Well, the first time I met Beverly Kay Ludwig, she pulled my hair! So, then I pulled hers right back! As her Mom (my Grandma) would say "Well, the VERY
idea!" Now, since Beverly nor I was willing to let go, we both started yelling and hollering so badly that we had to be separated and picked up out of the crib.
She was named after George Beverly Shea,
My Mom was Beverly's big sister, and even tho' I was born a full 20 days before Beverly, she, being "the aunt," ranked higher in authority, so she acted like she was the boss of me and my little brother, Danny, who came along a year later. But, actually, Danny and I didn't mind, cuz she was actually our ring-leader and came up with some pretty fun mischief to get into while Grandma was busy cleaning and taking care of a house full of five boys and us, the "little kids."
One morning when we were about four years old, Beverly taught us how to jump on the beds upstairs and shout, "We used to do the Huckle-Buckle! We used to do the Huckle-Buckle! We used to do the Huckle-Buckle!" Danny fell off the bed we were all jumping on, so got up on the bed next to it and continued jumping, laughing and shouting, "We used to do the Huckle-Buckle..." Grandma hollered up the stair well, "Beverlay, stop jumping on those freshly made beds!!" (When Grandma got upset, her words kinda sounded different sometimes, like "Beverlay" instead of Beverly...and if she really, REALLY got upset, we might hear her accidentally let a cuss fly out, "shat!" (Oops, maybe I shouldn't have gone that far with it...sorry.) So, anyway, she'd yell, "Beverlay, stop jumping on those freshly made beds!"
Beverly was also smart and brave! One day she talked her mom,,,my Grandma (who was busy doing the usual ton of laundry) into making us little kids each a half a peanut butter sandwich. So, choffing our sandwiches, Beverly marched Danny and me across the narrow, no-traffic-country-red-dirt road there on the hill, to show us one of her brothers' secret hide-outs. Uncle Spike, and his older brothers, Uncle Duane, and Uncle Francis had pointed their finger at us and told us to NEVER-EVER go over there by those tall poplar trees, or else we might DIE! But Beverly bravely paraded us through a path in the tall grass that towered over our heads 'til ahead lay a small stand of trees. She abruptly stopped and whispered for Danny to run on ahead of us to make sure everything was safe, him being the little 3 year old 'man'. He disappeared into the thicket for one brief minute, then we heard screaming, as he came running back THROUGH us, his hair standing on end, bulging eyes, mouth agape, shrieking at the top of his lungs, headed back to Grandma. I turned to follow him, but Beverly, laughing, grabbed my arm, and said, "No, it's okay, I'll show you." I was scared, but I let her drag me along until we got to a clearing under the trees. I didn't see anything until I spotted a terrifyingly HUGE bleached out cow's head skeleton hanging over the "doorway" staring right down at us! I screamed and took off after Danny, but I could hear Beverly back there laughing her head off.
Danny and I loved staying at Grandma and Grandpa Ludwig's house, on a farm there in Open Brook in Port Allegany, Pennsylvania.
We little kids were warned over and over again to NEVER go into the big deserted cow barn, as we could get hurt. But, Beverly showed us where we could peek through slats in the old weathered boards, "We're just gonna look," she assured us. While Danny and I were "just looking," she went around and slid open a door just a crack, big enough for all of us to sneak in through. The place was cool and eerily dark and cavernous with small beams of sunlight filtering though the shafts of the old wooden walls. Old maroon-colored velvet furniture sat welcomingly scattered around the room on the straw-littered floor. Danny climbed up onto some sort of wooden apparatus that had block pedals which operated like those on a bicycle, except his legs were too short, him being only three years old and all.
Beverly was having fun leaping from couch to chair, chair to couch, back and forth. I investigated the "bicycle" while Danny climbed up into a big cushy, over-stuffed chair and began wildly jumping up and down squealing, "We used to do the Huckle-Buckle, we used to do the Huckle-Buckle!" Then Beverly started shouting, "Bees! BEES! RUN!!" (What?) She was out the door and GONE before we were AND down the path to the house she ran with Danny, now on her heels, both wailing the whole way! I don't remember running or getting stung, but I remember seeing the cloud of bees following them down the hill. (Apparently, Danny's chair had a bees nest in it.)
One evening, as Grandpa sat at his desk, trying to read the newspaper after a hard day's work. Beverly got the idea to sneak down the stair well, poke her head out and say, "BOO!" at him. He feigned horror, which made us little kids, laugh, so, of course we all had to do the same thing...his "horror" waning with each "BOO!". Then Beverly found upstairs an old rubber Halloween mask of devil's hideous face, horns and all, so away down the stairs we all thundered to watch while she "Boo'd" him with that! He did have a more startled reaction, so that fired us up to find more and more things to put on our heads as some kind of mask, then down the stairs, we'd go. Grandpa got less and less entertained by the whole show now, and then, finally, it all came to a screeching halt when Danny came down the stairs with a pair of girl's pink silky underpants on his head. Grandpa just muttered, getting up and heading to the kitchen, "Well, that must smell pretty."
And so, we grew up more like siblings, she being more like a sister than an aunt. I found myself staying at Grandma's house in Colemans Mills, Port Allegany, where she had recently moved, during the school summer vacations, while Danny stayed with our Dad.
Beverly shocked me when we about 8 years old, while Grandma was at work at a local factory, by frying us eggs for breakfast. I didn't know kids could cook! To this day, I never make a really good fried egg without thinking of her and how surprised I was that she knew how to cook. I was really impressed! (I did manage to make the toast.)
