My Tricycle

A few years ago I tried to think back as far as I could to see what my earliest memory would be. To the best of my knowledge, it my Daddy walking from the road with a red tricycle in his left hand. I got so excited. He had bought it just for me. I was three or four years old at the time.

Daddy had hitched a ride home with someone on a car, and they let him out at the road. I'm sure he bought the tricycle in Opp, AL. I felt so special to have my very own tricycle.

The picture above is of me on my treasured possession. My brother, Herschel, was hovering over me to get in the picture. Notice his grin. Herschel and Hoyt were, and still are, my older brothers. I was the baby and the only girl in the family.

I remember the tricycle had a place on the back where a person could stand on it and ride with me. It was a fun way to ride with a friend close behind.

My Baby Bassinet

My Baby Bassinet

The old bassinet sat in a prominent place in the Texas dining room of our daughter and son-in-law's home. This time it wasn't holding a precious baby so dear, but rather a quilt I had made for our daughter when she was a child. Still to see it flooded my mind with memories of years gone by. It would be interesting to know how many precious little ones have slept in that old bassinet. I was among the first so I lay claim to that beauty. Mother let others borrow the bassinet through the years always with the promise of returning it.

As a child my cousins and I played on the frame of the bassinet. One of us would sit on the rod right below the handle with our feet on the other rod across from it. One cousin would push while the other rode. I remember the time Mama spotted us and said, "You're going to tear it up." Somehow we cared and didn't want to do that, so we stopped riding on the bassinet frame. From that day forward the old bassinet became a treasure to be handled with great care.

This year we spent Christmas with our daughter, Stephanie, and her family. It was in their dining room that I spotted the bassinet standing ever so proudly beside the large china cabinet. A piece of history resting right beside a new expensive piece of furniture. I looked at it and saw the quilt I had made for Stephanie when she was a little girl. Memories flooded my mind as I recalled sitting in our Birmingham preacher's home piecing the quilt top and later quilting it. I looked at the paint on the bassiet and remembered well when Douglas and I chose the pink, blue and white paint and then painted the bassinet. We were expecting a baby in April 1969, and back then we had no way of knowing what sex the child would be, so we painted the bassinet pink and blue for either. Our Stephanie was the first of our children to rest in the bassinet. Later on our son, Art, had it for his first bed at home. Ah, the memories that flooded my mind as I once again recalled the past with my bassinet. Through the years it has continued to hold those newborns who are special to us. Stephanie has used it with her two children. No doubt in a few years it will be called on again as those daughters grow up, marry and have children of their own. And somewhere in the distance I think I will smile and be proud.