The Badest One Squawks First

Growing up the youngest of seven kids, I quickly realized why my mother ,“The Penguin,” ruled with an iron fist. She had seven Hodges children to put up with day in and day out… At the time, with me being the youngest of the bunch, it seemed her feathers were almost ruffled daily…

Going into town was always an adventure… We would all load up in our old beat-up station wagon; bounce down the long dirt road to the highway; then make our way into town… There’s an old saying in The South, “The Badest One Squawks First…” This saying was never more true than when The Penguin was enforcing the laws of the land she governed… At some point when we were approaching town, my mother would slowly turn down her Gospel Music playing scratchily through the AM Radio, and make her announcement. Gazing into the rearview, her eyes narrowed as if to pinpoint certain kids when she spoke. She said, “Alright, we’re goin’ to the grocery store, you can act out if you wanta, I’m not goin’ to spank you, I’m not goin’ to get on to you, but when we get home, you’re mine…” Then she would turn her Gospel back up and away we rolled into town.

Once at the store, there was always a few of us kids that would start testin’ the water… pushing the buttons of the Penguin’s patience by, as she would put it, not acting right… Looking back, I think we kids were just so excited to be in a building with AC and surrounded by all that food our brain kinda went into overload… Intoxicated by all the wonders of the big city of Gainesville… Being the youngest, it was kinda easy to see who was goin’ to squawk first out of all the Penguin’s Chicks… Her eyes would cut to the side and narrow into little slits, barely showing any whites; her face pulled into a tight frown of disapproval as she would say the two words and a sound that would assure someone was going to squawk that day, “Darn it All!” which was almost always followed by the sound comin’ from clinched lips and flared nostrils, “Hmmm!!!”
Then she would slowly unruffle her feathers and continue shopping, acting as if nothing had occurred… But we all knew which one of us had been showin’ out on isle 3... We knew good and well they had been marked for a squawkin’ in The Penguin’s mental rolodex of her elephant like brain… She remembers everything, especially if it made her mad… It didn’t matter if thirty years had passed, she can tell you what happened on the Stories (Soap opera), the day you acted out in public… And if she told you to be quiet during an avalanche or tornado, you better do it… There could be cows floating by in the wind, houses falling on witches with sparkly red slippers, and The Penguin would still know you made some kind of noise…

Anyways, on the drive back home, all was normal talk and play between the kids in the car, almost like nothing had happened… Then perfectly on cue, some strange sort of quiet would fall upon us kids as we drew closer to home… We all knew what was comin’… The kids that were fixin’ to squawk, their eyes filled with fear and they turned a strange sort of gray… The kids that were fixin’ to witness the squawkin’ were on the edge of their seat, waiting with a slight smirk of, “Yep, you goin’ to get now…” dressing their little faces…

It was then that The Penguin slowed the car and pulled onto the dirt road leading to our driveway… This is when the silence was broken by my brothers or sisters that had acted out in the store… Their tears, quivering lips, and pleading fell on deaf ears… For the Penguin had spoken and now it was time to deliver… The squawkin’ had begun...

Ol' Sparky

We all have moments in our lives where we look back and laugh. If you don’t, then you should look a little closer. Growing up, my father had a great sense of humor. Well, maybe a little warped at times, but never once as kids did we not feel loved by him, and even tough loved at times…

One spring morning, he was out working on our garden tiller, getting it ready to turn the ground. Suddenly, with a shout and a boyish grin, Dad called out to us kids to stop playing and come over to where he was working… We all stopped what we were doing and raced over, eager to see what wonderful new experience dad had in store… Note: Key words to be leery of growing up in the Hodges Household… “Trust me… You’re going to love this…”

Having all of us line up behind the Tiller and hold hands, we waited with eyes wide, watching my father pull the wire clamp from the sparkplug. Carefully, he opened, and shaped it to the size of the first child in line’s finger. Sliding it on with a smile he said, “Trust me, you’re going to love this.” Watching with excitement we waited for what wonderful new joy he was about to bestow upon us. Grabbing the pull string and looking back, he asked, “You ready boys and girls?” To this we shouted, “YEAH…” Dad pulled the cord and this strange bite like sensation flowed from my sister's hand I was holding, making me want to let it go with the quickness. At the same time, my brother let out a good yelp at the front of the line… As my father began to laugh, we all quickly let go and could here the words electrically charged echoing in our brain, “Trust Me…”

My mother “The Penguin,” didn’t share in the same kind of hummer as my father… She was a no nonsense kind of gal… But looking back in my memories, I chuckle at her chasing us seven kids with her paddle dressed with the words across its surface, “Heat For The Seat…” Trust me… Those short little penguin legs of hers were as fast as Mickey Mantle and when she caught you, you would think he was swinging that damn thing… One day I was walking around the yard tossing a baseball around, and somehow it made its way off course to my target, and made its way on course to the barn… Crash, was the sound the ball made as it bounced off the back of the lawn mower… My knowledge as a kid that The Penguin was somehow always watching, made me walk as nonchalantly to inspect the damage as I could… Side note: “My parents could have made copper wire from starching a penny…” I mean they were tight. So, if you broke something, you better try to fix it before The Penguin found out about it… Getting to the front of the barn, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The baseball had hit the sparkplug perfectly, breaking it off in the engine… What the Hell? How am I going to fix this without The Penguin finding out? She’ll see Duct tape fo sho. I know, I’ll glue that bad boy… So, there I was walking into the house, trying my best not to draw the attention of my mother. Finding some Elmer's School Glue I slid it into my pocket… Making your way past The Penguin’s Watchful Eye with a bottle of glue in the front pocket of tight eighties jeans was no easy task… But somehow I made it back to the barn… So, there I was holding the glued sparkplug back together praying it would hurry up and set so I could let go. I had to have looked like a Crack Head watching the kitchen window hopping The Penguin would not look out and see me… Man I was bugged out… Finally, the glue set and I walked away with a sigh of relief… Thank God The Penguin didn’t catch me… Within a few days, I was thinking nothing of the event of gluing the sparkplug back together… Until one morning I heard this strange sound coming from outside… Looking out the window I could see The Penguin pushing the lawnmower and hear it’s motor going up and down in power… It turned off and The Penguin stood back placing her hands on her hips… Suddenly, to my horror, The Penguin’s head turned slowly back towards the house, as if to have psychically known who was responsible… Oh Boy… You better run or something’. She’s goin’ to go Mickey Mantle on your ass… So, out the front door I ran making my way to the woods across the street from my house… I spent the day hiding out in an old sinkhole until I thought The Penguin had cooled off and was busy making supper… I stood a lot better chance of escaping the Heat For The Seat by doing so…

Looking back now it’s all dripping with humor to me… Through good times or bad, my father and mother did the best they could to feed seven kids and provided a safe place to call home. That’s all any of us could have ask of them…