Stories From Under A Bootheel (Rants, Laughs, and Tears)

Chapter 2 Kinsmen and Kindness Part 3 One Tough Cookie

There were seven of us cousins that pretty much grew up together. We were all raised like Earl, always competing with each other, and picking on each other.

Cookie was the cousin closest to me in age. She was just a year older. Unlike me, she was very driven to excel in school, was very attractive, and ran with the popular kids. Like me, she too suffers from familial hemiplegic migraines. A fact we did not discover until we were both over 50 and had been suffering from them privately for over two decades thinking we were having strokes. (Kids, I'm telling you about this genetic trait in case you ever experience numbness or auras, you won't worry. Do mention it to a doctor.)

Cookie almost taught me how to ride a horse at an age when we probably shouldn't have been left alone with the horse in the first place. I say almost because I spent most of the lesson underneath the horse hanging on for dear life.

"Let go! Let go! God don't just hang there! Oh, God!" Cookie was frantically yelling at me. She had failed to cinch the saddle tight enough. It had slipped around to the horse's underside with me still holding on to the saddle horn and gripping the saddle as tightly as I could with my legs. The poor horse just turned in circles trying to see what was going on. Cookie was no help she just kept yelling at me to let go. I was not about to let go. The world was upside down my head was perilously close to the ground and I was surrounded by four horse hooves stamping erratically around me. I hung on certain I'd be trampled if I didn't.

I eventually slipped from the saddle, hit the ground and rolled away as quickly as I could. I managed to avoid the horse's hooves, at least until our next screw-up.

Cookie got the saddle back on top, tightened, and got herself in the saddle. Despite her efforts to urge the horse forward, it refused to go. I guess the horse had figured out we didn't know what we were doing and wasn't about to take directions from us. Cookie told me to pick up a switch and swat the horse's butt. She failed to warn me to never stand behind a horse when you are swatting its butt. As you can guess, the horse kicked back and for the next few months, I wore a horseshoe shaped bruise just above my groin area. Had the horse's kick been an inch lower, I probably wouldn't have children or grandchildren to tell this tale to. Despite my daughter's love of horses, I am still not overly fond of them. (Kids, I'm sure Aunt Liz has taught you to ride by now; so, just remember to be careful. My mother's best friend's daughter was killed thrown from a horse.)

Like all the other cousins, Cookie and I were often pitted against each other. I remember her dad Uncle Oliver and my dad teasing me because Cookie could put her entire body through a coat hanger and I couldn't. (We were about six and both pretty wiry.)

My father would sometimes take me over to their house to visit. Barely old enough to reach the counter, Cookie would fix and bring them drinks from the kitchen. The smells of Scotch and Bourbon still bring back fond memories. Cookie told me she would sneak sips out of their glasses as she brought them to Uncle Oliver's bedroom where he was bedridden. She claims she had her first drink at age eight. I guess if you are old enough to saddle a horse and shoot a forty-five, you're old enough to drink. I still remember the two drinking buddies goading me to duplicate Cookie's odd feats of contortion. Why did I care? In my family, it was always about competing. I had to be able to do anything Cookie could do. I never did get through that coat hanger. Maybe the sips of bourbon made Cookie more flexible? She was always able to figure out a way to get things done.

Cookie's first car was a green unsafe-at-any-speed Chevrolet Corvair. It was a manual transmission. Unfortunately, Cookie was not very experienced with clutching. Most of the times when she would try to let the clutch out, the car would lurch and the engine would die. Right after she got the car, she called her friend Charlotte to go riding around town. She explained to Charlotte the difficulty she was having with clutching and so Cookie did not want to stop the car fearing she might not be able to get it going again.  Charlotte would have to be waiting for Cookie when she came to pick her up. Cookie would slow down without stopping and Charlotte would run alongside the car open the door and jump in. They would then drive all over town avoiding all the stop lights and stop signs they could and ran the rest. Charlotte was finally dropped off again without stopping the car.

Cookie is still the cousin I am closest to. Her father died when we were in junior high School. I had never hurt emotionally so deeply than at his funeral. I was not all that close to Uncle Oliver. It was the sight of my cousin Cookie crying that was bringing me to tears. I still won't look at Cookie at funerals.

Cookie lost her husband in a plane crash a while back. She calls to talk to my wife frequently now. They talk for hours. When my wife hangs up, she always just says, "Cookie is crazy." What she means is "unique." Cookie is quite brilliant, but sometimes it is hard to keep up with her mind. My wife frequently says I'm crazy. In my case I don't think she means "unique." My wife must enjoy crazy. She talks to Cookie for hours and has been married to me for forty-three years. The nice thing about being crazy is you don't really care. No one in my family ever has. We pride ourselves on being "unique."