Mama is feeling so much better than last night. I can tell because her breathing is not like Puff the Magic Dragon on crack. Last night, it was pretty messed up. But I can also tell because she is telling everyone that comes in the room stories and tall tales of days gone by. Thanks to letting her lungs rest and all of the medications, she’s returned to apprise her role of the Queen of Gab. And I’m very thankful.
One of tonight’s stories was one of my favorites. Forty seven years ago, Mama and Daddy bought the old home place that she still calls home. It was ten acres of Georgia jungle that would make even George of the Jungle jealous. But that’s only because it was overgrown from several years of neglect. Jungles have all sorts of critters but Ned No Legs was the one who wasn’t invited but crashed the party anyway.
I was a toddler at the time and went dawdling down the front steps. At the bottom of the steps, spread out really long in the sun was Mr. Ned No Legs, the copperhead snake. I stepped right over Ned and turned around to shout, “Look! A snake!” Now I know some of you may find this hard to believe but I was once a tomboy and wouldn’t have thought twice about snatching that snake up and shaking him around like a lasso. This was precisely why mama and daddy worried about Ned and all of his family.
Taking a suggestion from Aunt Dana, mama agreed that cats would be the way to tackle the Ned problem. Lucky for us, Aunt Ruby had a calico cat whose fertility was blessed by Aphrodite herself. That cat was rumored to be such a hussy that she kept a kitten assembly line every six weeks. Aunt Dana and Aunt Gladys wrestled up a box full of various aged calico cats and shoved them in the trunk of Gladys’ Pontiac. They drove the cats from LaGrange to a Columbus on a warmish spring day. It was a cat delivery but they were also going to visit with my grandmother, Nettie, or Nannie as I called her.
When they arrived with the passel of angry, hot cats in a Pontiac, the preacher was visiting with Nettie. They didn’t know who it was so being gracious Southern ladies, they stayed outside until the unknown visitor left. Realizing they couldn’t leave the cats cooped up in the trunk, they cracked the trunk to give the cats some air. Just as the preacher was saying his goodbyes from the porch, a truckload of angry, wild cats went flying out of the trunk like little calico bullets of fur. I’m sure Nannie gasped something like, “Lord, have mercy.”
The cats that remained in the box in the trunk were obviously the slowest of the bunch and may have suffered a heat stroke while waiting on the preacher. But they were the cats that stuck around. I can only imagine a conversation between Aunt Dana and Aunt Gladys but I bet it went something like this.
“Well, Gladys, I told you those cats didn’t need to go in the trunk! Now how are they going to keep Prissy (aka ME) away from those snakes?!” Dana scolded.
“My word! Well I guess you’re right. I didn’t know they’d come runnin’ out of there like wild pigs in the collard patch!” Gladys huffed.
“I don’t know why not, Glad! It took an hour to chase them down and I had to grab three by the tail!” Dana exclaimed.
Preacher cleared his throat, “Afternoon, ladies. Looks like them cats were possessed by the devil. They wouldn’t eat them snakes no way.”
Nannie stood on the porch wringing her hands, “Get on inside this house.” She shook her head and hoped Preacher wouldn’t tell the rest of the WMU about her crazy sisters.
Now I don’t know if any of that happened but I could see it happening. And in the grass, little Prissy was using Ned No Legs as a lasso for the cats. Yippee-ki-yay, Ned! Meeee-ow!!!
Messpot Diaries 