We spent the weekends with Big Momma.  She lived on Jones Street on the west side of town and always had more homemade goodies than we could eat.  There were homemade breads, cakes, pies, and cookies.  There was also ham, chicken and other slow-cooked meats.  Everything she made was fabulous.  My mouth would water just walking into the house.  It smelled like a restaurant only it was Big Momma’s place.

  Fridays were an exception to our usual routine.  Little Momma, who never chastised us, kept a chalkboard ledger of all of our offenses.  The kitchen was on one side of the house attached to the rest by a narrow hallway.  The blackboard sat in the hallway and any time I got ready to do anything I had no business doing, I would run up and see how many marks there were against my name.  On Fridays Little Momma would carefully copy everything from the entire week and give the note to our baby sister Rosebud to carry.  My name was always on the list.  So to prolong getting it, we played in the park, as Rosebud sat on a bench holding our fate, a sense of mission on her little face.

      In the park, my favorite brother, Bubba, pushed me on the swing as I squealed my delight.  Sometimes he pushed me a little too hard and I’d go flying up in the sky, afraid that I’d fall, only to swing back the other way so his hands could meet my back again.  But I always had confidence that he’d never let anything bad happen to me, not unless he did it himself.  Like the time my little life was almost snuffed out with a pillow because I was screaming and carrying on to everyone’s annoyance and for no apparent reason.  He just wanted to shut me up, not kill me.  But that day in the park, my screams of delight mixed with laughter for what seemed like hours  until it was time to go to Big Momma’s.  I dragged my feet into the house hoping to somehow avoid my fate.