Another Cut Foot or Happy Mother’s Day                                                May 5, 2020

 

I don’t know who came up with the list of things I learned from my mother but I do appreciate it and want to share it with you. I won’t give you all that they had listed but here are some of them.

 

My mother taught me RELIGION. "You better pray that will come out of the carpet."

​

My mother taught me LOGIC. "Because I said so, that's why."

​

My mother taught me MORE LOGIC. "If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the store with me."

​

My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM. "Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!"

​

My mother taught me about JUSTICE. "One day you'll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you!"

​

One that was not on that list is my mother taught me about consequences. “Keep your shoes on. You’ll lose them some day then you’ll have to go barefoot.”

 

At such an early age, I didn’t realize all that mom’s do for their children. 

 

Of course, I enjoyed listening to her read a bedtime story from Hurbert’s Stories of the Bible, 1904 edition. She would finally get us into bed, then she’d tuck us in and open the thick book and start reading. Since it was illustrated, we were soon uncovered, beside her looking at the pictures as she read. Then she would stop just before Moses was discovered, or Daniel escaped from the Lions, or some other cliffhanger. We’d beg her to continue and she’d say, “We’ll finish that story tomorrow night.” 

 

Amid our protests, she’d tuck us in again, kiss us goodnight and pull the chain on the single bulb light in the center of the room.

 

I knew she did the washing because I enjoyed stroking the fire under the big black kettle. When the water was hot, she’d shave some homemade lye soap into it, and stir with a wooden paddle until it dissolved. Then the clothes were dumped in and more stirring took place. Then one by one, she lifted them out for inspection. If they were not clean she used the rub board before she wrung them out and  dropped them into a galvanized wash tub for a rinse. Then sometimes, I would hand her the clothes pins as she hung them on the sagging clothesline held up by a forked pole in the middle.

 

I also knew that she cooked. I didn’t understand the process. Somehow those bins produced flour or sugar to be put into a big mixing bowl, stirred, and put into a pot on top of the wood burning stove filling the house with a mouth watering fragrance. To me it was just magic that produced the spicy spaghetti or luscious peach cobbler.

I knew she cleaned the house. Usually, she called attention to this task by announcing, “Bob, get your stuff out of the living room.”

 

I knew in the spring she planted a garden. I enjoyed watching the plants break through the ground with their little heads turned down and then seeing the red tomatoes, yellow carrots, green beans and other vegetables ripen and ready to pick.

 

She would can some in preparation for winter. The Mason jars filled with the fruit would cool down from hot water until the lids made its snap giving evidence or a good seal.

 

I knew she had the power to heal. I would run to her with a small cut or hurt and she would kiss it and say, “There. That made it well.” and it did so I’d go back to the same thing that had injured me in the first place.

 

Other hurts required more. She would lift me into her lap and pull me close to her. With a gentle rocking motion, she would hum a tune. After a few minutes, she’d ask, “Are you better now?” Sure enough, I was and the crying had stopped and I was ready to get back to my toys.

 

There was one task she did not do and I knew it was my personal job.

 

Before our Saturday night bath, Mom would always ask me, “Have you polished your shoes?”

 

I’d look her in the eye if I had or I’d study the floor hoping to find an answer there if I had failed in my task. The answer really didn’t matter because Mom would ask, “Let me see them.” 

 

I’d go to Jerry’s and my room and search until I found them. If I had done my chore, they would stand her inspection. If not,

I’d look at them, wipe the dust off with my pants legs and say, “Look, they don’t need polishing.” I discovered that I wasn’t a good judge of a polish job.

 

We had a shoe brush that had been made from the brushes at the cotton gin. The bristles were soft to be able to extract the cotton from the seed. They had to be thick to catch each fiber and hold it until the next wheel plucked it away. (Thanks, Eli Whitney) It was a little too big for my small hand but it was the only one we had.  Regardless of the color, black or brown, we used it on all shoes. It didn’t matter. 

 

The can of Kiwi polish had a little key on the side for you to twist to pop the lid off giving you access to the paste inside. Pop used a small cloth he kept inside the can, but I used my fingers to apply the dark goo onto the shoe.  The sticky wax had a little dye in it to cover the many scuff marks that my shoes seemed to attract.

 

When the application was complete, I took the brush and began the challenge of buffing. Pop said we needed to melt the wax into the shoe by the heat of the bristles. I wasn’t sure how that was to work except he told me to buff faster. Finally a shine would appear and I’d apply some liquid sole polish with an awful smell to the edges and call it done.

