Memory jostled
Another post shook loose this memory.
When I was thirteen or so a family of six, apparently kinda rich by our standards, moved into our Pennsylvania community from the deep South. They hired me as 'help', meaning household chores. I can only guess their four kids didn't know how to help.
The first full day I worked, I was invited to their table for lunch. After the father said grace over the food, the youngest boy asked why I was there.
"All the help always ate in the kitchen," he observed.
"Because," his father said, "before, all the help was [insert racial epithet here]."
The rest was predictable, as I now know, but didn't then.
The man in question was a 'retired' police chief, and never until now did it occur to me to wonder why a man of such stature and assets chose to leave his home state upon retirement, and move to a place where they were not related to anybody. Didn't even know anybody.
He had a hankering to be a gentleman farmer, and bought enough acres that included a substantial home for his flock to achieve that goal.
Then he bought horses, a species with which he was not familiar. The mount he bought for himself was a handsome black stallion with a white blaze on its nose.
Although I loved horses and had one of my own, I was too busy washing and folding clothes or polishing windows to take much notice of the doings at the barn.
One early evening the phone rang at our house and my mother handed me the receiver. "For you," she said.
it was the lady I worked for and she was distraught. "I need a favor," she said.
Boy, did she ever!
"Could you go down to the barn and find Dan's finger?"
There was a pause while I processed that. "His finger?"
"Yes!" she said. now distraught and impatient.
The full story, which came later, was that Dan was trying to secure the stallion while he saddled it. There was a hole in one of the walls of the stall where the horse lived. Dan took the lead rope and pushed it into the hole with his index finger when the horse reared up (Dan had that effect on creatures) and yanked the rope out of the hole and yanking Dan's finger off in the process.
At the hospital, they thought reattachment of the finger might be possible, if only they had the finger.
I asked my mother to drive me there without inquiring about details. Mom, who had never lived a day in the South, was prone to fainting at inconvenient moments. She agreed.
I spent the few minutes in the car wondering how a finger would look if it wasn't on a hand.
The stallion had wisely left the stall and was standing in a far corner of the pasture meditating on its bad behavior.
A brief search located the finger, both bloody and white, protruding from the straw and I lifted it with tissues and put it in a sandwich bag I'd brought.
As it developed, at that hospital at that time that particular finger could not be reattached.
Oh, well. At least he couldn't point it at anybody.
The stallion went up for sale.
When I was thirteen or so a family of six, apparently kinda rich by our standards, moved into our Pennsylvania community from the deep South. They hired me as 'help', meaning household chores. I can only guess their four kids didn't know how to help.
The first full day I worked, I was invited to their table for lunch. After the father said grace over the food, the youngest boy asked why I was there.
"All the help always ate in the kitchen," he observed.
"Because," his father said, "before, all the help was [insert racial epithet here]."
The rest was predictable, as I now know, but didn't then.
The man in question was a 'retired' police chief, and never until now did it occur to me to wonder why a man of such stature and assets chose to leave his home state upon retirement, and move to a place where they were not related to anybody. Didn't even know anybody.
He had a hankering to be a gentleman farmer, and bought enough acres that included a substantial home for his flock to achieve that goal.
Then he bought horses, a species with which he was not familiar. The mount he bought for himself was a handsome black stallion with a white blaze on its nose.
Although I loved horses and had one of my own, I was too busy washing and folding clothes or polishing windows to take much notice of the doings at the barn.
One early evening the phone rang at our house and my mother handed me the receiver. "For you," she said.
it was the lady I worked for and she was distraught. "I need a favor," she said.
Boy, did she ever!
"Could you go down to the barn and find Dan's finger?"
There was a pause while I processed that. "His finger?"
"Yes!" she said. now distraught and impatient.
The full story, which came later, was that Dan was trying to secure the stallion while he saddled it. There was a hole in one of the walls of the stall where the horse lived. Dan took the lead rope and pushed it into the hole with his index finger when the horse reared up (Dan had that effect on creatures) and yanked the rope out of the hole and yanking Dan's finger off in the process.
At the hospital, they thought reattachment of the finger might be possible, if only they had the finger.
I asked my mother to drive me there without inquiring about details. Mom, who had never lived a day in the South, was prone to fainting at inconvenient moments. She agreed.
I spent the few minutes in the car wondering how a finger would look if it wasn't on a hand.
The stallion had wisely left the stall and was standing in a far corner of the pasture meditating on its bad behavior.
A brief search located the finger, both bloody and white, protruding from the straw and I lifted it with tissues and put it in a sandwich bag I'd brought.
As it developed, at that hospital at that time that particular finger could not be reattached.
Oh, well. At least he couldn't point it at anybody.
The stallion went up for sale.
