Under the Rug: Black Lace and Barbie Doll Heads

UNDER THE RUG

Black Lace and Barbie Doll Heads

Julie Gillen

© 2013 Julie Gillen

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

ISBN 978-1-62880-006-7

Published by Westview, Inc. at smashwords.com.

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Cover photo by Tim Yeager.

These articles were originally printed in The Daily Herald.

Good faith efforts have been made to trace copyrights on materials included in this publication. If any copyrighted material has been included without permission and due acknowledgment, proper credit will be inserted in future printings after notice has been received.

Dedication

This book is for Bruce, Leah, Katy, Patrick, Gus, Lily, and Jay

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

CLMIBING THE FAMILY TREE

My Imaginary World

LaLa Land

Under the Rug

Barbie and Ken

Midnight Cowboy

Whippoorwills and Daffodils

Little Patty

Purple Flowers

Tree Frogs

Sleep Well, Granny

Visions of Sugarplums

Cabin Fever

Gus

Vampires

Butter in Tubes

Marriage Manual for Young Women

A Fishy Burp

Weenie in a Bottle

The Adventures of Love Ape

Cats

My Left Brain

Hummus

Be Your Own Vegetable

What Do You Want on Your Tombstone

Bacon Wars

Diet Book

Smoking

Lobsters in Cyberspace

Waxing Gibbous

Bedtime Conversations

Cleaning My Daughter’s House

Lily

MEMORY BOULEVARD

The Zipper

Those Were the Days

My Hometown

Grapevines

The Student

Girl Scout Trauma

You Did What?

Olga and Helga

The Attic

The Lucky Pink Shirt

My House Is Right Down That Street

Childhood Girlfriends

Music, Sweet Music

Some Enchanted Evening

Mamas and Trains

SOUTHERN PRIDE, PREJUDICE, AND RELIGION

Hell

The Creature

Four Rows of Okra, Part 1

Four Rows of Okra, Part 2

You Can’t Make Me Feel Stoopid Without My Persimmon

Mulletville

Tunica Granny

Quilts

Granny

I Like It Like That

The Southern Funeral

The Ten Commandments

Death vs. Vacation Bible School

Our Father Who Art in School

Coffee with God

Milk Carton Religion

The One That Got Away

Inevitability of Miracles

GERITOL MOMENTS

Moans and Groans

Insomnia

Cat Naps

With This Roast I Thee Wed

To Habit and to Hold

Sockies

Time

Cicada

Crunchy Ear

Birthday Tips

Clarity Defined

Fifty Is the New Eighty

The Three Dead Dwarfs

Masterpieces

Rock Band

Mr. Clean

HOLIDAY CONFESSIONS

Rabbit, Rabbit

Valentine’s Day

Ghostbusters

Halloween Fun

Tasty Bake Oven

Jeggings

Just ‘Fore Christmas

Fire

Lilacs and Petunias

Bubbles

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Acknowledgments

"And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

1 Corinthians 13:13

I am most thankful for my husband, Bruce Gillen, for bringing balance, babies, and bliss into my life.

I am also thankful for my maternal grandparents, Theophilus Brown Flippo and Dora Jane Rasbury Flippo, for planting the seeds of love in my young heart. Without fail, their behavior taught me how to live the good life.

My mother once said to me, Julie, out of all you three girls, you are the one who loves the most.

And while love should never be a competitive thing, I appreciate her comment, and if it is true, it is because of the nurturing that her own parents gave to me.

I extend my gratitude to Kathy Rhodes for her editorial support in the writing of this book.

I am thankful for the encouragement of my sister, Janey Hickman, and her entire family.

My friends have been a great source of support in my life, and I am most thankful for Timothy Howard Yeager, Chris and Suzanne Fletcher, Bob Duncan, Twyman Towery, Phyllis Gobbell, Doug Jones, Bill Watts, Lori Waltz, Ann Parrish Stevens, Adam Southern, Elizabeth H. Herndon Potts, Kathie Hicks Fuston, Sheila and Eddie Hickman, Molly Moore Mann, MaryLee Johnson, Rebecca Duncan, Sharon Messick, Dedra Dawson, Sonja and Clark Bennett, Terry and Lynette Sullivan, Jenny Moore, Anne and Bill Draper, Suzette Belvin, Connie Moore, Fannie Wells, Evelyn Mize, LaDelle Smith, and Camille and John Allen.

I appreciate the example that was set by my husband’s entire family and the work ethic of his parents, Charlie and Frances Gillen. I also appreciate the support of Ann and Britt Cobb and Bill and Barbara Gillen.

Of course, I am blessed and thankful for our children and grandchildren: Leah, Katy, Patrick, Gus, Lily and Jay.

