Good Scoops Today!

I'm at my parent's house this week. The thing about hanging with older, retired people is that they don't do much. I'm all for that. My father and I hung out today. He was telling me that my Mimi, his mother (the one I take after so very strongly), was an independent woman for her day. I knew this, but was listening because I love Mimi stories. Through listening, I discover Mimi was married not twice as I always thought, but 3 times! I told Daddy that we really are alike--Mimi didn't put up with a man she didn't like hanging around either.

The first time Mimi married she was 14. When I get to heaven, Mimi and I are discussing this immediately. I need details and she'll tell them to me. Daddy doesn't know the story, but knows she was married then. You know that kills me to not know the details. Daddy and I both know the story of how it ended. Mimi was a whistler--she whistled as she went along walking. Everyone knew when she was coming because she whistled. One day she didn't feel like whistling, she came up to the house and walked on in. Caught her husband in bed with another woman. Mimi told me that story when I was maybe 8-9 years old! Good stuff.

Mimi's next husband, Mr. Slade, was the exciting one that I'd always confused with being her first, but I was mistaken. She had this second husband! He was the moonshiner and party boy. She told Daddy that she loved Popi, my father's dad and Mimi's 3rd husband, but the passion was with this Slade character. Mimi once told me that the sheriff came over to their house with a squad looking for moonshine. Mimi sat her butt down on the stash and covered it up with her skirts. The police looked all over the house in every corner, but they never once asked Mimi to move. She knew the sheriff knew what was under her, but didn't ask because he liked her. I love that story!

Mimi met Popi at the beach. There was a whole gang of people and they all ran into the water, but Popi stayed back. Mimi stayed back as well so they met, dated, fell in love and married. They had my father as an only child. After Popi died, I remember Mimi crying one night while I was staying with her at her house. She told me he was the best man she ever knew and I guess she chose "good" over "passionate". I remember he got down on his knees at his bed to pray each night. I imagine he'd done so his whole life.