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A refuge under the covers

When I was a little boy, my brother and I shared a room with two maple single beds, a maple night stand, and a maple dresser with six drawers – three on each side with a large mirror spanning its width. The beds had pineapple finials on their posts. My older brother left me behind in the room early in my life after he graduated high school headed off to the Navy. There was 15 years between us. The room was lonely once he was gone. He often had friends over that allowed me to be the annoying little brother! I reveled in all the mischief I was able to cause as a toddler.

That room became like a cavern to me. In the dark, there were definitely monsters under both beds, in the closet and walking down the hallway leading to the room. I could hear every creak and pop. Any little thing would have the handmade quilt pulled so high over my head, it was doubtful I would ever dig myself back out again.

When the fears of nightmares were too hard to bear, my parent’s bed was a refuge, and off I would run up the hall, open the door, and jump in between them in their cedar bed. After they calmed me, I would soon settle in warm and snug between them.

As I grew, my bed became also a sick bed, as my tenuous health caused me to take extended stays there. The maple night stand became a regular place for bottles of medicine, damp wash rags would remove the vanish over time as they would hang there between my fevers.

In my childhood, the room had none of those things children have today. There was only one TV in the house in the living room. Only what could fill my imagination with the toys from my closet were what I had to keep me occupied in the healthy times. I also had a candy red tricycle which allowed me some freedom in the back yard and, of course, like many I had my own cowboy outfit, with a cap pistol, so I could chase after the bad guys.

That room was my world as a kid. I knew every flaw, every loose board, and where I could hide from company if they came. Despite being alone, I filled it with lots of imagination.

As the years passed, I remained there until I was in my teens and the den was converted into a more adult bedroom for me and the childhood bedroom became a guest room.

Years later, we decided to sell the suite and it moved along to a family that had a set of twin girls who would then call it their own. I hoped they found as many happy hours there as I did and experienced a few more joint memories as siblings. The bedroom suite was second hand to my brother and I, so I imagine it has moved on a time or two more since then.

While furniture does not carry memories with it, the pieces certainly can leave a memory legacy within each of us. Today, I still sleep in that cedar bed I once jumped in as a toddler. A few feet away are the dresser drawers which served as my bed as an infant. I imagine, if it is the Lord’s will these items will be with me the rest of my journey and then will pass along in the family.

The smell of flowers upon the heart

The sweet smell of flowers emanated on the breeze as I ran through the backyard trail. For me, as a small boy, it seemed immense as the rhododendrons towered above me.
It was like an enchanted garden that you could imagine catching the Irish little people scurry out of your sight and the fairies to be dancing in the air about you.
It was a backyard domain of vibrant red, purple, pink, white, orange and yellow colors in every shade created by long serving forestry employee Baxter Reed who created the sights and smells for his loving wife Hazel.
Baxter and Hazel Reed were my childhood neighbors. They were of my grandparents’ generation and themselves had no children. But in their own way, they had many grandchildren – those who made up our little neighborhood.
As we played upon the streets or across the yards, they were there to smile and cheer us along. There were often cups of lemonade nearby and occasionally a cookie to boost our energy. Hazel’s love emanated through many of us.
I was able to come to know Baxter some as I assisted him with a few chores around the yard before his Parkinson’s advanced to where he was less active.
The couple was originally from Oregon and Baxter had retired from the forestry service. I am not sure what had brought them to Atlanta and our neighborhood. I guess I never asked, or if it was said, it was lost in the annals of my youthful inquisitiveness.
But from him I learned that in order to create a beautiful environment, outside of nature’s normal beauty, it took dedication and care. That is what he gave to the space he created for Hazel and him to enjoy.
When I was big enough, I took on mowing yards to earn money. The one yard that I really did not want to mow was the Reeds. Mr. Reed had cultivated the only Zoysia front yard in the neighborhood. It was thick and difficult to push the mower through. But in time, I was asked and could not refuse Hazel’s request.
One of Hazel’s pastimes was painting flowers on china, and she was very good at this hobby. I was blessed as a boy to get a few of her creations and have cherished them through the years. I recently passed those along for someone else to continue in that enjoyment.
In life, often we are not provided what other might see as the ideal situation. We may not have family or close friends with which to share our day-to-day. There may be no children who will carry on our legacy. Our health may not be the best it can be. We may face problems of our own making or thrust upon us by others.
No matter what is in the hand we are dealt in the game of life, it is our job to play it. To make the very best of the situation and along the way to strive to make our world a better place.
The Christmas and New Year’s holiday season is a time for many of loneliness. In some cases, people are outgoing and can fill the time with friends or activities that mask this until the season is passed. But others are mired in a stillness that prevents them from seeking the support of others.
You have a chance to make the lives of those around you better every day of the year. This is a lesson I learned from Hazel and from Baxter, you do your best to uplift, encourage and persevere no matter your circumstances and while doing that you make your life, your days, and your circle of engagement a happier and more loving place to be.
Create a memory that lasts far beyond you. Thank you, Hazel and Baxter, gone from us now for decades, but still in the memory and in the heart of one of those little neighborhood boys.

