Stirpes, Volume 39, Number 4, December 1999 Page: 69
80 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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5TIRPE5 tECEMBER 1999
At suppertime, I feigned "no appetite" again
and Father told Mother, '"You better get her to
eat, or she'll never get well." Mother said, "She'll
eat when she's ready."
The next day, I easily pulled the same ploy,
because Mother was busy in the kitchen all day
dampening and ironing the starched clothes with
the sad irons and Father and his mules were out
planting legumes with his riding planter. I got in,
altogether, at least three hours of undisturbed
guitar practice.
But by suppertime, that was all over, as I had
a very real problem. The three middle fingers on
my left hand were completely raw and bleeding
from pressing on the steel guitar strings. They
hurt so much I had to ask Mother what to do. She
wanted to know how such a thing happened. I said
I just practiced the guitar a "little' off and on
while I was ill and the strings cut me.
I'm sure she knew what I had been up to all
along and had thought that I would get the guitar
out of my system and go on back to eating and to
school in a few days. But she didn't expect my
fingers to bleed.
Mother doctored them with Unguentine and
put bandages on them. I told her my right hand
was sore from holding the pick. She told me to let
up on the guitar until I recovered and after that
to slow down on the practice and my fingers would
build up calluses that would keep them from
hurting and bleeding.
The next two days I stayed home from school
because I was too sore to touch anything but I
started eating, which relieved Father's concern
for my recovery. Nevertheless, on the second day
I found that I could practice changing chords on
the guitar with the bandages on, if I didn't push
down on the strings. I did a lot of that.
On Friday I decided to return to school and
try to make up the lessons I had missed. I gave
some flimsy excuse about hurting my fingers to
explain my absence, but I didn't tell anyone at
school about getting the guitar and trying to learn
to play it. It was too soon to mention, as I might
not ever learn well enough to play with others, so I
had an uneventful day.Shortly after I got home from school, Father
drove up the hill from Somerset. He came into the
kitchen and said to Mother, 'Here, give this alum I
got at the drugstore to her. I saw Mr. Harris in
town and he said she should rub it on her fingers
five or six times a day. It'll stop the bleeding and
shrink the tissues so they'll toughen up quickly
and playing the guitar won't hurt. Also, tell her not
to play it for several days and after that for only
30 to 40 minutes a day. A week from Sunday the
Harrises are coming for a visit and she'll probably
be able to play with us by then with no problems.'
Mother gave me the alum and said, "You heard
what he said, so you know what to do. See to it
that you do it." I followed those instructions and
sure enough, by the middle of the week, my
fingers had almost returned to normal and I
started practicing my guitar about 20 minutes a
day. Needless to say, I didn't miss any more
school because of the guitar.
Sunday finally came and I didn't think I would
survive until that afternoon when the Harrises
arrived. But all the same, I was sidetracked by hot
cakes for breakfast and Father's rushing us to
get ready for Sunday school.
As we left, the aroma of a ham baking tantalized
me. It was the first home-cured ham Mother
had baked from the hog we butchered last
February.
We finally finished Sunday school and
returned home with the Sunday paper. This time I
pulled out the Sunday funnies on the way home to
read later. Reading in a moving automobile made
me carsick.
While setting the table, I found that for
Sunday dinner Mother had finished the ham with
brown sugar, pineapple and cloves, and had
prepared candied sweet potatoes, some kind of a
steamed cabbage dish, a pot of pinto beans, and
carrot and raisin salad. She had also made yeast
rolls to eat with butter. For dessert we had
ambrosia and coconut macaroons. Well, eating that
meal of dishes I liked kept me preoccupied for the
duration.
Much to my surprise the home-cured ham was
as good as any I'd ever had. and I started
imagining all the savory things Mother would make69
STIRPE5
DECEMBER 1999
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Texas State Genealogical Society. Stirpes, Volume 39, Number 4, December 1999, periodical, December 1999; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth41412/m1/71/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Genealogical Society.