MILK CANS AND LIMOUSINES

MILK CANS AND LIMOUSINES

Our Grandmother drove a funeral home limousine for a family car. It’s a good thing too, because she used to come to our house about every other day and load up as many of us kids up as possible to go down to the farm to get milk, eggs, and vegetables. We’d usually fight over who got to sit on the jump seats. It was the coolest car ever. 

 Munnie had what’s known as a lead foot, even though she had to drive with the seat all the way forward; and then probably needed a couple of pillows to reach the accelerator. If she saw a car in front of her, she would speed up until she passed it. Sometimes she would see someone ahead of her going way too slow and miss her turn off to the farm driveway.

The farm was just below us on Jacksboro Highway. Munnie would have to drive down Central Avenue a block, turn right, and then turn right on Northside Drive to Jacksboro Highway, and turn right. A little ways down, we’d turn left down a very obscure road. It was very steep, and my heart would just pound every time we’d head down that hill. Munnie wasn’t afraid at all. I was always amazed at how we always made it back up the hill.

Later, when we were older, we’d just walk down the hillside and cross the highway to the farm. The caretakers were Bob and Marie Fagan, an old married couple, who were the nicest people I ever did meet. Bob would let us help milk the cows, until Munnie rounded us up. I got the feeling she didn’t want us to bother Bob while he milked the cows. He didn’t like us to climb up in the barn hayloft, because he said there were rats up there. Marie would let us help her collect the eggs, and I was a little afraid of the hens if they were still sitting on their nest. While we were busy snooping around, Munnie and Marie would skim the cream off the off the top of the milk to make butter.

There was a pecan orchard on the farm and a “U” shaped fishing pond that Grandad used to call a tank. I didn’t think it looked at all like a tank. There was also a mule named Judy, and pigs and turkeys and a couple of attack geese. Those geese were really mean, and would chase us across the yard. Grandad said that turkeys are stupid because they’ll look straight up when it rains and just strangle them selves with the rain.

Munnie would gather us all back up and load us into the limousine to take us home with the milk, eggs and vegetables. She’d stand the big cans (usually two of them) on the floor in the back. She’d drop us off at home, and leave half of the milk and eggs at our house. She’d take the other can to Aunt Ollie, just a couple of blocks away. Sometimes she’d give Joanie and Anne and me a jar filled with fresh cream to shake up to make butter. Other times, she hand us a sack of purple hull peas and tell us to go out on the front porch and shell them. She firmly believed that children should always have something to do. “Heaven is for perfect people! Jesus is in Heaven! I’m still here and you’re still here. So, maybe there’s something we should be working on!”

This Is How It Started

PLACES IN TIME
1948 THRU 1966

This Is How It Started:

It has occurred to me that I’ve started posting these stories in the wrong order. Perhaps I should sort of map out… make a brief summary.

Mom and Dad (George Lewis and Alice Marie Shannon), met and married in Fort Worth. Dad was a marine stationed at Camp Bowie. Mom worked at the rationing board with her dear friend, Wanda Fae. They would watch the marines drill in the street below. Dad would be standing in the window in the building across the street from the rationing board. George and Alice Marie flirted that way at a distance for who knows how long…..weeks...... days?..... hours? ...... minutes? I suspect minutes. Finally Dad motioned to Mom that they should meet down stairs. Now, Mom says they were formally introduced. Hmmmmm......But since they had no common friends at that time, I suspect that they picked each other up. Then things started to heat up. They were married in July of 1944 at the home of her parents (Munnie and Granddad) on Grand Avenue. I believe they left for Cherry Point and lived there until Dad had to be shipped out for China and Korea.

Joanie was born in August 1945. Mom lived at home with Munnie and Granddad, and her sister Ollie and younger brothers, Jack, Bill and George while Dad was overseas. Mom and Dad would write almost daily, and Dad would send her bolts of silk fabric from China to sew into something fabulous. After he returned to the States, he and mom and Joanie moved to Elmira, New York where I was conceived and was born in 1948, January, and where Dad worked for Corning Glassware. Anne followed about 14 months after I’d arrived. And that made me the first middle child. After that, it was back to Fort Worth, Texas where Joe was born in 1950, November. We then moved to………………

….Brenham, Texas from 1951 to about 1953, and then up to….

….St. Louis, Mo until about1956, where Claire was born, and then from there…

….back to Fort Worth, where we lived with Munnie and Granddad at 1407 Grand Avenue, until we moved into a house two blocks down the street at 1619 Grand Avenue sometime in 1957. Geo.III, Danny, and Mary were born there, and then……….

....Munnie and Granddad built a new house out near Lake Worth, and we moved back into 1407 Grand Avenue, where we stayed, and Caroline, Tommy and Bryan were born.


Well, that the briefest I could make this summary. You can use it as a “place finder”.

