Duggers

I think it often works this way, but growing up, we were much closer to my Mom’s extended family than to my Daddy’s. In fact, I am still close to my Mom’s sister and her children, while I have cousins on Daddy’s side that I have never met. This is not to say that we haven’t been close, at different times, to different parts of his family. One such time and set of relatives were the Duggers; Charles, Karen, Junior, Sharlene, David and Rebecca. Charles is my Dad’s nephew, my first cousin. Karen was then, his wife. Junior, also known as Judor, Sharlene, lovingly referred to as Shaneen, David, aka Davin and Rebecca Dawn or Pessi were their kids and our second cousins.
It is impossible to really understand the Dugger family unless you have experienced them first hand. They very much remind me of the Herdmans in “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”. Charles Dugger, the dad, was forever more screaming at the kids. His most memorable line remains, “Get in the car Judor!” Karen, did her share of yelling but will mostly be remembered because she smelled kind of funny. I think it was her breath. All four of the kids could run barefoot on gravel at warp speed. As a child, this was an admirable quality. I still do not understand how they were able to gain such momentum with rocks sticking in their feet. They had boiled, bright, pink weenies and white rice for supper. They lived in Maiden. Even this was questionable. Well, they lived a whole bunch of places. Moving is just what they did.
One of their moves landed them, for a brief time, right in our backyard. I don’t know what the particular situation was, but whatever their plight, my Daddy and his big heart, allowed them to pull a brown single-wide trailer into our yard.
Don’t get me wrong, I was seven years old and so was Sharlene. This was going to be quite an adventure. Junior was a couple of years older than me, so he was a good playmate for Jamie, my brother, and David was a year or two younger. He played with all of us. Rebecca was the baby and she was the perfect little charge for Andrea, who was just the right age to love to “lug” around a baby and be in charge of her. Rebecca was in love with her. I think the only thing that ever came between them is the pair of baby nail clippers that Andrea used to cut Rebecca’s fingernails. She brought blood, need I say more? I can’t really remember the specifics of our relationship with these cousins. I don’t even really know how long they lived there. I do know that playing with them was like being on an adventure. Playing with the Dugger kids usually involved things like mud, jumping on beds or off of bunk beds. There was never any chance of boredom as long as they lived in our backyard.
Eventually, and by way of several out of the way towns, they moved back to Maiden. We still saw them from time to time. They came to visit us, we had weenies and rice. I even spent a few days on my own once with them. Charles still yelled, Karen still had bad breath and the kids still ran on gravel. The visits became less and less frequent and we all grew up.
I haven’t seen a Dugger in years, but they are still a legend in my mind. They are the subject of some of my fondest memories and funniest stories. They are part of my history.