Great Momma's Story (a "Between the Letters Post")
Prompt words in red.
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She dabbed at the smear of mustard on the bodice of one of her everyday dresses, cleared her throat to bring the room to attention, and began to deliver one of her “back in my day” speeches.
“Why, back in my day there was no paved highway running through town, just a dirt road with wooden sidewalks. Now, understand, the sidewalks weren’t all over town, not even all of Main Street, just that block ‘round city hall. In front of the general store, by Bidwell’s Barber (you know the Bidwell family...they own that supermarket over to Mason Lane now)." She sniffed into her linen handkerchief, the one she’d embroidered with her initials decades earlier. "The Methodist church was right along there too. The Baptists a block down had to make do walking in the weeds along the road’s edge. Whenever they had a funeral, or gathered to baptize, they’d pray the rain held off. I’d seen plenty of wagon wheels splatter their Sunday best!”
“It was quite an ordeal to go to town back then,” she nodded to herself in reflection. “Hitching up the horses. We’d have to dangle a carrot in front of ol’ Sally’s nose to get her out of the stable. You know, she was afraid of her own shadow, our Sally was. Started with bees. They stung her good one day after she disturbed a nest. Before you knew it, she shied from the chickens in the yard! Pretty soon it was simpler to just walk to town, if triple the time. We’d be glowing with damp (if I may be so crude as to mention it) before we got to your Uncle’s place down the road. If he was home, and obliging, he’d drive us in his own rig. Did I say, “obliging”? Oh, your Uncle Sim… he could be a wild one! He would not be so much “obliging,” as sober. Now, mind you don’t repeat that!”
By this time, her voice had slowed, words petering out into light snores, growing more powerful by the minute. Snores she always insisted were not hers. “Ladies do NOT snore,” she insisted.
It took all my persuasion, along with threats, to keep the great-grandchildren from recording on their phones. I wasn’t convinced they only wanted to prove the snores to their Great Momma. I worried she’d end up a social media sensation!
©2022 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights Reserved
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