Halloweens Past

When I was growing up, Halloween was something that I always looked forward to with much anticipation.  I can still remember my first Halloween mask.  My mom took me to the Ben Franklin store in Hillsville, Virginia.  I got to pick out my own mask!  It was a monster with this horrible itchy black hair sticking out.  Do you remember those old masks back in the 70s that were very difficult to breathe in?   The whole inside would collect the moisture from your breathe and start sweating, so pretty soon, your whole face would be wet. Ick. And remember those stretchy little cords that went around your head?  That thing would always get caught in my long hair and make a tangled mess, pulling out gobs of hair.  But, it was so much fun!

I remember in 1973, mom and dad were having a bunch of remodeling work done on our house.  While part of it was going on, we were living in my uncle's little log cabin just up the road. There was no indoor plumbing!  When Halloween rolled around that year, it was a gloomy and cloudy, and it was blowing snow.  I can remember daddy telling me that he did not know if I would be able to go trick-or-treating because of the snow.  I remember the panic!  OH NO!!!  As it turned out, we did end up going.

Trick-or-Treating was always quite the ordeal.  Where I grew up, there wasn't really a street to go begging on, so mom and dad loaded me up in the car and drove from house-to-house. They would pull into the driveway and I would hop out of the car and run up to the door and scream TRICK-OR-TREAT!!  I can remember them telling me to never take off my mask and let anyone see who I really was because that was half of the the fun.  We also never started trick-or-treating until it was completely dark. That was part of the fun!

As I got older and started school, my friends and I would go together and each year.  Out parents would take turns driving us around. We always took great pleasure in going to our teacher's homes because we really did think that they would not recognize us.  Right.  I can remember one year going to my first grade teacher's home. Mrs. Ada Shelor greeted us at the door and invited us in.  Well, even though I had been told to not go inside, this was my first grade teacher!  She had an elaborate table set up with punch and CUPCAKES!  I always thought that cupcakes were just magical, so I was pretty excited.  She offered us a cupcake on a plate and a cup of punch. That is when it hit me!  HOW was I going to drink and eat with my mask on??  Impossible!  I tried to take the cupcake and punch and head for the door, but she was very insistent that we enjoy it there! Now what?!  Dad had told me to never take my mask off and here was my teacher telling me to do it.  What do you think I did?  I yanked that mask off so that I could eat that cupcake!

Another teacher's home that we all looked forward to visiting was Mrs. Pauline Cock's home. Her and her husband would do some elaborate decorations. (This was long before Halloween became such a commercial venture with everyone decorating.  Most homes back then just turned on the porch light, put a jack o'lantern on the steps, and maybe had a cardboard cutout skeleton or witch on the door.)  I can remember one year, as we were starting to walk back to the car after receiving our treats, a ghost came flying out of the woods straight at us!!!  AIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!  Talk about some little girls running back to the car! Hee!  Mr. & Mrs. Cock had rigged up a ghost (a sheet) on a wire and had a pulley system that would make it look like the ghost was chasing you!

Another house that I remember quite well, although I can't remember who lived there, was just past Mrs. Cock's home.  It was a big, white two story farmhouse. One year, there was a bubbling cauldron set up just outside the door and the lady that answered our call of "TRICK-OR-TREAT" was dressed as a scary, green-skinned witch!!!  She really did scare me!

Of course, as we got a bit older, we would all go to one of our houses and set up elaborate decorations and try to scare the trick-or-treaters. One year, we set up in our carport. We had a bubbling caldron and all kinds of spooky decorations. One of us would hand out the treats and the others would be sitting very still on the ground, covered by a sheet. When the children would get the treats, we would jump up and chase the kids back to the car!

One year, we all went to my friend Debbie's house and we did a similar setup, but after the trick-or-treaters, we started walking to neighbor's homes where we soaped their windows and toilet papered their bushes and trees. We were bad! As we were walking along the road back to my friend's house, some of the older boys in the neighborhood drove by and threw eggs at us. Of course, I was the unlucky one and got pegged right in the ear with an egg. Not only did it hurt, but have you ever tried to wash raw egg OUT of your ear?  No fun. The next morning, we did go back to the neighbor's homes and clean up the mess we had made. 

The trunk or treats that seem so popular now just lack the fun, excitement, and spookiness of real trick-or-treating.  It is a shame that our world has become so unsafe that children cannot experience the fun and joy of All Hallow's Eve.

Folk Saying: Crow

Yes, I know these are not crows, but I have been dying to use this photo!
Taken by Kimberly Burnette-Dean 10/28/14

Have you ever heard the saying, "I've got a crow to pick with you?" My dad used it all of the time and I also have heard many other people use it too. He used to say that to me if I had forgotten to do something or did something wrong. For example, I would come into the room and he would say "I've got a crow to pick with you!"  Then he might follow that up with I forgot to pick him up some Pepsi the last time I went to the grocery store. Basically, he was saying that he had a complaint against me.   If you have ever heard someone say "I've got a bone to pick with you", it means the same thing.

I finally found this in The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898), page 254): on the Internet Archive.

 "I must pluck a crow with you; I have a crow to pick with you. 

I am displeased with you, and must call you to account.

 I have a small complaint to make against you. 

In Howell’s proverbs (1659) we find the following, 

“I have a goose to pluck with you,” used in the same sense." (p. 254)

Have you ever heard or used this saying?

A Box of Switches

When I was growing up, my mom & dad always told me that if I didn't behave, Santa would bring me a bag of coal or a box of switches for Christmas. I was no stranger to a switch nor what it was used for since I had a bad tendency to backtalk.

For some unknown reason, even knowing what a switch was, I always pictured finding a box of light switches in my stocking on Christmas morning.  I was always horrified to think that I might get a box full of these!

Strange, I know.

What did your parents tell you that you would get for Christmas if you were bad?

Cornbread

When I was growing up, we had cornbread almost every night for supper and it was one of the first things that I learned to cook. Grandma Burnette had a stool in her kitchen that had two steps on the front of it and I would stand on that so that I could reach the counter to stir the cornbread after she put all of the ingredients into the bowl. As I got a bit older, she taught me to mix the ingredients myself.

