WHAT’S IN A NICKNAME? [Sat, 6-15-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—WHAT’S IN A NICKNAME? [Sat, 6-15-24]

 

I was told that Mildred McFarland got the nickname of “Big Weed” when she wrestled professionally, but I cannot find corroboration of that. I can’t find any mention at all of WHY she was called “Big Weed,” even though every mention of her, including her obit, calls her that: Mildred “Big Weed” McFarland. Her obit says that she was the linchpin of her family’s Tennessee business, “Bar-B-Cutie,” so if she wrestled, it was probably before Bar-B-Cutie.

Now, this is interesting to me because my mother’s name was Mildred McFarland, although in grade school I spelled it as Mildread, which I’m sure now was a Freudian slip. I am pretty sure my mother was neither a wrestler nor a Bar-B-Cutie, although she did disappear into her room for a day or two every once in a while, claiming she had a headache. It was only 35 miles to Kentucky from our house, and the city of Henderson was known to cater to all the vices Indiana eschewed--including pro wrestling, which was allowed only in “Da [Calumet] Region,” on the Indiana side of Chicago--and Mother was known to hitch-hike, so…

Mother would probably not have chosen “Big Weed” as her wrestling moniker, for she was allergic to weeds. The headache that sent her off by herself was usually due to ragweed. No, she would have wrestled as “The Bloody Clothes Stick.”

On wash day, I had to dip a bucket on a rope down into the cistern, that drained the roof, and then carry it into the house and put it into a big copper boiler on the stove to heat it to clothes washing temperature. It took several buckets full to fill the washing machine.

Then I had to bring in enough more water to fill two round rinse tubs, that sat on old wooden barrels that we’d gotten somewhere. When it was hot, I then transferred it to the washing machine and the rinse tubs. When the washing was completed, I had to drain the machine and the tubs and carry the used water out and throw it in the field beyond the garden. Sometimes I had to do this twice, if a special extra wash was deemed necessary, as the time when Mother wanted to dye some long-forgotten object red.

Because the water was hot, she could not put her hands into it to transfer clothes from washer to a rinse tub, or from the first rinse to the second, so she used a “clothes stick.” It was two, maybe two and one-half feet long. Round and smooth and slightly porous from all that hot water. Only big enough around to get a good grip on it, to lift wet clothes from one spot to another.

Wash day was understandably stressful for Mother. When we first moved to the farm, she had two babies in diapers, and clothes got dirty easily doing farm work and walking dirt and gravel roads. Mother’s wash day emotional survival technique was to whack me with the clothes stick whenever I got close enough. She would have whacked anyone else, too, I’m sure, but my father was always working outside, and my older sister was keeping the little ones out of the way. I was her only available stress relief.

When Mother used the clothes stick in the red dye project, naturally it turned red on the end that was used in the water to move the garment from washer to first rinse to second rinse.

So I showed it to anyone who came to our house and told them that it was my blood from all the wash day whacking.

I still have the bloody clothes stick, one of the few mementoes of my mother.

I’m only sorry that she didn’t get to use it on Gorgeous George or Don Eagle when she wrestled professionally. Yes, in our family we always go for the best story…

John Robert McFarland