Grandma Edna, Uncle Joe and the Table

Above:  My kin people... my grandma Edna is in the back row in the center. 

Grandma Edna, Uncle Joe and the Table 

Dana Koogler 

Friday September 25, 2020

   My mom's mother Edna, was a beautiful lady and very salty.   She had a temper that was as hot as she was pretty to look at.   She came from a large, close knit family.   They grew up poor, but hardworking.  They tried real hard to take good care of one another and to take care of what they'd worked for.     Grandma told me this story and it was one of the funniest things I ever heard.  

    She worked hard at American Safety Razor and my grandfather worked at DuPont.   Their household was busy and usually full.  It was mostly my grandparents, my mom, and my great grandmother living there at home.   The dining room had a nice antique table.   She told me it stayed piled up with clothing, papers, books, and the like.   She grew weary of clearing the mess and announced to the whole family that she was wore out with it.  She told them if they couldn't quit using the table as a closet and a catch all and use it instead for its intended purpose she was going to do away with it.   They did not listen. Nothing changed so she made good on her word.

   

    She called my uncle Joe to help her.  He had told her he would help her load up the table and they could store it in the basement of his house.  He was an Italian, Catholic married into a family of Baptists from Appalachia.   He married my Aunt Mike for awhile though they eventually divorced.  At the time I think he and Aunt Mike were living in Verona which is a town about five miles away from my grandparents house.   

Above: my Aunt Mary aka Mike who married Joe...she is on the top left, next to her on the far right is Aunt Phyllis, at the bottom center is Aunt Mike's fraternal twin.... Aunt Martha aka Fairy.  

Below:  Joe Abatangelo.. Uncle Joe and his 2nd wife Pat years later.

         They loaded the table onto a homemade trailer made from a truck bed.

They hitched it to the back of Grandma's car.  She got to thinking about it and asked Joe if he minded driving.  She had not towed the trailer before and didn't feel comfortable with it.  He was not much more certain about it, but he agreed to drive.  All the way over to Verona she fussed about the situation and having to store her pretty antique table.   

Above: homemade wagon like the one they used to haul the table.

       They got to a curve on the road near the old Genesco Coat Factory.  It was a big sweeping curve just past the factory.  Out from it was a pasture field.   She caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye.  She quickly turned to look at lo and behold... the wagon passed them on the left.   

      Grandma and Uncle Joe were astonished and gaped open mouthed as they watched the wagon on its own now.  It passed them on the left. Went across the road in front of them at a high rate of speed, hit the ditch where the tounge of the wagon dug into the earth and catapulted the table high and wide into the cow pasture where it shattered to smithereens.  

         Joe pulled the car over at once.   They got out and surveyed the scene in utter disbelief.    Grandma said she laughed, cussed, and cried all at once.  Joe being Catholic with a typical high sense of guilt instilled by his faith... prayed. He prayed for himself. He prayed for Grandma.  He crossed himself and prayed for the table. 

She looked at how he was doing and got even more tickled.  Finally it hit her: This never happened!  She realized it was unwitnessed.   She would just not say anything about it and they'd forget the whole thing.   She told Joe just that and was in the process of swearing him to secrecy when the worst person in the world to find out about it pulled up.  The neighbor Lawrence Chapman pulled over and saw the scene with the table smashed out in the field.  The wagon with the tongue now embedded in the dirt bank.   There was nothing for it. Lawrence went to laughing and teasing.  It was all over with now.  Wont gonna be no keeping it quiet as much as he liked to tease and pick.   He was a jolly man and lived just a mile or so out the dirt road from my grandparents.  I never did hear what granddaddy had to say about it, but he pulled a few stunts over the years too. I imagine he knew better than to say too much.    

     She thought she'd get away with it, but it was not in the cards.