Decorations upon the heart

I crawled up the ladder into the attic and pulled the string illuminating the surroundings.

Only a small area above the attic pull door was floored, and it was covered in cardboard boxes, as were the rafters, except for a space to move around the door.

I knew where I was going. It was my job as a boy to bring down the Christmas decorations which were all stored near the heat exhaust fan in the hall ceiling.

Generally, there were about six boxes including lights, Christmas ornaments, a faux fireplace, our artificial tree, and the exterior lights.

The first week in December was always a time that I looked forward to, because over a couple of days all these items would go up.

We would put the Bing Crosby or Elvis Presley records on the player and start working. Bill Monroe’s “Christmas Time’s A Comin’” or Jimmy Martin’s Christmas album would always be in the mix too.

Our tree went up in front of the living room windows, so the curtains could be pulled and any drivers by could see its lights. We chose the artificial tree beginning the year that I was diagnosed allergic to the trees. Despite losing the smell of the fresh tree and me eventually helping sell them with my Boy Scout troop. I still enjoyed putting the tree together. That was my job. Then mother would guide me placing the ornaments and icicles. The round ornaments included a mixture of red, green, silver and gold colors. There was a sparse number of off shaped smaller ones used in the upper areas of the tree. Most of these ornaments, my folks accumulated in the 1950s and 60s. On the top of the tree, my dad, when I was small enough would lift me up and we would place an angel with a light.

On one wall, near the front door, we would put together the faux fireplace with the electric lights behind the logs, and upon it would go our stockings and the Christmas cards that would come in.

Each window in the front of the house featured an electric candle. While every table in the house was swapped to seasonal doilies, candles, and decor.

On the exterior, that was dad’s domain with my help. All the bushes along the front of the house would be covered with lights, as was the trellis by our door. On the trellis near the door, we placed a two-foot lighted face of Santa. Plugging in one plug would light up the outside.

Once complete, the look and sounds for me meant Christmas was coming. While nobody’s life is all roses, these Christmas traditions helped me as a boy to have a blessed memory to grow upon each year.

Adulthood for me, unfortunately, didn’t bring the pleasant Christmases that were there in childhood. Instead after a certain point of not successfully finding that, I realized my way to create new traditions was by helping others have an amazing Christmas by helping meet the needs of those less fortunate.

Seeing the smiles on children’s faces when they receive a special unexpected gift. Filling a fridge and cabinets with food when a family doesn’t have money for that purpose. These were traditions that I also saw my parents quietly do when I was a child.

Those actions weren’t to make my Christmas better then. But today as I think fondly upon the decorations of old, it was the quiet service to others that I saw my parents do, that’s what really sunk into my memory and resurfaced as what Christmas is really all about.

For this Christmas, continue your family traditions, but add a new one for your young ones to see. That is, if you don’t already, why not help folks in need and let your children take part, maybe those actions will stay within their hearts for years to come.

