The Old Place
By Nita Wilson - aka - youngest
daughter and third child of Wynton and Flora Wilson of the Wilson, Byrd, David, O’neal, Downing
clan of south Mississippians A family
of story tellers and lovers of life
I dreamed last night I was
walking up the worn path to the “old place”; the old Victorian farm house of
yesterday, complete with gingerbread trim glowing in the moonlight. the home of my people. it stood silent and grand like a little grey
school marm waiting for students to file to their seats from recess. I was of no age, nor was I noticed by the
happy revelers of another age lounging on the porch. But they were all there,
the sweetest people I’ve ever known, the good people, the grownups of my
childhood and the builders of me. I
could feel the love and the familiar sounds of laughter among family with
history.
The first I saw was Aunt Bill,
tall and slim; a great story teller, with a joyous sense of humor and a love of life. With just a whisper of a middle aged lady’s
mustache, the dainty gray and black whiskers trying to hide in the wrinkles
around her mouth; she was smiling and happy. Her hair was short, natural and
not afraid of turning gray. She was sitting in one of the old Cypress rockers
that had been a part of this very porch since her childhood - left knee pulled
into her chest the right leg draped over the arm of the weathered chair; she
held an unfiltered cigarette between thumb and first finger. Taking deep
draughts of the hot smoke and exhaling through a very tiny hole formed with her
lips, she was amused with someone’s just told story and was about to tell the
group of siblings and cousins sitting around the porch a sequel to match the
one just heard.
And there was my Dad, her
first cousin, sitting in the rocker next to hers, left knee over the arm of his
chair; trousers hiked showing the top of his trouser sock. Laughing blue eyes and happy face meant he
was the proud teller of the latest tale.
Unceremoniously tapping his cigarette ashes onto the worn Cypress floor
and coughing out a laugh - showing his front teeth, including the half one,
missing because of a new Christmas rifle when he was 13; he was in his element. Telling stories and
enjoying these people , his kin, his past, on the old family porch all laughing
at his mimicry of remembered souls from their youth. He was a happy man smoking and laughing with
these his kindred spirits. He was the
most honest man I’ve ever known and was born without the mean bone so many of
us have and cultivate. He was extremely intelligent, was valedictorian of his
high school and until he died, was the funniest man in the world. He considered his cup not only full, but
brimming over and filling other’s.
Tom Davis was there, sitting
on the ancient swing, gray Fedora cocked at a jaunty angle as always. His left foot and ankle rested over his right
knee, and he was holding his cigarette out away from the side of the swing
between his thumb and forefinger, so he could flip the ashes and butt into the
shrubbery lining the porch when the little white menace had served its purpose.
He used his right hand to caress and smooth the sock on his ankle and was looking
down chuckling at the latest story. Tom wasn’t a belly laugher like the others,
but he always had a twinkle in his eye and loved to be amused and entertained. He usually had a secret, risqué joke he was
going to tell if the whimsy struck him and the ladies were in ‘another room’. He was a favorite of the children and knew
more songs with funny lyrics than anyone in our world. He was married to Lydean David and was brother
in law to Aunt Bill David and her brother Uncle Upton. He’d grown up with them and was a dearly loved
member of this family and part of the ‘porch gang’. Kind and gentle he was the closest thing we
children knew as an adult “friend”.
Uncle Waldo, my Dad’s older
brother, slim and a bit fey for this bunch, with his delicate grace and good
nature, sat on the other side of the old wooden swing, gently pushing the swing
with a foot, the other foot pulled up on the swing with him, one hand resting
on the swing chain, the other one tucked slightly between his western shirt
with bolo tie, and the belt of his trousers. When he laughed his body would
nervously move about; as, I’m told, it had since childhood. As he
laughed, he’d almost get up and then sit back down so that he was continually
changing positions on the swing during a happy moment. He’d just finished this bit of theatrics and
had settled into the afore mentioned latest position readying himself for the
next story. He loved these visits once a
year from his home in Arizona; the only vacations he ever wanted to take. He and my Aunt Zula Mae would drive from the
West in the spring or fall and stop first in Shreveport and visit with her
folks; and then on to Mississippi and his favorite people, his Brothers and
Cousins. He regaled the porch on more
than one occasion with tales of the west and how it had changed since the
1930’s when he first got there. We kids
loved his tales of the colorful Navajos with whom he worked and the incredible
Apaches and their strange customs. For
us, he was the voice of the West and the real Cowboys and Indians.
Uncle Russell sat in a
straight backed chair leaning on two legs against the wall of the house, arms
crossed and feet just touching the porch floor- the light from the porch window
at his back. He was the youngest of the
Wilson brothers and David cousins and wasn’t much for telling stories, but he
loved to listen and laugh. As any
youngest member of an old established family hierarchy, he made himself heard
with only a few additions or adjustments to a story and kept a happy smile on
his face at all times. Once when I fell
off of my bike, he came out to the dusty drive to see if I needed help, he was
laughing and smiling and I couldn’t forgive him for years for not showing my
accident the respect I thought it deserved. My Dad always approached such a
spill with a worried and serious face allowing me the dignity of my
disaster.
Uncle Upton David, tall,
handsome and dignified sat in one of the porch chairs, long, long, Gary Cooper legs
crossed with both feet hitting the floor at the same time. Hands folded in his
lap, full lips curled in a delighted smile; he was, as always the most
wonderful host in the world. As I grew
older and read books about my southern people and customs, I was to recognize
him and the others as true Southern Gentlemen.
