I could take a line from Dickens and say "It was the worst of times..."
As far as I was concerned, being raised in a little back water town in the Mississippi Delta, anything that transpired did nothing for my morale, self-esteem or credentials.
Raised in an "exclusive" neighborhood, I just didn't fit in, nor did I really care to.
As anyone with half-a-brain could recognize, that if it rained, the headlines in the OBITS read the next day, "Miss Sassafras Ass Anderson just drowned after entertaining The Deltamelta Garden Club in her back acre yesterday at noon. Her cook had made a concoction of peppermint, looseleaf chicory and a smattering of Drambuie. I know it sounds horrible, but these LOL's loved to find a reason to drink. But again when Miss Ass showed her ass, and died, it was the slightest drizzle that caused her to drown at her own party.
But hell, if the truth be known, she began spouting epithets about Geannie Brand's husband and his illicit affair with Elnora, his suckatary for 10 years.
However, Ms. Brand was absent from the garden affair as she was called away to her sister's in Bathpitts, MS. Seems her sister's husband had just been arrested for beating the crap out of 'Sister' when his crop failed.
Most of the inhabitants of this little part of hell were wannabees anyway.
It was a competition that they do their level best to keep up with the Smythes next door, who defined debt, divorce and unheard of perversions.
But once again, I get ahead of myself as I need to provide you with a little background so you can understand my reasoning.
Children ran wild in our little corner of pathogenic paradise. Noting my sarcastic tone, you can well imagine that I was not now impressed, nor ever would be.
A warm and fuzzy feeling just comes all over me when I see one neighbor, who constantly fondled himself, while we children played basketball in his driveway. I would love to shoot the old pervert.
When I told my father, he forbade me to play with his daughter or son anymore.
The neighborhood was full of perverts. Around the corner and three houses down, was a prominent doctor who came home early one day and found his lovely wife getting it on with her tennis partner and best friend. Can you spell divorce?
The children of the marriage were adopted and stayed with their father while the mother disappeared into the sunset.
The daughter is still weird to this day, and why not? No telling what she was exposed to or what she turned out to be. No one ever heard from her after she was sent off to boarding school.
In the opposite direction was a farmer whose two sons were queer. I am not talking about gay queer, although they both turned out that way.
They just behaved queer, even as young as 10 and 12 years of age. One of their best friends, who lived in the old part of town, and would grow up to be a Congressman, was queer too. I was told that they all suffered with bouts of depression because of the sexual immorality they were exposed to in their own homes.
I've still yet to figure out why there were so many gays in the population in the Delta. Most of the writers from the Delta were gay.
Was it because the women just wouldn't give it up? Shoot, I know too many that did and would at a flip of a coin.
Many a car dealer sold too many sports cars to secretaries, who if ridden and put it up wet, well the smell of sex was etched in the back seat forever.
How did I know? I had to ride in the back seat all too many times when part of her job description was to ferry the children home after school...The sweet smell of sex was embedded in the car, no pun intended.
Also located in this exclusive neighborhood, was Parking Road. As the fertile plantation land was being divided and sold for a new developments, the old farm roads were used for adventure.
Sex was being had on the concrete pads in unfinished houses. Many of the participants were from the families that were building the very house. I suppose it was their way of initiating the building.
What was truly funny was finding out that one of the parents was having this lurid affair in the newly build property and the son coming in to discover the couple with his girlfriend on his sleeve.
One attorney's home was set on fire after the wife found he and the mistress doing the wild fandango on her newly laid antique pine flooring.
That's one way of being laid...Southern Pine style.
