Directions: |
Directions:A few years ago Sean several times expressed the worry that he'll grow bald as he gets older like Daddy, Uncle Jim, Uncle Voyt, and Uncle Red. I told him he'd inherited my hair – thick and coarse – which I inherited from the Lee side of my family. Doug and A.G. have thick hair and aren't going bald. I told Sean I thought he would always have lots of hair. Then ironically in October of 1996, he left the house one afternoon and went over to a friend's and got him to shave his head. When the preacher's little 3 year old boy saw Sean, he asked his mother what happened to Sean's hair. She told him Sean shaved his head and because the 3-year-old seemed worried, she assured him Sean's hair would grow back. His happy response was, "Will Brother Gary's grow back?" Bro. Gary is a deacon about 50 years old with a hairline similar to Voyt, Jim, Red, and Gordon.
One time when we were little, Doug popped Daddy on his bald head with the butt of a toy gun. Daddy nearly always had scratches or marks on his head. But he always wore a hat outside. His head would "blister" if he didn't.
One time Doug and I had a cotton patch. It was between the house and where the chicken houses used to be. Lesley, Nona, Nina Barron, and Rocky Johnson were helping us pick the cotton. A.G. was about 6 years old and he had MAH syndrome (Mean As Hell).* He wasn't helping us, but he wouldn't leave us alone. He was being one big, annoying pest. When Daddy came outside, he got onto A.G., and A.G. sassed him and then started running from him down a cotton row. Daddy caught him and pulled up a cotton stalk and whipped him with it. A.G. was a cute little fella. He was wearing overalls. When the whipping was finished, Daddy said, "Now, go to the house!" A.G. stood there and waved at us and said, "Bye, shitasses!" Rocky and Nona laughed about it the rest of the day, and when everybody went home, Nona said, "Well, bye, shitasses!"
After Aunt Bernice died, Nona used to come down to Aunt Bertha's all the time, especially in the summer. Drennon would come some too. He, Lesley, and Doug (and sometimes, I think, Randy Parris) would "camp out" and fish in Uncle Voyt's pond across from the house David lives in now. I don't think they ever actually spent the night down there. Nona and I would go down there too, and we would all smoke rabbit tobacco.
Nona could turn her eyelids inside out, and she could pinch the hardest I've ever been pinched – with her toes. And she could talk just like a man. She would sneak up on you and speak in that deep voice and scare you half to death.
We moved back to Helicon from Michigan in January of '61. I was in the 9th grade, and Doug was in 7th. Daddy had got the house Mama lives in now ready for us ahead of time. He had built that house, and we were living in it at the time we moved to Michigan when I was in 1st grade. Aunt Bertha and Uncle Clovis lived in it awhile while we were in Michigan. Then after we decided to move back, Daddy came and painted and did some other things before he moved us back. A.G. cried when we drove away from our house in Michigan the day we left there. When we got to Alabama, we went to Grandpa Lee's house at Jones Chapel. Doug and I were going to start school the next day at Meek. Daddy took us down to Aunt Bertha's. The three of us spent the night with her. It was real cold that night. Aunt Bertha heated a blanket each for Doug and me and wrapped our feet in them when she helped us get to bed that night. I'm sure she heated one for Lesley too. That is a warm memory.
When we lived in Michigan, one time Aunt Blanche, Uncle Roy, Drennon, and Jane came to visit us. Aunt Bertha and Uncle Clovis and Lesley may have come too. What I remember is that Jane was just a little girl – 3 maybe. I guess Drennon was MAH too. He told her to say, "I'm a horses's ass." Of course, she said it, and Aunt Blanche spanked her with a hair brush.
Mama said that one time soon after she and Daddy married, and neither Drennon nor I was born yet, Daddy had a car, a 2-seater I think. This may have been when the four of them lived in Phil Campbell. Mama and Daddy were driving somewhere – to Helicon or Cullman, I guess. Aunt Blanch and Uncle Roy were following them. Somehow Daddy ran the car off the road and had a minor wreck. When Aunt Blanch and Uncle Roy came along and saw what happened there was a crowd I guess of onlookers, and the highway patrol was keeping people away from the scene. They weren't going to let Aunt Blanche and Uncle Roy approach. Aunt Blanche set them straight in a hurry. She said, "I'll have you know that's my brother and his wife, and I am going down there and make sure they're all right!" She did, too! And the highway patrol let her, and Mama and Daddy weren't hurt.
Last January (1996), we missed 6 days of school when it snowed. Aunt Ilva was snowed in too, and she took the opportunity to look through some boxes of Aunt Bertha's things which Lesley had given her when he sold Aunt Bertha's house. She found a bunch of letters Daddy had written home when he was overseas during World War II. She gave them to Mama, and Mama gave them to me. I read through all those letter, cards, and telegrams written more than 50 years ago, before I was born, before he and Mama married. What a strange sensation! I was displaced in time. In one letter that was written at Thanksgiving/Christmas time – (I think it was 1944. I believe the war had ended, and he was irritated because he hadn't been sent home yet. I believe married men got to go first. Anyway, I think it was close to a year before he made it home.) – he closed by saying it was time to go to mess. They were having turkey dinner. He said he'd trade all the turkey dinners in the Navy for just one of his mother's buttered biscuits. And he'd been dead for 31 years when I read that.
