Arkansas Humor with Ed Burns

March 9, 2010 by danfeuer
Filed under Bay Views

“Spoiled Rotten”

I have recently been accused of “Spoiling my grandson rotten.” When you use the word “rotten” with any preface it makes it sound bad. When one looks at the word “spoil” in its context it’s not so bad. It simply means to Pamper or Indulge, the opposite of neglect. In that case I am guilty.

If it means letting my grandson do pretty-much as he wishes, if it means buying him many of the things he asks for, if it means taking him places that he asked to go (like play-world or to Walmart toy shopping or golfing in the summer), if it means seldom saying no to him, then I am guilty.

In today’s society spoiling a child almost always has to do with spending money. As I reflect back I confess that I was also spoiled as a child and young adult but it had nothing to do with money. There was not much money available back then but there were other ways to spoil a child.

My grandmother and my uncle spoiled me and I loved it. My mother’s youngest brother lived at home with my widowed grandmother. They lived not too for down the gravel road from us so I spent a lot of my time with them. I’ve often said that my uncle taught me how to hunt, fish, drink beer and chase girls. What else could one ask from an uncle? He also bought me my first shotgun, he often took me to town and taught me to shoot pool and play dominoes. I believe he taught me how to drive a tractor and later a truck. People said that he was spoiling me. If so, I loved it.

My grandmother had other ways of spoiling me, for example: During winter months it was cold in the old farmhouse, others had to sit at the table to eat, cold or not. She would open the oven door on her wood stove and sat my plate on the oven door, allowing me to sit and eat in the warmth of the oven. I was the only one allowed to do that.

When my grandmother would make chicken and cornbread dressing in a large round roasting pan, the pan had a small hole on one side so it could be hung in the wall when not in use. My cousins and I liked the gizzard, so we would dig in trying to find the gizzard. You could not see it so it was a matter of luck as to who found the gizzard first, so they thought. The truth is, my grandmother told me that she always put the gizzard near the little hole in the big pan, so naturally I always had the gizzard.

We had no indoor plumbing so we were required to us the “out house” which was a short distance from the back of the house. During winter nights when it was cold we had to run out to the toilet before going to bed, needless to say, it was cold. During the coldest night, especially if it was snowing/raining, I was allowed to slip out the back door, stand at the edge of the porch and pee-pee. My grandmother would not allow anyone else to do that. Once my uncle tried it and he was smacked with a broom. Does that mean I was “spoiled?”

On the rare occasion when it snowed in the Delta my grandma would make me a small bucket of snow cream, something like homemade ice cream. I do not recall anyone getting to eat the special treat except me. She made it “just for me.” Back then that made me feel special and yes, a little spoiled.

I realize that the above mentioned does not seem very important in today’s modern times when we buy our kids hi-tech gadgets to spoil them. But back then they were important to me and made me fill special. I believe it helped me to grow up with a lot of self-confidence.

So you see there are many ways of treating a person special (spoiling if you wish) and I see nothing wrong with that. So if you have someone special in your life, go ahead and spoil him or her. I hope the editor spoils me by printing this.

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