Sunbonnet Soliloquy

By Jewell Ellen Smith

It’s Time to Re-rag!

“I’ve got to re-rag!”

This exclamation means the speaker has to change all his plans, go back to the drawing board, so to speak.

It was one of dozens of sayings and quotations and clippings which fell out of my desk drawer the other day when the drawer wouldn’t close any more and I had to shuffle and stir things in there a bit in order to stash away new notes on a story I had just heard.

I picked up a second scrap of paper. It had on it one line to describe a grasping, scheming, stingy man: “He would skin a flea for hide and fat.” Scribbled on the reverse side was a word picture of a woman hard to please: “She wants this and that and three other things.”

Next, I found the ancient tale of a man who gave a wine party. An unusual party it was, because on the invitation the man requested that each guest bring a gift of wine. He explained that all the bottles were to be emptied into a common bowl, from which all would be served.

The invitees thought, each to himself: “Since many will bring much good wine, aged for years, no one will notice if I bring only water.”

When all the guests had assembled, the host called them together around the wine bowl, filled their glasses and proposed a toast. Quickly all raised their glasses and drank. Even more quickly, all their separate faces turned red and they could not look their host -- or each other -- in the eye. The wine bowl had been filled with water.

That story I read a second time, thinking how it has many applications to life -- especially to the idea that each person should be willing to do his part. I resolved not to ever take water to a wine party.

The next item I picked up was a short article that said, “Ben Franklin was not always the wise and diplomatic person we picture. As a young man he was often crude, brash and tactless ... quick to criticize people bluntly. But ... he changed his approach and became so tactful that he was made ambassador to France.

“(Later) when Franklin was asked the secret of his ability to get along with others, he said: ‘I will speak ill of no person, and speak all the good I know of everybody.’”

This too I re-read. And I resolved to try to do something about my sharp tongue.

Then, I came upon a set of notes on what an aged Italian woman living down on the Mississippi Gulf Coast told me about her grandson. She was proud of him. He could paint pretty pictures, she said. And as she held up his portrait she murmured: “He is my heart!”

I whispered back: “Yes, know. I have a grandson.”

While I was trying the second time to get the desk drawer shoved back in place I couldn’t remember hiding away all those bits of information and things that seemed important at the tune.

Maybe I should clean out the whole thing. There’s no telling what may be in there. Why, there may be enough little notes and pieces to spice up a Hedgehopper article.

About an hour later I got to the bottom of the drawer. And there, stuck inside a Girl Scout calendar for the year 1979, was a fat envelope, sealed and tied with a string

I ripped it open. Money! A wad of money! One hundred and forty-nine dollars!

As for the way my desk is kept, something must be done.

‘‘I’ve got to re-rag!’’

Published April 1984. Click your browser’s “Back” key to return.