My Classy Roots

My Daddy had five sisters and two brothers, a compilation of the most interesting and conflicted folk you could imagine. They grew up in a home where their mother slaved herself to the bone and their father never worked and drank everything away. It's unfathomable why she stayed with him, since she was the only one keeping the boat afloat. He died when I was a youngster, mean and ornery to the end, in a car crash caused by his drunkenness. He wasn't even driving, but had persuaded a 14-year-old neighbor kid to drive him over the river to get more liquor, since Cobb County was dry at the time. They were evading police when PawPaw reached over and stomped the gas, driving the car into a tree. Thankfully the boy lived, though I recall all my aunts talking about how he lost a bunch of teeth. PawPaw wasn't so lucky.

One time, as a teenager, I asked MawMaw why she stayed with him. She said, "I know he was a bad man, but I loved him. We'd go walking in a field and you could just feel the love all around. But sometimes I dream that he's still alive and that the cops are beating at the door. Then I wake up and I'm so happy he's dead." At her funeral, all I could think about when I saw her gentle face was that she had to be having a party up in heaven. She'd lived through the roughest edges of life, but now she was at peace. Her love for the Lord was real, ragged and simple. I bet she's got the biggest garden up there. 

Daddy's folks would do random picnics on Dog River. He nor my Mama drank alcohol, but there would always be a lot of drinking going on at any given family event, though I never actually saw even one can of beer. They were covert about it. When we'd go up north to my Mama's people, they would drink right out in the open and had fully-stocked bars in their basements. But it was my Southern relatives that tended more towards alcoholism. It's in my blood. I'd be in a gutter if it weren't for Jesus. 

Even so, those were halcyon days, spreading out lunch on warm rocks and then running barefoot in the mud with about two or three dozen cousins. As a child, I was oblivious to the problems that many of them faced. I just knew we had a whole lot of fun when we were together. Cousin bonds are the best. My Daddy was always the ham in the family. There used to be a commercial on TV that said that a Volkswagen would float. So he and one of his brothers tried to float our Beetle in Dog River. Now that I'm grown and know that Dog River is really just a glorified, rocky creek, I can't even imagine why they thought it was deep enough. Nonetheless, they apparently found a spot and drove in. How can I say it -- it didn't float. I don't remember the end of things except that everybody was laughing, even Daddy. Maybe not my Mama though...