A Shell, the Porch Swing and a Screen Door

 I reached down and pulled out a freshwater oyster shell from the branch next to Washington Road and ran up to my grandma who was leaning on a fence post nearby. “Is there a chance I can find a pearl?” She looked at it and said, “You already got one, and she’s your mother.”
     As I occupied my time exploring what types of rocks I could find, she was getting the mail from the box. After she closed the gate behind us, we walked back up the gravel drive to the worn whitewashed four-room farmhouse to which Grandma Kitty Bruce retired after selling the farm at the head of Sequatchie Valley. The little 18-acre place was near Dayton, Tennessee, and my grandma’s siblings and their farms. The area was where her Mama Rachel and Daddy Phil moved when they migrated from Tellico Plains, Tennessee, in the 1800s.
     She stepped up onto the front porch that ran the length of the front of the house. She leaned against the second porch post and looked back down towards Washington Road, almost retracing the steps that she had made in her mind.
     My Aunt “Duck” (Norma Jean) came through the screen door. It banged loudly in her wake. She was fanning herself with a folded Dayton Herald saying, “It sure is hot today … it sure is hot… What did we get in the mail? Is there anything in the mail for me?”
     She sat down on the porch swing. I crawled up next to her, and grandma continued staring off into the distance.
     It wasn’t long before my mother Pearl came through the house wiping her hands with a dish rag saying, “Well, I’ve got the dishes washed. Now we got to see about getting this boy of mine a bath.”
     “Aw, Mom, I took one before we left home,” I said.
     “Yeah, and you are going to take one before we go to town too,” she said.
     The plan was already in the works, and I didn’t even know they were a-plottin’ agin me… I had been running, jumping, and enjoying the morning. It wasn’t even dinnertime, and I had already covered every inch of the place from post to post. While Mama was washing the dishes, she had been heating extra water to fill the wash barrel on the back porch.
     She had pulled out a bar of grandma’s lye soap and a bristle brush, and before I could say, “scat” I was belly deep in water feeling like that brush or the soap was ripping the skin right off with every stroke.
     I can still hear her a saying, “This ought to run off any chiggers you might have picked up.” ‘Course, I had chiggers too a few times, and I believe the bath was worse.
     That is one thing about bath day and clothes worshing day. They were sights to behold. When you got several folks in one house all needing a good worshing and only one bath barrel on the back porch and you had to heat the water to fill her up, it took a lot of effort to keep the water replenished. Course, on real busy days that water didn’t get much changin’.
     When the clothes worshing was being done, it was soap, rub boards and worshtubs. ‘Course, I do remember when Grandma got her an agitating worsher with a wringer on the top of it that you turned with a crank, and then you’d hang the clothes out to dry.
     Eventually, everybody was ready, and we’d all climb into the blue and white pickup truck — mother, grandma and my aunt in the front and me in the back if I promised to be good and head to town, sometimes to the grocery, sometimes to the dime store.
     I’d usually talk my grandma into gettin’ a strawberry or grape Crush at the fillin’ station. They sure did taste good on a hot July afternoon.
     Occasionally, we’d just take off an’ go a-visitin’. Folks don’t do that much these days. That’s going to some kin’s house without being invited, sitting and gabbin’ for hours. Maybe helping them pick apples or tomatoes, cut okra. Sometimes the women folks would turn in and help with the cannin’ while the kids found adventures of their own or were put to work breakin’ beans.
     I remember what seemed like long walks to the outhouse, especially at night when you’d drather not make that journey unless you just had no other choice.
     I can see my breath rising above the handmade quilts as I lay in the old metal post bed on cold mornings. I dreaded putting my bare feet on the cold wood floor. The only advantage to getting up was in knowing when I passed through the bedroom doorway, the kitchen would be warm. I could already smell the bacon fryin’, the cathead biscuits in the stove and know that breakfast would soon warm my insides even though the outside was chilly.
     This walk up that old gravel drive for me is a fond reminder of some childhood visits to Grandma Kitty’s farm in Rhea County. The time there was sometimes slow, sometimes sad, sometimes filled with joy or pain, and other times filled with angst; but no matter what the experience, it was a place that evokes a feeling of a rural South that used to be — when you wore your best to town, when you helped your neighbor, when though you may have disagreements among your kin, you came together in one accord when facing the outside world and you took care of your own.

