ON THE PORCH WITH AUNT EFFIE
"Lordy, lordy, Mary you know you shouldn't be out in this heat. Do come on up here and sit a spell. Whatever are you thinking", I asked.
"Hello Aunt Effie, I just have to get down town and see to the drugstore. You are so kind to ask me to rest, but I really must go and see what that Roy Evers is up to." said Mary.
"You just sit over yonder in that rocker, it has a broke arm, but it's a right comfy seat. I"ll go get us a nice glass of ice tea," I said.
"Thank you, Aunt Effie, it is a might warm out today."
"Yea, kinda like the heat of "45", ain't it?" I asked.
"My oh my, it sure does remind a body of that terrible time in "45', why even the chickens was a dropping dead from the heat," said Mary.
"I surely do remember that, and I also recall that the cows weren't making no milk," I repiled.
"Guess we are better off now days, as far as comfort is concerned, but I sure do miss those days of hard work and and suffering, Aunt Effie."
"I know what you mean Mary, We didn't have this artifical air and we surley didn't have all the newfangled things they got now days, but we had our men folk and our friends, back then."
"I guess you've heard Aunt Effie, that my Dave is not doing well."
"No I hadn't heard anything about Dave lately, is he doing poorly?"
"Land of mercy, Aunt Effie, my poor Dave is hardly here, he just hasn't gotten any better since that stroke last year, and don't look like he ever will."
"Sorry to hear that Mary, I know how you are a feeling, My John didn't last a year after he took sick, why he only made it 3 months after they told him that he had that bad valve in his heart."
"Aunt Effie do you remember the time that you and Ellie James came into the drugstore and asked my Dave if he could fix ya'll a Singapore sling, it was something you two had read in one of those fancy magizines. My Dave just about laughed himself silly over that?"
"No, I don't recall that Mary...., say did you say you were on your way down to the drugstore? Have you heard that Roy Evers is going to hire that Jean Lawson as his assistant?"
"NO! He will not hire that hussy as long as Dave and I have a breath left in our bodies, I really must be on my way, Aunt Effie, I have important business to take care of."
"Well if you must rush off, I'll say goodbye, have a nice day Mary." I smiled as she left my porch.
Judith A. Kiser �