Daddy gave us nicknames

I don't know why Daddy had nicknames for lots of us but he did. I guess I never knew what mine was until I was older. I think it was all done in good fun. As I think back over the names I don't think they were very complimentary but as the saying goes, "It is what it is."

Daddy called mama "battle axe." I don't know if he called her that to her face or just jokingly said it in my presence. He called me "Mullet head." Isn't that awful? I was a pretty little girl I'll have you know. I don't think he was referring to the common mullet haircut that young men wear sometimes today. Herschel, my brother, was called "Perce." Neither of us have a clue where that came from nor why.

Art had a unique name. As a little baby his feet were on top of each other. The doctor said they had to be straightened or he would never walk a step. We took him to a specialist in Montgomery and he fashioned a pair of Buster Brown high top white shoes with something on the soles where a silver metal bar could be attached to both shoes to hold his feet apart. It worked and as he lay in his bed at night kicking his legs the shoes with the bar made a loud sound. Daddy quickly started calling him "scrap iron."

I don't recall any of the other family members having names designated by daddy and that may be a good thing or...it may mean we were especially "special." 

True stories are the best, don't you think? Have a great day!

Wedding Poem

Wedding bliss is wonderful when two find each other.
It's a joy to be together and share with one another.
When a future is planned with dreams beyond the blue,
With time and God's blessings, they will become true.

You have embarked on the path many have trod,
With love for each other, and a great faith in God.
Faith that He will bless your home as you give your best,
To be patient, loving, and kind,
with Him always as your invited guest.

May your home always be the place you want to be,
May your true love be the one with whom you want to share,
Where you both can find ultimate peace,
And the greatest of loving care.

- Glenda Williams - March 26, 2015

Poem - When I Become a Memory

I wrote this poem after visiting my oldest brother, Hoyt Williams, who was dying with cancer. Doug and I were seated in Po Folks Restaurant in Enterprise, AL when the thoughts came to me.

When I Become a Memory

When I become a memory,

Think of me with a smile.

Tears may fill your eyes,

But only let it be for a little while.

Remember all the good things we did.

Remember when I was at my best.

Remember only the good times,

And let go of all the rest.

Remember when I was healthy

And so full of life.

Remember me young and happy,

With a life free of strife.

When I become a memory

And am no longer here with you,

Smile and be happy, and remember,

My love for you is true.

- Glenda Williams

3-05-2015

Working together for a common goal

The Old Holland House we moved to when I was four years old is pictured here in the background. There's a story about this picture in which I like to think about. There's a lesson to be gained from the telling of it.

Daddy was much of a man, a carpenter by trade and he believed that he should be the sole support of his family. So he wasn't too keen on the idea of mother slipping behind his back and going with Pauline Williams to the Social Security department to apply for a job one day. No sir, he had quite a bit to say about that, but mother convinced him that whatever she made would help us out as a family. He gave in.

Mother made $75.00 every two weeks working as a seamstress at the Kinston Manufacturing Co. I still am amazed at how far she stretched that money every two weeks. It wasn't long until I heard mama say to daddy, "Grady, let's build us a new house. We can buy the supplies we need each week and you can build it. We'll pay for it as we go." Daddy signed on to that challenge and it wasn't long until he dug a trench in the ground laying off right where the concrete footing would be poured. He drew the plans for our modest three bedroom home with one bath, living room, dining and kitchen combination. Mama was as good as her word and daddy took pride in showing us just what he was doing.

I look at the picture and see the extension cord that daddy ran from the Old Holland house to the foundation of our new house. I remember it well.

I had my share of helping to build that house. Daddy instructed me on how to put the design in the ceiling with plaster and a round sponge and I guess it is still there today. I filled the sponge with plaster, positioned it just right on the ceiling and gave it a twist. I was so proud of myself and what I had done.

Mama is sitting on the foundation of the house in the picture. She was so proud of it and rightfully so. We all were. Who gets a new house in the early '60's, right? We did. All thanks to mama and daddy working together.

Mama and Daddy were like that. They worked together. They had it rough but they never gave up on each other nor the vows they made to God and each other. They lived together until death parted them after 55 long years. They had tough times and lean years but they didn't give up on each other or on us their three children.

The house still stands on route 4, Elba, AL. The address is no longer the same. The house is no longer painted white, the plants mama planted have grown into trees, and the people who own it don't have the love for the place that we did. But somehow it will always be home to me.

Wash day in the woods

I think I have finally figured out why mama liked to wash clothes so much. It was a fact around her house that nothing laid around dirty very long before she had it in the washing machine. Through the years we have talked about how mama liked to wash clothes. I was thinking about mama this morning and the first time I remember her washing clothes. It was when I was about four years old. 

