Milk and honey: it sure beats the alternative

“Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey.”

— Exodus 33:3

I wasn’t a bad child. I just wasn’t a good one. And while I strived to maintain satisfactory conduct in most social settings, I failed — as do most hyperactive children. My mother was confronted with my rambunctious repercussions during kindergarten registration.

“Mrs. Eaves, we don’t believe your daughter’s ready for the classroom,” the test administer said as I snickered from underneath a nearby table.

And so it was preschool for me, detained a year due to my misbehavior that day. But failure would be my fortune, for passing would have prevented me from meeting many of my childhood playmates — namely Keisha.

Keisha lived in the Franklin County community of Rocky Ford with her great-uncle Bill and Aunt Rose. Both long-standing members of Liberty Christian Church, the parental pair preached “the good word” to their slightly mischievous 6-year-old niece. And one day, while visiting their abode on Sims Bridge Road, the elderly couple likewise educated me.

“Mama,” I hollered that Saturday morning, standing beside our kitchen telephone which had only moments ago rung. “Can I go to Keisha’s?”

“Did Uncle Bill and Aunt Rose say it was OK?” Mama asked as she reached for the phone.

“Yes,” I said, squirming at Mama’s suspicion.

The good Lord must have willed that play date with Keisha. For moments later, Mama cranked our family’s Ford Granada and drove that sputtering clunker to downtown Rocky Ford.

“Behave yourself!” Mama warned as I waved goodbye to her and that gray Granada.

Aunt Rose greeted me at the door with a grin and then pointed towards a table topped with mid-morning snacks.

“Keisha!” she called to my friend, who soon scurried into the kitchen for her share of Sun Maid raisins and Hershey’s chocolate.

Snack time passed, and playtime commenced with a competitive round of Scrabble, and then Super Mario Brothers. Yet the Nintendo rivalry was paused when Aunt Rose rallied us for lunch.

We crowded around the kitchen table at high noon — Uncle Bill, Aunt Rose, Keisha and me. And while I can’t recall what Aunt Rose cooked for lunch, I remember a basket full of buttermilk biscuits and a controversial condiment.

“Here’s some honey,” Uncle Bill said, sliding a sticky, beehive-shaped bottle towards my friend.

“I don’t like honey,” Keisha frowned, forgoing the golden goo parked beside of her place mat.

And that’s when Uncle Bill taught me a lesson I’d never learn in any Franklin County public school.

“Well, you better learn to like it,” he said, squinting at both me and his niece. “Because when you get to heaven, that’s all you’ll be able to eat.”

“Nuh uh!” we girls giggled in disbelief.

“ ‘Tis true,” Uncle Bill grinned from above his bearded chin. “You’ll be in the land of milk and honey.”

Not long after lunch, Mama’s gray Granada crept up Keisha’s driveway. And as I crawled onto its burgundy back seat, I considered Uncle Bill’s bible lesson. Like Keisha, I didn’t like honey – or milk for that matter. And since I didn’t deem the land of milk and honey a happy hereafter, I decided I didn’t want to go there.

That is, until I researched the alternative. Fortunately, I acquired an affinity for both biblical provisions soon thereafter.

Many years have passed since that Promised Land lesson — as have Uncle Bill and Aunt Rose, who both bid this world goodbye when I was still a child. Yet, every time I scoop a spoonful of honey onto a buttermilk biscuit, I think of that elderly pair who raised their niece, Keisha, while well into their golden years. And with each bite of my honey-filled biscuit, I have no doubt that Uncle Bill and Aunt Rose are both eating honey-filled biscuits in the sweet bye and bye — in the land of milk and honey.

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Bathroom beaver sends this scared sister scurrying

I was calling on my kinfolk the day I heard about the beaver.

Before the beaver, it was an otherwise ordinary Saturday — breakfast at Granny’s, a necessary nap following my breakfast at Granny’s, and an afternoon sojourn at my sister Wendy’s abode.

But all normality faded with the aforementioned animal.

The beaver saga began on my sister’s back door step, where I bounced about in an old overcoat to fend off the frigid winter air. And while it took several knocks at the door for my sister to save me from my freezing wait, Wendy eventually welcomed me with a Houdini-style towel wrapped around her head.

“Follow me,” the Great Houdini said as she moseyed to her bathroom mirror, where the magic of makeup awaited her.

Like most Southern women, Wendy administered foundation and rouge to her freshly cleaned face, soiling her skin from forehead to chin. And after blotting her color-stained lips with a Kleenex, she led me into her bedroom.

