Jim and Ole Red

New Chapters Coming Soon

2010-05-04T20:34:00.000-07:00

New Chapters of "Raisin" will be coming out soon!

Epilogue - The Final Post

2009-08-05T14:31:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

34. Epilogue August 5, 2009

I hope all of the readers of this totally out of any sort of a story line but just some of my memories of growing up on the farm in the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s and the later years after I left the farm and started a family of my own.

As I noted in the Introduction, what I have written are MY memories the way I recall them. I apologize if I have left out any one or any special times in that person’s life.

When one starts to write about almost 72 years of memories, it almost has to be disconnected as a person’s memories do not come in any sort of chronicle or time connected order.

As I also noted in the Introduction, I started noting this while working in Athens, GA in 1997. It lay dormant for several years and actually made it through about six different computers without losing any of the data.

We are enjoying living back at the old homestead in our retirement with our two dogs, Foxy Lady and Sport. The only inconvenience we have is the distance we live from medical care in Mobile.

Both of us have been having some medical problems of late. JoAnne is taking medications for A-Fib, an irregular heartbeat if she does not take her medicines regularly. Also, she has been diagnosed with sleep apnea and uses a C-pap device to allow her to sleep better. Also, with her age of 71, she gets some more aches and pains all along, but otherwise she is in pretty good health.

I have had a light case of Angina since 1985 that medication keeps in line. I am under Doctors’ care for some Para-thyroid problems, some neuropathy especially in my right leg and foot, and the latest thing is that I have B.O.O.P. (Bronchiolitis, Obliterans, Organizing, Pneumonia.) This was discovered about a week before Easter this year during a hospital stay.

The effects of this disease are extreme shortness of breath, especially when I stand and move about. These effects are not as extreme while I’m sitting. I have no problems with driving, car, truck, tractor, mower, etc. but when I’m up and moving, it feels like an anvil is pressing against my chest limiting air intake and all necessary air needed is insufficient. The common cure is heavy doses of Prednisone. I have been on the Prednisone for 14 weeks and still have the problem.

The Prednisone has caused my blood sugar levels to go up as high as 396, therefore, I am now diabetic and am on Insulin for that.

My Doctor in Mobile has me scheduled to go to the University of Alabama – Birmingham Hospital on September 8th for further testing. I will be able to take all my test reports and x-rays with me that will prevent my having to go through lots more testing. I’m sure they will do more lung biopsies, etc. I just don’t know how or what they’ll do.

The diabetes should go away after I can get off the Prednisone, according to the doctors. I would like to hear some feedback on your opinion of this long, (I guess you would call it) autobiography, or just plain REMEMBERING or RAISIN’.

We have been doing a few things around the place to make it look much better. Joe and I finally cut and fit lattice work and erected it at each end of the tractor shed.

Andy and I did some repair work on the old smokehouse/shop by replacing the old door and several boards along the walls. Then Cassie and Curtis came over and painted it. Lookin' good!!

Then today and yesterday, Bradley came up and did lots of painting on the gates and board fences that I had started back in March this year. There's still more to go, including putting a regular paint over the Kiltz prime coat on the metal gates and all the back lot fences in the cow lot.

The doors are open, beds are ready, and if there are not enough spaces, we'll just pitch a tent or drive another nail in the barn walls to hang ya up to sleep.

Y'all Come.

Jim

Part 33. - Great Grand(s)

2009-08-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

33. GREAT GRAND(s)

On May 12, 2008 our first GREAT GRAND, Laura Kate “Button” Wiley was born in Texas to Carrie and Kyle. I just happen to have a couple of hundred pictures of her taken over the past year. As soon as Carrie told us that she was pregnant, I gave her a Great Grand Paw name: “Button.” When I started calling her Button, Carrie asked me why I called her Michelle, (her middle name); call Cassie, Marie; and Robin, Leigh and didn’t call LK, Kate. I told her that she was SPECIAL!!!

We’ve only had the opportunity to see Button twice, once when she was a month old and again when she was 11 months old. But, her Mommy and Daddy and her Papa and Grammy keep us updated with pictures so we can keep up with her growing and the changes in her development.

Well, we were informed a couple of weeks ago that there’s another GREAT grandchild is due to arrive to Cassie and Curtis. He/she already has a “Great Grand Paw name; “Punkin’!”

Part - 32. - The Grands

2009-08-03T10:06:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

32. THE “GRANDS”

Oh, yes! That’s the proper name for the five Grand Children that we have. Of course no other Grandmother’s and Grand Paw’s Grands are as GREAT as our GRANDS!

Of course, I’ve covered some space about the grand younguns along with their Maws and Paws, but thought they should have a small chapter dedicated to them.

Grandchildren are really special. You can spoil them, then send them back to their parents to deal with it! The main problem we have is that they all live too far from us. Lubbock is 925 miles from Millry and for a while the other two were half way around the world in The Netherlands, Paris, Berlin and Cyprus.

All the grand chillun LOVE to come to the farm, in Millry. Most of the time, especially in winter when the snakes are not out, we just "let the varmints beware," the grand younguns are here! They all like to get out amongst the cows. They have gotten several that will let them pet them. Grandmother usually took some time off work each summer so they can visit.

The most “Un-grand” thing about them is the fact that, right now, three of them are 800 to 950 miles away in Texas and the other two are 85 miles away in Mobile. This causes us to get to see them not nearly enough. (Guess that could be a pun! They’re FAR away, so they aren’t NEAR enuff!!!) At least, we get to see Ashley and Bradley a little more frequently than Carrie, Cassie and Joel.

Carrie and her husband, Kyle Wiley and daughter, Laura Kate “Button” live in McKinney, TX, north of Dallas, and are missionaries with NEXT World Missions. Cassie and her husband Curtis Thomas have recently moved to Rowlett, TX, near East Dallas. Cassie has one more semester to go in Seminary to get her degree in counseling. Curtis is Youth Pastor at a large Methodist Church. Joel and his wife Ashley are returning to school in Abilene to get his Masters degree at Hardin Simmons University. He has been serving as Youth Pastor at a large Methodist church in Tyler, TX.

Ashley Hughes has completed all her coursework for her BS degree and is beginning her Masters quest at the University of Mobile. Bradley will be going into his Junior year at Auburn University in the fall of this year. He is majoring in International Business with an emphasis in German. He spent this summer as an Intern at Degussa Chemicals a German owned plant in Theodore

They all love to get out amongst the cows in the pasture. Even though I’ve sold all my cows to David Atchison, they still get out amongst all his cows. A couple of them can still be petted.

I guess that they kinda get a little taste of doing some of the things that the four of us used to do for fun while growing up there on the place.

They used to make an effort to spend a week or two with us each summer. But since all the Texas ones are married and working full time, they don’t get to come as often as they and we’d like for them to. And, Ashley and Bradley are either in school, or in school and working, they don’t get up very often.

Whoever came up with the title GRANDchildren, really called them by the right title. I just hope that all grands are as grand as our GRANDS!

Part - 31 - Andy & Debbie

2009-08-02T12:09:00.000-07:00

RAISIN' 31. ANDY AND DEBBIE

Both of them played in the band at Davidson High School. Both played double-reed instruments. Andy played bassoon and Deb the oboe. Both are concert instruments and not used in Marching bands. So, Andy was Drum Major and Deb was in the Flag Corps of the Marching Band.

Both kids graduated with honors from Davidson. Andy went four years to Mobile College (now The University of Mobile), graduated with honors and earned a degree in Religion. Then, he got his Masters of Divinity from Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, TX. In recent years he has completed his Doctorate in Organizational Management from Regents University.

Deb attended Mobile College for one year, two quarters at Roane State Community College in Oak Ridge, and two plus years at the University of South Alabama. She was on the President’s list (all A’s) all during her time at USA, but was not allowed to graduate with honors since she’d been to the other schools. She, also got her Masters at USA in Early Childhood and Elementary Education. She is currently teaching fourth grade at Cottage Hill Christian School.

Part - 30.c. Children +

2009-08-01T18:58:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

30c Ashley & Bradley Schooling +

Both Ashley and Bradley love singing. Bradley has written several songs that may be heard on his My Space web page. He plays guitar well and is working on the mandolin and piano. Ashley uses her voice as her instrument.

In fact, all of our grand chillun are excellent students. I know they take it from their Grand Paw, because I’ve always been a terrible student! That must be where all my smarts went to!!

After Seminary, Deb and Tommy moved to Montgomery, AL where he was employed by the Alabama Baptist State Convention as Associate Director of Communications. He produced many audio and video programs for various uses, such as news programs, training programs and documentaries taken in various areas of the State of Alabama as well as all over the US, South Korea, Spain, etc. He has was asked to go to the 1998 Winter Olympics for the Georgia Baptist Convention to cover some Mission work for them.

Debbie decided to be “her kids Mom” when Bradley was born. She didn’t work for about five years. Then, she began working “part time” as Childhood Director for Taylor Road Baptist Church in Montgomery. Later, she increased her work to something slightly less than full time.

At one time she had the “honor” (?) of being President of the Alabama Baptist Association of Childhood Directors (or pretty close to that name).

Once, while visiting a Sunday School Class at Taylor Road, we told someone that we were Debbie Hughes’ parents. They said, “Oh! You mean that pretty Red headed lady that’s all over the place seeing about all the children!” She “did stay busy.

Deb and Tommy talked and prayed about going to the mission field with the Southern Baptist International Mission Board. They applied for and were accepted to go to The Netherlands about the middle of June, 1999. Selfishly, we kinda hoped they would decide the Lord wants them where they are. But, when Deb was in the ninth grade, she said that she felt she was called to Foreign Missions. So, apparently that’s the case and, of course, we’ll back them all the way, as we gave them to The Lord when they were born and they have to seek His will in their lives. Jo Anne says that they can go just as long as they leave the kids with us!

They spent time serving in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Paris, France, Berlin, Germany and Limassol, Cyprus. They came home for a long Stateside assignment just as Ashley was finishing high school through North Star On Line and she enrolled at UM. At the same time, Bradley started his Junior year at CHCA.

They decided to pull out of the IMB and Tommy worked two years at CHCA and Debbie is teaching fourth grade at Cottage Hill Christian School. This past year, Tommy started working as Media Director for Open Doors a Mission Organization. They are based in California, but he has his office at home and has to do quite a lot of traveling, to CA, The Netherlands, England, Cyprus, UAE, Turkey, and several places in the US.

Part - 30.b. - Children

2009-07-31T15:22:00.001-07:00

RAISIN'

30b Children

Then, on July 3, 1987, Ashley Nicole Hughes was born in Ft. Worth. A sprout from her Mother’s tree by being a “red head.” Of course, we wouldn’t bother to go from way over in East Tennessee all the way out to Ft. Worth, TX just when she was a coming.....We only made it to Texarkana before she was born.

We managed to get there and celebrate “the fourth day” by seeing our new granddaughter.

Ashley has many interests. She is an avid reader. She has a beautiful singing voice and sings with the University of Mobile Choir and has been in several operettas besides the choir's performances. She even played the role of Ahmel in “Ahmel and the Night Vistitors.”

She started out at UM to major in Music, but changed that to a Minor and changed her major to Business. She has completed her four-year curriculum and is now beginning work on her Masters degree.

Besides going to college full time, she works pretty much full time at Starbucks near the Bel Aire Mall. She is shift manager there and really enjoys her coffee.

She has a pretty fair sized doll collection, including most of Debbie’s old dolls. She has lots of “Barbie” dolls and accessories. But most of them are packed away.

Bradley Thomas Hughes was born, in Ft. Worth on July 26, 1989. His grandmother flew out from Maine to be there for that special event. There were now three “reds” in the family. I couldn’t go out as I was tied down at my job in Maine. Guess what! Bradley came to see me when he was about two weeks old.

He’s “all boy”, a big Auburn Fan, especially since he is a Junior there now, majoring in International Business with an emphasis in German.

While living in Montgomery he developed into a good soccer player. This carried over to Europe with him as he honed his skills with the help of their back door neighbor, Marco Rhymer who played on the German National World Cup team.

After they returned to the states, he went to Cottage Hill Christian Academy and was the kicker for their football team for two years.

Part 30 - Debbie & Tommy

2009-07-30T06:08:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

30. DEBBIE and Family

30a. Debbie & Tommy

Deborah Kaye Wood was born at the Washington County Hospital, in Chatom, AL on November 25, 1959, weighing in at 9 pounds 8 ounces.

Luckily, Debbie didn’t have the colic problems from the Carnation formula that Andy did. She was so quiet you hardly knew she was around.

She had a hint of red hair from the outset, but for some dumb reason, I didn’t think so. Soon it became evident that we had us a beautiful “red head!” For a long time, when asked where the red hair came from, Andy would say, “From the milk man!” But, we did some investigating and found that both sides of the family have had some red heads.

Deb was in Girl Scouts for a while, but for some reason didn’t get to stay with it for too long.

Debbie had (and still has) a vivid imagination and a born teacher. She would set four of her dolls around her doll table and chair set. Mrs. Beasley and Suzie Smart were the best of her “students.” She’d teach them a lesson, give them homework (of course she had to do it for them), then she’d praise Mrs. Beasley and Suzie on how well they did, and fussed at the others for doing so badly. She’d really give the poor little doll that had tangled hair, and she had marked on her face with a ball point pen, a hard time for not doing her studying and missing so many questions.

Debbie taught first grade at Alba Elementary in Bayou la Batre, AL for a couple of years. During this time she married Thomas Michael Hughes (Tommy). (I call him “Mikey” about half the time.) They were married at Cottage Hill Baptist Church on June 22, 1985.

Tommy was a student at University of Mobile at the time they married. When he finished at UM, they moved to Ft. Worth, TX for him to go to SWBTS. Debbie taught first grade in Ft. Worth for a couple of years.

After Seminary they moved to Montgomery where Tommy worked as Asst. Communications Director for the Alabama Baptist Convention and Debbie was Childhood Director at Taylor Road Baptist Church.

Later, they answered the call into Missions. They were sent to Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Paris, Berlin and Cyprus. When the Mission Board started to make more changes in their assignments, they decided to take a year’s leave as it was time for Ashley to start college at UM. They enrolled Bradley at CHCA. Since he’d been involved with soccer so he was the Warriors’ place kicker for two years.
In the meantime, they decided to resign from the Board and stay in Mobile. Ashley has completed all the work for her BS degree and has begun working on her Masters’ degree. Bradley is a Junior at Auburn.

Both Debbie and Tommy are involved with Cottage Hill Schools. Debbie teaches fourth grade at CH School and Tommy works half time at Cottage Hill Christian Academy.

Tommy is working for Open Doors and has to do quite a bit of traveling all over the world.

Part - 29.c. - Children

2009-07-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

29.c. Children

While they were living in Jackson, our first grandyounguns were born. Yes....two of them, five minutes apart! Carrie Michelle and Cassie Marie Wood were born July 11, 1984 in Mobile. They are sisters that happened to be born five minutes apart. Carrie has brown hair and eyes. Cassie has blonde hair and blue eyes.

Before the twins were born, I designed and built a Double Wide cradle and a change table like a picture I saw in a Sears Roebuck Catalog. The change table was used by all five grands and is now in use by Button.

Both the twins have been “A” students all the way through school. Cassie made the accelerated program while at Fayette. Carrie just missed it by a slim margin. When they moved to Lubbock, they began a “Home School” program for a short period of time then graduated from Monterey High School.

Carrie is a “live wire” type that’s into everything and a typically Wood “Bean Pole!” She played flute in her Junior High Band. She loves cows and fishing, and planned to be a teacher or a lawyer. But she has wound up being a Missionary.

Carrie graduated from Texas Tech University. During the time she was in college, she served as Childhood Director at Turning Points Community Church. She married Kyle Wiley in 2007. They both work with NEXT World Ministries in Frisco, TX.

They have our first Great Grandchild, Laura Kate (Button) Wiley who turned one-year-old on May 12, 2009. They live in McKinney, TX.

Cassie is more “laid back,” and is an avid reader. She’s a little less tall than Carrie. She loves horses and planed to be an elementary teacher or journalist. But she is nearing completion of her Masters Degree in Counseling at Southwestern Seminary in Ft. Worth.

She graduated from Lubbock Christian University. In 2008, she married an old schoolmate from LCU, Curtis Thomas. Curtis is Youth Pastor at a large Methodist Church in the East Dallas area. They recently made a trip to the farm and painted the old smokehouse/shop. What a help that was to me!

We were informed a couple of weeks ago that our family is growing again. Their first child that I’ve already named “Punkin” is due to arrive on March 11, 2010.

After they had moved to Abbeville, Joel Andrew Wood was born on March 25, 1986, in Mobile. He got in a hurry to get here, so he arrived about a month early. There was a problem with his lung development, so he had to stay in the University of South Alabama Medical Center for a couple of weeks before he got to go home.

There have been no problem with his lungs now, as could be very evident when he and Cassie get into a spat. Joel went to high school at Trinity Church School in Lubbock. He said that he wanted to become an Architect, an Engineer or and “Imagineer” for Disney, when he grew up.

But, he was called into the ministry and graduated from Hardin Simmons University in Abilene. He recently served about a year as Youth Pastor at a large Methodist Church in Tyler, TX.

While at Hardin Simmons, he met a young lady named Ashley Hawthorne. They were married in March 2008. He and Ashley have moved back to Abilene where he will be attending Hardin Simmons Seminary. Ashley has applied for Medical School at Texas Tech.

Part - 19.c. Robin

2009-07-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

29c. Robin

Robin Leigh Willis spent her first 15 years in Thailand as her dad, Harland was a medical missionary there for many years. She went to the same school as Pam and Alison but they never knew each other. She went to college at Baylor University in Waco, TX. She went one year to Southeastern Seminary in Ft. Worth. That is where she met Andy and they “fell in love!”

She put her schooling aside after they were married and became a full time Mother for their twins, Carrie Michelle and Cassie Marie, and a year + later Joel Andrew. That was a full time job with three little ones to tend to. During that time, she developed Lupus. This “goes and comes” according to a large number of causes, most unknown. She has been fortunate that it goes and stays in remission most of the time.

Recently, she has completed her Masters Degree in Family Counseling and has passed her State Exams and is now practicing her trade at Texas Tech University thru a grant from the State. She sees a large number of patients, much larger than the other counselors in that program. That’s just Robin. If she can’t do it better than anyone else, she just doesn’t want to do it! She takes on a project and takes it to the top. She is a super “Pastor’s Wife” in backing and helping Andy in his ministry.

Recently, she and Andy finally made a trip or a couple of weeks to Thailand so she could show him where she grew up. They both REALLY had a great time and Andy got to preach at a huge church in Bancock that is pastored by the man who baptized Robin. That was a special highlight of their trip.

One of her favorite past times is to play the role of "Grammy" in playing with and loving her granddaughter Laura Kate (Button) Wiley. Now she's looking forward to the appearance of "Punkin" in March 2010!

Part - 29.b. - Andy - School & Work

2009-07-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

29b. Andy - School and Work

After graduating from Mobile College, Andy spent about six months working with a church in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Later, he worked with a contractor, in Mobile, doing house repairs that were damaged by Hurricane Frederick.

He was Youth Director and sometimes Music Director at Brewton, AL, Lumberton, MS, Prosper, TX, and First Baptist Jackson, AL. He pastored churches at Stave Creek Baptist, just out of Jackson; First Baptist, Abbeville, AL; Clearview Baptist in Pinson, AL and First Baptist in Fayette, AL.

In 1995, he left Fayette and went to work with Rapha, a Christian Counseling service in conjunction with Charter Hospitals in Atlanta.

In November, 1995, he had some personal problems and went into therapy for a while, some in-hospital and some out.

In August 1996, he began working for Trinity Church, a very large interdenominational church, in Lubbock, TX as Communications Director. Later, he was changed over to work as an Associate Pastor at Trinity, focused on Men’s Ministry. He has had occasion to lead the Choir, Orchestra and Congregational Music Worship and several occasions to Preach at Trinity. This was in addition to his monthly Men’s Ministries breakfast meetings.

He spent about a year as pastor of a small Baptist Church in Brownfield, TX.

During a five-year period, people from all around Lubbock, from several denominations encouraged Andy to start a new church in that area. So, in 2003 a group had met and had the first service of Turning Points Community Church in Lubbock. They met in several different locations for the first 3 years. During that time, they bought a 20 acre cotton field in the south west section of Lubbock. There were few houses in that area at that time. A year later, they built a new building housing a 458 person capacity sanctuary, offices, children and youth areas and some Sunday School rooms. Currently, they are into two services per week with an attendance between 550 and 625. The area is now getting heavily populated with more and more houses going up all the time. I would imagine that within the next few years they will probably at least double the capacity of the buildings.

While at the Seminary, Andy met an “MK” (Missionary’s Kid) by the name of Robin Leigh Willis from Brownfield, TX. About a year later, they were married in Brownfield.

Robin’s father had been a Medical Missionary to Thailand for about fifteen years. He had a medical clinic in Brownfield. He retired from there a couple of years ago and moved up to Lubbock. He is now working with a clinic in Lubbock.

