by Lee Smith
The streetlight made a perfect cone of light, full of whirling flakes, as we stood beneath it and stuck our tongues out to catch the flakes and tried to make Andrew stick his tongue out, too. How sweet and cold those snowflakes were, melting on our tongues, I will never forget it.
And then before we knew it, everybody from the other trailers had come out too, and we met neighbors we had never even seen before! such as a crazy old lady named Miss Pike, who wears the most makeup you have ever seen and used to teach singing lessons, opera I believe, and a fat little man named Leonard Dodd who described himself as an “inventor” (though I don’t know what he invents), and another man named Gerald Ruffin who looked very aristocratic, but wore a plaid robe and red velvet bedroom shoes and was drunk as a lord. Somebody whispered that he used to be a lawyer but had fallen on hard times. He was in politics, too. He is from one of the most prominent families in the state. I guess he must be the black sheep of that family! We all talked about the snow, and passed around some of the fudge you sent, Mama, and then the Teeter sisters had us in for coffee. You have never seen as much junk as they have squeezed into their trailer—they call it “brick-a-brack.” It covers every surface that is not already covered by a doily. All their coffee cups were made of flowery bone china, with gold rims. Gerald Ruffin’s hands were shaking so much that his cup rattled on his saucer like a castanet. Well, I could go on and on. . . . (No doubt this is the same impulse which used to lead me to write The Small Review!). Anyway, I don’t know whether it was that coffee or pure excitement, but I couldn’t sleep a wink all night long. I lay snuggled up to Sandy like a spoon in a drawer and listened to Andrew make his snuffly little sounds in sleep, and peeped out the porthole window at my portion of the sky, which was full of whirling flakes, no two alike in the universe, and thought about my baby, and my husband, and Daddy, and all of you, and my heart was full to bursting.
Merry Christmas and love from your very poor but very happy,
Mary Copeland
P.S. I will spare you my recipe for oyster casserole! Oh, I also made up a big batch of Sticks and Stones for Sandy to give his boss. They were a big hit. So if Sandy gets that raise he’s hoping for, it will be all thanks to me, his wife, MARY COPELAND!
Dec. 23, 1970
To My Dear Family and All Our Good Friends at Greenacres Park,
There’s so much going on and so many people I want to tell that I’m making Xerox copies of this letter.
I just can’t believe that this is the last Christmas we will spend here! In fact, this is the very last week we will spend here—we are scheduled to move into our new home at 1508 Rosemary Street on Dec. 29th.
Actually, our “new” house is old, having been built in the 1920s, but I just love it, with big square rooms and crown molding, a beautiful cherry wood banister going up to the second floor, and three fireplaces with fancy mantelpieces. I must admit it is in pretty bad shape at the present time, needing a lot of paint and some plumbing work, not to mention a new porch and a new kitchen, but since this is how we got it, I don’t mind. See, the landlord was advertising it as a “fixer-upper,” and since I am married to a “fixer-upper,” I answered the ad myself and struck a deal. A great deal, I might add! We will be living rent free in exchange for Sandy’s services, and the landlord is paying for materials, of course. So 1971 will find us all the way across town, it’s almost like being out in the country.
We will need the space, since (as most of you already know) I am pregnant with twins, can you believe it? They will be born in mid-February, I am hoping for Valentine’s Day. I thought I was getting awfully big, awfully fast, but I never, ever, thought of twins! until the doctor told us. (And now Mama says that actually she had little twin sisters herself, up in West Virginia, she just “forgot to mention” that they were twins. One of them died young and the other is our Aunt Margaret.) Anyway, twins do run in the family, for sure.
And so we will be getting a ready-made family real fast! We could never stay in this trailer after the twins are born—we just wouldn’t fit—but in a lot of ways, I hate to leave. We have been so happy here. Sandy says I am crazy, but I swear I will even miss all this AQUA—can you believe it?
