Saturday, April 4, 2015

Summer Tragedy 1955: Segment six from the Series Uprooted, (About an Appalachian family living in south Florida from 1955 through the 1960's.)



We settled in the new house and after the new furniture was in place we had just enough room to walk around.  Daddy set up the TV in the living room and put up an outside antenna that he could go out and turn depending on which station we were going to watch.  We were so excited, because there were three stations that we could get out of Miami.  Three stations!   

One day in August we got terrible news.  One of Daddy’s older brothers used to live next door to us in North Carolina.  We were real close.  His wife had died of brain cancer when Rebecca was real little.  Now, there was just him and his son, Lin.  Lin loved airplanes and made models and hung them by fishing line from the ceiling of an outbuilding that his daddy had given him to use as his own workshop.   

Lin was real quiet, but he would always let the children in to see his planes and he joined the service about a year before the family moved to Florida.  He was stationed in Germany.   

Rebecca and Robert were not called to supper.  That had never happened.  They always pushed coming in from play to the last minute, but when they weren’t called they got curious and went home.  

They found daddy sitting on the couch.  Just sitting there.  He hadn’t cooked supper and mama was still at work.  He looked up but he didn’t say anything.  Both of the children realized that he looked funny.  “What’s wrong Daddy?” both of the children asked in unison.   

“Lin is dead,” he replied.   

“Dead?” both children said at once.   

“How, Daddy?” Rebecca asked as she slumped at his feet.   

Robert sat down beside daddy and buried his head against daddy’s arm already crying.   

Mica told the children what he knew.  “He was flying in a plane they call a boxcar and his plane and another one collided in mid-air.”   

Rebecca jumped up saying, “But, Daddy that is not possible.  Look up at the sky.  There is just so much room up there that it would be impossible for two planes to hit each other.  That can’t be right.”   
   
“Rebecca, it would seem that you should be right, but they did hit head-on and all aboard both planes were killed.”   

“Well, when are we leaving for North Carolina for the funeral?” Robert asked.   

“We aren’t going,” Daddy replied.   

“Not going to the funeral ….”  Rebecca couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  “But, Daddy everybody always comes to the funerals from no matter where they are.  Always.  You know we all have to bring food in and sit with each other and pet Uncle Ice.  We have to go.  We always talk and are all so sad together then we begin telling stories about the person and start laughing at those stories.  We always help each other.  Then we go to the funeral and to the graveyard and cry all over again.  Then we go back to Aunt Pet’s house and eat and the out of town folks start leaving.  Daddy we just have to go.”   

Mica replied, “I know, Rebecca,” he began stroking her short brown hair.  “I know, sweet girl, but we just can’t swing it right now.”   

Aunt Lou and Uncle John decided to go to the funeral so daddy rode up with them.  He took the children aside and told them to behave while he was gone.  Mama stayed to work and while she was at work Rebecca and Robert had to stay home by themselves.  They were not allowed to go outside until mama came home.  The children felt abandoned and they also felt that they had abandoned all their kin.  They didn’t even misbehave or fight with each other while they were home alone.   

They laid on the bed looking at the clock.  Robert would ask Rebecca, “What are they doing now?” Rebecca told him, from her memories of previous wakes and funerals, what she thought the various family members were doing.  “Do you think Aunt Betty made a banana cake?” he asked.   

“Of course she did, Robert.  You can’t have a proper sittin’ without a banana cake and lots of other cakes and pies.  There’d also be green beans and potato salad, ham and chicken, sandwiches, every kind of sandwich that you can think of, there’d be pickles and beets and deviled eggs and many other things.  About everything there is to eat would be there for all the family.  Friends and family and church people see to those things.  The church ladies see to the dishes being washed up and everything else that needs to be done.”   

“Do you think the men go out for a snort?” Robert continued.   

“You know they do,” Rebecca answered.  “I guess they are putting what’s left of him in the ground ‘bout now,” Rebecca said.  Then they just laid quietly on their respective beds saying nothing.   

When daddy got back he told them that it had been very sad.   

Patty F. Cooper, April 4th, 2015, Elizabethton, Tennessee   

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