But I have some favorite tales I want to share:
Once my entire family went to the cemetery to
put Christmas flowers on my grandparent’s graves. My mother was always very dedicated
about doing that and she’d shop for hours to find just the right ornament. On
this occasion, she’d selected white crosses. Because the earth was so hard, she’d
brought a hammer to pound each cross into the ground. Now, you’d have to know
my mom: she’s a perfectionist—a fine-tuner. Once she gets something ‘finished’
she inspects everything around it—regardless of what it is—then fine-tunes her
own project one last time. This time when she finished arranging flowers and
cleaning up other gravesites, she came back to the white cross, hit it with the
hammer and broke it. 
“You just had to hit it one more time, didn’t you?” said
my dad.
All of us broke into uncontrollable laughter because
he’d nailed it with his comment. She was and always had been the hit it one more time mama. She used to
go over my homework papers—crossing my Ts and closing the circles of my Os, Bs,
Ps and making my periods a little darker. Hitting my paper one more time.
Yes, it drove me crazy.
The quote, “Just had to hit it one more time,” is a
favorite and we use it often when one of us tries to over-do.
Of course, my mom has several quotes she uses
consistently: She’s fond of saying, Ignorance
gone to seed, Nuts gone to seed, There’s nothing crazier than people, and
Can’t get away from those genes.
She loved telling everyone that if my brother said, “Let’s hang Mama,” my dad would go get a
rope.
My young nephews were always fun to listen to. Once,
a young Russell (the one in the red cap)climbed into the car after a grocery shopping trip. He was so
glad to be going home after spending an hour in the food store that he was
jumping up and down, and running across the back seat while the young sacker
helped my mother with groceries. The sacker asked Russell, “Do you need to go to
the bathroom?” to which my nephew responded, “No, why, do you smell something?”
One summer day, while the cable TV man was adjusting
my dad’s television, my nephew Kyle (white cap) charged through the front door yelling, “We
found a dead skunk back in the woods. You want to go smell him?” Needless to
say, the cable guy declined.
My daughter (purple sweatshirt) was sitting in the back seat while I drove one day. Daughter was always a chatty little
girl—asking questions and often supplying her own answers. On this day, I was
telling her how her dad and I had prayed for a healthy little girl and that God
had blessed us with her.
She replied, “Good. I always wondered who my family
would be.” Yikes!
I’m sure you have favorite quotes and quirky sayings
and stories from your family too. Want to share some of them?
