CHAPTER ONE

My mother, Rheua-Nell, was five feet and one half inch tall. She always included that one half inch. (Hey, if you got it, flaunt it.) Bright and talented in music and dance, she won a Charleston contest when she was sixteen. Had she been younger, I suspect, my grandfather, Pee-Paw, would've soundly whipped her with his razor strop. He raised his family in a strict Southern Baptist tradition; no dancing allowed. Shortly thereafter, still sixteen, she graduated valedictorian of her high school class and went off to Dallas to study cosmetology to become a beauty operator. Four years later, she was working in Mrs. Rose's beauty parlor on Main Street in Healdton, Oklahoma, when she met my father, Bill, who had hurt his back in the construction trade and was managing a billiards parlor a few doors down.

Six weeks later, they married. Ten months after that—February 21, 1934—I was born. The doctor nicknamed me "Frosty" because I had a full head of white-blond hair, but when Mother saw me, she burst into tears. I'd been taken with forceps after she labored (at home, of course) for thirty-some hours, so my head was elongated and blue and apparently quite alarming to behold. I soon rounded out and pinked up to her satisfaction, however. Mother thought I was adorable and took photos like they were going out of style.

When she was pregnant, Mother had been approached by Aunt Wenonah Sue, my father's sister, begging to let her name the baby. Mother acquiesced, but only if she could name Wenonah's firstborn, to which Wenonah agreed. Frankly, I wouldn't let anyone name my firstborn. But my mother was a sweet and compliant young lady of twenty, Wenonah's junior by a couple of years, and somewhat under the thrall of this enthusiastic and insistent sister-in-law. My father's name was William Edwin. So when, in the fullness of time, I was born, Wenonah brought forth her marvelous name: Eddi-Rue, a little composite of both my parents' names.

Everyone just loved it. It was so cute! It had a hyphen.

"Eddi-Rue," my aunt Nonie has been heard to say, "I think you have one of the prettiest names in the family."

Then Wenonah Sue married a fine fellow named Earl and had a daughter whom Mother dubbed Earla Sue—no hyphen—who wisely dropped the "Earla" when she was fourteen. Because of the "Eddi"—which people always misspelled "Eddie" like a boy—I was sent a man's handkerchief as a high school graduation gift from Daube's Department Store, along with the other male graduates. I also received a draft notice, inviting me to come down for a physical exam. I've always thought maybe I should've gone for that physical. Some childhood friends still call me "Eddi." People who knew me as a baby call me "Frosty." My friend Lette called me "Baby Roo," my friend Jim Whittle called me "Rutabaga," Betty White calls me "Roozie," and my friend Kathy Salomone calls me "Rue-Rue." The staff at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center call me "Mrs. Wilson." And my husband calls me "Darling." I like them all. Each name brings forth its own era and memories.

When I was in my late twenties, I bought eight used dining room chairs for a dollar each (yes, a dollar!) and set about removing the old varnish. As I applied the varnish remover, a vivid visual memory flashed into my mind: I was almost eight months old, sidestepping along the front of the sofa, holding on for balance, looking up over my left shoulder at my mother and Aunt Irene standing in the doorway making vocal sounds.

"Iddle bongingferd da wondy," said Mother.

"Bid gerpa twack kelzenbluck," replied Aunt Irene.

"Ferndock bandy," Mother replied. "Critzputh." And they laughed.

I realized they were exchanging thoughts with those sounds. Oh, I thought, I'm brand new here. Soon, they'll teach me to do that, too. What an exciting thought!

Smells are strong memory-triggers. Mother and Irene must have been using varnish remover that day in 1934, and the odor of it in 1963 popped out this early memory, crystal clear. My next memory is of Christmas when I was ten months old: a circle of uncles and other adults winding up a little red rocket that chased me from one side of their circle to the other, everyone laughing. But I was truly terrified, running frantically from the noisy thing and wondering why they thought it was so funny.

Mother gave me my first perm when I was eleven months old, under one of those old stand-up octopus-armed permanent wave machines. Mother was movie-struck, you see. She kept the beauty shop stocked with current movie magazines, was nuts about Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and Shirley Temple, and wanted me to have a full head of bouncy sausage curls, just like Little Miss Broadway. And I never existed without a perm until I was well into my forties.

"Why do you keep a perm in your hair?" my beautician asked me one day.

Copyright © 2007 by Rue McClanahan.