To Garner Wisdom

"Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy. The amount of work is the same."~~~Francesca Reigler

Thursday, June 30

Fears Continued

I am not afraid to go across a bridge. I go over O'Neal Bridge or Wilson Dam every work day; Monday thru Friday. The dreams are still a mistery to me. I am on a bridge that all of the sudden ends. In some of the dreams I finally get to the other side by the bridge not ending but becoming way too narrow for comfort. The water is always rushing. The similar dream takes place as you are headed down County Road 51 towards Lexington. The streach of road passed the old Brown Cemetery, before you get to where the Lexington Dump was. The bridge before the cemetery was called Ford Bridge by some old people. At the right side of the road it becomes a hill; This really is the way it is. A hill directly off the road that goes far. The thing that is not really is that there is water at the bottom of the hill. In my dream it is as if there is a rushing river with a rock in the middle. I am on the rock. I am surrounded by rushing water with no way to get back to the bank.

Friday, June 24

Fears Continued


When I die I fear that the loved one's that went on before me will know what I really thought of them. I fear my grandmother will know that I secretly held it against her for making me feel as though one day I would be the person my mama was. Well the person she saw my mama as. Grandmother had that way many people have of making it seem her way was the only right way. Confidence beyond meaning is what I would like to say it was. She did things to help greatly, but with a small bit of selfishness. Taking us in was the greatest thing anyone could have ever done for us. We did double as farm hands most of the time. We picked cotton when none of the other six grandchildren were expected to pick. We were paid just as field hands were, six cents a pound. The money that I made picking cotton bought my school clothes each year. My school clothes consisted of a pair of shoes to wear all winter and material to make polyester pants suits. Maybe a store bought pair of pants. One year it was a pair of green denim ones from Sears. I had tops to match this pair of pants I could wear them everyday with a different top. I stopped doing this when I heard someone saying behind my back that I was wearing the same pair of pants every day. For a fourth grader this was enough to make me really feel like a poor kid. None of this should make me think that the dreams are caused by this, but it does. I see myself in Heaven and Grandmother being mad at me because I really didn't like her sometimes. I still am mad at her for the lawn mowing thing. My brother, cousins and I were mowing the front yard. We took turns four rounds a piece. I was out back waiting for my turn when the puppy of the year bit me. It really hurt and made me mad. I was mad when it came my turn to mow. I started making my rounds in the front yard with the mower; crying mad the whole four rounds. I was so upset that I missed some spots of grass; ran off the cutting edge. This was the talk of the other five children and my grandmother. Them talking about me made me that more upset. I was really by then having a mad fit. Mad at them and the puppy that had bit me. My grandmother didn't feel sorry for the dog bite. Instead she started the, "your going to be just like Jean if you don't get hold of your nerves" thing she always did. I am still waiting for the day I go crazy, because my grandmother said I would. I am going to get to heaven and I really hope that I am not crazy when I get there just to prove my grandmother wrong. She was right about allot of things, maybe this is not one of them. I am sure God is not going to like it if I get to Heaven and my grandmother is mad at me for thinking bad things about her.

Monday, June 20

Great Fears

I am not sure if these are phobias or what really. I not afraid of crossing bridges. I have a reoccurring dream that I am on a bridge. It seems to be Wheeler Dam, most of the time. I have tried in my mind to figure if it had something to do with some of my childhood discomforts. I am calling it childhood discomfort, because I really know that their have been many children in worse situations than we were. The adults for what ever reasons in my day were just not as parental aware as they should have been. People in general are more concerned with themselves anyway. Sadness and Utter Kaos made them just not pay attention at times. Sadness also makes you lazy, I think. Chemical dependancy also makes you just not care about anything, but the chemical. The bridge, the rocks and the water are what if I saw a shrink may be from all the water problems that the adults didn't take care of.
The house on Morley always had water standing in the bathroom floor. My toes were always split from walking in that water. My memories of that bathroom are that it was designed in the same fashion that the one in Alabama in Grandmothers new house. The bathroom in the new house was great. I would every Saturday clean it til it sparkled. The bathroom in the house on Morley had a tub in the same place. Water in the tub was Mama's cure for most everything. The tub was where she sent me the day I drank the clorox. I am living proof that clorox will not kill you at five years old. I almost drank the whole glass. I walked home from school that day and was thirsting to death. Mama had left the clorox she borrowed from the Kentucky neighbors that lived on our left. It was in a drinking glass. I drank that then ate a raw weiny on loafbread. In the tub full of water I was surrounded by floating weiny's because the clorox did make me throw up. That is probably why it didn't kill me. (to be continued)

Wednesday, June 8

Where Should They Bury Me?

I have not decided this. I don't want to opened. I know there is not anyone that will fix my hair the way I want it; then there is my make-up. The pictures I see of me now are less than what I used to percieve myself. Corum has a spot my brother saved for me. I just realized that I would be too close to the evil one in my family. I would be right behind him. My grandmother would be between us. She was kinda between us in life. She tried to be between us in a way. She told me not to let him........
Then my brother and his wife would be beside me leaving more of a distance from the spot he is. Then there is my Uncle; not totally evil, but a real asshole at times. My daddy and mama will be right in front of me. Mama may still be mad at me like she was lots of the time. Daddy was proud of me. Grandmother took care of me. Aunt Nell loved me. My cousin liked me, ok enough. He was a simple man; not complex enough to really think that much of me or anything complicated. In the whole row of Garner's maybe I would be what I was in life a peacemaker that just wanted everyone to get along. I wish that I had a soul mate to lay beside me. A mistake I just really can't fix. Oh, well I will worry about that later.

Shade Tree Mechanics

Shade Tree Mechanics
Working on a car can be dangerous. The car can fall if it is jacked up and fall. With daddy working on anything seemed as if fire was the main danger. Grandmother's house had not been built back long after their fire. We were living in a new brick house, which I thought was a mansion. I drive by there now and am amazed at how small it seems. That night he had pulled the navy blue Dodge Dart he was driving at the time beside the carport. I always got really worried when he tried to do something drunk. He had to, just had to get the car fixed, to go visit Parker. Parker was the local bootlegger. One of the local bootleggers. Lauderdale County was dry. Traveling to Pulaski was really not an option, considering the not so reliable car Daddy had. I could see out the kitchen door as he stood under the hood messing with the breather on the top of the engine. He took it off and was pouring gas into the carburetor. The next thing I knew flames were coming from under the hood of the car. Forget there being an easy way to put the fire out. There was not a water hose hooked up. It was before fire extinguishers were standard in homes. Dirt was the answer at that moment. I saw the fire and him getting sand from the pile that was left in front of the house from the building back of Grandmothers house. The fire was finally put out, but the car was in need of more repairs than before he started.

Shoals Bloggers

Shoals Bloggers
Click to see Bloggers