Robin is “a Jill of all trades!” She loves ceramics, wall papering, and had a hobby of collecting “Coca Cola” stuff. She is very enthusiastic over most any new venture she undertakes, and tries to make the most of it. In many things, she is limited due to her having Lupus, but she goes on anyway, even though she may be in pain. She worked as an Account Executive with Cleanweb.net, an internet access provider that screens out all objectionable programs, in Lubbock. She has completed her Masters Degree in Family Counseling and is now working with a clinic at Texas Tech University doing children and family counseling.

Andy has written a number of songs that are VERY inspirational. He loves to sing, and does a good job at it. Sometimes, I want to “wring his neck” because he hasn’t ever copy written his songs and published them to get the messages to others.

Cottage Hill Baptist Church began a very powerful musical drama called “Golgotha” in about 1976. They continue to produce and present the program each year at Easter time. They present it at least 6 or 8 times each year.

Andy played the role of Peter in the first two and the fourth presentation, and “brought down the house” with his singing of “He’s Alive!”

He doesn’t have much time for his music at TPCC as being Pastor of a church that size is really a FULL TIME job. He does like to write. He has written two 40-day Christian study books and has “shadow written” one book for Fred Wolfe and one for Robin’s sister, Kay Miller. I think that he will eventually end up being a full time writer in his older years. He writes a frequent Blog called Life Vesting, a Christian post.

Part - 29 - Andy and Family - 29.a. Andy

2009-07-26T19:32:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

29. ANDY and FAMILY

29.a. Andy

James Andrew (Andy) Wood Jr. was born on November 4, 1958 at Mobile Infirmary, weighing in at 9 pounds 7 ounces.

Andy was a big baby to begin with, and the Carnation milk formula made him fat. But! For a year, he had colic and cried, and cried, and cried. We tried all types of medicines, especially paregoric, to give him relief. I guess that by the time he was a year old, he outgrew the problem. We knew nothing of the wide range of formulas that are available now to prevent those things.

The kids went to Mrs. Tucker’s Day Care and Kindergarten for about three years before the time Andy started to school. Actually, he had sat in her kindergarten classes for two years. Also, Mother had given him some of her “Sally, Dick and Jane” books to read before starting to school. When he started to school, he could read, write and do simple arithmetic. So, after doing some testing with him, over a three-week period, the school officials recommended that he be promoted to second grade.

We went along with their recommendation. He never had any problems with the scholastic work, but he did have some trouble for several years emotionally. He was the youngest in his class and, naturally, was the brunt of peer pressure. By about the fifth grade, he had pretty well adjusted.

Both kids were very active and involved in numerous things while coming up.

Andy wasn’t in Cub Scouts, but he joined Boy Scouts at eleven-years-old and before he was fourteen, he had completed all the work required for his Eagle Scout rank. He had to wait until after his fourteenth birthday to have his Court of Honor.

All was not perfect during scouting! Doc Johns, the scoutmaster, took some videos of Andy’s first camping trip on a cold, February weekend. It seems that Andy’s sleeping bag kept coming unrolled. Needless to say, he wasn’t very pleased with
developments there.

Andy, kinda like I did when I was little, enjoyed doing lots of playing by himself. He used to know the names and car numbers of all the racers at Mobile International Speedway. He would have some of his toy cars run ‘round and ‘round him, announcing the leaders like a P A system. Of course “Andy Wood” fared quite well in most of those races!

Part - 28 - Tractors

2009-07-25T05:56:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

28. Tractors

There have been three tractors on the place. The first one was a 1941 Ford-Ferguson with about a 30 horsepower engine. There were several implements with this tractor. There was a side mounted scyclebar mower and a side mounted terracing plow. Also, there was a 2 row cultivator with attachable planter and fertilizer bins, a 12” double bottom turning plow, a 5’ disk, a dirt scoop and the tractor wagon that I still have today. Another thing that came in handy each summer after the crops were laid by was a 12” circle saw that mounted on the back of the tractor and was run by a pulley mounted at the power take off. Dennis and Tommy would saw down oak, pine and ash trees and cut them to about a 8 to 10- foot length and pile them up in the general area where they were cut. Then they’d take the tractor to those locations and saw them into House Wood and Stove Wood lengths. Later, they’d be hauled to the back yard for splitting and stacking. Daddy and Joe used to build terraces and break and disk land for many folks around the area. When Daddy stopped row cropping in the early 50’s he sold the tractor and all the implements except the wagon. The second tractor was a 34 horsepower 1964 Ford 2000 tractor that Daddy bought a little while before he retired. That was one tough tractor. He bought a bush hog, 14” double bottom turning plow, a 6’ disk, a 12’ drag harrow and a dirt scoop for that one. Daddy used that tractor in clearing up the overgrown place. We’ve moved many yards of dirt with the scoop. He mainly used the plow, disk and drag harrow to plant winter crops for the cows. He also used the drag harrow to “scatter gophers” (dried manure piles). Joe got the tractor after Mother died, then I bought it from him. In 2003, the old Ford started knocking pretty bad. Since Ford stopped building tractors, I traded it in on a new 45 horsepower 2003 John Deere, 5105 tractor with a front end loader and hay spear. Also it has a canopy on it for shade and roll over protection. I wonder what I did all those years without the versatility of the loader. I still have the implements from the Ford plus an old, heavy box blade that I keep mounted as a counterbalance for hauling dirt and hay with the loader. Also, I use it to help keep the pit road maintained to where vehicles can get up the hill. I really enjoy the Deere, but still miss the Ford for several reasons. One thing, it lasted 39 years and was Daddy’s last tractor that he loved so much. The Deere is not configured for using the scoop or the small grader blade that we had for it. The loader bucket has come in handy several times when I get the tractor stuck. I can use it to push the tractor out of a bog.

Part - 27 - Vehicles

2009-07-24T05:36:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

27. VEHICLES

During the first few years, we hardly made enough money to "pay attention!" I had an old '56 Dodge that had about a half round of slack in the steering wheel, and JoAnne was driving the old '58 Ford we had bought just before Andy was born from Treadwell Ford.

The '58 finally "gave up" and we bought a used '61 Ford Station Wagon from Bolton Ford, downtown. This was in about '64.

The wagon was in fair condition when we bought it, but we had a couple of "mishaps" with it. First, JoAnne and the kids were in Waveland, MS where Daddy and I stayed while working at the Mississippi Test Site. She was about ready to leave for home when we noticed smoke coming up around the tailgate window. The motor in the tailgate that operated the window had shorted out.

Another time, JoAnne was on the way to work one morning along Government Boulevard. The car backfired and died. She let it coast into a Chevron station, right by the gas pumps, and asked the guy to see what her trouble was.

Her trouble was....it was on fire! She got QUICK action. They got an extinguisher and put out the fire. The breaker points were so bad, it caused the car to "belch" back through the carburetor and it caught fire.

I had traded the wagon and the old '58 to Treadwell for a '66 4-door LTD, but they needed a day to get the new car ready. I drove the wagon home and back to work (at Otis Elevator downtown).

By the time I got downtown, the water pump shaft was worn so badly that the fan was touching the radiator. I called Treadwell and told them they'd better send a wrecker downtown to get THEIR wagon.

Other vehicles we've had were a yellow 1969 Ford Station wagon, a 1956 Ford Pickup, a blue 1973 Ford Station wagon, a green 1977 Ford F150 Pickup, a brown 1979 Ford Crown Victoria, a white 1984 Ford Crown Victoria, a red and white 1982 Ford F150 Pickup, a blue 1992 Ford Crown Victoria, and a blue 1989 Ford Ranger 4 X 4 Pickup, and a white 1996 Ford F150 Supercab Pickup. Also, we had Daddy’s 78 F-150. We are now driving a Green 2005 Mercury Grand Marquis and a red 2007 Ford F-150 Super Crew Pickup.

As you may note, there was only one blot on the record of having all Fords. That was the old 1956 Dodge.

A Look at Vehicle Gasoline Usage and Pricing

I have kept records on all the gasoline used in my last 5 pickup trucks, so I decided I’d work up the amounts of gasoline used in each vehicle, how much I’ve spent on gasoline and the average prices per gallon on each truck. It is quite interesting considering the enormous amount we are now paying for gasoline.

I had a 1977 Ford F-100 pickup that I bought used on 2/28/80 and traded it off on 3/1/85. I put 39,846 miles on that truck; used 2,847 gallons of gas for a cost of $3,465.95. I averaged 14.0 miles per gallon and spent from $1.039 to $1.329 per gallon for the gas.

On 3/1/85, I bought a used 1982 Ford F-100 pickup and traded it off on 1/21/89. I put 33,050 miles on that truck; used 2,458.7 gallons of gas for a cost of $2,564.47. I averaged 13.4 miles per gallons and spent from $0.889 to $1.099 per gallon for the gas.

On 1/21/89, bought a new 1989 Ford Ranger 4X4 and traded it off on 2/7/96. I put 139,242 miles on that truck; used 7,229.2 gallons of gas for a cost of $10,339.00. I averaged 19.2 miles per gallon and spent from $0.719 to $1.179 per gallon for the gas.
On 2/7/96, I bought a new 1996 Ford F-150 Super Cab and traded it off on 7/16/07. I put 226,380 miles on that truck; used 15,223.9 gallons of gas for a cost of $26,316.43. I averaged 15.76 miles per gallon and spent from $0.719 to $3.199 per gallon for the gas.

On 7/16/07, I bought a 2007 Program Ford F-150 Super crew. I still have that truck. I have put 15,087 miles on this truck; used 957.1 gallons of gas for a cost of $2,306.32, I have currently averaged 15.76 miles per gallon and have spent from $2.549 to $3.399 per gallon for the gas.

During the –years from 2/28/80 to today,(07/24/09) the cost of gasoline has increased from a low of $0.719 to today’s cost of $3.599 per gallon, an increase of $2.78 per gallon with no end in sight as the prices soar daily for as much as $0.22 per gallon per day. The real kick in the head (and wallet) to all this is that the big oil conglomerates are making unheard of profits into the Billions per quarter year.

With the five trucks, I have driven 475,480 miles for a cost of $74,488.87.
These exorbitant prices are sending ALL things we have to purchase from gas to food, clothing, vehicles, building materials, tires, etc. through the roof. It especially hurts us retirees that are on fixed incomes. I don’t have a clue as to how high these prices will continue to skyrocket, especially since we elected a Democrat President and Congress that are promising huge tax increases that will further escalate all prices and cause this country to go into a real depression.

I don’t have a clue as to how we can turn this do nothing, spend, and spend government around. If anyone has a clue, please cue me in!!!

Part - 26. - Ice Storms

2009-07-23T07:45:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

26. ICE STORMS

During the time after the Conway job, I was job hunting. I went up to Sedalia, MO with Daddy one Sunday. When we got to his apartment, at about 10:30 that night, we turned on the TV. There was a special bulletin being flashed on TV that the City of Sedalia was in a state of emergency. The gas main that fed the city had burst and there was no gas in Sedalia. Wouldn't you know that the apartment building furnace was gas fired and there was a gas stove in the apartment. We made out ok that night as Daddy had an electric blanket and I just loaded up with "long handles" and socks and slept fine.

The next morning was a different story for Daddy. When we got up, the outside temperature was -7 degrees F. Daddy got chilled while he was getting dressed. I was ok since I already had on my "handles." We had to get the car warmed up and drive about seven miles to get his Government pick up, then drove another twenty miles to find a place to get coffee and breakfast. Daddy was in pretty bad shape by the time we got the pickup warmed up!

We left Sedalia on Wednesday afternoon, going back home. Joe lived in Rolla, MO; on our way. We decided we'd go by his house for a cup of coffee, then drive on through to Millry. Well, that didn't work so well either. About twenty miles outside of Rolla, we hit a sheet of ice on the roads. We "slid" into Joe's and stayed 'til the next morning. Then, we still had about a hundred miles of icy driving to go.

Another time, while living in Oak Ridge, the kids and Robin were up for Christmas. On December 26, they went to a Dentist that was about ten miles from our house, for a checkup. JoAnne and I had decided to take them out to eat that night and were getting ready to go to the bank to cash a check.

I went out to get the truck started while Jo Anne went up to get her purse. She hollered down for me to go to the bank because it was misting rain and it was freezing on everything. I decided to keep the truck engine running to thaw it out, as I told her that the kids would probably soon be calling.

The Oak Ridge Turnpike that ran by the back of our house was beginning to have numerous cars pile up due to the glaze of ice. Sure enough, we soon got a call from Deb saying that they were ok and Andy's car was ok, but they'd had a little accident about eight miles away. I had studded snow tires on my truck and a couple of sandbags in the back. So, I headed out to get them.

It took almost an hour to get to them. They had to stop to miss an old man's car that slid off the road in front of them, and a small Nissan truck had hit the back of Andy's '78 Cadillac. I spread sand from the bags around the truck so he could get out, then spread some around Andy's car so he could pull up in the yard of the folks that let them use their phone to call us.

Then we headed home. By the time we got back to the Turnpike, about a half-mile from the house, the eastbound lane had been completely blocked with wrecked and stalled vehicles. I went East on the westbound lanes up to our turnoff, as there was no westbound traffic. Then on up into our back yard.

About dark, I took a couple of thermos bottles of coffee and some cake and sandwiches down to the road to pass out to the stalled people.

Once, about 10:00 PM, a car came easing up through the railroad underpass. The driver was checking to see if he could get through. I told him that I'd heard there were about 200 cars piled up just over the hill from there and there was no way he could get through. He thanked me and started to try to turn around to go back to town. His car would not move, even though the pavement was pretty level at that point. I told him to just take his foot off the brake and let the tires spin slowly. He did so, and I began pushing the car sideways near the rear end. The car easily spun round and began moving off toward town. The driver yelled his thanks out the window and proceeded.

Part - 25 - Wrecks

2009-07-22T08:18:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

25. WRECKS

A few days before our wedding, we had been over to JoAnne's Aunt Claire Dunn's in Chickasaw for them to plan a shower. On the way back, I ran a stop sign that was blocked by a parked car and it was a blind corner. I ran into a forty-six Ford coupe. It banged up the front of my fifty-five Ford and cost me $1,170.00 to have it fixed. (Now days, it would probably cost five or six thousand dollars.) I just paid the guy $125.00 for the coupe and told him to keep it.

The wreck damage pretty well took away all the little money I had saved, so we couldn't afford a big honeymoon.

Once, while we were in Conway, AR, we were crossing an intersection on an unpaved street that had no signs (stop, etc.). After getting about half way into the intersection, I saw a pickup truck was going to hit me in the right side. I swerved enough that he only bumped the rear fender about 6 inches from the taillight. The other driver had had a "couple of beers" and asked me not to call the Police. He gave me his name, drivers license number, etc. and said that he used to work at the Ford place, and he'd meet me there on Monday afternoon.

By the time I got to the Ford place on Monday, he'd already been there and arranged to pay for the damage to our car.

I've really been lucky so far that I've not had any other wrecks, especially for all the miles I've driven.

Part - 24 - VACATIONS AND TRAVEL

2009-07-20T05:45:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

24. VACATIONS AND TRAVEL

While the kids were coming up, each year, we tried to take at least a one week vacation to travel and see as many different things as we could.

We've been to (in no particular order): Six Flags over Georgia, The Cyclorama (a combined painting and 3-D depiction of the Civil War Battle of Atlanta), The Zoo and to a Braves game at Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta; Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL; Waukula Springs, FL; Carowinds Theme Park on the North Carolina/South Carolina border near Charlotte; Opryland, The Country Music Hall of Fame, The Hermitage (Andrew Jackson's Home) and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville; Goldrush Junction (changed to Silver Dollar City and is now Dollywood) in Pigeon Forge, TN; Gatlinburg and The Great Smokie Mountain National Park; Frontierland and The Oconoluftie Indian Village (about three times) in Cherokee, NC;

(The first time we went to Cherokee, we were all sick but Deb, it had been raining and JoAnne had bumped her head on a gondola going out of Frontier Land. We decided to get us some Indian Moccasins. For some reason, we all got tickled and were about rolling in the floor of the shop in Cherokee while trying on moccasins.);

Lookout Mountain, Ruby Falls and The Confederama (a miniature mock up of the Battle of Moccasin Bend) in Chattanooga, and the Memphis Zoo in TN; Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington, TX; The Alamo and Langhorn's House of Horns in San Antonio, TX; The Astrodome, Home of the Astros, (Andy & I saw a ball game there) in Houston, the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, and El Paso, TX; Mammoth Cave, Fort Knox, Louisville (where Andy learned to run and dive off a board), Frankfurt (the Capitol), and Lexington, KY;

The US Capital, Senate Chamber, House Chamber (we were met by Congressman Jack Edwards, had our picture made on the Capitol steps with him and later, visited him in his office) and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC; Chesapeake Beach, MD (we found several ancient sharks' teeth along the shore there); and Mount Vernon (Home of George Washington), VA;

The Alabama Department of Archives and History and the Capitol in Montgomery, Russell Cave, Sequoia Caverns, Natural Bridge, Talladega International Raceway, Cheaha State Park (highest point in AL), and Lake Logan Martin at Pell City, AL;

Dogpatch USA near Russelville, Petit Jean State Park and Winthrop Rockerfeller ranch, and the Little Rock Zoo, in AR; the original Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO, the St. Louis Zoo, Grant's Park (home of Augie Busch and the Budweiser Clydesdales. Joe almost got us run out of there.), and stood on the foundation of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis; the Jackson and Hattiesburg Zoos in MS; Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ; and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

During these trips, we tried to see as much as possible in the short times we had. For instance, we went through about one-and-a-half of the Smithsonian buildings in about four hours. We were exposed to lots of places and things, and after the kids moved, both they and JoAnne and I have gone back to several of the places we'd been to previously.

JoAnne and I have added a number of places since the kids grew up. We've been to Quebec City, Quebec, and Montreal, Ontario, Canada; all over Maine and Tennessee; the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington (we took Lou once and Mother and Daddy once, they all seemed to really enjoy it.); Denver, Vail, Estes Park, and Colorado Springs, CO; Cheyenne, (Capitol) WY; Oakland, San Francisco and the NAPA Valley, CA; Detroit, Macanac and Sault Ste. Marie, MI; The Biltmore House (Home of the Vanderbilts. Has 36 bedrooms) in Asheville, and to Chimney Rock, NC. And, to Salt Lake City, UT, Idaho Falls and The Valley of the Moon National Monument, ID; Jackson Hole and the Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks in WY; and through a corner of Montana.

Associated travels with the various jobs have taken me to 23 states. I've been into 46 of the 50 states. I've seen much of this country, and wish to see more of it. I have been out of the US to two countries, those are Canada, Mexico, England, France, The Netherlands, Luxumborg, Belgium, Prague, and Cyprus . We really hope to see much more of the world if health and money allows.

Part - 23 - Volunteering

2009-07-19T04:36:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

23. VOLUNTEERING

I was vice president of the Davidson High School Band Parents Association, and JoAnne and I were at ALL performances. I would brag on the members of the band, telling them that I had 2 younguns and 146 "Other Younguns" in that band.

Most of the performances were fun, but when I'd have to walk with them during Mardi Gras parades, trying to keep the people back out of the street so the band could get through was NO fun.

During the time the kids were in High School, we worked as volunteers for the Red Cross. We would work first aid stations at most all the football games, work at disaster shelters and with the Mobile County Sheriff's Flotilla. Over a three-year period, I worked over 1,500 hours for the Red Cross, teaching first aid classes and working first aid stations.

I was a member of the Mobile County Sheriff's Flotilla; a search and rescue unit of volunteers to handle water related emergencies. Since I didn't have a boat, I served as a Radio Officer. Also, I kept the converted Air Force School bus that had been made into a portable base station that was set up at each disaster location.

Part - 21 & 22 - Wedding & Honeymoon

2009-07-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

21. OUR WEDDING

JoAnne and I were married on Monday, September 16, 1957. Why Monday? It was my twentieth birthday and would have been her parents' twentieth anniversary. That way I would have no excuse forgetting our anniversary!

The wedding took place at Myers Memorial Baptist Church, in Eight Mile with Bro. Cotton Causey officiating.

Myers Memorial's first pastor was JoAnne's great grandfather.

Daddy was my best man; Joe and Fred were groomsmen. JoAnne's brother, Shelton, (Sonny) walked her down the aisle. (That was no easy thing as one of her skirt hoops had come unfastened and she was stepping on her petticoat all the way down the aisle.) Her other brother, Bobby and her cousin Hank Parker were ushers. Loretta McLeod Byrd was the Matron of honor, and JoAnne's cousins Joyce Dunn and Doris Rice were bridesmaids. My cousin, Judy Wood, and niece, Dianne Knight, were flower girls. My nephew, Steve Duncan was ring bearer.

