May 10, 1965
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky on the day after Mother's Day. Everybody always makes such a big deal out of Mother's Day. I guess that's good. Most mothers need a day when they are a big deal. But I don't much like Mother's Day. You see, not everybody has a good mother. I didn't.
As Dad likes to say, good mothers don't grow on trees. They're made by God. I used to wonder if that was true how come God didn't make me a better one. My mother never liked me. I was a pest. Unwanted. A bother. She never hit me or anything like that. I used to wish she would since that would prove she knew I was there. But no. She just pretended I didn't exist.
Sometimes I wondered if I was invisible. And after I got over my mother wishing I was, I decided being invisible might be fun. That's when I started sneaking up close to people talking in the church yard after Sunday services to see if they would notice me eavesdropping. They hardly ever did, but unfortunately I was never invisible to Dad. I got into big time trouble with that eavesdropping stuff.
But even though my mother was the pits, I had a great grandmother. Mama Mae loved me. She wasn't in a big hurry to go to heaven, but I guess the Lord was in a hurry for her to get up there and start planting flowers for Him. She died planting tulips one year. So whenever I see tulips, I imagine Mama Mae smiling down from heaven on me.
Aunt Love took over for Mama Mae helping Dad out at the house and trying to make me behave. The two of us have had our rough spots, for sure. I don't exactly act the way Aunt Love thinks a preacher's daughter should. Maybe I don't. But Dad loves me anyway and Aunt Love and I mostly put up with one another. She doesn't hug my neck or anything but she does sometimes say something nice to me now and again. And I try really hard to not get on her nerves. She has enough problems with the forgetfulness without me messing with her nerves too.
So everybody doesn't have a loving mother. Some mothers don't kiss their kids' skinned knees or teach them prayers at night or tucks them in at night. Some are like me with mothers who never wanted them and just don't like them all that much. What do we do on Mother's Day when everybody else is hugging moms and singing their praises? I guess I remember Mama Mae and think of her tulips. And sometimes I feel sorry for myself and cry.
On to the next episode of Bailey's Bug.
BAILEY'S BUG by Jocie Brooke
(Continued from last week)
CHAPTER 15
The next morning, the big yellow monster bus roared down the street and woke Bailey. That meant Reid would be shooting out the door and down the walk. The bus would stop, open its door and swallow Reid up. It would be hours before it brought Reid back.
Bailing jumped up and shook to get ready. He had to keep Reid from being swallowed by the bus. Instead he had to get him to follow Bailey back to Skelley and Lucinda.
Bailey's throat got tight. The bus might be as hard to face down as the bulldozer. The monster bus was always blowing its horn if Reid was a second late coming out of the house. Bailey wouldn't have but a couple of minutes before Reid disappeared into the bus.
If only Lucinda was there to tell him what to do. She'd know. Lucinda always knew.
But she wasn't there and the bus was getting closer. Bailey stared at the front door of the house, ready to charge in front of Reid when he came outside. Just the thought of seeing Reid again made Bailey's tail do circles in spite of the bus coming.
His tail lost its wag when the bus passed by the house without so much as slowing down. It didn't even honk. Bailey stared at the door behind him. Was he at the wrong house, after all? Bailey took a big sniff, and his tail started wagging again. Reid was there. He hadn't come out the door, but he was there, somewhere inside.
Bailey couldn't wait a second longer. He banged his paws up against the door and barked for all he was worth. The door stayed closed. He ran around to the back of the house. That was how he had to go into the house. Through the back. He found the back door and jumped against it.
He couldn't quit barking. His ears were ringing. Bailey didn't know the door was opening until Reid's mother was there, staring at him.
The sight of Mrs. Alexander made Bailey bark even louder. He whipped his tail back and forth and hopped around the porch.
Reid's mother didn't look happy. She looked mad. She stepped out the door and smacked Bailey right in the face with a towel. "Get away from here, you mangy mutt." She snapped the towel at him again. "Go on. Get!"
Bailey looked behind him to see what she was chasing away. Nothing was there. She couldn't be intending to hit him with the towel. She couldn't be telling Bailey to get. He must have been making so much noise he hadn't heard her right.
"I hear a dog, Mama."
At the sound of Reid's voice, Bailey got so excited his barks were high, yipping sounds. Then Reid was right there in the door. Bailey tried to push past Mrs. Alexander to lick him. Mrs. Alexander swatted him across the eyes and started closing the door.