CHICKEN POX AND TRAIN RIDES

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Dad brought me down from St. Louis in the spring of 1952 on a train when I was about 5. I have to say that at the time I had no idea why Dad and I had to come down to Texas on the train while everyone else got there another way; everyone else being Joanie, Anne, Joe and Claire. My name’s Melissa and I was told I had chicken pox, and that Mom and Dad were trying to keep me from infecting my other siblings, especially our new little baby, Claire. Dad said I really entertained everyone in the dining car. I don’t remember that part, but I do remember getting to sleep in the top bunk in the Pullman car. The next morning, Daddy woke me saying that we’d had run into another train and had to change over to another train to get to Fort Worth. I don’t remember the train even lurching. It must not have been much.

I’ll just skip over the part where we arrived at the train station in F.W., because I don’t remember that either. I do remember waking up at 1407 Grand Avenue, and seeing a very sweet woman’s face. She was holding me and smiling at me. That sweet woman was our grandmother, Thelma Ulala West Shannon, aka Munnie. Munnie was a diminutive woman, but she was always in charge. She wore her hair in a little white bun. I always saw her as an authoritative figure in an apron and lace up Dr. Scholl’s high heal shoes, little fists on her hips. She sort of reminded me of Tweety Bird’s owner. You just didn’t defy Munnie, and you certainly did not sass her!!!

The next thing I knew, Munnie had me upstairs and lovingly tucked into a cot in her bedroom. She’d given me some medicine (I suspect paregoric), and I must have slept for days. When I woke up I could hear children playing in the front yard. I got up and went out on the balcony, hearing in the back of my memory, “Now, don’t you dare get out of bed!” Why did she want me to stay in bed? I sure didn’t feel sick.

As I stood there watching my siblings play, and longing to go out to play too, I got that prickly feeling on the back of my neck, like someone was standing behind me. Before I could look around I heard Munnie’s admonition, “I told you to stay in bed!” Without another word, she took me by the hand and escorted me to the bathroom. OH! She was mad at me. Why would she be mad at me? I mean to say I was SCARED! If that wasn’t bad enough, she took down my little cotton panties and put me across her lap. At this, I started to cry. I didn’t think I deserved a spanking! After what seemed like forever, I realized the spanking hadn’t even started, but instead, I felt little cold, wet dots being put on my bottom. There wasn’t going to be a spanking! Still, without speaking a word, she continued putting Calamine Lotion on the chicken pox on my bottom. Munnie knew exactly the impact she was having on me. After that, I never disobeyed her again. Her word was the law. Munnie was the boss of everyone!

GAL Oatmeal

GAL Oatmeal 1956 During the cold weather season, we could walk into the kitchen very early, and we would always find dad making up the huge ration of oatmeal. I would watch him put in the right amounts with a coffee cup for the oatmeal, water and milk; and the palm of his hand for the spices…. whatever they were. I never paid much attention to the amounts or the order in which he performed this magic. He’d dust his hands off over the revered “oatmeal pan” and assign someone to stir the oatmeal so it wouldn’t boil over or burn. 

Sometimes I had that job, but that was the extent of my experience with making oatmeal, until……………. One morning at the beginning of summer, when I was about 8, I wandered into the kitchen and noticed with amazement that there was no oatmeal made. I went in and stood reverently at the bedside of Mom and Dad.... on Dad's side. I waited, and then patted him gently his shoulder. He mumbled something quite unintelligible, and then opened his eyes and stared...like I was a stranger or something. "Where is the oatmeal?" I said, "Well, what time is it?"... Dad asked. "Well,' I said, "It's six o'clock, Dad, and you're late for making the oatmeal." 

 Dad thought for a moment, and said, "Well.............err.........uhm, why don't you make the oatmeal this morning?" "But Daaad". I said in my best 8-year-old whine "I don't know how you make the oatmeal." "Well, why don't you? You've seen me do it a million times.” He said. "But I don't know how much to put in the pan. 

Again, he spoke. "Listen carefully You put in: 3 Cups water 3 Cups of Milk Bring this to a boil and turn it down. Add: -3 Cups of OLD-FASHIONED OATS (“not that 3-minute crap!”) -a pinch of salt -a dash of nutmeg and (not too much nutmeg because it can constipate), a couple of dashes of cinnamon ….and raisins, if we had them, Simmer and stir until done." 

 Serve up in generous size bowls to however many people you have there (in our case at that time it was 7.5 kids and Mom and Dad). Garnish with a hunk o' butter, some sugar (brown is good) and a little bit of milk to cool it a little. You can add whatever else you want.......Raisins, Peaches, Dried Apricots, Apple slices, Nuts, Trail Mix, Sesame Seeds, Flax Seed is good to sprinkle on...Wheat Germ……….

And that's it.