Hillbilly Heaven

Chapter 1

What a nice spring day thought Josey, as she sat on her porch swing on Grand Avenue looking at grocery ads.
She had six busy little children. Five beautiful little girls; four brunettes and one with blonde curly hair just like hers. Her one son, who she teased, calling him her favorite son, had to grow up in a house full of ribbons and curls. He didn’t seem to mind it too much. He just stayed to himself most of the time.
He kept his room somewhat neat and organized. However, the girls’ rooms were always messy. Clothes, hairbrushes, and shoes were everywhere.
Josey’s five-bedroom house was a soft apricot dawn, which the store had to specially mix for her. It took her two years to find that color. Pastel house paints were not

usually heard of, but she was determined to find just the right shade. Therefore, that is exactly what she did.
The trim was white with lattice beside the windows
that were specially cut. There were three big butterflies attached to the front just below the peak of the two-story house. There was a small one-bedroom apartment in the upstairs that Josey rented out.
Rose bushes surrounded the front yard of the house. A wooden half barrel sat in the left-hand corner full of moss roses.
The neighborhood was always full with the bustle of children.
Josey looks up and there whizzing past her split rail fence, was this lively child of five on a baby pink sixteen-inch bicycle. As her peers yell out to her “Angel” she twists and turns around in confusion. Should she go this way or that? She decides that she is going solo, straight ahead. Her soft blonde hair flowing just past her ears leaves the gentle winds in command.
Angel’s efforts to conquer the stretch of pavement the previous day show on her right knee and the slightly protruding right side of her forehead, as she rides by. However, the small abrasions on her left hand were achieved today.
The intrusions of these growing battle scars do not seem to lessen the pace of this lively moppet of a mere three feet tall.
Josey notices Angel wearing a green, yellow, and peach v-neck. This mid-length sleeved shirt gives off a rainbow effect in the favorable sunlight. Her short blue jean pinafore swishes up and down as she pedals her beloved bike.
Angel turns into Josey’s driveway and dismounts her bike with a leap. The bicycle is left at the fence with a kindly toss.
Angel’s bare feet smack the asphalt while up the drive she bounces. A meek, mild voice breaks from her stern, positive look as she speaks.
“Hi can your kids come out to play?” She says with a gentle smile creeping across her cheeks. She waits for a reply. A few freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose are vivid as she tilts her head in question.
“Sure Angel, as soon as they finish cleaning their rooms,” said Josey.
“Okay,” says Angel.
She twirls around on her left foot and bounces forward letting her right foot lead the way back down the driveway.
Angel straddles her bike and thrusts onward with a burst of untamed energy. She tries to master this sudden gust of speed, but falters and crashes into the red Chevette parked at the curb. She amazingly springs from the sunlit pavement with an incredible grin.
This happy child seems to have a wonderful sense of going forward leaving time behind. Angel rides off searching for familiar faces. She looks for approval and gains it while battling for expertise on this two-wheeler. She hollers out “wait for me!” her determination to catch up with the others is quite successful, as this free-spirited child rides out of site.
As she turns her attention back to the grocery store ads, Josey starts thinking about her family and friends in Missouri where she grew up. The bright sun casts a shadow on the papers as she turned the pages. The wind was blowing just enough to make a perfect day. As she slowly rocked back and forth on her swing, Josey felt a lazy calmness come over her. She peacefully drifted back to her childhood home.
 

Chapter 2

Josey remembers her first time on a bicycle as not so pleasant. She grew up in the foothills of the Missouri Ozarks with her five brothers and one sister and only one bike.
Her smallest brother Clayton would ride that bike past her whistling like the dickens, which was something she couldn’t do either. He was only four years old.
Every time Clayton went past her, she wanted to reach out and knock him off that damn bike. It couldn’t be that hard if her little brother almost half her age could do it.
Josey decided she would wait until she was alone to get on that bike and try it again. She just couldn’t keep it upright.
After hurting her knees, twisting her left foot, and almost breaking her right thumb; she gave up. She hated that old blue bike. “Who needs to ride a bike in these hills anyway,” she screamed out. She couldn’t even remember what happened to that stupid thing.
She never rode a bike after that until she was married and had kids, all six of them in fact.
Thinking about that bike took her home again. She missed Missouri. It was so beautiful, but it held so many secrets. She didn’t remember it getting as cold as Michigan, but it must have at times.
The hot sun would beat down on her shoulders, burning the back of her neck as her ponytail would make her sweat from the heat. How she loved that warm mountain air with the grass beneath her feet. The sweet smell of Honeysuckle and Sheepshire would fill the air along the path to school.
Josey’s brother Jim was eleven months younger than her. They were the same age for about 3 weeks. Her birthday is in September and his in August. Wayne was younger than Jim, then Ray, Gordon, David, Helen, and then Clayton.
Josey would wander through the tall cool woods near her house just to sit and dream. What will I do when I am on my own? What will my kids look like? How many of them will there be? I know they will all be special. They will be smart and good looking. They will be important people. I will just be married once and stay married forever to one great guy.
The green, gold, and brown thick carpet of leaves would rustle beneath her feet. The towering maples shaded out the hot sun with streaks of light running through their branches.
Josey would sit on a decaying log that had long sense fallen and spend immeasurable amounts of time just being alone. A breezy butterfly would sometimes float by.
How do they live, these tiny animals, in the world we take for granted? The mint green grasshoppers and the crickets as black as coal moved about hastily. The ladybugs would float around without a care.
How do they see this vast Earth of giants big and small?
She could hear her brothers call out to her. “Jo it’s time for supper, where are you?” She didn’t want to answer. She just wanted to be alone.
How she longed for those wonderful summer days to take her away from this wisdom of torment and age.
She thought of the beautiful Missouri sunrise as it peaked through the foothills in a fiery red and yellow blaze while the rooster sat on a barbed wire fence crowing deep in his throat; his cone straight and tall for all to see. His orange and brown feathers curled to and fro as his loud shrill would break the silence of sleep. The sun was barely up when the chores began. She didn’t mind the chores. She liked to keep busy when she was home from school.
School would start in September. It was always on Josey’s birthday. It didn’t seem quite right, but that’s just the way it was.
“Josey, get up for school!” Inez would yell. She would tell Josey to make sure that Helen and the boys were ready for the bus. Josey would get their breakfast and make sure they were clean and their hair was combed. The big yellow bus would come rolling down the hill and they would all run to the end of the driveway to catch it. They all like school. They liked to be with other kids to laugh and play.
 

