“Count Your Blessings”

People spend too much time wishing for ---------.  “That’s a very dangerous pass-time,” I can hear my Mamo say, "too much 'wanting' makes very ungrateful people."  On Sassafras Road Mamo’s mantra was, “Count your blessings.”  Looking back there were a lot of them.

When Mamo had errands to do, Jud usually drove her to town in the Ole Blue Goose.  Before he got his drivers license he would only go as far as the old boarding house by the railroad tracks.   Mamo would walk the rest of the way.  On this particular day she grabbed me by the wrist and said, “Hurry, Miss Bough is taking us up town for errands.” 

I can’t remember Mamo ever holding my hand.  It was difficult for her 4’11” frame to take big steps.  She couldn’t have a little girl laggard; so today it was the “wrist-job” with my little ked sneakers dragging all the way across the big front yard.  Miss Bough had parked her car out on the gravel road. 

I didn’t want to go with Miss Bough.  Why? Number one, her name was BOO.  Number two, she looked like a twin sister to the Wicked Witch of the West.  Number three, she hadn’t been home from the Women’s Prison in Indianapolis very long.  (Now there’s a Sassafras Road story.) 

The fact is my Mamo had never given me a reason to doubt anything she asked me to do, so I didn’t protest.  Town seemed like it was light-years away, but actually it was only two miles.  What could happen? 

Mamo opened the passenger’s door.  “Hop in Nan.  Put her in the back,” Miss Bough said in cracking hillbilly twang.

Mamo bent the front seat forward.  It wasn’t like any backseat I had ever seen.  There was no floor space.  The front seat had been pushed back all the way; it touched the seat where I was supposed to sit.  Where was I supposed to put my legs?  There was hardly any space, even for a little girl, but I climbed in and pulled my legs up against my chest.

Suddenly I felt the need to count my blessings.  Miss Bough, who was as height challenged as Mamo, grabbed the steering wheel, locking her elbows, at the two and ten positions of the clock.  Her arms were rigid and parallel to the floor.  Leaning all the way back she punched the throttle on the floor with the tip of her pointy toe, priming the gas tank.  Amazingly the car started and the engine revved as Miss Bough pushed the accelerator to the floor.  We were off like a jet propelled rocket, and in 1955 there were no jet propelled rockets. I had no conception of centrifugal force, but I was definitely feeling it that afternoon. My body was plastered against the back of the car and I was as scared as a freshly bloomed flower in a hail storm.  By the time we hit the graveyard, which was only a few yards down the road; the dust was flying so fiercely I couldn’t see anything out of the windows.

That was when I realized why the car didn’t have a back floor.   Riders probably just lay down on the seat and prayed for the ride to end.  I heard Mamo’s sweet voice singing, “Count your many blessing name them one by one. Count your many blessing see what God has done.”  It made me feel better to join in as I lay on the seat thinking between verses, “At least we’re not singing, When the Roll is Called Up Yonder.”

In a few minutes the dust settled and I realized that Miss Bough had delivered us safely to town.  I don’t remember too much about the errands or the ride back home to Sassafras Road.  I do remember Mamo bought me a nickel’s worth of cinnamon balls at G.C. Murphy’s Dime Store.  The candy was a simple blessing.   The ride with Miss Bough and the lesson  of Mamo's singing, those are lifetime blessings; and I have counted them a thousand times.