Today I went shopping for a birthday card for one of my elderly aunts. In doing so, I began to think about how blessed I have been to have so many aunts in my life who chose to have an impact on my upbringing. I had daily, weekly, and monthly contact with at least 8 of the 12 aunts. Looking back now many of the skills I have such as cooking, sewing, butchering hogs and chickens, quilting, housekeeping, and entertainment are directly related to these aunts. While Mama's influence is unquestionable, I have to acknowledge that many of my 'skill sets' are the result of one or more aunts.
It seemed to me that each Aunt had something she wanted to teach me early in life. For Aunt Emma, the teacher, it was the love of reading and learning; for Aunt Alice it was her gift of being a seamstress who could make any garment fit a particular body shape; Aunt Hazel taught me how to save money and find bargains when shopping; Aunt Ruby shared her love for conversation and visitors. Aunt Fay taught me joy of trying new things such as cooking new foods.
As I shopped for Aunt Fay's birthday card I remembered the day when she and I decided to make doughnuts. Doughnuts were very popular in East TN during the 1960's because of the several Krispy Kreme facilities in Knoxville. For our family, and most everyone in Hancock County, a trip to Knoxville always included a stop at Krispy Kreme Doughnuts to get a box of the glazed variety to bring back home.
One particular Saturday Aunt Fay and I decided to try making our own doughnuts. Aunt Fay, the librarian, found a recipe, brought the ingredients to our house and set up the process. I was designated Chief Assistant and Advisor. While Mama permitted the process she did not consent without protest. She hated a messy kitchen; she didn't like grease splattered everywhere; the process took too long; there would be powdered sugar all over the floor and counter tops, and "there were 'two fools' in the kitchen who didn't know what they were doing in the first place." All of these 'violations' of her kitchen space just annoyed her terribly, but occasionally you did get a hint that she was a bit curious about the whole process. Once or twice she offered a suggestion or asked a question about why we were doing things a certain way.
The process was long and exceeded Mama's tolerance for time and messiness. As we drowned in flour, sugar, grease, and yeast, Mama's complaining intensified. Ultimately, some 5 or more hours later, we finally used up the dough and fried our last batch, and Mama was at her wit's end. I remember our version of doughnuts to be lacking in both taste and appearance compared to the real Krispy Kreme version. I'm not sure if we ever took time to evaluate our experience, but Mama was more than willing to share her evaluation of what she called, "The Doughnut Mess". For months afterward she was still talking about it.
Throughout my childhood as I learned one skill after the other I had to contend with Mama's evaluation of my learning experiences from these dear Aunts. Sometimes the protest came from me as I was 'encouraged' to learn a skill that I had little interest in learning. "Raising Patsy", a phrase Mama used to refer to all my growing and learning process, was not always pleasant or fun, but luckily I had an abundance of very capable Aunts who took over when Mama bailed out of the process on what she called, 'reasons of insanity'.
I think every child should have involved aunts who can teach ignorant, unlearned children skills they never knew they would need to learn in the first place.
patsylawson.com
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