We lived in a small government house out in the country on an Opp route when i was born. It was a nice house and I was born in the front room to the right of the porch. Daddy wanted some land and bought the old Holland Place out from Elba. We moved into the house on route 4. I was four years old. It was a big house with four rooms. We had two iron beds in the large living room, a dining room, kitchen and another bedroom for the boys. We had an outdoor toilet and we had little mice which I thought was just wonderful. Mama didn't think so and she soon put a stop to them. 

Wash day came and mother, daddy and I headed straight across the dirt road in front of our house, down to the woods where there was a stream of water. Daddy had taken the old black wash pot down there and set it up beside the creek. He had stumps and had #3 washtubs setting on them. I think there were two or three tubs. A fire was set under the wash pot to heat the water taken from the stream. Mama put the clothes and lye soap, I assume, in it to wash the clothes. She had a battling stick daddy had made in which she punched down the clothes and pulled from the pot when she thought they were clean. She laid them on a stump and beat them. I didn't pay much attention because I was enjoying being in the woods near a stream of water and near them. Mama rung the clothes out by hand and then put them in the first tub of water, juggled them up and down, squeezed them out by hand and then on to the next tub. She really believed in rinsing her clothes well. After the job was done they lugged the clothes back up the hill to our house and to the clothes line out back where she hung them in the sun to dry. Mondays were usually wash day.

From that primitive way of washing clothes mama moved on to having a wringer type electric machine out underneath a shed behind the house. She no longer had to wring the clothes out by hand because the washer had a wringer up top. We just positioned them just right, sent them through and the excess water was rung out. She used that washer for years and continued to hang the clothes to dry on the line. 

Mama and Daddy built a new house in 1960 on the Old Holland Place. I remember when mama bought her first electric washer and dryer. They were used but she didn't care. She put them in the utility room right behind the carport. I can see now why they made her so happy. Mama had come a long way.

Later in her life after Daddy died, she sold the house on route 4 and moved to Elba across the street from her son and family. She moved her washer and dryer inside her house. She could really wash clothes now. They were right beside her kitchen. We never understood why mama liked to wash clothes so much, but I think after today I have it figured out. She came a long way in her 102 1/2 years. She really did. She loved to wash clothes.

My swing in the old oak tree

We had a large oak tree to the left of our new house. It was old and huge. It provided shade for us and we were proud of our tree. We didn't have an air-conditioner back then. One day daddy got a ladder and leaned it up against the tree. I stood and watched as he climbed the tree and made his way onto a thick limb sticking out to the left. I didn't know what daddy was going to do but he laid on his stomach with his overalls on and scooted himself out a good distance from the tree trunk. His legs were wrapped around the limb as he moved forward with a rope in his hand. When he stopped he reached around the tree limb and brought the rope around it tying it securely in place. Working to get the other end he scooted back toward the tree trunk and stopped. He took the other end of the rope and tied it around the limb. I noticed he looked toward the ground and adjusted the rope so it was neither too far off the ground nor too near. Then I watched as he worked himself back to the trunk and to the ladder as he made his way down to the ground. I remember being glad daddy didn't fall out of the tree and was happy to see him on the ground again. He had taken a piece of wood and cut out "v's" in the center of each end making a seat for the swing. This was all new to me and I was all eyes. He positioned it on the rope, sat down, walked himself back and away he went testing the swing. Then it was my time. I will never, ever, forget that first time in my very own swing. I walked backwards as far as possible and pulled my feet up. I thought I would never stop and go backwards. That swing was so far off the ground until it gave me a long distance to swing before going back. It provided me with hours and hours of fun. The swing was far enough away from the tree trunk until not only could I go backward and forward but I learned to make a circle. I could really fly high going around in a circle and enjoyed it so much. It wasn't long until I was able to touch my toes to the leaves on the tree edge. 

One day I was swinging and mother came by with her silver water bucket heading to the garden. She said she was going to pick a mess of peas. I heard an airplane in the air or thought it might be a helicopter. Ft. Rucker had a training field near our home and they flew over our house at all hours. Sometimes I stood in the yard and waved to the soldiers sitting in the open doors of the copters. But on this day I learned it was an airplane. I looked out toward the garden and saw Mama coming in a high trot just as fast as she could walk toward the house. I knew something was wrong. "What is it?" I yelled. She said, "That airplane. I think it is diving at me!" Peas or no peas she was coming to the house. It tickled me then and as I relive the moment today I still find it funny. Precious memories.

My little 401 overalls

I was just thinking of when I was in the second grade at Curtis School out from Elba. I will start by saying that daddy was a carpenter and he wore overalls. He had some dark denim ones with a pocket up top on the bib. It had the number 401 on it. Daddy wanted me to have a pair of overalls and I suppose he wanted them like his because that is what they turned out to be. One day the three of us went to Perry's Country Store where they sold overalls and sure enough they had some in my size. I don't think mama liked the idea too much but she went along with daddy. I liked having a pair like daddy and... Leroy Rushing. Leroy was a fellow classmate of mine. He had a rough raspy voice even at his young age. He wore 401s too. 