"It's just an old stray. I don't know why he's carrying on so." Mrs. Alexander looked back at Bailey. "Get away, dog. Go on now."
"He sounds like Bailey." Reid was at the door with his books and lunchbox.
"All dogs sound the same. Even strays."
"I don't think so. Bailey sounds different. Sort of like this."
Bailey barked louder and jumped even higher. Why couldn't they see it was him?
(To be continued. To read the rest of the story just look for it up above.)
March 16, 1966
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. It's four days until the calendar says spring. Then it will be a while longer before I'll see any new dogwood blooms, but I can think about them coming. And all the other flowers too.
Back when Mama Mae was still living, she would be out in the yard as soon as it was warm enough to dig in the ground so she could start planning all the stuff she wanted to plant. She planted some of it in the fall. Things like tulip bulbs. I miss Mama Mae's tulips. Dad says I could buy some bulbs and plant some of my own, but Mama Mae's were always so cheerful and special.
Before she died when I was nine, I would get off the school bus there and in the springtime, those tulips would be waving at me. Happy to see me the way Mama Mae always was. It's good when people you love are happy to see you.
See, it was never that way with my mother. I don't think she was ever glad to see me. But Mama Mae was. She would have a hug waiting for me and some kind of treat. She sometimes made this icing stuff out of confectionery sugar and butter and milk. Then she'd put it between graham crackers. She called them poor folks' sandwich cookies, but I felt rich when I was sitting on the porch beside her with a graham cracker cookie in my hand and looking out at her tulips. Sometimes I pretended those tulips were little girls all wanting to play with me.
Mama Mae had dogwood trees too. A pink one and a white one. She told me that the dark spots on the center of the ends of the petals stood for the Lord's blood shed on a cross. The petals make a kind of cross shape too. Mama Mae always had ways of making the Bible come to life. I guess she was so good at loving and helping folks know more about the Bible that the Lord decided he needed her help up in Heaven. For the longest time, I had a hard time believing the good Lord might know best about that. Seemed like He would have had plenty of help up in heaven without my grandmother. I needed Mama Mae. But Dad says the Lord always knows best and helps us through every hard spot.
That's where I left Bailey and Lucinda last episode posting. In a hard spot with coyotes surrounding them! Let's see if they can get out of that trouble without losing too much fur.
BAILEY'S BUG by Jocie Brooke
(When we last left Bailey, Lucinda and Skelley, they were surrounded by very unfriendly coyotes while the rain was beating down outside and flooding the barn they were in.)
"What now?" Skelley asked.
Bailey wasn't sure whether it was the baton in the old dog's mouth that made his words sound so shaky or whether it was the coyotes edging ever closer to them
"I don't know," Bailey said. "Do you know some kind of circus trick that might make the coyotes run away or decide we are friends?"
"For a truth, I know all sorts of circus tricks, but none that would entertain a coyote, I fear." The baton rattled in the old dog's mouth, and he clenched his teeth tighter on it. "Old Asaph's not here for us to leap up on and ride away. Besides, even if standing on me head would help, I might just drown what with the water getting deeper around us. Sorry, lad."
Bailey looked up at Lucinda.
"Don't look at me." Lucinda spat out the words. "Even cats can't make coyotes disappear."
The coyotes raised their noses toward Lucinda and sniffed. They started yipping and yammering between themselves.
"I don't like the sound of that." Bailey shook his head until his ears flapped. The water was getting deeper under his belly and pushing him toward the coyotes. He needed to think of something. Fast. He gave Skelley a sideways look. "Maybe you could leap over top of them, Skelley, and get away."
"Maybe I could, lad, but where would that leave you and Miss Lucinda?"
"They can't get Lucinda up in the barn."
Bailey ran his tongue out around his mouth. "And if you fly over top of them, they could be so surprised they won't notice me slipping past them." Bailey didn't believe that would happen, but they had to try something.
"It's been many a moon since I made such a leap. It might be that I will just land smack in the middle of them."
Bailey looked at the coyotes again with their narrow eyes and snarling mouths. "If you do, I'll jump in there with you and we'll fight them off." Somehow Bailey managed not to let his voice shake. "They aren't so tough and we have to try something. The water is getting deeper."
The water was brushing his belly now.
Lucinda crept across a pole until she was directly over their heads. "You can do it, Skelley. Listen to the music in your head and remember how you did leaps for your master."