Most especially I will miss all of you, and want to take this opportunity to say so. Miss Pike, thanks so much for keeping Andrew for me whenever I got into some kind of a bind, which you know I am prone to do! and for teaching him the little songs on the piano, that was very sweet. Ditto to the Teeter sisters, I am sorry about the teapot and the Japanese porcelain lady. Thanks to you, Mr. Dodd, for expanding my mind. (I will never forget what you told me about how you invent things: “First,” you said, “I imagine a need . . .”) GOOD LUCK, Mr. Dodd. Don’t forget to close your door and lock it when you go out, ditto your car when you park it, now what will you do without me?
Susan and Marybeth, let’s make a pledge that we will always stay in touch our whole lives long, and have reunions when we are old and rich and these little babies are taking care of us! I will never forget that heat wave last summer when the babies played in the plastic pool every day while we sat under the sprinkler in the shade to keep cool.
And what would I have ever done without you, Gerald Ruffin, and your insomnia which equals mine, especially during that same heat wave. . . . Oh, how many nights did we sit out on those lawn chairs talking the night away? while the bugs circled the light bulb and my nightgown stuck to my back in the awful heat! And even this fall, with the twins waking me up all night long kicking, I didn’t even mind so much, knowing you would be out there smoking, ready to keep me company. It has been a real education, Gerald Ruffin, and I thank you for it!
Speaking of education, I think it is great that you’re going to finish college early, Ruthie! We are all real proud of you, especially your nephew Andrew who calls you “Roofie” ever since he knocked out his front teeth. He looked exactly like a pumpkin at Halloween, it was the cutest thing, I wish you could have seen him! with that hair even redder than Sandy’s.
Joe, I have mailed a big thing of Sticks and Stones to you early, I thought you could share them with everybody else in the hospital. I sent you several other presents, too, I just hope they will arrive in time for Christmas. Let me know. Mama says she prays for you every day and I do too, my version of this being that I think about you every day, and all the games we used to play and all the things we did as children. I only hope my own children will enjoy each other as much as we did, and love each other as much as we did. Please write, Joe. One thing in your package is a writing tablet and a whole bunch of envelopes already stamped and addressed to me at our new house.
We look forward to Mama’s visit when the twins arrive. This will be especially good for Andrew, I’m sure, who is likely to get his nose out of joint because he has gotten all the attention around here for such a long time—close to four years now! Sandy said he would get him a dog to make up for it, but Andrew now says he wants a kitten. Well, Sandy is just not a cat person, plus he thinks everybody should have a dog, and he is real strongminded, so I don’t know what will happen. . . . Families! You wonder how any of us survive them, don’t you? But we do.
I just wish you could all see our funny little silver tree with its blinking lights this Christmas, surrounded by presents and packing boxes stacked to the ceiling all around, not to mention us crammed in here tight as a drum, with me just pushing this big stomach around. Actually Sandy bought this little artificial tree because he says they are a better bargain, and I wept that he had bought a silver one instead of green, but I must say it is pretty. Andrew stands in front of it by the hour, entranced by these blinking lights. This is a Christmas we will never forget, that’s for sure!
Love,
Andy, Sandy, Mary, and the
Twins-in-Waiting Copeland
P.S. I have finally convinced Mama to share her recipe for
TACO SALAD FROM BIRDIE’S LUNCH
1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained
2 bunches green
onions
1 8-oz. bottle Catalina dressing
1 diced tomato
2 c. rotini noodles, cooked and drained
1 pkg. taco mix
Add taco mix and Catalina dressing to beef, mixing well. Add all other ingredients, mixing well. Serve over plenty of shredded lettuce, with taco chips on the side.
Merry Christmas from the Copelands, 1975!
(Especially to Susan and Marybeth, and all my good friends on Rosemary Street—I miss you so much already! Especially Elaine and Edie, remember all those crazy diets we tried? I guess I will just have to stay fat now.)
