Queen's Line Krazy Aunt Katie

 

I haven't written in quite a while because, well, I just couldn't think of anything funny or heartwarming, and that's what I like to reminisce about most. Or weather events. All farm or small community related, of course. But then something just came to me out of the blue yesterday. Well, someone: my Aunt Katie. 

There's no putting this nicely; Aunt Katie was bat crap crazy. No point sugar-coating it. Her roof just wasn't nailed on right. She was Mom's side of the family. Mom's second oldest sister. Now, Mom's side of the family had its issues, and one of its particular problems I found out about might explain why my own elevator doesn't go quite to the top, but I think I'll leave that one alone for now. 

Quite a common thread in Olde Tyme crazy people stories is their singularity. Not their individuality; no, they are generally decidedly one-off individuals, and we are usually rather thankful for that. No, I mean the state of being matrimonially single. Is that an actual term? Well, for the sake of argument, let's say it is for now. Oh yeah: 'solitariness'. I guess that's the word I was looking for. Crazy people typically don't get married. Not because they don't want to, mind you. It's just because they're crazy. Who wants to spend their one earthly life with a crazy person? So, while they may want to be married, people in their right minds don't want to marry them. Which leads to a secondary equation: if sane people don't want to marry crazy people, then who does? Answer: other crazy people. Now you've got a real problem. 

The first and the last reference in the previous paragraph wasn't Aunt Katie's situation. She somehow had been married but was now a widow. Her dead husband's name was Jack. He was legendary. Well, with her, anyway. I never got any sense from anyone that Jack was even slightly crazy. He seemed to be an everyday ordinary chap who led an everyday ordinary life. Except for the fact of being married to Beachburg's round the bend recluse. I never met him. He had died dead long before I was born alive. For some reason, whenever his name comes to mind, the strange combination of words, 'Grateful Dead' arrives in lockstep with it. I wonder where that comes from? 

Anyhow, Mom had a bunch of sisters. No two were anywhere near alike. The two youngest, Mom, ('Dolly'), and Aunt Eunice ('Nunie') looked a lot alike, and the next oldest, my Aunt Pansie, looked a little like the two of them, but taller and not as delicate. The others didn't look anything like them. Or each other. Next oldest would be Aunt Katie, then Aunt Susie, then Aunt Mary, then Aunt Flo. 

My by far, runaway favorite, from either side of the family was Aunt Pansie from Sudbury. Oh, I absolutely adored her. That just can't be overstated. She was without question the life of the party. She was always laughing and telling stories so funny she herself just laughed nearly all the way through them until she was laughing so helplessly and breathlessly she could hardly finish. You usually didn't understand the last couple of sentences of the story including the punchline but it didn't matter because you were already laughing so hard you couldn't breathe either. Laughter is contagious, and hers was positively infectious. 

Besides her sense of humour, Aunt Pansie made the world's greatest pancakes. Well, maybe they weren't the world's greatest pancakes, because they were the only pancakes I had ever eaten, but they were definitely out of this world delicious. I would positively pester her when she came down to make me pancakes. I don't think I really had to bug too hard, though, because she genuinely seemed to like making them for me. So it was probably the admiration and appreciation she was wicking up on the way to rewarding me by 'giving in' to the stupendous event of her actually whipping them up for me one glorious morning of her usually almost week long visit. Mom always told me to not pester Aunt Pansie for pancakes probably because she was chagrined to be busted for never making them herself. I weathered her scorn and let it slide because Aunt Pansie's pancakes were worth walking through fire or on broken glass for. Maybe I should write about Aunt Pansie some time, but this is about Anut Katie... I mean Aunt Katie. 

After Jack departed for whatever reason, Aunt Katie stayed in their home on the southeastern edge of Beachburg. She lived on a triangular patch of land between the road, the railroad tracks, and (fortunately) her only land-bordering neighbour. The tracks ran right behind her house. Well, her outhouse, to be more exact. Across the tracks towards the narrow point of her property was the feed mill, which likely would have been the main employer in the village at that time.

