Hello, my name is George,
I’d like to take some time here at the beginning to talk to you. Yes, you – the one with my book in your hands, reading this right now. You see, even though Moon wrote this, it’s my life. Oh, you may think I’m a fictional character, only paper and words, but as you get to know me an image of me will form. I don’t just live in these pages, I live in your mind and that makes me as real as you or anyone else. Who’s to say you aren’t just some character in a book, real because someone is reading about you and imagining you in their minds? It’s a tricky question. Philosophers have been trying for ages to figure out what is reality and what is illusion. We won’t go into that right now, if you want to pursue that thought, go check out what the old philosophizing guys have to say. There’s more to read by them than most people can get through in a lifetime, but it’s definitely worth looking into.
Now we have that out of the way, shall we continue getting to know each other better? So glad you’re along on this part of my life.
¤
Chapter One
The Day of Miracles
I was born and raised in the middle of nowhere Missouri. My folks were the hippy kind and really sweet, if a bit annoying for a kid in the country. My friends’ folks were all farmers and ranchers, with the rare exception of a town mechanic or shopowner. So our house was quite a bit different than anyone else I knew. Now with a name like George, you’d think I’m a guy, but no I’m a gal. George isn’t really my birth name, it’s a nickname I picked up as a little girl. My birth name is Sunshine Isis Thyme Geraldine Greenhawk. Now who in the world would want to walk around a bunch of rednecks with a name like that? I sure didn’t.
I remember I was 9 and I was complaining to my gang about my name. I was teased incessantly about it by the older kids in town and I’d had enough. So, my galpals and I had a teepee session. (The folks had a teepee in the back acreage, they used to live in it before I was born.) Claudine was my best friend, she had four older brothers and three younger ones. They lived in a huge old house down the hill and across the train tracks from us. Becky lived nextdoor to me, she was alright if a bit uptight. Her dad was the local doctor and he had delivered all of our births, so she was always hanging around and we became friends after a while. Her bestfriend Harriette, was the pharmacist’s daughter and the four of us made a nice little group. We were all about 2 months apart in age.
The only one who liked her name in all actuality was Becky, or Rebekka Esther Steinberg if you want her proper name. So we were sitting around in the old teepee, lighting strawberry incense and drinking iced peppermint tea my mom had brought out to us. We felt very grown-up, sitting in a circle next to the support pole, our skirts spread out around us, and talking about names.
“Well,” said Claudine. “I was thinkin’, what if we chose names that are close, but mean somethin’ different?”
Becky looked at her with a puckered expression, “What is that supposed to mean? Like what?” She tossed her long, curly, ginger hair out of her face.
“I dunno, I know names mean things.” Claudine scrunched up her forehead thinking.
“Well, my names are pretty self-explanatory.” I said around a piece of ice I was chewing on.
Harriette nodded, while lighting another giant stick of incense. She had a thing for setting stuff on fire. Around the sickly sweet smoke she asked me, “Well, we know Isis is an egyptian goddess according to your Ma. Where the heck did Geraldine come from?”
I crunched loudly on the last bit of ice in my mouth before answering, all three friends stopped and waited in silence for my answer.
“Great Mamaw’s first name, she wanted me to be named after her.” I rolled my eyes, like I’d seen my father do when discussing his Grandmother-in-law. “So they stuck it on the end, just to please her. That’s why she calls me Dini, it was her nickname when she was a kid, like, a hundred years ago.”
My galpals all groaned with me on the absurdness of old people. Hey, give us a break! At 9 you think 30 year olds are ancient, Great Mamaw at the age of 86 was older than God to us. We sat and thought on the problem for a while, drinking tea and looking at the sky through the smoke hole at the top of the teepee.
A few minutes later, Billy and Mike, Claudine’s twin older brothers chased their younger brother Jaime through the woods nearby, yelling after him at the top of their lungs.