One of our favorite ways to eat the cornbread was in milk & cornbread. My parents and grandparents would just crumble the bread into the milk and eat it with a spoon. I never really like it much like that, so I would dig the inside of the cornbread out, eat that, and then dip the crust into the milk.  I LOVED that!!!

Our favorite brand of cornmeal.
Produced at a mill in North Carolina.

When I went to elementary school, one of the lunches that we would be served consisted of pinto beans (nowhere near as good as what we fixed at home), stewed tomatoes (nasty no matter where they are cooked), and cornbread.  The cornbread at school was just gross. It was made of yellow cornmeal and had a hint of sweetness to it. (Cornbread isn't supposed to be yellow or sweet!)  I hated it! When they served that particular lunch at school, I was so sad because I would not eat any of it. Back then, the lunch menu was not posted in advance, so it was always a surprise! In fact, it was this lunch that finally convinced me that I just needed to pack a lunch each day, which I continued to do through high school.

My family always used this flour!
Produced at the same mill in North Carolina
as the cornmeal.

Our cornbread just had four ingredients plus water:

1.  About 1/2 bowlful of Tenda-Bake WHITE Cornmeal  (Yellow cornmeal is only suitable for animal food .  . . or that was the belief in my family and I have since learned that, in general, white cornmeal is traditionally a Southern thing while yellow cornmeal is a Northern thing.)
2.  A couple heaping tablespoons of Southern Biscuit Self-Rising Flour
3.  A splash of whole milk
4.  Enough water to make it the right texture

While mixing these ingredients together, there would be a cast iron frying pan in the oven with a couple pieces of streaky meat frying. If we happened to be out of streaky meat, we would use a spoonful of bacon grease. We had one particular frying pan that was used for nothing but cornbread. Once the cornbread was mixed up, we would take the pan out of the oven, remove the streaky meat, leaving the grease in the pan. Then we would tilt the pan this way and that to make sure that the grease coated the inside of the pan well and then poured the remaining hot grease into the batter, stirring it in really quickly. Then, we poured the batter into the frying pan and baked it until done at around 450F. 

Once the cornbread was done, we would turn it out on a plate and break off pieces to eat or to make milk & cornbread. We NEVER cut cornbread, because that would bring bad luck!  We always just broke off a piece with our hands.

Now, I am wanting some cornbread!

Oh yeah, and some of that streaky meat with the hard and chewy rind!

 Copyright 2013--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean

The Sleepwalking Burnettes, Part II

Unfortunately, the tendency to sleepwalk and snore were both passed on to me. When I was a small child, my parents were always catching me wandering around the house in the middle of the night. It started causing serious concern when my dad caught me going out the door late one night when I was around six years old. We lived on Route 58 where the speed limit was 55 mph and tractor trailers usually went by our house very fast, so wandering outside was a very dangerous thing.

Like father, like daughter.

When I was in the 6th grade, I went on vacation with my good friend, Debbie and her family. We went to Williamsburg, Jamestown, Busch Gardens and then on to the Outer Banks. This was a camping trip and it was so much fun. One night, we stopped at her relative's home to spend the night. Debbie and I were going to be sleeping on the pull-out couch. In the middle of the night, I woke the whole house up as I was trying to choke an African Violet! This story has been the source of much amusement through the years and even if I wanted to put it out of my mind, I am reminded of it often!

When I was in college, I neglected to mention to my two roommates, Jennifer and Laura, that I was a sleepwalker. It did not take them long to discover my problem. One night I woke them up with my mumbling. I was gazing out the window into the street that ran in front of our 3rd floor dorm room. When they asked me what I was doing I said, "All of the cars are gone." What?!  There were always cars parked on both sides of the street and now I was saying that the cars were gone?  They got out of bed and looked.  Of course, all of the cars were there and they tried to tell me that, which just made me angry. Then, I said "All of the addresses are gone too!"  Well, of course, this was just too much for my roommates and they started laughing at me which made me really mad. This happened within the first couple of weeks of my freshman year and my roommates were really strangers at that point, so this whole deal freaked them out. I eventually just went back to bed. Months later, there was a boiled egg throwing incident, but I will just let you use your imagination on that one!

I typically go to bed a couple of hours before my husband does and it seems like most of my sleepwalking incidents occur during those first two hours. On quite a few nights, I appear in the family room where he is watching television and I will start babbling on about things that usually make no sense. Sometimes, I can vaguely remember these episodes. The ones that I do remember usually start when I jump out of bed and I know that I just HAVE to do something or something bad will happen. As I am walking through the house, I will start forgetting what it was that I have to do, which frightens me even more.  I do know that when Steve attempts to interact with me, I get very, very angry when he laughs at me or tells me that I just need to go back to bed. The more that I try to explain what I am doing, the madder I get because on one level, I KNOW that I am not making any sense and when someone laughs at me, that just infuriates me.  I just can't seem to wake up completely.

I have always been prone to nightmares too and growing up I had one reoccurring nightmare that was just horrible. After I would have it, my parents would have to sit up with me for hours trying to get me to calm down and realize that it was just a dream and that I was okay. To this day, I cannot really tell you what the nightmare was about, but I can still see snippets of the dream in my mind, but if I try to describe it to you, it makes no sense. I still get a sinking feeling when I start thinking about that dream. I had this dream from the time that I was a very small child up until I was almost 16 years old.  Interestingly enough, I never had the nightmare again after my mom was killed in a car accident. It makes me wonder if the nightmare was a premonition of her death.

So, yes, I must confess. I am a sleepwalker. I talk in my sleep. I have terrible nightmares. And, to hear my husband tell it, I snore like a rhinoceros! But it is all something that I inherited, so I will blame it on my genes!

To read part I, click HERE.

 Copyright 2013--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean

The Sleepwalking Burnettes, Part I

I come from a long line of sleepwalkers. My Daddy, my Grandpa, and my Uncle Lindell were all world class sleepwalker. Here are some stories.

