The parental sign

We all have that memory, don't we? That one thing which mom or dad or maybe a grandparent would have which told us, 'That's enough'. Maybe it was a stare, perhaps a grimace. But it could be a phrase. For my mother, it was a phrase.

While sitting with Mom yesterday she began talking about her father, me Grandpa Hutchins. She knew he meant business, and knew it was time to back off, with one simple set of words from her paw.

Whenever her and her siblings were becoming a bit too loud and rowdy her mother, me Grandma Hutchins, would say to her husband, "Mal (short for Malachi) do something to make these young'uns mind!"

Grandpa would say, quietly for he was quiet man yet somehow forcefully, "I wish they would."

That was the turn of phrase which made Mom and her brothers and sisters pipe down. She and they knew that the next step would be an action and that it would be unpleasant. When Grandpa Hutchins said, "I wish they would", they had better. It was as plain as that.