OH LAWD! chapter 1

Today begins a new continued fictional story. 

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A great Poker Hand Won it ALL
courtesy photobucket.com

 

Oh Lawd was something my maw would say when things went wrong, or when words would escape her for the moment, which was pretty often around our home place.

She named me Robert after Robert E Lee who was one of her favorite historic persons. Mom was a country gal who married young.  

My Pa was a good man who was quite fond of her, and treated her good by the Bayou standards.

We weren't natives of the Bayou, but our family had been settled just north of it in Tupelo Mississippi for over a hundred years. Leaving there was a questionable act for us since we had kin folks up to sixth cousins who were still there.

The way all this came about was Pa had to go to Gulfport on some business, and while he was there he got into a poker game. 

After two days of continuous playing, Pa had won a dock, restaurant, and several boats with a rental and repair business.

Everybody was worn out after playing for 48 hours straight, but as the former owner signed over the papers he threaten Pa with great bodily harm.

While Pa wasn't a fearful man, he was cautious, and went down and bought a shot gun which he quickly sawed off the barrel. He also felt the need for a pistol that was powerful enough to shoot through walls.

 

As it (thankfully) turned out it was just frustration over losing his goods that provoked the man to talk like that.

After about a week, we got a letter from Pa explaining that he wouldn't be home for a couple of weeks, and he would give us all the details later.

Ma thought he might have got hooked up with some Cajun woman, and that was the reason he didn't come home.

As it turned out it was three weeks before he made it back.

 

When he arrived he said, “Go get packed for we are leaving tomorrow morning early for Gulfport, and will be living there from now on.”

For the next half hour we asked questions and he patiently answered them all.

 

Pa had brought a truck to haul our stuff or at least the things that was
worth keeping, and we were loaded up except for the mattresses and bedding. We left the next morning and headed to Gulfport.

About six hours later we pulled into the driveway of a house we now owned. I had never been in a house as big as this one, not that it was so big it was just we had always lived in a small four room house.

My sister Marcellus (Marly) and I rushed up stairs to pick out a bedroom for ourselves and couldn't believe there was more than one bathroom.

Pa had waited until school was out before coming to get us, so we had the summer ahead of us to get acquainted with the neighbors.

The next day Ma and Pa went down to the dock and he introduced her to all the hands who worked for them.

This was all new to Ma for she had never hired anyone except one of the local girls to help with the washing and ironing.

Marly and I decided to go down to the schoolhouse to look it over. The school was bigger than the one we attended in Tupelo and it had a large playground. We talked to a couple of teachers that happened to be there, and told them we would be going there next semester.

When we got home Ma and Pa were still down at the dock so we went down there to look it over, and the first thing that stood out was the restaurant. We saw our folks and asked if we could eat at the restaurant, and they said, “Yes any time we wanted to.”

We went in and ordered something called jambalaya Cajun style for the waitress said it was something like stew. After a couple of bites I thought it was going to take the enamel off my teeth because it was so hot.

I noticed that Marly was eating her food without any trouble and wondered how she could do it. I asked the waitress if everything was this hot and she smiled and said, “Pretty much.”  I told her if that was the case I wouldn't be eating there very often.

 

She laughed and told me that the cook was just playing a trick on me, and had loaded my plate up with hot pepper.

She then brought me something I could eat, and a couple of glasses of water.   

Oh Lawd!    

To be Continued