Behind the Kudzu Curtain - Taken from "Tales from the Blackberry Patch" - by: Lynn H.R. - Personal - http://maxpages.com/prufrockcafe/Behind_the_Kudzu

Now I will always remember Aunt Lila's house as being old. It had bead-board walls, wood planked floors, and paneled ceiling. The closets smelled of cedar, and the kitchen had permanently captured the smells from a thousand meals.

The sofa in the hallway was overstuffed with soft cotton batting. When you sat on it you sank nearly to the floor and in the winter time, this was my favorite spot to curl up with one of Aunt Lila's books. She loved books and had books on nearly every subject imaginable.

Many a time I remember her pulling me up into her lap with one of her books and reading to me. We would sit and read for hours on end . . . her reading and me listening, at times poking her as she dozed off even as she read.

There was a closet in her bedroom, the one on the back of the house. Now in that closet were the most wonderful things a kid could imagine! It was better than a toy store, better than any toy in my entire toy box . . . in fact, to this day I can nearly recall the majority of the contents of that box. It was a small cardboard box that used to hold cigar boxes . . . and in that box were wonderful things. Old pill bottles, band aid boxes, hair spray tops, thimbles, empty wooden spools, toy cars, old jewelry, plastic cups, crayons, paper, odd lids and bowls, sponges, toilet paper rolls, pieces of string, twist ties, and hundreds of other things that only Aunt Lila could have known that a kid would love.

I spent hours plundering through that old box for her "play pretties" as she affectionately called them. And if I were playing and needed a top for my castle, she would go throughout her house, rambling through drawers for the perfect top. When she finally found it, it went into the box. If one of the contents of that box happened to disappear, I would go to Aunt Lila and tell her that "a button is missing", or "a pill bottle is gone!". In her wonderful and optimistic way, Aunt Lila would throw her hands up and say, "It ain't gone till it's forgotten", and for some reason that always seemed to satisfy me!

She had a dresser in her bedroom that held her jewelry box. I can clearly recall going through her jewelry box and trying on her jewelry. She had wonderful things that I dreamed of wearing on my "first date". . . a string of clear plastic beads cut like diamonds and strung on cotton string. Every time I visited her I would try on that strand of diamonds and admire myself in front of her mirror. She would put her ear-bobs on my ears and let me try on her rings. Then we would head for the closet for the perfect dress. I especially remember one that was satiny. . . it was a light green dress and she would put pins in the back so that it fit me just right. She then would put high-heels on my feet and a Sunday Hat on my head, give me a purse and I was set for tea.

Aunt Lila would set the dining room table with two china plates, pour water in two little goblets, and serve the two of us Cheese Biscuits . . . long known to be a favorite of mine. At times, when she had them, she would serve me Lady Fingers with fresh whipped cream inside them. Sometimes there were strawberries, but mostly just the water and biscuits. We would have "tea" and then I was to get up and do my performance for her. I would either sing, recite, or dance for her there in the living room, to which my performance was met with a thunderous applause from her. Then, as always, the bouquet of plastic flowers were removed from a vase and presented to me in honor of my performance.

When it was all over we would collapse in a fit of laughter on the hallway sofa as she told me stories of the old days. I suppose this was my favorite time of all as she told me stories of Prudy (a little black girl who was her best friend), the butterfly, and of how Prudy conned Aunt Lila into biting the head off of it in order to obtain new dress fabric in the same colors and patterns of the butterfly.

She was my dear Aunt Lila, and of all my relatives, I suppose she and I were the most alike. I will forever credit her for getting me interested in writing.

On a particular summer day my Aunt Lila noticed that I was showing signs of boredom. She headed to the closet in her bedroom and pulled out paper and pencils and brought them to me along with a paper cup. Pulling me out onto her front porch, she sat me down on the steps, walked out to the road and placed the paper cup right there on the center line.

She walked back to the porch and sat in a rocker behind the kudzu curtain and began to rock. "Now," she told me, "that cup has a story and it's your job to write it down."

"How do I do that?" I asked her. She explained to me that I was to put myself in that cups place and write down what I thought the cup was feeling and doing. I shrugged my shoulders, and with nothing better to do that day, I began to write.

I watched for about a half hour as the cup was blown back and forth across the road by cars and trucks dashing past. Finally the cup died an agonizing death as a kid on a bike flattened it like a pancake and was then blown into the ditch in front of Aunt Lilas house. I wrote and wrote . . . Aunt Lila had long gone into the house, but I continued to sit and write. I wrote about the cups brothers and sisters and how they were wondering where he had ran off to. I wrote about his parents and how they missed him. And I wrote about how much he enjoyed his freedom before he was tragically smashed flat.

