By Olivene Godfrey

CLOSE MENTAL LINK IN TWINS

Stories about identical are often amazing, but since I have identical twin sisters, I know such stories are often true. I also have twin cousins who seem to be able to recite a host of examples of their ESP powers at work.

Scientists tell us that identical twins, born to the same mother and of the same sex, are born from a single egg cell which separated them into two parts early in its development. And each of the parts became one of the twins.

When my twin sisters were born at our Chattanooga home in the 1930s, droves of people came from miles around to see the tiny identical baby girls. I was four at the time and remember my parents telling me that I had two little sisters instead of the one I had asked for before their birth. I was always very proud of the pretty babies and never felt neglected as I was given plenty of tender loving care as we grew up.

My cousin has said that as infants her twin boys seemed to have a mental link. One would say something and the other one would finish the sentence. I have observed the same thing in my twin sisters.

While most people couldn't tell my sisters apart, as far back as I can remember, I knew which twin was Joan and which was Jeanette. There was something different in the expressions on their faces that tipped me off as to which one I was seeing. And while they have many common interests they each have their own individual personalities. They both have always had fiery tempers, but Jeanette can be a spitfire while Joan is more subdued when they are angry.

Many times my twin sisters have had similar illnesses. And they knew before being told when each gave birth to their children though they lived miles apart. This mental link happens so often that over the years family members have said of the latest event, "Oh, it is the twin thing." Sometimes it is a trivial thing, such as both having highlight streaks put in their hair unaware the other one was doing the same thing.

Our twins have had many happy experiences but have also known great tragedy, such as each twin losing a 17-year-old child to death. And then Jeanette's husband had a brain aneurysm 18 years ago that left him disabled and she has been his caregiver over the years. Joan was caregiver to her husband a number of years as he suffered from Alzheimer's and died in 2000.

The twins are both grandmothers now and each have health problems, but the twin mental link is stile strong and still fascinating to me and others in the family.
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By Olivene Godfrey

WATCH ADVICE FOR OWN GOOD, FOOLISH LANGUAGE--
AND DADDY AND THE RAVEN AND CHOCOLATE SODA.

Most of us have had the experience of having someone tell us something for our “own good”. I don’t know about you people but when someone volunteers to tell me something for my own good, I have to restrain myself from giving them a good rap across the mouth.

But, not being a violent person, I react in a more rational manner. I might be boiling inside but I have never struck anyone under those circumstances - yet! Most of us don’t want to know of malicious gossip or any kind of personal criticism that may have been directed against us. I find constructive criticism painful, even though I try to evaluate it honestly, and often benefit from it. After the first sting of the criticism passes , I try to remember the old proverb that goes, “If you stop every time a dog barks, your road will never end.”

FOOLISH LANGUAGE-- Always being an avid reader and with words the tools of my profession , I find books and articles on the definitions and usage of words interesting.

Now and then, we all use meaningless greetings, usually because we don’t know how or don’t want to plunge right into was is really on our minds. For instance, “watchcha doing?” when we can see perfectly well what a person is doing.. Or, asking a person who is stranded beside a road with a flat tire, “Got a flat?”
We can all think of similar greetings such as asking who has returned from a trip, “ You got back?”

The novel, SWEET DREAMS, by Michael Frayn, is a delight for those who appreciate satire and who can see the humor in those inane greetings we all use. For instance, in the novel two men who have long heard of each other but who have never previously met say, “ I thought you’d look entirely different.” and the reply was, “No…no… I look pretty much like this.”

If you see the humor in that exchange of words, you may share my sense of humor which can be a bit weird, I confess , I prefer subtle humor over slapstick any day. My dad, who was a Methodist preacher until his death, shared my love of words and humor. My parents had three daughters and I think I am the only one who thought Daddy was funny when he would stroll through the house chanting loudly verses from Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven.

This same “Daddy” took me with him to a drugstore one Saturday morning when I was about four and was feeling a bit left out as my mother had just given birth to identical twins. When we arrived at the drugstore, Daddy led me to the soda fountain and ordered a large ice cream soda for me and I can still feel the warm glow I felt as I sipped the soda.

Needless to say, there was never a dull moment at home when I was growing up. In a future column , I will write about my remarkable mother who passed away in 2000, still young at heart at age 92 and talking about buying a computer and , “ getting on that Internet and having fun.”

