"A" List

My mother is getting on up in the years and she doesn't get out much these days but she's still kind of scrappy. She has been all her life. All us kids towed the line.....actually, I still tow the line with her. She is as good as gold...until you cross her.
Mamma works on the two column system. She keeps a list of names: the names of the people who have been really nice to her and the ones who were not.
The ones on column "A" can expect Amish bread or perhaps a pecan pie.
The ones on column "B" should be afraid, very afraid.
When we were kids, two boys moved in next door to us in West Pratt. We all had bikes and we rode them a million miles. One day we were riding in the yard.
Mother had just washed a fresh load of clothes and they hung on the line blowing in the summer breeze in the back yard like kites. She called through an open window in a normal tone, "Boys, don't be riding around the clothesline, you'll get up against the sheets." Mother never had to tell me twice, I immediately headed for the front yard, but Jerry (not his real name) made one last pass and held out his dirty hand to touch the sheets as he rode by.
I heard fast moving footsteps coming from the house and I did not like the sound of it one bit.
She came out the back door with a razor strap and headed for Jerry. He was a cocky boy and I heard him say, "You ain't my mamma." She snatched him by the arm and gave him about five good lashes across the legs with that strap. She looked deep into his eyes and said in a slow measured voice, so that he would be sure to understand, "When you're in MY yard, I AM your mamma." Jerry took it hard....he also took his bike and headed for home.
What was unfortunate for Jerry, his mother had seen what went down and not to be outdone by my mother, she she cut some limbs from a nearby peach tree, snatched him up by the collar and striped his legs some more.
That day was a school day for Jerry and he learned his lesson well because from that day forward, he always said please and thank you to my Mamma.
I see him time and again and he always asks how mamma is doing.
I always work hard to keep my name on Mamma's "A" list, because there's a really good chance that if I were to somehow manage to get on the "B" list, she just might "stripe my legs."