I write to you from our brand new home at 38 Hummingbird Heights, built by Copeland Construction of course! (Just like this Xeroxed letter also comes courtesy of Sandy’s company Xerox.) It is a split-level brick contemporary with four bedrooms and a big back yard with lots of room for the children to play. In fact our yard serves as the playground for the entire neighborhood, which is fine by me. I love to have company while watching the kids, and all the kids love to play on the huge wood-and-tire climbing thing which Sandy built for them. (Actually he designed it and then sent Randy and Tim over here to build it for us —thanks, Randy and Tim! It’s a big hit!)
The twins have turned out to be little tomboys—absolutely fearless—they scare me to death. This very minute, as I write, both Melanie and Claire are hanging upside down from the “monkey bars”—I can’t even look! Andrew is inside doing an art project for school. At 8½ he is already quite an artist. In Cub Scouts, he and Sandy made a Pine Box Derby race car which was a statewide winner, and Sandy claimed that he didn’t have a thing to do with it. He says it was Andy’s design entirely. All Andy’s teachers have remarked about his talent, I know he didn’t get it from me!
I didn’t even try to pick out paint colors or wallpaper for this house, for instance, I just left the whole thing up to Sandy, he has a much better eye than I do. I can’t even hang pictures on the wall, according to him! He says I hang them too high. So Sandy has done it all, and I must say, everything has gone much more smoothly as a result. And this house really does look great! In fact it looks so good, it often seems to me that it must be somebody else’s house. . . .
Oh, I guess I was just attached to that old “fixer-upper” on Rosemary Street, and to the trailer before that, if you can imagine! Sandy says I am “hopeless,” and I guess I am! It is a good thing that somebody in this family is so modern and forward-looking.
I remain very busy with “the here-and-now.” Little James is already learning to walk, and I can tell that he is going to be a holy terror before long. (I feel like every baby I have gets wilder and wilder—more active, at any rate. Especially as compared with Andrew, who was so good.. . .) But Sandy gets a kick out of James, saying that he is “all boy,” which is certainly true.
We took the whole family to Halfmoon Island for two weeks again this summer, and really enjoyed it, though Sandy left after a few days of course, he just had to get back on the job! (He is building 9 more houses here on Hummingbird Heights, all of them in the $75,000 range.) But Mama and Ruthie and I got to catch up on everything, and all the kids got along beautifully, they practically lived in the water. We had great weather the whole time.
After several job changes, Ruthie is now in the sportswear business in Atlanta, working as a “girl Friday” for a young entrepreneur named Jay Moretz who has started his own line of leisure wear which you may have seen in the stores, named “Saturdays.” Their logo is a little red sailboat, I know you have seen them.
When I asked Ruthie exactly what she does, she said she “makes Jay Moretz possible”! (In my own way, I could identify with that.) Anyway, Ruthie is just as crazy as ever, still a “firecracker,” as Daddy used to say, bless his heart.
We were having this conversation while sitting out at the beach under a pink striped umbrella on the prettiest day of the summer, all bright blue and yellow, a day to break your heart. (Now why did I say that? I sound just like Gerald Ruffin!) Anyway, the waves were rushing in and the sun was shining on them in a way that really did make them look like they were “dancing,” and the air was so clear, not that kind of haze you sometimes get in summer, but clear as glass, I felt like I could see all the way to England where I have always wanted to go. All my children were in view—the twins, running out and back endlessly, chased by the waves and then chasing them, squealing and squealing—James, asleep for once, on the blanket beside me in the umbrella’s pink shade—and Andrew alone up the beach a ways, poking in the sand with a stick and staring out at the horizon, thinking deep thoughts, which he is (probably unfortunately) prone to. Mama sat in a beach chair beside me while Ruthie lay stretched out flat in the sunshine a few feet away, covered with baby oil and iodine, wet cotton balls on her eyelids, tanning herself scientifically with the kitchen timer. She turned over every 20 minutes. Sandy had gone back up to the cottage to make a phone call but now he was coming back down the dune, kicking sand like a boy. From where I was, he looked like a boy, and Ruthie still looked like a teenager. I, by contrast, felt old, though I am not but 31, of course. The twins were squealing and squealing, the sun glinted off the waves, and for a moment I felt breathless, don’t you remember this, Mama? You asked me if I was all right. Then Sandy came and ducked back under the umbrella and sat down beside me and lit a cigarette and squeezed my knee and I really was all right again. It was only for a moment that I had thought, Oh Lord! Who are all these people?
