The Mansion

The old house at Shake Rag burned down one day. You’ve read that in another story. That wasn’t the house that I remember. The house that I remember was its replacement, a 4 room cinder block house. A counter was added to split the kitchen from the dining table so I guess with a little creative thinking it might have been considered five rooms. There was nothing special about this rural farm house except that everything was special. The living room had three chairs and a couch. Two of the chairs were recliners that had been given to Mamma Bea and Daddy Freeman as gifts from loving children. Daddy Freeman’s was as hard as the concrete block he sat on outside to clean the fish. Mamma Bea’s was more suitable for her to rest in, which was seldom except for the afternoon nap that she took after putting the dinner dishes away, drinking a bottle of Coke and watching As the World Turns. At one time there was a giant fish bowl in the living room. The scar on my left leg leaves little to guess what happened to the bowl. There was a Pillsbury Dough Boy and Girl that were Christmas gifts, pictures of family and a color TV. There was a coffee table too although I don’t remember anyone ever drinking coffee around it. That was done at the dining table, sometimes from a cup, sometimes from the saucer. There were two bedrooms. One bedroom was where guests slept when they came to visit. As I recall, the only ones who ever slept in that room was my parents and Uncle Fred and Aunt Linda. They came down from Coldwater up near Memphis every so often. It used to irritate Momma Bea just a bit that Aunt Linda slept past breakfast time. I don’t think she ever complained but her face, well, it told a different story. The other bedroom was where Momma Bea and Daddy Freeman slept, and me. The room was big enough to have a double bed and a half bed. I always slept there, even when my long, skinny frame extended well beyond the bounds of the foot board. There was a fan in the room. The fan was an electric motor that Daddy Freeman had attached a car’s engine fan to. Stick a finger in it and you regretted it: for a very long time. The small closet held the few clothes they had which, by the way, were always starched and ironed. At the bottom of the closet were a couple of rags that Tiny, their dog, slept on. I hated that dog. It would sit in Daddy Freeman’s lap and growl at me. In the hall were the shotgun and rifle. The stove was there. Not the oven, the stove. The stove was the house’s heater. It was gas and sat there in the hall waiting patiently all summer until it would finally get its call in late fall. The telephone was in the hall. A useful tool, that telephone. When travelling home, we would ring it once and hang up. They knew their children had made it home safely without incurring any charges from Ma Bell. It also kept them informed about the Shake Rag gossip, particularly if you happen to pick up when the neighbor down the road was on the line. Then there was the kitchen. A well used oven, butter churn and refrigerator resided there. Oh the magic that Mamma Bea could perform. Made-from-scratch biscuits. Fried chicken. Apple jelly. Fried corn. I still crave each of those and much more. There was a chair there that Daddy Freeman always brought his socks and black leather shoes to in order to put them on. It must have been just the right height. In the drawer was a butcher knife. Most knives have a straight edge but not this one. It had an arch in the middle. It served as evidence of the thousands of ears of corn that Mamma Bea had cut and scraped through the years. Just off the kitchen was a small room or large closet that housed the hundreds of jellies, jams and vegetables that had been canned and preserved. There was a chest freezer and another refrigerator, which must have been the first Frigidaire ever made. There were other special things in the house like the old radio that the three of us listened to Gospel music on every Sunday morning along with a little preaching. I guess it was their substitute for going to Mount Olive Baptist just down the road. Jesus said that He would prepare a place for us. I think I just described what I hope mine is like. I suspect that Mamma Bea is happy if there is an oven, a bottle of Coke and As the World Turns playing once a day. Daddy Freeman? He’ll be happy where Mamma Bea is . . . and that spiteful little dog . . . and Mom and Loretta and a host of brothers and sisters. A few cows would be a bonus, but not in the house. Well, I guess that is what we all want, really. To be with Jesus and family that is. We’ll all get there someday. For now, I’ll cling to my memories of Shake Rag and work on creating new ones with Jana and the kids.