So Santa Claus had come and gone. The house was a wreck, Mama was a wreck from all the work she had done before and now had waiting to do after we were back in school after New Years. We all had eaten so much fresh fruit and candy
everybody was suffering fruit and sugar overload. Who cared, those chocolate mounds and orange slices had to be eaten. Washington Delicious apples were still smelling up our house with wonderful memories.
I stopped to jig when the radio played Red Foley singing, Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy.
" Shut up y'all, I'm trying to listen"...............
"Y'ant, you bumping the floor".......
" Scabby knees"..........
Spit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All the caps for my brother's pistols were used up. Now they hollered, "pow, pow" when an outlaw needed to fall. Their baseball had lost stitches in the covering. The basketball needed a new valve stem.
Our toys got worked.
Some years our dolls had takeoff heads and by mid-week we were in negotations with our brothers to borrow our dolls heads to be used as a baseball if we were allowed to play. We played.
A doll head stuffed with a wad of socks worked pretty well for a baseball. A bit wobbly when hit, but that just added to the fun. We hit it to left field to have it wobble to first base and bounce in circles to wobble over to land at the pitchers mound.
Loud screamng and laughing...........
"That knobby headed doll can catch the wind for a wild ride".
" Maybe we could slice off her ears and nose".
" Gimme my doll head you butt".
Everybody enjoyed their gift from Santa and ended up sharing at one time or another.
Things got brutal in our games when our creative side showed up and showed out.
The year of 4th grade for me was the year of big change. I was moved up from getting a doll for Christmas to finding a beautiful dresser set under the tree. Looking back, I now know the reason for the end of dolls for me was economics for Mama and Daddy.
See, my younger sisters were in need of dolls. Mama went to Elmores 5 &10 in Atmore and searched really hard to find a bargain for Santa to bring for my little sisters AND have enough money to buy all of us a toy that year.
Jesus helped Mama with her bargain shopping the Christmas season of 1950. She found a set of twin baby dolls.
BINGO!
Mama took a flannel baby blanket, cut it in half and wrapped Pete & Repete seperately for Annie and Coot.
Mama was so wise.
My gift was in a cardboard box with a cutout covered in cellophane to show a hand mirror, a hairbrush and a comb.
Opening my gift that Christmas morning was so bittersweet. That beautiful dresser set with gold trim and dainty flowers on the back of the mirror was breathtaking. I knew Mama was aiming to encourage me to better grooming habits while having to be very frugal with her spending. The downside of the gift was I didn't get a doll. That hurt, but I knew that ship had sailed. The days of dolls were over or me.
New Years came and went with a few Roman candles, school was back in session and my world kept turning.
Mrs. Rupert Green, my 4th grade teacher had advised us the day of our Christmas party that we could bring one favorite toy to school the first day back for show and tell.
I knew I would bring my favorite toy.......I always got just one.
So, I put my beautiful dresser set into a grocery bag for hauling it to school and to cover my shame of not having a big beautiful doll all dressed in a bonnet, her dress with ruffles and cute patent leather shoes with a pearl button strap.
ALL the girls in 4th grade at Wallace School in 1951 came back from Christmas holidays holding dolls that filled their arms and some that had eyes with lashes that closed if they laid them down.
All held new dolls except me and two other disavantaged little classmates.
I don't remember what those two brought to share, but it had to be less than a dresser set. Those little girls were on the lowest rung of the economic ladder so they usually got less than nothing.
The time came when Mrs. Greene said we could stand up and show our Christmas gift. So many beautiful dolls, so many Oohs and Aahs.
My turn, I pulled out my beautiful dresser set to show as my heart beat so fast I felt as if I was seeing gnats.
The anointed one, the one with the tallest doll, asked in a loud voice,
" Why didn't you bring your doll Earline"?
In a moment of complete calm I answered,
" I didn't want her to get dirty".
*** 1951, my 4th grade year was a very good one, I won the poetry writing contest and got to stand up to show it all printed out on my poster with a big gold star. ?
