Aunt Karon and the Four Little White Baking-Soda Mountains

Cousins on a summer day at the grandparents’ house. My brother Keith is on the far left, and our cousin Scott is next to him. I’m next, standing with my arm around Scott. Loren is the tall kid in the middle with the New Mexico T-shirt on, and his sister Robin is right beside him. I never told anybody this before, but I had a crush on Robin—I think you can see why!

I recently received a text from my brother Eric: “Just got word from cousin Robin that Aunt Karon died on June 1.”

That was only three days ago. She was 86 years old.

Aunt Karon was the fourth child born to my grandfather Weston Skaggs. Born in 1937, she was the family’s only girl. Her older half-brothers were Leo, Eddie, and my dad, Nyle. Weston’s first wife, Eva, passed away fifteen days after my dad was born; Grandpa remarried, and he and his second wife—we called her Buddy—had just one child, Audris Karon.

Dad was born in 1936, so he and Karon were close in age. But I never heard him talk about their childhood. Sometimes during my growing-up years he would call one of his brothers, Eddie or Leo, just to talk, but I don’t recall that he ever called Karon. Maybe he did. As far as I know, there wasn’t a rift between them; they just didn’t communicate much. That makes me a little sad.

Aunt Karon and Uncle Karl Johnson raised their family in Texas, far away from the rest of our Skaggs brood, who stayed decidedly within the borders of West Virginia and Ohio. I must have seen Aunt Karon several times over the years—at a family gathering when I was a teen and then when Grandma Buddy died. But my memories of those two meetings are faded or gone entirely.

However, I do have one memory of Aunt Karon that predates those two events, a memory that ensures her a special place in my heart.

When I was ten or younger, the Johnson family and our family gathered at Grandma and Grandpa’s place in West Virginia. All the cousins—my two brothers and I and the Johnson kids Loren, Robin, and Scott—had a great time running all over Grandma and Grandpa Skaggs’s property. There was a large, grassy field to play in—we had a rotten-apple war there. And there was a hill with outbuildings on it. That’s where we played a game in which two teams tried to capture each other and put them in “jail.” Robin and I captured Loren, the oldest of the Johnson kids, and locked him in a woodshed. It was a hot day, and he kept telling us it was too hot in there, we had to let him out, he was getting sick, it was so hot!

I peeked through the crack in the door. He was leaning with his face against the wall, one forearm thrown dramatically over his brow. He continued suffering—Oh, he was sick! Pleeeeease let him out! He was going to throw up—he was dying! Pleeeeeease!

Robin and I weren’t sure what to do. Was he really in agony? Or was this just a big act to get set free?

Being compassionate (and, apparently, gullible) children, she and I opened the door to check on him, whereupon he burst out and ran away lickety-split, laughing wildly.

Robin looked at me. “I don’t think he was really sick,” she said.

Later that day we kids decided to play hide-and-seek. Grandpa had a hedge that ran from the bottom of the hill all the way to the road; it was probably six feet high. And right up next to it at one point was a huge, round, prickly bush. The bush was easily ten feet in diameter and eight feet tall. Where the bush and the hedge met, they had grown together in a tangle of twigs.

From the hillside Scott, his eyes covered, hollered, “One banana, two banana, three banana, four banana. . . !” Suddenly I was possessed by a brilliant idea: I would hide between the two hedges! If I pushed my way into the place where they joined, I would be invisible! What a great idea!

I shoved my way between all the prickly branches, ignoring the scratches. That was a small price to pay for this great hiding place!

OUCH! The back of my right hand started hurting really bad—a terrible, hot, stabbing pain that seemed to come out of nowhere—I’d never felt anything like this before! It was awf—

OUCH!! My left arm started hurting the same way! Then my neck! Then my right arm!

“OOOOUUUUUCH!!!”

Suddenly, I saw what was happening, and I ran screaming from my “perfect” hiding place—pursued by a swarm of yellow jackets!

When you’re very young and have never been stung by yellow jackets before—especially not four times at once—it’s horrifying; it’s the worst thing you can imagine happening to you. (Far worse, for example, than being locked in a hot woodshed.)

I was still screaming and running as fast as I could when someone caught me, firm hands on my shoulders. “What happened!? What’s wrong?” I looked up and saw Aunt Karon’s concerned face.

I blubberingly told her I’d been stung “like a hundred times” by yellow jackets and showed her the welts, wailing. “Well, I know a good way to make those feel better. Come on.” And she led me into the house.

Hiccupping, I followed her. What was this all about?

She reached into one of Grandma’s cupboards. “Here’s what we need: baking soda.”

I watched closely as she mixed a few drops of water into a little pile of baking soda in her palm. It made a thick, white paste. “This is wonderful for stings. Have you ever tried it before?”

I solemnly shook my head no, fascinated and quiet, still breathing hard. “Does it hurt?”

“Oh no, no, not at all.” She was kneeling in front of me, looking over my wounds. “It will draw out the poison and the pain.”

“It will what?”

“It will draw out the poison and the pain. Here.”

She put a little dab on each welt. I looked at myself in the dining room mirror. I was now adorned with four little white baking-soda mountains—one on my hand, two on my arms, and one on my neck.

Hm! Out of all the cousins gathered at the grandparents’ house, I was the only one with four little white baking-soda mountains on me that—yes, it was true!—were magically drawing out the poison and the pain!

I went back outside and sat on the crackled gray paint of the warped wooden porch floor, my legs dangling over the side. The sun was setting, and I looked carefully at my body art.

Cousin Scott meandered by. (Hide-and-seek had fallen apart the moment I started screaming.) “What are those?” he asked.

“They’re a special kind of medicine that draws out the poison and the pain.”

Scott looked more closely. “Neat!” he said.

The rest of the evening I took it a little easier—partially because I was worn out from my yellow-jacket calamity, but also because I didn’t want to disturb Aunt Karon’s four little white baking-soda mountains on my person. After it was dark outside, the families sat in the living room, watching TV. From my seat on the floor I secretly looked up at her sitting on the couch. And I was a little in awe of her—because she knew that four little white baking-soda mountains could conquer not only poison and pain . . . but also tears.

In loving memory of Audris Karon Johnson Skaggs, 1937–2024.

Copyright 2024, Steven Nyle Skaggs

The Skaggs Siblings: My dad, Nyle; Uncle Leo; Aunt Karon; Uncle Eddie. Aunt Karon was the last member of this generation to pass away.