The Hill Of Beans

Mother always says that I will never amount to a hill of beans. I thought to myself, who wants to be a hill of beans? There are better things to become. To drive her point home she would hit me with an inexpensive stick. As time went by she ran out of sticks so she had to resort to other items around the house to reinforce her will and to educate me into the way of the bean

I became irresponsible. The education was not taking. Mother was wasting her precious time on the beatings that only hurt her hands and destroyed valuable property in the process.

For some unknown reason I had developed a taste for the flavor of milk. I acquiesced to that interest when I was informed that milk cost money. Being guilty of such extravagances had consequences. I had to be punished. Mom came down on me like a ton of bricks for that activity and because I was responsible for so many kitchen utensils being broken over my head. I had to go out and get a job to replace and pay for all the damaged goods and things consumed.

Mom didn't like it when she had to break her favorite broom over my back so that was it for her. Under the best of circumstances mom was hostile and out of control. She promised to kill me. I told her to go ahead. I didn't want to become a hill of beans anyway. Violence solved everything. Violence was the solution to all problems in her life in her estimation. Life was simple. Life was good.

As a general rule mom would promise to beat me until I was, “black and blue.” I did not wish to become black and blue or a hill of beans for that matter so I would run away on such occasions. I ran up the stairs and under the bed. She followed after me rapidly. She could not fit under the bed since she was larger than me. Mothers are simply built that way. It was a large doubled size bed so she would have to stretch out fiercely with a guard rail acquired from an adjoining room bunk bed.

From there she would proceed to poke and jab at me until she could reach and attack flesh and bone precisely to her liking, screaming out loudly, red faced, the names of all the saints, the Holy Trinity and lets not forget; Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I reminded her that taking the lords name in vein was a sin. That infuriated her more ferociously into a super hyper active thermonuclear volcanic high pitched rage. If I remember correctly, she was barking like a dog, foaming at the mouth, shooting out obscenities like bullets from a machine gun and vowed to strangle me to death. She failed on that particular occasion.

Years later she became ill. She became sad because she was too weak and unable to hurt people. Soon after that she died. Whiskey and cigarettes were her best friends. They stayed with her to the bitter end. After we buried her the sun came out.

I forget her name but I did get a job. Now I have money to buy things. Things happen for the best. Perhaps they happen for a reason. I still drink milk and love to make chili for everyone. I use the big red kidney beans from the hills of Ecuador.

Authors Note: (In reality I loved my mother.....and yes... I do remember her name. She was a sweet woman.)

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