Paula Deen

by Paula Deen

  Change him? Why would I want to do that? There was nothing, nothing at all, that wasn’t perfect about Jimmy Deen. Oh, maybe there was that teeny, bitty controlling thing, but he’d stop that stuff soon enough after I was his legal wife. I was going to be the perfect wife and momma, and I knew for sure he would be the perfect husband and daddy. Surely she was wrong and I was right: wasn’t I a whole lot smarter than my momma?

  My momma and daddy didn’t give up so fast. We talked a lot about what else I could do. Daddy thought I would be a great dental hygienist and he would send me to a Florida school to learn how. Wasn’t goin’ to happen. He must have been bitten by a rabid coon to even have suggested it.

  “Ain’t no way I’m smellin’ stinky breath all my life!” I told him. “No, I’m not doing that, Daddy. How about I go to Atlanta to be a model?”

  Daddy said, “Over my dead body. No daughter of mine is going to Atlanta by herself.” Little did he know that I had already applied and was accepted to the Patricia Stevens Modeling School in Atlanta. I told him. Went over like a lead balloon.

  “Oh, no, you’re not,” said my daddy, my hero. Not an option. Period.

  I should have realized his answer would be no. I’d never really been away from home except for those two weeks with Uncle Bob, and we’d always called Atlanta “little New York,” so it probably was a bad and dangerous place, Daddy was very sure of that.

  I’d had it with my blessed momma and my hero daddy.

  “Okay, you two, if you won’t let me do anything else, I’m getting married right now,” I decided. Sounded good as soon as I said it. Solved every problem. I wasn’t scared. Everything had always been rosy, and it would continue to be.

  My parents gave in. We married five months later, on November 28, 1965. It was a very small wedding because Daddy had said to us, “Paula, honey, we can give you a stove and a refrigerator, or a big wedding.”

  “I’ll take the stove and the refrigerator,” something made me say. Little did I know how my choice was gonna set my destiny. Turns out, the stove and the refrigerator were really ugly: the fridge was used and the stove was coppertone, but oh, how I loved them anyway. I was all grown up, playing house, and couldn’t have been more thrilled.

  It took only three more months to realize I would have been a perfect dental hygienist.

  The trouble started early. First of all, the good stuff. Jimmy Deen was the hardest-working man I ever knew—there was not a lazy bone in his body. Later on—I know I’m skipping ahead, but this has to be said, he adored his children—I think he was a good father in many ways. And even later on, he did something so wonderful for me, I will never, ever forget it, and I’ll always owe him. But that was later.

  In the beginning of our marriage, I was soon to taste the really bad part. He drank, and he drank way too much to suit me. Even one or two beers was too much as far as I was concerned, because that’s all it would take to drive him away from me. The drinking changed him. When he drank, he became dumb as a rock and I couldn’t depend on him. He wasn’t physically abusive to me, but we sure had our shovin’ matches. I don’t even think he wanted to be verbally abusive, and I’ll tell you the truth—it was me who forced him to say some awful mean things. I wasn’t so lily-pure and innocent.

  This is why: When he drank, I could be talking to the drapes; he simply couldn’t hear me. I was always trying to get him to listen to me, but even one can of beer changed Jimmy Deen so he wasn’t my Jimmy Deen, my husband. I don’t understand it—maybe some people have a lower tolerance than others for alcohol. All I know is the one or two beers I’d see him drink made me know I’d soon feel abandoned and insecure. I could compete against another woman, but I could not compete against that can of beer. Most of the time, I felt the man I married wasn’t even there—even when he was standing in front of me. Oh, listen—I was far from perfect and I probably handled it terribly: I’d get in his face, I’d cuss and I’d spit at him just to get a reaction when he was staring at me, bleary-eyed. The only reaction I ever got was a shove. But, I was only eighteen and just wanting us to survive and I saw our lives going down the tube because of a zombie-good-looking husband. Inside, I was scared out of my wits.