During the Great Depression, my grandfather was building a new house with the help of his brother, Tommy Burnett. Grandpa, Grandma, Daddy, & Lindell moved into the house before everything was completed. One of the things that was not finished was the front porch.  The porch was a good seven feet off of the ground and the only thing that needed to be completed about it was the flooring. In the middle of the night, Grandma heard Grandpa get up and go downstairs. She hollered at him "John Ettered, where are you going?" (His name was John Edward Burnett, but many people called him John Ettered, Dettered, or J.E.)  He did not respond to her. She heard him opening the front door and she ran down the steps just in time to see him step out onto the front porch. Naturally, Grandpa fell through since the flooring was not down. He didn't even wake up!  Grandma got him back in the house and in the bed.  The next day, he discovered that he had several broken ribs and he did not remember a thing about it.  Grandpa was also quite a snorer!

Grandpa Burnette

My Uncle Lindell was also mightly bad to sleepwalk. In the wee hours of the morning, Grandma heard the wooden backporch screen door slap closed.  She got up to see who was up at that time of night. Even though they had an outhouse, most everyone would use the slop jar rather than going outside in the middle of the night so it was strange for someone to go out.  When she got outside, Lindell was thrashing around up in the woods, yelling and carrying on something awful. He thought that he was at war! She tried to get him to come into the house, but he just kept on yelling and threatened to hit Grandma if she got near him. Grandpa came outside and he couldn't get Lindell to do anything either, so they both just watched him to make sure they he didn't hurt himself.  He eventually calmed down and just walked back into the house and went to bed.

Uncle Lindell Burnette

My dad, Bobby, was also quite the sleepwalker. When he was younger and still living at home, Grandma said that he was always getting up in the middle of the night and talking in his sleep. If anyone tried to touch him when he was sleepwalking, he would punch them!  When I was just a small child, I can remember that he would get up in the middle of the night, cook food and then eat it.  The scariest thing that I ever remember him doing was one night, my mom was working third shift, so it was just me and Daddy at the house. Daddy woke up 6 miles from the house sitting in his car!  He had driven that far from the house in his sleep. It terrified him because he knew that he had left me at home alone and I was always so scared to be alone.

Daddy

Another incident happened one night when we were all at home. Mom caught Daddy going out the back door around 2:00 AM. He was fully dressed and was walking with his cane. He was heading into the backyard where a creek bordered our property. Mom was afraid that he was going to fall into the creek and hurt himself because he was headed right to the creek. (My dad was very unsteady on his feet because he had multiple sclerosis.) She asked him what he was doing and he said that Jim Dalton, the mail carrier for Laurel Fork, had come by and asked my dad to deliver the mail for him!  Mom tried to reason with Daddy and he was just getting more angry and more insistent that Jim had came by the house. This was all happening in the wee hours of the morning and there was a considerable amount of yelling going on, so I'm sure that the neighbors wondered what was going on. Mom finally got Daddy back in the house after a good hour, but he was still convinced that he needed to deliver the mail. The next morning, Daddy was STILL swearing that Jim had come by and ask for his help!  Okay, so maybe there was something weird going on that we were unaware of, so Mom did get in touch with Jim and ask him if he came by the house.  Of course he did not, but my Daddy still swore that he did days after the incident!

This is the end of Part I. Watch for Part II and learn about some of MY sleepwalking adventures!

33 Years Ago Today

33 years ago today was a Sunday. I remember that mom was in a big cleaning mood, so the entire house got a really good cleaning. At that time, there was a company called something like Home Interior Decorating or something similar. My mom had bought quite a bit of the items to hang on the walls and she had just not gotten around to putting it up. We did that day. To make matters even worse, I was in trouble because I had broken my curfew and came home about 45 minutes late the previous Friday night and she was still trying to figure out what my punishment should be. Since I have always hated housework, I felt that all of the cleaning and decorating that day was quite enough punishment!

That afternoon, it started snowing. Woo-hoo! Hopefully, school would be cancelled the next day. I was in the 10th grade that year and I had just gotten my learner's permit three months before.  One of my best friends was already 16 and she had her license, so she would always ride with me so that I could drive. Back then, you just had to have someone that had their license in the car with you, it didn't matter how old they were.

My mom worked 3rd shift at the J. P. Stevens Elastic Plant in Stuart, Virginia. She supervised the training of new employees on how to run the huge looms. She was supposed to work that Sunday night from 11 PM to 7 AM the next morning, so she had went to bed in the afternoon. When she got up around 9:30 PM, there was already a lot of snow on the ground and the state trucks were plowing Route 58 in front of our house. I remember that my dad and I tried to convince mom to call into work that night rather than trying to drive down Lover's Leap Mountain to get to work. Nothing doing. My mom very seldom ever called into work and she instilled that same work ethic in me.

She left home a bit earlier than normal that night, around 10:00 PM, driving a 1979 Pinto station wagon for the 18 mile trip to work. Since I suspected that I would not have school the next day, I stayed up to watch "Trapper John, MD" which was one of my favorite television shows.  It was on from 10-11 PM each Sunday night. Since my dad always went to bed early,  I remember him fussing at me to turn off the television and go to bed.

Around 2:30 AM that morning, I heard someone banging on our front door. It scared me to death!  I jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom and pulled the door to until there was just a crack that I could peek out of to see the front door. Dad went to the door and yelled "Who is it?"  It was my mom's brother, Willie. That was really strange!  My dad opened the door and I saw Willie standing on the snow covered porch with a Virginia state trooper.

All sorts of things went through my mind in those first few moments to try to grasp why they were there in the wee hours of the morning. When they came into the living room, I saw that Willie had my mom's purse. They then explained to us that my mom had made it all the way to the foot of Lover's Leap Mountain. She had made it through the last curve.  But then in a straight stretch of road, for some inexplicable reason, her car went over the bank and went broadside into a tree on the driver's side door.

The police department got a call around 11:20 PM reporting that someone driving by glimpsed the red taillights of a car over the bank. She had been killed instantly. Whoever made the phone call reporting the accident did not give their name, nor did they wait until the police arrived. I will always wonder if perhaps the person that made the call was involved in the accident, because the location of mom's car would have made it very difficult to have seen anything, including the taillights.I will never know.

