Get My Room Back

I’m fixing to get my room back.

I remember back in the late fifties when Fats Domino had a new song out.

The first line went: “I’m walking to New Orleans, I got my suit case in my hand.”

I’m not totally sure what that song was all about, but maybe Old Fats had a premonition of things to come. Maybe he had a girl friend named Katrina who he was visiting with and had overstayed his welcome. People do that you know, overstay their welcome.

It was right after that song came out that a terrible tornado came through and tore up a lot of things. One of them was my Uncle Billy Earl and Aunt Ester’s neighborhood. That storm blew their trailer clear into the next county.

The only reason they survived was because they had all gone fishing and had pulled the truck underneath the bridge when the storm hit.

They lost everything except my uncle’s barbeque grill, which they found lodged up in a pecan tree. One of my four cousins spotted it just as they were pulling out on the way to our house.

They made room for it on the back of the truck and pulled into our driveway just before dark.
I remember my daddy telling them they could stay as long as they needed, and I also remember my momma giving him a real dirty look as she passed out the quilts.

Of course my aunt and uncle took my room, and I had to move into the small spare bedroom with all four of my cousins. Let me tell you, it was mighty tight in there.

Uncle Billy Earl set his grill up in the back yard, and for two weeks he proceeded to cook chicken wings and ribs, while he drank adult beverages all day and into the night. Aunt Ester and my cousins took over the rest of the house.
Finally, my momma asked Uncle Billy Earl when he planned to start looking for a job. He replied that he was partially disabled, had a bad back, and wasn’t able to go back to work for a while yet.

The very next day my momma moved all their stuff into the garage and told them they could sleep and eat there until Uncle Billy Earl’s back got better, or he got a job, whichever came first.

I don’t know which one of those happened, but it had to have been one of them because they were gone the next morning. They left a note which thanked us and said they were fixing to head for New Orleans.

At least they weren’t walking I thought, as I started fixing to move back into my room.