Now I hope you will not think I am too crazy, reading that last paragraph, because I do love everybody so much, and I am so proud of Sandy—our life really is the American Dream come true! Of course Sandy works all the time while I am busy running after the kids and driving car-pools and keeping the books for Copeland Construction Company, but I must say I enjoy this job, as it is just me and Sandy up way late into the night sometimes, just the two of us, trying to make it all balance out . . . once we sent out for a pizza at 1 A.M.!
Also I am still teaching Sunday School at our church, following in Mama’s footsteps once again, I guess (just like the Christmas Letters), though now we have become Methodists (Sandy’s choice) instead of Church of Christ. The Methodist Church is right down the street from us here in Hummingbird Heights, so Sandy thought it would help us all get adjusted faster to our new lifestyle, and honestly, one church is as good as another as far as I’m concerned! The First Methodist Church has a very active MYF, so the kids will like it better anyway. The singing is not as good, I must say, but I love the prayers and responsive readings in the back of the Hymnal, which are just pure poetry in my opinion. That may not sound very religious, but it is true!
Anyway, as you can tell, life is full and good—maybe it is too full, but it is still good. We only regret that it did not work out for Joe at Copeland Construction, but we wish you good luck, Joe, in whatever field you decide to go into. This goes for everybody—here’s to a happy and productive 1976!
Lots of love to all of you
from all of us,
Sandy, Andrew, Claire,
Melanie, and James and
Mary Copeland
(Wow! What a mouthful!)
And speaking of “mouthfuls,” here’s an indispensable recipe from Cooks on the Run:
SPEEDY ITALIAN SUPPER
1 lb. sweet Italian sausage
1 lb. hot Italian sausage
A couple of peppers & onions
1 lb. pasta, any kind
1 large jar spaghetti sauce
Cut up sausages and sauté with vegetables. Add spaghetti sauce, heat through. Serve over pasta.
December 20, 1985
Merry Christmas! to Ruthie, Mama, and Close Friends Only,
Now that Copeland Construction is sending out those big metallic cards —I did not pick them out, in case you get one of those too! Back to the old carbon paper for this letter. I’ll try to type hard.
And let me say that it is a relief to sit down for a minute! I am surrounded by boxes as I write.
This is getting to be an old story, isn’t it? I don’t know why we never seem to move in the summertime, it would be so much easier. But I have told Sandy, this is it! I plan to die in this house! You should have seen the way he looked at me when I said it. Then he just about died himself, laughing at me. Of course a man does not relate to a house the way a woman does —for Sandy, a house is something you build, not something you live in. And I’ll swear, he can’t even look at a piece of land (or a mountain, or a beach) without imagining a house on it. Or something on it . . . and now they are building golf courses, too, as I have mentioned before.
This house, which I hope to die in—so write it down in your Rolodexes—is #5 Stonebridge Club Estates. It’s a “new” Victorian with so many turrets and terraces that I lose track of them. Sandy and the decorator had a “field day” planning everything. It’s a lot of fun, but almost too grand for me! I feel like somebody on a British show on public television, as in “Upstairs, Downstairs.”
You know that I have been after Sandy for years to slow down, relax, get a hobby . . . well, the good news is that he has taken up golf—he says that if he’s going to build these courses, he might as well learn the game. The bad news is that he’s gotten so “hooked” on it that he spends every free minute out on the course, it’s like another job! Men! But I guess he is enjoying it—poor thing, he deserves to, he has worked so hard all his life, you know, even in junior high and high school down in Florida. Sandy never wants to talk about his past. He says he has “put all that behind” him. Which is certainly true—why, we barely know Sandy’s family. His parents have been dead for years, and I have never even met two of his brothers, who live out West. I think this is a shame, but Sandy says it is American! It certainly isn’t Southern, as I pointed out to him, but then Florida certainly isn’t the South.