2-7-11...THE BRIAR PATCH
Sometimes I need to go home to make some sense of my life. I'm not talking about the house I live in now but the home I lived in 60+ years ago. Remembering the winter nights of snow cream and fudge parties or the Summer nights of catching lightening bugs in a jar. Day or night Winter or Summer all consisted of walking that little cow path between our house's. We had a trail worn out just as the cow and horse had theirs.
Summers we were up and on that path very early and sometimes I'd meet Brenda half way. On one such day I met Brenda and I said, “Go on back home Brenda I'm going to your house”. To which she replied, “No you go back Clydene I'm going to your house”. We were both stubborn as mules and we had a nose to nose confrontation. Neither of us would give and inch. Brenda shoved me and said “Get out of my way Clydene, I'm going to your house, Mamma said I could”. “Nope you aint Brenda, you better move or I'll slap your jaws”. Neither of us were likely to ever give an inch. We pushed and shoved for what seemed like a long time which resulted in me landing in a blackberry thicket. Oh good grief, that was worse than a patch of glued cockle burs. I was stuck to be precise. Stuck and mad as a hornet. Brenda said, “Clydene I'm going and get your Mamma”. “No you aint Brenda I said I'm going to your house”. For heavens sake here I was stuck in a patch of briars and still arguing about that.
Brenda said “Well I'm going to your house Clydene and you can't stop me”. I don't like to be told I can't do anything so I saw red and as she got close enough I reached out and got hold of her foot and said “No you aint-a-goin' to my house Brenda I'm going to your house”. She screamed bloody murder and tried to kick out. I pulled on her foot and she lost her balance. I guess you know she came crashing down right beside me in the briars. WE WERE STUCK TIGHT Going Nowhere. If you doubt that then please go throw yourself in to a blackberry patch. Honey you aint moving and if you do move the briars will just dig in deeper.
“Now look what you've done Clydene, Help me get up”. “I didn't do nothin Brenda and I aint helpin you up, sides that I aint gonna ever go to your house again”. We were so busy blaming one another and arguing that for a while it didn't register in our brains what a mess we were in. We were both bleeding all over, our clothes were almost shredded and we could hardly breathe without getting stuck. Besides that I guess we got in an ant hill because we had ants crawling all over us not to mention flies and no telling what else.
I think it must have hit us at the same time because we looked at one another and started bellering and squaling. “Clydene we're gonna die and aint nobody gonna ever find us”. I was thinking along the same lines but I wasn't about to admit it to Brenda so I said, “Don't cry Brenda somebody's gonna find us”. And of course somebody did find us though not really who we'd have liked. It was Brenda's Brother Paul and he thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. I tried to pull him in but he was too fast. He did go back and tell Auntie. She came and hollered at Mamma. Mamma came with Norman and very slowly they cut each vine loose from us. And it was a very slow and painful process too. Eu-uh I can feel those briars right now and in fact I still bare the scars. A good reminder to not sweat the small stuff and argue over it. We told everyone the reason we were in the briar patch many years later but they didn't ask at the time so why tell? Merthiolate was the cure all then and if you're not hurting to begin with you better believe you will be. That stuff burns like a red hot poker but it does heal.