My mom had just turned 48 years old a couple of weeks before. She had been working at J.P. Stevens for over 25 years and was thinking about retiring soon. I am now 48 years old, almost 49. I cannot remember my mom's voice anymore. I wish that I would have had the chance to know my mom as a person and not just as a mom. I have to admit that I am very envious of my friends when I hear them talk about doing something or talking with their mothers.

It does not seem possible that 33 years have passed since that night. I still miss you, Mom!

Birthday Greetings

Happy birthday mom!

Vera Vaughn Burnette

1932-1980

Love Story, Part IV

Okay, so I finally did say "Yes" to Steve's proposal.  Now what?  Decisions! Church wedding? Outdoor wedding? Roanoke (where we both live)? Meadows of Dan (my hometown)? Nickelsville (his hometown)?  Have a 19th period wedding at Virginia's Explore Park where I was employed at the time? Get married by a judge? Elope? So many decisions!

I was really leaning towards having a period wedding. I have a friend who is a fabulous seamstress and she has made me some gorgeous 19th century period dresses. She was willing to sew something for Steve also.  For me, it was not going to be very pricey since I already owned all of the period undergarments, shoes, hats, etc. For Steve, it was going to be way more expensive because he would need EVERYTHING and period shoes are very expensive. We had pretty much decided to go that route and have the ceremony at the Hofauger House at Explore Park. We were even willing to do it as a special event for the park that would be open to the public. Since I had been working in living history for 11 years at that point, it just seemed like a natural thing to do. So, with some planning, the lawn and front porch of the Hofauger House would be a great location!  YAY!

Uh-Oh. What if it rains? That would be a disaster!!! So, I checked with the park-powers-that-be to see that if it did rain, could we move the location to the Mountain Union Church that was located in the park. Their response? They would give me a SMALL discount on the price of renting the church. What? Here I am willing to let the park advertise MY wedding as a special event and they are going to charge me when the only thing that it would cost the park was using the space?  Well. My hopes of a period wedding were dashed.

On to the next idea. A beach wedding! I had initially wanted to get married at Virginia Beach, but after checking the price of a ceremony and a week long honeymoon there compared with the same thing at Myrtle Beach, let's just say that South Carolina had way more to offer! Figuring out how to get a marriage license in another state wasn't as easy as I had thought that it would be. You would think that we could have gotten a license in Horry County, but for some strange reason in 2000, we had to get it in Marlboro County, SC. We had to fill out all of the paperwork and mail it in weeks in advance so that they would have it ready for us to pick up on our way to the beach.

Now, we have to figure out a date. Hmm. Explore Park was always open to the public from April through October and it was danged near impossible for me to get any approved leave during that time. For years, I have always taken off the week of my birthday in March. So, that is how we figured out a date. I turned 36 on March 12 and then we planned the wedding for March 18. Six months to the day from when we first met! Since we were not inviting people to our wedding, I want to send out announcements that we had gotten married. Here is the announcement:

Trying to get a good scan of our wedding announcement proved to be
almost impossible. It is two dolphins swimming on a wave with
little silver hearts floating up. 

We contacted a business called "Beach Weddings" to do our ceremony. It would just be me, Steve, and the reverend.  We also had to find a place to stay for our honeymoon.  We finally decided on The Palace Resort (A piece of trivia for you: The Palace was the tallest building in Myrtle Beach in 2000).  Our suite was oceanfront on the 17th floor, so the view was just amazing.

My good friend, Robin Ferguson, made my wedding dress for me. I made my headpiece and veil. My shoes were white satin embroidered with blue. I borrowed a handkerchief from Steve for something borrowed. For something old, I had on one of my mother's rings.

Yep!  That wind would just about sandblast your face off!

The morning of the wedding arrived and the wind was really strong!  I had originally planned on getting married standing on the beach near the surf line, but not even a bride looks beautiful with her hemline above her head! So, there was this pretty little putting green area that was somewhat sheltered by the motel and I decided that we would get married there, facing the ocean. Before we left the room, Steve told me to be sure and remind him to get the marriage license. Of course, going down in the elevator, I remembered that we had forgotten it. The reverend was already there to marry us, so I waited in the lobby with him while Steve went back to the room to get the license. It was a little embarrassing because everyone was staring at me!

You can tell, the wind was bad, even with the building sheltered us

We finally got our act together and got married. When the reverend got to the part about, "you may now kiss the bride", Steve did.  All of a sudden, loud cheering and hollering erupted! When we looked, there were people on many of the balconies of our motel and the one next door sharing in our special moment! That was a pretty cool thing since we did not have any wedding guests.

That is The Palace Resort behind us

That evening, I wanted to go to Pier 14 for our wedding dinner since it was over the ocean. For our dessert, we had Key Lime pie, so ever since then, we always have that for our anniversary and special occasions.

The most heartbreaking thing about our wedding was that the reverend was also taking the photos as part of the package. Would you believe that the stupid man actually brought a new camera that he had NEVER USED to take almost every photo?! He used his old camera for three photos of us. The rest were all blurry. The ones of me and Steve on the sand were taken by kind folks passing by using our camera. I am so thankful that we at least did that! 

So, I think for a relationship that started out on the internet, we are doing pretty good! We will be celebrating our 13th anniversary next month.

For Steve, my only Valentine!

I guess it wasn't so terrible having to give up a small bit of independence 
to share my life with a wonderful husband!

Copyright 2013--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean

Love Story, Part III

This was what happened 6 weeks later:

I loved dolphins way before they were so popular and easy to find on t-shirts, jewelry and just about everything else. VaMan101 knew how much I loved them and he managed to find this ring to give to me. (In writing this post, I found out how hard it is to really take a good photo of a ring!) It is hard to tell in this photo, but the eyes of the dolphins are tiny little diamonds and the heart that the dolphins are swimming across is a black onyx.  I was blown away to receive this beautiful ring that had special meaning to me after only knowing this guy for such a short time. Of course we HAD been spending almost every single evening together after the first week that we met, so I suppose this was a courtship clicked over to warp speed!

