Dolores J. Wilson, Big Hair and Flying Cows

Big Hair and Flying Cows

Dolores J. Wilson

Medallion, April 2005, 228 pp.

ISBN: 1932815171

All Roberta "Bertie" Bird wants is to live a normal life. However that is not easy when you drive a two truck five days a week in which your neighbours in Sweet Meadow, Georgia think is a taxi service. They will do anything and everything to get their ride. Even moving out from her parents' home has not proven easy since the owner and previous resident elderly Pete Forney constantly sneaks out of the nursing home to "visit" Birdie when he is not trying to toss her out.

She has males in her life, but none reach first base because the zany world intrude from Catch 22 zoning laws to running over a mattress that destroys her wrecker that places "Dirty Bird" on national TV. Following the death of Pete, Birdie meets Pete's son Arch and his granddaughter Petey; they make her feel normal except he fled when she kissed him. Life in Bertie's beloved rural Georgia means the sublime is the norm.

BIG HAIR AND FLYING COWS is a series of vignettes centering loosely on a series of misfortune hammering at Bertie that is similar in many ways to the Mossy Creek tales. Bertie is a delight as her efforts to obtain normalcy is constantly devastated by those in need of her services. Her autobiographical account of rubbish happens is southern humor at its most jocular. Mossy Creek readers will appreciate a slice of life in Sweet Meadow through the eyes of a native daughter who just wants the garage sign changed to Bird and daughter from Bird and Sons as she remains while her brothers flew the coop years ago.

Harriet Klausner