Mama let me wear my new overalls to school one day and as I entered our classroom I saw him...Leroy Rushing, standing up at the back of the room facing me and wearing his 401 overalls, just like the ones I had one. He squashed my smile when he said, "It ain't funny, Glenda Williams, I can tell you that. Someone got killed." Whoa!!! I replied, "I'm not smiling about that. I'm smiling 'cause we got on overalls just alike." I enjoyed my overalls even though I didn't get the thrill I was expecting when I entered the classroom at the end of the hall. Leroy wasn't a bit impressed with my 401 overalls.

Anger solution

“What do you do when you get mad at someone? Do you hit them? Do you call them a bad name and say bad things to or about them? Do want to hurt them? Do you spit on them? Do you get your toy and run home? Want to know what I do? I stick out my tongue at them. That’s what I do.”

I am a whistler

Yesterday while in Dothan we went into Walmart so I could pick up some more crochet thread. As I was coming back to the front I met this short man walking very fast and whistling a tune to the rate of his speed. I think he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket but he was whistling. I smiled and spoke to him and thought of how happy he seemed to be. It reminds me of seeing Grandma Bryant standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes. She was singing as she worked. Her daughter, Aunt Omie Marler told me on one occasion to "always keep a song in your heart." I'm a whistler. I was whistling as I walked into the church building recently. Grandma always told me, "a whistling woman and a crowing hen never did come to a very good end." But an outward sign of an inward feeling sometimes just has to come out, doesn't it? Whether it is singing or whistling we all have a musical instrument we carry with us all the time, and we need to be more joyful people whether in tune or not. Hope you have a joyful day.

Squeek had squeaky clean bathroom

Many years ago when we were working with the Cedar Grove church out from Andalusia Doug and I were visiting in the home of Tom and Squeek Rabren. I used her bathroom and noticed how sparkling clean it was. The floors were spotless. It was just like we would want all our bathrooms to be. So, you know me, I went back and asked her how she kept her bathroom so sparkling clean. She said, "After I get my bath and am finished for the night I take my bath cloth and wipe everything down. She did it daily. Simple enough, don't you think? Now my personal secret to moping the bathroom floor is pouring cleaner on the floor, taking my wet bath cloth and spread it out on the floor. I then take an angled inexpensive broom, place it on the bath cloth and mop it that way. I can manage wringing out the bath cloth several times easier than a regular mop and it is both convenient and handy. The broom is easy to wash out. That may be more information than you would like to read today but since I have just done it...have a good day.

Mama cooked bologna for breakfast

I was just thinking about how things were when I was a little girl at home in Elba, AL. Daddy was a carpenter and mama stayed at home during the early years with me and my two older brothers. I never did go to school without breakfast. Somehow they always had the money I needed to pay for my lunch all week at school, and I ate it too! Daddy helped build the first building of Kelley Foods of Alabama. You see he was a carpenter and that is what he did as long as I can remember. Because he was working down at the plant, daddy would bring long rolls of bologna wrapped in a red plastic covering home for us to eat. It was the same red covering that we see today on the slices. It was gathered on each end with a metal wire of some sort. You get the picture of the shape and it must have been 18" long. Mama sliced and cooked it for us. She made biscuits and scrambled eggs. We didn't have much money but mama and daddy took care of us and saw that we had food to eat. That bologna was something when mama cooked it. First of all, if you've never done it, you have to know that it curls up and makes a bowl. Mama would slice it around each round piece to make it lay flat and she let it brown. I don't remember it being good necessarily but it fed us. We didn't have to wait until we got to school to eat, nor did we get it at a reduced price even though we probably would have been considered low income. When we got to school we went to work learning. 

Mama always ordered my clothes from the Sears Roebuck Catalog. She ordered me different colored jeans. I remember getting a red, blue, and green pair and one little pair of brown lace up oxford shoes each year. She made lots of my clothes out of flour sacks. One time when I was older mama took a pair of daddy's nice dress slacks and made me a skirt . I was mighty proud of it and felt so dressed up. Mama used what she had to help us survive and not what she wished she had. She made every penny count as the old saying goes.

I guess all three of us turned out all right in life. We learned to work for what we had and didn't expect anybody to give us anything along the way. If we didn't have it, we did without and worked to get it. I may be wrong but the way I see it is that wasn't a bad way to be brought up. It helps us to be more content today I think. That is just what I'm thinking today.

My First Desk

This little table holds lots of memories for me. There were two of these tables. Mother and daddy used them as end tables to go on either end of their sofa. After I started to school I used one of the little tables as my desk. I remember sitting in a chair pulled up to the flat side and resting my feet on the cross bar while I did my homework. I felt special to have my very own desk. Precious memories.