The price you pay for telling a lousy story - snow kidding

When I was four years old, I learned a really great lesson--when you tell a lie you may have to live with it.

My family lived at 424 Centre Street in Dallas, Texas, but, I was spending some winter weeks with my grandmother 'Mama' in Electra, Texas.

Mama and Homer lived north of Electra in an area called No Man's Land where houses were scattered among pig pens, chicken coops, farm fields, a packing house, an auto repair shop, and, to the west, the city's cemetery. My grandparents' house was surrounded by a barbed wire fence (and I still have scars from the fence that separated Mama's house from the farm field on the south). Homer's oil well drilling trucks and equipment often occupied the front and north yards. The back yard was where the chickens stayed and where the outhouse was located. The Pierces lived west across the dirt road, Quintus Williams lived across the road and a little further south where he worked on cars, the Nicelers lived across the road and to the north of the Pierces, and the Richardsons lived in the first house to the north where all the pig pens were. This was a pretty exciting place for a kid who spent most of his time in a crowded neighborhood with tree-lined streets in south Dallas.

During this particular wintertime trip to Electra, we woke up to snow. Mama walked me to the outhouse then back inside for breakfast. Homer stayed at home today because the snow was too deep to get on the roads. I was excited because Mama said we would make snow ice cream. All I could think of was all the things that I could do in the snow after breakfast.

After breakfast, I asked Mama if I could go outside and play in the snow now. She said no, maybe later, and explained something about the heavy snow and blowing wind. So, I played in the house, but, every few minutes, I went back to a window and thought about what I could do out there--throw snow, wipe snow off the trucks, run in the snow, try to run as fast as the snow was blowing, let the snow fall on my tongue, look up and watch the snowfall, try to catch snowflakes in my hand, try to examine snowflakes and a thousand more things. I wiped the sweat off the window and stared up at those big, giant, wind-blown flakes. I had to get outside! I turned to Mama who was sitting in a rocker and kitting and asked if I could go outside now? Again, "No."

I looked at her and realized she just did not understand the gravity of the situation. Obviously, it was time for the big guns. I stood straight and strong in front of her rocker and said, "My mommie read in the paper about a grandmother who wouldn't let her grandson go out and play in the snow and she died."

"Well," she responded. "I don't think that'll happen here," and she calmly continued her knitting. How could she be so calm?

Stunned at how she took this horrible news, I returned to the window and imagined how much fun Bobby Richardson and the Niceler kids were having out in the snow this morning. There was fun in Electra today but I wasn't having any of it.

Lesson

For many of the following years, someone at a family event or reunion would always ask Mama to repeat the story about the grandmother who wouldn't let her grandson go out and play in the snow. Sometimes I sat with my cousins listening to but pretending not to hear the story and the chuckles again. At other times, I would tell a cousin or brother to come outside (or, into another room, or anywhere) right quick because, "I've got something I want to show you." The adults could listen and laugh again without me in the audience.

Epilogue

If I ever need to use that story again, I need to figure out some way to make it more believable. Maybe I should just say the grandmother got sick. Yeah, I'll try that.