Be Like Cabbage

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That box of family photos…

Contained a picture…framed…faded…over 100 years old…

A group of students sitting in the grass near a one room schoolhouse…zoom in and you can find him…that grandfather of mine…easily…unmistakably…

The eyes…the nose…the straight across smile…the buttoned up shirt…the hat with the band…but one look at that group of kids and one thing…one thing specifically…stands out…

That big head…that big round punkin head…cute really…but sadly…also a curse for sweet little George…

It was a thing, according to the stories, for each of the kids in his family to have a nickname…those nicknames what everyone called them…those nicknames…became their identity…

John was Jack…Charlotte was Lottie…Frank “Risk”…Irene “R”…Charles “Bill”…William “Sam”…James “Jimmie…Effie “Ef”…Cyril “Cy”…David “Bunk”…and George…sweet little adorable George…was called Cabbage…

Because when he was born…his head was big and round…like a cabbage…

And it stuck, too, that nickname of his…walk through town and there it was, “Good morning, Cabbage!” How are you today, Cabbage?”…might shorten it to Cab…but little me never once heard him called George…

Asked that grandma of mine once why everyone called him Cabbage…her response…short…snappy…”Why do you think?”..let little me know not to mention it again…and she didn’t…

Until now…because how unfair it seems in a family full of nicknames…in a TOWN full of nicknames…nicknames like Flick…Butch…Risk…Bunk…to be the guy with a head like a cabbage…

And so it is…in life…we all have some kind of albatross hanging around the neck…something from the past that hurts a little…haunts a little…

Be like Cabbage…accept it…own it…rise above it…

And those cabbage head relatives of his…agree…
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 Photos by Gayle on Find A Grave. Used with permission.