To make things even MORE exciting, a couple weeks after that, I was at his house waiting for him to get home from work. When he walked in, he was all smiles and I got a hug and kiss. Then, after I sat down on the couch, he knelt on the floor in front of me. All of sudden, there was this little black box in his hand and he was asking me to marry him!!!!!!

In the TV shows, you always see the woman look all happy and swoony as she cries out "YES!  YES, I will marry you!" Well, that was not me. I sat there with a stunned look on my face and I said that I would have to THINK ABOUT IT!  I'm sure that wasn't the answer that he was looking for. He told me to go ahead and wear the ring while I was thinking about it. I did wear the ring, but on my right hand. That night, we went out to dinner and we took his son, Patrick, with us. I know that I was much quieter than normal that night.

Here I was at the ripe old age of 35 trying to decide whether I wanted to get married or not. After being single for so many years, there was quite a bit to think about.  I was an independent little cuss and thinking about giving that up was difficult for me. Plus, I had only met this guy about 8 weeks earlier. What if he was an axe murderer with very good self control?  LOL!  In any case, I did end up saying yes. I cannot remember how long it took me, but I think it was a few days.

I'll never forget going home and telling my dad and grandma. I know that my dad had just about given up on me ever getting married.  Grandma always thought that it was fine and dandy that I was still single. She had always said that she did not want to get married when she was young either. When her and grandpa were courting, she kept on putting him off and putting him off about getting married. Finally, he told her that if she didn't say yes this time, that he was moving on. She did say yes! That is a completely different story that I will  have to tell you sometime!

Tune in tomorrow for Part IV and I promise I will finish the story!

Copyright 2013--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean

Love Story, Part II

As I was walking towards him, he raised his head and glanced at me. It was a sideways look and I guess it was just a trick of the lights, but it was almost like a look of pure evil! There was a slight falter in my steps but I went right up to him and introduced myself. He seemed pleasant enough, so we decided to bowl a few games. I remember that he was wearing plaid shorts and a Jeff Gordon t-shirt. I was wearing a skort and platform sneakers. Yes. Platform sneakers! Go ahead. Laugh. But it was a fashionable thing at the time.

We decided to bowl a few games. I cannot remember who won or what the scores were, but I did have a fun time. At that point, I thought that he was a pretty nice guy, but I didn't really know if I wanted to go out with him again. I wanted to leave the bowling alley while it was still daylight outside, so we wrapped the bowling up, walked outside and stood around talking for a bit. During our conversation outside, I learned that we both grew up in the country and our families raised most of the food that we ate. We started talking about all different kinds of foods that we had eaten. Part of that conversation covered normal things such as chicken & dumplings, biscuits & gravy, and cobblers. Then it moved on to eating wild game such as deer, squirrel, groundhog, frog legs, rattlesnake, and possum! Hey, I realized that we had quite a bit in common!

After I got home that day, I immediately logged on to AOL to see if VaMan101 was online. He was, so we chatted for awhile and then wound up talking on the phone even longer.  He explained that he had to do inventory the following weekend at his job and that he would be at work from something like 7:00 AM until the wee hours of the next morning.  The problem was that he had a dog and he did not have anyone to take care of him while he was working such long hours. He asked me if I would go to his house and let the dog out.  Hmmm . . . I have just met this person and he is asking me to come to his house when he is not going to be there? That freaked me out a bit, so I figured out where he lived and drove by to see what the area and his home looked like. It looked pretty normal. Against my better judgement, I agreed to do it.

Once again, I told one of my good friends all of the details and the address of his house so that if things didn't go well and he turned out to be an ax murderer, at least someone might find my dismembered body! After I got off work that day, I went to his house. The key was in the mailbox just as he had said. I started to slip the key in the door and I heard voices in the house! He had told me that he would be at work and that no one else lived there. Instant panic!! The other thing that I could hear was the sound of a dog snuffling around just inside the door.

I looked around and saw one of his neighbors sitting on the porch watching me like a hawk . . . they looked a bit creepy and so did their house! I didn't know what to do, so I stood there very quietly and listened. The voices inside continued, so I just decided to be bold and I knocked loudly on the door. The conversation continued inside with no pause. That seemed strange because if someone knocks on the door, you would usually stop talking. I waited but no one came to the door. So, I went ahead and unlocked the door and was greeted with a happy, dancing Cocker Spaniel. That is when I realized that the voices were coming from the television!  Hee!

I went ahead and let the dog, Rascal, loose in the backyard so that he could go to the bathroom and I also fed the two cats, Phantom and Simba. As I was leaving the house, I noticed this creepy trapdoor in the floor of the hallway. That was a bit weird and unsettling! Later that night while VaMan101 was on break, he called me to see if I had any problems at his house. I asked him about the television and he explained that he left it on to keep the dog company. I told him that it scared me to death. He found that to be hilarious!

A few nights later, he invited me to his house for dinner and it it was an excellent! I cannot remember everything, but I do remember some fabulous mashed potatoes, beef roast, green beans, and yeast rolls. I finally invited him to my house for dinner too. I recall that I made some homemade Anadama yeast bread and I think that I also made some barbeque chicken. Over the following weeks, we spent almost every free minute together.

A couple of months after I first met VaMan101, something happened.

Stay tuned for part III

Copyright 2013--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean

Love Story, Part I

Back in the mid-90s, I spent quite a bit of time on America Online in a chat room called "Virginians Online". Many of the folks from that chat room would meet as a group for dinners, bowling, dancing, or parties, so I knew quite a few folks in person as well as just online. There was one person from Roanoke, VaMan101, that I talked to occasionally. One night, he mentioned that he lived at an apartment complex on a particular road . . . and it was the road that I lived on! YIKES!  He lived about two miles from me!  I never revealed to people where I lived, so when I realized how close he lived to me, it freaked me out a little, so I decided to not talk to him any longer even though he seemed very nice.  Not too long after that, I stopped using AOL.

