January 5, 2021 – Nickname Memory

         What a nickname!  Mother tried to teach me not to cry all the time, when I turned six years.  I don’t remember why I cried but followed the directions of the song.

Mother gathered my two younger brothers, Jim and Gene, and the three held hands and sang the song to me.  I was in the center and had to follow directions.

Little Sally Walker, sitting in a saucer,
Crying and weeping, ‘cause she is mad.
Rise, Sally, Rise, Wipe out your eyes
Turn to the East, turn to the West
Turn to the one you love the best!

Usually, the decision-making the song requested made me forget whatever caused me to cry as I looked into the faces of my brothers.  I loved my brothers and my Mother. It was so difficult to choose.

I don’t remember the last time I had to stand in the tight circle and look deeply into those faces that cared enough to want me to stop crying.  How could I not forget crying, for I loved them all.

Those were the early days when we lived in a small house. My Dad made us a trundle bed on wheels that rolled under Dad and Mom’s bed.  Dad made us a sandpile house to sit in and play.  He bought a baby goat we took turns feeding with a baby bottle.  Dad made us a ‘steering wheel’ swing.  When he twirled the wheel, and we hung on, our feet lifted from the ground.

Then we moved to the brown house. We still did many things together. We had a black walnut tree, that made great things to throw at each other. Once my inventive brothers made a covered wagon with the little red wagon and we pretended we went on a long journey down the driveway.

I remember when Dad took us to a town near-by and bought us dinner plate-sized hamburger for a nickel each.  Dad wanted to see if he could fill us up so we wouldn’t be hungry for a while.

While I set the table and washed dishes, my brothers fed the chickens, milked the cow and took care of Petunia, Jim’s pet pig.  They also ‘staked’ the cow in the near by vacant lot to graze. They rode the cow to the vacant lot in the summer.  They wore no shirts or shoes. My brothers enjoyed summer most.

I remembered the ‘indian pow-wows’ we had in the backyard, sitting cross-legged in the green grass in the summertime. We discussed family matters. One evening we voted on whether or not Dad could spend a nickel on a coke at the hospital when he delivered mail there. We loved Dad and we wanted the best for him.

One day I came home from elementary school learning that my brothers, had run away from home. Since they understood the boy scout motto, they took a hatchet and canteens to be prepared, and planned to eat berries in the woods.  Mother’s chocolate meringue pie didn’t even tempt me that day.

When my brothers were in high school, they traveled to Kansas and helped Uncles Eli and Jonas Suderman on their farms with harvest. They learned to drive before I did, and how to work on a farm.

That was when I learned to milk the cow, how hard could it be? I fed the chickens and brought in the eggs. The surprising chore, spraying Petunia the pig with water, as the pig slowly turned in a circle, never failed to amaze me.

When the boys came home, I tried to impress them as we drove down the highway, I pointed at a four-legged farm animal, and said, “See the heifer!”  They hooted and hollered.  It was a bull, they informed me.

The sad days for me came to be just that. Memories. And both of my brothers left me in death.

Then another set of memories came along marriage with Ed Combs and a family of four children of our own.  It was when our daughter, came home from visiting my parents on her own, and they called her Susie.  Sally in the Saucer migrated to being called Susie by my parents and Anna inherited my nickname and I smile, remembering.