I’ve got a sneaking idea, or I’d just get me a lawyer

I don't suppose there's ever been a woman more plainspoken and down-to-earth than my mother. Not that she used rude or even rough language; indeed, she was one of the most tactful people I ever knew. (She always prefaced suspicions, but not facts, with "I've got a sneaking idea that . . .") But when it was called for, she just told it like it was and you could take it or leave it. Furthermore, she made no bones—in suitable company—about her likes and dislikes.

Yes, she thought women were smarter than men—at any rate, smarter about folks. (It was men that were more likely to make fools of themselves, with their big ideas and ambitious schemes.) But at the same time men had no monopoly on foolishness. And I guess it's all summed up in her comment on women who were always running off to consult their preachers or a counselor or an analyst or whatever about what to do if they were in any kind of trouble or needed advice of any kind, whether worldly or spiritual. Once I called her hand on the subject and asked her what she would do if she felt the need of advice or spiritual guidance. But that didn't faze her a bit: she just snorted and in a very peremptory manner replied, "Humph! I'd just get me a lawyer!" And that was that.

And I knew she meant every word of it too—just like she did when one of the local beauty "operators" had an unexpected turn of good luck. Her name was Violet Savage—which sounds like a name concocted by Evelyn Waugh—and she worked at the Elite Beauty Parlor down on the Square right next to the picture show. Her specialty was "machineless" permanent waves that used clamps on the rolls of curls instead of electricity, which made all the about-to-be curls emit steam and frying noises—and somehow always made me think of the Spanish Inquisition. But this was all before there was anything like the do-it-yourself-at-home kind of "cold wave" that appeared on the scene toward the end of World War II. Well, anyway, Violet's good luck happened to her when the married man she had been going with on the side for years and years suddenly lost his wife, and everybody around town felt that paved the way for them to get married after a "decent interval." Not that they thought this would "make an honest woman" of her overnight, but at least it would terminate her living in sin for the rest of her life.