How My Great Aunt Gave Us Goodbye

A true short story about family traditions, crooked shelves, and Toots.

It’s tradition in my family that when someone leaves, you stand on the porch and wave until they drive out of sight. “Bye, Dodie,” one of us yells, while the visitor rolls down their car window and hollers back, “Bye, Sweet Thing.” This is quickly followed by, “Watermelon!” to which the other replies, “Cantaloupe!” And that can go on forever.

Like many of our family traditions, this one originates with my Great Aunt Toots. Her real name was Cornelia Gockel, but she changed it to Toots after a cartoon character that was popular in the early 1900s and not (my relatives assure me) because she and my Grandma Shirley Jean used to have farting contests in her big feather bed during sleepovers. Though that happened, too.

“She was a legend,” my mother told me. “She had this crooked shelf in her kitchen, and us kids were always fascinated because it was full of all these ceramics and glass plates, and nothing ever fell off the crooked shelf.” I might have argued that a crooked shelf with sticky plates isn’t really legendary, except that when you’re a kid, it kind of is.

Aunt Toots never married and never had children. She was born and raised in Cape Girardeau, Missouri in 1899, in a house on North Frederick Street with a view of the Mississippi River. (Once, the river froze over and Aunt Toots walked right across it. This is, in my opinion, somewhat more legendary than a wayward wall hanging). Toots was tall and thin with a laugh like a rooster, famous for her mincemeat cookies and snickerdoodles. In her older years, she walked with a cane and used it to point at things. Her hair never greyed because (and I’m only speculating here) she never really aged.  

Everyone loved her.

What makes some traditions stick? Growing up, we had plenty of our own. Fazoli’s on Sundays, spritzer cookies around Christmas, the phrase, “Tell me something good.” As an adult, I do none of these things, but I still roll down my car window and holler my goodbyes.

I recently asked my family if they knew where Aunt Toots had gotten the Bye Dodie Bye Sweet Thing saying. Apparently, in a house not far from hers on Frederick Street lived an old woman who used to call goodbye to her husband as he left for work. Dodie was the man’s name. Sweet Thing was the wife’s nickname. Aunt Toots plucked their farewell like a flower, and gave it to us. ■

Aunt Toot’s house on Frederick Street

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I’m a fantasy author and the creator of Napkin Scratch. You can find my debut book trilogy here. You can also visit my website or follow me on Instagram / Twitter.