chicken pox: a story with no real point.

althea got chicken pox last week. she came back to work with scratch spots all over her. adults still GET chicken pox? gee whiz...

i got chicken pox when i was 7. i may have contracted it at my grandma's funeral. one of my cousins had it and gave it to everyone. but she also lived upstairs from me so i may have been a carrier...

my grandma lula mae was born and raised in monks corner, sc. my grandfather too. as it goes, my mom's dad was born in rome, ga, so i have a deep southern heritage that i try to deny. anyway, monks corner was a 14 hour ride away, on a coach bus with family members who i knew and didnt know. my mom sat in the front and my dad in the back. not because they needed to be separated, but because they werent together anymore and werent bound by compromise to sit near each other. i would bounce back and forth on the bus to one of them or the other, and bug relatives for snacks and to hear what they were listening to on their tape players.

south carolina was CUNTREE! as compared to the biggest city in connecticut, complete with projects and latin gangs, i was in the deep woods. whole new experience. big as crickets and mosquitoes... i swear i had never seen a field before then. a "hills are alive, hey is that corn?" field. i played until dusk with distant cousins and came in the house dark as a tollhouse chocolate chip.

it was there that i smelled the worst smell i'd ever. some meat maybe, boiling on the stove. even with the lid on it filled the house with the stench of death. chitlins. the "c" must be a typo. i asked my mom what it was and she told me intestines. i thought she was joking. ew. i picked at that night's food.

that small town was beautiful. even though i was there to say good bye to my grandma i have really good memories. but that doesnt suprise me. she lives in every scarf or blanket i ever crocheted. its funny, all my life, she was sick. diabetes. she had her leg amputated and her prosthetic would sit next to her when she was watching tv, with a flat black loafer and a knee high stocking. i would touch it and look at her missing lower leg, but i wasnt afraid.

she made great iced tea. it had a whole lemon in it. cut, of course.

so i got chicken pox at her funeral. couldnt go to school for a week, and i actually liked school then. my dad had to take care of us when my mom was at work. we played all day and at one point i climbed into our jennifer couch and made my dad look for me before i jumped out and scared him. i know he was probably thinking my mom was gonna kill him if i wandered out into the street in a fever hallucination. he once sent me back home without bathing me and she's still mad about that.

dont they call it shingles when older people get pox?