I remember long summer walks with "Bev" then, along the sunny/shady old railroad tracks, that no longer had any rails, up to the gas station restaurant for a bag of Wise potato chips and a bottle of coke. On the way, we'd be keeping an eye out in the bushes for a scary guy named Mike Goochy, who might jump out and get us...I guess he lived around there somewhere, but I never did see him. Heard about him on every walk we took, tho'. The name still scares me, kinda. "Mike Goooochy."
Then, there was one of Uncle Spike's best pals, Buddy Doan, (or was that Jimmy Doan?) who was a dreamboat. Oh, didn't Beverly have a crush on that guy when we about 12 years old. He and Uncle Spike must have been about 17 or 18.) She would say, "Ooh, I would hug him and kiss him...I would Marry him! Oh yes I would!" Walking along the rail path, she'd tell me the latest gossip about what he and Uncle Spike had been up to. We decided to walk to the river (a shallow stream) and play in the water, skipping rocks and finding small clams and, YIKES crawfish with real pinchers. And we'd squeal and shriek and fall down in the cool water, cuz the stones were mossy and slippery. "I wish Buddy Doan was here! I would really hug him and kiss him and have him help me walk on these stones...Oops!" Splash! followed by another shriek!
A loud annoyed male voice boomed! "What are you girls doing?! Are you okay??" (Buddy Doan!)
I was saying nothing...I was letting Beverly boldly say everything that was in her heart.
She said",..Uhm...Uhhh...Uhhh...mumble,mumble,mumble."
Buddy growled, "Okay, then shuddup and stop that screaming...I came all the way over here thinking something bad was going on." and he stomped off.
"...Shuddup...?" Oh well, she didn't need him, anyways. Plenty more "dream boats" out there, like the one walking along the street in Buffalo, NY. Grandma and my Mom had taken us on a road trip and we were all having fun and acting silly; windows open, fresh air blowing in. Beverly hollered out the back window at this handsome young fellow, "I LOVE you!" We all giggled. A block later, Grandma had to stop at a redlight. Suddenly the guy's head came into the window about 2 inches from Beverly's face and he sweetly asked, "Did you say something to me?" Beverly's face got beet red.
She said, "Uhm...Uhh...Uhhh mumble, mumble, mumble" She slunk down off the back seat onto the floor and tried to hide. Grandma floored the engine and we left the guy standing there in the street scratching his head. We all laughed about that for years...Beverly, the loudest.
Around that time, Uncle Spike (his real name was Gary Clare Ludwig) had joined the Navy, so we, instead of crowding into Grandma's bed with her as we had when we were littler kids, Beverly and I slept in Uncle Spike's bed. (And...being 12 year olds, YES...we still jumped on his bed, "We used to do the Huckle-Buckle, We used to do the Huckle-Buckle!". Grandma was at work, so she couldn't tell us to stop, but a really bad lightening storm blew in and terrified us, so we stopped! Beverly remembered that electricity was repelled by rubber...told ya she was smart. So, she made us each put on one of Uncle Spike's pea green rubber hunting boots, jump in the bed and hide under the quilts, til the storm passed. So, there we were hunkered down, each with one bare foot, and each with the other foot stuck down into one big old floppy sickly green, hot and sticky, kinda stinky rubber boot while lightening flashed all around trying to get us! It worked tho'! She was right! We didn't get electrocuted.
Another day we were in his room playing records or something when we heard Grandma's car pull into the driveway as, she had just come home from work. Then we could hear her yelling from the back steps, "Beverlay!! BEVERLAY!!
Beverly said nonchalantly, "Oh, she probably fell down and broke her leg." But, that was exactly what happened! She had fallen on the step and broken her leg so badly,that she couldn't ever go back to work. Grandpa had died, so she only had his pension to live on. It was agreed upon by all, that the best course of action was for her and Beverly to move to Olean, live with us and pool their resources, as my dad was having a rough time trying to keep Danny and me out of trouble, as my Mom, trying to work and raise Lori, our "half sister" and Dad working, we essentially had no parental control, so were pretty much running wild. Well, Grandma, having successfully raised seven kids, set Danny and me...and Beverly to rights, right away. She taught us manners and many other things. She inspected our clothing before we left the house and always gave us a kiss and hug before we left to go anywhere and expected a kiss and hug when we got home. Beverly still managed for us to have fun, no matter what. Any time there was a family party with music and dancing, Beverly grabbed my arm and we were off! ...Especially if they played a polka. OH BOY!! We knew how it was supposed to go...two rushed steps forward and two rushed steps back! We'd start those two steps forward, but every time, somebody'd get in our way, so we'd rush the two steps back, stepping on somebody's shoe, or scraping our shoe down their ankle. We'd turn left and rush forward again...right into somebody, followed again, by nearly crippling whoever was behind us. But we loved it! Then, too, pretty soon, we had the whole half of the dancefloor to ourselves, while the crowd of other dancers stayed across the room on their side of the dance floor, kinda dancing and kinda looking over at us.
Ahh, yes, the good old high school days. Even though we had to walk to high school every day in skirts...girls were not allowed to wear pants, EVER, going to school or walking home. Winter days the bank thermometer/clock would read 10 degrees below zero. Our legs were so cold and red that Beverly called them "Lobster Legs" and they looked like it, too.
Then, in study hall, when we were supposed to be studying, she'd be sitting there drawing pictures of me with people skiing down my "ski-jump nose". She got us in trouble one time giggling and making us both laugh, so we had to stay after school for detention. Know what she did? Drew more pictures of animals, or cars or trucks careening down my ski-jump nose. She was a hoot! But the hoot didn't fall far from the tree. Smiling here.
