As I Remember It!

The reader's Digest has a column called "The Most Unforgettable Character I Know." When I think of this title, Vata comes to mind. When she was a little girl, everyone wanted to adopt her. The teachers adored her. I visited a Rest Home on one of my visits to La. One of our old teachers was a patient. Billie and I introduced ourselves and she knew our family and all of a sudden she said, "What about Lou Vata?"  Vata could sew and make clothes without a sewing machine. She could crochet and knit and could even play the piano. A lady gave her a piano once and she taught herself how to play.  I remember once when daddy whipped  us and when he got to Vata, she fell out and played dead. He called mama and stopped hitting her. She made the mistake of telling someone and it got back to Daddy. Well the next whipping, he told her to play dead. She said, "I am not dead, Daddy".  One Christmas, she was bragging about there being no Santa Claus. Fred Hay heard her and decided to play Santa. He covered up in a sheet and came to our house and went directly to her side of the bed. He asked if she had been a good little girl and she started to cry and said "Yassuh".  We recognized his voice but she was really not sure. He made sure that she believed in Santa and then he pulled his sheet off. He loved to tell us scary tales and make us freak out. One story was that something slapped him in the dark and a white horse lit up in the road in front of him. He once told Vata that if she rubbed under her arms, she could walk up and pull down a nest full of wasps and they would not sting her.  She was a child, mind you and had no under arm odor. She did it and she and the wasps had a time. Oh what a time. Once I was lying in the back of Aunt Theo's wagon reading. Vata came and got into the wagon and was talking to me, but I was not paying attention to her. She asked if I believe she would walk out on the tongue of the wagon between the mules. I said, “No”. She did it and the next thing I knew the mules were literally flying with the wagon behind them. Vata fell under the mules and one stepped on her and the wagon ran over her and I was bouncing in the bed of the wagon until I fell out. The animals were spooked because she walked out on the tongue and touched their ears. The mules continued until they tore the fence down and overturned the wagon.  Well Mama whipped me because I said I did not believe it and I was older and should have stopped her. That was the only time that daddy stepped in and said, "That's enough, Pearlena". She was so scared that she was going overboard with the whipping. She did not like anyone to hit her kids. We rarely got dessert and on a Sunday when Chris came to visit, Mama made a blackberry cobbler. She put my cobbler in the pantry so no one would eat it. Well, Vata knew that I was not going to eat with my boyfriend being there. She came into the living room and asked if she could have my pie.  Now what was I going to say with my first boyfriend sitting next to me?  She avoided my face because she knew I would give her a sign not to eat my pie.  I said OK. She ate my pie. She kept a watch out and when Chris left, she took off because she knew I was coming for her. I could not catch her. She was an unforgettable character. Until Next Month--I may not be where I wanted to go, but I am convinced that I am where I am suppose to be. Jean