“Jaime! Jaime! Are you a girl or are you a boy? Nobody knows - Why? Cause, Jaime’s got a girl’s name! Jaime’s got a girl’s name!” They chanted at their loudest volume, pitching nuts and pinecones at him as they ran. That gave me an idea.
Everyone was looking out of the teepee opening, to see if they’d pass or stop and mess with us. Copious amounts of incense smoke drew their attention sometimes and then our grown-up tea time was over. Once we were sure they were too busy torturing Jaime to notice us, we all sat back down and lit a fifth stick of incense in celebration.
“What if we changed our names to boy names? They already tease you two that way.” I nodded at Claudine and Harriette. “Why not beat them at their game?”
The only one who didn’t like the idea was Becky, of course. She liked both her full name and her nickname, she didn’t get teased by the boys. But then, she was the prettiest girl in our grade, with milk white skin, the more delicate of Jewish features, a willowy body and her beautiful red hair – the boys stumbled over themselves around her. Harriette was pretty cute too, with bobbed chestnut hair which shone in the sun and a tan year round, though her big green eyes where definitely her best feature – she was just too tall, already 5’6”, she was teased as being the bastard kid of a giant. She claimed her father’s family was half Greater Osage, an Arkansas native tribe. I guess they get to be pretty tall, never met a fullblood. Claudine was already a tomboy, with 7 brothers she had to be. Her family was Black Dutch and Italian, she was short with messy black hair and ice blue eyes. Her features were all angles and sharp edges, once she grew into them she was a knockout, but at that age she looked like an unfinished sculpture.
Myself, I was average height and weight, but, my hair was what my folks called “Calico” as if my name wasn’t bad enough. If you looked close enough, you could see strands of almost every hair color out there, with the exceptions of white and grey. It tried to be wavy, but it was so heavy the weight of it pulled the wave right out. I wasn’t allowed to cut it, so it was almost past my butt by then. My eyes were sometimes hazel and sometimes a greenish-grey, depending on my mood. I was one of the few in the 80s who’s Ma didn’t shop at the new Walmart and still made my clothes at home. I looked like a hippy tomboy, with two braids hanging to my waist and my long skirts hiked up to my knees half of the time. You couldn’t climb trees, ride a bike, wade in the creek or do anything fun in those things without having to tuck them up.
Harriette hated her name, she thought it was too close to Henrietta the chicken. The older girls picked up on that too and taunted her with it often. She usually followed Becky’s lead, the tall bookworm was too preoccupied with her studies to pay attention most of the time or worry about it. This time though, she put her foot down on Becky’s pouting, surprising all of us.
“Well, you don’t have to participate then, Miss Perfect. You were given a nice name, unlike us.” She speared her bestfriend with a glance over the rim of her glasses. Becky turned red in the face and huffed, but then stared into her tea like she was going to melt the ice by shear will. Claudine and I stared at each other, then the two of them in amazement. We hadn’t heard Harriette talk down to Becky like that before.
She turned to us. “So, what do you think we should pick? I think I want Frank, but with a Ph instead of an F – yeah, Phrank is cool.”
“Oo! That’s a nifty name!” Claudine bounced with excitement. “I was just reading about that couple in the old days, Bonnie and Clyde, they were bank robbers or somethin’. I want to be called, Clyde. He was awesome!”
We tried to figure out a name for me. First they tried Sonny from my first name, then Ty from my third one and Becky pulled out of her stony silence to suggest Gerry after the Geraldine. They didn’t seem right and I pulled a face, shaking my head no, with each one.
“Stop making those monkey faces! It’s not attractive, you know.” Becky admonished me. “Might as well call you George, after that monkey in the little kid’s books.”
My eyes got big and a smile leapt onto my face.
“Becky, you’re genius!” I exclaimed, startling everyone. “George it is!”
I jumped up and strutted around, shaking everyone’s hand.
“Hello! My name is George.”
I tried it out and liked it better each time I said it. Everyone started giggling and the other two with new names started doing the same thing. The teepee was beginning to look like a Mad Hatter’s tea party. Becky went quiet again watching us. When we calmed down enough to notice, we asked her what was wrong.
