November 2021

Old-fashioned wooden screen door painted bright orange.

Now, I have written about my grandmothers before. But I was asked today to comment on something that happened with my Grandmother Chapman, my cousin Jan Williams English and me. Jan was my younger cousin who is now deceased.

The site of this event was the old house that once stood at what is the now intersection of Eisenhower Parkway and Knoxville Rd. near Lizella, GA. At that time, there was no intersection there as old US 80, Columbus Road had not been relocated then.

If you stop at Eisenhower today, on Knoxville Rd. you will see several large oak trees and lots of houses. But at that day and time, the entire area around those trees was a farm. A farm with a big rambling house sat among several trees. (There were more of them then) It had porches on the front and side and several out buildings including a huge barn. This property was owned by Dr. Dixon who owned Dixon Drug stores in Macon.

My grandfather operated this farm for Dr. Dixon. He would stop by occasionally on his way back to the lake house they had on the back side of the property. Us kids were told to stay away from the lake house and the lake. We mostly did but my Uncle Buddy and I did sneak back there a few times and peak in the windows and go into the lake. Now, I have unburdened myself. I have been carrying that secret around way too long. Sorry, Uncle Buddy. Jan was too small to go back there so we never told her about the lake.

That barn was a swell place to play. It had a big green Chevrolet truck. About a two-ton truck, I believe. Since Jan was too young to drive, it was left up to me to do all the driving. We would have really gone somewhere but my grandfather was smart enough to hide the key.

The hay loft was great too. Jan never really appreciated me covering her up with the hay.

There was that darn Chinaberry tree. My Uncle Buddy never took to farming. He preferred, instead, to chunk chinaberries at me. I hid all the chinaberries when I saw him this week and I did notice that the relocation of US 80, Eisenhower Parkway had removed the chinaberry threat from the old Dixon Place. The tree is gone.

Oh, and there was that great horse saddle under the barn Apparently, at one time, someone had a horse there. There was no actual horse there when Jan and I rode in that saddle as it was thrown over a low wall separating the two sides of the barn: the truck on one side and the Farmall tractor on the other.

Jan was so small at the time that it was hard for her to get her foot in the stirrup and get on and she constantly accused me of hogging the saddle. But if I didn’t help her, she would threaten to “tell on me”. Janice was born in 1947, so she was just a wee thing back then. And, I might add, the last time I asked her she had no recollection of the tragic events about to unfold at that old farmhouse one afternoon. Nor, of walking down Knoxville Road with me to Hamlin’s store in the forks of Knoxville and Old Columbus RD. to get some slices of bologna and bread. There was a sawmill there, then, too.

The farm house, barn and all the structures (and I guess the saddle) were destroyed by a major tornado that also killed several people n Warner Robins in 1953. Fortunately, for my grandparents, my grandfather had left the farm and farming behind and moved into Macon in 1951. He had started to work at Robins Air Force Base.

There was another feature about the old house: the well, where water was drawn with chain and bucket, was on the back porch. Really convenient!

But, I have gotten off track. About that tragic day.

My grandmother (she was also Jan’s grandmother) was slow to anger. So slow, in fact, that I don’t know if she ever really did get to a full-blown angry state in her almost 97 years. She was born November 3, 1899. She died peacefully on May 15^th, 1996. A few months short of her 97^th birthday.

I don’t know that she was really angry at me when I bit her on the arm when she was trying to get me ready for bed when they lived at the old Hogan place. My grandfather, however, took issue with that and came after me with his belt. But, without any clothes on, I was pretty fast. Under the bed I went,

That didn’t stop my grandfather from giving me a whack or two under the bed. I was urged to come out, or else. The matter ended somewhat peacefully. My grandmother forgave me as soon as the teeth marks disappeared. I think.

Oh, my. I’m off track, again.

Jan, it seems came down with strep throat. After a visit to the doctor, my aunt Helen came home (they were living there at the time) with some blue liquid in a medicine bottle, I don’t know if it came from the Dixon Drug store or Chichester’s. But it had to be applied inside her throat with something resembling an 8 inch “Q” Tip. It goes without saying that Jan (Janice) did not like this AT ALL. For a 3- or 4-year-old, this was pure torture.

It fell our grandmother’s lot to apply this a couple of times a day as Helen was at work. And, our grandmother chose to do this by the screen door that went out onto the back porch on the west side of the house. The same side with the well, as it turns out. Afternoon sun and all that. Better to apply the blue liquid to a screaming child’s throat with the 8-inch swab.

So, now you have it in your mind: a grandmother in a cane bottom chair, seated by the screen door, a screaming child with strep throat in her lap that was trying with all her might to run away. How could the situation be worse?

Enter a grandson, standing outside on the porch watching this important medical procedure. That was me, of course.

As I heard the loud wailing, I had to see what was going on. To see better, I pressed my face against the screen in the door so I could see the entire operation and I had no trouble in hearing Jan or seeing my grandmother in the wrestling match. She was trying to hold Jan, dip the swab into the bottle, and apply it all at the same time. Jan: well, she was screaming at the top of her voice.

I thought, “Why not join in on all the fun?”

So, without regard to any potential consequences, I started mimicking Jan’s wailing. Just as loud or louder. It was more than Grandmother Chapman could take. A woman, slow to anger, if ever, and not one to ever lift a hand to a grandchild, she reacted with a powerful right backhand to the trouble maker whose face was pressed against the screen wire door. That was me, of course.

I can’t honestly say if it hurt or not. I was so startled by the unexpected and uncharacteristic reaction that I was silenced and just stood there with the screen wire imprint on my face.

My grandmother managed to finish the medical treatment on Jan and then came to see if I was injured. Nothing but my pride, it seems, and the evidence soon disappeared so no child welfare people would have had anything on my grandmother.

Yes, she got away clean. But, you might say she made an impression on me.

As for Jan, she got cured of the strep and years later did not remember the event at all. But I did. And my grandmother did. But we kept it low key and sorta between us, Helen, my mother, my father, my grandfather, and, of course, now, you.

I loved ‘em both. My grandmother and Jan. Both gone now, but not forgotten.

2021

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