Skelley looked up at Lucinda. Then he tightened his mouth around the painted stick, shut his eyes, and stepped back a few steps. His head swayed back and forth as if he really were hearing music. Then he splashed through the water and bounded up into the air.
The old dog sprang so high that for one heart-stopping moment, Bailey thought he was going to make it clear over the coyotes. But all of the sudden, Skelley stalled. He frantically scrambled at the air with his long, bony legs, but it didn't help. He plummeted down on top of the biggest coyote.
With a silence more terrible than any amount of yips and yowls, the other four coyotes piled on top of Skelley. Bailey let go of the ground with his toenails and the he was swept into the middle of the melee. Up above him, Lucinda was making a terrible snarling noise unlike anything he'd ever heard come out of her mouth. She leaped down onto the back of one of the coyotes and dug in her claws. The coyote yowled and tried to knock off the cat.
Bailey wasn't exactly sure what happened next. He kept trying to see Lucinda and Skelley, but with the coyotes biting and pulling on him, he couldn't. Teeth snapped. Mouths growled. And a surge of water pushed him off his feet. He'd be a goner if he couldn't get up on his feet.
All at once, the barn creaked and groaned just the way the house back in the city had done when the bulldozer pushed on it. Bailey scrambled up to his feet and looked around for the yellow monster, but there was nothing but brown water.
"It's coming down." Lucinda leaped away from the coyotes to land on a broad plank.
She floated past Bailey as more boards raining down around them. With an awful shudder, what was left of the barn shifted and started drifting on the water.
The coyotes forgot all about Bailey as they howled and took off for dry ground. They disappeared through a hole in the side of the barn.
Bailey looked around frantically for Skelley, but all he could see was muddy water. No old dog. Bailey dodged a plank as he fought against the current back to where Skelley had disappeared into the coyotes.
"Where is he?" Lucinda leaped from board to board back toward Bailey.
"I can't see him, but he's got to be here. He's got to." Bailey stuck his head under the water, but he couldn't see the old dog. He popped back out of the water and yelled, "Skelley."
Lucinda was yelling too.
(To be continued)
Remember, the whole story so far is under the Pages title up top of my report here.
Thanks, everybody, for reading. Have you ever been in a hard spot?
June 3, 1965
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Holly County. School was out last Friday and then the folks at church say we have to have Vacation Bible School right away. No time off. They must think all us kids will forget how to sit still or maybe be able to use our brains for learning if we have a few days without somebody teaching us something.
I'm not really complaining. I love Bible School. I've loved Bible School since I can remember and I know I went even when I could barely talk. Before she died, Mama Mae took me every year. She loved teaching Bible School. Not DeeDee, that's my mother. Since she took off when I was five, I don't remember much about DeeDee and Bible School, but I don't have to remember much to know she wouldn't have been one of the women giving up a week or two of her time to teach kids Bible verses or get glue and paint all over her making macaroni collages and pencil holders out of soup cans.
But I'm real happy that plenty of women in the church do just that. Doesn't matter how many beans are ready in their gardens or if the strawberry patch is ripe for picking. Or anything else like sewing or cleaning. No, indeed. They put all that on the back burner and head out to Bible School to make learning about Jesus and the Bible fun.
I'm too old to be one of the kids learning in Bible School now. Gosh I'm already fourteen, so this year I'll be helping with the Beginners. I already help with them in Sunday school. It so much fun teaching them to sing "Deep and Wide" and "Jesus Loves the Little Children." Bible School will be even more fun. Mrs. Haskins is the main teacher. She says she's going to let the kids make hand prints.
Oh boy, we'll have paint all over everything, but that's okay. We'll have fun. And we'll have cookies and lemonade and maybe ice cream on Friday. We'll get to play Duck, Duck, Goose and frozen tag. We'll get to sing and hear Bible stories. I love hearing those stories over and over. I especially like the one about David and Goliath. And then there's the little boy who shared his lunch. And Jesus walking on the water. I could go on and on. But I better save some for Bible School.
Have you ever been a Bible School teacher? Or maybe remember going to Bible School? What was your favorite part?
May 19, 1965
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. The peonies are blooming here in Holly County. Most every yard has at least one bush. Nobody knows who planted the first bush in Holly County. Some early settler must have carried a bulb in from Virginia, because, to hear people tell it, every bush since has been started from it. Nobody went to the greenhouse. A few bulbs were dug up from that first bush and given to a neighbor and then that neighbor gave a bulb or two to their neighbors and soon the whole county is blooming with peonies.
