Birdella

This story is based on an actual writings from my grandmother as she reflected back on her life. This story still has relevance today and her message is one to ponder. All feedback welcome!

I was born at home in the early fall, September 5th, 1902, on a Friday morning, as leaves turned colors, like chameleons, from summer green to vibrant red, orange and yellow. 

Yet my bone-weary Ma, her skin pasty and pale, was only aware of another child to feed, I being her 11th child. 

 

They named me Birdella, meaning bird, after a red robin that swooped by the window at my birth. Yet I was always known as Della, meaning noble. Growing up, I featured myself as a noble bird, like the eastern bluebird, the State bird of New York where I was born, in the small-town of Humphreysville.

 

We were very poor in worldly goods; no pipes for water, and only smokey kerosene lamps for hazy light at night. Our home, a weathered two-room house, sat on the loamy dirt banks of a muddy creek, near an old rickety foot bridge, 7 miles outside of the nearest larger town of Hudson. Our nearest human neighbors lived miles away. 

 

We would take sponge baths with water heated on the wood stove and use the outhouse for our commode. We had 4 beds, one for Ma and Pa, one for the girls, one for the boys and a white wicker bassinet for the youngest. Each bed placed alongside one of the 4 walls of the bedroom.  Somehow, we all managed to fit in our tiny house, all 14 of us at one point. Yes, Ma had another baby girl after I was born.

 

As a young child, my older sister and brother and I carried water in metal pails from the spring that seemed many miles away to me. We would drag ourselves out of bed just before the sun popped up over the nearby knoll, and we would trudge across the old bridge, then across a rutted dirt road, deep into the dark woods and back again with our precious water. Luckily, we always got back with the heavy load just before our arms fell clear off.   

 

I liked to fish in the muddy creek, mostly catching whisker-faced catfishes. Once in a while I’d catch a fat striped bass and we’d have a juicy fish fry for dinner. I went barefoot in the summer, as shoeing all our growing feet was an impossible task. It never bothered me though, cause I liked to walk along the road and feel my feet in the soft sun warmed dirt.   

 

As a toddler, when my Pa came home from working at a nearby farm, I'd meet him on the foot bridge.  I’d be all muddy from playing outside all day and he would say, "Oh what a dirty little girl you are!" He would get a tattered towel and washcloth, and some homemade soap, take me down to the creek and clean me up the best he could in that muddy water. I liked that!

 

One day, it was a “heat stroke” hot weather day, and Pa was sent home early afternoon, being too hot to work.  He said he just wanted to rest, so he got a blanket and pillow and made a place in the apple orchard in the shade of the trees.  He went back to the house to get something to read, but when he came back, there I was sound asleep in his bed.  When I was older, he shared this story with me. “Did you chase me out?”, I asked him.  “Never”, he said. 

 

I loved my Pa, but he had one bad fault, he drank whiskey too much! He would walk into Hudson once a week for groceries. Sometimes he would spend all the money he earned for drinks, and we would not hear from him for a week or ten days. We often went hungry before he sobered up and came home, especially in the winter when the creek froze up and our garden died.  We had some home canning that got us by, and we boiled ice chunks from the frozen spring for water.  

 

Looking back, the hunger came from the emptiness of waiting each day at the footbridge, imaging that I saw him coming, but no one was there. To this day, I still can’t talk about the many bad times, as they are blocked from my memory and locked far away in an impenetrable vault.  I like remembering the good times, when Pa was free, if only for a minute, from whiskey’s imprisonment.

 

I never understood why whiskey did this to him, as whiskey seemed to be kind to others, but not to my Pa.  Whiskey took him in its clutches, refusing to release him, chaining and shackling him to it, like a ball and chain, then throwing him into the bottomless river, watching him drown.

 

When I was 4, Pa wanted to take me on the long trek to Hudson with him for groceries. My mother said, "Della, don't go with him, he will get drunk and lie along the road." I said, "That's all right Ma, I'll get drunk and lie there also." This pleased my Pa, so he took me along with him and came straight back, with me and a large bag of groceries on his back. He did not take one drink that trip. 

 

When he sobered up, he was kind and good. When he drank, he was quarrelsome and mean.  Even when he stopped drinking, he wasn’t himself for days on end. Never knowing which Pa would come home, we often hid out in the woods all day until we knew for sure. If he stumbled home at nighttime, we pretended to be sound asleep, hoping he’d just fall into his bed and pass out.  If not, who knows what hell would break loose.  All we could do during those turbulent times was cling tightly to each other, praying we wouldn’t be next.  I came to hate all alcoholic drinking, and to this day I have never touched the stuff.

Reviews

[Delmar Cooper]

Noah Sweat Jr. 1952 made this speech in Jackson Ms. :
My friends, I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey.
If when you say "whiskey" you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation and despair and shame and helplessness and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.
But if when you say "whiskey" you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman's step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life's great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm, to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.
This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.

Cute bit of political double talk, thought I'd share with you.

[Debbie]

Delmar,
I love this "political double talk", I update my story to include a bit of it. And therein lies the dilemma, both the warmth and the coldness the same substance can bring. Thanks for sharing this with me!
Take care,
Debbie

[Delmar Cooper]

I meant it to be helpful as I recognized the two sides of the grandfather character your narrator describes. My Uncle was a jovial alcoholic who drank just enough to take the edge off. On Sunday mornings he was a different person, cold, distant , and taciturn. I liked the week-a-day uncle better.

[Debbie]

Yes, so true, the two sides of the person. Alcohol is a depressant, so even a happy drunk, eventually shows a more down, grumpier side. Thanks again for your comments and insights! They are very helpful to me.