So? I wanted a pony first!
In cleaning out my basement recently, I ran across a photo that I didn't know was missing. It was taken when I was about five, sitting on my cousin Elaine's pony. When I posted the picture on my Facebook page, my sister said she'd never seen it, and I realized how close I'd come to losing that image anywhere but in my own mind.
Elaine was an omnipresent fact of my life, towering over me and ordering me around like a little mini-dictator when we were small. As far as I was concerned, her authority was absolute and unquestionable, and everything she touched was sacred. When she gave me strict orders not to touch anything in her room, the order might as well have come from God. That's how seriously I took it.
Back in those days, very few kids even had rooms of their own. Most of them had to share a bedroom with a sister, a brother, or even their parents. Not only did Elaine have her own room, it was decorated in frilly white, like something out of a fairy tale. The room gave no doubt of her royal lineage. She was a princess.
Elaine had two possessions which set her apart from every other child living on the planet earth in the 1940's. First, there was her Judy Doll, as beautiful a doll as ever a little girl created in her dreams. Though Elaine had dolls of every persuasion, sitting delicately on shelves around her room, her Judy Doll was her favorite, and so treasured was she that Mom had to buy me one, too. Though my Judy doll looked identical to Elaine's in the eyes of most of the peasantry who lived in Nixa, Missouri, where Elaine and Judy #1 reigned, I knew the difference.
Judy Doll #1 and #2 had cloth bodies, as the dolls did back then, with hard arms, legs, and head. The eyes would close when we lay the dolls down for a nap, and the doll would coo, "MaMa!" most endearingly. Both dolls had short dark brown hair (a wig), glued on and requiring great care not to ever comb or get wet. They wore white organza dresses with matching bonnets.
However, by far the most impressive of Elaine's possessions was her paint pony named Polly. Looking back over the years with the critical eyes of an adult, I can see that Polly must have been a worn-out carnival pony, who had spent her life going round in circles with unruly children on her back. Nothing short of a dynamite explosion could have prompted her to break into a trot. She was absolutely safe for children.
So treasured was Polly in our childish minds that every argument we ever had ended in the same phrase -- "Well, so what? I wanted a PONY first!" There was no answer for this logic. It ended every uprising I ever had. The pony was my cousin's trump card, and she played it with maddening regularity.
One memorable summer, Elaine and I were taken to visit our Uncle Ray, Aunt Marie, and our three rowdy boy cousins in Eureka Springs, where Uncle Ray labored to farm a crop out of a rocky hillside, using a team of mules. This magical realm had all the kittens we could ever ask for, a wonderful creek to play in, and newborn lambs to hold. True, we had to put in some weed-pulling time in the garden, fighting the granddaddy long legs, who loved to dangle in our faces, but it was worth it to spend a week or two in nearly-sheer bliss. Aunt Marie was the most amazing cook, and the meals filled up a long wooden table in the dining room. Fresh corn on the cob at every meal, I think.
We left our Judy Dolls at home, of course, since the farm was a rather dusty place, and we took a couple of older, less important dolls. My life would have taken an entirely different course had we left the dolls at home.
Like most things in life, there was a "fly-in-the-ointment" factor involved with the farm in Arkansas -- there was no indoor plumbing. They had a perfectly lovely bathroom -- but it was a fake -- the plumbing had not yet been installed.
No matter what time of day we might have to go to the bathroom, it involved a trek up the hillside to the outhouse, where an army of Granddaddy Long Leg spiders had taken up residence.
I hated this place and almost always developed all the problems that accompany a child, when she refuses to sit on the hole for more than two seconds. However, the greatest issue came one day, when I accidently knocked Elaine's doll down the outhouse hole. Forget that she was a secondary doll of little importance -- She belonged to ELAINE and was therefore SACRED! I stood there, amid Elaine's screams, looking down the hole, thinking, "Oh, no! How can I get her back??"
There was no way to get the doll our of the hole. My Arkansas relatives were totally unimpressed with our dilemma. My Aunt Marie paused a moment, as she snapped beans, but her answer was a firm "No." The doll stayed where she was, and I had to endure the humiliation of Elaine's tirades every time we went up the hill.
I guess there are lessons to be learned in this story. You'd think my oppression would have resulted in my becoming more tolerant and forgiving of my own brothers and sister, but that doesn't seem to have been the case.
I can tell this story now without fear of reprisal, as my cousin Elaine passed away from lung cancer a few years ago. She was three years older than I, and she still had the Judy Doll, tucked in a trunk in her attic. Judy was a sad-looking sight, after the glory of her former days, but she was still Judy.
I started this story this morning at 3:30, grateful for something to occupy my mind during troubled moments of sleeplessness. Rest in peace, Elaine, Polly, and Judy. Your memory has not dimmed.
From the dark, lonely hills of Tillman, this is your local reporter Madeline, enjoying a cup of hot coffee, seasoned with old memories from the past.
Comments
- -- Posted by Dexterite1 on Fri, Sep 3, 2010, at 6:42 AM
- -- Posted by goat lady on Fri, Sep 3, 2010, at 8:36 AM
- -- Posted by cheers4dhs on Fri, Sep 3, 2010, at 12:55 PM
- -- Posted by GONENOW on Fri, Sep 3, 2010, at 6:48 PM
- -- Posted by Ducky on Fri, Sep 3, 2010, at 7:20 PM
- -- Posted by Ducky on Fri, Sep 3, 2010, at 7:25 PM
- -- Posted by goat lady on Sat, Sep 4, 2010, at 6:01 PM
- -- Posted by cheers4dhs on Sat, Sep 4, 2010, at 8:00 PM
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