  To this day, I don’t know exactly how much he drank, because he wouldn’t tell me and he sure couldn’t show me because I didn’t let him drink at home. I was such a bitch—I forced him to do his drinking away from home because if he had just that one beer at home, it was like he’d instantly become dumb and one eye would almost cross over to the other one. It about drove me insane. I just adored this man, I worshipped him, but I wanted to hit him so bad: he wasn’t dense when he wasn’t drinking, but drunk he had the brains of a chicken.

  One day it kind of came to a head. We’d been married about three months when I truly understood that our marriage was in for hard times. I’d gotten a job at the Albany First Federal Savings bank and I had to go to a meeting in a nearby town. I told Jimmy, “You’re gonna be home when I get home, baby, right? Won’t you please be home when I get home because I don’t have a house key.” After our meeting, at about ten at night, a group of friends dropped me by my house. I just hopped out of the car, and they took right on off, something that you’d never do today. You would make sure the dropped-off person got safely into her house.

  Well, you know it: I was locked out. Jimmy was out drinking with his buddies. It was raw and raining out. And so I walked down to Slappy Drive—a main street in Albany—walked down to a service station to a pay phone, and called my momma and daddy. Turns out, they both answered the phone at the same time.

  “I hate his guts,” I said. “I have come home from this meeting, and he is not home. He’s got me locked out of my own home. Come get me, Momma. I am not staying here.” And I remember Momma saying, “Now, honey, you have to kiss and make up.” Well, my daddy piped in on the other extension. He said, “You tell him to kiss your ass! That’s what you tell him to kiss!”

  My momma came and got me and it was clear to both of us that my marriage was going south. I had thought it was so romantic, he was my high school sweetheart and all, we were such a pretty couple, we were family, and already trouble was rearing its ugly head.

  I didn’t know what trouble was. In just a few months more, my life was to shatter, my mind would be stricken, my heart was to tear, and it would be more than twenty more years before I could get it all back together again.

  Courage Chili

  When I’m under stress and I sense that trouble’s coming, I need to eat something hot, something substantial, and something that gives me what feels like strength and courage. There’s nothin’ like dippin’ into a bowlful of chili in such moments. Chili’s a nourishing rib-sticker; you don’t need no fancy food dishes when you need your strength. Y’all need chili.

  Note: Some Texans don’t like beans with their chili. I do.

  2 pounds lean ground beef

  2 large onions, finely minced (about 2 cups)

  1 teaspoon garlic powder

  1½ teaspoons salt

  3 tablespoons chili powder

  1½ teaspoons dried oregano

  1 teaspoon sugar

  One 10¾-ounce can condensed French onion soup

  1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

  ½ teaspoon Tabasco sauce

  One 28-ounce can chopped tomatoes, with juice

  Two 16-ounce cans kidney beans, drained

  1 large bag Fritos corn chips

  1 cup sour cream

  1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

  Brown the beef and 1½ cups of the onions in a large skillet. Drain off the pan drippings. Add the garlic powder, salt, chili powder, oregano, sugar, soup, flour, and Tabasco. Mix well. Simmer for 1 hour, covered, stirring occasionally. Add the tomatoes and beans, stir, and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes longer. When the chili is done, empty the bag of Fritos into a large serving bowl, scoop the chili on top of the Fritos, and top it all with dollops of sour cream, remaining ½ cup onions, and the Che
ddar cheese, which will melt all by itself on the chili. Serve immediately.

  Serves 4 to 6

  Chapter 4

  HOW DO YOU GET TO BE A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE WHEN YOUR WORLD’S FALLIN’ APART?

  Funny, when you’re young the world seems to revolve around you, but maybe you have some little, teeny, bitty problems—you just think things have got to get better, you think it just can’t get any worse in your life. It can.

  The tragedies began. And with them, I began to die.

  My daddy was sick. Two months after we were married, he just wasn’t feelin’ all that good but he never worried anything about it. We all thought it was gas, and he’d been taking baking soda every night, so he could burp and relieve the pain in his hurting chest, but after a while the baking soda didn’t seem to do much good.

  So, he went to our local Dr. McCall, who listened to Daddy’s chest and finally said, “Earl, I think you must have had rheumatic fever as a child and, as a result, you’ve got a bad heart valve.”

  We didn’t know what to do and finally we went to the famous Emory University in Atlanta where we’d heard they were just starting to practice this new procedure, valve replacement. They told Daddy he needed to go home to prepare himself for surgery now, while he was fairly young: only forty, and in good health except for his missing part. That would be his leg. Daddy only had one leg. When he was sixteen years old, he worked for a telegraph place, and once when he was delivering a telegram, a truck hit him, gangrene set in, and they wound up removing his left leg right then.

  Well, now, Emory University kept pushing him to have the heart-valve surgery, and Dr. McCall kept saying, “Earl, I don’t like it, please don’t have this. Wait five more years. Bubba’s only twelve years old. Wait until he’s seventeen to have the surgery.”

  Momma and Daddy thought Emory University knew more than Dr. McCall, so Daddy arranged for the surgery in February 1966. Well, he had that valve fixed, but my daddy had a light stroke on the table. Still, he finally was able to leave intensive care and come home. It was so sad to see him like he was. He could still walk, but I remember him keeping his thumb in his pocket to try and support his right arm, which just hung there after the stroke. Still, we thought all was well and that he was recuperating. He’d even gone back to work.

  Funny the things you remember: when daddy was recuperating, he and my momma rode over one Sunday afternoon. “Oh, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” I remember saying, “I made you some sweet tea that’s as good as Momma’s,” and I gave him a glass. “Isn’t it as good as Momma’s?” I asked.

  “No, honey, I’m sorry, it’s not. It’s very good but no one makes sweet tea as good as Momma,” he said with a grin. He was right. We both knew I’d be trying my whole life to make sweet tea as good as Momma’s.

  Well, on June 15, 1966, Daddy was on his way back to work after his lunch at home and he had a car wreck on North Davis Street. A policeman who knew Daddy was the first one on the scene, and would you believe he thought Daddy was drunk and that’s why he crashed the car? Daddy was not drunk. Later they found out that he’d had a blood clot form around the new valve in his heart and it broke off and hit his brain. My daddy was brain-dead. He lived two more days.

  The day my daddy died, I remember getting a call about fivethirty that morning, and they said, “Come to the hospital.” I didn’t know it but Daddy was already dead. I would no longer have the living love of my father.

  After they told us, I remember walking down the hospital hall with my momma and I saw this man whom Daddy knew, and I started screaming and crying to Momma, “He’s coming to see Daddy, and it’s too late.” The guy looked at me like as if I was crazy because he was only delivering bread to the hospital. See, my thinking when Daddy died was as screwed up as a Chinese checkbook right off the bat, and it didn’t get much better for a long time. That night, I was so scared, I had to sleep with my momma and my husband. Momma slept on one side, Jimmy slept on the other, which made me feel safer, but not for years would I ever feel really safe again.

  Friday morning before Father’s Day on June 17, 1966. I’d already had his Father’s Day gift bought, and it was a white shirt, and it was that kind of soft silklike material. Daddy just loved those shirts, and he was buried in it. He was just forty years old.

  I simply tore apart. I remember after my daddy died, I’d sit in this rocking chair, and I’d just rock. And eat. That was my comfort. Tears would just be rolling down my cheeks, and I’d be eating everything soft and easy. How would I ever live with this devastation, how would I ever fill the hole in my heart that Daddy’s death dug? I started by practicing his favorite dish. I was driven to making chicken and dumplings just like he craved them. I wanted to make them as perfect as I could, just in case some crazy something was going on and my daddy came back. Perhaps that gives you some idea of my state of mind.

  That’s the exact time my panic attacks really started. When something snatches away that rug that you call security, you land on your ass. My daddy was my security. I’ll tell you, I was raised Baptist and was taught that everything happened for a reason. So, what was the reason for Daddy’s dying so soon? I was so frightened because I had no idea why death would affect my life so early.

  I started trying to figure it out. Why did God take my beautiful daddy? He had the surgery, he was getting well. Why would you do that, God? What was the reason?

  I finally figured it out.

