FLUSHING UP A BIRD

It is my understanding that some little children are afraid of water going out of the bathtub and down the drain. They are afraid they will go down the drain also. Mr. Rogers addressed this subject on one of his TV programs, assuring the little ones they couldn't go down the drain. Since hearing of a snake coming up in a commode years ago, to say the least I have had my own fear and been a little anxious when using the potty, no matter where.

A few years back we were visiting Doug's mom in Tennessee. It was one of those cold, windy days, even though the sun was shining. I went to the bathroom and used the commode. Nothing major, mind you, but being the nice person I am, I turned and flushed it. Well, guess what! It didn't go down. The water started rising. I immediately thought someone had put something in the commode that was stopping it up, and it wasn't I!!!! I grabbed a plunger and standing back at a proper distance lest I get showered with commode water, I began the ritual of up and down motion at a very fast pace. Nothing worked!!! My next thought was to leave it a while and come back and flush it after it had time to rest. I couldn't go very far and leave it that way. It is my nature to fix anything that is broken. There is no telling how many public commodes I have fixed in our travels across the country through the years. Someway, I just know how to do it, and I don't mind doing it. Probably some reading this are getting nauseated by now. I just always think of how nice I will leave it for the next person, and then wash my hands and arms well and go on my way rejoicing. My children will be shocked to read this about their mother. But back to my episode in Grandmommie's bathroom. I turned and looked down in the commode and got the shock of my life. There was a black bird in the commode!!! He was wet and almost drowned. I screamed at the top of my lungs and started running through the house, scaring everybody nearly to death as I yelled, "There is a BIRD IN THE COMMODE!!!!" Everybody lined up to see the bird. I thought there was no way anyone would ever believe my story of flushing up a bird out of the commode, so being the amateur photographer that I am, I headed to get my camera and I made pictures, each step of the way. Well, you know what I had to do, don't you? The little bird was broken, and I had to fix him!!!! I grabbed the nearest fluffiest towel I could find and down in the commode I went. I grabbed that bird as everyone cleared the way for me to go outside. I placed the little bird down on the towel on the deck out back and left him to dry, or die, in the sunshine. There was no way he was not going to have another chance to live while under my care! I watched through the glass door as he turned in a little while from his side to an upright position. Soon he began to flutter his wings to help them dry. I went out and talked to him from time to time, and on the final occasion he made a mad dash for the bush right off the porch. That wasn't good enough for me. I had to see if he was going to live. I found him perched on a low branch in the bush and knew that once again he would indeed fly high in the sky. I had done what I could.

Now we wonder how that little bird got in the commode. Grandmommie has a vent pipe on top of her house that goes to the bathroom. Without doubt the little bird was resting on the side of the open pipe when a high gust of wind made him lose his balance and fall into the pipe. Now you know the rest of the story. And yes, it is true.

Somewhere there is a little black bird that once was flushed up in a commode, and I have lived to tell his story.

My Birthplace

It was June 21, 1943 when my mother took to bed in the front bedroom right off the porch and gave birth to me. A neighbor, Mrs. Ailene Prescott, came to assist mother along with Dr. Charles Hayes. Dr. Hayes picked me up after the birth and guessed I weighed 7 pounds, and we've claimed that weight ever since. Hoyt and Herschel were sent off from home that day to be with neighbors to play or visit.

The little house pictured above is not the actual house that I was born in, but it is a neighboring house with the side porch added on. It is just like the little government house I was born in, without the side porch. My actual house is now brick and spreading out due to nice additions, and right down the road a piece.

Imagine me in a few years, say four, standing at the front door or window looking out and seeing Daddy walking across the front yard coming to the house with a red tricycle in his left hand and you will be visualizing the first memory I can remember. The blog before this shows me a little later on that tricycle, after we moved to the Holland Place on Route 4, Elba, AL.

I have heard through the years that it was in the backyard of this homeplace that my brothers took me up into a tree with them to sit on a limb. Mother didn't like that a bit.

It wasn't too long ago that I took mother and we rode down to see the old homeplace, and stopped and visited with the lady who lives in the modernized actual home. Her home is surrounded by large pecan trees and I couldn't help but wonder as I looked at them if perhaps my daddy might have planted them years ago. She was gracious to let me come in and look at the kitchen, the corner of the living room where my birthroom used to be, and stand and look out the window as I once again visualized my daddy coming across the yard with my tricycle, some sixty years later. The lady had one more thing to show me, that pulled at my heart strings. She brought out the actual deeds where Daddy and Mother had bought the place, and then the one where they sold it to she and her husband. I made pictures so I could forever remember their signatures.

Looking back and from this side of the life we had there, I wonder how things would have been had we not sold the house and moved on......