Altha Murphy grew up on a forty-acre farm in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. She was a little girl during the Great Depression and has vivid memories of that Era. She is a retired public school teacher and special education supervisor. She is the widow of a minister and the mother of two sons, one deceased. She lives with her cat, Rochester, at Imboden, Arkansas, within a few miles of her birthplace.

I knew I must be different from everyone else, but I didn’t understand why. I looked closely at everyone I was around, paying special attention to their ears. I couldn’t tell they were a lot different from mine, but I knew they had to be.

You see, I had naked ears. We pronounced it "nekked." I knew this, because each time I washed, Mama said, "Be sure to wash your naked ears."

When I bathed, I scrubbed and rinsed and dried until my ears were rosy red. Without fail, Mama asked, "Did you wash your naked ears?"

"Yes, Mama, I did," I always answered.

"Did you do a good job of it?" she wanted to know.

"Yes, Mama, I did a good job."

Sometimes, just to be sure, she checked.

I didn’t know why my ears were naked, but if Mama said they were, that settled it. My hair came down over my ears, so you couldn’t see them, except the tips. I saw men and boys, even Papa and my two big brothers, going around with their ears just sitting on the sides of their heads, completely uncovered. I noticed that many women, including Mama, wore their hair up so their whole ears showed. But Mama never called their ears naked--just mine.

I suppose I could have asked her why it was only my ears that were naked, and no one else’s, but I never did. She probably didn’t know why, and I thought she was embarrassed, anyway, by having the only kid in the neighborhood with naked ears.

She must not have known this, but she didn’t need to remind me each time to get my ears clean. Since I had naked ears, I would most certainly not be caught with dirty naked ears.