"Mom, you know the reason those people bought our old house?" our son, Trevor, said at the breakfast table on the last morning of his family's Christmas visit to us from Texas. We had been reminiscing about our days in Mississippi, and he had recently visited the current owners of the house he grew up in. When I asked why, he said, "Because of that old stove! The lady said when she saw it, she knew she had to have the house!"
The old Magic Chef range! It had stood in the "mother-in-law" apartment attached to the house Howard and I had bought in 1975 when we were expecting our sixth child. I used it now and again between tenants, especially for holiday turkeys when I needed an extra oven. Then when the power was out during the several hurricanes that we experienced in those 20 years, we survived by cooking on the gas range.
"That thing sure was heavy!" my husband exclaimed. I knew it had been moved! I distinctly remember that after our daughter and her husband bought the house and we moved to Kansas, she had put her laundry facilities in that kitchen (but she says it didn't happen). I had to tell the funny story about the gap around the pipe left in the floor when the range was reconnected. By this time, we were the occupants of the apartment, come back from Kansas to help out with babysitting when Amy was about to deliver her second child.
One night as we were preparing for bed, I saw a shadow dart across the floor. "Eek!" I cried, "A mouse!" My husband was standing there and bent to look for it. Suddenly it appeared with two others trailing it, and they ran up the leg of Howard's pants! What a hysterical moment that was! They must have gotten in through the pipe opening of the raised floor house!
Trevor chuckled at the scenario, then, in a mellow mood from Mom's big breakfast, launched into a story of his own. "You wouldn't believe what I saw through the bus window in Dallas once!" he began. (After driving to the edge of the city from his neighboring small town, Trevor takes a work shuttle to his downtown office.)
"I saw this man sitting on a bench at the bus stop leisurely reading the newspaper," he went on. "Then suddenly a big--I mean a big--rat appeared and began to sniff at the sole of the man's shoe. He was engrossed in the paper, and the rat stuck its head under the hem of his pants. The man absently flicked at his trouser leg, and went on reading the paper," Trevor continued dramatically.
"I couldn't belive my eyes, as I watched, helplessly, from the window!" he exclaimed. "Then I saw that rat run up inside the leg of his pants! Boy, did that man do a jig then! He jumped up, began stomping his foot, yelling and flailing his paper!" Trevor slapped his leg and wiped his eyes at the memory of it while we all laughed incredulously. Talk about a snapshot in time!
Other funny stories and memories flowed around the table that morning, but it was soon time for them to go. They were the last of our family to arrive this week; the others had left yesterday. Despite the bitter temps we had experienced, and the un-white Christmas after all, we'd had a wonderful time with all our sons' families. (We had seen our daughters at Thanksgiving.) The warmth of their laughter and presence lingered all day, and on our phone call to check their road progress, they said it snowed heavily on them for a long way just south of us! Another Christmas memory!
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