Pretty soon I heard the squeak of the front door and out came Aunt Lila to remind me it was getting late. I had written ten pages on the life of that paper cup and Aunt Lila looked at me and said, "You'll never be bored again, Lynn. You've found your calling and from here on out, you've got to use it." I knew exactly what she was talking about and from that day till the day I die, I suppose I'll be writing.

Now Aunt Lila was very young-at-heart. It wasn't until I stood by her bed as she lay dying, did I realize that she had grown old. In my heart, Aunt Lila was eternally young. When my parents and I moved to Hinesville, Georgia, Aunt Lila came to spend a few weeks with us to help us get settled in. For me, it was like summer camp because no kid could EVER play the way my Aunt Lila did. Between unpacking boxes, we spent our time playing Barbie dolls or building a city out of matchboxes we had found out back in the barn.

It seems that through every major event of our lives, Aunt Lila was always there with her optimistic attitude and off-beat personality. If there ever came a time to celebrate, the entire Hamilton clan would show up at her house for the comfort of her breezy hall, plump sofa's, and warm hospitality. I remember quite vividly how every window in her house would be open, her linen curtains billowing in the breeze, and every person in the house was armed with a glass of iced tea and a coaster to put it on.

The adults would assemble in the back bedroom that served as the main gathering room in cooler months. It seemed that everyone could talk and listen at the same time, and I vividly remember several times when it seemed EVERYONE was talking at the same time! But every hour, on the hour, her mantle clock would soothingly chime and everyone in the room would have to stop talking until it finished playing. When it was finished and the adults resumed their conversations, the subject was magically changed, and not one person would appear to notice. It was as if the chime of the clock mysteriously wiped clean the "topic of conversation banks" and reinserted new topics. It would go on for hours and hours until a stomach would growl and then it was into the kitchen.

Now Aunt Lila's kitchen was small, only about 12 X 14 and contained a large table, six chairs, a metal china closet, and then the normal kitchen necessities. Somehow the entire Hamilton clan could fit into this kitchen even if the kids had to park on a lap or beside the adults on stools.

Now these stools were everywhere . . . I am convinced that if every kid in Devereux were to show up at Aunt Lila's, she would have been able to personally locate enough stools for all of them! Many a time do I remember sitting on top of the whirling fan stool next to Daddy with my plate in my lap and my glass of tea (on a coaster) sitting beneath his chair.

Food at her house seemed to come out of everywhere. No matter how many people showed up at her house, there was always enough food and then some. Just off her kitchen was a back porch that was screened in. Most of her canning was here on high shelves that nearly went to the ceiling. On the wall next to the stairs that led down to the back yard was her freezer. I never knew Aunt Lila not to have a half gallon of Neapolitan Ice Cream in that freezer. At times she would dig and dig and dig down into the bowels of that freezer and come up with a box of it.

It was also stocked with frozen vegetables that she put up each season. I so looked forward to going with her out on the back porch as she 'went fishing' in the freezer for something to cook for supper.

Night time at her house was one of my favorite times. Mom and Dad would be assigned to the "cumpny" bedroom up front . . . a large spacious bedroom with a huge fluffy bed, oversized wardrobe (that contained my grandma Hamilton's hats and scarves and smelled of cedar), and a short dresser with a mirror. Two fluffy chairs flanked the fireplace and a double hung window overlooked the front porch. But me . . . I got to sleep in the room with Aunt Lila! She always gave me my choice, "You can sleep with your snorey old Aunt, or in the twin bed". (The twin bed was where my Grandma Hamilton slept before she died.)

I ALWAYS chose to sleep with her, but when I awoke in the morning, SHE was always mysteriously in the twin. We would fall asleep giggling and laughing. She would tell me wonderful stories about her childhood and weave story after story together until my weary eyes and ears could no longer feed my brain.

We slept under fluffy soft sheets and billowy quilts to the gentle whir of the fan over head. Even the mantle clock wouldn't stir me from my sleep. Occasionally I would wake up and find Aunt Lila in the kitchen standing at the sink and having her "toddy". . . a tiny little glass of Peppermint Schnapps that she called her "medicine".

Aunt Lilas yard was as magical an wonderful as her house. On her porch at one end was a wooden swing that on a good day would hold five or six kids eager for a rid. The high ceiling beneath the porch gave the swing an incredible arch.

I particularly remember one time when me, a cousin and a friend were all in the swing were swinging as high as we could. On that particular day, we were singing the Gilligans Island theme song and attempting to touch a spider web hanging from the ceiling with our toes. It was virtually impossible to do, but we were having tremendous fun trying.

