MOTHER CELEBRATES 98TH BIRTHDAY

Last Saturday, June 13, 2009, has to go down in history as one of the most memorable occasions in mother's life. She turned 98 on June 11, and the 13th was the closest time to celebrate. We reserved a room at Ryan's Restaurant in Enterprise. Patsy and Herschel brought balloons for the tables and I dressed mother for the occasion. She wore a soft red suit, a tiara, a sash that had "Happy 98th Birthday" on it, and carried a bouquet of red roses. Maggie Moyer and Kellee Jackson, her daughter, provided the sash, tiara and roses. She could not have looked more beautifully. As if it was planned that way, she woke up feeling good Saturday morning even though she couldn't remember what we planned to do that day. It was a good day for her and for us.

We arrived at the restaurant and lots of the guests were already in the room waiting for us. As I wheeled her through the restaurant someone said, "Now we know who the party is for." Mother was so glad to see everybody and enjoyed the food and fellowship.

After enjoying a wonderful buffet meal, the birthday cake was brought out with the numerical candles. After eating the cake she opened gifts and cards brought by those attending. She was so proud of everything she received. It is amazing how much gifts mean to an elderly person, no matter how small or large.

Each year we wonder if this will be the last birthday we will celebrate with mother. Should this be the last, we can all rest in knowing that we did our best and she enjoyed it very much. It could not have been any better in planning, her health, the weather, and everything pertaining to it. There were family members who were unable to attend due to sickness, work and distance and we regret that very much. Her three children and companions, except Patsy who was sick, were with her to honor and help celebrate her day and that made it very special for her. Who knows? Maybe next year we can all be there!!!! We'll work toward that end and thank God for every lovely day she is here with us.

"Boiled Peanuts, Boiled Peanuts"

One of my favorite memories as a child was eating Mr. Sylvester Crocker's boiled peanuts. He and Mrs. Etta planted their own field of peanuts to gather, boil, and sell in downtown Elba. Occasionally I would go to his house, three houses over from us on the small country road, and help pick the peanuts off the vines. We would sit outside in straight wood chairs circling the pile of freshly dug peanuts. It was a dirty job. I never liked to get my hands dirty with red dirt under my figernails, but the reward was too great to not be willing to help. You see, Mr. Crocker would give me a bag of boiled peanuts for helping him. That was a great gift. After the peanuts were picked off, Mr. Crocker would wash and get all the dirt off them. Next, he put the peanuts in a large black wash pot outside in the yard, started a fire under it and boiled them until they were tender. He added salt as he stirred and let them boil. Not only were they delicious, but he sold them for ten cents a bag. The only problem was ten cents was expensive to me.

Mr. Crocker had a long, green, wood, wagon that he pulled with his horse. That is the way he went to town, three miles away, to sell his peanuts. I recall riding on the back of the wagon. I would jump off and say, "I can walk as fast as you can go." Of course I soon hopped back onto the wagon because it was such fun to ride and to hear the clippity clop of the horses hooves as they hit the road.

Occasionally in the summer time I would go and spend the night and day with Brenda, my first cousin. Her daddy, Fred Jackson, was the local butcher in Elba. He killed animals that were bought at the local stock yard right beside their little brown sided house on the Troy highway. More about that story will have to wait for another time, but Uncle Fred would some way buy two bags of boiled peanuts for us. The highlight of the day was sitting at the kitchen table and eating our peanuts. I liked those that were firm and filled out best. Brenda preferred those that were soft and had lots of salty juice in them. We made a neat little pile with our peanut hulls on the table. We talked and ate peanuts. When we finished Brenda would go back and relick some of her hulls hoping to find a little more of that salty juice that she loved. I had nothing to revisit the hulls for since I had cleaned them the first go round.

When I grew up and started dating Douglas, he had never eaten boiled peanuts. He was from the hills of Tennessee, as he called it, and had always eaten roasted peanuts. He would try one of the boiled peanuts and say, "I don't see how you eat these things," and reach for another one. I wanted to scream, "If you don't like them, please don't waste them!" Douglas kept trying to eat boiled peanuts until he learned to like them.

Here in Southern Alabama farmers will often have the large peanuts with three or four peanuts in one hull. I prefer the smaller Spanish peanuts with only two nuts in each hull and always look forward to the first boiling of the season. When we boil too many we let them cool, put them in a freezer bag, and freeze them for winter and once again remember Mr. Crocker yelling "Boiled peanuts. Boiled peanuts."

The Rhyming Cousins

As little girls we all felt special. We didn't have much and didn't see each other often enough, but there was something special among us. We could feel it. Quite frankly, I don't know why our mothers did what they did to us, but it has made for an interesting ride on our parts. We're all two years apart except for the baby in the group. Our mothers gave us names that rhyme. Brenda was first. She has always been a cotton topped blond. Two years later I came along and Mother named me after both my grandmothers and then stuck her favored name on me. Nancy Evie Glenda Williams. If that wasn't enough, I grew up and married a Williams. Nancy Evie Glenda Williams Williams is unique, but it is the rhyming that my cousins and I share that is even more unique. Brenda, Glenda and then came Lynda two years later. Another blond and she fit right into our little group. Brenda, Glenda, Lynda and a few years later here comes Trenda. Brenda, Glenda, Lynda and Trenda. We all found ourselves together last Friday at a cousin's funeral in Opp, AL. We had to do it. We had to have our pictures taken together. We are proud of our picture and our rhyming names. The funny thing is Grandma Bryant never could seem to get the right name with the right girl when we were growing up. She'd start at the top calling Brenda, Glenda, Lynda......and I learned early on if it rhymns to answer to it. I've done that a lot through the years, but it's been fun. Each rhyming cousin holds a special place in the other's hearts.
Seated far right and continuing clockwise: Brenda, Glenda, Lynda, Trenda.

