What? Who? Said That 2w2141

WHAT? WHO? said that

Kristi Davis

Copyright © 2021 Kristi Davis All rights reserved First Edition Fulton Books, Inc. Meadville, PA Published by Fulton Books 2021 ISBN 978-1-64952-812-4 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-64952-813-1 (digital) Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

The Beginning

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the Mitchell family, the Doss family, and so many other people who gave a child wonderful memories and still left me wondering Who and What into adulthood. Thank you for touching my life.

Preface

This book is about a first grandchild and her experiences with the funniest greatgrandparents, aunts, uncles, and others that touched her life. From a very young age until my teen years, spending time with these wonderful people was the best memory to date. I could only ask myself often who and what! With love from stories, jokes, and tales.

The Beginning

I was being told stories that made me laugh from a very young age. I was a very curious child, they say, and was called an old soul, so I was usually with the adults most of the time. This is not all pages of short stories, but at times words said that I still do not know the meaning of. These phrases or stories could be my family’s or something they heard in their ventures. They are not intended to be copies but in fact words said that made a young girl laugh along with these wonderful people or made me wonder Who! What! and sometimes Why.

Growing up in the ’60s was the best time to be a child. Life was simple, and at least to me, I felt safe. Children, at least in our home, were seen and not heard when company came over. That’s why I was all ears listening and learning. If family came over for their Saturday visit, I would have to hurry inside and quickly get my visit in before the words “Go play outside” came out of my mother’s mouth as my father was more lenient and knew they had come to see all of us, not just my parents. My great-aunt was a sweet Nazarene who would come visit often for a week or so. Her first day there, I would run through the door quickly as my legs would take me. Wrap my arms around her for a hug. The same words would come out of her mouth every time. “Well, Sake a BEE, you have got so big.” What! Did that mean fatter or taller? I am still unsure today.

Grandpa was one of those people who would come over on Saturday. I would go home with him and see my grandma and let her win in gin rummy. We would play for hours. If it were cold outside, and I was going out to play with other kids, Grandpa would always help me with my coat. Grandma would put on me a headscarf under my hat, and it was always red. Then a man’s wool scarf around my neck. I wore so much more than the other kids and got made fun of for it. I would ask why I had to wear all that clothing, and my grandpa would say because “it is colder than a witch’s tit out there.” What! So do I go outside, or is the witch out there? I am still unaware of what that means.

Everyone was sitting around my aunt’s kitchen table again on a weekend. All of my family lived down the street from each other, and so the meeting place was always my aunt’s. Everyone just walked in the door on the weekend, like we all had appointments or something. Her brother is my Uncle Bill. He just walked up to my aunt, who was washing dishes, and pulled down her pants. Leaving me to see the biggest pair of white underwear as I had seen before. Everyone was laughing, leaving me to think what was that for? I was unaware at the time this had gone on for many years, since she was young, and usually when she least expected it.

While spending the weekend with my grandparents, I came running into the house with a jar of lightning bugs. I had a lot of them in a coffee can, with holes poked in it so they would live for a while, or so I thought. I showed them to my grandpa, who said, “Heavens to Mergatroid.” What does that mean? I still don’t know.

We had a boxcar cabin in Warsaw, Indiana; it was really a box car due to my great-grandpa working on the railroad. Again on the weekend, I would go along; and by this time, other grandkids had come along. It was a little creepy since it had sat empty all winter. There were spiders and all kinds of bugs that had settled in for the winter that had to be swept out. At nighttime, all the family arrived and slept everywhere, including another cabin that my uncle owned across the gravel road. The lake was right out the back door, and that meant 4:00 am fishing, to which my cane pole and I went along. The drive up there was at least five hours in a car with no air and four grandkids packed in the back. Grandma and Grandpa in the front. All of a sudden, we would pull over beside a curb in front of a little place that Grandpa stopped at every summer on the way up there. He would ask who wanted a hamburger for the road. We all said yes, and he went. Many hours later, he came with no hamburgers and slightly staggering. It was hot, and we were all wet from sweat, and I wasn’t sure what was going on because there were no hamburgers, and he never mentioned them. Grandma looked at him and said, “Now you be careful because I will need to get my underwear out of the glove box.” What! And not knowing what that meant, who says that around grandchildren? What does that mean? I found out later she never wore them but carried them in the car in case she needed them.

