Howl at the Moon

I think I am going to start this post off with a dirty little family secret. A minimum of the last three generations of my family have all been suckers for romance novels. Most of us like all books in general, but there’s nothing like a good, raunchy romance novel or epic drama. When I visited with Mamaw last week we pulled up the list of all the V.C. Andrews novels ever published and Mamaw told me she owned most of them, and had read all of them. One of my favorite things to do with my mother is to talk about books we have read. When I was a kid I used to sneak her romance novels off the shelf, until eventually she just started handing them to me when she was finished. This could be a possible explanation as to why we are all prone to have fits of passion. Or it could just be in the blood. When Mamaw was a small child, her father’s relatives and friends used to say that she had the devil in her eyes. She told my mom that she would spend hours looking in the mirror, trying to find the devil. The woman still has the devil in her eyes, and you don’t have to look too awfully hard to see it.

In my opinion, it takes a combination of things to be a truly passionate person, the core of which is curiosity, mischief and more than a little stubbornness. My cousin Brandie and I have a running joke that we need to have a full-on bitch fit at least once every six months. We need to just let go, throw things, yell, dance, sing and just howl at the moon in general. Then we can reintegrate back into socially acceptable forms of ourselves for another six months or so. From listening to Mamaw lately, I believe this was her all the time, all year round. So imagine the passionate encounter it must have been when she met my Papaw, a kindred spirit who also howled at the moon all year round.

Some people believe in an invisible thread, something that connects us to the people we are supposed to spend our lives with. For Mamaw and Papaw this invisible thread began weaving itself together long before either of them were born, in the hills of Ashe County, NC. The Prices and the Cornetts were two rivalry families, each living on one side of the New River. By the time Mamaw was born, her family was living in Maryland. However Papaw, whose family was still in Ashe County, knew of the Cornetts that had lived across the river. It wasn’t until Papaw moved up North that he met Mamaw. When I asked them how they met, Papaw said he was supposed to have been going on a date with Mamaw’s sister Sally. And just like it had just happened, Mamaw snapped, “Why don’t you just go on with Sally, then!” All throughout this conversation, they kept alternating between laughing with each other and teasing each other relentlessly.

Papaw said that after they had gone on one date, Mamaw was riding through town with her boyfriend and spotted Papaw in his car with another woman. Mamaw made her beau pull over, marched up to the car, and demanded that the woman get out of Papaw’s car. Papaw said, “I’d only been on one date with her!” On another occasion, Mamaw was talking to a friend of hers. The friend told Mamaw that she had a hot date that night. When Mamaw asked her who her date was, she said it was a fellow named Carl Price. Mamaw kept a poker face and calmly asked her where they were planning to go and what they were doing. Later on that evening, Mamaw pulled up at the gas station where they were parked. Papaw was inside the store, so Mamaw called the woman over. Having no idea what was going on, the woman came right over to Mamaw’s car and stuck her head in the window. Mamaw swiftly rolled up the window so the lady’s head was stuck and proceeded to punch her in the face. She first told me this story a few years ago, when I was having some man trouble of my own. She told me not to take any shit from anyone. Roll their head up in the window and punch them in the face, by God.

I believe they must have been the perfect fit together, because they could match each other in both wildness and domesticity. They had adventures together, but they also had regular life together. I think it must have been a wild ride, filled with car racing, music, fighting, dancing, love and laughter. And Lord, did they have some epic fights.

While they were still in Maryland, Mamaw and Papaw shared a house with her two sisters and their husbands. Mamaw said that when they started fighting, that the neighbors would all go inside and lock their doors, scared to death. One night her and Papaw came home to Crisco cooking oil all over the floor. Pete had threatened to hit her husband Carl Davis over the head with the gallon bottle. Instead, he took it away from her and bopped her in the head, then poured it all over the floor. When they saw Mamaw and Papaw coming home, they all took off upstairs and went out the window. Papaw said, “I loved that man, but if there was one time I could’ve got ahold of Carl Davis that would have been it!” Another time, a bill collector came looking for Frances. Mamaw, very pregnant, hit the man so hard he flew backwards off the porch!

There must have been some kind of chemical connection, or invisible thread, with the Cornetts and the Prices. Mamaw’s half sisters and cousins ended up marrying Papaw's relatives. It just worked, a perfect fit. The last thing we talked about was going back up to Ashe county to see the Price’s homeplace and to visit a Cornett family cemetery. You are more than welcome to join us, but be warned, we might just howl at the moon when we get there.