22. HONEYMOON

We spent our first night together, after stopping at Spanish Fort to remove the last of the tin cans that had been tied to the back of the car, at the Azalea Motel at the intersection of Highway 98 and Pensacola Beach Road, just across the Pensacola Bay bridge.

I don't know who was the most ignorant, naive, or the most scared. But, old maw nature took care of things, and it was "a night to behold!"

Since we had had a wreck a couple of weeks before the wedding and had to use most of our savings to get the car repaired, the rest of the honeymoon was spent visiting relatives. We spent a night with Claire and Fred in Fort Walton Beach, one with Joe and Bea in Enterprise, AL (Bea took us to Bingo at Ft. Rucker as Joe was abed with the flu.), then a couple of nights in Millry before going into our apartment at 7 Oakland Terrace, in Mobile.

Part - 20 - JoAnne

2009-07-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

20. JOANNE

Mable JoAnne is the only daughter and oldest child of the late Shelton Chesley and Mamie Lucille Parker Hendrix. She has two brothers, William Shelton (Sonny) and Robert Lewis (Bobby). She dropped the “Mable” about the time she started high school.

She was born in the same house that her mother born was, in Whistler, AL. Her parents built a house in Eight Mile, AL soon after she was born, and is where she grew up. The house is located across from Myers Memorial Baptist Church, on Shelton Beach Road, where I met her and where we were married.

She graduated from Vigor High School in 1956 and went to work for Rhodes Furniture store on Dauphin Street in Mobile as a bookkeeper. She worked there until just before Andy was born.

JoAnne had desired to go to College, but the opportunity never really presented itself. Her Father was in poor health when she graduated from high school and he died when she was 18. Ten months after her father’s death, we were married. Fourteen months later Andy was born, and less than thirteen months later, Deb was born. So, she joined me in the School of Hard Knocks.

While I was attending William Carey College, she worked as a bookkeeper at the Auto Lec Store in Hattiesburg.

When we moved to Arkansas, she worked for a while for Midland Constructors and for Paul Hardeman-Fischbach and Moore in Conway in the offices.

When we moved back to Mobile, in 1961, she went to work for Smith’s Sunbeam Bakery where she worked for several years as a bookkeeper.

She stopped working for a while to be home with the kids, then worked for Gail Poole, Interior decorator. Later she worked as Office Manager/Bookkeeper for Consolidated Air Conditioning until we moved to Oak Ridge in 1979.

After we moved to Oak Ridge, she worked as a bookkeeper for Larry Channell Accounting, then for Jeff Day, Accountant as Office Manager. She kept numerous sets of books for businesses around the Oak Ridge area as well as working up tax returns while working for both Accountants.

During the eleven years I worked in Oak Ridge. She began to take some courses at Roane State Community College, in Oak Ridge, while still working, but only accomplished about a year’s work before we moved to Waterville, ME.

When we went to Maine, she got a job with Northeast Laboratory as Office Manager. They had experienced a total crash of their computer system and JoAnne pulled all the lost information up from hard files and reestablished their accounting system into a new computerized system.

When we returned to Oak Ridge neither she nor I could find work for quite a while. She worked with the Radio and Television Ministry at Central Baptist Church as a volunteer during that time.

Upon returning to Mobile, she worked part time for an Accounting Firm during Income Tax Season. Then she went to work as Bookkeeper for Gulf Lumber Company, handling the personal accounts for the Owners. She retired from Gulf Lumber in 2000.

She worked part time for a while at Millry Baptist Church in the office, mostly on a volunteer basis.

She likes to read, sew, walk, play games, do church work, travel, spoil the grandkids, and great grand, etc. We are both enjoying retirement in the country and a much slower pace than in-city go, go, go atmosphere. We don’t miss Airport Blvd. in Mobile at all!

JoAnne is in pretty good health. Except for two major surgeries, she has always maintained good health. She had a Hysterectomy when she was about 27-years-old, then had a very large ovarian tumor removed while we were living in Maine.

Two things that have been bothering her in recent years is a broken right wrist suffered when she slipped on ice in Atlanta in 1996 and an on-going battle with allergies.

Her wrist did not knit as straight as it should, so she’s having some arthritic pain in it and can not flex it as she can with her left wrist.

Her allergies have been kinda hard to control as her doctors say that she’s allergic to stress, as well as dust, certain pollens, etc. She’ll wake up some mornings with “whelps” all over her that, most of the time, will go away soon as she takes a pill. She never knows when an attack is coming. Hope a prevention for this will emerge soon.

Over the past couple of years she has developed a couple more ailments. One is defibrillation of her heartbeat and is on Coumadin for that. Also she has developed Sleep Apnea that requires her to use C-pap machine to allow her to sleep through the night.

JoAnne did about a three-year stint teaching five and Six-year-olds in Sunday School. She really did enjoy working with those kids. But, they moved the classes out to the Christian Activities Center and all the kids sat on the floor in various areas of the gym floor. She was unable to maneuver the up and down and gave up her class. So, she went back into Margaret Hartley’s women’s class.

JoAnne enjoys playing games on her computer and has recently gotten into Facebook.

Part - 19.h.5 - Recap 3

2009-07-16T06:15:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

19.h.5. WORK RECAP (5)

I guess I developed an interest in the construction industry naturally. As I noted before, I would "grade roads" complete with ditches, bridges, etc. in the back yard. Would drive up every nail I could find, mostly in the ground, when I was very small. I would practice loading and stacking loads of wood, etc. on my wagon, and always have a special "haul road" to go on. I always loved to smell fresh turned earth on the farm. And, I've always loved operating any type equipment, from a toy tractor to the big ones. The only thing that I have never run and have always wanted to, was a motor grader.

I love to see new things being built, from houses to churches, office buildings to new structures in industrial plants. I love to see these industrial projects go from (under) the ground up to the simply amazing ways that products we use all the time are coming off the ends of production lines. It amazes me how so many brilliant minds have gone into just thinking some of these things up, much less the complicated methods it takes to produce them.

I've been on projects to build structures that make bag paper, writing paper, tissue to wipe either end, newsprint, magazine glossy paper; rayon, nylon and TENCEL fibers, that are used for making clothes, belting, and so many other uses; plastic pellets to be transformed into things from garbage bags to house siding, to non-corrosive gears for machinery and fishing reels; elevators and escalators to save us from using all our energy climbing stairways; to missiles that carry men to the moon or to blow away a whole country; to nuclear products that may destroy the world or provide fuel for power plants or ships; to aluminum mills that melt ingredients down and pour the molten materials into huge ingots that are later made into foils, soda cans and lightweight materials for truck frames, to containers, to baseball bats; to cement plants for supporting all these plants as well as highway systems; to crude oil that is made into fuel and lubricants for vehicles to keep the world mobile; to ships to move the world's cargo; to roads to give the world mobility; to churches to worship in comfort and fellowship; to shopping centers for plying the world's goods; to schools to educate the people; to auto dealerships to vend transportation vehicles; to parks for leisure; to airplane engines to propel people and products by air; to communication centers for telephone, radio and television to keep the world "smaller"; to hospitals to heal the ill; to nursing homes to house the afflicted; to office buildings for business; chemical plants that can poison the world or deactivate the poison or so many other uses; to paints to preserve and beautify structures and vehicles; to pharmaceuticals to cure the headaches or bandage the wounds of the people; and many, many more.

Wow! Have I been in all those places?!?!

I have performed jobs to test the quality or paper being made; lay out buildings and machinery locations to assure they will "fit" in the world; purchase products to make up and to construct these places; supervise crafts in assembling, constructing and handling materials; purchasing, receiving and warehousing materials; designing office buildings; driving tractors and trucks; keeping fleets of vehicles and equipment purchased and maintained; and developing and managing Safety programs to meet compliance requirements for the health and well being of all workers who perform the work associated with all the aforementioned endeavors.

I have "plied my trade" in Millry, The Greater Mobile Area from McIntosh to Theodore, Sheffield, Dothan and Jackson, AL; Pascagoula, Gulfport, Moss Point, Starkville and Bay St. Louis, MS; Pensacola, Panama City and Port St. Joe, FL; Oak Ridge, TN; Skowhegan (Somerset), ME; New Orleans and Lake Charles, LA; Houston, TX; and Athens, GA.

I guess I'd have to say that my first paying job was picking cotton for Mr. Jim Whigham. Calvin Stokley, Robert A. McLean and I would pick for him each year for about three years. We'd get a whole two cents per pound that we picked. On the first year, the most I picked in a day was 75 pounds ($1.50), the second was 77 pounds ($1.54), and the third, I really "got after it" one day and picked 137 pounds ($2.74). Of course those jobs didn't last but a week or so each year. We'd have to wait until up in the morning if there was dew that morning. The day I picked 137 pounds, there was no dew, so we started about 6:30 am and picked until dark. I've heard of people that could pick 3, 4, or 500 pounds in a day. Now that's "grabbin' some cotton!"

Part - 19.h.4. - Work Recap 2

2009-07-15T16:37:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

19h.(4) Recap (2)

On a Wednesday, Daddy introduced me to Owen Hart the Structural Superintendent and Ed Owens, the Structural Engineer for Paul Hardeman-Fischbach and Moore, who were doing Phase II of the project.

Later, Morrison-Knudsen joined PH-FM to do Phase IIA. Phase I involved digging the silos 160 feet deep and about 60 feet diameter, all in dense rock. Then they started pouring concrete in the bottom and "slip formed" the walls continually, until they had poured out at the top. Then they installed the huge girders that spanned the hole from four directions. Phase II involved hanging EVERYTHING to the walls: all floors, the launch tube, a 6,000 gallon cooling water tank, all piping and electrical; building the igloo style Launch Control Center, the Entrance, called the Blast Lock; and the tunnel connecting the silo to the blast lock and blast lock to the Launch Control center.

Also included installation of a 200-ton rollback door. Phase IIA was the installation of all finish electrical and electronic, controls, operation equipment, etc.

When I talked with Hart and Owens, they said they needed someone to take care of all structural steel drawings plus some other things. They wanted me to start ASAP. When I asked what the pay rate was, Owen said, "Oh, how about a hundred-and-a-half?" My mouth flew open and I said, "A month?" He said, "Hell no. A week!" I could hardly believe my ears, after the $1.25 an hour, that was "BIG MONEY!"

The next Monday morning, I started work as a Junior Structural Engineer. There wound up being 770 different shop drawings that were frequently revised, and there were thirteen sets of these drawings. There was one set on twelve different job sites and one in my office. All were on plan sticks made out of 1/4" by 2" laths with three 1/4" bolts through them. In addition to the shop drawings, there were almost 300 Erection drawings that the Ironworkers used to assemble the steel on the sites.

There were five copies of each erection drawing. One was on the sticks and four were folded so the Foremen could stick them in their pockets and take them down in the silos. Along with all the other work with drawings, I kept records of costs on all steelwork and managed a steel fabrication shop with as many as eighteen Iron Workers and a Cable Splicer.

We made thousands of steel wedges of various sizes, three inch square "blank nuts" and "alignment dogs" for use in aligning the steel plates on the launch tubes and water tanks. Since everything was hung to the silo's concrete walls by drilling and anchoring, we made hundreds of pipe and equipment hanger brackets for each site. Plus, Old Cherokee Pete made all the wire rope slings for the project.

Pete was an OK guy. He was the type person that, if he liked you, he'd give you the shirt off his back. If he didn't like you, he had nothing to do with you. Well, he "took a likin' to me." Once he brought me a quart jar full of an "Old Cherokee Recipe" of a kind of stew. It had squirrel meat, some kind of potato and lots of other things that he wouldn't identify. It was SUPER rich. You could only eat a couple of spoonsful at a time. He told me it was an energy booster.

One day, I saw Pete working with a one-half inch cable about twenty feet long. He was making some steel hooks and putting it on some short pieces of chain. I asked him what he was making. He said, "I'm makin' a vehicle tow cable for a friend of mine." When he finished it, he handed it to me and said, "Here ya go, friend!"

For a long time, we had the shop, and I had a warehouse trailer set up at Site #18. This site was about the central one of all the eighteen sites. The warehouse was for Iron Workers' tools, welding equipment and rods, and torches.

The original excavations had a two-inch diameter pipe guard rail bent to the radius of the hole (about 100 feet in diameter). When the hole was closed, the pipe rails were scrapped. Also, the pipe fab shop had some work horses made of two-and-a-half inch pipe. I took four pieces of the bent pipe for legs and one of the "horses" about ten feet wide for the top, and made the kids a swing set. It cost me a whole dollar for the material! The frame is still in the back yard in Millry. We use it for a porch type swing now.

After leaving Conway in January 1961, I didn't have a job for two months. We moved in with Lou for about four months. In February 1961, I went to work as an agent with the National Life and Accident Insurance Co. in Mobile. I was averaging $108.00 per week, but by the time I ran the debit two or three times a week trying to collect premiums, car expense and taxes, I only netted out about $35.00 per week. That doesn't go far toward feeding a family of four! I'd go by some clients to collect maybe two or three dollars for a little "sick and accident" policy, and they'd say, "Policy Man, I ain't got no money today. Come back Sadity and I'll have some then!"

During the time I was working for National Life, we bought our first house. It was in Terrace Hills subdivision, off Cottage Hill Road. The house was at 4450, then changed to 5200 Almeda Court. It was the center house of a five-house circle.

Part - 19.h.3. - Work Recap #1

2009-07-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

19h.(3) WORK (Recap 1)

The County had let the contract for grading, laying the base and paving the road from Millry School to the Choctaw County line, a distance of 6.3 miles. I got a job with the contractor, S. A. Graham Contracting of Brundidge, AL as a laborer, tractor driver, dump truck and water truck driver and power shovel oiler at $1.00 per hour.

I would keep areas drained after rains, greased and fueled the dip-stick shovel in the gravel pit, drove an old 2 cylinder, hand clutch, John Deere tractor pulling a disc, sheep foot and rubber tired rollers, drove a dump truck and drove a water truck. After about a month, I got a big raise......to $1.25 per hour.

Mother had gone to Conway, AR to spend the summer with Daddy. He was working with the Corps on 18 Titan II missile silos within a 72 mile radius of Conway.

We stayed at the home place that summer and I walked out the front door to work. On the last two days on that job, I worked from 7:00 am Sunday until 3:30 PM Monday as we were trying to get everything ready to "shoot" the road. (Spray the tar sealer to prepare for the Slag top coarse.)

We had worked all day Sunday cutting out soft spots in various places, and had gotten all of it ready from James Bennet's house to Millry. About dark, we had gotten the rest of it shaped up and needed to roll it down good.

The boss asked me if I could run all night. I agreed to, so about 8:00 PM, all the other crew left and I began pulling two rubber tire rollers from James Bennet's to the top of the Henry Williams hill, (about two and a half miles.).

On the first trip by the house after the others left, Prince, Mothers collie dog came out to keep me company. He trotted along by the right front wheel all night long. As soon as some of the crew came in Monday morning, he dropped off at the house. I never called him or anything!

Once, about 10:00 PM, Prince ran out to the left side of the road, just above Dunbar Creek and was kinda standing over something. I found that he had charmed a small 'possom. I stomped the 'possom's head in. So, from then on, he would trot over to check on his 'possom each trip by. He really was a lot of company for me that night.

We finished that job in September. Daddy had talked to a couple of fellows on the job that he knew on the Oklahoma job he'd been on about the possibility of my getting a job. We made a trip to Arkansas to check it out.

Part - 19.h.2. - Employment (cont)

2009-07-13T19:51:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

19h,(2) Work Continued

During that time, I worked with another guy at Central Baptist Church to install a new TV production and sound system, run cameras and direct programming.

At the end of that nine month period I was called by Farnell and Associates to go to Courtaulds’ Tencel Fiber Plant in Axis, AL as Safety Manager. They had already had two lost time accidents and needed someone to get the program changed to correct deficiencies. There were no more lost timers!

After Tencel, I ran a project for Farnell at Huls Chemical Plant in Theodore and did six months of redesign work on elevated platforms for a new plastics plant in Sulpher, LA.

After that, I was called back to Tencel to write a Safety Plan, write a script and directed the shoot for Safety training videos for a large addition to that plant. Then I ran to Safety Program for tow-and-a-half years.

At that point, I began working as a Safety Consultant. I worked on a project in Jackson, AL for Boise Cascade Paper Co. There had been two lost time incidents there and they wanted someone to correct that situation. No more lost timers!

From Boise, I went to Noramco, Inc. a Johnson & Johnson Company, in Athens, GA. I did the program and video thing like Tencel, then ran the safety program for two plus years. Then, I did monthly audits on another project on that site for a year.

I went into semi-retirement after that project. Now I do some Safety Training and monitoring work for Safety Guidance Specialty (SGS) in the Mobile, McIntosh areas as Safety Consulting – Jim Wood. This helps keep my interest up in Safety and hopefully helps to keep what little sharpness there is in my ole head!

Part - 19.1.1. - Employment

2009-07-12T17:10:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

19h. EMPLOYMENT

19h(1)

After leaving Howard, I worked in the International Paper Company lab for three-and-a-half years.

After leaving the paper mill and Carey College, I did a brief stint as a dump and water truck driver and steam shovel greaser with the company that paved the road from the school to the county line. Then I worked as a Junior Structural Engineer for Paul Hardeman/Fischback & Moore in Conway, AR managing an Iron Worker fabrication shop and warehouse on 18 Titan II Missile Silos.

When that project was completed, I worked as a Debit Agent with the National Life and Accident Insurance Co. in Mobile for 7 months before we were almost totally broke!

After being a “policy man” with NLAIC, I worked on several projects at the NASA Mississippi Testing Center near Picayune, MS. I started out as a Rodman laying out piling locations for a bascule bridge foundation; moved to Assistant Project Engineer on an office building; then to Field Engineer on a Vehicle (Missile Sections) Storage Building and finally Project Engineer on a Vehicle Assembly Building.

From MTC, I went back to Mobile and worked for two years as Assistant Manager of the Mobile Office of Otis Elevator. Not wanting to transfer to Atlanta, I left Otis and began an eleven year stint with Martin Builders, Inc.

I “wore several hats” with MBI. I started out as an Estimator and Field Engineer. That spread out to be Equipment Superintendent, Purchasing Agent, Safety Manager, and whatever other jobs no one else wanted to do. I designed and oversaw the work on a big addition to our office building, filled in for Job Superintendents that had to be off sick for periods of time, doing layouts of new projects to locate building sites, doing emergency check writing to terminated employees and I could fill in and do the work of any employee in the office on a “necessary” basis. This was one of my SHK Majors!

After MBI owners decided to fold the company, I went to work as Equipment Superintendent (Fleet Manager) for The Rust Engineering Company in Oak Ridge, TN. I worked there for 11 years, then I was transferred to Waterville, ME, and to Sheffield, AL for a couple of years.

At Rust, I had to design a Fleet Maintenance and Replacement program for up to 277 Government (Department of Energy) vehicles and over 100 items of Construction Equipment. Also, I was responsible for maintaining a manpower of up to 75 Operating Engineers and 75 Teamsters to drive, operate and maintain all the vehicles and equipment. This also involved compiling training programs to meet Department of Transportation in the safe operation of trucks transporting hazardous materials and a training program to certify crane operators in the safe operation of this type equipment.

I was on several panels in DOE wide Property Management with meetings all over the US. The maintenance and replacement programs that I designed were used by other Government agencies across the country.

During the time in Oak Ridge was the only time that the lack of a college diploma gave me any type hold back. I was told that I was preferred to take the job as Assistant Project Manager over the 12 to 1400 workers but since I didn’t have that diploma, I was ineligible for the job. I knew that was the case and did not apply for the job.

When it became evident that Rust would not get an extension of their contract after 27 years, they transferred eight people to other projects. I was one of the eight. I went to the Home Office in Birmingham for three months, then to Waterville, ME for two years.

In Maine, I was Materials Manager on a large paper machine and boiler project for Scott Paper Co. I had a dual computer system on that project. I designed a Lotus program on PC to keep up with EACH item of materials and equipment that went into that project. This involved accounting for every item from design, to purchasing, to expediting, to receiving to issue for installation.

The other computer system was to parallel the Lotus program in the company’s UNIX program in Birmingham. This program did the same thing as the Lotus one, but was set up so that when a designer put a piece of material or equipment on paper, it was assigned a number that followed the piece from “Cradle to Grave.”

From Maine, I was transferred to a project at Reynolds Aluminum Co. in Sheffield, AL to run the night shift and be in charge of Safety on installation of new aluminum casting pits.

When the Reynolds job was finished, I was scheduled to go to Ohio as Materials Manager on a big project, but on the day I was to leave there, I was advised that the project had been cut back and my job there was part of the cuts. So, I was out of work for nine months and back in Oak Ridge.

Part - 19.g. - Education

2009-07-11T06:29:00.000-07:00

MHS Class of '55

RAISIN'

19.g. EDUCATION

I began college at Livingston State Teachers College (now University of West Alabama) in the fall of 1955. I completed two quarters of study there and had to drop out amid the third quarter due to two health related things. One was the nervous breakdown that was followed by appendicitis.

