I've always liked this drawing. It's from my early teaching days: a quick jesture (about 10 minutes) in charcoal 18x24inches. I guess it's one of my favorites!
I have a few friends who have so many friends that I was almost ashamed to invite them as friends. How does one maintain 300 friendships? Yet when I’d invaded their space long enough, not being friends seemed an awkward thing. And I have a couple of favorites where I frequently lurk and read and sometimes comment and if I have anything worth saying, they return the favor. When that happens enough times, we'll probably be friends. This whole process got me to thinking tonight about ‘favorites’.
When I was a child, I was never the teacher’s favorite. I wasn’t a bad kid and they’d say so. “Donna is just, ummm, around when things go chaotic.” Truth is, Donna was always around. Here, there, how could she be everywhere? And no one ever wondered if she was around. I don’t remember being a bad kid, but I spent a lot of time in the hall. Seldom in the office, but often in the hall. That was of course when they still put kids in the hall.
As a child, I was not one to be denied. I kissed my first boy when I was twelve in our basement during a cottage prayer meeting, in front of a host of kids who got in a discussion of kissing while their parents prayed and visited upstairs. None of them had ever kissed or been kissed by anyone other than a relative. So I chose some lucky boy and offered to check it out. He agreed it was a valid experiment and we did. It didn’t mean anything to me. He followed me about for years after that and I finally broke his heart completely. That is a pathetic story which I may never write. He wasn’t my favorite –ever.
My daddy’s dad was a Welsh cabinet maker, and a good one at that. Dad also said he was a good blacksmith, but the car came along. He wasn’t a good farmer and Grandma’s people were farmers. Grandpa kept to himself a lot. One day, a couple of years ago, I got in a discussion with my sister and she said “That man hated me.” I replied that I was sure it wasn’t that way and she answered that she wasn’t his favorite like I was. She remembered how he always told her to get out if she ventured into his shop. He was rude and mean and told her she couldn’t come in there.
Well, he did the same with me. But I’d just ask him what that thing was and he’d tell me very gruffly and say “Now get out of here, Bunny Faye, before you get hurt.” So I’d ask him why he used it or something like that and he explain and tell me to go away. Pretty soon, I was sitting on his work bench or a stool beside him chatting happily as he worked. He would explain all kinds of things I probably didn’t understand or really want to know, but there I was, there he was and eventually he’d put me on his tall shoulders and carry me off to the house to see how Grandma’s cooking was coming.
I never thought of the others as being jealous or even having a reason to be until I was older. At Christmas and birthdays others would receive an ordinary gift of socks or gloves. Bunny got a little table and chairs, or a doll bed or a fine welsh cabinet, some of which I still possess. “Oh, I just made it out of scraps.” he’d say.
Mama’s dad was a gentleman farmer. He owned a herd of dairy cows and a herd of steers for beef. He had good breeding bulls and he grew his own feed. He was a hard working, frugal man who took pride in both and showed little affection. When my aunt and uncle brought the cows up, Grandpa would go into the milking barn. I always watched and knew it was time. As soon as he got sat down and busy, I’d come around the corner of the stall. It was always some silly question about the cows or the process or something in the barn. “Donnafaye, you get out of this barn,” he’d say. “A cow will step on you and I’ll have your mama to answer to.” That seemed funny, for though mama had a formidable mad, Grandpa seemed immutable. Kind of the unmovable object meets the irresistible force.
I didn’t try to stay with him. But I knew how to crawl through the corn crib, squeezing between boards, getting covered with hay and feed and finally showing up in front of the cow my grandfather was milking. It was a ritual. He’d always act surprised. “You get out of there before the cow bites you or you make her mad and she kicks me.” So I would crawl through the boards into the stall and after some appropriate griping, Grandpa would put me on his lap or shoulders and continue his work. Sometimes he’d show me how to milk the cow. Sometimes we’d just visit about what was this or that and why. When all the cows were milked, I’d follow him to the cold stone milk house where the whining wind mill would turn the equipment that separated off the cream. When it was adequately messed with, he’d feed the kittens and cats and we’d be off to the house together happy as could be. When I was two he gave me a kitten for my birthday, a yellow and white striped kitten that I had until I was almost 17. He claimed it was the best of the litter. Mama was not happy.
Grandpa always had kittens. I’d go out while everyone was visiting and gather up all the wild little cats and put them in Grandma’s lidded basket. Soon I’d have them in the house. Grandma and Grandpa would tell me to keep them in the basket. Later they’d tell me to keep them in the kitchen off the rug. Later they’d tell me I had to catch all those cats and get them back outside before I went home. I was usually carried semi conscious to the car by my grandpa when it was time to go home. It seemed a ridiculous statement when my cousins said “Grandpa won’t let you take those cats in the house.” or “Just because you’re his favorite, . . .” Grandpa didn’t have favorites.
Thinking about the tactics I used with my grandfathers, I guess maybe there was a reason why I spent so much time in the hall and why, despite good grades, I wasn’t the teachers’ favorite –ever!
