Well, seven seems like a long time ago. Mrs. Johnson was my second grade teacher. She ended up being my teacher all through grade school. She was probably one of the best teachers I ever had. I can't remember much about school that year. My grades get mixed up. Since we were in a private school, we had little classes. They put 1st and 2nd grades (and 3rd and 4th, then 5th and 6th) together. Bless Mrs. Johnson. What a mess that must have been for her!



I can't remember if I was seven when this little story happened or not, I could have been younger. But I vividly remember this:

We (Charity, my younger sister and I) would get to stay with Aunt Jeanne if our parents went out of town. I loved Aunt Jeanne. She had a beauty parlor chair in her dining room/kitchen. Every Saturday morning, all these old ladies would come chat and get their hair done. We could never have the tv very loud when they were there. She also was a seamstress. I wish that I could meet her and my Grandma Rench now. They are my mom's mother and sister. They were both creative and made things. I would love to be able to sit with them and Mom and crochet or quilt.



Anyway, Aunt Jeanne had this big old house. In my seven year old mind, heck in my 29 year old mind, it looked like a haunted house. When you walked in the front door, the stair steps were right in front of you. She had a huge heavy curtain hanging in front of the steps. Nobody slept up there anymore, so she didn't heat it. But when you did get to go upstairs, it was this huge treasure trove....like on the show "Hoarders". I am not kidding. The upstairs was packed full of stuff. I was scared to go up there, scared I would never get back down. But I was scared of everything as a kid. I wish I wasn't that way and would've enjoyed things a little more.

Which brings me to my story...Aunt Jeanne's cat had kitties. Charity and I wanted one each so badly. My older sisters, Laura and Lyn, (for some crazy reason) took us over there to get two kitties. Remember, they are 17 and 15 years older than I am, so they could drive. Laura was home from college. She drove a little brown car. We picked out our kitties and put them in a box in the back seat. We started off for home. Aunt Jeanne lived probably 20 minutes from our house.

Charity and I could not wait til we got home to get a hold on those kitties. So we opened the box against our sisters warnings. Everything was going along nicely until the kitties started getting restless. Then one of them got sick, as in diarrhea on the back seat. Then one of them scratched Charity. I told her she was bleeding....she needed to know. Laura and Lyn both had their windows down with their heads out the windows. They wouldn't roll the back ones down for fear of the kitties escaping while driving down the road. Everyone was screaming and Laura and Lyn were laughing. Charity was so traumatized by the blood that Lyn let her climb up into the front seat, while I was left in the back seat to ward of kitties and poop with anything Laura had brought home with her from college, namely her pillows. Nobody could breathe because of the stench in the car. I'm so glad I didn't have to drive that car 12 hours back to Atlanta.

The kitty that I got ended up getting ran over in our driveway a couple weeks later. I didn't really even care. I hated that cat after that afternoon. Still hate cats.

Lyn, Jake, me, Mom, Charity, Laura, Dad      circa 1988