Kicking the can down the road

I reached over and picked up the can I found along the roadside and looked at it before I tossed it into a nearby trashcan. It carried me back to the carefree days when such a find would result in me kicking the can down the road for a ways.
Summer always was filled with the endless opportunity of adventures that emanated from within my head.
The can would eventually land in the edge of the woods lying by an oak stick. I would pick it up, take out my pocketknife and peel off the bark. That stick became my musket as I set out towards the fort that my friends and I had built earlier in the summer.
The stack of limbs on three sides hid a huge pile of pinecones that were collected and stored away for the next battle.
It was a weekly occurrence; my friends and I set out to re-create the frontier battles of our ancestors as they faced off with the indigenous people in the Appalachian Mountains and along the frontiers.
I always fancied myself in the roles of my cousins Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett but sometimes I also got to take on the roles of my Native American ancestors as well.
The adventures would shift as my friends and I would swap roles at times and switch to Civil War battles with some of us being Yankees and some Confederates.
No matter who we were in our play, we always got pelted with pinecones until one group out maneuvered the other, captured the fort, or ran out of ammo.
Ultimately our adventures filled our afternoons, exhausting our rambunctious natures in brief until we refocused our energies or one of us heard a motherly call to come home.
There were no personal computers and no phones that were not attached to a wall. Bicycles got us where we wanted to go, unless that motherly call meant we were headed that afternoon to town for a looking or feeling trip in an air-conditioned store or maybe to see a matinee.
Either way, we would be back in time so dinner would be on the table by six, and there would still be time for an evening baseball game on the street before the streetlights came on and we had to be in to clean up for bed.
I would kneel down by my maple twin bed and thank the Lord for the day, and ask Him to keep my parents, my friends and I safe through until another day dawned.
Those memories are still a blessing to me. I hope you have ones that bring a smile to your face and place a song in your heart.

The bottom of the pile

It is hard to walk away when you are at the bottom of the pile.

I remember fondly the springs and summers. Hours of play after completing my chores around the house. Of course, as I got older, I took on odd jobs like mowing neighbor’s yards to earn a little money.

In my neighborhood, we had a great group of children. We all would gather to play and race our bikes down suicide hill.

I remember one accident that sent me flying through the handlebars and sliding down the pavement for 20 feet or more. That still hurts just thinking about it. I had sores all over me from that adventure.

There were no cell phones — so the kids were kept on what I call time leashes. When we left the house, we were expected to come back by a certain time, usually mealtime.

Of course, if any of us got into mischief, the news traveled faster than us and the punishment was waiting for us when we got home. In my case, a few choice words from Mom followed by “You just wait ‘til your father gets home.”

Those waits coupled with the sound of my dad pulling his belt out of his pants were always worse than the whipping themselves.

One thing about it, my father never punished me undeservingly, and while I can’t remember a single whipping, I sure learned the life lessons that accompanied them.

My friends and I had about a two to three-mile radius in which we played that encompassed, fields, woods, several neighborhoods and some stores. We had a Colonial Grocery Store, a Krystal, a gas station, dry cleaners and a Gulf Service Station within our travel patterns.

We would get in our share of disagreements with each other. That would lead usually to some hurt feelings and some rolling around on the ground ‘til someone would say “Uncle.” We always seemed to come through it. There really were no children who caused trouble in my age bracket. A few older ones sometimes got into mischief, but we always managed to keep out of trouble.

Do not get me wrong, there were bullies. We were just blessed not to have them on our street, at least for very long. I remember when I was about seven there were two brothers who took great pleasure in picking fights with me. At least, it seemed that way at the time.