“I want a boy’s name now too.” She said in a mousy whisper, one tear rolling down her pretty cheek.
“There’s no need to cry about it, you can change your mind, you know.” The newly named Clyde said, flopping down next to Becky.
Becky sniffed and tossed her hair back with one chinadoll hand. She eyed us all to make sure it was ok, we all nodded encouragingly to her.
“What if I want to have one similar to Becky?”
“It’s your name, choose whatever you want.” Phrank said sitting down on the other side of her. “Have you thought of one?”
“Only Robbie, which is close to Rebekka – but I don’t like it. Claudi- I mean, Clyde’s youngest brother is Robbie.” We thought about it for a while, but couldn’t come up with something. I started building a small pyramid out of rocks in the teepee’s entrance and Phrank kept lighting incense. Eventually, it looked like we were doing some weird ritual and trying to make smoke signals. My Dad came out to investigate, thinking we were burning the structure down.
“Sunshine! What did I say about the incense? You girls are going to destroy your lungs with that much scented smoke!” He pulled the other front flap open and waved a bunch of it out with his arm. Now my dad had hair longer than me, it was salt and peppered all ready, plaited and the end of the plait he kept tucked into his belt in the front. He had a big, fluffy beard, was about 6’ and really lean, his baggie work clothes made him look bigger than he was. No matter what he said though, his brown eyes were always kind and smiling.
We squinted up at him with the sudden excess of summer afternoon light, Phrank slowly put down the 12th stick she was about to light and I finished picking up another rock.
“Mr. Greenhawk, we’re renaming ourselves and we can’t think of one for Becky.” Clyde said from her place on the Navajo blanket she was sharing with Becky.
“Is that so?” His eyes twinkled with amusement. “What kind of names did everyone else take?”
“Boy names. I’m Phrank with a Ph.” said Phrank with pride. “Claudine is now Clyde after Bonnie and Clyde and Sunshine has taken George after Curious George the monkey.”
“But Becky wants one that sounds like her original name and we can’t think of a boy’s name like it.” Clyde explained. I wasn’t sure if my Dad was the person to be asking, considering he named me, so I kept up with my pyramid building and ignored them.
“Boy’s monikers, eh?” Dad stroked his beard and thought for a second. You could almost see the lightbulb above his head a minute later, he held up one finger.
“Ah-ha! I think I have it, how about Beckett?” He looked at us expectantly, but we were still too young to get the reference. “It’s after a famous playwright, Samuel Beckett. He was a bit wild, but a genius in my view.”
Becky thought about it and a smile crept upon her lips. She said it to herself a couple of times, mouthing it as she did.
“I love it! Thank you, Mr. Greenhawk!” She jumped up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He swooped us all up into his arms and gave us a big, group bear hug. He smelled of cut grass, earth and sunshine, he’d been mowing the lawn around the house, gardening, and doing general outdoor chores all day. I snuggled into his shoulder when everyone pulled away, for a separate hug.
“George, eh? You certainly are curious, I say it fits you.” He said in my ear and knocked lightly on my nose. Backing out of the teepee, he repeated our names. “Phrank, Clyde, George and Beckett, right? I’d better let your Mom know, George, so she doesn’t feel left out.”
With a wink, a point at the incense telling us to put a few out in the dirt and dropping the flap he had put up, he strolled away. A couple of minutes later, we heard both of my folks laughing through the kitchen windows. We blushed furiously at first, but then decided it was okay and went back to our business.
Clyde was the first to think of it. We had another problem now. How do we get everyone else to take us seriously and call us by our new names? Phrank thought is was obvious. We go together to each set of parents and appeal to them to call us these new names as if we had actually legally changed them. (Well, we didn’t say “legally”, I think it was more along the rambling lines of “You know, like it’s on our birth certificates that way or something.”) This seemed like a great idea and we couldn’t think of any reasons they wouldn’t want to do as we asked.
