black cats and bathrooms

As you all may remember from a previous, rather humbling post (here), my childhood was unlike any childhood most people born after 1940 ever dreamed of having.


I was raised in a little bitty tiny community called Burnt Cabin (see link above for map).


It's about 20 minutes to the east of Muskogee, Oklahoma and about two hours from the Arkansas line. It's in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains - so, unlike most of Oklahoma, this area has beautiful rolling hills, thick green forests and crisp blue lakes and rivers.


The first home I remember was a glorious, old metal mobile home. It looked a lot like this one, except that it was longer and had a brown stripe through the middle.


We lived on about 6 acres that my family shared. Granny had a six room home that my grandpa built himself about 100 yards from us. Uncle Jim and Linda lived in a mobile home like ours, except white, about 50 yards from us. Then my cousin Rhonda and her family lived in a home the Cherokee Nation built about 150 yards from the rest of us. We also had two barns, a chicken coop and an old pig pen.


I loved living "Down Home" as we all called it. Instead of hours in front of cartoons, we played outside in the woods that lined the east side of our land. There weren't too many kids for us all to play with, except the Hick's but we weren't allowed to play with them (they had head lice). BUT - there were plenty of animals for us to mess with. While the chicken coop and the pig pen sat empty, we had a band of old dogs, who formed their own pack, that hung around since Granny and Grandpa would feed them. We also had about 30ish cats that overtook the pig pen. (What? We were poor and couldn't afford to get them all fixed, besides, they controlled the mice that killed our plants). Anyway...


I remember one time my cousin Justin and I (we were both 7 at the time) found some old black cat fireworks. After lighting off one or two here or there we decided we needed more excitement. So, we found a REALLY long string and tied a whole row of black cats to one end and as we were climbing up to tie them into a tree my sister's cat Charlie walked by...


Justin jumped out of the tree and caught poor ol' Charlie. So, I held him down as Justin tied the other end of the long (and I emphasize long - it had to be at least 6 feet long). Then, he lit the fuse.


I can honestly say I've never seen a cat run so fast.


That was the day Justin and I were restricted from playing together...and we both got spankin's from dad's belt too. See, the cat ran under our trailer, which had a very classy siding. Red rocks stacked up underneath. Think something like this...but with red rocks.



Anyway...turns out dad was "using the facilities" when that cat ran right under the bathroom. He had no idea WHAT was going on except that he heard gunshots and a cat screeching.



When he came out he saw Justin and I doubled over laughing. As soon as we saw him though...all laughing stopped. And I confessed, which earned me an elbow to the ribs from Justin.



Anyway...that's just one out of MANY stories I have of my childhood.

And I'm sure you're all wondering:



Charlie was unharmed in this incident, although from that point on he would jump at any loud noise. He went on to live a full life of beating up local dogs and sleeping on the porch until he died of cancer back in '99.



Justin...well...things were never the same between us after that day. I was a "snitch" and he was a "bad influence" (according to my parent). Sadly, I don't know what happened to him. Hopefully, he's doing well.



That old trailer was replaced with a nice, shiny double-wide a few years later. I'll always remember her mirrored walls and fancy rock siding. I hope she's been recycled into something nice!



Daddy fully recovered from his traumatic bathroom experience and has gone on to marry the most AMAZING woman EVER who I am proud to call my stepmom. When he's not driving his semi, he walking a golf course or mowing his lawn - even if it doesn't need it.



And then there's me....and you guys know alllll about me.

And here's my favorite commercial...just for fun: