Let me make this perfectly clear. We were not allowed to fight with the neighbours’ kids. Nor were we allowed to curse at them or throw rocks at them. They had no such rules. So it stands to reason that quite often we were on the shitty end of the stick when it came to defending ourselves.
There was one girl in the neighbourhood who made Dooker’s life a particular hell. (Dooker was my sister’s unfortunate nickname.) Margie Mac beat the crap out of poor Dooker whenever she could catch her .Dooker ,however, could run like a bastard . When she complained to Mamma, she was told point blank,”I can’t fight your battles for you!”
There was one time though, that Mamma did go to bat for one of us and it was against the dreaded nuns. Understand that my mother was afraid of nuns,(God’s representatives on earth, or so they told us.) She was also afraid of schools and other buildings that looked like they had”big wigs” in them!
One day my brother Tubby(his unfortunate nickname because he was as skinnky as a rail) came home from school and declared he was NOT going back,ever! Then he told Mamma why.
Tubby had a horse. He had sold papers, kindling ,blueberries and shovelled snow for three years to get this old broken down nag named Molly Budlong. He loved that horse with a passion only twelve year old boys know. His grade six class were kept in at lunch time for fifteen minutes,so Tubby had to high tail it home to feed and water Molly. He had no time to even eat ,let alone change into his horse feeding clothes like he usually did. So quite naturally, he smelled like a horse going back to school.
Mother St. Anita smelled it and made all kinds of fun of him in front of the class. Kids ,being naturally cruel, teased him all the way home,calling him “Hoss.” He refused to go back!
Mamma got on the phone and in her coldest voice said “Listen sister, if you would take the time to clean up some of the kids in that school who are crawling with lice or make some of them wash, you’d be a lot better off. Horse smell is not a dirty smell! And just in case you don’t know it Sister, Christ was born in stable!” She hung up the phone.
Tubby got an apology the next day.
Maybe she didn’t fight our battles when the odds were even, but if it was big against little, she knew how to throw a punch! Way to go ,Mamma!
Your mamma was cool…I bet there was a smile on every kids face in your house that day…mamma takin on the nuns..go mamma!