About two years later, I rejoined AOL and went into the Virginians Online chat room. In just a couple of minutes, an instant message popped up from VaMan101 welcoming me into the room. I immediately assumed that he remembered me because I remembered him. So I just started happily chatting away! Well, what I didn't know at the time was that he DID NOT remember me and the only reason that he sent that instant message to me was simply because he was a chat room host and was just being polite!

Over the next few days we went on chatting and he seemed pretty nice. Then he asked me for my phone number so that he could call me. I refused because I did not give my phone number out to people online. I told him that if he would give me HIS phone number that I would call him. Now, I know what you are thinking. Boy, she is some kind of stupid because all he had to do was look at Caller ID. Well, the joke would be on you because that was in the Stone Ages before Caller ID!

He seemed to be pretty nice on the phone and we seemed to have quite a bit in common. We exchanged GIFs (photos). After a couple of weeks of chatting online and on the phone, he asked me to meet him in person.  At that time, I felt fairly safe meeting someone like that as long as I took a few precautions. There is NO WAY that I would do that nowadays!

I told him that I would meet him at the bowling alley on Franklin Road on Saturday afternoon.  That way, it was still daylight!  I also told several of my friends what I was doing and gave them all of the information that I had about him. As the date approached, I was getting more and more nervous. I had told him that I would meet him inside at the snack bar.  As I walked in, I saw him sitting at the snack bar with a soda.  I had the advantage because I saw him first and managed to get almost all the way to him before he saw me. Now, when he looked at me, there was something that made me a bit leery.

To be continued!

Copyright 2013--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean

Very Superstitous

Grandma & Grandpa Burnette--December 1977

When I was growing up, I was fortunate that my Grandpa & Grandma Burnette were my babysitters. Much of my life was shaped by both of them and I would not change it for the world! Both of them taught me wonderful values and that you have to work for what you want.

I do not think that either of them were truly superstitious, but there were certain things that they would always say or do and it rubbed off on me.  I mean, really, why tempt fate?!

Here are some of the ones that I remember and I still do most of them.

Don't rock an empty rocking chair. Grandpa & Grandma both always sat in wooden rocking chairs and I was forever sitting on the couch with my foot on one of the chairs and I would start rocking it. They both always told me that I would have bad luck if I did that.

Always leave a house by the same door that you came in. I typically always went in the back door when I visited them, but sometimes I would start to leave by the front door. Many times, they would be sitting on the front porch and Grandma would always tell me to go back through the house and go out the back door.  I still have a tendency to do this no matter where I am.

Don't open an umbrella in the house. I'm sure that much of the reasoning for this one is so that you do not poke someone in the eye with one of the umbrella ribs, but I still will not open an umbrella in the house because Grandma said that it would be bad luck.

Make an "X" on the windshield when a black cat crosses in front of your car. Grandma used to always tell me of a lady who lived just down the road. If a black cat crossed in front of her, she would refuse to go any further and would return home!  I'm not quite that bad.  Just to be safe, any time that a cat runs in front of my car, I make THREE sets of THREE "X"s on the windshield and I do that no matter what color the cat.

Knock on wood--Always knock on wood after you say something so you will not be tempting fate. An example might be, "Our potatoes are sure growing good this year. I haven't seen a single potato bug so far!"  Always knock on wood.  I still do this one, probably at least 3-4 times per week!

The ever popular "don't walk under a ladder." I suspect that just about everyone has heard this one. Of course, it makes lots of sense because a couple of bad things could happen: If you bumped into the ladder, you might knock someone off of it and of course, you might knock something like a tool or paint bucket off off the ladder onto your head. 

Never say that you are going to so something tomorrow unless you say "if the Lord's willing." My Grandma was a big believer in this one. I remember that I would be so excited that I was going to go stay at a friend's house the next day and I was just chattering on and on about it. Grandma finally told me that I should always say "if the Lord's willing" when I was talking about doing something in the future.

Copyright 2013--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean

The Penny Loafer Story

Every Saturday, we always went to town. The closest town was about 20 miles away, no matter in which direction we traveled. North was the town of Floyd, east was Stuart, south was Mount Airy, and west was Hillsville. To get to Mount Airy or Stuart involved traveling down the mountain, Floyd involved very twisty, narrow roads, so Hillsville is where we typically went for our weekly trips.

So, why did we go to town each week?  The biggest reason was to buy grocery at the IGA or Mick-or-Mack. My mom always visited the beauty shop and I went for piano lessons. We also might make purchases at Nuckolls Drug Store, Gwynn's Department Store, or Gwynn's Hardware.

One Saturday I needed a new pair of shoes, so we visited The Family Shoe Store. It was a shoe paradise!  There were boxes of shoes stacked floor to ceiling, and the ceilings were really high! There were aisles of shoes and boxes of shoes stacked everywhere.  Ahhhh!  The smell of all of that leather!  To this day, anytime that I get a whiff of leather, it whisked me back in time.  I always loved it when I needed a new pair of shoes and I think that my love of shoes today dates back to that time.  I remember looking around at all of the shoes and finally deciding on two or three pairs to try on.  They would get that metal thing to measure my foot and I can remember that it always tickled.

Do you know what this device is called? **

On this particular shoe shopping expedition, I decided that I just HAD to have a pair of penny loafers. They were terribly popular at that time. Since I was an only child, I was around adults more than I was around other children and I had seen many adults wearing penny loafers, so that made me want them that much more.

I was so excited about my shoes that I demanded to wear them home from the store. I remember that when I got home, I was prancing all around the living room showing off my pretty new shoes to daddy.  He was laughing at me and said that they were not real penny loafers until I put pennies in the slot of each shoe. He dug through all of his change until he found two really shiny pennies to give me.

I don't remember what happened later that day, but I was about to get a whipping for doing something that I should not have been doing. If I had to guess, I would be willing to bet that I was asked to do something and I back-talked. (Yes, even as a child, I could be pretty mouthy!) My first reactions when I knew that I was in trouble was always to run! 

