Stories From Under A Bootheel (Rants, Laughs, and Tears)

Chapter 2 Kinsmen and Kindness Part 4 One Sweetie Pie

 Arguments were the family pastime. Not that we were really that passionate in our beliefs, we were just taught by example from an early age to take the opposite side of an argument for the fun of irritating the other person. My dad was the best at getting his two sisters wound up and pitted against each other. This was my family's idea of entertainment.

Cookie's older sister Sweetie Pie was the exception. She was my sister's age and was truly aptly nicknamed. She was the only member of the seven cousins who didn't get caught up in all the family competition and could honestly be called sweet. She taught autistic and special needs children. No doubt our family had prepared her for dealing with uniquely difficult people.

Our final family reunion was at Pie's fishing cabin on one of the mountain streams just outside of Little Rock. By then, our parents and even Bubba (who refused to give up smoking) had all passed and the family was scattered to all parts of the country. Earl and his clan were in Georgia, Buzzy and his family were in Fayetteville, my sister was in Virginia, Cookie was in West Texas, and I and my kids were in California. For Sweetie Pie's sake, we were all willing to travel from our homes to have a family get together like we use to. We didn't know the real reason why Pie had wanted to hold this reunion. We just knew she wanted us all there and she is the one member of our family we would all do anything in the world for and we just assumed that like the rest of us she thought it would be fun to get the family together again.

Once we were all there, and despite the idyllic setting, we immediately got into our usual mode of teasing and arguing. It was great fun for us, but a bit of a shock to our children's spouses who were new to our family traditions.

Let me give you a sample. We were all gathered in the large rustic family room of Pie's cabin. Earl was complaining about the heat. Pie asked me if I thought I could fix the ceiling fan in the center of the room. We got a ladder and I got up on it to check out the fan. The fan was over the couch where my son was sitting holding Buzzy's grandson the newest addition to the family (Ty is now a center on the University of Arkansas Football team. Then he was just the center of attention.) Earl was also on the couch offering unhelpful suggestions. Earl's son in law David, a mechanical/nuclear engineer, and also a Georgia Tech graduate, was on the ladder helping me with the fan and with rebutting Earl's suggestions. Buzzy's son-in-law Josh who was not used to being around so many loud, and argumentative people, especially ones who were holding a large ceiling fan above his son's head, came over and took the baby out of my son's arms saying, "No offense, but let's move the baby someplace safer, away from Tim and Al." (The names were referencing the characters who were always screwing up home improvement projects on the popular television comedy "Home Improvement".)

"You'd think a couple of Georgia Tech Engineers could fix a ceiling fan," Earl continued to goad us.

"Tell you what, Earl, we will take the fan down and put it in the middle of the street and then it will be a problem for the civil engineer. Okay?" I asked him.

"No, you go ahead, I don't want to show you up," Earl smirked. I just realized, I can't even picture Earl without a smirk on his face. It is the same smirk my father often had.

"We can do this later," Sweetie Pie suggested trying to quiet things down, but we all knew that wasn't going to happen. I don't remember if we got the fan fixed. I'm sure we continued to argue though.

It wasn't until after Pie's death several months later that Cookie told me that the real reason Pie had wanted to hold the reunion was because she knew she had terminal cancer. She didn't tell the rest of us because she didn't want us treating her differently.