Keep It Shut: What to Say, How to Say It, and When to Say Nothing at All by Karen Ehman

Author:Karen Ehman [Ehman, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2015-01-05T18:30:00+00:00

7

BUT I’M JUST SHARING A PRAYER REQUEST

Stopping Gossip and Hearsay

So live that you would not mind selling your pet parrot to the town gossip.

WILL ROGERS

I loved Saturday nights when I was a child. Since church and Sunday school were the next morning, Saturday night was the time to take a bubble bath. My mom filled the tub and poured in the pink bubble bath the nice Avon lady had brought to our house. I soaked and played with the bubbles, piling them high on top of my head or crafting a long Santa Claus beard for myself. When the bubbles started to pop and wane, I poured more bubble bath under the running faucet to make them rise high again.

When it came time for shampooing, I leaned back, dipping my wavy, blond, waist-length mane into the water. After soaping it up with my No More Tears shampoo (Improperly named in my opinion. That stuff always made my eyes water!), my mom rinsed my hair with a big plastic cup full of clear warm water.

Once I was dried off and buttoned into my flannel nightgown, mom rolled up my hair in spongy pink curlers. Then I curled up on the living-room sofa in my scratchy pink bathrobe, waiting for my favorite TV show to come on. The show was the country music variety show Hee Haw. And I couldn’t get enough of it.

The hilarious antics of the country folk in fictional Kornfield Kounty always made me laugh. And my dad laughed even louder. He got a kick out of all of the pickin’ and grinnin’ going on as well as the recurring characters on the show. Like the suspenders-clad old man to whom the crowd would pose the question, “Hey, Grandpa! What’s for supper?” He’d answer in rhyme, describing a crazy country supper full of corn bread and collard greens. But the one recurring skit I loved most was where a bunch of girls, washing clothes by hand and playing musical instruments, would sing the following little ditty:

Now, we’re not ones to go around spreadin’ rumors.

Why, really we’re just not the gossipy kind.

Oh, you’ll never hear one of us repeating gossip.

So you’d better be sure and listen close the first time.

After this twangy opening verse was sung each week, the characters took turns telling a bit of recent news about someone in Kornfield Kounty. Although it was never anything too racy or scandalous, the details they told were still pure, juicy gossip. Spreading rumors was supposed to be something good girls didn’t do, of course, but with a wink of the eye, these ladies let ’em fly.

Threads of Gossip

As I got older, I often felt a little bit like those Hee Haw honeys who strung together words in pure threads of gossip. Even though I knew I shouldn’t be “talking behind someone’s back,” as my mama called it, sometimes I just couldn’t help myself. While the ladies on that Saturday evening TV show got laughs from the audience, I got attention from my friends.

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