Sunday

My blog begins


I'm doing this thing they call blog because I've just got so much I have to get out of my system.

So much of what, I won't say.

They say everybody's doing the blogs but hardly anybody ever reads them, and I say that's a good thing because some of what I have to tell just might knock some socks off.

I have to say I never in this world thought I'd be caught dead doing such a thing because I hate computers. I hate cell phones, video players, all the little gadgets that blink and cut loose chiming when you're at church or the mall. I hate most of what's on TV and at the movie theaters, too, and those big screens they use at the church now, where the new preacher--he's a big ole preacher boy, too, with a baby face and a massive gut--looks like he's spread all over the walls, but I've got arthritis in my fingers and it's just too hard to write things out in that little notebook the kids got me.

My daughter Lou Ann gave me that notebook after those people in Asheville made that documentary film about my life called The Days Between the Years, and she said: "Mama, I know you've got more to tell. You ought to write down more of your memories."

And I said to her, "Lou Ann, for years--YEARS! --I tried like Hell to tell you all how it was back in the Great Depression and not a one of you paid it a bit of mind." And she said, "Mother, don't talk that way."

And I said, "And why not? Whoever made the word "Hell" into a cussword, anyhow? The Bible itself is full of that kind of talk, and if anybody who claimed they ever read it really did, they'd know that.

And besides, you know I try my damndest to be a good Christian," I said.

And she said, "Mother, what am I going to do with you?"

And I said, "You know exactly what you're going to do with me: You're going to visit me now that I'm old, baby me when I'm sick, and bury me under the clods when I croak." What is it about me that makes me want to pick at her like that? She's a good girl. She swallowed hard and tried to smile and tried not to say anything, but I knew she was thinking that I was talking like that in association with my dementia. But she was wrong about that.

I do what I do and say what I say with a clear-cut purpose in my mind. I want to be known as the kind of good Christian woman whose heart is in the right place but who's not afraid to let a "damn" fly when she gets worked up. The Lord did, didn't he? He'd take a little nip every once in a while, too.

Back to the blog. I learned to do it over at Delores's. That's my neighbor, Delores Ledbetter. I was over there when one of her grandkids was doing this blog thing, trying to show her how, and I looked over his shoulder and figured out it wasn't too awful hard to do.

I heard him tell Delores, "Grammaw, you can do this. If you can type, you can do this."

Well, Delores wasn't paying a bit of attention because Tippy was doing that thing a dog does when it gets too affectionate with your leg, and Delores was saying "Tippy, now stop that, honey! You're too old for that!"

And you can be too old for it, I say, no matter what kind of gizmos you find in Dr. Leonard's catalog.

But anyway, I figured if Delores's grandson even thought she could do a blog, I figured I could, too. So I came back home--Delores just lives right next door--and started in on it without telling a soul. I have to say it wasn't exactly as easy as it looked and a time or two I cussed at the Google people and wished the computer would blow up like that other one I had did that time, but I kept on until I got it to the way it is now.

So, I guess now I'm set to pour out my guts.

Stay tuned.