 

Then I had to get the dye off my fingers as well as my left hand that in some mysterious way, had polish on it. The lye soap would do the job but it didn’t foam much and required a lot of rubbing. 

 

The final step was why we have mothers. She would say, “Let me see your hands.” 

 

Slowly, as I moved them toward her, I studied them carefully. Almost always there was some black or brown determinedly attaching itself to my skin or fingernails, requiring another application of the wonder working soap. 

 

In my mind, the easiest way to solve the scuff and the need to polish was to not wear the shoes. If they stayed under the wardrobe all week, then I would only have to brush the dust off and they would be ready for Sunday. That solution did not appeal to Mom so, I’d end up wearing them to school and other activities but taking them off as soon as I got home or any other time I thought I could get away with it. In Arkansas, we joked about someone becoming a teenager and getting his first pair of shoes. (No one ever laughed at that joke.)

 

It wasn’t enough that I wanted to go barefoot at home, I wanted to go barefoot at school also. At recess, I’d remove my shoes, stuff my socks inside, and place them under the seat of my desk. Then I was ready to go play.

 

One day we were playing tag. I was about to be caught and thought the pale green weeping willow tree offered additional advantage. Since the skinny branches came all the way to the ground, the custodian didn’t mow under them, adding to the advantage. Running full speed, I threw the hanging jungle aside and rushed in.

 

I felt a sharp pain in my left foot. I fell down and grabbed it. I twisted the foot to see the bottom and saw a cut to the bone and then I saw blood squirting out of the slice.

 

I was tagged by my friend who started to run away but my yell stopped him. My cry was more of fear than pain because I had never had a cut that bled like that. With every heartbeat more blood would shoot out. I shouted, “Get my mother!” 

 

He took one look at the blood and he was off for assistance. He must have told the first teacher he met because she arrived quickly, before my mother. Her, “Oh! My!” did nothing to relieve my fear.

 

She wrapped something around my foot but it was quickly soaked with blood. Other kids had stopped playing and were watching me bled. I tried to be brave but all I could think was, “I need my mother. She’ll know what to do.”

 

Then Mom was there. She sat down beside me, pulled the foot over, removed the soaked rag and took a look at the cut and the squirting blood. Someone showed her the broken coke bottle. “We need to get to a doctor.” she announced.

 

By then the pain was not bad and I didn’t see any need of going to the doctor and getting another shot! However, Mom was holding onto my foot, pressing it very hard. “Can you get up?” she asked.

 

I tried, but she still had a firm grip on my ankle. 

 

One of the male teachers arrived with his car, driving onto the playground next to me. Reaching under my arms, he picked me up while Mom continued to hold my foot. They put me into the back seat with Mom following my foot. A towel had arrived from somewhere and it was wrapped around my foot but the blood was already showing through it. Mom continued to grip my ankle as she got in with me.

 

On the drive to the doctor, she pressed hard onto my foot. 

 

Mom and Pop wanted children soon after they were married but three miscarriages raised doubts of the possibility. Then Farris Von was born but he only lived eighteen months.

 

Mom’s grip was getting tired so she had to switch hands. Again the blood shot out of the wound.

 

After Farris, Danny Frank was born. He lived until he was about seven.

 

She changed her grip again and adjusted the soaked rag.

 

Now here was her next son, bleeding all over her and the car. His life was depending on her holding the artery closed.

I didn’t understand why she had such a death grip on my ankle or why she would not turn loose even to help me out of the car and into the doctor’s office. Together, they carried me in. I did not know the problem, I just knew that Mom was there and everything would be alright.

 

The doctor took a look and did some things that I couldn’t see. Actually, I didn’t want to see because when he opened it to clean it out, it hurt more than when it was cut.

 

Finally, the doctor said, “The artery is not cut all the way through. I can pull it all back together with a couple of staples. That should put enough pressure to give it a chance to clot and heal.” 

 

I didn’t know what that meant until a few days later when we took the bandages off and there were two big silver looking pieces of metal holding the skin together.

 

I didn’t understand arteries then. That came years later in high school when I studied about the blood system. Then I remembered seeing the blood pulsing with each heartbeat. 

 

 My mother knew about arteries. I never asked her how it felt to try to keep the pressure on your son’s foot to keep him from bleeding out. I never asked her if she felt a panic of not being able to stop the bleeding. At that age, all I thought was, “It is all in a day’s work of being a mother.”

 

Proverbs 31:10  Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.

​

​