The next fall, I transferred to Howard College (now Samford University) in Birmingham.

Upon completion of only one semester at Howard, I had fallen madly in love with a (as her cousin, Bill Sullivan, my LSTC roommate said) "pleasantly plump" gal from Eight Mile, AL by the name of Mable JoAnne Hendrix (JoAnne). So, much to the chagrin of Mother and Daddy, I dropped out of school and got a job in the Lab at International Paper Co. (IP), in Mobile.

After Deb was born, I continued to have the seizures. IP would not allow me back to work. I had found the problem and was adjusting to handling the cure.

The State of Alabama had a program that would pay tuition for college education to people with problems such as I had. So, I enrolled in William Carey College, in Hattiesburg, MS to continue studying church music.

JoAnne left Rhodes in Mobile and got a job at the Auto Lec Store (similar to Western Auto) in Hattiesburg making $180.00 per month. We had to hire a maid to keep the kids. This cost us $15.00 per week. So, needless to say, we weren't overly "flush" with money.

A rare treat, about once every two or three weeks, we would "splurge" and go to Bush's Cafe for a steak sandwich @ thirty five cents each, or to Frost Top Root beer drive-in for a couple of Chili, Cheese Dogs @ twenty cents each. Our main stay was powdered milk, oatmeal and spaghetti. It was a long time after that before I "redeveloped" a taste for spaghetti or oatmeal.

We lived in an apartment at the back of on old house that had two other apartments up front. We had one bedroom, bath and a long room across the back that served as living room, dining room and kitchen. It really was a "filth hole" that was overrun with roaches, water bugs and mice. We would spray for bugs and they'd make the rounds to the other apartments, then back.

The mice had gotten so bad that we couldn't catch them all with traps. So, I asked the maid if she had a cat. She said she didn't, but her neighbor had one that would catch mice. I asked her to arrange for me to borrow the cat the next night.

When I took the maid home the next day, I picked up the cat. When we started to bed, I turned her loose in the big room. The cat was so thin; you could "almost read a newspaper through her!"

When I went in the next morning, it looked like someone had pumped the cat up like a balloon. She was FULL of mice. When I
took her home, her owner looked at her and said, " Lawdy murcy! She musta et a lotsa mices!" We didn't have much mouse trouble after that.

During the school year, I discovered that working in the Very high noise level areas in the paper mill had caused me to lose the keen hearing ability to hear musical tones necessary to be a professional musician. So, I dropped out of school at the end of that year, so didn’t finish college.

Many years later, I enrolled in a two year Experiential Credits degree problem through Tusculum College in East Tennessee. After completing the first semester of that, I was transferred to Maine by Rust and finally gave up on the degree situation.

So, as I call it, “I graduated from UHK (University of Hard Knocks)” and gained what finally made for a pretty well paying career in the Construction Industry.

Part - 19.f. - School

2009-07-10T06:05:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

19f. SCHOOL

Claire and Sylvia were "home schooled," that is, they knew about all there was to learn in first grade, i.e., reading, writing, arithmetic, etc., before starting school. So, they both started to school in the second grade. I guess it didn't hurt them too much, as they were both Valedictorian of their class.

Daddy would ask Joe what his expectations were of becoming valedictorian, he would say, "Claire was, Sylvia was, I won't be and Jim might be." Of course, neither of us did as we had more to concentrate on, like baseball, football, basketball, shooting goals in the back yard, playing croquet, girls, etc. All the "important" things to use your brains on!

Although Sylvia, nor I, got a piece of sheepskin saying we'd been to college for four years, we fought it through our "Schools of Hard Knocks!" I guess we came out pretty well. The "professors" and "curriculum" of SHK can really be cruel at times, but you never lose what you do learn there!

Part - 19.e. - Health

2009-07-09T05:10:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

19e. HEALTH

I have had reasonably good health over the years in spite of smoking for 34 years, from ages 14 to 49.

While in school at Livingston, I had a nervous breakdown due to smoking, "going too much," and lack of sleep. It was triggered by a fall when I landed on my tailbone. Later that year, I had appendicitis, which caused me to lose a quarter in school.

Soon after we married, I developed "black outs" that was diagnosed as nerve problems due to worry. I've had no problems with that in about 50 years.

Over the past 24 years, I have had Angina, which I control with medication, Tarsal Tunnel syndrome in my right foot, Bursitis, and am having some trouble with Arthritis, particularly in my hands. I'm on medication for the Tarsal Tunnel and Arthritis, Neuropathy, B.O.O.P, elevated cholesterol, and a few other maladies.

I still "get about" pretty well, as I won't give in to these things any more than I have to.

Not too long after I went to work there, I developed a situation where I would "Black out." Sometimes, I would just go into a deep sleep. Other times, I'd roll around, bumping my head, etc. I would never remember what happened, but I would always know that I'd had one, afterwards.

I went through all types of tests with no answers. One test was to inject a needle into my spine, pump air into my brain to see if there were any growths there. (Daddy said that they broke two pumps trying to pump into a vacuum!) I had a seizure at IP one night at work, so IP wouldn't allow me to return to work.

I got an appointment to go to Ochner Clinic Hospital in New Orleans. I was there only two days and was diagnosed as having nerve problems that caused the seizures. They referred me to doctors in Mobile for psychoanalysis. It was determined that I would worry over even small things to a point that I would black out. I learned to develop a more carefree attitude. I cared what was happening, but wouldn't allow myself to worry and fret over things. I soon found out that I could solve more problems without worrying over them than when I did.

Soon after Debbie and Tommie’s wedding I developed Angina and have been on medication for that since 1985.

I have had a couple of bouts with various things like, shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, some arthritis, parathyroid problems that cause elevated calcium and too little Vitamin D in my system. Then, the latest things are a kidney stone in my left kidney and B.O.O.P., a lung and breathing problem that I am on medication for at the current time.

Part - 19.d.- Church

2009-07-08T09:32:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

19.d. CHURCH

Granddaddy and Mother Minnie were among the charter members of Millry Baptist Church. Daddy and Mrs. Louise Hill were the first additions to the church. They were both away at school on the Sunday that the church was started, so they joined the next Sunday.

Daddy and Mother were always very active in the church. Daddy served as a Deacon for over fifty years and was always ready to do engineering type chores, like drawing up plans for remodeling the old building, and reworking the drawings for the new building to make it more feasible and to fit the needs of that particular church.

He served as Head Usher for a number of years, greeting everyone as they came in by giving them the bulletin. He made sure that no one decided to sit in his special place: On the aisle end of the fifth pew from the front on the right side of the building.

Mother played piano, taught Sunday School, taught Bible School and her "thing" was to sing in the Choir. She sang in the choir until she was eighty-six. She and Claire sang a special when she was eighty-eight.

As a memorial to Mother, a fund was started and soon completed to buy new Choir robes. As a memorial to Daddy, a fund was raised to buy a new organ and piano for the church. As a memorial to Claire, a fund was raised to buy and install a stained glass window in the baptistery.

Soon after we moved to Cottage Hill, we started going to Cottage Hill Baptist Church, but didn't move our letter from Conway for quite a while. It just so happened that we joined the same day our new pastor, Don Watterson and his family did, in 1964.

Don was pretty good at remembering names of people. Well, he never forgot to call me by the name he learned mine was....Bill!

I was ordained a Deacon on October 23, 1977 at CHBC. Andy was licensed to preach by CHBC, then ordained into the ministry on November 15, 1980. Deb devoted her life to Full-time service at CHBC, and was later married there. So, CHBC has been a Large part of our family's life.

We stayed at CHBC until we moved to Oak Ridge, in 1979. So, it really is the kids "Home Church."

When we moved back to Mobile, from Oak Ridge, in 1992, we moved our letters back to CHBC. We had only two Pastors and two interim Pastors during the years at CHBC: Pastors Don Watterson and Fred Wolfe and Interims Dr. Dobbs, professor at Mobile College and Dr. Roy Fish, professor at Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary.

Dr. Dobbs really preached interesting sermons....the first time through. Being a teacher, he went over it again! During the second round, many people were asleep.

Dr. Fish filled the six-month gap when Fred Wolfe went to Lubbock, TX, then returned. He recently returned after Fred went into full-time ministry service to Pastors.

I served as Chairman of the Security Committee for several years. During that time I was responsible for having someone in the parking lots at each nighttime service and for parking, especially for special services such as Easter.

We only had one small paved lot at the time, so it was quite a chore getting folks to park in some sort of alignment to keep from blocking someone in and to utilize all the space we had to park as many cars as possible.

It was also hard to get volunteers to fill all the time slots needed for the patrol, so I spent most evening services in the lots. The Deacons finally added to the Deacons-of-the-Week duties to assist in patrolling the lot.

After we left for Oak Ridge, they split the duties of the security committee and organized a parking committee. Things are pretty well organized now, with all the paved and marked lots, and the parking committeemen are equipped with two-way radios to advise others where spaces are available.

There would be members of the security committee assigned to a week each month to be responsible for getting volunteers to assist him. The Second Sunday crew was Lucky Lutz, G H Nichols, Howard Rayburn and I. We started out going to one of our homes after Church for refreshments. That didn't work out too well, as all of us had to be at work very early on Mondays. So, we changed to having a Dinner at one of our homes each Saturday night before the second Sunday. We really enjoyed this. The ladies would decide on the menu and what each was to bring, so we always had lots of GOOOOOD food! Besides, we really enjoyed sharing our friendship.

Sadly, Howard Rayburn died last year of esophageal and liver cancer, only a short time after being diagnosed with the disease.

At Central Baptist in Oak Ridge, I served as Deacon for several years. I did quite a bit of work, first running in-house and radio broadcast sound, then working with the TV Ministry in the new building.

On the second of January, 1991, I was released from work by Rust as a large project I was to go to was cut back. I didn't find work again until September 30, 1991, when I went to work with Farnell and Associates at Courtaulds Fibers TENCEL SL1 plant.

While I was off work, I assisted in building a "Living Flag" prop for patriotic services on July fourth. I led a work crew for two weeks during the daytime hours, and then another crew would work in the evenings. When the program was performed for the second time, I had a crew of eight men, and we completely piece marked, disassembled and stored the "Flag" for future use and had the Sanctuary ready for services in one, eight hour day.

After the Flag work, I worked with Mr. Eddie Carrol, a retiree from the X-10 plant to install a complete new television system, including new control room, new cameras and I began Directing TV services for broadcast, Live on the local cable channel and for the ACTS TV network nationwide. That was really an enjoyable and a valuable learning experience that I have used in making Safety training videos for work.

Part - 19.c. Backyard Playground

2009-07-07T06:06:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

19.c. BACKYARD PLAYGROUND

Our back yard was the "neighborhood playground." The lot was sixty-six feet wide at the street, two hundred feet deep and four hundred twenty feet across the back.

There was plenty of room for football, basketball, baseball and badminton. Neither we, nor any of the neighbors had to wonder where our kids were playing.

I had put my old basketball goal up about eight feet high for Andy when he was small. I nailed a piece of plywood to a tree to mount it on.

After he had gotten bigger, I tried to take it down to move it to the ten-foot regular height. I couldn't pull the nails out of the oak tree that it was nailed to. So, I quit trying, as I didn't want to tear up the plywood.

About a month later, Hurricane Camille came through and did considerable damage in Mobile, but devastated the Mississippi Gulf coast.

We had packed up and, along with Sonny, Carolyn and Boys, went to Millry. A "J" berry tree blew down up there. After cleaning up the tree, we went back home to see what kind of damage we had there.

When we drove up, there was NO damage. Later, we noticed the basketball goal had blown down..... with plywood attached, .....and the nails pulled out of the oak tree!

I built a new four-foot by six foot backboard, put it on four by four posts and relocated the goal to another place.

Part - 19.b.3 - More Special Days & "I See"

2009-07-06T07:38:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

19b.3. MORE SPECIAL DAYS

Other special days were things that really mean a lot to me. One was the day when I was eight years old and I was saved at Millry Baptist Church. Another was the day in the mid-seventies that I was ordained a Deacon at Cottage Hill Baptist Church. I served there, at Central Baptist Church in Oak Ridge, TN and am now serving at Millry Baptist.

I remember talking with JoAnne about the possibility that Martin Builders would soon go out of business and how nice it would be to get a job up in the East Tennessee or in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley in Virginia area. Then when I got the call to go to Oak Ridge for an interview with Rust Engineering, and got the job up there that allowed me to utilize the experience that I’d received from “The School of Hard Knocks!”

There are so many memories from the nearly 13 years spent in the East Tennessee area.

I remember so fondly of the birth of each one of our five grandchildren and our first great-granddaughter.

It is really amazing to set your mind back in time over almost 72 years to remember so many thousands of Special Memories and Special Times over those years. As I think back over those years, there is no way that I could bring up all of them, nor a way to express them sitting at my computer. The Lord has been so gracious to me and my family that I cannot express my thanks to Him and to all my family and many, many friends.

As I get older, each day becomes more special to me. I only have to look out a window from the old house to see things that I did while growing up and what special things that growing up on a farm taught me to make it through living in this country, the USA.

Back on Easter Sunday, in March 2007 I was sitting at my computer. It was a cloudy day, so I had the drapes and blinds open in the window at my side. I looked outside for a few moments and started thinking about what I Saw back over the years growing up here. I will insert what I wrote on that day below:

I See Now and I Would See Then

As I sit here on a part misty/part sunny Easter Sunday afternoon, I gaze out the window to see all the evidence that Spring has finally taken over the chills of Winter. I see the pear trees, wisteria, bridal wreath and other shrubs blooming, the grass turning green, the wild cane sprouting up with new white sprouts. I see Lonesome Pine with it’s yellow pollen blowing with the wind. I see the relocated, soon to be replaced tractor shed. I see a white storage building filled with quite a bit of DTAB’s stuff. I see the back of the garage carport that will soon be my workshop, the scuppernong arbor and the barn. I see the old shop with all the old plows, cotton scales, etc. nailed on the wall and the inside filled with tools, some antique, some modern and up to date. Most of all, its filled with memories! I think of all the old times here and what I would see from this vantage point when I was a boy.

I would have seen a croquet court laid out over the level, grassless yard, a big water tank that had gravity flowing water from the old spring across the road, water would be dripping off the platform that would freeze into huge icicles during winter. I would see the three huge hedge balls at three corners of the tank platform. I would see me using a hoe as a road grader and grading roads all around the croquet court complete with graded ditches and bridges. Then, to be sure the ditches would take the water off the roads, I’d run water thru them and watch it run all the way over by the smoke house. I’d see Joe and me shooting marbles in the back or side yard. I would see the horse shoe court past the water tank and the fox hound and chicken yard fences beyond that. Also, I’d see the tractor shed and the old blacksmith shop and the old barn with the mule wagon under the shed just behind Pinto’s old stall. I would see the horse and cow lots and the cane mill out past the cow lot where Daddy would make the most delicious cane syrup each fall and we would tumble off the cane chew pile and we would drink the fresh cane juice on a cold day. I would see the little Chinaberry tree to the left of the basketball goal at the south end of the croquet court. I see myself spending enormous amounts of time playing croquet and shooting basketball goals. I’d see the old smoke house with all the wonderful smoked meats and large containers of cracklins and pure leaf lard. I’d see the old meat cutting table at the south side of the smoke house where all the hogs were cut up and placed by the window to be salted down to start curing before it was hung and smoked. I’d see the big iron pot with a fire built around it filled with fatback and sowbelly being cooked down to get the lard and become the cracklins. I’d see Mother or Lucy grab hold of a fryer chicken by the neck, give it a couple of flips round and round ‘til the head came off and it would hop around the yard until all reflexes were gone. I would see Marie Antoinette, Claire’s leghorn hen strutting around the back yard. I’d see the old dinner bell beside the back door steps that I’d ring when Lucy said, “Sonny, tell ‘em dinner’s ready.” I’d see Joe and me pitching rubber balls against the old concrete back steps, then fielding the return. I’d see the old log potato house by the north end of the croquet court where we’d store Irish potatoes in the summer and sweet potatoes in the fall. I’d see a wash tub on the back porch with newspapers and Daddy’s old raincoat over a prized block of ice, then see different ones turning the old ice cream freezer. I’d see me getting sick from eating too much salty ice and throwing up, but that only made for more capacity for the good half melted, home made ice cream! I’d see Ring, Jimmy, Tip, Daisy Mae, Jenny, Judy, Bing, Harry, and all the other dogs and cats all around the back yards. I’d see the pigeon house with its flyway out to the left, behind the smoke house. I’d see the two-hole outhouse with the Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward and Spiegel catalogs used for “other than selecting things to order stuff from!!” I’d see the old chicken house and all the pear trees, the apple tree and the scuppernong arbor to the north and west of the chicken house. I’d see the pole where hogs were hung to dress and the platform with the sloped barrel where the slain hogs would be dipped in hot water to loosen the hair from their hides. I’d see the clothes lines loaded with clothes Lucy had washed at the old spring and brought down and hanged to dry. I’d see the hog pens out behind the old blacksmith shop. I’d see Lucy churning on the back porch with one of us sitting in her lap looking at the “wish book” (Sears Catalog), or her telling us a story or singing us a song. I’d see Dennis and Tommy splitting wood between the water tank and the two big oaks after crops had been “layed by.” I’d see the stove wood neatly stacked under the woodshed alongside the garage. (The house wood would be stacked level alongside the old “Office.”) I would see me loading my wagon with at least 50 sticks of stove wood just to haul it from the wood shed to the back steps. I would see Mama Wright coming out the back door and using Joe’s pied stick horse to kill a ground rattler lying by the steps. I’d see the J-berry trees with ripe berries all over the ground and fresh, purple chicken manure all over the yards and steps that when stepped in with bare feet would ooze up between my toes. I’d see Jack Ezell and I running across that level yard and me tripping and falling on the back step and cutting my left eye brow.

It really is amazing to see again in your mind of things long ago as they compare with the now!
19b.3. MORE SPECIAL DAYS

Other special days were things that really mean a lot to me. One was the day when I was eight years old and I was saved at Millry Baptist Church. Another was the day in the mid-seventies that I was ordained a Deacon at Cottage Hill Baptist Church. I served there, at Central Baptist Church in Oak Ridge, TN and am now serving at Millry Baptist.

I remember talking with JoAnne about the possibility that Martin Builders would soon go out of business and how nice it would be to get a job up in the East Tennessee or in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley in Virginia area. Then when I got the call to go to Oak Ridge for an interview with Rust Engineering, and got the job up there that allowed me to utilize the experience that I’d received from “The School of Hard Knocks!”

There are so many memories from the nearly 13 years spent in the East Tennessee area.

I remember so fondly of the birth of each one of our five grandchildren and our first great-granddaughter.

It is really amazing to set your mind back in time over almost 72 years to remember so many thousands of Special Memories and Special Times over those years. As I think back over those years, there is no way that I could bring up all of them, nor a way to express them sitting at my computer. The Lord has been so gracious to me and my family that I cannot express my thanks to Him and to all my family and many, many friends.

As I get older, each day becomes more special to me. I only have to look out a window from the old house to see things that I did while growing up and what special things that growing up on a farm taught me to make it through living in this country, the USA.

Back on Easter Sunday, in March 2007 I was sitting at my computer. It was a cloudy day, so I had the drapes and blinds open in the window at my side. I looked outside for a few moments and started thinking about what I Saw back over the years growing up here. I will insert what I wrote on that day below:

I See Now and I Would See Then

As I sit here on a part misty/part sunny Easter Sunday afternoon, I gaze out the window to see all the evidence that Spring has finally taken over the chills of Winter. I see the pear trees, wisteria, bridal wreath and other shrubs blooming, the grass turning green, the wild cane sprouting up with new white sprouts. I see Lonesome Pine with it’s yellow pollen blowing with the wind. I see the relocated, soon to be replaced tractor shed. I see a white storage building filled with quite a bit of DTAB’s stuff. I see the back of the garage carport that will soon be my workshop, the scuppernong arbor and the barn. I see the old shop with all the old plows, cotton scales, etc. nailed on the wall and the inside filled with tools, some antique, some modern and up to date. Most of all, its filled with memories! I think of all the old times here and what I would see from this vantage point when I was a boy.