We gathered up the blankets, put out the incense and stacked the empty tea pitcher and glasses on the tin tray my mom used to bring them out. I was the last one out, pulling down the other flap and securing the two together with the long smooth sticks my dad whittled for that exact purpose. We marched into the house with our bundles, gave my Mom the tray and put the blankets in the picnic supplies closet. My parents took to outdoor activities with gleeful seriousness, we had tons of stuff just for picnics and camping trips. When we had emptied ourselves of too much herbal tea and gathered in the kitchen to watch Mom bake bread, she turned to address us.
My Mother is a beautiful, earth goddess type of woman. She and my dad were a part of the tail end of the peacenik activist days in the late 60s and early 70s. They decided when she found out she was pregnant with me, that they would settle down in a small town, where no one would care if everything they did was homegrown and homemade, to raise a family. After I was born, they tried to have another to no avail – until 7 months before that day. I remember how she glowed with happiness that day, the sun haloing her through the big dormer windows over her double antique, porcelain sinks. Her straight auburn hair pulled back in a hurried ponytail, wisps floating around her face and curling moistly around her neck. The sundress she wore tented over her extended belly, with lines of white across it where she had rubbed against the floured counter. Cradling her pregnant belly with interlaced hands, she leaned up against the sinks and looked at us.
“So, I want to hear the story from you ladies. First, let me see if Oak got them right.” She nodded at each of us as she recalled what she had been told.
“Claudine is now Clyde, Harriette is now Phrank – with a Ph, yes, he made sure to tell me.” She said warmly when Phrank opened her mouth to spell it. “Becky is Beckett and my dear Sunshine is somehow, George?”
I shrugged with a smile when she gave me a questioning glance about my new name. Becky provided the answers to the questions she left unsaid, filling in who we were named after. All except Phrank and we had no idea where she got it from when it came down to hers.
My mother said there was a not so famous, but influential feminist in the 60s who went by Phrank and that this Phrank had probably read it somewhere, in one of her many books. My friend couldn’t remember, but thought it was probably true and she had just forgotten about it. Mom kept us there for a little longer, even though we were itching to tell the other parents and get it done with.
“Hold on a minute.” She put up her hands to stop our exodus. “Have you thought about how you are going to tell your parents why you are dropping perfectly good names, they chose for you and going with masculine names instead? It’s the how which counts, if you do it right they won’t argue very much, maybe not at all.”
Phrank scrunched up her nose and snorted. “If you think Harriette is a perfectly good name, it’s because you aren’t stuck with it.”
“Yeah and I’m named after my Aunt the hairdresser.” Piped up Clyde.
“Even if you don’t like them girls, they are respectful family names. Your parents thought long and hard before giving them to you. What makes you think they’ll go along with you dropping them so quickly?” Her cornblue eyes twinkled with mirth, she loved to make us think about our actions. I grew to love this characteristic of hers, at the time I was embarrassed. However, Phrank took her seriously and sat down to think about what we were going to do. We all sat back down around the center kitchen island my Dad had built to talk about this new development.
“Well, we are tired of being made fun of by the big kids, so we thought we’d beat them at their game.” I said. “If we can get you adults to start calling us by our new names, it will puzzle them enough, hopefully they’ll quit.”
“That’s a good start.” She pulled up a stool with us and put a plate of fresh oatmeal cookies in the middle of the island. “However, I know that names are sacred to Jewish people. Beckett, how are you going to convince your parents this is a good name? Beckett is not a Hebrew name.”
We all grabbed a cookie and Beckett slowly chewed while mulling over this idea. You could see the answer form in her head, when she had it, she put down the cookie and turned to my Mom.
“My middle name is Esther, it was the name of a famous Jewish queen and when she had to help her people, she kept her heritage a secret in order to help. I’m doing this in rememberance of her sacrifice to help my friends in their hour of need and bring unity. How’s that?” She finished her cookie and waited for my Mom to ponder it.
“Is that really why you are doing it though?” Mom asked gently.
