Saturday, October 29, 2011
Triplets were rare back then. Keck, Eck and Cleal were the only ones in the county as far as I know. Remember, there were no fertility clinics back in those days. There was, however, the alley behind the pool hall, and that’s where Keck, Eck’n Cleal’s mother made enough money to survive.
Other than the “tea incident,” which I'll tell you about in a minute, I have only one other memory of her. It was cold, as cold as I remember any night in February. She came in through the back door of the pool hall, closed the door behind her and pulled out a tissue. She turned back to face the door and quietly blew her nose. She then reached in her purse and pulled out a tiny bottle of Magnolia perfume. She wore a heavy wool coat, far more Army surplus than Haute couture. It was buttoned all the way up, the lapels nearly reaching her shoulders. She turned up one of the lapels and poured enough of that perfume on the underside to darken a spot about the size of a silver dollar and walked immediately to her post at one end of the bar.
