My Timothy

5

June recognized that old clunker a mile away. What she could not have imagined was that both her sisters would be visiting.

She saw the perfectly coiffed head of bee-hived hair and hairspray exit the car. Shirley was the oldest of Parley's offspring and wife of Forbis Butt. In June's eyes, that made Shirley the truest butt of every corny joke ever told, and the epitome of that haughty spirit described in the Good Book that was just before falling flat on her face.

Forbis worked at Zagley Meats, shoveling entrails and other nasty bits into the big colossal grinder that turned them into dog sausage.

Dog sausage.

June would have to admit that's not what the great Hiram Zagley would call the process, but Shirley had taken June on a tour of the 'plant' not long after Forbis was taken on. Hiram opened his factory to the public once a year, showing off to his workers and their families before spreading a table of goodwill and token finger food at the Annual Zagley Picnic.

No matter how much Shirley tried to explain it, June still held the belief that the machine was a huge sausage grinder. The biggest she'd ever seen. Besides, what did Shirley know about making sausage? June was the expert on that subject. Shirley wouldn't soil her manicured fingernails with such tripe.

Shirley just stared at June like hillbillies had just urinated on her brand-new rayon dress with its adorable Peter Pan collar and cinched-in wasp waist, marking it, and her new matching Mary Jane Oxford pumps, in some sort of backwoods' mating ritual.

"Come on June," Shirley said, "this is 1957! Stop acting like a yokel straight out of the sticks! This is why I never take you anywhere. You'd embarrass the living daylights out of a tree stump."

"I'd rather be sitting on one, thank you very much," June said, stomping off in the stupid high-water pants Shirley had gone on and on about as the cutest things since that two-toned chiffon top Deborah wore in her latest movie with Cary.

Why name them Capri, June wondered? And who were Deborah and Cary?

June had never ventured into town for a movie. Waste of time and money – not to mention who would finish all her chores?