Woman Tough

Not too long ago, I was talking to an old family friend and he mentioned that my oldest sister, Brenda, scared him.  Seems she always has.  I laughed but I understood.  I remember one time she chased my brother, Harold Wayne, with a broom.  Not just out of the house, but out of the yard and at least a fourth of a mile down the road.  The whole neighborhood knew about it.  (Don’t feel too sorry for him.  He was definitely a practical joker.) 

It brought to mind one of my mother’s favorite stories.  She had three sisters and when they were just girls, there was a neighbor boy that would bully them as they walked home from school.  He’d hit them with sticks, throw rocks at them, knock their books out of their hands; that kind of stuff.  One of them would invariably end up crying.  It was a daily occurrence. 

Now Granny Doucette was a practical woman and tough to boot.  She got tired of it and said ‘there are four of you and you’re going to let one boy bully you? (Mom did say he was fairly large.)  Next time he does that, all four of you beat the tar out of him and he’ll leave you alone’.

So, the next day they did just that.  When he started in, they all picked up sticks and beat the tar out of him.  Crying, he ran straight to his house.  There was only one problem, Granny just happened to be visiting his momma at the time.  He ran in the house hollering about the Wilson girls beating him up. (There was no denying someone had beaten him up.)  Embarrassed (and handling it as only an adult would), she called the girls in and asked them why they had done it.  Being children, they answered truthfully ‘because you told us to’.

I would have loved to have been a fly on that wall.

I started thinking about the women I have been influenced by my whole life.  Great Granny Conroe, who came to Texas in a covered wagon.  Doucette, who was married to a come and go man who mostly went until the last time she told him not to come back.  Working two jobs and taking in wash to raise four stair step girls by herself until she met Tom Doucette.  Granny McClendon, who raised five kids while dealing with an alcoholic husband and was a car hop into her sixties.  Great aunts, aunts, sisters, cousins and friends.  They were and are tough ladies raised with the attitude of you just do what you’ve got to do.

I recently read a post that said ‘I have a sister and I’m not afraid to use her’(@rottenecards).  I do have a sister, three of them who will lock arms with me any time I need them.  And behind them will be a whole host of women who have our back.

And I’m not afraid to use them.