Tanya, my friend, came very close to touching it and as the intensity of the challenge increased, so did our swinging. Just as the final line of Gilligans Island was being bellowed, something happened high above our heads. All I remember is having the strange feeling of wild abandonment, flying through the air, and then a sudden thump beneath my seat. When my eyeballs settled back down in their sockets I realized that Tanya and I were sitting in the swing still, but it was sitting off the end of the porch in the grass facing the porch looking at Ramona (my cousin) who was sitting on the floor where the swing used to be. We all sat there blinking like cows for a second until we realized what had happened and then we burst out laughing.

Hearing the rumpus, Aunt Lila came out on the porch and very nonchalantly quipped, "Oh, I see you moved the swing. It looks nice there, but I think it's more functional on the porch." And with that, she went back into the house and closed the door.

The old school across the street from her house was a magical playland that we spent hours exploring. It had fallen down years earlier, but still contained desks, books, and all sorts of other wonderful things! We would go into the school house, wander down to the basement and plunder through the hundreds of books strewn on the floor. My dad helped me climb up into the bell tower a few times and let me look around.

But my favorite adventure was on the playground out front. There were four tall rubber seat swings, a twelve foot slide, and a contraption that you hung on to with your hands and ran in a circle until your feet left the ground.

The Baptist Church was next door. It was always unlocked and I vividly remember spending many hot days in the uncanny coolness of the church romping in the basement, playing the sanctuary piano, and exploring the dark hidden rooms behind the baptism pool which was beneath the choir loft. My favorite thing to do was to wander down to the kitchen, push a chair up to the cabinet and get the box of sugar cubes down and feast on them.

The downstairs library was filled to overflowing with ancient books and church records. I spent many happy hours sitting among those books reading to my hearts content. The smell of the old books mingled with the smells of the rich wood carved a permanent scented memory in my mind. I shall never forget the way it smelled and when I occasionally run across a similar scent, my mind wanders back to those days and I'm instantly filled with smiles and joy.

The front porch of the church was a playground in itself. We played many games, most of them made up, there on those steps. Our favorite was a game called School. The teacher held a rock in her hand and the others (the pupils), sitting on the bottom step, had to guess which hand the rock was in. A correct guess got you promoted and you would slide up to the next step a wrong guess moved you down. The first person to the top was the winner. Once the game ended, we would all move back to the bottom step and begin again.

My cousin Ramona was the "School" champion as well as my best friend in the whole wide world. She could guess which hand that rock was in faster than anyone I knew, and looking back I think she must have been psychic or something for she would make it to the top step while the rest of us sat blankly on the bottom. As a rule, Ramona always had to guess last or be the 'teacher". . . otherwise it was always a tie since we all copied her guess.

I suppose the happiest days of my life were there in Devereux at Aunt Lilas house. Whether lounging in the hall being caressed by a cool Summer breeze, or plundering through the old books of the fallen school, no place will ever be as near, dear, and vivid to me as that. The school is long gone now . . . the new church is built on the site of the school. The play ground is gone except for the merry-go-round contraption; the slide is on a dock at my Uncle's lake lot. And the old church tragically burned back in the early 80's claiming the life of one of it's elders and the hearts of everyone who ever climbed it's seventeen steps to enter it's doors.

Aunt Lilas house is now falling down. A hole is in the roof, and the kudzu has long vanished from the front of the house. Many of the boards on the front porch are splintered and some have fallen through and the front door is now boarded up. It's sad to think that no cool breezes will blow through the hall, laughter will never ring from the kitchen, and the sounds of a mantle clock will never echo throughout the house again.

Just last week we went to Devereux to place flowers on my parents grave and made a stop there at Aunt Lilas house. As I stood there in front of the place I loved so much, a single tear rolled down my cheek. I gazed up at the ceiling porch and smiled at the two holes that once held an oversized swing to the rafters. The sounds of laughter still seemed to echo from the gaping holes and sagging floor boards. Bees and wasps darted to and fro about the porch preventing me from physically investigating further, but my heart and my memories carried me through the front door and down the hall. For a moment the scents of the kitchen caressed my nostrils and I closed my eyes. Somehow, in my heart nothing much had changed . . . lets just say that Father Time and Mother Nature had rearranged the boards a bit. And just like Aunt Lila said, "It ain't gone till it's forgotten."

Cowboy/Annie

"People Exercise an unconscious selection in being influenced." T.S. Eliot

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Page Updated Sun Apr 2, 2000 10:58am EDT