“No, she isn’t,” offered Clyde. “She didn’t want to be left out.”
“Well,” Mom picked at the crumbles on the counter. “What about the story of Ruth and Naomi? Naomi said to call her Mara because she had been dealt with bitterly. You are changing your name to stand up for your friends, who have been dealt with bitterly by the older kids for their original names.”
Beckett stopped making faces at Clyde and looked at my Mother with her jaw hanging open. Her mouth worked at a question, but the shock pulled the words from her. Mom laughed until the baby started to kick, causing her to become still and have us feel the movement. As we were all poised around her, one hand each on her abdomen, she explained her knowledge of the story.
“I was raised in a Luthern church, my father was a deacon for years. We had to learn the stories in the Old Testament when I was your age.” She shooed us back to our stools. “I don’t know if you were aware of it, but the Old Testament in the Christian bible is just a retelling of Jewish history.”
“Oooh!” We breathed as one and fell into a giggling fit.
“I think your explanations will be good enough for your parents.” She got up to check on the dough rising on the stove. “Now shoo! I have to finish this and you have a lot to talking to do. You’re all welcome to come to dinner, of course. Make sure it’s ok with your parents first though. George, call me at the last stop to let me know how many to cook for.”
Grabbing one last cookie, we all scrambled outside and next door to Beckett’s house. The doctor was taking his lunch break at home and was just sitting down to a big reuben sandwich when we came in. Mrs. Steinburg was standing by the phone, talking with her husband in a humorous tone, she stopped when we came inside and looked at us expectantly.
Beckett stepped in front of us a bit and addressed her parents respectfully.
“Father, Mother, we have decided to change our names. We don’t know for how long, but I’d like to be called Beckett for now.” She told them, calmly.
Doctor Steinburg, put down his sandwich, dusted the crumbs off of his hands and regarded his daughter evenly. He had a head of short curly black hair and strong, chiseled features with a sharp, hawkish nose. I thought I saw amusement in his big brown eyes, though he spoke in serious tones.
“We gave you a perfectly respectable Jewish name, which you have already Americanized. Why do you want a man’s name, which isn’t even Jewish?” he cocked his head at us. “What’s wrong with Rebekka? Answer me this, daughter of mine.”
Beckett went into the explanation my mother had given us and then stood silent under their gaze, looking at the ground, waiting for the verdict. There was no sound for what seemed like forever, when her mother started giggling. The Doctor looked at her sharply causing her to stop with a cough and turn to clean up. Though I could still see her sides shake with quiet laughter as she bustled about the kitchen.
“Alright, Beckett,” He put emphasis on the new name. “If you want to support your friends so badly as to turn away from a time honored name, I will not stop you. I’ll even address you by this name until you ask me to stop.”
Beckett’s face lit up and she started towards her father to hug his neck in delight. She stopped at his look though and waited for the rest of his opinion.
“However, young lady, you will be called Rebekka during the scared holidays and at synagogue.” He smiled at his only child with love. “I will not bend on this, do not ask me to. You must put aside these things in reverence when the time is appropriate. Am I understood?”
Beckett beamed at her father, she had been given their blessing. “Thank you, Papa!” She flew into his arms and kissed his cheek. Once he had returned the kiss, she went to her mother and was hugged close, kissed on the head and asked about dinner.
“What would you like to eat tonight, Beckett who was Rebekka?” Mrs. Steinburg asked. Standing side by side, I realized Beckett was the spitting image of her mother. Though her mother was a few inches taller, Beckett was gaining fast.
“May I go to the Greenhawk’s for dinner this evening, Mama? She always makes sure my food is kosher.” She looked between the two adults and when her father nodded assent over his sandwich, her mother agreed asking if it would be a slumber party, too. At this, all three of my friends turned towards me with big questioning smiles.
“I, I’m not sure.” I stammered. “May I call my mother and ask for permission? She likes to be given a chance to say yes or no, before she is bombarded as she likes to put it.”