At this point, you have to picture our yard in your mind. A little over an acre in size, Highway 58 ran in front of our house. On one side, there was a tall fence that divided our yard from the neighbors. The other two sides were bounded by Tory Creek. Acres and acres of woods were across the creek. I was forbidden to go into the woods.  I guess that mom and dad were afraid that I would slip when crossing the creek and drown.

Back to being in trouble. I was always told that if I ran when I was in trouble, I would get into even more trouble for running.  Well, on this particular day, I was feeling particularly bold, so when daddy got after me to give me that whipping, I ran.  Out of the house and into the backyard.  Straight for the creek. I looked back towards the house and daddy was on his way after me.  Well, I decided that I was going to run into the woods, because I knew that he would have a hard time crossing the creek and finding me in the woods. I need to say at this point that my dad was very unsteady on his feet because he had multiple sclerosis and that was why I knew that if I could only get across the creek, I would be safe from a whipping.  I really don't know what I was thinking, because I was going to have to go back home sooner or later!

Anyway, as daddy got closer, I started crossing the creek, jumping from rock to rock.  He was yelling at me to stop and to not go any further.  By that time, he was really close. I'm sure that you can see what is coming! My foot slipped off of one of the rocks and my foot went right into the creek up to my knee. Then, I lost my balance and stepped into the creek with my other foot. There I was standing knee-deep water. With my new penny loafers. 

Well, due to the original offense of back-talking, then running when a whipping was imminent, trying to go into the woods where I was forbidden to be going, AND ruining a new pair of leather shoes, let's just say that I got a VERY good whipping.

And I deserved every lick!

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

** Answer:  Brannock Device

Copyright 2012--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean

Merry Christmas !

Ah, Christmas Eve! The anticipation, excitement and FUN! Just knowing that SANTA is coming tonight!  What a magical feeling! I think that most of you will agree that once we found out that Santa was not real, quite a bit of the magic went out of Christmas Eve.

I used to always beg mom to let me open JUST one present before Christmas morning. I finally wore her down and she agree to let me open ONE on Christmas Eve. It became a tradition.

On Christmas Day, after we had opened all of our presents, we would cross the highway in front of our house and go to my Grandpa & Grandma Burnette's home and open gifts with them.  Then, we would load up the car and travel 20 miles to my Grandpa & Grandma Vaughn's house where all of my mom's brothers, sisters, and all of my cousins would have a wonderful dinner.  My mom would allow me to take one of my new toys with me to show to my cousins.

I remember going to church on the Sunday morning that was closest to Christmas for the Christmas service. The church would make up little brown bags filled with candy, gum, and oranges to give to all of the kids.  Some years we would have a special nighttime program where the kids would get to participate in acting out the Christmas story. I remember that one year I was an angel and my Grandma Burnette made me a beautiful white dress to wear. My mom made me wings out of cardboard covered in white paper and outlined in silver rope tinsel. My halo was also made from the tinsel. I loved it because I got to stand on a chair so that it would be like I was appearing in the sky.

As tonight approaches, I really cannot help but get a bit depressed. For me, Christmas is always a joyous occasion undershot with a healthy dose of melancholy. I know Santa does not exist, but one part of me still wants to REALLY believe that he does  It just feels like there is SO much magic in the air! (If you want to believe too, you should read The Autobiography of Santa Claus by Jeff Guinn.)

I miss my family year round, but at Christmas time, it is especially difficult. This will be my 33rd year without my mom and my 11th without my dad. Even though I have shared the last 12 years with my wonderful and loving husband, there is still a big empty place that wishes to spend another holiday with those who knew me since I was a baby.

My husband and I started a tradition our first Christmas together. We always get a Christmas ornament with our names and the year engraved. There should be fourteen years worth of ornaments on the tree, but the one from 2007 is missing in action. I am pretty certain that it must be in this house SOMEWHERE, but I don't have a clue where! That year, I had the flu and pneumonia on Christmas Day and was admitted to the hospital the day after. I don't remember too much about opening presents or much of anything that year.  The ornament got misplaced and it hasn't been seen since. I just know that one day, I will find it.

Here is this year's ornament:

I hope that you all have a beautiful Christmas. Be sure to hug the people that you love.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Buford "Bobby" Burnette
1931-2001

My wonderful daddy!  

Thank you for all of your love and support. 

You never told me what I should do, but helped me examine all sides of a problem before making my own decision.  

That was invaluable and I can't ever thank you enough.   

Happy Birthday Grandma !

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!

Tressie Lillian Goad Burnette

December 1, 1903-February 15, 2001

Thank you for teaching me so much about life.
I miss you.

Comet Does NOT Make a Good Shampoo

Almost every Sunday all of the family would go to Grandma and Grandpa Vaughn's house for dinner. ( For those folks north of the Mason-Dixon line, "dinner" means the noontime meal.) My grandparents had ten children and then there were sixteen grandchildren. So by the time you add in spouses and various other relatives that might show up, there was always a house full of people just waiting to chow down on Grandma Sallie's good food.

My favorites were Grandma's wonderful fried chicken and especially her sweet tater pie! No one has ever been able to make that pie the way she did and I would give so much to be able to have a piece of it right now. You could always count on a jar of honey sitting in the middle of the table from Grandpa's honeybees, big glasses of icy cold homemade buttermilk (which I would not touch!) and fresh butter that Grandma had churned.

The thing that would make the visit all the more special was if my cousin, Norma Jean was there too. I was born just 19 days before Norma, so we were like two peas in a pod. The minute that we both got together, we would go off somewhere and play. Sometimes we would go outside, but that meant that our parents had to watch us carefully since Grandpa kept bees and being fascinated by the bee supers, I always wanted to get close to them. Also there was the danger of the Mayo River which flowed along two sides of the yard. If there was water, I was immediately drawn to it and my mom knew that, so she always had to watch me like a hawk watches chickens.

Me & Norma
circa 1967

When we couldn't go outside, we would wander into one of the rooms of the house where there were not so many people. Usually, that meant that we would go into one of the three bedrooms and play. One day, we we into the bathroom and we were sitting in the dry bathtub playing. I do remember that one of our parents came in there to check on us and all they saw was us innocently sitting in the tub. I'm sure that they thought to themselves what trouble could we possibly get into just sitting in a bathtub?