 Aunt Katie was short, toothless, and almost as round as a beach ball. She always wore an old dress and an apron with an equally old sweater. She had no electricity. She did have plumbing of a fashion; cold water, because the water mains in Beachburg went past her place. Her perfectly sane son Edward actually managed to get it installed before her insanity ran him off all the way to Yukon, Whitehorse. I have this vague recollection of her having a toilet in a closet, but being too paranoid to use it, hence the outhouse. The mental image of the things bouncing around her cranial cavity while the train went by with her on the one-holer makes me snicker and snort to myself. I have to be careful and not let something like that come to mind in mixed company or they'll think I'm as crazy as her. 

No, electricity was the boogeyman himself, so no amount of encouraging her to get it to ease her life gained any traction with her. If it had any effect at all it was to make her more wary of the encourager. My Aunt Flo was the female rock of that family. Her head was screwed on tight and sound and no foolishness whatsoever came forth out of it. Her trying to reason with and talk some sense into Aunt Katie only got her run off the unkempt, overgrown property with a pitchfork. No, I am not making that, or any of this up. Or embellishing one single, solitary thing. This is the way it was: everything with a sideways skew through a red tint. That was Aunt Katie: krazy as a bedbug. 

Aunt Flo lived barely a quarter of a mile away and drove a car and was entirely self sufficient and would have been a tremendous help to Aunt Katie, but, no, that was not to be. So Dad was it for her.

Simply put, Dad was a man of charity. If someone needed something, Dad was their Horn of Plenty. Always. We were very modest in bearing, but the Lord provides for providers, and He always saw Dad through to do what he did best: help others. Dad, being Dad, quiet natured, understanding, and wise, didn't try to influence Aunt Katie very much on anything. He just wisely let her be herself, and worked around it to be the best help he could be to her. I honestly think she would have froze or starved to death without Dad. Nobody could bear her paranoid, delusional insanity. And volatility; if she would take a pitchfork to her own sister, nobody was safe. But kind, gentle, understanding, Christian charitable Dad, being the way he was, gained her next to impossible trust.

She didn't trust her own brothers and sisters, but she somehow implicity trusted her Johnny-Come-Lately brother-in-law. 

Many Saturdays would see Dad and I driving into the two massively overgrown tracks up beside Aunt Katie's decidedly unwelcoming, slightly foreboding, darkened, barn-shaped, brick sided house. Those tracks were probably solely Dad's, because, other than her son, Edward, no one else was welcome. Aunt Katie would give Dad money, and we would go shopping for groceries for her. I have no doubt that she wouldn't understand inflation very well, and, to keep that from causing a flareup, Dad would just pay the rest and keep quiet about it. Or he presented the receipt for every cent. He would have known how to manage it. He picked up her mail at the Post Office, and likely helped her pay her bills and mailed them back in, and saw to whatever else she needed at the time or in the foreseeable future. Her house always had the deep scent of kerosene lamps burning. Dad would service her lamps when we were there to make sure she had the most light available and not suffocate herself in the small area of house she allotted to herself. It was bare bones in the extreme. Just a spindly kitchen table set against the wall in a corner, because, goodness knows, nobody was ever allowed to eat a meal with her. A few worn wooden chairs, I think a bench at the door, and the black and white wood cookstove completed the furnishings. A few coathooks on the wall near the door, and that was about it. Oh - and her window to the world: a battery operated plastic AM radio. It was kept on the kitchen table with the kerosene lamps. The atmosphere was stark and severe, and altogether self-imposed. The one fortunate thing was she was never cold. That cookstove effortlessly heated the house, and you were far more likely to be hot than cold.

Dad would see to having a dump truck load of dry firewood delivered for her in the early fall and most likely be in attendance at the time to keep her from attempting to run the entirely innocent and unsuspecting deliveryman through with her ever-handy pitchfork.

A few times she let Dad cut the grass around her house as he was always concerned about the fire hazard it presented. That was definitely always an improvement. I think she considered the long grass uninviting to others, therefore key to her property security. I don't know. She would have had her reasons, and you most likely didn't want to find out.