Mrs. Steinburg waved at the phone on the wall and went back to her dishes, humming a tune I didn’t recognize. My mother was more than happy to host a slumber party and promised to send my father out for junk food and fun things, she suggested we finish our talks and gather everyone’s stuff on the way back, so we didn’t have to lug everything farther than necessary. My mother is a brilliant woman, I’ve always thought so and this was a perfect example of her quick mind.
Off we went to the drugstore, which was between the Steinburg’s and Clyde’s house. Phrank’s folks owned and operated it together. Her father ran the pharmacy in the back and her mother ran the front of the store, they joked back and forth between themselves and the customers all day. Unfortunately for Phrank, they were a little harsher on her. As the youngest of four kids, they wanted to make sure she went to college and excelled like her brother, the oldest. Her two older sisters had buckled under the pressure, one dropped out of high school her senior year and ran away with her boyfriend to Chicago, never to return. The other graduated from high school, only to struggle in college, fall into a depression and commit suicide over her failure. That was two years before, when we were 7. We thought the pressure would ease up after the tragedy, Phrank thought it would get worse. We were all wrong, they kept it at the same level but, now watched her like a hawk, afraid she would run away or off herself too.
It was a big surprise when we were greeted by them both, standing back at the pharmacy window, with big smiles on their faces. There was only one or two people in the store, a mother with her youngest baby and the town’s favorite old guy, Gabe. They all looked at us with goofy smiles, as if they shared an inside joke pertaining to us. It gave us all the creepy crawlies and we stopped dead in our tracks just inside the front doors. Which made them all snicker, look at each with shaking heads and then go back to their business.
Phrank’s mom called us back to the pharmacy counter, calling sweetly and waving her hand at us to come on. We all looked at each other, Phrank shrugged and went back, the three of us tailing her hesitantly. She was greeted by a hug which went on a bit longer than any of us were comfortable with. We looked everywhere but at Phrank and her Mom, scuffling our feet on the stores linoleum. Finally her dad cleared his throat and said: “Mary, darling, I think you’re making the girls uncomfortable. Maybe we should let them tell us why they have visited so unusually.”
Clara let go of her daughter, but kept her by her side during the talk. They normally didn’t act like this, the first words out of their mouths when we all walked in on those rare occasions was: “Harriette! Is your homework done? How far ahead are you? It’s getting close to grading time!” and then they would drill her. After having 3 children go through the same schools way before Phrank arrived, they knew her homework texts and depending on how long the teacher had been there – what her assignments were and when they were due, before Phrank did. Phrank got away with absolutely nothing, her freedom was out with us, so we went into her folks store together only under dire circumstances – like these. My bookish friend looked wan and sheepish with this kind of attention, she was trying to make herself smaller from confusion.
So Clyde spoke up for Phrank, watching our friend with every word out of her mouth. Phrank looked at her, nodded her head and looked down at her keds sneakers.
“Mr. and Mrs. Hinkleton, we have lately been teased terribly by the older kids for our names. It started at the end of the school year and hasn’t let up.” Clyde wet her lips nervously, Phrank nodded again just slight enough I barely caught it. “So, we decided to band together and take on different names, kinda beat the bullies at their own game. You know, Harriette puts up with a lot. She tries to just sit and read her study books, do her homework and some of them will come up and change her name on the papers to Harry Dingleberry, usually in ink, so she has to start all over again. But instead of fussing or letting it get her down, she just sighs, takes the paper back and starts rewriting whatever it is she has to do.”
Phrank looked up sharply at Clyde, but didn’t say a word. I don’t think she knew that we knew about that teasing. She never talked about it. The reaction by their daughter did not escape the notice of the Hinkletons.
“You’ve never told anyone about this have you?” Her mother asked kindly. Phrank just shook her head no. “But it’s so bad, your friends know about it to that detail?” Phrank nodded and shrugged her shoulders, indicating that she guessed so, since Clyde just said it.
