My Mother on her knees and other memories from Matheny

I wonder why some events are imprinted so strongly on our memories and others seem to fade into the mists of forgetfulness.  It isn’t always that we remember the most exciting or important things, and tend to forget the insignificant ones.  As a matter of fact, many times it is the unimportant and simple that have a hallowed place in our memories.

My recollections of Matheny, West Virginia, the place of my birth are few.  Of course, I don’t remember my birth, but I was told that it was in our home there and not in a hospital.  We moved to Bluefield shortly before my 6^th birthday, so these few memories are from my preschool years.

There was a lady whose name I don’t know, that often called out to me as she walked past our home to the general store just down the dirt road.  It was one of those little playful taunts that children like to echo so this happened very often, nearly every day.   I would be playing at my favorite tree.  It was a small sapling with smooth bark and several branches about five feet above the ground.  I couldn’t actually grasp the tree, but it was small enough to allow my little preschool hand to hook on to it as it became my merry go round.   I loved my tree.  I would run round and round as fast as I could go without falling and then repeat it again.  I did this so often that I nearly wore the bark off that tree.  Then I would hear that friendly voice from across the fence say, “Sammy, you’re a slowpoke.”  It didn’t hurt my feelings because I knew it was in jest.  It didn’t happen very many times, though, until I would look for her coming down the road and I would stop and repeat it back, “No, you’re a slow poke.  You’re a slowpoke.”

Other memories are just quick snippets of time, whose chronology is unknown.  Dad firing a German luger into the creek;  Bobby Lee, my oldest brother, with his friends, placing empty potted meat cans on fence posts and firing them high into the air with firecrackers;  a discovery of an  open pack of cigarettes in an old cash register in a shed behind the house (they had been my Dad’s last when he decided to stop smoking); and a radio/phonograph console being taken from the back seat of our car and placed in the living room in the house.

But I guess my very first remembrance of life was of my Mother kneeling on the cold, hard, linoleum floor in the kitchen, undoubtedly asking God for a closer relationship to me.  Anyone who knew Margaret knew she did love the Lord and this picture might not be out of place in their minds.  Going to church and praising God was just as natural as breathing, and her commitment remained true until she saw Jesus face to face a few years ago.  But if you thought she was praying, you need to hear what I was hearing.  You see, I was under the table and she was saying, “Sammy, come out of there.  You’re not supposed to eat a whole stick of butter like that.”  Yes, that is really my first moment of self-realization, me, a partially eaten stick of butter, and my Mother trying to coax me out from under the table.  What great hopes for the future!

I don’t think I was spanked for my mischief, but I learned very early that I was supposed to get my butter from pound cake and not directly from the wrapper.