I would have seen a croquet court laid out over the level, grassless yard, a big water tank that had gravity flowing water from the old spring across the road, water would be dripping off the platform that would freeze into huge icicles during winter. I would see the three huge hedge balls at three corners of the tank platform. I would see me using a hoe as a road grader and grading roads all around the croquet court complete with graded ditches and bridges. Then, to be sure the ditches would take the water off the roads, I’d run water thru them and watch it run all the way over by the smoke house. I’d see Joe and me shooting marbles in the back or side yard. I would see the horse shoe court past the water tank and the fox hound and chicken yard fences beyond that. Also, I’d see the tractor shed and the old blacksmith shop and the old barn with the mule wagon under the shed just behind Pinto’s old stall. I would see the horse and cow lots and the cane mill out past the cow lot where Daddy would make the most delicious cane syrup each fall and we would tumble off the cane chew pile and we would drink the fresh cane juice on a cold day. I would see the little Chinaberry tree to the left of the basketball goal at the south end of the croquet court. I see myself spending enormous amounts of time playing croquet and shooting basketball goals. I’d see the old smoke house with all the wonderful smoked meats and large containers of cracklins and pure leaf lard. I’d see the old meat cutting table at the south side of the smoke house where all the hogs were cut up and placed by the window to be salted down to start curing before it was hung and smoked. I’d see the big iron pot with a fire built around it filled with fatback and sowbelly being cooked down to get the lard and become the cracklins. I’d see Mother or Lucy grab hold of a fryer chicken by the neck, give it a couple of flips round and round ‘til the head came off and it would hop around the yard until all reflexes were gone. I would see Marie Antoinette, Claire’s leghorn hen strutting around the back yard. I’d see the old dinner bell beside the back door steps that I’d ring when Lucy said, “Sonny, tell ‘em dinner’s ready.” I’d see Joe and me pitching rubber balls against the old concrete back steps, then fielding the return. I’d see the old log potato house by the north end of the croquet court where we’d store Irish potatoes in the summer and sweet potatoes in the fall. I’d see a wash tub on the back porch with newspapers and Daddy’s old raincoat over a prized block of ice, then see different ones turning the old ice cream freezer. I’d see me getting sick from eating too much salty ice and throwing up, but that only made for more capacity for the good half melted, home made ice cream! I’d see Ring, Jimmy, Tip, Daisy Mae, Jenny, Judy, Bing, Harry, and all the other dogs and cats all around the back yards. I’d see the pigeon house with its flyway out to the left, behind the smoke house. I’d see the two-hole outhouse with the Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward and Spiegel catalogs used for “other than selecting things to order stuff from!!” I’d see the old chicken house and all the pear trees, the apple tree and the scuppernong arbor to the north and west of the chicken house. I’d see the pole where hogs were hung to dress and the platform with the sloped barrel where the slain hogs would be dipped in hot water to loosen the hair from their hides. I’d see the clothes lines loaded with clothes Lucy had washed at the old spring and brought down and hanged to dry. I’d see the hog pens out behind the old blacksmith shop. I’d see Lucy churning on the back porch with one of us sitting in her lap looking at the “wish book” (Sears Catalog), or her telling us a story or singing us a song. I’d see Dennis and Tommy splitting wood between the water tank and the two big oaks after crops had been “layed by.” I’d see the stove wood neatly stacked under the woodshed alongside the garage. (The house wood would be stacked level alongside the old “Office.”) I would see me loading my wagon with at least 50 sticks of stove wood just to haul it from the wood shed to the back steps. I would see Mama Wright coming out the back door and using Joe’s pied stick horse to kill a ground rattler lying by the steps. I’d see the J-berry trees with ripe berries all over the ground and fresh, purple chicken manure all over the yards and steps that when stepped in with bare feet would ooze up between my toes. I’d see Jack Ezell and I running across that level yard and me tripping and falling on the back step and cutting my left eye brow.

It really is amazing to see again in your mind of things long ago as they compare with the now!

Part - 19b.2. - More Special Days

2009-07-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

19b.2. MORE SPECIAL DAYS

Two more super special days were November 4, 1958 and November 25, 1959, when Andy and Debbie were born.

On Monday morning November 3, 1958, about 7:30 am, JoAnne said it was time to get to the hospital. We arrived at Mobile Infirmary about 8:00 am. One person took her and headed for the labor room, another sent me to Admitting.

After Admitting, I was told to go to the second floor waiting room and WAIT! After about hour or so of knowing nothing, I asked a nurse if she could get any word from back there, somewhere in the dungeon of I don’t know what. She checked and told me that it was gonna be a loooong wait. She also told me that if I went to the pay phone there in the hall, call the hospital number and ask for the labor room, I could keep check on progress.

After feeding a couple of nickels in the pay phone, and being told that it may be sometime Tuesday before the baby came, I made an agreement with the labor room nurses that I would go home and call them every hour, on the hour, until they told me to come back. So, that’s what I did.

When I called at 4:00 PM Tuesday, November 4, 1958, I was told to come back down, it wouldn’t be long.

At about 5:15 PM, Dr. B.B. Kimbrough came out and said, “You’ve got the biggest footed boy I’ve ever seen! He’s gonna break ya buying shoes for him. Him and his Mama are both fine.”

James Andrew Wood, Jr. was born at 5:02 PM, weighed 9 pounds 7 ounces, and was 21 inches long. And he had a FINE set of lungs.

It wasn’t very long before I got to see my new son,.... through a glass window in the nursery. Not like now-a-day almost being able to catch ‘em coming out! That just wasn’t done back then. I did get to glimpse him in a buggy of eight babies when the nurses cleared the halls and took them to their mother’s room to be fed. I knew him right off as the loudest of the bunch!

JoAnne had some complications getting her kidneys to act. Finally, when Andy was nine days old, they let them go home. And...Finally, I got to hold my son. JoAnne was still catherized and her kidneys didn’t start functioning until he was fifteen days old.

I just thought that Andy was about the most special thing there ever was! He was very expensive. We didn’t have any medical insurance, so I had to pay the doctor $150.00 and the hospital $350.00. It took almost until the time Debbie was born to pay for him.

In fact, there was very little that we did know about “Burthin’ Babies!” We barely knew what caused them, much less near what is common knowledge and freely discussed in “open” conversation now a day.

After complications with the birth of Andy, JoAnne decided to go to Dr. Hubbard in Chatom, and to go to Washington County Hospital when time came for Deb to be born.

JoAnne stayed in Millry for about a month before the due date, so she’d be near the Doctor and Hospital. Mother had Florence Turner, Lucy’s sister, in most days to help her with Andy. Also, she stayed after the baby was born to help out.

While at Millry, Sylvia made sure that she had plenty of Healing Springs (Mound Spring) water to drink to fend off the kidney problems.

JoAnne had kinda gotten homesick, so we went to Eight Mile on a Monday. We had started back Tuesday night and she said we’d better get Andy to Millry and get back to Chatom, soon.

I tried to drive as fast as I could, but was afraid to go too fast as we saw no less than seventeen different deer along the way. Some were even in folks’ yards in Chatom.

We left Andy with Mother and got back to the hospital about 11:00 PM on November 24, 1959. After examining her, the Doctor said it would be a pretty good while yet. So, I made a quick trip to Millry to advise Mother. (She had no phone then.) Also, called JoAnne’s mother, Lou.

Unlike Mobile Infirmary, I was allowed to stay with JoAnne in the Labor Room. In fact, they let James Robert Whigham, husband of the Head Nurse, Dorothy, come back to see us about mid-day Wednesday.

At about 11:15 Wednesday night, they came back and told me to go to the waiting room, as it wouldn’t be long now.

At 11:45 PM, November 25, 1959, Deborah Kaye Wood entered this world, not with a shout and scream, but with a small, dainty “whimper!” She weighed in at 9 pounds 8 ounces and was 21 inches long.

I was only able to see her through the nursery window that night. She was a beauty from the start. Then, the next day, I was allowed to be in the room when they brought her in to be fed, and I got to hold her then.

After a couple of weeks with Florence’s help, in Millry, we got to get back to Eight Mile where we became the family of JAW-3-Plus 1!

Other special days include my being saved when I was eight-years-old, both the kids accomplishments, such as scouting, band, church events, when they were saved, each of their weddings, and of course, the birth of each of our five grandchildren.

Part - 19B.1. - Special Days

2009-07-04T12:59:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

19b.1. SPECIAL DAYS IN MY LIFE

There have been several days that have been VERY special in my life. One was on that night in June, 1956, when my former roommate at LSTC, Bill Sullivan, talked me into going out to Eight Mile to go to church and meet his cousin instead of going to see "Picnic" at the Roxy Theater.

We were a little late, so when we opened the side door about mid-way of the auditorium, there sat two girls. Bill told me to go in and sit by the one farthest away. I did, then he introduced me, in a whisper, to his cousin, JoAnne Hendrix and her friend Charlie Flowers.

I didn't know until later that when I was standing in the door, JoAnne told Charlie, "See that guy at the door? I'm gonna marry him some day!" She had never seen me, nor could she see Bill at that time.

After church, we talked the girls into riding around some and to "get a coke." Bill was driving his brother, Cecil's car. It was a used up yellow cab, 1951 Chevy. The king pins and bushings in the front end were totally worn out. This caused the front end to "shimmy" real bad if you got above about thirty miles per hour, and you could hardly keep it in the road until you slowed down enough to stop bouncing.

We started out with Bill driving and JoAnne and I in the back seat. Then we switched a time or two with us in the front. What a night? But, to my chagrin, I didn't get any "sugar" that night. JoAnne was "stingy" with it. So, I decided I'd have to go back later and see couldn't I rectify that situation.

Well, Sho' nuf, I did get some "smoochie sugar" the next time. You know what? I still haven't gotten enough of that sugar, so I'm still working on getting more every chance I get!

Another special day came fifteen months after the other one when this old "green," "scared" country boy stood nervously at the front of Myers Memorial Baptist Church, on the Monday evening of September 16, 1957, watching my Bride walking down the aisle to me. Even though she was stepping on her gown because a hoop was unsnapped in her skirt. She made it in on Sonny's arm and out on mine.

Part - 19 - Me & Family - 19a Growing Up

2009-07-03T18:34:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

19. ME and Family

19a. GROWING UP

As I was growing up, during warm weather, my most frequent dress code consisted of a pair of short pants and a baseball cap that was set slightly to the right side of my head, bill-forward. I would usually sunburn and peel a few times during the summer, but I didn't seem to know it was bad for me. I had freckles on my nose and back.

I usually made a game out of most any thing I did. I would precisely load my wagon with up to about fifty sticks of stove wood, then try to follow a certain "road" from the wood shed to the back steps and try not to turn it over while crossing the roots of the huge oak tree by the woodshed, or by the wheels digging in too deep in the sand as I passed between the umbrella chinaberry tree and the water tank.

I would walk certain routes, containing so many steps while feeding the hogs, or chickens, or gathering eggs from various places in the barn or chicken house. See how many eggs I could get into the outside and inside pockets of the old "Ike" jacket without breaking them or dropping and breaking any. Ugh! What a mess when I'd break one or more in a coat pocket!

I would ride the bicycle over certain routes from back to side yards, across the cattle gap, through the driveway sand bed, by the persimmon tree to the top to "the hill", then turn around and run a different route back.

Before I was big enough to ride the girls' model, 26-inch bicycle, I would push it for miles at a time, around the yard and up the top of the hill.

When I was about 10-years-old, Daddy bought me a basketball goal from a store in Selma. We put it up on a 4-foot by 6-foot backboard at the south end of the croquet court. That section of the back yard never had any grass on it, and it was kept perfectly level. The level ground made for a great basketball court.

I practiced shooting goals of all types, from all angles and distances. Again, I would play games between "Me" and "Myself", or "Jim" and "I". There were games like "Mule," where a person would shoot a certain style shot from a specific place. If he made the goal, the next player would have to make a similar shot from the same place. If the second player missed, he got a "M" or "U", etc. When a player had gotten a M, U, L, and E, he had one shot from the half-court line to erase his MULE. Playing in the back yard allowed me to shoot very high shots.

The Fruitdale High School’s gym was their auditorium, as was Millry's, and Chatom's, but it was so small, the free throw line was the back court centerline. Also, the ceiling was lower than others were. Once, while shooting a free shot, I hit the ceiling with the ball.

Chatom's gym had open steel trusses all the way across the top, forming sort of an arch shaped roof. Once, I shot from the left side of the court, near the centerline. My ball went over the bottom truss without touching the truss and was "all net!" That would have been a good 3-pointer now a day.

I went out for football in the eighth and ninth grades, but only weighed about 75 pounds. While in the tenth grade, in Augusta, GA, I played in the band and did so through high school and two years at college.

I played baseball in my Junior and Senior years in high school. I pitched and played first base. I guess I liked those positions because that's the ones Joe had played. He also played second base at times.

I have played golf on an "Off and on" basis. For a few years, I played most every Saturday morning with Uncle Will, Uncle George, and three other fellows. (I was the sixth man.) Our tee time was at 7:07 AM each Saturday, year round.

Later, I was involved in so many other things; I didn't have time for golf. Then, I got back into playing in Tennessee as Rust had a 9-hole, weekly league. I played quite a bit while working in Lake Charles, LA. While I was there, I irritated my left shoulder while swimming. I had an impingement in my shoulder joint, which would not allow me to swing freely.

Later, I developed Tarsal tunnel syndrome in my right foot, which would not allow me to pivot on that foot when I swung the clubs. About the time I learned to hit the ball without pivoting, I developed a bad case of bursitis in my right shoulder.

After I retired, Edd Williams and I played fairly regularly at the Chatom and Citronelle courses, but since Edd moved to Georgia a couple of years ago I haven’t played but a couple of times. One of the problems now-a-day is that I have Neuropathy in my legs and feet that gives me problems when I walk too much.

Part - 17 & 18 - sonny & Bobby

2009-07-02T05:42:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

17. SONNY AND FAMILY

William Shelton (Sonny) worked at M & M Wholesale Florist since shortly after he graduated from Vigor High School. At one time, the name and ownership changed, but he stayed on. Finally, he purchased the business and returned the name back to M & M.

Due to strong competition in the Mobile from other Wholesale Florists, and to large distributors delivering directly into large grocery stores, Sonny's venture with M & M failed. He spent a while working with one of the Large Distributors from Birmingham, but that didn't pay off.

He tried working with a company selling security systems for houses and businesses. That venture did not work out.

He married Carolyn Jane Cowart from Whistler, AL. Carolyn worked for IBM, then for a Credit business for a long time, and then she went into the retail floral business by purchasing The Flower Shop on Airport Blvd. She later moved the business to Spring Hill Avenue Extension. Again, due to the intense competition in that type business, she closed the Flower Shop in June 1998. She is now working for a florist in Saraland.

Carolyn and I have to "stick together" as we're the "outlaws" of the Hendrix Clan!

Sonny and Carolyn have three boys. Paul, the oldest, served a hitch in the Army, worked part and full time at Food World Stores, worked a while in construction, and is now working at the University of South Alabama. He hasn't chosen to engage in matrimony. His favorite pastime is working with Boy Scouts.

Scott went to Computer School, worked in Atlanta for several years, and returned to Mobile to manage Greer’s Grocery Stores' computer system. For some time now he has been working at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola as head of their computer department.

Scott and his wife, Teresa, have three beautiful girls, Erin, Megan and Emily and a boy, Shelton.

Scott had a severe weight problem for several years. He had Stomach stapling surgery, adhered to a VERY strict diet and has lost well over half his former weight.

Thad, the baby boy graduated from South Alabama in Engineering and is now working for a local engineering firm.

He started out wanting to study Architecture, but has changed his major. He and I have always been "Auburn Buddies." Once, when he was young, they visited us in Oak Ridge. He was a big Auburn fan, so I started calling him "Weagle!" (A fast way of saying War Eagle!) He worked long and hard, and finally got to be an official "Weagle Eagle".... He became an Eagle Scout. He still works with the Scouts.

Although he would have preferred to go to Auburn, he decided to complete his engineering degree at South. He was married to Miranda Grass and they had a beautiful daughter, Helen. Since the split with Miranda he now lives with Paul .

18 BOBBY

Robert Lewis (Bobby), Jo Anne's youngest brother has worked in the Television business for his entire career. He worked for some time at WKRG TV in Mobile. Later, he worked for two or three different TV repair shops in the Mobile area until he went into business for himself. He remained single.

His health has been bad in recent years and he is on disability. He lived with Lou until her death. They were really good for each other. He loves to fish, and has done quite a bit of it over the years.

He lives in Mobile. He has recently spent about two months in the hospital after heart by-pass surgery and following complications. He remains in poor health from the heart problems as well as breathing problems.

Part - 16 - Mr Hendrix & Lou

2009-07-01T06:51:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

16. MR. HENDRIX AND LOU

JoAnne's Father, Shelton Chesley Hendrix, passed away on December 21, 1956. He was a plumber and had his own plumbing business in the Eight Mile area. Mr. Willie Hanson from Eight Mile worked with him. He had spelled his last name Hendricks until a time when he worked for the State and they spelled it Hendrix. He just kept the "IX" spelling. One or two of his siblings, also, used "IX."

He had worked for several of the Plumbing and Piping companies in the Mobile area before going into business.

He loved gardening and working with plants and shrubs in their yard. He always kept the place looking like it was professionally manicured.

He was heavily involved in the political scene in the County as well as State politics. He was on the Alabama Democratic Executive Committee and a strong supporter of Big Jim Folsom. During his lifetime, Democrats were "THE" party in Alabama, and he was one of their strongest supporters.

I never met him but once, that being one Sunday morning when I went by to go to church with JoAnne. She wasn't ready to go yet, so she introduced me to her Dad. He was reading the paper and offered me the Comics. He and I struck up a pretty good conversation about where I was from, etc. I guess I talked ok to suit him as JoAnne said that she thought he liked me pretty well, not like some other boyfriends.

JoAnne said that her Dad was her official "reading coach" when she was in grammar school. She had some trouble getting started in reading and he would say, "Come on Gal, let's read." He would read with her until she knew what she was reading.

After we were married, I called Mrs. Hendrix: "Mrs. Hendrix", "Maw-in-law", and a couple of other names. Then, since her middle name was Lucille, I began calling her "Lou". It stuck! So, all her grand children called her "Lou", and by the time she had great grand children she figured that she was old enough to be called her "Granny Lou."

Lou worked at Brookley Air Force Base in Mobile, in the Supply Division until the time the government closed Brookley. She was transferred to Robbins Air Force Base in Warner Robbins, GA, where she worked until she retired in 1977. She was medically retired as an Editor and Writer of Technical Publications.

She moved back to Mobile and bought a house near Bates Field, the Mobile Area Airport. In fact, planes flew over her place on landings and take-offs.

Bobby, JoAnne's brother moved in with her a number of years later, and they were very good for each other in numerous ways.

During her later 70's Lou's health began to fail. She had a rare form of Leukemia for about 16 years that would cause some good, some bad days, but was not the fatal type of Leukemia. In 1997, she began having several hospitalizations for several different ailments. She went through chemotherapy treatments for Lymphoma for a couple of treatment series. The treatments finally failed to be effective, and she passed away on August 1, 1998.

Lou loved to play table games. She liked to play several different card games, but her very favorite game was Yahtzee. If she didn't have anyone to play with, she'd spend lots of time playing it alone.

Part - 15g & h - Will & George

2009-06-30T07:16:00.000-07:00

On Will's Wagon

George called this one "Speckle Bird"

RAISIN'

15g. WILL WHITE

Will White didn't work much outside his little "pea patch" farm. He'd do some Cotton Choppin' and Cotton Pickin' for others in the Summer and Fall.

Mostly, Will hunted....Fox, 'Coon and 'Possum. Many is the time that I've followed him through the woods, fox or 'coon hunting by the light of a "lightered knot" torch. I couldn't see anything but the light and immediate surroundings, but Will knew where he was going. He'd even see the one eye that a 'coon would show by the light of the torch.

He and his family used the game as a large part of their staple for meals. If Will had ever heard you talk or heard a dog bark, he could imitate you.

He had very large, swollen glands at his neck and swollen lips, caused by a form of VD. He had only a few scattered teeth that would show when he'd tell a big tale and laugh. Everybody took a liking to Will with his easy manner and gift for telling a tall tale.

15h. GEORGE PACE

George started working for Daddy and Mother in about 1979 or 1980, when they needed help in feeding the cows. His wife, Annie Laurie, who once worked as a cook at the Healing Springs Hotel, began to cook for Mother from time to time.

George once suffered a stroke and had a weak left leg requiring him to use a cane in walking. This didn't hinder him from doing his job. Annie Laurie died a number of years go, but George came for a number of years after that.

He was so regular in coming each morning during feeding time that "you could set your clock by the time he’d get here!" He loved "Our Cows" and loved to just stand by and watch them eat. It's about the only thing he had left that he felt a part of, and he looked forward to coming each day. He is about 89 now.

He would come three days a week during summers to put out feed for the calves in the "creep pen" and to check everything out around the place. When he came, he looked all around the place to note that everything seems to be in place. If he noted anything unusual, he calls "Miss Sivvy" to let her know or call me.

Each day when he came to feed, he ran any cows that are in the lot out and shut the gate. Most mornings, if it wasn’t raining, all the cows are waiting for him outside the open gate.

After he put the "pelicans" (pellets) in the troughs for the cows and the all-grain feed in the calf pen, he’d let the cows back in the lot. As they are coming in, he’d count them to be sure each one is there. Once, there were only fifteen total cows and calves. One morning he called Sylvia and said, "Tell Mister Jim that I couldn't count but sixteen this mornin'!" That was mine and his way of letting the other know that we have a new calf.