What they didn't notice was the can of Comet sitting on the side of the tub. 

<insert ominous drum roll here>

What happened next has been a source of amusement to Norma and me ever since. I'm not sure whose idea it was, but we decided to "shampoo" each others hair. With Comet. Oh yeah. I know what you are thinking, especially if you read the warnings on the can of Comet.

Maybe our parents should have read the label. 

Imagine being a parent and walking into the bathroom and finding your little girls with tons of Comet in their hair mixed up with some water.  I seem to remember that I was crying and probably with good reason since I had Comet burning my scalp off!  I can remember my mom telling people about finding us with Comet all in our hair and how hard it was to get it all out.  I also remember REALLY having something to cry about after I got a whipping for doing something that I KNEW was wrong in the first place.  And I did know.

Norma and I had many adventures over the years, and believe me, there are quite a few that you will never read about here!

Abt 1976

We still stay in touch via email and facebook, but we have not seen each other in person for about 14 years.

Copyright 2012--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean

The Mystery of Grandpa's Sayings

John Edward Burnette
ca. 1980

My Grandpa Burnette had some very unusual and colorful sayings.  I would give most anything if he were still alive so that I could ask him where he picked up these sayings or why he said them. He died when I was in my teens and it never occurred to me to question him then. I am sure there are other sayings that were just as intriguing, but here are the ones that I remember the most.

 *****

My parents and I lived just across the road from Grandpa and Grandma Burnette, so we were all always in each other's homes. When Grandpa used to be at our house and it was time for him to go home, he would say "I'm going back across the channel."  Well, as a little girl, when he said "channel" the only thing that I could picture in my mind was a television channel! That didn't make sense to me, but Grandpa was always saying things that sounded a bit strange to my ears. Now, I am wondering if he was making a reference to the English Channel and why would he have been doing that?

If Grandpa was referring to something that happened before I was born when he was talking to me, he would always say "that happened while you were over in the Old Country." I had no idea what that meant, but it always made me giggle. Of course, years later I found out that he was referring to Europe the way that many immigrants would have referred to it after they came to the United States.

When Grandpa was ready to leave, I would always beg him to stay a bit longer. He would say that he had places to go and things to do. When I would ask him where he was going, he would say "I'm off to Nova Scotia!"  To my knowledge he was never there and had no relatives there either. Another mysterious saying.

*****

Now, some things to keep in mind. My Grandpa was born, raised, and lived most of his life in Virginia.  He did live in West Virginia for a brief time when he worked in the coal mines.  No matter what branch of the family tree that I trace, all of his ancestors came directly to Virginia from either Scotland or England in either the 1600s or early 1700s. So he was quite a few generations removed from his ancestors that did immigrate to this country. So why did he have all of these references to what must have been Great Britain and Nova Scotia?

Have you ever heard anyone use these sayings before? Do you have any theories about why my Grandpa may have used these sayings?


Copyright 2012--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean

Big G

When I was a little girl I would always tag along when Grandma went to the "mahogany" bush to break her a new toothbrush. The bush grew on the creek bank behind our house so I was always ready to go with her since the creek was somewhere that I was forbidden to go alone. Grandma always explained that when she was growing up that the twigs were the only kind of toothbrush that she had. Naturally, I immediately had to have a piece too.

After she got back to the house, she would chew the end to fray it out so it looked like a tiny little paint brush.  Then, she would dip this into her can of Big G sweet Scotch snuff and use it to clean her teeth.  She always had a can of Big G sitting on the little table right beside her rocking chair. She warned me to never, ever mess around with her can of snuff.

One day, I was sitting in her rocking chair engaged in one of my favorite activities: rocking back and forth to beat the band! She was in the kitchen canning pickles, so I knew that she was very busy and was not likely to come into the sitting room any time soon.  I kept on looking at that little shiny silver can of snuff.  Rocking back and forth. The light was just glinting off of that can. Taunting me. Back and forth. That little can just really wanted me to pick it up! Back and forth.

I finally stopped and sneaked over to the kitchen door to make sure that grandma was still busy. She was. I tiptoed back to the rocking chair and sat down. I knew that I shouldn't do this and that I was potentially going to get a whipping for misbehaving, but I just could not stop myself! My hand reached toward that little forbidden can. I slowly twisted the top off and peered in at the brown powder. I slowly stuck a finger into the powder. It almost felt like baby powder. I wonder what it smells like? I slowly brought the can up to my nose. As it got closer, my nose started feeling a little twitchy but I was just a little girl and did not heed my nose's warning.  I stuck my nose right into that little can and took a big, healthy sniff!  Good lord! Snorting liquid fire could not have hurt as bad as that snoot full of snuff! I immediately dropped the snuff can, grabbed my nose, and started screaming and crying!

Grandma came running out of the kitchen thinking that I had a mortal injury. Imagine the scene. Me holding my nose, crying, and what had been an almost full can of snuff was now all over the floor, the rocking chair, and me.  Grandma grabbed me up and made me start blowing my nose to try to get all of that powdered snuff out. She washed my face off with a wet cloth because when I initially sniffed and it hit my five year old sinuses, my natural response was to exhale, HARD! That blew snuff back out of the can all over my face, so not only was that vile powder IN me, it was all OVER me too! After she finally got me un-snuffed, both outside and in, she scolded me, but I did not get a whipping.  She said that the agony that I experienced was punishment enough.

Sure. I really did deserve a whipping for doing something that I KNEW was wrong from the start.  I was just being a devilish little child. I have quite a few stories like this one where I discover the reasoning behind being told to NOT do something. Maybe that was really an early indicator that I should have been a scientist so that I could more closely examine cause and effect!

********

After doing a bit of research, I discovered that the brand of snuff that my Grandmother used was produced by the George W. Helme Company in New Jersey.  She always removed the tan-colored label from the tins when she opened them.  I have searched high and low for a photo of one of the cans with the paper label still attached and cannot find one anywhere. I remember that the label had a big "G" right in the middle.  Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Copyright 2012--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean.