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I am not sure of the details. I don’t know the exact dates or even if I was alive or not. It was sometime in the 80s.

My parents had been married less than 10 years. My mother’s side of the family, the Dils, had warmly accepted my father, John Boyce Bright, as part of the family. Narcissus Jane Bright, my dad’s mother and my Mamacita, however, had not extended this warm embrace to my dear, sweet mother. As Mamacita, whether she’ll admit to this or not, saw the marriage as some other woman had taken her baby John boy from her. So from time to time, mostly in the first decade of my parents’ marriage, Mamacita would say, “Toodles!” and hit the road, always blaming my mother.

“She forced me to leave,” ole Narcissus would say.

She’s always been a resourceful lady with a strong frontierswoman spirit in her. Heading off her own was something she’d done since she was a kid. Her husband had died a few years into the marriage; and instead of mourning, she embraced the freedom his death gave. It didn’t scare her or bother her. But if she could find a way to stick it to you and make you feel guilty for “forcing” her to leave, she’d do it in a heartbeat. This was the case with my sweet mother.

Narcissus packed her bags and fled northwest into Texas. “She didn’t want me around,” Mamacita’d give as the reason.

She stayed with a lady older than herself. How old, that particular detail never came out in the tale, but older than 70 I’m sure.

Mamacita received room and board for her services helping this woman, probably only several years her senior. You’re probably thinking that Narcissus cooked and cleaned for this lady, keeping up the house and acting like a nurse, I’m not too sure about that. There is one thing she did, though, that the Brights like to call toodles. This was what the woman really needed Mamacita for.

“Jane!” the elderly woman would screech from a bathroom. “Jane! Toodles! Toodles, Jane.”

That was Mamacita’s cue. It was time for her to earn her room and board. Mamacita grabbed a pair of long scissors. Not the fabric or saloon or kiddy scissors. Long, heavy duty scissors. As she approached the bathroom, the woman would be coming out. “Toodles, Jane,” she’d say to my mamacita and then walk away.

Jane, with scissors in hand, entered the bathroom and stood in front of the toilet. There, lying in the porcelain bowl, was a turd so long that it could not be flushed. That’s where the designated scissors came in. Mamacita opened up the scissors and chopped the turd up into flushable pieces. She flushed the “toodles” down the drain, washed the scissors and exited the bathroom.

After one to many “toodles,” Mamacita gave the woman a wave, “Toodles,” I imagine she said accompanied by her favorite hand movement, a pretty little bird, and then came back to El Paso.

She still found plenty of faults with my mom, still, but one thing she didn’t find was “toodles.”

Lindsey Bright is a reporter for the Sidney Herald. She can be reached at 406-433-2403 | reporter@sidneyherald.com