five-year-old Ella, three-year-old Molly, and Naynay at Krispy KremeStore
Nana and Ella love Krispy Kreme donuts
Molly doesn’t like donuts (according to her)
Hmm. Maybe Molly needs to reconsider her position on donuts.
I’m trying to figure out how to eat the icing first
is there anything more delicious than a donut?
Yes! It’s a donut with M&M candy in the icing!
Such an adventure with our two granddaughters who have grown up with Krispy Kreme donuts but always in a drive-thru setting – never actually going inside a store where the donuts are made. Heavenly aromas as we opened the door to the store and feasts for the eyes that opened wide to see the dozens of varieties in spotless display cases as hundreds of donuts moved through an assembly line in full view behind the cases. The girls were mesmerized and a bit overwhelmed by the choices when we limited them to two each but thrilled to sit at a little table with their milk to experiment with unusual tastes and colors. Finally, a race to the restroom to wash hands and faces when we had to take them to their parents.
As Nana leaned into the middle row of the grannymobile to buckle Ella in her car seat when we were leaving the Krispy Kreme store, Ella asked out of the blue: Nana, did you marry Naynay? Nana said yes, I did. I was sitting next to Ella who then turned to me and asked the question Naynay, did you marry Nana? I answered yes, I married Nana.
But you’re both girls, Ella continued, and I nodded yes to her. But that’s okay, I said. Without skipping a beat as the wheels turned in her five-year-old brain she said, Owen had two moms. Owen was a little boy in her first daycare for two years. He did, indeed, have two moms we met when we picked Ella up in the afternoons.
Yes, I said. We are two of your grandmothers like Owen’s two mothers.
And that was that. No more questions. No long discussions – they would come later, but for now everything was fine in her mind.
Last night Pretty and I were watching a new comedy on Netflix when she suddenly sat up and said, tomorrow is the 9th. of February, our 24th. anniversary. This was huge because for twenty-three years Pretty had problems remembering the date. Bravo!
I usually began the reminder process in January every year with a conversation that followed along these lines. Pretty, you know we have an anniversary coming up in February. Oh yes, she would say. What day is it then? I asked. Time passed as the wheels turned. I could see them turning. Is it the 12th.? she finally guessed. No, I replied with outright disgust. It’s the 9th. Pretty said oh she knew it was either the 9th. or the 12th. but thought she always got it wrong so she went with the one she didn’t really think was right. Didn’t I say I saw the wheels turning? For twenty-three anniversaries, Pretty has never remembered the right date. I always remember because I have it written on my calendar, and I don’t consider that cheating. I consider it brilliant. (Was that a calendar I saw in Pretty’s lap last night? Hmm.)
Return with me to those thrilling days of yesteryear to meet Pretty who magically changed from being a close friend and confidante (before the spontaneous trip to Cancun pictured above in February, 2001) to a woman who was hotter than the salsa we had with dinner at La Destileria the first night we were there. And trust me, that salsa was hot.
Pretty was “out” in a conservative state in a tumultuous era. She was ahead of her time with her Bluestocking Bookstore in the Vista in Columbia before the Vista became cool. Her business closed after three years, but her contribution to the LGBTQ community was recognized and appreciated. She served on the original board of directors for the SC Gay and Lesbian Business Guild formed in 1993 and was the second president of that organization. Her passion for equality was the catalyst for an activist’s life, a passion she and I shared as friends over the decade that was the 1990s.
At the turn of the century, change was in the air. It was like everyone suddenly realized time was passing faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and if Superman and Wonder Woman were unlikely to intervene in the chaos and/or uninspiring sameness of our lives, we needed to make radical changes ourselves.
Both Pretty and I were in long term lesbian relationships that experienced seismic shifts as the first year of the new century came to a close. Our partners began looking for love in other places. Pretty had the additional drama associated with making a home for a fifteen year old son who she adored, an athletically gifted teenager who was the quarterback of his high school football team and the starting pitcher for their baseball team. She mixed her real estate appointments in her new career as a realtor for The Hubbard Group with her tennis league schedules and her son’s games.
