He Called My Name

As far back as I can remember, life was fun, pleasant, and real. If we were poor, we never noticed. I guess being poor meant our parents kept us safe and comfortable, and money was not our primary objective at that time. Of course, we needed money, but our health and welfare were top priority. We were reared on a so-called farm, which was convenient, especially for food and exercise. Everything we ate was grown in our small garden.
As children, we loved fruit, especially plums, peaches, and apples. We discovered an orchard of plums and peach trees behind the house. Those trees seemed to have grown out of nowhere. An orchard, I thought. That day when we found the “orchard,” we climbed the trees. And wow, those were the best fruits we had ever tasted. The apple trees were on the other side of the backyard. When Madea found them, she baked apple and peach pies.
Growing up, I was a tree climber. Madea would say she did not know how to stop me from climbing trees. Because I was a girl, she thought I should not do such things. Because she said, she had borne a girl child, not a tomboy.
Madea relayed that information to our babysitter Aunt Lissa. She told Madea to put me in a dress; she thought this was a cure, and that I would be too embarrassed to climb the trees because my brothers would see my panties. Aunt Lissa did not exactly know me. Dresses did not stop me from climbing or hanging upside down from any tree. I loved to climb. And hanging on a tree was where I thrived. What else was there to do on this so-called farm with dilapidated duplexes?
Nevertheless, our step-granddaddy, Styles, caught us in the trees and warned us not to eat those green plums because they would give us the “flux.” The flux? To this day, I do not know exactly what the flux is. Maybe he meant diarrhea? Who knows? We ate them anyway, green, or red, and never got the flux. I think he really said that to deter us from eating the peaches and plums he wanted Grandma May Lee to can for the winter.