Hazel Langhorn

Today I was driving to work and I had to go around this bend in the road and I had a flashback about one of our many trips to Louisianna for various reasons and one in particular came to mind.

Everybody knows that I am the one famous for leading the way when we travel and for hitting some pretty strange things.

This particular trip I was driving the black van.

We had just left Pittsfield and was coming to that turn heading to L.A. and I was flying. (Don't ask me the highway number cause I couldn't tell you if I had to). Anyway, as we come around that bend there was a flock of birds apparently sitting in the middle of the highway and just as I came around they took flight, and unfortunately all of them didn't make it.  When I realized what had just happened I pulled over and so did every car behind me. Mom got out when I did and wanted to know what was wrong. I was crying because I could not beleive that I had just hit a bird, and I was really upset. Mom checked the front of the van said there was no damage and we went on our merry way. I can't tell you how mad I was when we got to Aunt Paulenes and stuck in the grill was 2 dead birds.

Momma knew I would have had a hard time driving on into Missouri with those birds hanging in the grill and never told me that they were there. My cousin Kenny took the van to the car wash and got them out. Today I can thank her for sparing me that agony even tho she always thought I was the most ignorant kid she had.

I am going to miss her ability to require as many of our family members that wanted to go,have a way, and means of getting to our family reunions. I can't imagine nine cars of us leaving Peoria from her house, lined up and ready to go, nor can I imagine nine cars sitting on 72 waiting for the one of us who grew up and lived in Lousianna missing the only turn we had to make. Yes, she was driving and didn't get off of 55  and headed on to St. Louis. Fortunately, she made sure every car had a phone so we were able to pull over and wait for her. (police and all).

One time she wanted Uncle Lawrence to come and visit and at the time I was driving the Z28. My uncle drove a black long car and refused to drive over 40 miles and hour and I couldn't take it. I would drive to the nearest town and sit and wait. That was the longest trip that was 130 miles long that I ever took. When we started off I thought he was trying to be funny taking these two lane roads and driving like he was going to run out of gas. When I realized that this speed was the plan I flipped. He understood, but he didn't drive no faster.

Over the years I wiped out a whole family of racoons, woke aunt Orita up when I hit a deer, and out ran the police to an exit, all having something to do with Louisianna, but my most famous incident had to occur this year coming from the family reunion. Yes, I hit a deer but the Lord had a plan. It was for my mom to see her family  that wasn't at the reunion just one more time. Yes, I am the crazy, funloving and sometimes ignorant child my mom labled me to be but I would'nt trade none of the times I made her laugh until she cried for nothing in this world.

I’m mad at Mom.  We had a conversation where she told me the doctor said she would live another 20 years if she gave up smoking.  My response was…”Well, you quit – right?”  She laughed.  Looking back I wish I’d pressed the issue.  She didn’t quit smoking until September 2008.  I looked at smoking addiction as I did food addiction….we all have a demon we fight.  So, who am I to impose on someone’s choices?

Once, we were sitting in the living room.  Mom told Marcus (who was a little guy then) to go into her bedroom and get her a tin ashtray.  Marcus was gone for a ridiculously long time.  Momma being Momma hollered for him to come on.  When he came back Mom asked him, “Boy, what took you so long?”  Marcus replied, “Granny Hazel, I couldn’t find ten but I found two” and handed her two tin ashtrays.  I laughed so hard I almost peed on myself.

I remember she smoked Chesterfields and gold Benson & Hedges.  At one point, she was almost going through 2 packs/day when we were little.  But she cut way back over the years.  The one thing that I defied my mother on was going to the store to buy cigarettes.  I just wouldn’t do it.  The threat of a whoppin’ couldn’t make me.  I refused…flat out refused. 

I’ve never smoked.  Mind you….. not because I have some great strength of character or any such noble virtue.  My allergy, asthmatic, chronic respiratory problem, hack up a lung self could never do it.  Plus I’m scared to death of fire.

But prior to passing in those last few days, one of the things Mom expressed was that she wanted all of her children to stop smoking.  It was hard standing there knowing that as much she wished this….it might be something they cannot do.  So, I have these fleeting moments when I am mad at her for letting that take her away from us.  I don’t want to hear that no one goes before God wants he/she.  I don’t want to hear all that goooobly gook .  I just wish she were here and I don’t want to lose any of my family to those things.  Smoking was a major contributor to her death and I hate it!  I don’t want it stealing any minutes from anyone.

I use to brag about the fact that not one of those grey hairs on Momma’s head belonged to me.  Boy, was I wrong and I ask forgiveness.

How could any not belong to me?  I spent many years …moving from place to place hoping to land somewhere “happy”.  Of course, my mother worried about me.  I never had a decent man.  I’m a Bum Magnet.  All she wanted was for me to be safe and happy…..have the kids I wanted and a husband.   I ran around trying to pursue & catch happiness and a decent life.  It still eludes me to this day and changing countries was NOT the answer! 

She said, “You’re the gutsiest hussy I have” after one of my daredevil stunts. I went to a Ku Klux Klan rally in Wheaton, Illinois while I worked for Dupage County by myself.  I wanted to hear what they have to say and see who I work with were members.  She didn’t approve one little bit.   I use to get the biggest kick out of shocking her whenever we went on vacation.  I climbed up on the back of an elephant, went out into Pacific in a little speed boat to go look at bats in Los Arcos & jump off to go snorkelling, hiking in a tropical jungle…oooo the things my mother watched me do.  That was in addition to the things I roped her into.  I got her to walk across a rope bridge across the ravine where they filmed “Predator” to eat at a restaurant.  There was no menu because you had to eat whatever they caught that day or had carried up the dirt road.  There was no electricity.  I even got her to stick her feet in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall that appears in the movie.  BTW…it was great meal!  She said I was “mildly insane and slightly retarded”.  We did some wonderful things in our travels and I could tell stories for hours.  She walked up the side of the mountain as I climbed Dunn River Falls…I proudly wore my “I climbed Dunn River Falls” t shirt while she proudly wore & pointed that her shirt said, “I didn’t climb but I watched”.  She always had something to say about my adventures and thrill seeking nature but I think she enjoyed watching me do things that some folks would never dare do.  She never stopped me.

