Chapter 23

It wasn’t until we moved to Maple Lake that we realized Mother had a name other than just that. We’d go to the grocery store, or church, and people would come up and hug her, “Well, Clarice Mares! You’re home?”

Clarice Mares? We’d hardly ever heard her called by her name because Daddy never called her by her name and I guess we didn’t notice when other relatives called her that.

Most folks pronounced it Clar-eece. Her family called her Clar-us.

Now if you’re thinking some of the tricks she played on us seemed mean, well, it was just her nature to be mischievous.

Here is an except from her OWN memoir, which I recorded verbatim a couple of years before she died at age 98. It offers a little insight into her personality!

I had my best friend, Alberta Munn, and she had no mother. She lived with her grandma, her big sister and her dad was there once in a while.

One time, I got this idea. We were bored; it was summer. I said, we can get a cardboard box and you can get your grandma’s umbrella and I’ll push you off the garage roof and you’ll just sail away all over the place. She said, “Really?”” and I said “Yup.” I got her into the box on the tin roof, and I said, “Ready?” and she said, “Yup.” It slid down real good. She was hanging onto the side of the box. I don’t know what we thought was going to hold it up. but when she left the roof, the umbrella caught in the apple tree next to it, and it turned inside out and hung there. She hit the ground. She was bawling and then she got a lickin’ for breaking the umbrella.  But she still came over to my house that night. We didn’t have electricity then, so when Mama lit the lamps that night, she’d always throw the burnt match into a jar cover. I grabbed up one and threw it down Alberta’s blouse and it burned her. She said, “Are you trying to kill me?”

I’m surprised she stayed my friend.  In fact, she sent a penny postcard once after we moved and said she was going to come stay a couple of days with me. She walked all the way from Silver Creek to Maple Lake to do that. I met her half way. That was 7 miles on a gravel road.  She had never had a bath in a bathtub so Mama let her take a bath in our tub. She thought that was really fancy.

She was such a good-natured girl. Well, she had to be! But we stayed in touch all our lives.  I went to her funeral in Silver Creek about 10 years ago (2009 or 2010).

When we moved to Maple Lake when I was in 6th grade and Daddy went to work at the lumber yard, and later on the railroad tracks, putting new ties in different places. He’d come home just dead tired. When he was working at the lumber yard, he fell out of the back of a truck and onto something and broke his neck. He was laid up quite a while. There was no government help of any kind in those days. Different relatives helped us out, I remember that.

I only knew one person my age in Maple Lake, and that was Shirley Jude.  She lived across the street from Grandma in Maple Lake. When we’d go there, we’d play with Shirley. She had these beautiful long curls. Doris (Mother’s older sister) and I were over there playing one day. We decided to play barber and we cut off her long curls.  Boy, Mrs. Jude got really mad! I don’t know what possessed me. I was only 5 or 6 then, I guess. I must have had a mean streak in me.

When we moved to Maple Lake, we had to change schools, of course. When I started at Maple Lake School, the principal took me to my class and asked me if I knew anyone there. I said Shirley. So they had me sit with her until they got me a desk. I’m surprised she was still speaking to me.  

So she had a mischievous streak all her life.  They say only the good die young and though she was good in all the important ways, she did have a little “mean streak,” as she called it. But we loved her for it – and it makes great stories!

EPILOGUE by Cindy Adams
Growing up hearing all of these stories from Mother set the stage for my becoming a bit of a trickster. I learned from The Master (see Scaredy Cat ) and employed my mischievous side throughout my life (just ask my son, husband, brother, friends, and even complete strangers). You’ll be reading a lot of these stories in upcoming posts! Please remember that it’s all my Mother’s fault.