I'm changing the names in this story because it is about family a bit removed, and family can sull up hard and fast when they feel a poke.
If one was a legend in ones own mind and from the South that still lives in the South of Southern Alabama, one always used ones full name no matter.
We had our standards. Our standards were measured and held against everything that we thought reflected our standing among the townspeople.
Whatever our standing was..........
So cousin Patty Anna got engaged after a long dry spell between she and her mama caused from her mama's expectation to marry up. The town Bridge Club ladies that were self appointed Diva's watched each others daughters like hungry hawks to see them stumble and fall. Poor little Plain Janes like cousin Patty Anna were especially watched. Not to worry that they might fall, but that they might even get a shot at the fall.
The fallen daughters of town Bridge Club Diva's were shipped out to places of higher learning like Massey Draughon for a year of business school.
"Yeah, right"!
Many came back home to a life lived with dark circles under their eyes and a thicker waist line. Some eventually drifted into that hell of eternal depression caused from longing to hold the nearest thing they ever knew of real love.
Aunt Nellie Raye wasn't gonna let cousin Patty Anna go down that road if she could help it. The town boys never measured up for Aunt Nellie Raye. Well, maybe the son of the owners of the office supply store, but even his mama didn't belong to the Bridge Club so that was a big turn off for an acceptable suiter for cousin Patty Anna.
Cousin Patty Anna graduated high school to be hired to do office pool typing for a company in Pensacola. She made a friend from the office that lived in a bedroom apartment on Spring street. That friend was engaged to a navy cadet stationed at NAS. He was talked into introducing another cadet to his fiance's friend, cousin Patty Anna.
"Oh"!
" Mama, I'm staying over the weekend".
" I worry about you Patty Anna".
Loud foot stomping!!!!!!!!!!
" MAMA, PLEASE LET GOD WORRY ABOUT ME PLEASE JUST THIS ONCE".
" Patty Anna, don't".
Loud crying!!!!!!!!
Patty Anna danced the night way and exchnged phone numbers with her navel cadet from somewhere in the Ozarks.
" The Ozarks "?
" Yes, thank God he isn't close enough to here to have his name baptized in the sludge of that Bridge Club gossip".
" Patty Anna, those Ozarks people are HILLBILLIES, they eat possums".
"Mama, you ate coon and sweet potatoes, Grandma told me so".
Patty Anna waited three weeks to get a call from the Ozarks Hillbilly possum eating hunk.
No call made for desperation.
Patty Anna finally sent a hand drawn valentine that said,
" I really enjoyed the dance and would love to be your valentine".
Ozarks Hillbilly boy was a gonner.
He called, they talked, they fell in love and planned a wedding before Aunt Nellie Raye could arrange the news for the Bridge Club Diva's.
" Oh Patty Anna, they will think the worst since I'm the last to know".
" My own poor mama will be so upset".
" Pshaw, Grandma will laugh at you, sides it worked out just as I planned ".
Loud foot stomping!!!!!!!!!
" HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME AND DADDY "?
" MAMA, HE AIN'T YOUR DADDY, WHY DO YOU THINK HE SPENDS SO MUCH TIME AT THE RIVER FISHING AND NEVER CATCHES ANY FISH "?
" He enjoys his fishing ".
" He surely does and he isn't called Daddy up there in Stockton ".
Loud face slapping!!!!!!!
So the wedding plans are being made with help from every Bridge Club Diva in town.
A train trip was planned to somewhere in the Ozarks to meet the Hillbilly family of the groom.
Protcol and all that you know.........
Dead of winter, rain and sleet, long train ride in musty sleeper car.
Hair do lost it's do somewhere in north Mississippi.
Daddy's throat started to hurt.
Daddy's head hurt.
Daddy ached all over.
Daddy started to shiver.
Daddy needed to take the cure with a tall glass of Southern Comfort......straight up.
Daddy suffered sever diarrhea.
The sleeper smelled.
Daddy's bald head was freezing.
Extra blankets were piled on to help with the bone rattling chills.
Daddy said, " I may die if I don't stop shaking. I'm so cold".
Loud slap!!!!!!!!!!!
" SHUT YOUR MOUTH, I SMELL LIKE DOOKIE".
" Mother would you please wrap my head, I'm freezing".
Aunt Nellie Raye clawed in the clothes bag to drag out her newly purchased Bonmarche mink pillbox that would show her station in life to the Ozarks Hillbillies.
Daddy looked like a Russian Czar deep into a St.Vitus dance in that mink pillbox.
Aunt Nellie Raye had nail punctures in her palms from fist clinching.
Tempers were off the rails by the time the train got them to Memphis.
Aunt Nellie Raye had flu and the smell of diarrhea all over her stylish Koret fully lined woolen suit from Gayfers.
Now her mink pillbox would need to be sanitized, thanks to her phlandering "Daddy".
Decisions were made to disembark in Memphis, get to a doctor before needing an undertaker, get a hotel room and a plane ticket back to Mobile, ASAP.
" Oh Dear Lord in Heaven here goes our wedding budget".
" Mother please"................
" Tarnation I want to slap you so bad right now".
"Oh fiddle.......here goes ",
SLAP...................." there now, I feel better ".
" Mother, you are a bitter woman ".
Many phone calls later, lots of screaming and crying and threats of wedding cancelations.
One could feel the folding of arms and hear the stomping of feet over the screaming through the Bell telephone system.
Hard standoff between Aunt Nellie Raye and cousin Patty Anna.
Finally, to avoid death due to full blown flu and pissed off mama and her pissed off daughter, "Daddy" reached for the phone.
The Ozark Hillbillies were explained to.
The Ozark Hillbillies listened closely and understood exactly what they had just been spared.
The June wedding was presented and fawned over in the First Baptist Church.
A number of sons and grandsons and granddaughters were born of the union.
Aunt Nellie Raye got sweet sugar kisses from all that until her dying day.
The marriage between cousin Patty Anna and the Ozarks Hillbilly lasted until death, one departed.