That's okay with me. I love peonies. I like their spicy smell and their big fluffy blooms. My Mama Mae had some bushes that I used to jump over just because I wanted to see if I could. She never fussed at me even if I knocked down a bloom now and again. She did always hope it wouldn't rain while the peony bushes were in full bloom so the flowers wouldn't get so heavy that they fell down on the ground. If it did rain, she'd get her scissors and cut the fallen ones to fill a vase with the luscious flowers. Then the whole house would smell peony spicy.
I miss Mama Mae. She died one spring when I was nine. She was planting tulips and the Lord decided he needed her up in heaven. I'm thinking the flower gardens are prettier up there now. She liked all kinds of flowers, but she loved the peonies. She used to tell me this old saying, “A rose is a rose, but a peony is a friend forever.” She said that was because once you planted them, you just let them grow and bless you year after year with blooms.
I liked it when Mama Mae told me old sayings about flowers. I wish I could remember more of them. I should have written them down but when you're a little kid the way I was then, you don't think about stuff like that. But here's one that Aunt Love says sometimes. "A beautiful flower begins its life in dirt."
But then the Bible says the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed life into him. So guess we can all be glad of a little dirt.
Do you like peonies? Do you have any in your yard? If you do, they might come from that first bush in some Hollyhill yard.
Jocie Brooke here - reporting from Hollyhill. I'm not exactly on Main Street tonight. I'm at our house where I live with Dad and Aunt Love. I haven't told you all about Aunt Love yet, but I will. I did tell you about her cat, Jezebel. Right, I know Aunt Love says the cat's name is Sugar, but I think my name fits her better. You'll understand that if you read my book, Scent of Lilacs. What a cat! But she suits Aunt Love. You have to know my Aunt Love to understand. I don't know who named her Love, but sometimes names don't tell the story. Then again, I don't always know the whole story. I'm not telling you that here, because that would mess up the fun of reading my book. Here I'm just reporting extra stuff. I need practice writing if I'm going to be a writer when I grow up. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to write books or newspaper pieces. Or maybe I'll learn to take great pictures too and go on fabulous adventure writing stories for National Geographic. Wouldn't that be neat?
But tonight, since we're having that grandmother contest to celebrate my book, I'm talking about tulips and my grandmother. I had the very best grandmother in all the world. I know you may think yours is best, but mine was best for me. She loved flowers. As soon as it started getting warm in the spring she'd be out there digging in the dirt. After my mother took off, she moved right in with me and Dad and loved me even when I made messes or was too loud or didn't listen. I have trouble with that listening sometimes, but I was always ready to listen to my grandmother when she was telling me stories. Or telling me about her flowers. She especially loved tulips. She said there was something extra cheerful about tulips popping up out of the ground in the Spring and adding color to the world. Red tulips were Mama Mae's favorite. And then one day when I was nine, the Lord decided he needed her up in heaven to plant flowers up there. I didn't know why he needed her more than me. I can't imagine how that could have been, and I'm not sure if Dad understood either. That day when Mama Mae died out in her tulip bed, I had to go get Wes to get Dad back on his feet. Some things are just too hard even if you are a preacher. But after Dad prayed about it and we cried a bunch we somehow came through on the other side of that dark valley. Dad said Jesus was walking right alongside us, crying with us.
I still want to cry sometimes when I see red tulips, but Dad says I shouldn't feel that way. That I should look at the tulips and see Mama Mae smiling down on me, wanting me to have a great life. Dad says everybody has troubles and while we've had plenty, that we can always look around and see other folks with more. Dad and I, we were doing okay by ourselves. That's why I wasn't real excited about Aunt Love moving in with us after Mama Mae died, but Dad said she needed us and we needed her. Maybe so. But I sure didn't need that cat!
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. One of the winners turned in her book, so Pam from Kansas is getting to read all about Hollyhill now. People have been giving away copies of my book everywhere. I think that's loads of fun. If you haven't already entered, you've still got plenty of time to enter the Scent of Lilacs Celebration giveaway. Check it out at Ann's website.
See you next week. I'll try to think of something funny after I felt a little like crying this week. It's all those grandmother stories I've been reading over on Ann's blog, One Writer's Journal. You know she's the one that wrote those books all about me and Hollyhill.