One night, I wanted to go roller-skating. I had new skates and wanted to show them off. When I asked my father if I could go and if he would take me, he said, “Why can’t you walk?” I said, “What!” He said, “Your uncle and I used to walk five miles to school uphill with one shoe each.” They didn’t have a lot of money when they were growing up, so I thought maybe it could have happened. I was young enough to believe him. So we still had two cars in the driveway, and I had two shoes. What did all of this mean? I guess that was his way of telling me I was not getting a ride to the skating rink.

Every year, when it was time to get us three girls school clothes, my dad, while reluctantly handing his credit card, would say, “Every year, when it was time for us three boys to get school clothes, we ordered out of the Sears catalog.” We each got three pairs of jeans and three shirts, and when they would get too small, we would them down to each other. What? So what did the oldest brother do for hand-me-downs, and was he only gonna buy us three things apiece?

Outside, I am, as usual, at my grandparents, and just so you will know, it was the only place my sister and I could go outside and get dirty. You see, we were always in dresses and coats and patent leather shoes, most of the time matching. We looked like we were Shirley Temple’s relatives. So the chance to get dirty was where I wanna be. Well, I had caught a frog and could not wait to go running in the house and show my grandpa this beautiful thing I just caught in the yard. While running through the kitchen, of course, I would have to drop it at least once. I already had frog pee on me, and now I was on the kitchen floor looking for that frog. Grandpa said, “Heaven to Mergatroid, you better catch that thing before your grandmother knows it is loose in her house.” What! I stopped and thought, was that a planet or a place to visit when you dropped a frog?

The family used to go swimming in the summer at another grandparents’ house. You had to take your shoes off as soon as you came in, and there was no running in the house. My great-aunt would be there sometimes for the weekend, and she was a very simple, loving woman who was very calm and always wanted to hear anything we had to say. We didn’t see her often, and when we did, she just knew we had gotten bigger, although my clothes still felt as if they fit the same. I would walk over for my hug before kids were told to find something to do and let the adults talk. The hug then those words, “Heaven to Betsy, how you have grown.” What! Who is Betsy? She was not in our family, was she? If Betsy was related, was she in heaven? All I knew was my aunt was a very religious person, so maybe Betsy was someone in our family. I was terrified to find out how she died, if that was what happened to her. I sure was not going to ask.

So I was a little older now, although still staying at Grandma’s. At this age, it was not to get dirty; I preferred to be there than anywhere. So my grandmother was probably in her midsixties at this time, and she had never had a driver’s license. I am not sure if early in her life the belief was that the woman raised the children, took care of the house, and paid the bills, and the man drove her where she needed to go and worked to pay those bills. When Grandpa got ill, it got hard for her to keep getting rides or going on the bus to the hospital to see him or to go to the store or to get her hair done. So she decided it was time for her to be the first to go take the driving class. After ing, when she would get ready to go somewhere, Grandpa would say to go with her so she didn’t have to go alone. Who! Me? Understand, she was a short woman who sat on two pillows to see over the steering wheel. Her hands were at ten o’clock and two o’clock always. So off we would go because she was free to go anywhere now. The best thing was when she paused at green lights, just in case it was going to change. Who in the world does that? So as each one of these people left me behind, I am so grateful to have these memories and so many more to get me through the rough times. I hope my grandchildren, as I tell them these stories, will not forget the laughter, as the laughter will get you through when it’s just you.

About the Author

The fond memories of Kristi Davis’s childhood are written here. She enjoys writing and sharing any kind of happiness with the world today. She has an associate’s degree in nursing and loves to write in her spare time, which is not a lot. her for some snippets of laughter in her life.