"Crazy" Aunt Margaret

As I have written elsewhere on this site, I spent some time in the late 1960s in Georgia and the Carolinas. Eventually, I married a “Southerner” (we have been divorced for many, many years, now) but, I sometimes remember my ex-husband’s family back there with a chuckle. . .

I suppose it was because I was -- according to the general Southern consensus -- wonna them crazies from Calley-forney, myself, that I immediately felt an affinity for my ex-husband’s Crazy Aunt Margaret. She was one of the few people in my husband’s family that I liked, almost from the beginning. . .

Margaret had gained the “crazy” qualifier stemming from an incident when she was still a teenager:

One day, Margaret found a baby bird on the front lawn that had fallen out of its nest. She went straight to the garage and dragged out an extension ladder amidst catcalls from the men of the family who were standing on the front porch telling her that her actions were useless and the mother bird would never accept the baby back once it had been touched by human hands.

Margaret, however, ignored the nay-sayers and returned the baby bird to its nest -- but not before she had been branded for life as “Crazy Marge”.

For my part, I never felt that what she’d done was particularly crazy. It seemed to me to be the act of a kind, gentle and caring soul with all the best intentions. But the brand that she earned that day was still in place when I arrived on the scene, some 20 or 30 years after the fact.

Perhaps it was because of the brand “crazy” she’d worn most of her life, Aunt Margaret was the closest thing to a free-spirit that I ever saw during my time in the South. She always spoke her mind -- regardless of the consequences -- and gave the impression that she feared nothing.

Tales of her bold exploits were numerous in family lore -- like the day that my ex-husband’s uncle, Uncle John (Margaret’s older brother), finally gave in and agreed to teach his younger sister how to drive. . .

According to my ex-husband, he’d hopped into the back seat on that fateful day just to “go along for the ride” and it was only later that he wished he’d given the matter considerably more thought. . . 

John started out the lesson in an extremely calm tone, I was told, assuming his most “professional demeanor” while enumerating each of the steps – slowly, politely and distinctly -- to his sister:

“Alright, Margaret, now, while depressing the friction brake pedal with your right foot, turn the key until you hear the engine start,” he told her good-naturedly.

 “Very good,” he praised, “Now, place the shift lever into the ‘drive’ position and then remove your right foot from the friction brake pedal and slowly depress the accelerator pedal with that same foot.”   

With that, Margaret apparently dropped the shift-lever abruptly into “drive” and stomped on the gas pedal -- sending it all the way to the floorboard.

In a cloud of burning rubber, the car lunged forward before anyone had time to react and off they roared down the country road, at full tilt, with Crazy Aunt Margaret at the wheel!

The G-force immediately flattened my husband into the back seat -- rendering him unable to move as he watched the color drain from his uncle’s face as reflected in the rear view mirror.

Struggling to maintain his “professional driving instructor” demeanor, John said -- slowly through clenched teeth, “Margaret, remove your foot from the accelerator pedal and depress the friction brake.”

Staring intently ahead, Margaret continued to charge down the middle of the two-lane road at blinding speed as vehicles ahead of them were forced to the shoulder by oncoming traffic swerving to avoid being hit head-on.

“Margaret!” John said, elevating both the volume and the sense of urgency in his voice, “Remove your foot from the accelerator pedal and engage the friction brake!”

There was no response.

“Marge!” he said loudly as telephone poles and fence posts whizzed past in a blur, “Disengage the accelerator and depress the brake!”

The wild ride continued. . .

“Hit the brakes, Marge!” John screamed in desperation, “Marge! Hi-hit the-hi-hit-hi-hit the -- HIT THE D********MMMMMMN BRAAAAAAAKE!”

With that, Aunt Margaret stomped on the brake pedal with both feet, causing the vehicle to go into an uncontrolled spin.  It seemed, my husband said, as though it took an hour for the car to come finally, mercifully, to a jarring halt and, miraculously, the vehicle never left the blacktop but remained right side up during the entire maneuver.

The Further Adventures of Crazy Aunt Margaret:

Margaret had only one child, a daughter. One day, the story went, her daughter returned from school crying and visibly upset:

“What’s the matter with you, child?” Margaret inquired of her daughter.

“Oh, Mama!” the girl sobbed, “The kids at school are so mean to me!”

“What are they doing, Honey?”

“They tease me all the time,” the girl sniveled, “And they make fun of my hair and my clothes.”

“Well, now, Sweetie” Margaret soothed, “You shouldn’t let them get to you. Kids are cruel sometimes but they’ll get bored eventually and pick on somebody else. Our Savior, Jesus Christ, said ‘forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do’ and we’re good, Christian people. . . The Bible tells us we should ‘turn the other cheek’.”

“B-but, Mama,” the girl whined, “They say other mean things about you, too.”

“What do they say about me, Honey?”

“Well. . .” her daughter sniffed as she wiped her tears, “They say you ‘n my Daddy weren’t married when I was conceived.”

Grabbing a poker from fireplace, Margaret jumped immediately to her feet and shouted, “We’ll meet ‘em at the COUNTY LINE!”

(Edited 06/18/07 to include groups on distribution.)