Twenty true stories of an old woman from Gail’s childhood who was the main catalyst that set her direction in life.  The wit and wisdom of this wonderful elderly woman begins with their chance meeting when Gail was lost in the woods and gave her horse full reins to lead them out, right into the meadow surrounding her tumbled down house.  Ma Frattie’s metaphors and parallels of life, told in her rich southern dialect, usually from the rocker on her porch, became Gail’s rich classroom, from which she graduated with honors.  If there is such a thing as heaven and you ever get to go there and ask for her, don’t be surprised to hear, “Sorrie girlie.  Hit’s ah long wait’n line fer tah see ‘er.  Ennyhow, she’s in conference, don’t yah know…up at the big house.”

Ma tossed a peeled tomato in a pot and hit it squarely in its center without looking up or caring one iota about the splashy mess running all over the stove top. She then retrieved her can of Peach snuff from her apron pocket, tilted her head, and filled her left cheek full of the brown powder.  I wanted to know more about her lifetime enemy whose “rare end looks lac two tomcats fight’n inna gunny sack,” so I kept quiet and let Ma spout off all she wanted.  I was getting greatly interested in this feud, and especially in a woman Ma said was “so ugly she’d make ah train take ah dirt road.”

“Where’s this woman live, Ma?”  I questioned.   

“Yuh cain’t git theah from heah,” came her curt reply.

I raised my eyebrows, drew my chair a little closer to her and listened attentively.

8-1/2x5-1/2, b/w art, 55 pages, soft back. $12 Plus Shipping and Handling

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