Mr. Hinkleton put his hand on Phrank’s head gently with a look of concern on his face. “We’ve been awfully hard on you, thinking you were just slacking. I’m terribly sorry Harriette, er I mean, what is your new name?”
Phrank turned around slowly and looked at her parents with amazement.
“Seriously?” They nodded, Phrank let out a long breath and looked at them again. “It’s Phrank with a –“
“Ph!” exclaimed her mother, excitedly. We all stopped figgiting and waited for an explanation, it wasn’t a long wait. “When I was a teenager, I was a bit of a feminist. So was your dad, we met at a convention for feminist rights.”
Her dad blushed and turned away. “Mary, ya didn’t have to tell them that…” he grumbled.
“Anyway!” she said waving her husband away playfully. “We loved this small time speaker who named herself Phrank, with a Ph! I still have her pamphlets and a book with her in it, you probably ran out of something to read and read one of those to pass the time. Isn’t that cool?”
We were all nodding, today was the day of miracles it seemed. Her parents were more than happy to give her a full 24 hours off of summer studies – possibly more, depending on if she thought it was worth it with her booklist still waiting. At which point she gave them another surprise, she loved to read and read almost non-stop, so she wasn’t running around with her nose in a book due to their rules. She just couldn’t read enough and they gave her a list of books, keeping her busy most of the summer. She didn’t mind it at all, she just didn’t like being snapped at about what she was doing and where she was at on the list all the time. Phrank usually had most of her parent’s list read by mid July, she spent the rest of the summer reading what she wanted. This revelation lightened their attitude towards her a lot, the pressure went way down and her grades actually skyrocketed. Anyway, when asked if she could stay at my house that night – they hesitated, wanting to spend time getting to know their baby better. She reasoned that it wasn’t like she was leaving forever, she was just going to my house. It was probably one of the safest in the county, too. To which her father agreed wholeheartedly and they decided she could spend her 24 or so hours of freedom however she wished.
Now came the hardest, not because of any problems like the last two, it’s just that Clyde’s house was a crazyhouse. 8 kids and most all of their friends running around like insane little people. Her mother always had her hands full and her dad was usually off to work as the General Manager at the local bottling factory or down at the barn tinkering on something or another that was broken. Getting their attention was almost impossible, getting them in the same place AND paying attention was a gift from God, or Goddess, whichever way you go. However, as we came up the path to the backdoor past the big old barn, we met him just 10 steps out of the kitchen door. Clyde begged him, hanging on his arm to come back in for a minute, she had something to ask them both. He stopped dragging her on his arm and looked at her for a minute. She didn’t back down, she just gave him the sweetest little girl smile and held on tightly.
“Oh hell Claudine, you know I can’t say no to that darlin’ face. Come on,” he swung her onto his shoulders with one smooth move. “Let’s go bother your mother.”
We bustled after them, cheerful at our luck – until we hit the kitchen itself. As her mom tried to make dinner, different boys would come up behind and snatch some of the food from the counter. She was constantly having to remake, rechop, or remix things and was getting blustery over the boys pranks. We thought this conversation was doomed, but then we didn’t see Mr. Thomas in the house very often. With Clyde still on his massive shoulders, he grabbed the next two boys who were sneaking up by the shirt collars and held them up, toes dangling. They were so intent on getting their snatch of food, they hadn’t noticed his entry and almost wet themselves in fright.
“Leave your Ma alone!” he bellowed in their faces and turning towards the diningroom door, about four more heads popped behind the doorframe, out of sight. “All of you fool boys, let her cook your supper before you go without for a day or two! Would serve you right, being mean to her like that. I think it’s time you all chopped a bunch of wood.”
He set the two down and the other four shuffled into the kitchen, knowing they had been seen. They groaned and sighed at the punishment verdict so swiftly judged.
