Unpacking Baggage

Just going through my luggage, clearing out some things to make way for enlightenment

My great aunt Iola should be the least familiar of all the aunts because she lived in Georgia, while I grew up in New Jersey. However, we made enough road trips in my life that it's almost as if she lived around the corner. Truth is... I've seen her more in my lifetime, than my father's sister, who lives 5 blocks from me.

Iola is the fraternal twin to Viola. They have similar facial features, but the physical resemblence ends there. While Viola is tall and full-figured, Iola is shorter and more petite. Aunt V says it's because she is the runt. It's explained that, in the womb Viola got most of the nourishment, which lead to Iola being a sickly child and adult. For as long as I can remember she has had a nasty, racking cough brought on my bronchitis. My grandmother says that Iola could never work in the fields because she would have terrible nose bleeds that would leave her incapacitated for days. As a result, she was banned from the fields and sent home to become the family cook and the sister can REALLY cook.

Like her twin, no one calls her Iola except, quoting another great aunt "them crackers down home." All my life Iola has been called Aunt Nut Pie or Aunt Nut. The reason, I've always been told, is because of her pecan pie. Still, I wonder. If that is truly the case why wasn't Aunt Zora called Banana Pudding or Aunt Letha called Caramel Cake? I think it might be because she's just a little nutty. Aunt V has always said, "Nut is mental." She attributes it to her having lost her 29 year old daughter, Roberta.

On January 16, 1975, Roberta, a secretary for the local school system, failed to report to work. This was extremely unusual. Phone calls went unanswered. Finally someone was dispatched to the house where they found Roberta's husband, his grandmother and aunt all dead in their beds. It was later determined that they asphyxiated due to fumes from an incorrectly installed heating system. Roberta was still alive, having been pulled halfway from the bed, by her frantic 2 year old daughter. The little girl sat on the floor next to her, crying hysterically. It was a traumatic experience for our entire family and certainly most trying on Aunt Nut, who found herself in the role of mother to a toddler.

On our frequent visits to Georgia, we stayed at Aunt Nut's house, which consisted of a front room that served as a guest room, the middle room, where everyone in the house slept and the kitchen. The front room and kitchen opened onto porches that ran the width of the house. Notice, I make no mention of a lavatory. Although there was running water, bath or bathing water was achieved through the heating of water on the stove. The relief of bodily functions was achieved through a trip to the free-standing shed, located near the hog pen, called the outhouse. I can only assume that it was located near the hog pen so that the odors would co-mingle into one odiferous stench. It was truly a shitty mess. At night, because of the dark world that lay beyond the doors, trips to the outhouse were discouraged. No one wanted to venture an encounter with the many slithering, creeping or flying beasts that shared the land. AUnt Nut lived under those conditions until 1981, when she moved into a brand new brick home, built with the settlement from the wrongful death suit.

Aunt Nut was always happy to see us coming and she always had some fried corn and okra ready for my grandfather when we arrived and would demand a full report of all the happenings in the north. Her memory is still sharp as hell as she will ask about people that she's never met, but heard about over the years. She has a reputation of being brutally honest. Her grandson brought home a girl once and told her to sit in the livingroom while he changed clothes. Aunt Nut went in and immediately started grilling the girl. "Why you sittin around lookin' like a monkey?"

These days, like her twin, she is always ready to do if someone comes around in a car. She loves to stay on the move. Once she told me, "I ain't dead. My sisters can sit around if they want to, but I got things to do." She has three remaining children. A son, whose father I believe was the love of her life. Every summer he would come up from Florida to see his sister and would never fail to come by to see Nut. She also has two daughters, one of whom was raised by Great-Aunt Letha and her youngest whom she raised herself. I'm not sure of their paternity, but the wife of one of them actually got into an altercation with my grandmother. That is another post for another day.