Please Send Coments To olivene21@netscape.net

POLTERGEIST MIGHT HEX SUPERMARKET AND HOME
Also remembering Big Mama and Big Daddy.

In a newspaper column I wrote a number of years ago, I commented on strange adventures I had been having in a supermarket, such as having a watermelon fall to the floor and burst open as I walked through the produce department and having soda pop bottles fall to the floor when I entered the aisle. In response to that column, a writer friend sent me a note, asking if I’d ever thought of a poltergeist ? He said it is louder than a “glockenspiel” and less pleasant than a “serendipity.”

I knew the word had something to do with the supernatural but wasn’t sure what it meant. I found the word in the Random House dictionary and it means a ghost or spirit making itself known by knockings and sounds. That may explain why for 25 years we have heard a car door slam shut, and the sound seems to come from our driveway but there is never anyone there . Say, do you suppose my favorite supermarket as well as my house may be haunted? Or, do I have my own personal ghost following me around? That might be the case considering the things that happen to me and not just on Halloween.

Thinking about the supernatural reminded me of my maternal grandfather, Big Daddy Green. He and Big Mama had told friends and relatives that having enjoyed life’s pleasures and shared its sorrows for so long, they dreaded being separated more than they did death. My grandfather was an attorney in Tennessee who quit his law practice to become a circuit- rider Methodist preacher. Then, in later life, he resumed his law practice on a limited basis. Being absent-minded by nature, one day he stepped into the path of a car and was seriously injured.

During the days he was barely clinging to life, my grandmother, who had high blood pressure, was constantly by his side. One night she was persuaded by family members to rest a while. Shortly afterward, a daughter checked on her and Big Mama had died in her sleep. A few hours later, Big Daddy died.
While this was a crushing blow to our family, everyone remembered the many times they had heard them say they wanted to leave this world together. We all knew it was what they wanted and that somehow seemed to console us.

And remembering Big Daddy’s superstitions and fear of thunderstorms has been a topic of family conversations over the years. When he rode his horse to his churches at night, he would often report to family that he had seen a ghost dressed in white hovering above the road near a cemetery. Then, during a thunderstorm at night, he would awaken the entire family and insist they get dressed. He asked the females to remove bobby pins from their hair to avoid having lightning strike their heads. Big Daddy’s fear was passed on to his daughters but, fortunately, my three sisters and I escaped that fear.

By Olivene Godfrey

By Olivene Godfrey

After retiring from newspapering , which included writing a daily newspaper column for ten years, I spent several years writing novels. Finally, I was “burned out” for the first time since I wrote, produced and directed a play for neighborhood children to perform in my father’s barn when I was nine years old and already had a driving compulsion to write.

I went around with a note book and pencil in my hands during my youthful years and would interview anybody at the drop of a hat. I remember my short, spry grandmother who always wore long dresses sitting on the porch swing at the family farm in middle Tennessee giving me funny answers to my questions when I interviewed her, sending both of us into gales of laughter.

I thought my writing days were over and then my son, Barry, bought a computer and I started exchanging E-mail messages with my sister at West Palm Beach. The letters were the high point of my day as by then I was the caregiver of my beloved husband, Ralph, who died August 20, 2002, and when he died a part of me died with him. He had Parkinson’s, prostate cancer and mild dementia. It was heartbreaking to watch him lose his keen mind and strong body. Taking care of Ralph was a labor of love for me, and for Barry, but it took its toll emotionally and physically, on both of us. On July, 7, 2002, I collapsed and had pneumonia and was hospitalized a week and took weeks to recover at home. I also came down with a severe case of the shingles during this time.

I have mourned Ralph for nearly a year now and am only now emerging into the real world again. Sometimes I feel like Rip Van Winkle. I try to remember the happy times I shared with Ralph. One of our more zany experiences was when Ralph stripped down an old Chevy , leaving only the front seat, steering wheel and dash. We used it for a while as our only form of transportation and our friends were amused when we drove into the church parking lot in our Sunday finery, me with my white gloves and fancy hat, and Ralph wearing a suit and tie.

Then, when we were still young, we moved from northwest Georgia to Florida where we lived for a few years a carefree lifestyle and best of all our only child was born while we were there.

Still, I had not regained my desire to write. Then, Barry recently introduced me to the Blogger columns. As I read some of the columns, I began to feel a spark of interest to write again. And in the future, I will share memories of my family who Barry says, “are straight out of a Southern Gothic novel”., as well as musings from autiful foothills of the northwest Georgia mountains.