“Don’t make it harder on yourselves. I was going to ask you six to share a cord together, but I can make it a cord of wood each.” Now, for those of you who don’t know, a cord of wood is an actual measurement for piles of firewood, it basically equals a woodpile 8 feet wide by 4 feet high of 4 feet-long logs. It can be a bit more, depending on who stacked them. The Thomas’ discovered long ago, they could have all of the kids chop wood for misbehavior or chores and have enough to sell to their neighbors as an extra income. Mr. Thomas had quite a few cords back behind the barn at all times, his threat was not idle and the boys knew it, even the ones who weren’t part of the family. They stood tall, looked him in the eyes and said “Yes sir” meekly. If you got caught making trouble, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas didn’t care if you were their child or not, you got the same punishment as their own blood offspring and our own parents never once disagreed with them, they thought it was fitting and right too.
We girls pushed up against the wall by the door as all six boys walked past, Eugene the 3rd oldest, stuck his tongue out at us as he passed.
Mrs. Thomas was watching the whole thing with a reproving look on her face and saw Eugene’s tongue flash out.
“Eugene! I saw that, young man!” she snapped a towel at his rump. “You get to do ½ the cord all by yourself now, aren’t you the lucky one and no dinner until you’re done. You hear that boys? Cut half the cord and leave the rest for Gene!”
Eugene’s face darkened and he ran out to the barn without another word or glance.
We felt sorry for him, but he didn’t have to be mean like that, it wasn’t our fault he got caught. However, we were only allowed to watch the boys disappear around the barn for a minute when our attention was brought back to the kitchen by Mr. Thomas, when he put Clyde on her feet.
“Well, now you’ve got us girls,” he said slowly, easing himself into a kitchen chair. “What’re you going to do with us?” Apparently we had all four eyes and ears of Clyde’s folks.
Clyde immediately went into her schpiel, but was talking so fast they could barely understand her. They both put up their hands and started saying “Wait a minute! Slow down!”
Her mother sat down too and held her husband’s hand on the table. “You have our attention, the boys are splitting wood, talk normally would you Claudine?”
Clyde took a deep breath and was noticeably forcing herself to slow down in her head, she was used to having to loudly, quickly vie for a little attention.
“Ok,” she started. “We’ve changed our names, in hopes that it will get people to stop teasing us about our real ones. We thought if our folks and other adults started calling us by these new names, it would confuse our bullies and make them stop. It might not work, but we’re willing to try it.”
“Well, at least you’re trying to use some logic.” Mr. Thomas said and then winked at his wife. They looked like the blacksmith and his plump wife from the fairytales sitting there. “And what would these names be?”
We told them and why they were choosen. Though not as cynical or overexcited as we had so far encountered with everyone else, they were completely amicable. Mrs. Thomas seemed relieved when Clyde asked to stay at my place that night, one less mouth to feed and I’m sure at first she was a bit worried we wanted to do it at her house.
In high spirits, we clambered up to Clyde’s room so I could call my Mom with guest numbers and Clyde could pack a bag. Typical girl’s room of the early 1980s, it had a brass daybed with rainbow brite sheet set, and posters of the Coreys and Duran Duran all over the place. I sat on the edge of her daybed and called my mom on her yellow princess phone. I told Mom we would take our time getting back so they could do their shopping and cooking in peace. Unfortunately, we were all so keyed up – we just about threw stuff into their bags, snatched up pillows and were out of each house in five minutes or less. It took us all of 20 minutes to get back to my place, we had been running and talking a mile a minute over our total success.
That was a magical day for all of us and many things in our lives improved. Dinner and the slumber party were a blast, my parents really knew how to entertain young folks.
I didn’t find out until years later that my dear Mother had called ahead to each parental unit and told them what was going on. She told them that it was very important to us and that this would help to cement the bond forming between us. We all helped each other anytime we could already and our friendship was healthy for us as a group and individually. I guess our parents had discussed our little gang at an adult dinner event a week before, they had all had time to observe if we really were good for each other or not. Thank the universe, they thought it was good.
That is how I got the name George and it stuck. My husband calls me George, my younger brother calls me George and always has, even my grandparents and extended family call me George. I have been ever so curious my whole life and never quite grew out of my nickname. I’m fine with that.
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