together!!
Good morning, Laylonny!
Funeral Plans
I SHOULDN’T be tellin this secret, but you can just call me Ms. Can’thelpit cause I just can’t help it! I got to tell it!
You can say what you willomay but I believe the Lord gives you something every time something else is taken away! If you got half a piece of sense, you will find that to be true. Just call me Ms. Senseless cause it has taken me so many years to truly know what that means and then I learned it from someone else … one of my friends, Willetta. I call her “Letta.”
Letta and me kinda grew up together in this little one horse town, but I believe no matter how small a town is, it’s still got some of every kind of people the whole world got in it.
Letta’s people was as good to her as two poor people could be. She was their only child, and the Lord had sure blessed them in that one thing. They both worked hard. The mama sewing and cooking for white folks and the daddy farming his own little piece of land and doing odd jobs and also working at the plant just outside of town there. They must have loved each other too, another blessing of the Lord’s,cause they sure needed it. Letta studied hard in school cause they was planning for her to go on to college and she really was smart! Me, myself, I just dreamed of getting married someday. Ms. Dreamy, you could call me.
But when Letta was just past fifteen years, her mama had taken a nice lunch over to her daddy’s job at the plant, and as the devil would have it, one of them evil white men who was sitting in his tractor, having only a warm beer for his lunch, decided to “play” a game on Letta’s daddy and slowly backed that tractor up and claimed, when he planned to stop, the tractor kept goin backward! Well, Letta’s mama and papa was crushed up bad! The mother lost her legs, had to have em both cut off! And her daddy’s ankles and knees and hips, and shoulders was pushed together and he never could straighten out again. Leastways the doctor didn’t think there was no big reason for goin through too much trouble for em cause what was they good for anyway? I heard that myself cause I use to, and still do, kitchen work for some of the best folks here in town, and I hears a lot! You can call me Ms. Goodear, cause I got em! Well, say what you willomay, you got to know what’s goin on around you, if for nothin else cept to stay out the way of other folks’ tractors!
Well, back to Letta and her troubles! The plant said it wasn’t no fault of theirs cause it was all in “fun,” not at working, so they didn’t have to pay nothin! Nothin! The hospital sent a big bill, and I don’t know what for, cause Letta’s mama and daddy came out of that hospital just like they went in, bent up and crushed! Ain’t no pills in the world worth all the money was on that bill! Letta just put that bill in a drawer and shut it! Was a nice white man and his wife her mama had worked for came over and had the house fixed to Letta’s name and the hospital couldn’t take that when it tried, so the bill just stayed in that drawer … for 25 or 30 years till she threw it out, til her mama and papa died, cause that’s how long she taken care of them!
And I mean she took care of them! That’s why I said theywas blessed! Neither one could move! You had to put them to the pot, put them to bed, get them up, set them up somewhere and feed em, all of it! She did it! I use to feel so sorry for them two people … just set and face and stare at each other all day long and sometimes tears comin down one face for a while and then the other, til Letta make them smile bout somethin. She kept them clean and the house clean. I would hear her sigh, them great big tired breaths sometimes but she didn’t never act mad cause her life had changed so. Future all gone. Present gonna stay forever, look like.
Oh, people came over at first, preachers and neighbors, to try to run her little house and business but she didn’t
Good morning, Laylonny!
Funeral Plans
I SHOULDN’T be tellin this secret, but you can just call me Ms. Can’thelpit cause I just can’t help it! I got to tell it!
You can say what you willomay but I believe the Lord gives you something every time something else is taken away! If you got half a piece of sense, you will find that to be true. Just call me Ms. Senseless cause it has taken me so many years to truly know what that means and then I learned it from someone else … one of my friends, Willetta. I call her “Letta.”
Letta and me kinda grew up together in this little one horse town, but I believe no matter how small a town is, it’s still got some of every kind of people the whole world got in it.
Letta’s people was as good to her as two poor people could be. She was their only child, and the Lord had sure blessed them in that one thing. They both worked hard. The mama sewing and cooking for white folks and the daddy farming his own little piece of land and doing odd jobs and also working at the plant just outside of town there. They must have loved each other too, another blessing of the Lord’s,cause they sure needed it. Letta studied hard in school cause they was planning for her to go on to college and she really was smart! Me, myself, I just dreamed of getting married someday. Ms. Dreamy, you could call me.
But when Letta was just past fifteen years, her mama had taken a nice lunch over to her daddy’s job at the plant, and as the devil would have it, one of them evil white men who was sitting in his tractor, having only a warm beer for his lunch, decided to “play” a game on Letta’s daddy and slowly backed that tractor up and claimed, when he planned to stop, the tractor kept goin backward! Well, Letta’s mama and papa was crushed up bad! The mother lost her legs, had to have em both cut off! And her daddy’s ankles and knees and hips, and shoulders was pushed together and he never could straighten out again. Leastways the doctor didn’t think there was no big reason for goin through too much trouble for em cause what was they good for anyway? I heard that myself cause I use to, and still do, kitchen work for some of the best folks here in town, and I hears a lot! You can call me Ms. Goodear, cause I got em! Well, say what you willomay, you got to know what’s goin on around you, if for nothin else cept to stay out the way of other folks’ tractors!
Well, back to Letta and her troubles! The plant said it wasn’t no fault of theirs cause it was all in “fun,” not at working, so they didn’t have to pay nothin! Nothin! The hospital sent a big bill, and I don’t know what for, cause Letta’s mama and daddy came out of that hospital just like they went in, bent up and crushed! Ain’t no pills in the world worth all the money was on that bill! Letta just put that bill in a drawer and shut it! Was a nice white man and his wife her mama had worked for came over and had the house fixed to Letta’s name and the hospital couldn’t take that when it tried, so the bill just stayed in that drawer … for 25 or 30 years till she threw it out, til her mama and papa died, cause that’s how long she taken care of them!
And I mean she took care of them! That’s why I said theywas blessed! Neither one could move! You had to put them to the pot, put them to bed, get them up, set them up somewhere and feed em, all of it! She did it! I use to feel so sorry for them two people … just set and face and stare at each other all day long and sometimes tears comin down one face for a while and then the other, til Letta make them smile bout somethin. She kept them clean and the house clean. I would hear her sigh, them great big tired breaths sometimes but she didn’t never act mad cause her life had changed so. Future all gone. Present gonna stay forever, look like.
Oh, people came over at first, preachers and neighbors, to try to run her little house and business but she didn’t
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