“Sit still,” she said, freeing her head from the Houdini’s hold. “I’ve got a surprise for you!” And with that, Wendy escaped inside of a nearby closet.

“Aha!” she cried, snatching the surprise.

“Aaaaaagh!” I screamed as my sister emerged from the closet, a dead fox dangling from her right hand.

And then she returned the pelt to its resting place, a wire clothes hanger.

“That’s just disgusting,” I scowled while Wendy settled into a nearby seat for a diet soda and some sister talk.

“I agree,” she said with the twist of her plastic bottle cap. “But it was a gift from my man-friend.”

“Well, at least you keep it in the closet,” I commended her.

“I told him enough was enough,” my sister sighed. “But then he caught me a 50-pound beaver.”

“Do what?!” I cried, skeptical that such a thing existed.

“Yes,” she affirmed of her man-friend’s find. “A 50-pound beaver. And he delivered the dead beaver onto my back door step. That is, before he transported it into the bath tub!”

Wendy then gestured to the guest bathroom down the hall.

“It’s nasty,” my sister said of the beaver. “It has these long, yellow teeth …”

As my sister described her beaver bathroom companion, I decided to cut my visit short that afternoon. And as I drove away from my sister’s dwelling, I did what all women with two sisters do.

I called the other sister.

“It’s just like a cat dragging up a dead rat!” I complained to my baby sister, Audrey.

“What’s she going to do with it?” Audrey asked, aghast that a beaver now resided in our older sister’s bath tub.

“I don’t know,” I laughed. “You don’t think she’ll try to cook it, do you?”

I couldn’t see my sister cooking beaver meat for dinner, despite her fondness for the man-friend. But as my conversation with sister Audrey concluded, we both agreed to steer clear of Wendy’s kitchen. At least for a few weeks.

I took the long route home that afternoon, if such a thing exists in these parts. And while I drove those Epsom roads, I wondered what I would do with a 50-pound beaver. Would I serve up some beaver stew for my man-friend?

“That would mandate an act of magic,” I said, reflecting on my sister’s sacrifice of sanity as I pulled into my drive. “Why, that would take the Great Houdini.”



Read more: The Daily Dispatch - Eaves Bathroom beaver sends this scared sister scurrying

Like a doe in the headlights, sister blinded by affection for man-friend

Initially, this week’s column was going to be on the topic of New Year’s resolutions. And while it was a timely piece for the small percentage of people who have yet to break their annual, all-too-often unattainable goals, another current event caused me to scratch the story. It all began last Monday evening ....

“I wonder what Wendy’s doing?” I asked Mama and Daddy while we watched the evening news. Mama shrugged her shoulders as she stretched her feet forward onto a stack of pillows. And Daddy – well, he flared his nostrils and tuned me out by turning up the TV’s volume. Since neither of them knew, or responded, I decided to call my older, unwed sister to get the scoop.

“I have something to show you,” my sister said after we’d exchanged our “hello” and “how are you.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to wait until I’m invited into your kingdom,” I replied to my somewhat reclusive sister, who hadn’t solicited my visits since last Easter.

“Why don’t you come on over now,” she responded, rallying me forth from my recliner and out the back door.

And so, I set forth for my sister’s abode.

Now, perhaps this is a fitting time to report that my sister now has a “man-friend.” And it was her man-friend who welcomed me at the door that evening.

“So what’s the surprise?” I asked the man-friend as I stepped into my sister’s sanctuary. But neither Wendy, nor the man-friend, needed to reply.

“What the devil!” I bellowed out at the brown beast that loomed above me on the living room wall.

“It’s kind of scary,” Wendy agreed, while we both stared at her latest fashion fixture – a mounted deer’s head.

“I thought you were opposed to hunting!” I reminded my sister. My sister responded only with a smile to the man-friend who’d hung his hunting trophy on her living room wall.

That’s when the man-friend flexed his muscles for us and began to speak of the manly sport of hunting wild beasts. The man-friend told tales of setting up snares and tracking down all sorts of woodland creatures. When he finished, the man-friend beamed at his stuffed trophy – that ol’ buck who’d run out of luck.

As I stared at that decapitated deer’s head hanging above me, I got the ghostly feeling that it was glaring right back at me.

And that’s when I said goodbye.

“What was the big surprise?” Mama asked as I trudged into the Eaves’ homeplace a little later. And so I told Mama of the man-friend and his mounted deer’s head hanging on my sister’s living room wall.

“She doesn’t even agree with hunting!” I scowled, as I sat down at Mama’s kitchen table for a piece of fried cornbread and some sought-after counseling.

Mama explained to me that a “man-friend” can do that sort of thing to a woman. That even my sister’s philosophy on hunting could fade away for the likes of a man-friend.

When I crawled into bed that night, I thought about my sister and the man-friend. And then I thought about that dead deer’s head – and its ghostly, glaring stare that had scared me home that evening.

“Mama?” I hollered from my bed, where I was tucked unusually tight. “Do you have a night light?”


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Trip to Tulum leaves much to be treasured

According to Daddy, there’s nothing worth doing outside of Epsom. So when baby sister Audrey announced that she was getting married in Tulum, Mexico, Daddy was caught in quite the quandary.

“Mexico,” he frowned as he lit a cigarette.

For months, Daddy protested Audrey’s plans for a destination wedding. He flat out refused to go.

“I think your father’s afraid to fly,” Mama confided in me one night as we discussed the wedding plans turned disaster.

“He better go,” I replied. “Audrey’s the only daughter he’ll ever marry off.”

Perhaps Daddy realized the ramifications of his wedding day absence. For a few days later, he grudgingly agreed to the Tulum trip.

“I’ll never hear the end of it if I don’t,” he conceded, as he closed his eyes for an afternoon nap.

Now, while Daddy dosed up on sedatives for his first flight, another member of the Eaves clan likewise prepared for the international nuptials.

“I can’t stand pale skin!” Granny said as she snagged a can of sunless tanning spray.

And thus began Granny’s pre-trip tanning session. Granny sprayed her fair legs from top to bottom with that can of sunless tanner. And then, she rubbed the quickly drying spray onto her legs. For a grand finale, Granny dried those dyed legs by the fireplace.

“I’ve got this bad habit of not reading instructions,” Granny confessed to our troop of travelers the next day at the airport.”That is, not until I’ve already used something.”

“Granny Virgie!” we all screamed as she showcased a pair of bronzed palms.

“The directions said, ‘Do not rub,’” Granny frowned. “And flammable!”

As my family took flight for Mexico that morning, we thanked the good Lord that Granny’s legs hadn’t burst into flames the night before.

We didn’t reach our resort until nightfall. So, sunrise and excitement were our alarm clocks the next morning.

“Look outside!” I hollered to my best friend, Kris. “Can you believe it’s the middle of December?” I gasped as I pulled our patio door open to a garden of palm trees and yucca plants.

While Kris climbed onto an outdoor hammock, I tiptoed to Mama and Daddy’s room.

“Have you looked outside of your window yet?” I asked a fully dressed Daddy who greeted me with a smile and a cigarette.

“I’ve already been to the beach,” he replied.

While Daddy described the birds he’d seen and the gardens he’d walked, I stared at this man who was suddenly as foreign to me as the country we were visiting.

The rest of the day was filled with similar surprises.

“Where’s Granny Virgie?” I wondered aloud while Kris and I strolled the resort that afternoon.

“Look!” Kris pointed ahead at a nearby balcony where Granny Virgie stood, sipping a strawberry daiquiri and wearing a t-shirt that said, “What happens under the mistletoe stays under the mistletoe.”

“I think Granny Virgie likes the Mexican men,” my older, unwed sister Wendy giggled as we greeted both her and a very tan Granny by the balcony. Granny smiled, and then took another sip of her cocktail.

Meanwhile, some male bonding had begun by a nearby table.

“You’re the son I never had,” Daddy said as he hugged his soon-to-be son-in-law, Justin.

It was then, at that very moment in Tulum, Mexico, that I realized my dad was delirious.

The next day, we all gathered under a Mexican sunset for my baby sister’s wedding. And as my childhood playmate passed from Daddy’s arms one final time as Audrey Denise Eaves, I couldn’t help but cry.

Nor could the bride and groom.

“It was sweat,” Justin later explained to an unconvinced crowd during the reception.

As with all weddings, there are toasts to be shared. But of all that was spoken that night, perhaps Audrey said it best.

“I had my reservations about this destination wedding,” she began as she toasted the wedding travelers under a Mexican full moon. “But this has been such a blessing.”

And for the Eaves family, it certainly was.

Gina Eaves is an Epsom native, a Peace College graduate and an advertising representative at The Daily Dispatch. Her columns appear on Sundays. E-mail her at geaves@hendersondispatch.com.

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