Because I was Dad's son, I somehow had her ever-so-scarce confidence as well. Dad would drop me off to throw the firewood in to her cellar window to be piled and dry for the winter. She heated the part of the house she did with that black and white enamel cookstove. Dad would take down and clean the stovepipes once or twice every season to prevent a chimney fire and carefully reinstall them. He had the patience of Job with her. In my crusty adulthood, I would never suffer such needless hardship and inconvenience more than a tenth as well, and would likely have wound up on the receiving end of her trusty pitchfork, but Dad's gentle tactfulness always kept the peace. Even then, as a little kid, when I would question her obvious insanity and self-defeating mannerisms to him, Dad would softly admonish me: "Now, now, Little Man: she is not like the rest of us, and we just have to understand that and let it be". He always reminded me in the car on the way to just accept things the way they were and not add to the problem by questioning her about anything. His quiet wisdom, I have no doubt, lengthened and brightened that troubled lady's life in untold fashion. The Lord richly blesses selfless stewards such as Dad, and I imagine the pains he uncomplainingly took for someone thusly challenged - and challenging - have their amazing and eternal reward. 

Edward became a very successful developer out West. He would come home every so many Christmases, and he would humbly thank Dad for taking such good care of his exceedingly difficult and burdensome Mom. Edward looked like Elvis Presley with the same solid, handsome good looks and hair (minus the big wave), with a hint of Buddy Holly with his black, thick-rimmed glasses. He had a deep, rich, melodious voice, and I'm sure he would have been a great singer. I thought the world of Edward, and maybe it was because he obviously thought the world of my Dad: his Uncle John. 

Living a virtually completely solitary life certainly did Aunt Katie's already twisted mind no favours. She overheard neighbours talking about her on the cold water pipe. Her tea kettle once famously told her to "Shut your damn mouth!" Such talk out of a kettle was positively scandalous, and we never forgot it. I often wondered what it was that Aunt Katie said to have her kettle respond in such an rude, usurping way? I'm sure other things in her house had their say, but none with such language. Shocking...

While I was throwing in firewood one fall Saturday afternoon, one of the neighbour lads my age came onto the property and we made fast friends. He was a nice kid. Nothing wrong with him at all. I'm sure his parents would have had a fit if they knew he ventured onto Krazie Katie's place with all that entailed. Alas, Aunt Katie must have heard our voices through the basement window up the stairs into the kitchen and came flying out and chased him off in no uncertain verbal terms. Then she sternly warned me he was the son of the devil. I didn't believe he was bad. I was young enough to listen, but old enough not to be fooled. I was just embarrassed, and reminded of what Dad had often told me. I was saddened at the loss of someone I really figured would become a great friend. 

One of the things I have never been able to figure out is how Aunt Katie almost always had ice cream on hand with no electricity. She would disappear down the cellar steps and shortly, triumphantly return with a carton of ice cream and carefully dish out a few precious spoonfulls of it to me. I never saw where she kept it. She didn't seem to be gone long enough to even get downstairs. It remains a mystery to me. How she kept it is beyond me. I've been saying she was crazy; I never said she was stupid. 

Another one of the things that didn't fit was her living room. While the rest of her house was drab, spartan, and dreary, her living room would take anyone totally by surprise. It was a parlour, really. It was large, with rich patterned wallpaper, beautiful carpetry, and was lavishly furnished in ornately carved, very high quality wood furniture with deep, luxurious, red velvet upholstery. There was an equally ornate, tall, round, imposing black and chrome wood stove in there to heat it in deep comfort as well. The overall effect was just stunning; completely out of place and totally unexpected in such a modest home. But she never used any of it. It just sat there, the way it likely was nearly fifty years ago when that elegant, sumptuous furniture and magnificent, opulent wood stove was new. Entering that room wasn't just like walking into a different house, it was like crossing over to a different part of town. Or stepping into the First Class lounge of an ocean liner of the Classic Age. There was an upstairs to the house as well, but I never got to see it. Aunt Katie, in her all-pervading eccentricity and near-Amishness, didn't avail herself of that, either. She slept on a barren cot in a long closet off the kitchen behind the cookstove. I wonder if the upstairs was as fancy as her living room. I'll never know, but the fancy wallpaper went up the stairs out of sight so it certainly does spur the imagination to look back on it. She was full of secrets or mysteries. Maybe unspoken, buried tragedies that tormented her mind into the state I witnessed. Nobody ever told me so I just don't know.