But I know she worried about the day-to-day trial and tribulations of life’s affect on her kids.  I was out of sight but not out of mind.  Once a spider bit me on my shin.  I ended up on crutches…could not walk for a month.  My mother came up to Aurora to see about me and stayed for a week to take care of me.  I wasn’t doing anything wild…just cleaning my flowerbeds for planting.  Mom liked my flowers and that little shack I lived in on the Fox River.  She would get in the car and just drive up by herself to visit for a couple of hours.  I think she did it to ensure I was okay.  Calling & writing were no substitute for her seeing for herself that I was alright.

Due to a Peeping Tom being in our neighborhood, I decided to get a dog.  Within a month of getting my rescued Cairn terrier “Brady”, I had surgery.  I embarrassed my mother while being doped up by saying some rather “colorful” things to the doctors..lol.  They cut me from the left side to the right side.  Well, after wards, one of my Klingon Star Trek friends was there to take me to get my pain pills, it was chilly and raining like crazy.  Another friend came while I was gone & somehow let Brady out.  Mom didn’t even know it.  Well, we looked for that dog in the chilling rain.  I found him on the bike path and carried him back to the house.  By the time I got back, blood was streaming down my legs.  The staples had come loose and I was bleeding to death.

I put some towels under myself and told Mom to come into my room.  I tried to get her to pull the wound close and pack it so, I could go to the emergency room.  She was crying so hard she couldn’t see through the tears.  I tried coaxing her through it…she decided to call this Star Trek friend……now mind you…..we weren’t involved like that…he did not need to see that part of me!  She covered me as best she could to preserve my dignity and together they closed me up.  I have a very serious keloid scar to this day from that event.

That’s the only time I saw fear and tears in my mother about me.  She thought I was bleeding to death.  But she stayed and waited on me hand & foot like I was a baby.  She took care of Callie Mae & Brady.  She cooked all of my favorite things.

But as long as I live, I will never forget the tears dripping off her face as she prayed for nothing to happen to me with her bloody fingers doing their best to help me.

She knows I will never give up my relentless pursuit for happiness or my thrill seeking nature  I know she has a gang of guardian angels watching over all of us.  Because she’s not here to come running and make it right for u

Tidbits of Stories from Momma

• Did you know that our Grandfather James Crowder helped build that stone wall on the riverbank in Louisiana, Missouri?  He was also a sharecropper.  Probably the last man in our family to actually support his family from the land.  I remember going to his funeral because Aunt Mary Burns tried to get me to kiss him as he lay in the coffin.  It was at the little white church on the outskirts of Louisiana and they still had an outhouse for many years.
• After Grandma Edna died, Momma and Aunt Dot use to take turns going to school.  They use to have to duck into ditches and behind trees when the school bus would pass because the white kids threw things at them.  They weren’t allowed to ride the bus.  But Mom always stressed the importance of education.  She obtained her GED in 1975.
• One time they  (she & Aunt Dot) decided to play hooky and got chased by a bear.  She told me this wild story and then said when they went back…it was a tree stump.
• Mom saw two ghosts.  On the road to Clarksville coming from a dance.  They stopped the car and watched them.  I remember her telling an eerie story about these people getting killed and couldn’t be at peace.
• The split on Mom’s toe was from am axe accident while cutting wood.
• The mark on her knee was due from getting impaled on the handle of a metal bike.
• When Dennis was little, Mom lived with Daddy’s aunt (Grandma Mag Reynolds) that raised him after Grandma Julia died.  There was a house fire and she lost her two pet chipmunks.
• Momma believed that someone at the sawmill poisoned Uncle Jay in his sandwich. I had my very first drink of alcohol with my Uncle Jay down at the tavern in Louisiana across from the playground equipment.
• She also told me stories of the evil ways of how white people treated black people in Missouri.  How she did laundry for them and walked into town.  There are pictures of the wooden laundry house and the well she use to draw water from. They abused many…and Black families could do nothing.
• She use to hunt raccoons at night with daddy…they had a good dog named “Joe”.  A mother coon cut Joe up real bad and his neck wound would not heal.  Mom use to have to clean it to keep the flies away.
• I saw Momma knock somebody through the living room window of 129.  And I mean through because she landed on the walk outside.  That was the one and only time - I ever saw her fight one of her sisters.  She didn’t allow us to fight.  We got a whopping’ every time we fought each other…no matter what it was about.

But the icing for all the cakes was made from scratch.  Here’s Mom’s recipe:

1 box of powdered sugar

A pinch of salt

1         softened ¼  stick of butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

Sprinkles of milk

If you want chocolate frosting you add cocoa powder or melted chocolate.  If you want flavored frosting, use flavored extract.

Mix the butter, sugar, salt & vanilla.  Add the milk…very slowly…no more then ¼ cup at a time.  Stir to determine your wanted consistency.  Mom taught us to cook from taste.  So, this recipe is just that…..add more vanilla or salt..if you want.

I haven’t made icing from scratch in ages.  But I think it’s time for me to honor some of the skills she taught me and whip up a few items.  I wonder if I can still make meringue.  Mom liked lemon meringue pie, especially the browned peaks.