Rampage Shooting Too Close for Comfort

The siren was screaming in the distance as it came closer and closer. I took note. Usually I think that someone has trouble and say a prayer for them. The urgency of the siren yesterday seemed more than usual, so I went to the back door, opened it wide and stood looking out over the wood fence at the back of our yard. I wanted to see what vehicle would be passing our house soon. The screaming siren was chilling to hear on our usually quiet street. It was a local police car traveling at an enormous speed. I estimated 90 miles per hour. It was dangerous. I thought about calling the police station and telling them that was too fast, that someone could pull out in front of them and be dead instantly. Little did I know what was prompting the fast speed, the police car, the screaming sirens. By the time it was gone, there was another one coming just like it, and then another. The sirens wouldn't stop. I couldn't leave my watchful post. Two rescue squads from Hartford passed with sirens screaming and lights flashing. A beautiful long fire truck passed. I knew something terrible had happened down the street. It had to be terrible. I stopped counting when car after car and truck after truck and suv after suv came by with sirens and blue lights flashing....unmarked vehicles, yet heading for an emergency situation. I stepped outside and heard a helicopter in the sky. Looking up I noticed it was not the usual Ft. Rucker Army helicopter, but rather a medical copter. I watched it circle around and come back to our local hospital pad and land. Trouble was evident in Geneva, but what was it? We didn't know.

Turning on the television to our nearest local channel 4 out of Dothan, across the screen rolled the terrifying information of South Alabama's greatest tragedy to date. I wish it would just go away. I wish it had never happened. A 27 year old man who had an excellent name and had worn it well, too young to die, too young to kill, too loved to hate, went on a rampage with assault rifles, pistols, and the news says he shot 200 rounds of ammunition at human targets. Many of his targets were those who loved him. He killed his young mother first, shot her in the head and then set their house on fire with her, and her dog in it. He came to the next town, Samson, AL, and shot his grandmother, his uncle, aunt, and others. Innocent people sitting on the front porch enjoying our first 82 degree day. Surely they must have waved to him when they saw him approaching, maybe even glad to see him coming for a visit. Then they might have seen the gun and just froze in disbelief facing the greatest horror of their lives. The young sheriff deputy's wife had just gone to the nearby store to get a soft drink. No doubt she walked since it was so close. She took her precious two children with her. She walked out of the store at the wrong time. He was passing and shooting and he got her and one of the children. The other one is in surgery in a Florida hospital. A man pumping gas dodged his bullets by getting behind the gas tank. Thank God the bullet didn't strike the tank and make it explode. He continued on toward Geneva shooting as he traveled. He killed 10 and then killed himself. There are several who are injured from his rampage.

I don't know what kind of charge, thrill, or euphoria he got from his spree of killing yesterday. I do know he has done damage that will never go away. Forever it is etched in the lives and memories of those who witnessed or heard the sirens, the shots, the screams. It wasn't worth it. He cheated a lot of people, but most of all, himself. He deserved better. He could have done better things with his life and gotten far greater rewards. By the time his soul passed from this life to the next, I'm sure he knew how stupid he had been. And there is no way to make it better now. It is a done deal. It is too late. And we weep.

Our Neighborhood Friends

I don't know what it is about little animals and me. Not long ago a beautiful tame rabbit showed up in our yard. I knew Bugs Bunny liked carrots and I thought this little guy might also, so I got a carrot from the refrigerator to feed him. He liked it. He liked it well enough to eat it from my hand. I fell in love with the little rabbit. It wasn't long until he no longer came to our house every day. Without doubt someone caught him and penned him up. I missed him.

Recently at daybreak Douglas and I was awakened by the crowing of a rooster. It had been a long time since we had heard that in the early morning hours. We got out of bed and went to the front, and there he strolled around our driveway telling everyone it was time to rise and shine. He was so pretty and very unusual to us. He was small but had lots of feathers down near his feet. I started telling him how pretty he was and he started coming toward me. I remembered at about 5 years old having a rooster try to spur me. I cried and bent over to cover my legs. Mother yelled for me to stand up or he might put my eyes out. Wow, I couldn't get away from him fast enough. I don't remember him ever spurring me though. Being older now, it never occured to me to be frightened of that pretty little rooster with the beautiful wake up call. I went and got bird seed and started feeding him. He liked the seed, and it seemed he liked me.

One day I showed mother the little rooster underneath a berry tree across the road. I told her to watch me and how he would come to me when I went outside. He saw me come out and he immediately stepped off the curb and started across the street. He came down the driveway and got closer and closer until he made it all the way to the porch where I was. He would follow us all over the yard. Sometimes it frightened me at how fast he could get near my feet. I guess I showed that fear because he started coming up to me sideways, and even today he ruffled his feathers someway making a sound that really got my attention. I could tell he wanted to fight me. Talking firm to him didn't work. Walking faster didn't work because he got faster too. So I took off my jacket as he stood and watched. I thought I would throw my jacket over him if he kept threatening me. You see I wasn't just protecting myself today. I had taken mother over to the church building on her wheelchair and I was more concerned about protecting her. Her skin is so fragile and I didn't want him to tear it. We made it into the house safely and I went and got some seed and once again fed the rooster. Little did I know that would be the last time I would see him alive. A large bird swooped down and killed the little rooster at the end of our house late this afternoon. I suppose he was hungry too and the beautiful little rooster provided him food. Somehow I think God also was looking out for us, protecting us, and I thank Him.

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......