In 2012, I lost three close friends: William Gay, Michelle Kemper Bottoms, and Mike Gladney. I think about them every day, and I always will.

William Gay was a critically acclaimed writer, but what impressed me most about him was his unconditional love for his children and his complete lack of pretense. I will always appreciate William Gay for his friendship, his support of my writing, and his permission to interview him in March 2004. After William read my first book of columns, Will the Real Anonymous Mother Please Stand Up? he said to me, I didn’t know you were so clever. Two days before William died, he wrote a blurb for this book, which also mentioned the word clever.

It was all because of my maternal great-grandfather, Pappy Rasbury, who was mentioned in William’s first novel, The Long Home, that I met William Gay. And Pappy Rasbury was the father of my maternal grandmother, who taught me about the authentic components of life.

And so the circle is complete, from Pappy Rasbury to William Gay. They are gone in body, but they will remain in spirit.

Yes, it is true: And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

INTRODUCTION

Under the Rug: Black Lace and Barbie Doll Heads is a compilation of humor columns that I have written for The Daily Herald in Columbia, Tennessee, since July 2000. Many of my columns have also been published in other newspapers and magazines throughout the South and other regions of the country.

Some of my columns have a Southern bent because I have lived in the South for most of my life. But I am not your typical Southern girl: I am not a Girl Scout Queen or a Cookie-Cutter Cookie. I am a Drop Cookie, fresh-baked, warm and sloppy out of the oven, but still tasty as any Cookie-Cutter Cookie. Perhaps even tastier.

But being a Southern Drop-Cookie Girl is not required to understand the universal themes of love for home and the land and family roots and religion, but we do at times enhance the beauty therein.

I understand blackberries on a fence along Highway 43, Rooster Fries, Weenie in a Bottle, Mulletville, and a surprise visit from the preacher while smoking an unladylike Marlboro.

My audience tells me my columns make them laugh and cry at the same time – and the rebellious Girl Scout Queen/ Drop-Cookie Girl in me likes hearing this, in a mangled sort of way. My loyal readers tell me I am insightful and original, and that I write what everyone else is thinking but would never dare say aloud and this makes me happy because my mama never said any of this stuff to me.

I am a curious girl who has always liked to look under the rug, which is also a metaphor for reading other people’s diaries, only to discover that they have written horrible things about me. Warning: You snoop, you discover.

But where are you likely to find real life better than under a rug? Any household rug. Pull up the rug, and you’ll find crumbs of daily household truths —the dirt, Legos, tinfoil Hershey wraps, secrets, sins, broken dreams, and Barbie doll heads.

Whatever people are ashamed of usually makes a good story, F. Scott Fitzgerald said.

People want to read about what’s under the rug. I like to sweep it out, expose the reality, and exaggerate it until the truth screams out like an Ape on fire.

I believe I am here to entertain and pierce the heart, but some would say they have no idea why I am here.

So sit back on your sofa, prop up your feet, and read these columns. Maybe you will be inspired to pull up the edge of your own rug and dare to take a peek. It will serve you well, regardless of where you live.

CLIMBING THE FAMILY TREE

My Imaginary World

My imaginary world has always been very real to me, but something strange happened in my life, somewhere along the way. The saying, Be careful what you wish for, is relevant here, because my imaginary world became real. In other words, my writing got published.

In my younger days, I suspected that something along these lines would happen to me, even though I had no ambition other than to play basketball and piano, write notes in school, and chew giant wads of cherry bubblegum until the end of time. I could blow a bubble bigger than my head, and I could blow a bubble within a bubble, and that made me proud.

My mother thought I was crazy when I used to tell her that someday I would be a writer. One day we were on our way to town in the 1968 green Impala, when I announced to her that I would be a writer. She rolled her huge eyes all the way back into her head and said, Well, hon, what on earth ever gave you that idea? You never even pick up a pencil. Plus, all you ever do is talk on that phone and sit out on the front porch with your feet propped up and watch the cars go by.

And then she lit an L&M and inhaled the whole thing in three seconds, filled the car with smoke, and threw the butt out the window, where an innocent child, or even worse, a stray cat, could have stepped on it. My mother could get arrested for that kind of behavior today. For one thing, I was fourteen years old and she didn’t even have me strapped into a car seat, much less a seat belt. Plus, I was the minor child who bought the cigarettes for her.

One night while spying on my parents from behind the kitchen door, I heard my mother say to my father, Hon, what in the world are we going to do about JULIE? She thinks she is going to be a writer and all she ever does is chew bubblegum and bang on that piano and bounce the basketball up and down five thousand times a day. I do believe she will drive me crazy.