George and Smokey, the black and tan hound that Willie gave Mother a number of years ago, were a couple of clowns when they get together. Smokey stayed at Tom's house after Mother and Claire died. He'd come over some mornings. George would ask him to give him a foot. Smokey will turn his tail to him and kinda "whip" him with his tail looking like he'd grinning back at him. Finally, he'll turn round and shake with him. George would rub his head and ears. While George is rubbing, Smokey will stop his tail from wagging. If he stopped rubbing, Smokey's tail would really begin to wag, kinda saying, "Don't stop, it feels real good!"

Of course, when Foxy Lady came here he taught her to shake hands and I’d keep a brush out under the carport behind the garage so George could brush her.

He would always love it when any of the Grands would be here and go out and “help" him feed.” He’d get tickled at them with some of the questions they’d ask him. All along, he’d ask me about them and tell me that he liked to see um when they’d be here.

He loved to tell me “what the cows was sayin’ or what the calvies were saying! One morning, he called me in Mobile and said, “Mista Jim, I just had ta call ya to tell ya about a funny thing this mornin’” He said, “I was standin’ by the big gate at the end of th barn and all six of them little calvies said ‘J Ra’s (Tom’s Dog) been teasin us, les tease him, so they took him out acrost th paster to the road. JR would run from them and would go YOWLP! Then they brought him back. Then they said, ‘Les take him out one mo time!” He said, “Mista Jim, I had to hold on to th gate I wuz laughin’ so hard!” That was just one of Georges famous tales he’d tell.

During the month of February of that year, I came up about the first part of the month and knew that I wouldn’t be back again for the rest of the month, so I went ahead and paid him for the whole month while I was here. About a week later, he called me and told me that he just couldn’t do it any more ‘cause he’d have to take one step with the feed bucket, then drag his other leg up to take another step because his bad leg was hurting so bad. He was trying to work out the time he’d been paid for. He told me that he’d pay me back for the money he owed me. Of course, I wouldn’t let that happen. So I had to do some of the feeding myself and get Willie to help me out some.

Soon after that time, George had to have that leg amputated. He had to spend some time in a nursing home in Citronelle. When he got out, he was able to get one of the efficiency apartments in Millry. I saw him a few weeks ago and he said that his left arm is pretty much totally useless now, but he can still fix him something to eat and take care of himself and, if necessary, he can still drive his car.

I don't even like to think about not having George around when they are too old to come around the place.

Part - 15 e & f - Leatha & Willie

2009-06-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

15e. LEATHA LAND

Leatha, Tommy's brother, never worked for Daddy much during the time we were growing up, but he, Tommy and Daddy completely "opened up" the place after Daddy retired and came back home permanently.

Daddy bought the 1964 Ford 2000 tractor, a bush hog and a chain saw. And the three of them turned the place into as beautiful a place as there is anywhere around. Leatha always called Joe and me "Captin'!"

15f. WILLIE TAYLOR

Willie, Leatha's step son, would work some at different times over the years, but came to be our real "Stand by" after the time that Daddy, Tommy and Leatha died.

He first helped Joe to really trim up (Maybe "Skin up") all the trees around the house for Mother. He'd also do odd jobs for Mother around the place.

He cut pulpwood and firewood, built and repaired fences (Lot and pasture), bush hogged, trimmed shrubbery, mowed the yard, helped with hay, cut wood, trimmed fence rows, painted fences, etc. and did just about anything we have needed for him to do for a number of years.

I really depended on him to watch out for things around the place, especially since I was working out of town quite a bit and while we were in Mobile. Even though he'd had bypass surgery, he was still very strong and active.

He was so dependable at so many things. I just didn’t worry about things when we were away. He’d always take care of feeding Lady when we’d be away. All I had to do was to tell him when we were leaving and when we’d be back and we’d know that she was taken care of.

I used to tease him about the tires on his old truck being so slick that I could see the air in them. Also, if I came up and went out to the shop, I’d see a few tools missing and I’d ask him what he was building with my saw, or whatever I knew he had. He’d just laugh and tell me what he was working on. I had no worry about the tools being returned when he was finished with them.

A few times he’d come by when I was here with his tape player going loud. He’d be listening to “Amazing Grace” or some other songs that he’d heard Mother playing on the piano and he’d say, “I want you to hear this one. I sho Miss Nora would like to hear it!” Lots of time Mother would go in and play the piano some while he’d be working in the yards because she knew how much he appreciated them.

If we went on a long trip, I’d usually bring him back something from where we were. Once I brought him a bright red, flat cap just before Easter from Paris. He said, “I ain’t gonna wear this ‘til Easter Sunday.”

As his health began to go down, he spent most of his days down at Don’s Service Station watching out for, as he called them Rogues, from stealing things from Don while he’d be out working on tires, etc.

One day, I’d been at the hardware store and told Fred that I was going to go see if Don had time to find a very slow leak in one of my truck tires. When I got over there, I saw that Don had a vehicle on a jack so I didn’t stop. Had I stopped, I’d have found Willie dead in his truck. I saw one of his 36 chillun, Big Sam there as I passed and he found Willie dead.

Of course, Joe, Eleanor, JoAnne and I all had to be present on the front row at his 2 ½ hour funeral. Joe and I had to speak at the funeral also. I surely do miss Willie with his bright smile with the gold tooth shining!

Part - 15c & d - Farm Hands - Dennis & Tommy

2009-06-28T13:44:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

15c. DENNIS TURNER

Dennis was a large, tall man that really didn't know his strength. He wasn't a "speed ball", but he worked steadily. Tommy was smaller, very strong, and worked faster than Dennis was. The odd thing was that, for example, if both were splitting wood, Dennis would wind up with the largest pile at the end of a day!?!

As noted above, Dennis had a large family that would work on the farm on an "as needed" basis, plowing, hoeing, picking cotton, pulling corn, cutting wood, etc.

I think he and Ludie had 3 girls and 3 boys. I never really knew Geneva, Francis and Nancy. Nancy was my age. She really wasn’t old enough to do much work while we were farming so she kinda hung by her mama’s coattails as she was so shy.

The boys were Bud, Clifford and Nelson (Nelse). They did work on the place. Once Clifford and Nelse had cut 4 pieced of a sweet gum tree that was about 8 inches in diameter and about 2 inches thick. Then they went in the old blacksmith shop and drilled a hole in the center of each circle. I asked them what they were making. Nelse told me that they were making some “sweels” (wheels) for their wagon.

Once Nelse has an old 47 Ford sedan. It had 5 radio antennae on it. Ford put one in the center just above the windshield and Nelse put one on each side at the front and back of the car. Each had a ‘coon tail on it. The funny part was that he didn’t even have a radio in the old car!!!

15d. TOMMY LAND

Tommy Land was the other one that worked the farm while I was coming up. At the time the house burned, he and his wife, Florence (We called her "Tommy's Florence" to differentiate from Andrew Turner's wife "Andrew's Florence."), lived in the old log house under the hill. They later moved over in the "New Hope Quarters."

There were no two neater people that I ever knew. They and their house were always just as "neat as a pin." Tommy would do his own sewing and patching on his overalls, etc. In later years as he got older, he got a little too familiar to the old “bottle” and his health wasn’t good after that.

Florence lived until she was up into her 90’s and looked just about the same as she always did, tall and slim. She seemed to be in good health even into her nineties. Sylvia would go by pretty regularly and check on her all along.

Up to the end, Tommy and Florence’s house was so neat you could eat off the floor.

Part - 15a.3. - Lucy cont & 15 b. - Lillie

2009-06-27T07:55:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

15a.1.3 LUCY TAYLOR (cont)

In later years, when we didn't have the hands farming and didn't need Lucy during the week, she'd come most Sundays to cook dinner and one day to wash and iron.

She worked for several families in town, mostly washing and ironing. She'd walk or "catch a ride" to town carrying her white fertilizer sack like her Mama's so she could bring home leftovers, things she'd pick up at the store and things she'd "Begged" for, etc. She would "beg" for contributions to her church, New Hope Methodist. She had helped raise enough to build the new building that stands there now as "The Greater New Hope AME Church."

Once, we wanted to get Lucy a nice coat for her to wear. She had gotten pretty fat then and weighed about 265. Joe and Bea found one that would fit her, but it was July 4th before we got together to give it to her, during a family reunion. We'd gathered in the living room and called her in. When she opened the box, she started jumping around, crying, put the coat on, danced around to each one of us, hugging us all and saying, "Thank ya, thank ya, thank ya!" She had to tell everybody to look what her chillun gave her!

When I was going to college in Livingston, I would go by her house on Sunday afternoon, on my way back to school, knowing she would have me a good, "made from scratch" cake made for me to take with me.

Lots of times, especially during World War II, sugar was rationed, so Lucy would make us some "sweet bread." She'd work up a cake batter and sweeten it with syrup. Mmm Good! It was, especially good while still warm with real butter in it and a glass of sweet milk. Now, don't that make ya drool a wantin' some uv it!!!

Two days after Joe was born (6 years before I was), the house caught fire. Lucy was sleeping on a pallet in the kitchen and woke up at midnight, with the house in flames. She jumped up and went running through the house calling, "Mister Sam, the house is on fire, the house is on fire!" Daddy got Mother up and carried her outside, Mama Wright got Claire and Sylvia and Lucy got Joe. She'd always beg a little something from Joe saying, "Ya know I saved ya from the fire!" Of course, Joe would give her anything he could anyway.

Unfortunately, our sweet Lucy died as the result of a blood clot in her leg a short time before the New Hope Church building was completed. Naturally, Sylvia and I represented the family at her funeral. Claire was in Tallahassee and Joe was overseas and couldn't come to the funeral. Her kids wanted her to have a vault to be buried in, so I paid for one, then Claire, Sylvia and Joe reimbursed me for a fourth, each.

15b. LILLIE TAYLOR

Singing Lillie, Lucy's Mama would walk around with her white sack just singing gospel songs! In later years, I was working for the contractor paving the road that runs by the house, and JoAnne was by herself. She heard someone singing and saw Lillie coming. Lillie, like always, just came on up the back steps into the house. JoAnne talked to her a while, then Lillie left by way of the barn. I think Jo Anne was a little scared until I got home and told her about Lillie.

Lillie would go to New Hope Church, and when the preacher would make a statement, Lillie would say, "True!" in a high pitched voice all through the sermon.

We'd go over to New Hope sometimes and stand outside or go in and sit on the back row when they'd have "Protrative Meetings" (Revivals) and listen to the singing. There were some folks there that could REALLY sing well, such as Christine and Mulvoy Taylor.

Part - 15a.2 - Lucy (cont)

2009-06-26T08:41:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

15.a.2. LUCY TAYLOR (cont)

Lucy would cook dinner every day, both for the family and for the field hands. When she cooked turnip greens, she would put a little pile of them on the corner of the cabinet, before she cut them up, for me to sample. Boy! Were they good!!!

Along about mid-morning and/or mid-afternoon, I'd get hungry. (Mother Minnie always said that she thought I had a "hollow leg" to put so much food in. Once she told Mother that I should drink a dipper full of water before I ate so I wouldn't eat so much.) In the morning I'd ask Lucy for a "hole-in-a-biscuit-with-'lasses-in it." This meant poking her finger into the edge of a cold biscuit and slowly pouring homemade sugar cane syrup into the hole allowing it to soak into the biscuit real good.

Afternoons called for "cornbread in buttermilk." Corn bread crumbled into a glass, then pouring home churned buttermilk into it and eating it with a spoon.

When Lucy had dinner ready for the family, she'd say, "Sonny, tell 'em dinner ready!" I'd tell the family, then go out the back door to ring the dinner bell for the field hands to "take out" for dinner. By the time the hands got to the house, fed and watered the mules, if plowing was being done, and they washed up, the family would be through eating, the table dishes cleared and re-set so the hands could come in and eat.

Lucy would have to cook a certain amount of food for dinner, depending on what sort of work that was going on around the farm. Most every day Tommy Land and Dennis Turner would be there for plowing, cutting wood, hoeing, etc. Then, there'd be times when one or more of Dennis' family (Ludie, his wife - daughters Geneva
, Francis or Nancy [Nancy was my age and usually hung on to Ludie's coat tail as she was so shy.], his boys Bud, Clifford and Nelson.) Sometimes Leatha Land and Willie Taylor would be there, too.

On the days when Lucy was churning for fresh butter and buttermilk, at least one of us younguns would be sitting on her big broad lap to look at the Sears Roebuck and Company or Montgomery Ward catalogs and dream about all the things we were gonna buy when we got big so we'd have the money to get them.

Or, Lucy would tell us stories. Also, she'd tell us stories or sing to us if we went up to the spring with her when she was washing clothes.

Lucy, like her Mama, "Singing Lillie" never married, but she had two children that grew up (Nora Lee, after Mother, and Sam, after Daddy), and one who only lived about a week or so (Minnie Jo, after Mother Minnie and Joe). She had a couple of miscarriages. Willie Taylor was the daddy of Sam and Nora.

Lucy would work the batter for biscuits by squeezing the flour, lard, baking soda and buttermilk through her fingers. Then, when it would stiffen up some, she'd knead the batter up and "choke off" nice sized "cat head" biscuits. Sometimes, she would roll out four little elongated rolls of batter to make each one of us younguns a "snake." (Mother would make us a "Billy Boy" similar to a "Gingerbread Man.”) Lucy's good ole biscuits with home churned butter, Daddy's homemade cane syrup, along with a good helping of fried, home raised and cured ham, and grits with "red eye" gravy and a glass of buttermilk, cooled all day in a syrup bucket hung in the spring was truly a feast that I'd sho' like to have, "rat now!"

Lucy would usually cook the breakfast biscuits and Mother the supper ones, as Lucy would go home just before dark. I'd go to the spring each day just before dark. I'd see the evening star and say the little saying, "Star light, Star bright, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight." Then I'd always wish that we'd have syrup, butter and biscuits for supper tonight. That way, I'd always get my wish!

Part - 15a - Farm Hands - Lucy Pt. a.1.

2009-06-25T06:04:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

15. FARM WORKERS

15 a.1. "SONNY, TELL 'EM DINNER READY"

LUCY TAYLOR

"Sonny tell 'em dinner ready." That's what I would hear each day, when I was a young boy, when Lucy had dinner ready.

Lucy Taylor was our "Mammy", "Other Mama" or whatever titles you wish to tag her with. In looks, she was almost a twin to "Aunt Jemimah" as seen on various baking products.

Why she called me "Sonny", I don't know. She is the only person to ever call me that. I asked her once, when I was about 10, what she'd call me when I was as old as Joe was. She said, "Sonny." I asked her what she'd call me when I got as old as Daddy. She said, "Mister Wood!"

Lucy had been working for Mother and Daddy since she was a spindly eleven-year-old girl; about the time Claire Louise and Sylvia Aliece, my two sisters came along. That was about nine years before me.

She was very special to all our family. On Mondays, she would load up some "lightered" (fat pine) splinters, wood, dirty clothes and the P&G and Octagon soap on the old wheelbarrow (with a 1 1/2" wide iron wheel), and push it up on the side of a hill, across the road from the house. There is an ever-flowing spring there. She would start a fire around the old black wash pot, pour buckets of water in the pot, add soap, and then put the clothes in that needed boiling. (Different colors at different times.)

When the water got hot, she'd take the "battling stick", (a board about 1" X 3" X 4') and punch and stir the clothes to "boil 'em clean!"

After the pot, she'd carry a "stick load" over to the wash tub sitting on a bench between two trees. She'd use the "rub board" to run the clothes up and down to get them real clean. When they were respectfully boiled and scrubbed, they went into the "rinsing tub" filled with fresh, clean water to rinse out the soap.

Clothes not needing starch would go back in the wheelbarrow. If starch was needed (most things worn outside), Lucy would have a pan of cornstarch mixed up to dip the clothes in so they would iron out real smooth and stiff.

When all the washing, rinsing, and starching was finished, Lucy would load everything back on the wheelbarrow and wheel it back to the backyard of the house. She would hang the fresh clean clothes on the clothesline to dry. If she had an extra big washing, she'd have to hang the overalls, etc. on the back wire fence.

Tuesday would usually be ironing day. Lucy would lay out each item that had been starched and sprinkle water on them by dipping her hand into a bowl of water and shaking it over the clothes. (Later, we got "up town" and got a little sprinkler that fit into a Coke bottle to use for sprinkling the clothes!) After she had sprinkled an item, she would roll it up.

Before any work started, Lucy would put two flat irons on the stove or in front of the fire in the fireplace, to heat up. After the sprinkling, she would wrap a thick rag around the hot handle of an iron, spit on her finger and quickly touch the bottom of the iron. If the spit "sizzled" the iron was hot enough to press the clothes. If the iron got cooled off too much, it wouldn't get the wrinkles out of the clothes. So, she had to put it back on the stove to reheat and get the other hot iron. There's an old saying, "Strike while the iron is hot!" This apparently was in reference to the flat irons cooling off, but could relate to a number of chores that needed to be done at just the right time.

Part - 14n - Fruit & Nut Trees

2009-06-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

14n. FRUIT AND NUT TREES AND SCUPPERNONGS

While there are only a few left in relation to when I was growing up, there were many different trees that produced goodies that we harvested and some made into some great cobblers, etc.

There were 5 sand pear trees out behind the toilet and chicken house that produced some good canning pears for cooking down to make semi-sweet toppings for biscuits. Then, down by the old garden, down the hill towards the pond, there were three what we called “eating pears” that were the best and would be the softest to eat when they got good an ripe. Then there was another tree that had what seemed to be a cross between the eating pears and the sand pears. That tree was loaded down every year. They never did get really soft to eat, but were so moist that when you’d bite into one juice would run down your chin. They were the best for canning and preserves. Those 4 trees were down by the old garden towards the pond from the house.

There is still quite a large area that is the pecan orchard that Granddaddy Wood planted with several varieties of pecans from small seedlings, to paper shells to Stuarts. These trees have never had much care and a number of them were lost when the orchard grew up in other trees before Daddy retired and cleared it back out.

In my part of the place, there are still about 23 trees. Only about half of them produce as I haven’t done much to fertilize, prune and care for the trees as they should have. In a good year we may harvest a couple of hundred pounds of nuts that we have cracked for our use and to give away. We seldom bother to harvest the hard to shell and hard to pick out seedlings.

Another type tree that still produce nuts are the two black walnut trees that are just outside the cow lot. One of these trees blew down and left a hollow stump about 8 feet high. One limb grew out of the top of the stump and still produces. The other tree stands tall and has nuts on it every year. We used to pick up the green ones that were about 2 ½ inches diameter and throw them at the cows if they tried to run away to keep from going into the lots during the summer months. I’d hate to be hit in the head with one of those green ones! The nuts are so hard they must be cracked with a hammer while holding the nut with some pliers. There isn’t much meat in them, but what is there is very strong. They’re particularly good in good ole homemade ice cream.

We never had but one apple tree. It was located about where Lonesome Pine is now. Seldom would any of the fruit on that tree ripen as we’d watch them so long and so closely that when the slightest bit of color came on an apple, it would be picked and quickly eaten.

There were 5 J-berry trees (Improved Mulberry) that were all around the yards. They produced very large, sweet purple berried about 3/8” diameter and up to about 1 ½ inch long. (Sylvia used to tell Lowery and me that they’d get as long as her hand!!!) They really made good jam and cobblers especially if a few were added in that weren’t quite ripe as they’d have a little more acid to them than the really ripe ones did. Of course, anyone could tell when they had been eating them as our lips and fingers would be purple. There is only one of those trees left and I have to keep it trimmed back as it is between the old shop and the new tractor shed.

There was one wild mulberry tree that was in the horse lot. It typically produced the very small berried and we seldom did anything with them.

There were a couple of fig trees out behind the smoke house but the chickens kept them eaten back to where we didn’t get much fruit from them. This is my favorite fruit grown in the area as they cook down into the best preserves imaginable.

The other fruit producer was and still is the two scuppernong vines. These vines were originally out back by the apple tree. In the late 40’s Joe and Fred moved them to the chicken yard that was located north of the old tractor shed. They kinda lay dormant for a couple of years. Finally, Mother told Joe to put some chicken manure around them and dig it in. The very next year they started to produce. Daddy built an arbor that was about 8 feet wide, 6 feet high and about 40 feet long. This was made by welding some of the old cattle gap pipes together into s “U” shape. Soon he widened it by another 6 feet. A couple of years ago, the old pipes and the net wire had rusted out, so I cut them all back and built a new vertical arbor from green house piping. They are much easier to get to for eating off the vine or harvesting some for making some good jelly. It looks like we will have a good crop this year. These scuppernongs are the old fashion golden colored grapes. There are a number of newer breeds that may be a little larger and in different colors, but are not as sweet as these are. I always look forward to about the first of September when they begin to ripen!

There is only one pear tree on the place now. We planted 4 trees about 8 years ago. Two died soon after they were planted. The other two produced until Katrina blew one of them down and left only one. It is loaded with this year’s crop waiting to ripen.

