. Shortly after I graduated, I asked her about it and big tears came to her eyes. I couldn't stand to see her cry, so I told her not to worry about it. Since then I've also learned that her life has been even more colorful than the stories she has told me herself. She has watched history from the front row, and her family has been involved with things that have put me in shock for days on end. I still don't know what happened with Elvis.

I don't think she has any idea how deeply she impacted me, even though I tell her every time I see her.

 

[steele mama]

Great stories. Paula, I love your Nonna. I don't think you said when you lost her? So much history she experienced.

One of mine would have to be my daughters' paternal grandfather, Papa Kenny. He was the best Grandpa ever. He was a cargo conductor for the Sante Fe railroad so was "out" every other day or so on his run to Gainesville, Texas from Arkansas City, Kansas. During his years "running" through Oklahoma he became the greatest Oklahoma Sooner fan and so raised his kids on the same. He had a temper but was the sweetest man underneath that you would ever want to meet. Some people thought his wife's name was Dammit Jean because that is usually what he said when talking to her. But they sure did love each other!

Now to the grandpa part. He LOVED those girls. It was he who would take them shopping for school clothes and make sure their school tuition was paid. He would come to pick them up about once a week to take them out for breakfast to Bricks or Daisy Mae's. He would just drop by anytime to see his girls. And of course he wouldn't miss a game or gymnastic event. He was the greatest. He fought hard to live in spite of heart disease. First heart attack was in 1969. Followed by valve replacement years later and bypass surgery. Finally let go when he was 71 after 4 resuscitations. Samuel Kenneth Steele. There is much more that could be said about his life but too much to say here.