My father did not reply because he was a man and he was not listening.

For some reason, I was unscathed by my parents’ lack of confidence in my writing career. Perhaps, it is no coincidence that some of my own children do not embrace my every belief. Suffice it to say that payback has been attained.

Yes, the writing world is glorious indeed. Here are some of the comments I have received from readers through the years, and I will begin with the negative comments first, because it is human nature to yearn for the bad stuff.

Negative comments from readers:

You are not the Queen of Egypt, but you are the Queen of Denial.

I wish you would shut up.

I am glad you get a thrill out of your writing because no one else does.

I hope the attack scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds takes place on your front porch.

You need to have a millstone tied around your neck and be tossed into the ocean in the midst of a hurricane.

Positive comments from readers:

I like you. You remind me of my grandmother, who died in a ditch by the side of the road after escaping from an insane asylum.

You looked a lot better with the turban and sunglasses. Put them back on.

Yes, it is a happy life indeed, and I would not have it any other way.

Just remember to be careful what you wish for. Be very, very careful.

La La Land

Growing up in my family, it didn’t matter that things did not make sense. What did matter was what people thought, particularly Mrs. White, the next-door neighbor.

And as is often the case with teenagers, what makes sense to them does not make sense to their parents.

Sure enough, when I hit my teenage years, my father and I were flapping about in the seas of peril over a poster I had hung on my wall. It simply quoted psychotherapist Fritz Perls:

You do your thing, and I do my thing

I am not in this world to live up to your expectations

And you are not in this world to live up to mine

You are you, and I am I

Yap yapyap, yap yapyap

And if by chance we find each other

IT’S BEAUTIFUL

I got home from school one day and discovered my father had removed the poster from my wall. Not only did his behavior seem senseless, it perturbed me greatly. I entered the middle bedroom downstairs, slammed the door, and flung my Nancy Sinatra pointed-toe white go-go boot off my right foot and across the room. It sailed right through the window, leaving shattered glass on the chipped windowsill.

My mother heard the crash and came flying into the bedroom. Why, Julia Lee! What will Mrs. White think? You march out there and get that go-go boot right now! When your daddy gets home, he’s going to hear about this.

The white go-go boot was lying outside the window in the grass. Evidence.

I retrieved the go-go boot and didn’t sweat much over my daddy getting home. I’d either cross that bridge when I came to it, or jump out the boot-shaped hole in the window and run and hide in the dogwood tree.

At the time, I wondered why my father removed the poster. It seemed rather mild. Lord knows what he’d have done if he had known my favorite song was The Pusher by Steppenwolf. Oh well, I’d just keep that one to myself.

Another daily occurrence that did not make sense was a daily ritual between my mother and her brother. Growing up, my sisters and I witnessed our uncle bursting in on the scene at 717 North Military on a daily basis. He would stalk up the driveway and into the house, invade the kitchen, grab an apple, chomp into it in a way that would make Mr. Ed weep, and he and my mother would stare at each other as he chewed.

It was a strange occurrence. He would only take one or two bites, and then he would put the apple back in the bowl on the table. Then he would pinch or tickle somebody or squirt one of us with water. Finally, he would slink out, slam the back door, and we would watch him saunter back down the driveway and back to his office, which was conveniently located next door.

It was not until May 1997 that I realized we were firmly planted in the heart of La La Land, for La La Land was the only place that senselessness could be tolerated. Back in 1997 I gave La La Land some serious thought, and drew some valid conclusions that still help me today. And while I no longer live in La La Land, I do long for it at least once or twice a day, for there are advantages.

In La La Land, one can eat a whole box of Twinkies and never know it. Only in La La Land do bikinis look fabulous on two-hundred-pound women. Of course, in La La Land women do not weigh two hundred. They weigh one-twenty. In La La Land, Spongebob looks like Don Draper and acts like Billy Graham. There is no such thing as alcoholism, lung cancer is a respiratory infection, suicides are always accidental, and the Pope is going to Hell.

In La La Land, one can get fired and still be in the midst of an enormously successful career. In La La Land, a woman can marry on May first, give birth on May second, and convince herself and her entire family that nine months really have passed.

Immaculate conception occurs frequently in La La Land. There, it is easy to perjure oneself under oath, because the truth is the ultimate weapon in La La Land, and it must be avoided at all costs. In La La Land, no one has any problems whatsoever. Everyone else does.

Perhaps the most senseless thing of all in La La Land was that we loved our uncle and he loved us. And if I have learned anything at all, it’s that love does not always make sense.

Under the Rug

Freud claimed the past inhabited the present, and that has certainly been true for me. But what do I see when I look into the future?

I see a young girl with golden