Sitting on the porch in Appalachia with the boog it's so quiet

[TEB]

Last edited Sat Jun 1, 2019, 08:10 AM - Edit history (1)

I well my brothers and I grew up in this house western Pennsylvania the Mississippi of the north. I came back home today for a friend funeral Anna she was 96 , Anna was a fine human a compassionate woman like my family was from Eastern Europe tribe a daughter of immigrants, her parents as my grandparents decided to bag it Poland Ukraine and head to America. Searching for a better life for themselves and their kids.

After the funeral we my brothers came back to the farm. And they started drinking beer whiskey we started playing cards , me I’m eating naltrexone maintaining and I’ll take that , it’s good it works for me no brag I just eat one pill a day it works I don’t know how but I’ll take the end results no booze.

Talking with my brothers one is a union steam fitter the the other brother is a Doctor and me I’m a teamster truck driver Our youngest brother is a non union driver truck driver. We’re all in age me I’m 53 51 49 and 45 , my youngest brother couldn’t make Anna funeral. But sitting talking with my brothers the General practitioner I joke as I say that and the union steam fitter.

So I asked them in conversation over 7 card stud nickel dime poker , our we the first generation of family that had indoor plumbing or the last generation to use a outhouse. We moved here to the farm in 72 I was 6 , our father was retired from wounds Vietnam and he went to work in steel mill.

In the answer to my question on indoor plumbing or outhouse as generation. Between hands of 7 card we had a crisis it seems the freezer above the fridge did a great job. In cooling their beers down and several ended up frozen son of a bitch Heineken always freezes fast I smile in understanding. I tell em both drink it warm grab beer out case I drank warm beer in infantry joking with them.

So as my brothers figured out how to de thaw beers we went to the front porch to sit and talk. I brought up I still look at the wood coal stove in kitchen I cannot believe you kept it to my brother the doctor in kitchen they have electric stove. I said do you remember getting up as kids and mom would have that stove hot. And we would get dressed for school by it in morning.

Frost on windows no insulation in house elementary school, my brothers smiled. And I tell my brothers today my boys are all iron pile at gym 15 they don’t wanna be scrawny like their father they wanna get bulked. And as my brothers and I talk we turn to today hate Muslims Mexicans, I said fellas the hate goes on 100 years ago the Catholic Church was the enemy the Irish and Polish were the Mexicans of today. So boog and man just enjoying the pre dawn twilight boog is snoring next to me as I sit on steps. He had touch his people as I rub his ears boog is I love you man as long a your near me we’re ok. Just rub my ears and head and I will snuggle into you man.

[Scarsdale]

1. Always rememer your roots.

Getting together like that must be fun, even for a sad occasion. The friend lived a long life, so take comfort in that. The Boog will be content as long as you are with him. Best friend a man could have is a faithful dog. Condolences on losing your friend.

[Left-over]

2. Your situation is so similar to my own families.

It is also so sad that most of my family has been brainwashed by the faux noise and rash limbaugh.

[get the red out]

3. I am sorry for your loss

I am from the Appalachian part of Kentucky (back in the hills, as we say). I remember my great-aunt still having an outhouse when I was a kid, and I vaguely remember using it! She also had a party line on her phone. Her house was very old and up a "holler" near an old coal town (whose mines the men on both sides of my family worked).

I have a love-hate relationship with my roots, when I entered college in 1982 I was surprised to encounter some students who looked down on me for coming from that part of the state (at the University of KENTUCKY, go figure, and never from out of state students). Fortunately I have encountered the opposite from many others throughout my life.

Then there is the extreme right co-opting of these people through their Churches in recent decades. The should have been given the dignity to not be places under political control through their religion. But then I also find myself despising them for it.

It is a twisting path for my. But I remember the fantastic love and meals when my grandmother and her sisters were cooking together in that old house with family laughing and joking.