We tried to grow 6 fig trees in the “nasty garden” plot. Three died soon after planting, then a late freeze in 2008 severely damaged the other three. Also, we planted several blueberry bushes that failed to grow in the sandy soil of the nasty garden. So we don’t have lots of luck with newly planted fruit and nut trees.

Part - 14m - Crocheting

2009-06-23T17:44:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

14m. CROCHETING

Back when Daddy was farming, during winter nights, when he'd not been working so hard, he would lay out patterns for table cloths, bed spreads, etc. on graph paper. Then, he'd crochet them while sitting by the fire and listening to the radio. One treasure I'll always keep; he made me a crocheted baby bed spread. (I slept in the baby bed until I was six because there just wasn't room for another bed.) He had designed twelve-inch squares. Each square had a different animal crocheted into it. There were dogs, cats, camels and horses in the squares of that spread. The middle square had "JIM" in it. There was a total of fifteen squares, plus the fringes around the edges.

An interesting thing about the way Daddy and Mother held their thread while crocheting was that Daddy held the middle finger of his left hand up to keep the thread tensioned properly. Mother held up her pointing finger up.

Part - 14l - Dirt Pits

2009-06-22T08:07:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

14l DIRT PITS

The original pit was just at the top of the hill across the road where the old CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) pit, about two acres in size was located. This was primarily sandy soil. The CCC trucks had to be loaded by individuals with shovels. So it would take a WHILE to get a truck load. Then most of it was hauled to the old CCC road that ran from the top of the hill by Providence Church over to Highway 29 (now Highway 17). Not long after WWII, one of the very sandy hills on that road was washed out by heavy rains and the county never repaired it, and abandoned it.

We’ve always thought that it was a shame that they closed that road as it would have saved about 5 or 6 miles in traveling over to 17 and northward rather than having to go all the way to Millry and back north. Occasionally someone would get a load or two of that sandy soil to put on bad clay areas of the Millry – Isney road (now Sam Wood Road).

I remember once that Daddy and some of the Whigham men were trying to improve a bad place that lots of vehicles would get stuck during wet weather at the top of the hill north of the house. Daddy had some rough about 2 X 8 boards on the tractor wagon. They’d hand load the wagon, then pull it up there, flip the boards over to let the sand drop into the clay area. While they were working on that, I’d keep the crew supplied with a bucket of water and a dipper. Mr. Grace Whigham commented several times that, “Uncle Jim's a good water boy!”

There was a third dirt pit on the place. This one was located about ¼ mile north of Providence Church. It was strictly a Sand Pit. Emmett Wood had a concrete block plant on the south side of Millry and used the sand from that pit to mix with the concrete to make the blocks.

What was a large cotton field atop the hill in the cow and goat pastures across the road "grew up" in trees. Then when the county started to pave the road, they wanted to buy the fill and base dirt from our pit on top of the hill. At that time, only the

In 1959, the county took out over 43,000 cubic yards for the road. Since then, the county and lots of contractors have hauled dirt out and the pit has grown to about twenty acres in size. The pit is on the land that Sylvia inherited. The county trucks were still hauling, up to about the end of 2002, but were not doing a very good accounting job on the pay going to Sib for the dirt. The town of Millry and occasionally an individual contractor will haul some dirt from the pit. Most of the good, red sand/gravel base material has been hauled out of there leaving mostly sand, dense white clay and quite a bit of sand stone chunks.

One of the top uses for the pit nowadays is for little children and a few AU students to go up and slide down the banks and get good and dirty. I guess that fun thing goes back to when we were all young and would slide down the banks of the gully that runs along side of the pit. That ended when Sylvia slid down one day and stuck a sharp pine lightered know up into one of her feet!

After a sizable rain comes, the road up to the pit gets pretty badly washed up. So I try to keep it graded up so if anyone does need to get dirt they’ll be able to get up the hill.

Part - 14k - Goats and Hogs

2009-06-21T05:24:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

14k. GOATS AND HOGS

We had another pasture, across the road from the house and alongside the cow pasture that Daddy kept hogs and goats in.

The goats were always a headache. They would stick their heads through the net wire fence to eat and would get their horns hung in the fence. Every evening after we got in from school, we’d listen to see if we could hear a goat bleating, over the hill, get the "Jim Brown Pliers" (fence Pliers that had been ordered form the Jim Brown Catalog), and some hay wire, and go cut the fence to get the goat out. Then, we'd repair the fence with the haywire.

Several of the Colored People would come by to buy a goat just before July fourth to barbecue. We would usually butcher one along then, too. In later years, we'd have a big family reunion and barbecue one or two goats, a sheep, some ribs and chickens. Mmmm, Good!!!

At one time, we had twenty-seven goats in the pasture, and dogs got started to killing them. All in all, we killed eight dogs, including one of ours, people got rid of four dogs, and they killed twenty-five of the goats. The two remaining ones had gotten so wild that we couldn't get anywhere near them. One day James Turner, Old Bee's boy, stopped by to see if we had a goat he could get for "the 4th day!" I told him we'd have to shoot it to get it. He said okay, so we found both of them in the old CCC gravel pit. I killed them both, sold him one and skinned the other. That put us out of the goat business for a long time.

We always kept enough hogs for all the family and friends to eat and some lard to trade for groceries at Mr. Kimbrough's store. Usually, Daddy would take about four or five hogs at a time and put them in a pen at a time so they could be fattened up. Then on a very cold day, we'd have "a Hog killin'."

Daddy would shoot them right between the eyes with the .22 rifle, and they'd fall dead immediately. Then he would "stick them" by taking a sharp pointed knife and cut their jugular veins so they would bleed well.

They were taken to a place where boards were laid out on the ground and a drum of very hot water was tilted so the hog could be dipped into it, then pulled out and the hair would come off easily. If the water was too hot, the hair would "set" and you'd almost have to shave the hair off. When all the hair had been scraped off the hog, it was hung on the "gamblin' pole" with "gamblin' sticks" strung through a slit cut between the back leg and hamstring. Then, it was gutted and all the entrails saved for more work later.

After it was gutted and cleaned out, it was laid out on the "Meat bench" along the south side of the smokehouse to be cut up, and the fat parts cut up in about one to 1 ½ inch squares for making lard and cracklins. The meat was packed down with salt in large wooden boxes until it was time to start smoking it and curing-it-out.

Nothing was wasted from a hog except the gall bladder, the bladder (some folks would make a "football" out of the bladder), and the hard part of the hooves. Some say everything was saved from the "rooter" to the "tooter!"

Meanwhile, all the entrails were being attended to. The lights (lungs), heart and liver were prepared for cooking. The small intestines were washed and washed and washed to get all the "mess" out and they were used for stuffing sausage. The large intestines were cleaned similar to the small ones and prepared to be cooked as chitterlings.

The brain was saved and it and the head were used to make souse (hogshead cheese), and some of the brains were cooked with scrambled eggs for breakfast the next day. The feet were saved and "pickled" for good eating later.

The "scrap", mostly lean meat was cut up into small pieces to be run through the sausage grinder to make sausage after proper seasonings were thoroughly mixed into the ground meat. Later, some of the sausage was stuffed into the small intestines for link sausage and the rest was made into "patties" and placed into a lard can and sealed with melted fat or canned.

A day or so later, the big wash pot from the spring was brought down and thoroughly rinsed to remove any soap remaining in it. A big fire was built around the pot and the cut up pieces of fat were thrown into the pot to boil out the fat (lard). The lard was strained into large metal cans and allowed to cool. When it cooled, it set up into a semi-hard state and turned white.

After all the lard was cooked out of the meat, it became cracklings and were kept in lard cans in the smokehouse and used for making "cracklin' cornbread." Sometimes one or two of Florence Land's children would come to the back door and say, "Miss Nora. Mama say send her a nickel's worth of crackers!" That would be a gallon syrup bucket full.

When the meat had been salted down for a while, it and the link sausage had to be smoked. One of the hands would scout around and find a clump of "bear grass" (Palmetto) to be boiled, making the tines flexible and strong. After all the salt was washed off the meat, a slit was cut into the hams, sides of bacon, etc., the bear grass was run through the slit and tied in a knot. Pieces of meat and links of sausage were strung on poles and hung across joists of the smokehouse. Mother would build a very slow burning fire out of green oak wood, shut up the door and windows and let the smokehouse fill with the pungent oak smoke, seasoning and curing out the meat, giving it that good smoked taste.

No one was paid money to help during hog killing time. They were paid in meat. The last hog killing we had was on a January first. We killed eight hogs. More than one hog was given to pay the help.

Boy! Wouldn't it be good to go out to the smokehouse and thick slice one of those hams, fry it, make red-eye gravy for grits, have some good cat head biscuits cooked in the old Home Comfort stove's oven with home churned butter and homemade cane syrup, have a couple of fresh fried yard eggs, and a good glass of fresh milk and "Jest Dive In!!!!!"

Part - 14j - Pets

2009-06-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

14j. PETS

We had many pets while I was growing up. The first dogs I remember were Ring, an English Bulldog and Tip, a black dog with a white tip on his tail. Ring was just a plain one good dog. He’d “sic” on whatever he was told to do. He hunted possums and squirrels but wouldn’t bark at them when they treed. Finally one of us shot a squirrel in the rear end and when he fell out Ring went to it and it bit him on his mouse. That made ring mad and after that, when he saw a squirrel he’d bark at it. We knew that when he barked, he was looking at the squirrel.

I don’t remember anything about Tip except his name and what he looked like. He died while I was a little boy.

Uncle Oscar Grayson came up one day when nobody was at home but me and Lucy. He brought a little white dog that he said was named Ginger. Well, as soon as everyone got home his name was immediately changed to Jimmy. He was a good squirrel dog, but unlike Ring, he’d bark at the scent of a squirrel and we didn’t always find what he was barking at.

Jimmy loved to be near the tractor and would trot along all day long just out front of the right front wheel of the tractor while plowing or just going down the road.

Other dogs were Homer a part Jack Russell that was a good squirrel dog; Spot a good squirrel dog that a guy from Kiln, MS gave to Daddy. (I’d have to say that Spot was probably the best squirrel dog of them all.); Shan, a black cocker spaniel that was just a pet; and then there was Wags! Wags was part Manchester, black and tan little dog. We had gotten him in Mobile and once I had to go to New Orleans to a hospital so we left Wags with Mother. Well, he became her HOUSE dog. Mother was so attracted to him that she let him stay in the house. Sometimes she’d give him something to eat and he’d kinda turn his nose up to it. She’s tell him, “Eat That!” He’d roll his eyes around so sadly, but he’d nibble it until had eaten it all. Since she was so attached to him, we just gave him to her. She always said that he was so much comfort to her especially during the winters that Daddy would be working out of town.

Of course, we had many different cats. There was Daisy Mae a calico that got trapped in the oven once. Probably the best all around cats we had was Frieda, a yellow cat that was the best mouser I’ve ever seen. Several times Daddy would call her out to the barn and he’d kinda roll some of the hay bales around and the rats would run up the rafters and get just under the ridge vent of the roof and run westward to the end of the barn and down towards the southwest corner. Daddy would use a fishing pole to make the rats run. As soon as he picked up the pole, Frieda would head to the SW corner and wait on the rat to come to her and she’d nail it.

Once, there had been lots of bales of oats in the Big Barn. Daddy, Joe and I started to move the oats over to the old barn. As soon as we started mice started running everywhere. We called Frieda and her three half grown kittens over. There is no telling how many mice those four cats killed and ate that day. Once, we watched Frieda and she had one under each front paw and two in her mouth. She’d bite into one until it quit wiggling, then go to another.

Once, Andy rescued a yellow cat in the middle of Cottage Hill Road. A litter mate had already been run over and killed. We didn’t have a place for it so we brought it up to Mother and Daddy. If a cat would purr when he petted it, Daddy really took a liking to them. This one was no exception. One day, Mother started to go to town and heard a funny noise under the hood and the cat was under there and got caught up in the fan belts and killed.

Other pets included Nig and Brown, two big goats that Joe and I had and trained to pull a two wheel goat cart. One day two men came by and wanted to buy them. At the time goats were selling at about $3 or $4. They offered us $10 each for them and they were gone!!!

About the end of my senior year in high school, I won the “pig chain” pig. The way this worked was that when an Agriculture boy won the pig, he had to raise it, have her bred and give one of the first pigs back to the school for the next boy. Well, my hog had nine pigs. After about a month or so the sow apparently laid down on one of the pigs and broke it down in its hind legs and could only get around by dragging them. I put it in a little pen and fed it with a bottle. A little later, it got to where it could walk around with wobbly rear legs. So, I just let it run loose in the yards. It liked the dogs and would stay near them. If someone drove up and the dogs went out barking at them, the pig would go out squealing! I guess he thought he was a dog!!! As I was about to leave home for college, I sold all the other hogs to Mr. W.J. Brittain and gave him the pig. He also let it run loose in his yard. One day he couldn’t find it and notice an old wash pot had been overturned and found the pig smothered under the pot.

Soon after we moved back to the farm a pretty, long haired yellow dog appeared. In her face, she looks like a fox, so I named her Foxy Lady. She and a yellow lab had 3 litters of puppies and all of them were black!!! I gave away all the pups to folks that would have a good home for them.

Then on Thanksgiving 2007, Andy and Robin brought us a Dachshund that Robin’s brother Paul had in Texas. His little boy played too rough for him and they wanted someone to take him. JoAnne really didn’t want a house dog, but that changed that day he got here. He was named Winston, but we soon took JoAnne’s suggestion to call him Sport. He is completely spoiled rotten. He loves to spend time sleeping in either one of our laps and in his special chair in the den. He can almost talk to you especially with those big brown eyes. If I holler “Touchdown Auburn” he’ll start yipping and whining to celebrate with me!!! He has decided that my bed should be his sleeping place, so I put one of his little beds up on the bed and he curls up in it and sleeps all night. While we’re at the table eating, he stares at me all the time awaiting the treat that he’ll get when we finish eating.

He loves to get out and dig trenches across the yards chasing moles. I have used about 7 loader buckets of sand filling up those holes. Recently, I let him out one morning and when he started to come back in the reek of skunk odor hit me. I was on my way to work so JoAnne had to bathe him with tomato juice, then his dog shampoo. She got almost all of the scent off.

Part - 14i - Horses and Mules

2009-06-19T06:33:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

14i. HORSES AND MULES

For a long time, Daddy would round up the cows and drive them in to the Big Barn so as to check them over. He would ride "Pinto" or "Red", a Kentucky Saddle Horse (now called American Saddle horses.)

Daddy bought Red from Uncle Jim Granade, Mother Minnie's brother, as a young horse. Red was eleven days older than I was. Daddy tried to break him to plow, but he had too fast a gait to go slow enough to plow. During this time, Daddy "broke Red's wind," a condition that caused him to start panting for breath after just a short span of running. Once, Mr. Tom Whigham told me that if I would put some clay in a tub, then add water to it, stir it up real well and let him only drink that kind of water, it would give him longer wind. I thought that was kinda cruel, so I didn't try it. I did notice, or thought I did, when there had been heavy rains and the pond got muddy, Red would have slightly longer wind. Who knows!?!?

Once caught and bridled, Red would stay right where you left him and you could walk right up to him without a flinch. But, if he was turned loose in the pasture, he was VERY HARD to catch. I remember one Sunday, Daddy had chased him all over the pasture, got hot (mostly under the collar), had sicked Ring, our Bulldog, on him, and tried to catch him in every way he could think of. When Mother went in the house, got a tin plate with a couple of spoons of sugar on it, and walked to the fence and starting talking "baby talk" to him saying, "Come on 'den, come get some sugar," he would walk right up to her. So, lots of times when we wanted to ride Red and he was out to pasture, we'd call Mother to catch him for us.

Mother rode Red quite a bit. I think she tried to ride Pinto once and got scared of him. She would ride Red to visit Mrs. Mable Stokley, Aunt Ella Wood, Miss Eva Whigham, Miss Daisy and Mrs. Becky Grimes, etc.

In the summertime when the cows wouldn't come up for milking, Joe or I would hem Red up and catch him in the pasture, hold his mane and lead him to a fence or stump, get on him with no bridle or saddle, kinda slap him on the side of his neck to turn him, then drive the cows to the barn for milking. He'd wait just outside the lot gate for us to get him a couple of ears of corn as a reward for the ride.

Red and I went many, many miles together. In fact, I used to go see a girlfriend on him. There were 11 gates of wire gaps to go through in route. Sometimes you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face due to total darkness. When I’d get to a gate he’d stop. I’d feel around, get the gate open, let him walk thru, close the gate and get back on and going again.

One night, there was some moonlight, as I was headed just a little way past a gate, I saw something run right in front of Red. I kicked him in the side to get him running. The thing I saw darted off the roadway and I got one slight smell of the skunk! I’d heard that they had to stop to spray and it did prove it that night!

At the age of 21, I’d noticed that Red was kinda walking stiffly. Then one morning I went out to the lot and found him dead. I borrowed James Robert Whigham’s tractor to drag him off. A couple of years later, I found his skull and used it as a Halloween décor along with a mule’s skull.

We had mules to do all the plowing, hauling corn, wood, etc. with the wagon, turn the cane mill, hay bailer, etc.

Not all mules would work to the hay bailer as they had to step over a wooden beam about 10 inches square and at about the same time, the mechanism would snap to make the grass pack into the bale being made.

We had black mules named Jim (Daddy made 21 crops with him), John and Jack, a red mule named Nell and a Grey mule named John. We only had three at a time.

I guess I remember Jim, Nell and Grey John more than the others. Nell was always "seal fat", with almost a perfectly round belly. We'd ride her with the old army saddle quite a bit. Once, Fred was riding Red and I on Nell. When we got to the bridge crossing the branch by the pond, Red's hooves struck the bridge; Nell jumped sideways a couple of feet and stopped immediately. When this happened, the army saddle and I slipped all the way under her belly. She never moved until I got off and replaced the saddle on her back. I thought Fred would fall off Red, as he was laughing so hard.

Nell was so gentle that you could walk right up to her anywhere. Lots of times Joe would catch her, lead her to a terrace, tell her "Whoa." back off and run and jump on her back. Then he'd ride her to get the cows in for milking.

As best as I can remember, all the mules and horses that we had died here on the place except Pinto. Daddy sold pinto to a Mr. Smith.

Part - 14h - Cows

2009-06-18T05:23:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

14h. COWS

For a number of years, Daddy owned forty acres of land in the "Prairies." This was about two miles NE of the house. The land was "gumbo" clay (very sticky and slick when wet) and had coral rock all thru it. (Someone said that, at one time the area was under the sea.) Daddy had arranged with Mr. Henry Williams to build a lane across the East side of his land so Daddy's cows could go from the "Big Barn" (an open barn with hay racks and troughs for feeding cattle.) which was across the road from the house. There was a pasture around the Big Barn with about 40 acres in it.

Daddy had a cattle-loading chute that was also a platform for a scale. He would know how much his cattle weighed before taking them to market. Of course, we all had to stand in the chute and be weighed every once in a while.

Things got tight, money wise, and cattle prices got low, so Daddy sold all of his cows except about six or eight for milking. Also, he sold the Prairie land to B. K. Smith.

One of the cows that he kept was named Sadie because he bought her from Mr. James Martin. One of Sadie's calves was reddish brown, and was named Rose. Mother and Daddy gave Rose to me for an Agriculture project when I was in ninth grade. Rose had May, June and countless other calves which were also mine. We kept May for a while, and I learned firsthand not to keep a cow's first calf. Her first calf was nothing but a spindly runt. June was Rose's second calf and turned out to be a very good brood cow.

Rose and June were probably the smartest cows we had, especially June. When she wanted to get out of the stall, she'd simply butt it open. If she wanted water, she'd take her tongue and turn the water on. (She never did learn to turn the water off after she got a drink!) If she wanted to go through a gate, she'd take her nose and slide the latch to open it. We learned to remove the handle on the water faucet, drill a hole in the gate and latch and put a nail through it to prevent her from sliding it, etc.

Sadie had developed a ruptured milk gland, so Joe took her and some goats to market, sold them and bought Frosty. She had the smallest bag and shortest teats and was the hardest thing to milk than any cow we had. Finally, Frosty died near the pond. We think someone was shooting at ducks or something and the bullet ricocheted off the water and killed her.

That left me with all the cows. When I left for college, I gave all them back to Mother and Daddy. Later, they gave me Easter, another reddish brown, mottled face cow. Her last calf was #25, which was Carrie's favorite. Willie found Easter dead down in the little flat when #25 was just a calf.

Not long before Mother died, Joe bought all the cows from her. He would spend quite a bit of time when he was home reworking fences, etc. Then, after Mother died, I bought the herd from Joe.

I've had as many as 37 head of cows and calves.

After owning the cows for a while, the bull I had started “shooting blanks” and I missed a whole year’s crop of calves along with a no good bull. So, instead of buying a bull and having no calves to sell, I decided to sell the heard to David Atchison and Joe and I leased the pasture land to him. Now, I enjoy seeing the cows grazing each morning down across the flat while I’m shaving. And, if I want to get out amongst them, I can.

