Sept 12, 2003

Dear Bubba,

Praise the Lord! You are outta jail on the work release program, and Ima Jean Sweeney is one happy woman! Hope your biscuits were good, darling. HeeHeeHeeee!

Old Ima Jean called me today to tell me the good news: You all are getting married! I’m just thrilled to death! We talked about many things, or should I say, she did most the talking about the dresses she wants us to wear, shoes, food, wedding cake the location and such. I have to say, I do think the Moose Hall is, indeed, one of the nicest places for an after wedding soirée. Oh, I do so love to dance! And here I am without a feller, no one to dance with…but Ima Jean said not to worry…noooo indeed, don’t worry, because that family of yours…didn’t she said you had about eight or nine sisters?….well, anyway, she said those girls just loved to get up on the dance floor and just dance with everybody! It appears I won’t be alone after all. We can shake a leg, cut a rug and just dance ‘til dawn! I am partial to “flat-footing” so I could dance alone without appearing to be an old maid.

Now I’ll just tell you, Bubba, I don’t mind being Ima Jean’s second pick for the matron of honor, because she did consider those two daughters of hers. And I do understand what it means to be kin…well, and the obligations we have to them. Of course with Lulu being pregnant and all, there just ain’t no way she would be prepared to carry off that duty. And that other misguided heathen of Ima Jean’s would only try to make a mess of your wedding. Why that girl, Thelma, said she’d stand there in a dress looking real good, then she’d make faces at you during the wedding. Well, she’d only do it once, because I’d take that little woman down in a heartbeat, and that’s about all it would take for me to bodily drag her from the church and pitch her out on her behind in the parking lot. We just aren’t going to tolerate that nonsense! She should have been on a regimen of regular daily whippings as a child starting about fifteen years ago. Or maybe it would have been better for old Doc Watson if he’d gave her some happy pills to put a smile on that old sour puss of hers. But, even that may not have been a remedy for that girl’s ill behavior. Lord, she can be just awful!!

Have you met her grandma??? Well, as the saying goes, the apple don’t fall too far from the tree, and there you go…Lucifer,….oh, I mean, Thelma, can’t escape genetics, I reckon. All I know is when I met Thelma’s grandma, she was giving some uppity redneck feller a dressing down in her front yard. Why that old woman was standing on her porch and she told that man if he ever put his hands on her grandson again, she’d kill him where stands…And, by God, I believe she would! She might be in her seventies, but I think she could put a whooping on you.

Now, I swear, I don’t think grandma is going to go for this wedding, you know? She’s already madder ‘an a old wet hen about you being in Ima Jean’s life. She just don’t see the good in you, Bubba, and Lord knows, she ain’t got nothing to compare you to! Why those boys of hers won’t work a lick around her house…so I reckon she must think all men are the same, rotten, scum bastards wanting to lay about all the time and eat. But we know better, don’t we?

Well, Bubba, I got to go. I’ll write you real soon. Enjoy your 12 hours off, and try to put up with the other 12 hours in the poky. It could be worse if it were 24/7 in the poky! Oh, by the way, I am so glad you can shower at home now.

Love,
Sissy