You might could say Sean has always had a name "problem." Before he was born, we had picked out names for a boy and a girl. We liked Sean Connery and we liked the name Sean, so we chose that name, not actually naming him after Sean Connery. For a girl we had chosen the name Rhiannon from the Fleetwood Mac song. I'm glad now we don't have a girl named Rhiannon. Anyway, people have always spelled Sean's name wrong – Shawn, Shaun, Shane – and mispro¬nounced it – SEEN usually but even SEE-AHN or SHANE. The year he turned 5 in November was the year I started back teaching. We were at the Happy Hours Day Care Center to register him before I started to school. Miss Jo had let him go into the playroom while I filled out forms. She had to go to one of the other rooms, and when she passed through the playroom, she said, "Hey, Sean, how're you doing!" Sean said, "My name's not Sean." Miss Jo said, "Oh, I beg your pardon. What is your name?" Sean said, "It's not Sean, It's Fred." Later, after Sean had been in public school a year or two, one day he said he wished he had a different name. I asked him what name he'd like to have. He said, "Oh, just any good ole American name." Like Fred.
Then a few years ago when I was planning to go to the Sunday-after-Christmas Cleghorn dinner, I asked Sean if he was going with me. He said no, he wasn't a Cleghorn. I said, "I'll have you know you're half Cleghorn," but I couldn't wait to tell everyone what he said. Aunt Edna had taken chicken 'n dumplings, one of Sean's favorite foods. She sent Sean the leftovers, but she told me to tell him he had to claim being a Cleghorn. When I told him, he said, "Oh, all right. I'm part Cleghorn."
Everyone who hears the name Cleghorn the first time is fascinated by it. When I was in college, my professors always commented on my name the first day of class. When we were doing the paperwork to buy our new Pathfinder the day after Christmas, the salesman asked for the name of a relative who doesn't live in our household. Howie gave him Mama's name. He started to write Cleghorn and then did a double take and asked how to spell it. My principal found out my name was Cleghorn, and now he calls me Miss Cleghorn as much as he does Mrs. Lyons. Students always want to know personal things about their teachers. Things like "How old are you?" "What size shoe do you wear?" "Were you alive when electricity was discovered?" Last year they asked me my maiden name, and when I told them Cleghorn, they loved it and asked more questions about the name. One boy, Garrick, called me Miss Cleghorn the rest of the year. One day the principal walked in and as he started to say "Msss.....," Garrick said, "She's Miss Cleghorn." The principal said, "Yes, I know. Miss Cleghorn." Then another day, a boy named Keith was late to class. Keith is the most annoying pest in the school. If he knew I said that about him, he would feel proud. The principal wrote him a late pass that said, "Please admit Keith Cleghorn to class." I told him to never again put those 2 names together. One day this year, Keith asked the principal if he could wear a kilt to school. The principal said absolutely not. Keith wondered why not. He said he had Scotch in him. The principal told me about it and said he told Keith, "I'm sure you do." I said, "Oh no! He can't. Cleghorns originally came from Scotland." He said he meant the beverage, not the country.
When Daddy died, A.G. was 9 years old. When the hearse drove up with Daddy's body, A.G. took off running to the woods. Doug had to go look for him. A lot of people were at the house, and I was in the bedroom by the kitchen. The windows were open and Philip and Lila were outside looking for A.G. Philip was about 3 or 4. They couldn't find A.G., and I heard Philip say, "I guess he died, too."
When David was little, he went through a stage when he liked to cuss and tell tall tales. He'd say, "I killed the biggest _____ snake you've ever seen" One summer day Mama and Daddy were sitting at the kitchen table. Daddy had a watermelon patch, and there was a huge watermelon by the back steps. A.G. and David were outside and Mama and Daddy got really tickled when the heard David say, "_______! That's the biggest ______ watermelon I've ever seen."
*My principal is the one who came up with MAH. There is a public law now that requires public schools to provide equal opportunity education for handicapped students. There is a new "disability" that has been identified as ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and also ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). These disorders are often treated with the drug Ritalin. Jon Mullins, my principal, said some kids are MAH (Mean As Hell).
**This note was attached to the recipes and memories from Nita Lyons.
Jane, are you familiar with Kathryn Tucker Wyndham, the Alabama author who wrote Thirteen Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey? I have another book of hers, A Serigamy of Stories. "Serigamy" is a word her family coined. She says, "Roughly, the word means 'a whole lot, a heap of, a right smart, a goodly number,' as in 'He didn't have much money, but he had a serigamy of friends.'" I hope you get a "serigamy" of recipes and stories for your Cleghorn book. There is a serigamy of Cleghorns for sure. |
This recipe for Memories is from