  The reason Daddy had died was because I was gonna die soon, and God did not want my daddy to see that happen, so that’s why God took Daddy first. And so at age nineteen, after that terrible time, I started waking up many mornings and wondering if this was the day I’d die. I’d get up and check my pulse, feel my heart, cough as I tried to spit up the blood that would finally tell me for sure that it was all over for me.

  I never told anybody. I just got up waiting to die by myself. And these thoughts just went on and on and on for twenty years, more or less.

  But life went on too.

  I worked to try to save our marriage. Jimmy Deen was a sweet man but that drinking was a problem that neither of us could solve. In 1967, when Daddy had been gone a year, our first son, Jamie, was born. During my pregnancy, Jimmy still drank every night, but he tried to be as good as he could be to me. There was an Rh-negative problem but we were fortunate to have no problems with the new baby.

  Jamie was born with Bubba’s coloring, which is kind of dirty-blond hair, fair skin, and blue eyes, and he had deep beautiful dimples from his father’s side of the family. From the moment he arrived, though, he had a snotty nose and bags under his eyes, and to this day he’s still got the bags. The snotty nose kind of disappeared after a couple of years, thank God. When they brought him to me for his bottle on the second day after he was born, I unfolded the blanket and checked that baby, starting at his toes and working my way up to the top. Would you believe that covering one side of his head there was this huge soft knot that I could move? It scared me so bad and I thought, Oh my God! My child’s brains are coming out!

  I got out of bed, and I ran down the hall to the nursery as best a new mother can run anywhere, and I screamed, “Something’s wrong with my baby!”

  They got in touch with the doctor and took the baby from me to put him back in the nursery; finally the doctor arrived to tell me, “It’s like a blood sack and it will dry up and go away. There’s nothing to be concerned about.” He was right about the drying up, but underneath that blood sack was a whopper of a knot that made the shape of Jamie’s head not one of perfection. So, after about a year, there’s my little boy with snot running down his lips, bags under his eyes, and a knot on the side of his head sticking up unattractively, but we loved that kid to death. My Aunt Peggy didn’t tell me that until he was ten years old she was afraid that knot meant he was retarded. But he was so cute and outgoing; he’d get so excited and just go nuts over everything he liked.

  Two years after Jamie’s birth, Bobby was born. I had already started with
my panic attacks and Bobby’s birth didn’t do nothing to help them. Seems when I was eight months pregnant with him, they had to induce labor because they said the baby was in trouble with that same Rh factor, and he’d live only till Tuesday lunchtime if he wasn’t delivered immediately. This baby was so sick they put him in critical care and started changing out his blood and I was weak with fear for him.

  Shortly before Bobby’s birth, Momma had gone to JCPenney and got her a job as the head of the linen department. She was on her feet all day. It was then she started complaining that her knee was hurting a lot.

  Bobby was the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. Even though he was a month early, he still weighed six pounds ten ounces, bigger than most of the babies in the well nursery, and he was beautifully developed. Birth had not played havoc with Bobby. Unlike Jamie, he had this perfectly shaped head, dark hair, dark eyes, and olive skin. Of course, he was jaundiced because of all of the complications, which gave him a shine like a little gold brick.

  Soon after he was born, I remember Momma coming to the hospital and limping. All that standing around in the linen department, she said.

  Then, suddenly, things just turned to ashes for a while. Bobby was really sick and we didn’t know if he’d make it. No wonder we all pretty much ignored Momma’s limping. Bobby was the person on our radar.

  I was released from the hospital but had to leave the baby there and I cried like a bellowing cat all the way home. Finally, after nine days, the doctor told us that they’d just completed the final blood transfusion. Bobby had undergone four complete blood changes—the first baby in the hospital ever to survive that—and the doctor said, “Paula, it’s taking. We’re home free.”

  On the eleventh day I brought my child home. But we were not home free.

  It was Momma. Our family doctor could find nothing wrong with her knee, but it wasn’t feeling any better, and one day she said to me, “My knee hurts so bad. I’ve got a lump right here that’s hot.” And I remember putting my hand over it, and I could feel the heat. She finally went to the chiropractor, who saw a tumor in her leg, and he made an appointment with a bone specialist. She was diagnosed with bone cancer.