He could tell the funniest stories of all and he and my Dad would mimic
the star or hero of the tale which brought even harder laughter from the small
audience. He was the Patriarch of this porch and any other gathering for this
family. Not only because of age, but the grace in which he
conducted his life. We children looked
up to him as a great man. One of the
biggest compliments I ever received was his telling me after I moved to New
York. ”You’ve gotten too far away. We miss you.”
I didn’t even know he thought of me other than the little girl hiding under my dad’s chair listening
to the stories on nights like these on the porch.
I passed on into the house and
down the long, wide center hall into the kitchen. Light and friendly chatter met me there. Aunt Adeline, Uncle Upton’s wife and the
sweetest of all hostesses was at the sink finishing the dishes. She was tall
and willowy, well educated and every inch the Southern Lady in the best sense.
When she spoke, it was quietly and gently and she always had something worth
saying. She was the perfect “straight man” to Uncle Upton’s humor. I never heard her raise her voice, nor did I
ever hear her gossip. We children
always tried to mind our manners and be on good behavior around her, not an
easy task for the hooligans we were.
Aunt Zula Mae was steadily and sweetly
complaining of her constipation -created by the long drive and a hard
automobile seat across the country.
Strangely, of all my wonderful memories of her; that one is the strongest. Maybe a cushion would’ve helped during the
long drive? She resembled Eleanor Roosevelt and like the others, spoke in a
very thick, slow southern accent with perfect grammar. She never had children and it was her heart
break. She loved children and she loved
all of us and doted on us to the point of spoiling us had she been allowed. She had the reputation of having chased Uncle
Waldo until she caught him, but years later visiting with him, he told of how
in love with her he’d been and what a sweet wife she made. I was glad to hear it.
Dorothy, Aunt Bill’s companion
of 30yrs. I was grown before I
approached a different scenario with my parents, but was met with adamant
denial. Seems there was a boyfriend who
was killed in the war. That was good
enough for my Dad. No one much liked the
‘roommate’ Dorothy. She was a
whiner. We children stayed away from her
since she didn’t seem to care for children, and always had a complaint
going. She was always there with Aunt
Bill and we just accepted it for what it wasn’t. Even as a very small girl, I felt that she
was Aunt Bill’s “wife”. She must have
had something good, because Aunt Bill considered her a great friend. One day though, I caught Aunt Bill and Tom
Davis making a little joke about Dorothy as two husbands would do about one’s
nagging wife. What ever it was, they
both found it amusing. Even though we
didn’t care much for her, she was a part of this group as surely as if she’d
been born to them. When aunt Bill died,
she was inconsolable.
Mother and Lydean were just each
opening a beer and headed to the story
telling on the porch as I entered the kitchen.
Lydean was Uncle Upton and Aunt Bill’s sister, Tom Davis’ wife and my
Mother’s best friend. Lydean was the
only perfect human being i ever knew.
She never showed me or anyone else a bad side of that sweet yet funny
personality. As I looked back down the hall and out the
front door, she and Mother were sitting on either side of the front steps,
pedal pushers showing slender legs, delicately sipping beer with one hand
dragging on a rarely smoked cigarette with the other and laughing with their
family. They believed kitchen duty was
something you did because customs dictated, but as soon as you could, you hit
the porch and the fun stuff.
Aunt Marion stayed in the
kitchen with the ‘women folk’. She was
Uncle Russell’s wife and a constant counter of imagined slights dealt by my
Mother and Aunt Zula Mae, her sisters in law.
She was the youngest of nine children raised by a maiden aunt and never
quite understood that her sisters in law were not out to ‘get her’ or cause her
mischief . to the children, Aunt Marion
was a delight. She knew a million jokes
fit for kids and took pride in any thing we ever said or accomplished and
bragged about each of us until her death a few years ago.
I went back out onto the porch
only to see I had become too grown to hide under my Dad’s chair .
I walked down the path and
stood at the old gate looking back at the house. The wonderful old place stood as gray as only
weathered Cypress can , gingerbread bordering the corners of the porch and the
dormer windows of the second floor.
Light coming out of the windows gave the old place a party atmosphere
and made me feel such a bittersweet welcome I thought I couldn’t breathe. I watched my favorite people laughing on the
porch and didn’t want to leave. As I walked down the country road lined with
Pecan trees and century old Azaleas, I turned to look again. The house stood empty and quiet - a gray
bastion of loneliness , beauty and lives
dead and gone in the moonlight, the only sound was the wind in the great pines
hovering behind the house. . Looking
over at my right, the little cemetery slept in the moonlight, tall cedars
standing guard over the ancient stones like sentinels. I knew Uncle Upton lay there with dead family
I never knew, including the dead uncle killed in France in WWI. It should ‘ve given me peace, but knowing he
was there without his favorite people… but when I looked again, the porch was
lighted again and I realized, they were all there. I had stepped into a world where they are all
waiting. Maybe for all of us or just
some, I sure hope I ‘m one.
Not long after I wrote this memory, Aunt Adeline
died and was buried under the cedars next to Uncle Upton. Maybe they were waiting for her. She was the last of the ‘porch gang’ to
go. My cousins and I are now the old,
the wise, the ones telling funny stories and laughing at times gone away. The house was filled with children at the
funeral. The next generation of ‘porch
gang’ coming into and making Vestry,
Mississippi’s history.