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Momma and the Midnight Ass Stalker (really)

This is a brazen true tale about my mother, who left life on the farm and hightailed it (phrase that I just realized is appropriate for this tale) to the big city.

Flora Florence Ensley graduated from high school, a published poet with dreams of going to college. She was a basketball whiz and was awarded an athletic scholarship... only, her parents would have to help with some of the expenses and they said, no way. After all, they had two sons to send to college. That was that. No money for a girl.

So, with a little cash in her pocket from her parents and a packed lunch, Flora took the train to Atlanta alone, found a room to rent in an Inman Park house, and went job hunting.

The times were beginning to feel perilous. WWII was brewing and she had no idea what sort of work she could find or what her future would hold. But she soon found a job at a bakery and life seemed somewhat sweeter - she worked the night shift, icing cakes and doughnuts.

In the dead of night, when her work was done, she walked down Peachtree Street to catch the streetcar ride that carried her to the vicinity of Inman Park. It was a lonely, solitary walk. And one night she thought she heard footsteps behind her.... following her.

She walked faster. The footsteps were faster, and coming closer. She started to run a little, so did the footsteps.

She decided to turn around quickly, confront whoever was following her and be ready to clobber, if necessary.

So, that's what she did.

And she came face to a man who began laughing so hard he was almost choking.

"Lady.... " he said "Stop following me !!!!" Flora yelled.

"But LADY..... YOUR ASS WAS WINKING AT ME !!!!! "said the man, obviously drunk, and almost keeling over with laughter.

As if on cue, young Flora, having no idea what the man meant, saw the streetcar coming, jumped on it and made it back to her rented room, which had a full-length mirror by the closet.

While she was getting undressed, she noticed her black straight skirt's seam in the back was ripped and when she took a step, it popped open, revealing her white slip underneath. And it looked, kind of (if you were drunk), like her ass WAS winking.

The young girl who would be my mom years down the road ended up being fired for the first and only time in her life --- for falling asleep one night at work with her hair somehow in a bowl of frosting. But soon she was taking a test for the US government and learned she had a so-called photographic memory.

That would come in handy as war broke out and there was a secret bomber to build – with secret plans that needed to be stored mentally, not on paper.

Flora eventually went on to be a real estate broker (she had her own company), a public speaker, a poet, a monthly volunteer docent at the Governor's mansion, and much more.

She was a great beauty (in my eyes) and, as we say in the South, Lord knows she was a character.

And I mean that in the best possible way.

(This is one of those coincidences which sounds like it must be made up, but it's true. I was going through a box of old papers today, which I didn't even know I had, and I found an envelope with a stamp showing that it was sent, in l943, to my mom at 1083 Colquitt Avenue, Atlanta. That's in Inman Park. I googled it, and was delighted to find the house where momma discovered her ass did wink one night is still there.)

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