A boy my age named Chris Sands moved in. His parents had just divorced, and at that time, it was not as usual, as it is now. I’ll never forget one meeting with those brothers that had me at the bottom of a wrestling match that I just could not win. Chris was the new guy in the neighborhood and saw that I was being unfairly targeted for this fight and stepped in to pull the other boys off me. From that moment on, he was my friend — that is until he later moved away, and I lost track of him.

While time has erased many of the memories of the time we spent together hanging out as kids, that one action by the new boy on the block sticks in my mind. He saw something that was not right, and he did something about it. Not knowing the social lay of the land and the dynamics of the neighborhood hierarchy, he stuck his neck out for me. That is bravery.

Now I’m not advocating fighting as a way to resolve issues for children or adults. I was taught that it takes much more courage to walk away than to actually fight. But when they jump on you, there are just a few hurdles you have to get over before you can walk away.

I learned a valuable lesson from Chris that day. I have always tried to stick up for others, but sadly, especially when I started to serve in local politics, I found there were few willing to stick up for you as the bullies come out to tear you down, especially during an election.

Folks often do not like to stick their neck out to help other people, but when someone does, it makes our community a better place. Even during an election, it is better to walk away and not engage in the lowering of the standards of decency often practiced by other candidates and their backers.

We are truly blessed with people who work every day to help those who face many kinds of battles.

Flour, a broom and a lesson on being needed

As I look down at the flour on the floor and the straw of the broom as it meets the floor at the edge of heap, I swiftly move it through the white powder. In the motion, my mind sweeps over my memories and I find myself standing beside the table in my boyhood home.

My Grandma Kitty is standing at the end of the broom sweeping flour that I had managed to spill as we were preparing biscuits and getting ready to bake a batch of cookies.

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Warsh and wear

Today most folks don’t give a second thought if they get their clothes dirty to go and change into another outfit. Of late, I have found myself babying a electric dryer as I have been trying to get parts to keep it working, so I am a little more cautious about how many clothes I have to wash.
In the valley below the Gravelly Spur, an abundance of clothes in the closet was not something that most folks experienced.
The Wood boys, like everyone, were often faced with limited things to wear. Little Woody had long grown out of his white cotton dress that he wore in the shadow of his late mother.
The dresses provided mothers the added benefit to keep track of a child when they had to leave the room by lifting the old iron bedpost and placing it on the tail of the gown. That kept the toddlers from toddling into mischief.
By this point the young boy had graduated to two pairs of overalls and two shirts.
After working in the fields two days in a row, both pairs of his overalls and his two shirts were stained with red dirt and mud. He came to his older sister and said “I haven’t got anything to wear to school tomorrow.”
She took him into the bedroom reached into the closet, pulled out her extra dress, and laid it on the bed.
“Get that on and I’ll wash up your overalls.”
Little Woody didn’t have much choice in the matter it was either put the dress on or run around in his all together. So out of the clod covered overalls and into the gray colored dress he slipped.
So even though it was late in the day, she pulled out the washtub and the warshboard and scrubbed them overalls from rusty brown to a faded blue.
She took them out and hung them to dry on the clothesline, as one would normally do.
As the family went to sleep that night, the temperature dropped way below freezing. When the family slowly made their way out into the kitchen wiping the sleep from their eyes with the rooster’s crow, little Woody’s older sister sent one of the other boys to fetch the overalls while she cooked.
He brought them in frozen solid, straight as a board. He stands them in the corner taking a bit of delight in the feat.
Woody is standing there in her gray dress and says “What are we going to do, I can’t were those to school and I am sure not wearing this dress.”
She took the overalls and shirts and placed them on chairs by the fireplace and within just a short time the overalls and shirts had melted into something looking like the occupants had simply disappeared. She quickly ironed one of the shirts.
Woody could not wait to get out of the dress and as soon as the overalls were warm enough and before the iron had hit them, he was into one of the pairs and out of that dress.
While the experience might not have been so bad for little Woody if his older brothers did not see the whole thing as an opportunity for some good old fashion ribbing once they got to school.
When the Moss brothers asked the Wood boys what they had done the night before each mentioned some adventure they had but one of them had to say, “Woody didn’t do anything. He was afraid to come out of the house cause someone might see him wearing sister’s dress.”
Needless to say this was enough to get Little Woody’s blood to boiling and with a little more agitation its safe to say that clean pair of overalls picked up a little schoolyard dirt as the kidders found themselves on the receiving end of his frustration.
Good thing his sister washed both pairs of overalls or he’d been back in that dress all over again.
( From “A Mountain Pearl: Appalachian Reminiscing and Recipes” by Randall Franks)