Sometimes I picture her lighting a fire in that wonderful wood stove and easing herself into one of those massive, superbly comfortable armchairs, soaking up the ambiance of that grand room, and just sitting there quietly, remembering what once was or could have been. Allowing herself a secret measure of luxury and repose. There were ashes in that stove, but you can't tell how old ashes are, so who knows? I like to think it happened.

Time went on. I did my best to get out of going to her place as I got older because I was embarrassed to be associated with her and her being so bananas. I have always been afraid craziness is contagious. Now I am embarrassed to admit I was ever so shallow and selfish. She needed assistance and support in the worst way of anyone I have ever known and all I tried to do was get out of it. Sitting here writing this and looking back on the time so long ago, I am ashamed of my shortcoming to her. I was one of the less than a handful she trusted.

Dad never let her down. He saw to her every need right til the end. There is no way she would have survived as long as she did without him. No possible way. She had burnt all of her bridges and, other than her son so far away, he was the last and only one left. But because he was God's blessing to her, he was made of inflammable stuff. 

When Aunt Katie passed, Edward of course flew home. Aunt Pansie's son, John, brought her down from Sudbury. Nobody called him John, though. We all knew him as Sonny. Like my Mom, Vivian, was 'Dolly', John was 'Sonny'. I don't know why the family did that but they did. Being his first cousin, Sonny had Edward's same looks, coupled with his Dad, my Uncle Gordon's, deep furrowed brow like James Dean. He wore his thick black hair longish, and slicked back. Sonny always dressed in a black leather jacket, a white tshirt with his smokes tucked in, and dark blue jeans with leather boots with the buckles left unfastened so they jingled as he walked in his brooding, hunched manner. There was nothing put on about Sonny. He was Kool, man. He was the Real Deal. I may have thought the world of Edward, but I practically idolized Sonny. He just oozed Kool from every pore. Even though they were my first cousins, due to my parents ages when they had me, Sonny and Edward were a whole generation older than me. So they were more like Uncles than cousins, and were awarded that same level of respect. Sonny had three sons of his own, my second cousins; Jeff, Danny, and John junior. Danny is my age. We all got along great when we were together. All my first cousins are Aunt and Uncle age, and all my second cousins are my age. It's a little strange for other people, but it's all I've ever known. 

While Edward's Mom was unfortunately by far the most crazy, Sonny's Mom, Aunt Pansie, was by far the most fun. And she birthed my coolest cousin. 

I owe the only time I ever drove a Cadillac to Sonny. The funeral home in Pembroke was somehow short a driver to take the limousine back to town, so it was left to Sonny to return it. He told me to come with him. Any excuse to spend time with Sonny was good with me, so I was happy to go along. To go for a cruise with him in a big black Caddy was just icing on the cake. I was a little taken aback when he casually tossed the keys to me and said, "You drive, Dan". Not many people in my life are allowed to call me 'Dan', but Sonny could have called me 'Muck' and that would have been cool with me. I was 19 years old, and offered the chance to drive a brand new black Caddy limo that wouldn't fit in the average garage, and cost nearly as much as a house, and Sonny without a thought trusted it to me. He was that cool. That big boat was like piloting an inflatable sofa in a swimming pool it rode so soft and quiet. The hood was bigger than a billiard table. You sunk into the plushness of the seats. Or, they absorbed and assimilated you into them. And I, for twenty five glorious minutes, got to feel like a million bucks. I'd never driven a Cadillac limousine before or since, but the memory of the one time I did I owe to Sonny. And, directly and indirectly, to my crazy Aunt Katie. Her self-imposed, austere, bare bones living contrasted in an almost indescribable way in the interior of that shiny new limousine. Any car I ever drove and this car were like her kitchen and her living room.

As often is the case with the passing of someone like Aunt Katie, there is now not a single physical thing left to tell the tale of her existence. Her house is gone, her outhouse is gone, the overgrown tire tracks are gone. Even the railroad tracks are gone. There are new houses there, and there is no overgrowth; it is all now neatly and tidily cut. She only lives on in the memories of those of us who knew her, and, as wacky, kooky, and off her rocker as she was, we were enriched by the uniqueness of her character.