The trip to Cancun was the launching pad for the most adventurous ride of my life. I had no way of knowing then that the gorgeous intelligent intellectually inquisitive woman with the wonderful sense of humor who grew up in New Prospect, South Carolina would marry the woman from deep in the heart of Richards, Texas and that we would be together for the next twenty-four years sharing a life unimaginable to me as a child. Yet, here we are – still laughing at each other’s jokes, still loving, still standing. And yes, still eating Mexican food as often as our older appetites allow; but now with the additional delight of sharing fajitas and quesadillas with our growing family that makes our love richer, more joyful, more playful.
How do I love thee, Pretty? Let me count the ways, and let me begin with the spicy salsa you have always brought to our family life together for two decades plus now. On that first trip to Cancun, we walked along the beach in the moonlight and I said I would give anything to celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary together in 2026. Unbelievable. Inconceivable. That seemed like such a long, long time away then, especially since I was fifty-five years old and you were fourteen years younger. We’re almost there, but the years have passed faster than a speeding bullet, our love more powerful than a locomotive.
Happy 24th. Anniversary, Pretty. Let the good times roll.
************************
granddaughters Ella and Molly at Mexican restaurant
so many children to play with, and Daddy was superintendent
The little girl’s first grade class with teacher Mrs. Lucille Leewho gave us the gift of reading. She taught first and second grade in one room.
The little girl’s daddy was the superintendent of two schools: the one in the little two-story red brick schoolhouse where she went to school and the one across main street in Richards in the quarters where the Black children attended. One independent school district. Separate but not very equal. Integration came slowly to mostly overlooked rural southeast Texas.
Annual Easter Egg Hunt for grades 1 – 4
We walked up the dirt road to our house past my grandfather’s barn across the road from our garage while other teachers hid eggs around the school grounds. Then we turned around and ran back to hunt for the eggs. Ray Wood, a blonde-headed kid in my class, always found the maximum – most of the eggs were gone by the time I made it back. I was never known for speed.
my Uncle Charlie (mother’s brother)graduated from Richards school circa 1941
not sure why, but my Uncle Charlie hadthe number 12 written on him?
Mama’s oldest brother Marion (glasses and tie)
graduated from Richards school circa 1939
Aunt Lucille, Uncle Ray and Glenn a/k/a Daddy
My grandparents had limited education when they were growing up in large families working on farms. They could read, write, and do arithmetic – but I’m not sure where they learned. My mother and her three older brothers; my dad, his older sister, and brother all attended school in Richards, Texas at the same red brick schoolhouse I attended through the seventh grade. Our time at the school spanned from the 1920s – 1950s. All seven of them graduated before WWII ended. If legacies were given, I had one.
the entire Richards School Grades 1 – 8 plus 4 years of high school
the bell signaled the start of school in the morning
I counted four uncles, one aunt, and several cousins in this picture. I also knew many teachers and recognized kids whose names I can’t remember, but this was a typical rural Texas school in the 1930s and 1940s before World War II.
Thank you to my cyberspace followers for taking this nostalgic journey once upon a time in a faraway place that will always be deep in my heart. I’ll close with these two last photos that speak volumes about the little girl in the photos and stories.
In rural Grimes County, Texas, in the early 1950s following the end of WWII which began recovery from the Great Depression of the 1930s, a little girl lived with her parents and maternal grandmother in a small Sears Roebuck house in an even smaller town of Richards (pop. 440) at the edge of the East Texas Piney Woods. These pictures are the fourth of her stories that depict her early childhood in that faraway time and place, the place where the little girl started learning to laugh at life.
why is my snowman so tiny, mama? and why is he wearing a bonnet?
Scooter the puppy, is now Scooter, the big dog
Uncle Neville made balloons for the little country girl on her visit
to the bright lights and big city of Houston with her grandmother
summervisit on Posey Street in Houston with Grandma Dude, Grandma’s sister Aunt Selma, and their mother we all called Grandma Schlinke – everyone having fun?(except great- Grandma Schlinke who managed a rare smile – I don’t think she liked fun)
what’s so funny?this little boy thinks he can ride my tricycle
Take your hands off my tricycle
that’s the funniest thing I ever heard
Thanks for hanging in with us – the school experience is next for the little girl. It’s the final segment of the saga ushering in a whole new world of possibilities on her horizon. She can’t wait!
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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