Norm’s Unforgettable First Family Visit

My fondest memory of Daddy is that I could always curl up in his lap. When we were sick, Daddy had some old-timey remedies. He’d blow cigarette smoke in our ears for earaches. He would add a tablespoon of booze to hot lemonade to treat a cold. He thought Samon Salve could cure anything. He also told us that lying out in the sun would cause cancer. Turns out he was right. I remember one time he put menthol crystals in the vaporizer connected to the furnace. We about died from the fumes in the house. Daddy would tell me to hold my nose down with my finger to make it straight. For fun, Dad would take us to the drag races. Or, one time, he took us to see midget wrestling or as he called it, “rassling,” at Wharton Field House. When I was older, he would force me to go golfing with him in Orion. The course there had sand greens and he’d carve a furrow to the hole so my ball always went in. When we’d go out to get a watermelon, Daddy would take out his pocketknife and cut a little triangle out of the melon until he found one that didn’t taste like a “pumpkin.” Each fall we would go into the woods to gather walnuts and hazelnuts. Dad would throw the walnuts on the roof to dry. When they were dry, he’d run over them with the car to crack them out of the tough green hulls. We’d sit around on winter nights and pick out the walnut meats. We’d also gather wild grapes in the late summer. Daddy would make wine out of them in the basement. I never did taste any of it, but I do know some of it turned into vinegar. Daddy had fried eggs, rye toast with lots of butter, bacon, and tons of coffee every morning for breakfast. With our help, Daddy put in a half-acre garden every year. We all worked very hard all summer and fall to keep up with the produce. When the corn was ready to eat, Dad would make sure the rest of the meal was almost done and a big pot of water was bubbling on the stove, and only then would he go out and pick and shuck the corn. He said that otherwise the milk in the corn would go sour. He would have us shine up a box of tomatoes to sell and he’d tell us to put the bad ones on the bottom. The apple orchard was also a great deal of work. We especially hated to sit and pick the stones out of cherries. We’d use bobby pins to accomplish this task. There was a big sprayer in the orchard that we thought looked like a stagecoach. We’d climb up on it to play every time we could get away with it. I loved to climb in one of the really big apple trees back by the Peterson’s house. I would take a book and sit there and read until somebody found me. Seems like there was always the motor of some old car or other hanging on the tree limb out back. Until Dad bought his light green Comet, all the cars were old and embarrassing to us. We could always leave the keys in the cars in those days. When Mom and Dad took me to college for the first time, Dad threatened to bring me back home if he didn’t like the looks of my roommate. He didn’t think girls should go to college. Every Friday night, Mom went to the A&P for groceries. Dad would sit in the car and honk and honk until she was ready to go. When we got to the store, he would sleep in the car while she did all the shopping. After that, we would go to the library. I heard stories of Daddy being a Water Witch. We always gave Daddy a carton of cigarettes for Christmas. He’d give us money to buy Mom nylon stockings for him to give to her. Daddy sang a lot. His favorite song was The Tennessee Waltz. The shed out back was Dad’s hideout. He tinkered with all kinds of things that needed to be fixed, or, in his eyes, improved. He was famous in the family and neighborhood for putting together a riding lawn mower out of lots of old junk. He loved to trade things, thinking he always got the better deal. I would often be called on to help Daddy fix the TV. He would go on the roof and move the antenna around and I had to watch the picture and scream up to him if it was better or worse. When he worked on the TV itself, he would put a mirror in front of the screen to check on his progress. A lot of swearing usually went along with this procedure. Daddy called the homes just to the south of Coal Town Road “Frogtown.”

NORM’S FAVORITE FLOYD STORIES

This happened the first time Norm came to our house to meet the family. Dad took him over to Iris’s house so he could meet them, too. As we entered through the garage of their house, Daddy picked up an almost empty bottle of booze, tipped it up to his lips, drained it, then put it back in the garbage. All this without a word. When Norm thinks of Daddy, he thinks of him sitting in the car at a stoplight, opening the door a little, spitting, and calling the other drivers, “half-wits.”