Chapter 3

One hot morning, Josey woke up to the rooster uhr…uh…. uhrrrring. She pulled the curtains back.
“What the hell?” she hollered. She looked around to make sure that her Aunt Inez did not hear her say hell. She would have gotten a mouthful of soap or worse for sure. She was still half asleep. She had experienced the nasty taste of soap a few times, but she didn’t care.
The table in the front yard was covered in blood. A big butcher knife lay on the ground underneath it. Josey ran into the kitchen knocking over a fan that stood near the doorway. Her aunt came out the bedroom in a long raggedy yellow night gown and her red hair in a big fuzzy ball. You could see right through that nightgown but, she liked it and she wore it anyway.
“What is the matter with you,” yelled Aunt Inez.
“What happened here?” asked Josey.
“Oh, your Uncle Carl done stole a hog from the neighbors and butchered it last night. You kids clean up the mess and I’ll cook you alls breakfast,” said Inez.
Josey went to her bedroom where her brother Clayton and little sister Helen were still sleeping. She sat on the bed still trying to catch her breath. She dressed and then woke her brother and sister. “Hey guys, time to get up! Uncle Carl killed another hog,” she told them. “You two go get dressed and I’ll start cleaning up the mess,” she said. The hot sun shone though the curtains as the two kids got dressed and combed their hair.
Her brothers, Wayne and Jim, went out to milk the cows while Raymond and Gordon went to gather the eggs. Jim didn’t like to get the eggs. Last time he did, he reached his hand under the hen and a snake crawled out.
Breakfast was a big pile of bacon, fried eggs, homemade butter, and hot biscuits with cold milk from the milking the day before. The morning had already started out hot and muggy. Opening the door was like opening an oven. Laundry day meant filling the old wringer washer and washtub with buckets from the well. The socks soaked together in a big bucket of bleach water outside.
Josey was in the side yard hanging out a load of sheets when she heard yelling coming from the back of the house where they did the wash. She ran around the side of the house and tripped falling over a small tree branch. “Dammit,” she cursed getting up and checking out the cut on her left knee. Limping to the back of the house she screamed, “What is going on? Who’s screaming?”
Ray was putting laundry through the wringer when his right hand got caught up in a towel. His arm was pulled into the wringers up to his elbow. He was jumping up and down yelling, “turn off the washer!” He was trying to pull his arm out.
Josey ran behind the washer and pulled the plug from the wall. She had to open the release on the wringers to get his arm out. “Your arm is swollen bigger than shit,” she said. She led him to the chair and helped him sit down.
He had to rest it on a pillow with ice to get the swelling down.
“Gotta watch what the hell yer adoin boy,” shouted Carl.
Ray was careful with the wringers after that. He got out of doing chores for a few days though. Wayne finished running the towels though the wash and the rinse. Josey hung them on the lines.
“I think the clothes lines are going to have to be moved again Carl,” shouted Aunt Inez. “Only this time get them away from the trees. The birds are shittin on the clothes again,” she added.
Not again thought Josey. That means they all have to be taken down and washed again. Down came the sheets and back into the wash. Wayne and Jim carried more buckets of water from the well. Only one of the lines had to be rewashed, the one with all the sheets.
Her little brother Gordon was the independent one. At the age of three he would always say, “me go, to bye go.” Even then, his heart would wander to unknown places. His spirit wanted to be free. Free to do what? He did not know. Free to go where? He did not care. He wanted to roam.
Wayne’s nickname was tubby. Maybe because he was the fattest; you couldn’t count “all” of his ribs. He would get nosebleeds and just pass out. Who knew about high blood pressure then?
Helen would hold her breath until she turned blue and passed out. What a scary sight that was!
All of the kids stayed close. They loved each other and looked out for each other. When Helen or Wayne passed out they would all get scared. They would hug and promise to look out for each other; and they did.