still going

Nonny loves Otis. “He’s the cutest little thing,” she says to me on the phone.
“I call his name and he just comes running over and wants me to scratch his ears. He just loves it when I scratch his ears. He just baas and baas.”
“Which Otis is this, Nonny?”
“There’s only one Otis, Molly.”
“But don’t the other ones come when you call Otis?”
“Yes, but they won’t let me pet them. Otis is the only one who will let me scratch his ears.”
“That’s great, Nonny. How’s Pap?”
“He’s out in his woodshop right now. He’s been building birdhouses.”
After Uncle Rick died, Pap converted the building into a woodshop, even though Pap didn’t know the first thing about woodworking. He got some books and taught himself the skills, but only after spending more on tools than he did on his car.
“Why birdhouses?”
“Well, you know how much I like to watch the birds in the winter. I’m working on a book about them.”
I nodded, forgetting that she couldn’t see me through the phone.
Nonny had taken a job as a secretary at the Reynolds Press, the town’s weekly newspaper, when she got out of high school. She had been dating Pap for about two years before that, and they got married shortly after she started work and he had taken over most of the duties at his father’s grocery store after his Grandpa Jones’ last heart attack pretty much had him laid up in bed for the rest of his short life. The two of them eloped because they couldn’t afford to have a church wedding and a place to live when they got back.
After a year of typing and getting coffee for Mr. Raymond Beauregard, the paper’s owner and editor in chief, Mr. Ray decided to let Nonny do some writing for the paper. She covered local events and ballgames, and wrote the occasional editorial criticizing Mr. Roosevelt for not doing something about the situation in Europe. Mr. Ray never printed the editorials, but it didn’t stop Nonny from writing them. When Pap’s number finally came up in the draft, Nonny had Uncle Boyd and Aunt Claire to look after. She had to go to work in one of the sock mills in town, but she kept writing for the Reynolds Press. Mr. Ray gave her a column and let her write whatever she wanted with the disclaimer that he could not be held responsible for the things she said, and she wrote that every week until the paper folded right after I was born. She had been working on a birdwatcher’s guide to behavior and habits since the paper sent her home for good.
She stayed interested in the field, though.
“I can’t believe people actually elected that damn fool,” Nonny snapped. Her fingers flew furiously around the needles and the yarn in her hand.
“Ain’t nothin’ to do for it,” Pap mumbled. He was irritated because there was no baseball on tonight, so the networks could air the presidential debates.
“And THIS damn fool….” The fingers continued to fly around the needles. Knit. Purl. Knit. Purl. She pulled the stitches so tightly, though, that the sweater would be able to stand on its own. “Looks like we could come up with something better than that guy. A trained monkey ought to be able to beat that jackleg we’ve got now. An untrained monkey too, come to think of it, and this guy’s putting them to sleep over there. Do you see this, Thomas?” Pap snored in his recliner.
“Exactly my point,” Nonny went on.
About halfway through the debate, the candidate, the contender, the young upstart, said something about healthcare that Nonny didn’t like. Then the president, the incumbent, the old fart said something else about the military that Nonny didn’t like. She attacked the television set with a barrage of yarn and needles. Hurling the balls of wool and cotton toward the screen like colorful bombs. The needles landed with less accuracy than a cruise missle, but also less damage.
Pap heard the noise and started in his chair. “Okay, Emma,” he said, picking up the remote control. “I think you’ve had enough news for one day.”
He turned off the tv and escorted her to the bedroom, where the sat up and he read stories to her until she fell asleep.
The next morning, though, she was at it again, watching the little TV in the kitchen while she cooked breakfast. Mama stopped in on her way to work to get a cup of coffee. She got there just in time to see Nonny throw a raw egg at Wolf Blitzer.
“Should never have run cable into the kitchen,” Mama said, pouring herself a cup.
“Not one of them have a lick of sense,” Nonny snarled, wiping egg off scenes of violence in the Middle East with a paper towel.
“Sure,” Mama said, sipping her coffee. “Much more sense to throw things at people who aren’t here.”
“Could throw things at the people who are here if you prefer,” Nonny joked, picking up an egg.
“Maybe you shouldn’t watch the news while you cook breakfast, Mom.”
Nonny made a noise that sounded a little bit like a water buffalo.
Mama tried another tactic. “Pap won’t like you wasting eggs like that, Mom.”
“I know. But Annie, if you’re not mad as hell about the state of this country, then you’re not paying attention. We can let these wet blankets run all over us and screw things up as long as they don’t diddle their staff.”
“Mom!”
“Well, it’s true. Your daughter had any sense she’d have stayed in England. I do like that boy they have over there.”
Wolf came back on, and Nonny smacked the tv screen four times with her spatula, making loud rapping noises as she did so. Had Wolf been there, he’d have definitely had to go out to the yard and break off a switch for himself. Poor guy.
“Okay, Mom, that’s it.”
Mama unplugged the TV and unscrewed the cable from the back.
“I’m leaving the coffee,” she said, hefting the TV off the counter. “But I’m taking this with me. You’re going to start a fire acting like that in the kitchen.”
Pap came into the kitchen and sat down to his Bakon and Eggz and toast. He took a sip of juice. “Where’s the TV?” Pap had a crush on Katie Couric, and he worried for a moment that Nonny had gotten wise to it and taken the TV away so he couldn’t watch the Today Show at breakfast anymore.
“Your daughter took it away. Thinks it’s a safety hazard.”
Pap noticed a piece of eggshell on the countertop near where the TV had so recently been. Nonny must have missed it in her cleanup. “Yeah. She’s probably right,” he said and took a bite of Eggz.