I was taught to call my grandmum “Ma”. That is just how it was in our family. I knew that her name was Elsie, and when I was little we joked about the Borden cow on the milk cartons.

Shit, I just realized why I sort of identify with Obama. My grandmum raised me as much as my mum did. This is not an any way contrived to make a diary. I just now thought of it. My mum (and dad) worked, and when I was little my grandmum looked out for me, from infancy to junior high school until my mum would get back from work around 5:30 PM. But that is beside the point.

Ma was born in 1903. She died in 2004. Not bad. I hope that I have some of those genes.

She was extremely religious. Not in the Jerry Falwell sense, but in the Jesus loves you, but do not fuck with Him sense. She never said “fuck” insofar as I know, but you know what I mean. When I was little she warned me about the “boogerman” (her term for Satan) to keep me on the right path.

She could cook! Her dressing for Thanksgiving and Christmas was the boss. Mrs. Translator followed her around the kitchen twice to get the recipe, but there was no recipe. It was cooking from the soul, with a “peench” of this and a “leetle dab” of that. Mrs. Translator has reproduced the dressing intact, and just as good as Ma’s was to this day. There is still no written recipe, but Teena Mrs. Translator and I will make sure that there is a guideline to pass on to our boys.

Ma was industrious. She gardened every year. She would give Mr. Dee Francis a couple of dollars to have him bring is mule and plow every spring to break up the garden plot. Mr. Francis never drove a car, and, sadly, walking the two miles home one dusky evening, was hit and killed by a car.

Anyway, Ma was a hoer. I hate to hoe, so I mulch. She had a hoe that was not more than 1 1/2 inches thick from wear and sharpening. Every morning she would hoe the garden, and every evening pick and water it.

She grew green beans (I never liked them), strawberries (I loved them!), corn, onions, purple hull peas, turnips (the green are good, but I never liked the bulbs), and sometimes different things.

I vividly remember her coming back into the house and using her arms to put one leg, then the other, into the sink to wash off the dirt from hoeing. She was about 65 then.

I also remember her saying, every year, “If the Lord lets me live, I will never start another garden next year.” But she did, until she got too feeble to do so. And the bounty was wonderful.

One mornign, when Ma was around 72, she, Mrs. Translator, and I went out to pick blackberries. We found a bunch of them, and were filling our buckets. Mrs. Translator and I sort of not could keep our hands off of each other at that stage of our lives, so we both heard a faint “Help!” at the same time, and ran over.

Ma had fallen into a blackberry bush and could not get up from it. We pulled her out of it, and she was not injured at all, just immobilized. We all three laughed.

I guess what has brought out this post is Proposition 8 in California. Strange connection, most will say, since she died over four years before.

Not so strange. Once, whilst my mum and dad were visiting (of course Ma came too) and I am guessing that this was whilst she was maybe 85, something on the TeeVee came on about “the queers”.

Dad immediately cursed them, as he was wont to do, my mum just smiled and said nothing, as she was wont to do, but Ma astonished both Mrs. Translator and me. She said, to paraphrase, and in keeping with her western Arkansas dialect: “Well, if alovin’ sommone is the worstet thang that theyuns do, I cain’t find much fault wit’em. It ain’t like theys akilling anybody.”

Both Mrs. Translator and I just about fell out of our chairs. Of course my dad bellowed something about the queers, and my mum smiled and nodded, but Ma had spoken.

I guess that my point is that it the hearts and minds, not the popular religious leadership, that can be turned, one by one.

Thanks for putting up with a very personal diary. No one can realize how much I loved Ma, and how much she loved me. I miss her horribly.

Warmest regards,

Doc