Memoirs of a Hillbilly

“My mom used to be really good friends with John Travolta’s niece,” my oldest stepdaughter told me today on the way to a soccer game.

“Oh, really?” I said. “Wow. Was that when she lived in California?”

“No,” she said. “It was here. They were in the same comedy improv group together.”

“Do you remember watching her perform?” I asked. “You were really young then, weren’t you?”

“I saw her perform a lot,” she said.

“Weren’t you so proud that that was your mom on stage?” I asked. “I would have thought that was so cool.”

“I wasn’t really proud,” she said. “I was just used to it. But one time, she performed at a pizza place and I thought the pizza workers were really cool.”

I laughed. “My mom used to be in a washboard band,” I said.

“A washboard band?”

“Yeah, like someone played the wooden spoons and someone rattled corn in a can or something and they all wore overalls,” I said. “And my mom played the washboard. And they played at my school once and I remember thinking I was the coolest person in the whole school because that woman playing the washboard was my mom.”

“That’s interesting,” 17 said, stifling a giggle.

“And then I have this memory of my dad making moonshine at my town’s annual festival,” I continued. “There was a still and a bunch of guys wearing overalls and serving it to people, and I’m sure it was fake,” I said, “but they actually had the police come out and pretend to arrest them and they handcuffed my dad while everyone watched. And afterward, I remember trying to stand really close to him because I wanted everyone to know that that guy wearing overalls and making moonshine? The one who got to sit in the back of the patrol car? That was my dad.”

I thought for a minute. “But then I stood too close and he accidentally burned me with his cigarette. Whoa.” I shook my head. “That was totally repressed until now!”

And suddenly, I realized something profound.

I have one very fucked up memory.