Childhood friends from far away

I crowded into the MARTA bus headed towards downtown Atlanta. I grabbed a seat as the bus filled up. A black lady in gray dress and heels got on and I noticed that there was no available seat, so I rose and moved towards the back giving her my seat. As I got situated near the rear door, I wrapped my arm around the rail of the bus and placed my feet appropriately to keep me steadied as the bus stopped and started along the rest of the trip to Central City Park. As I sat there I started looking at the man sitting near me and realized it was Mr. Olivares. He was heading to his job downtown. I had not seen him in years and initially he did not recognize me.

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The seeds of wisdom spit forth

This past week I gathered with kin beside the stream that flows by my late grandparent’s home in the mountains of Tennessee. The area is now a state park, in the stream one of our cousins placed a watermelon to chill its bright red innards. We shared so much fun that day, as we cleaned up, we discovered the melon ice cold, and it had missed out on all the fun. As I sat on the back porch today looking out watching the grass grow, this image carried me in my mind’s eye sitting similarly on my grandmother’s porch. It was a summer where I spent a lot of time with my Grandma Kitty and Aunt Norma Jean. Flossie, the milk cow, was meandering through the yard headed for a shade tree where she laid down and tried to create a bit of a breeze using her tail to move an almost non-existent breeze.
Grandma was doing a much better job in her rocker with her funeral home fan and her right arm. In fact she managed to move enough that I picked up a bit of the breeze as mother and I went back and forth on the porch swing. Norma Jean leaned back in a ladder back chair against the wall abnormally still for her.
It was one of those days once referred to as the dog days of summer. I never quite understood that except I guess that the similarities with dogs it brought to us humans. We all sat around with our tongues hanging out of our mouths panting or at least so it seemed to me as a kid.
After a while I just couldn’t stand being still so I headed down to the branch to dangle my feet in the water. You know that works a lot better if you take off your shoes and socks. I never said I was real bright back then, or maybe it was just the heat.
Before I knew what had happened I looked around and everyone from the porch had joined me and you know there were smiles on their faces. They actually remembered to take their shoes off.
It was like the branch filled our bodies with a sense of hope. Hope that the heat would pass, and we would once again feel like ourselves again.
It wasn’t long though until I realized it wasn’t me that had drawn the group to the branch, especially when I noticed mother had spread out a red and white tablecloth on the bank beneath a tree. On it was a large knife and a cutting board and a saltshaker but there was nothing else.
What I did not know was that Grandma had a surprise for me. She sent me down into the deepest spot in the branch and told me to reach in for a surprise.
There was a deep green watermelon from the garden that was now cold as can be from the water running over it for most of the day.
I lifted it out and brought it up and set it on the cutting board. My shoes squished with each step.
We all now gathered around as mother cut the watermelon in pieces and we each began eating our fill.
Red fruit with a touch of salt and all those black seeds. How do you be polite with all those black seeds?
I followed Grandma’s lead and realized she was throwing the conventions of proper etiquette out the window. Rather than disposing of them quietly in a napkin, she suggested that we have a contest and see how far we all could reach spitting a seed.
We all took turns, seeing who could get across the branch. It is amazing how far the ladies could spit. They made it to the other side almost every time. Occasionally one fell short and down the branch it floated.
With each round, we found more laughter, each of us eventually won, and by the time we finished the melon, we had almost forgotten how hot it was when we started.
Our heat-induced melancholy was lost to the mischief of a melon and all its little seeds.
An added bonus, next year, the watermelons were so close to the branch, they didn’t even have to be carried and put in, they just rolled in themselves.