There is one cow still here that has always been kinda special. George called me one Wednesday morning and told me that the cow with the long white face (Zella) had a new baby girl calfie. I came up from Mobile the next day along with Sonny and Bobby. I started looking for Zella while riding around the pasture. First, we found Lou with a new calf behind the dam. Then we saw Zella down by the creek, lowing. When we got down there, I found the calf lying in the edge of the creek. Apparently it had gotten too close to the bank and fell in. So, I got my boots, went in and toted the calf up the creek bank to its mama. She walked off with the calf following. The next morning, I noticed that the calf hadn’t suckled and was getting weak. So, I borrowed a calf bottle from David and for the first time in about 50 years, I milked the cow. I had to make a temporary “break” so she wouldn’t walk away. I fed the calf on that milk and another milking. By the time we started feeding her the bottle, the calf was almost blind from lack of nutrients that newborn calves need. Then I got some powdered milk and mixed up a bottle or two of that and gave it to the calf.

Zella was a big, gentle cow, but you couldn’t get to her to touch or pet her. She’d simply turn and walk away as you approached her. That Sunday morning, JoAnne and I went out to the barn to check on them. I put out some sweet feed in one of the troughs under the barn and Zella started eating it. Then, I got hold of the calf, pulled her up to her mama and put a teat in her mouth and she learned quickly what to do with it. Zella never even attempted to move or walk away.

I called George and told him to keep them in the lot for a few days and watch to see if the calf was suckling. On Tuesday, he called me back and said that the little calfie was really eating well and her eyes had cleared up. So, I told him to let them out into the pasture.

After that, any time I’d get near Zella, she and the calf would walk away. Then after about a month, I was out in the pasture and the calf walked up to me and I started scratching her head. I can still walk up to her or she’ll walk up to me and I’ll scratch her head! That cow is “Miss Priss.”

Part - 14g - Gardens

2009-06-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

14g GARDENS

Mother and Daddy always had a good garden full of scrumdiddliumptious veggies.

When I was little, the garden was down the hill from the side yard by the two pear trees and a big water oak tree. It was probably about ½ acre in size. They grew about any common vegetables common to this area of the South. Items such as corn, peas, English Peas (we didn’t get many of those cooked as we all ate them raw in the garden!), turnips, collards, mustard greens, onions, snap beans, butterbeans, and many other things.

Things like Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, watermelons, cantaloupes, muskmelons, and cucumbers were grown in one of the fields, mostly the “little new ground” that is in front of Tom’s house now.

Later the garden spots were moved in search of better soils for a garden with less sand, such as north of the old potato house, down by the pond about the northeast corner, down by the creek in the bottom side of the pecan orchard, down at the back side of the big flat near the dam, and finally the 50 foot square garden by the cow lot.

I made a comment about putting a garden there being very close to the lot, so Daddy always called that one “The Nasty Garden!”

It didn’t matter where the garden spot was located they managed to keep their freezer full of vegetables and provided all of us younguns with lots of good fresh stuff to eat. Daddy prided himself in being sure that JoAnne had plenty of Kentucky Wonder pole beans from the Nasty Garden.

We tried to have a garden a couple of years after we moved up here, but I guess my thumbs were too black and not green enough but we did have a couple of good years for growing. Then we got into some dry summers and everything starved for water and we didn’t get much.

We’ve had several dry years of late and I didn’t even try to raise a garden as I’d have had to water it about every day as that area is so sandy. This season, we went to a truck farm near Lucedale and picked some good veggies there and Sib got us some corn from a guy in Copeland. That works better than stirring up the dry sand trying to grow our own!

Part - 14f - Games

2009-06-17T04:40:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

14f. GAMES

Daddy and Mother really enjoyed playing table games such as Dominoes, Set Back, Canasta, Crazy Eights, Chinese Checkers, Rook, and Casino. Also, they enjoyed pitching horseshoes and playing croquet.

At one time we had lighted courts for pitching horseshoes and playing croquet at night. The croquet court was laid out in the back yard, near the steps. It was kept totally grass-free and graded to be totally level. (That was one game I really excelled in. I played so much by myself that I almost could not be beaten.)

When Daddy and Uncle George would get together for a short while, they would play "Casino". Uncle George kept a record sheet of all games won, points scored, the number of sweeps, etc. During World War II, he lost his wallet and the record sheet. So they had to start a new sheet after the war that continued until their last game a few weeks before Daddy died.

In July, 1969, "Big Three Dominoes" was started between Daddy, Uncle George and me. I kept records on that; only won/lost for a while, then added point records. Daddy had Green Dominoes, Uncle George had White, and I had Chinese red ones. Also, I had a Chinese red table so about all you could see were the spots on the "bones." Naturally, when any of us lost while playing with the other's "bones" we'd really fuss about those off color dominoes and accuse them of being an ungracious host. Big Three Dominoes ceased to be when Daddy died. I still have all the record sheets. The final records for the Big Three Dominoes were: Games won - Daddy 306, Uncle George 316, and I 297; Total games played 919; Points - Daddy 183,040, Uncle George 178,105, and I 180,265; Total points scored - 541,410; Longest winning streak - Daddy 7, Uncle George 7, I 5; Longest losing streak - Daddy 26, Uncle George 17, I 14.

All the Wood clan enjoyed playing games. Family Reunions would usually have at least one table with Setback being played. Also, when four or five would get together, a "game-or-two" would be played. Aunt Lucy, Uncle Will, Uncle John, Uncle Percy, Aunt Lacy, Uncle George, Cousin Bill Grayson and Daddy would play every chance they had. They'd fuss about getting bad cards and quote Uncle John saying, "Let’s shuffle them cards!" Also, after losing while playing at least three games with each one being a partner, saying, "I sho' had a bad run of partners!"

While playing dominoes, Uncle Percy would play a small bone and say, "Lets keep 'em little!" and would keep the ends as low as possible.

Once, while we were living in Augusta, GA, Daddy had to have about three-fourths of his stomach removed. Uncle George, Joe and I would tease Daddy about how much fun we were having playing dominoes while he was in the hospital.

Part - 14e - Pond & Camp

2009-06-16T04:44:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

14e - POND AND CAMP

In about 1942, Daddy participated in a U.S. Conservation Department program that allowed the County to build farm ponds. They built one, about three acres in size, and stocked it with Bream and Largemouth Bass.

The pond gave many days of pleasure for swimming, (all of us learned to swim there using two syrup buckets with a cloth strap tied to them for water wings) fishing, parties, and just good ole gatherings with the Greens (the principal at Millry School) and the Ezells (Pastor of Millry Baptist Church).

Later, due to erosion from hillside farming and two dirt roads, the pond had filled in about half way with sand. So, Daddy drained it, and we got Pee Wee Andrews from Mobile to bring in a dragline and dozer to rework it. I ran the dozer and together we widened the dam, put in a new spillway and built an island in the middle to keep from having to move so much dirt.

The island soon became a showplace, especially at Christmas time with a large, lighted tree reflecting in the water about seventy five yards from the road. Now, Azalea bushes, a couple of pine trees and Wisteria vines planted by Mother and Woodie turn it into a floral garden in the springtime.

Daddy built the camp house on the tractor wagon from left over scrap materials from a couple of jobs he had been on. It was 7 feet by seventeen feet with two single bed bunks in one end and two double bed bunks in the other. It had two by six foot long "flaps" on each side that could be propped open to let cool breezes blow through.

We first set the camp up just south of Bobby Dahlberg's fish camp at Bladon Landing, on the Tombigbee River. We built a three-sided lean-to for a kitchen and ate from a picnic table on the bank of the river. After a large flood almost destroying the camp, we took it home, cleaned it up and returned it to the river.

We jacked the house up about ten feet high between two gum trees, set cypress posts under it, built a kitchen on the end and an eight foot wide screen porch all the way across the front. Boy! Was that nice to sit on the porch with a cool breeze blowing, watching the tugs pushing coal, timber or fuel barges up and down the river.

We would keep two or three "Trot" (trout) lines all the way across the river most of the time to catch Catfish. It surely was good eating to clean and fry the catfish fresh, right out of the river!

Due to the fact that none of us had time to go to the River to use the camp, we moved the camp house from Bladon Landing on the Tombigbee back to the pond where it became the family gathering place on numerous occasions for Family Reunions where us younguns and the grand younguns would pick and grin, and all ate too much barbecue and homemade ice cream.

When we moved the camp house back to the pond, I took the tractor down the 25 mile trip to the river. We jacked the house up by rigging a come-a-long in a gum tree on one end and Daddy had the tractor pulling a cable on the other hooked to a roller in another gum tree. When they got it clear of the posts and beams, I took the chain saw and cut off the posts, then pushed the tractor wagon under the house. They let it down on the wagon.

I put a battery on the back top bunk and ran a wire to a flashing light on top of the roof. Then I headed for home right across US highway 84. While going down the old Henry Williams hill I let it coast for a little bit and it got a little “squirrely” and I really had to hold on to the steering wheel. Then when I got to the smaller hill just above Dunbar Creek, I let it go again and almost turned the house and tractor over. I really was sweating that one! I thought that it would be easier to hold it on that hill than the other one.

In June 1998, tornadic winds blew several trees across the camp house, causing irreparable damage to it. Maybe, someday, we can do something about getting another place down there.

Part - 14d - Farming

2009-06-15T14:58:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

FARMING

14d. FARMING

Soon after the first of the year, Daddy, Dennis and Tommy would start breaking land for crop planting. Each had their mule that they plowed with, their particular plows and the mule's gear. Most times, when Daddy came out, before daylight, his mule would be geared up and Dennis and Tommy would be ready to go to the field. A few times, they'd have to wait for enough daylight to see where they were plowing so as not to plow up plants that were growing.

They'd "take-out" for dinner for an hour or so, then go back and plow 'til sundown. Lucy would have dinner ready for the family and we'd eat, then the field hands would come in. (More on "Sonny, tell 'em dinner ready later.)

Daddy never wore socks when he plowed. So, he would get tiny rocks into the bottoms of his feet that we used to pick out with a needle.

Over the years that Daddy was working away from home, the farm "went to pot!" The mule barn (the one by the house) had deteriorated and wasn't the type needed before, as there were no more mules, horses or milk cows to stable. The fields and pecan orchard were grown up with large cedar, pine, sweet gum and oak trees with vines, vines, and vines. ALL the fences were in terrible condition.

Just before he retired, Daddy bought a new, 1964 Ford, Model 2000 Tractor with a bush hog and a new Chain Saw. He, Tommy and Leatha Land went to work! They cleared all the over-grown fields and pastures, built new fences and a new barn properly suited to feed the cattle hay, etc., and planted bahai grass in all the pastures.

In just a few years, the place (Claire called it "Clover Hill Farm." I now call my portion of it "Lonesome Pine Farm") had fully recovered from neglect and became one of the prettiest places in the area. Joe once rode with Fred Hoffman in his single engine plane and flew over here. He said that this was the prettiest place in this area of the country.

Part - 14c - Syrup Making

2009-06-14T12:36:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

14c. SYRUP MAKING TIME

Syrup making time was a time when some extra hands were needed to strip, cut and haul in cane for making syrup, while some were working with Daddy finding and hauling in "lightered" to fire the pan with, feeding the cane mill, skimming the syrup while it was cooking, etc. "

Lightered "is the heart part of pine stumps or trees that is rich in pine tar and burns very hot.

There were two mills set up for "grinding" the sugar cane. This was done by squeezing the stalks as they were fed in between the mill's two rollers that turned in opposite directions to get the juice out of the stalks. One mill was set up about 50 feet above the cooking vat, or pan, with a wooden barrel placed by the mill that had a "croaker sack" (burlap) stretched over the barrel to strain out the larger particles that would run out of the mill with the juice. There was a piece of tin ridge cap, about four feet long that funneled the juice from the mill to the barrel.

The mills were turned by placing a wooden pole about 15 to 18 feet long, preferably slightly curved, atop the mill where a mule or horse would pull one end round and round, in a circle. I have most if not all the parts of one of the old mills that are laying around the old base of the back steps that I intend to reassemble "one of these days" whether it will actually turn or not. I'd like to get it to where I could grind a little cane juice just for old times sake.

There was a pipe that ran from the juice barrel to the vat that had a valve on the vat end. When Daddy was ready to load a new batch of juice for cooking, he'd just open the valve to let in as much juice as he wanted for that batch.

The second mill was used at times when there was a very large amount of cane to be ground for cooking. The juice from that mill was dipped out of the barrel and taken to the other barrel for sending to the vat.

The vat was set up on limestone blocks to a level of about two to three feet high, under a tin shed to protect it from rain, and a chimney at one end. The end that the juice started in was to the West, by the chimney, and the end that the syrup was finished in, and where the lightered was fed into for the fire was to the East.

The vat, or pan, was made of copper, except for the sides that were made of wood. Every six inches along the pan bottom, there was a divider that was about 3 inches high to allow the juice to spread evenly the length of the pan. At about each 4th space for a divider, there would be a divider about 5 inches high that had a rod through it with threads on each end that extended through the wooden sides. These rods held the sides to the pan. There was an opening about 3 X 3 inches in one end of the high dividers that allowed the juice to flow through. When Daddy needed to separate different folks' juice, he had a big rag that he would put in that opening to keep them separate. There were about four sections to the vat.

The skimmers were made about 6 inches wide by 8 inches long, with turned up sides about 2 inches high. The bottom would have many nail holes in it to allow the juice, then syrup to seep out while the skimmings (impurities) to stay in the skimmer. The skimmers were emptied into an old barrel at each side of the chimney at the West end of the vat.

When the juice had been cooked at just the right temperature, for just the right time, and the juice became syrup at just the right dark amber color, Daddy would "let it off" into a big lard can (about 5 gallons) that had a double layer of flour sack stretched over the top for the final straining.

After letting in a new batch of juice, Daddy would dip up the syrup into either one-gallon or half-gallon buckets especially made for syrup. A gallon of syrup would not be as big as a gallon of water. Water is a liquid. Syrup is a fluid.

I never knew what happened to the old vat after Daddy quit making syrup. The sides had begun to rot and would not hold liquids, so whoever got the pan would have had to replace the sides.

Another thing that we had lots of fun at was tumbling off the large pile of "cane chews", the crushed cane stalks that had been taken by pitch forks away from the mills and piled up high out of the way of the mules turning the mill.

After the syrup making was finished, the hands would take the skimmings from the syrup making down in the woods and make "home brew" that would make them "Higher than Cooter Brown" when they drank it.

We would all like to go out in the cold mornings and drink a little cane juice before heading to school.

Also, all of us kids had fun tumbling off the big piles of “cane chews,” the squeezed out cane stalks that were toted away from the mill to make a big pile several feet high. We’d play what is now known as “king of the hill” to keep anyone else from climbing up the pile.

Part - 14b - Back to the Farm

2009-06-13T18:16:00.000-07:00

(Me at about 4 with Pigeon Pen,
Water tank and power pole)

(Me and the '55 Pontiac)

RAISIN'

14b. GROWING UP

BACK TO THE FARM

14b. Red Wagon, Singing, Chores

I would build dams in the little stream that ran from the spring, across the road; Had wagon roads for my "Red" wagon, that I would either "semi-ride" while having one knee in the wagon and the other pushing, or hauling wood, dirt, etc.; Graded roads in the back yard with a hoe for a road grader, complete with ditches and bridges for my trucks; Rode "stick" horses that Joe would help me make; and I enjoyed pitching horse shoes.

One thing Mother and I would do after all the others left and Daddy was working out of town was to sing as she played the piano. We'd sing gospel or church songs and I'd whistle when she played "Red Wing" and other songs. I liked it when she would pinch and release her nose to sound like a Hawaiian guitar while she played Hawaiian music.

My "chores" were to get in stove wood (later house wood after Joe left.), feed chickens, water the hogs, and gather eggs. (CB would say that I'd look up to see if it might rain so I wouldn't have to tote water to the hogs!)

Later, as Claire, then Sylvia, then Joe left home, all the chores that remained became mine. I milked one or two cows, fed them, fed Red, the horse (all the mules and hogs were gone by then), and fed the chickens.

The jobs I hated most were hoeing (anything), gathering cucumbers, picking up potatoes and cleaning out rotten Irish potatoes out of the potato house.

The Potato house was about 8 feet wide by, 20 feet long and about 5 feet high. It was made of peeled pine poles and the logs "chinked" with clay.

As I stated above, I played in the band in school. I first began playing trumpet in the 7th grade, later E-flat horn in Millry's band, French horn in the Richmond Academy band in Augusta and the National Future Farmers of America Band in Kansas City, then tuba at Millry, Livingston State Teachers College (now University of West Alabama) and Howard College (now Samford University).

Part 14a - Growing Up - 1

2009-06-12T07:09:00.000-07:00

(Me & Bing)

RAISIN'

14a. GROWING UP – Part 1

As I was growing up, during warm weather, my most frequent dress code consisted of a pair of short pants and a baseball cap that was set slightly to the right side of my head, bill-forward. I would usually sunburn and peel a few times during the summer, but I didn't seem to know it was bad for me. I had freckles on my nose and back.

I usually made a game out of most any thing I did. I would precisely load my wagon with up to about fifty sticks of stove wood, then try to follow a certain "road" from the wood shed to the back steps and try not to turn it over while crossing the roots of the huge oak tree by the woodshed, or by the wheels digging in too deep in the sand as I passed between the umbrella chinaberry tree and the water tank.

I would walk certain routes, containing so many steps while feeding the hogs, or chickens, or gathering eggs from various places in the barn or chicken house. See how many eggs I could get into the outside and inside pockets of the old "Ike" jacket without breaking them or dropping and breaking any. Ugh! What a mess when I'd break one or more in a coat pocket!

I would ride the bicycle over certain routes from back to side yards, across the cattle gap, through the driveway sand bed, by the persimmon tree to the top to "the hill", then turn around and run a different route back.

Before I was big enough to ride the girls' model, 26-inch bicycle, I would push it for miles at a time, around the yard and up the top of the hill.

When I was about 10-years-old, Daddy bought me a basketball goal from a store in Selma. We put it up on a 4-foot by 6-foot backboard at the south end of the croquet court. That section of the back yard never had any grass on it, and it was kept perfectly level.

The level ground made for a great basketball court. I practiced shooting goals of all types, from all angles and distances. Again, I would play games between "Me" and "Myself", or "Jim" and "I". There were games like "Mule," where a person would shoot a certain style shot from a specific place. If he made the goal, the next player would have to make a similar shot from the same place. If the second player missed, he got a "M" or "U", etc. When a player had gotten a M, U, L, and E, he had one shot from the half-court line to erase his MULE.

Playing in the back yard allowed me to shoot very high shots. The Fruitdale High School’s gym was their auditorium, as was Millry's, and Chatom's, but it was so small, the free throw line was the back court centerline. Also, the ceiling was lower than others were. Once, while shooting a free shot, I hit the ceiling with the ball.

Chatom's gym had open steel trusses all the way across the top, forming sort of an arch shaped roof. Once, I shot from the left side of the court, near the centerline. My ball went over the bottom truss without touching the truss and was "all net!" That would have been a good 3-pointer now a day.

I went out for football in the eighth and ninth grades, but only weighed about 75 pounds. While in the tenth grade, in Augusta, GA, I played in the band and did so through high school and two years at college.

I played baseball in my Junior and Senior years in high school. I pitched and played first base. I guess I liked those positions because that's the ones Joe had played. He also played second base at times.

I have played golf on an "Off and on" basis. For a few years, I played most every Saturday morning with Uncle Will, Uncle George, and three other fellows. (I was the sixth man.) Our tee time was at 7:07 AM each Saturday, year round.

Later, I was involved in so many other things; I didn't have time for golf. Then, I got back into playing in Tennessee as Rust had a 9-hole, weekly league.

I played quite a bit while working in Lake Charles, LA. While I was there, I irritated my left shoulder while swimming. I had an impingement in my shoulder joint, which would not allow me to swing freely.

Later, I developed Tarsal tunnel syndrome in my right foot, which would not allow me to pivot on that foot when I swung the clubs. About the time I learned to hit the ball without pivoting, I developed a bad case of bursitis in my right shoulder.

After I retired, Edd Williams and I played fairly regularly at the Chatom and Citronelle courses, but since Edd moved to Georgia a couple of years ago I haven’t played but a couple of times. One of the problems now-a-day is that I have Neuropathy in my legs and feet that gives me problems when I walk too much.

Part 13c - Joe & Family - Children

2009-06-11T16:15:00.000-07:00

RAISIN'

Joe and Family

13c Children

Pam attended Auburn University for one year, then married Robert Lehrmann (Bob) from the DC area. They had one son, Robert Wood (Bobby). Pam worked, for years, for a legal firm. They lived in Reston, VA until Bob's untimely death, at age 39, on Bobby's first day of Kindergarten. Bob had tried a number of fields of study and work and never found his niche until he decided to start making gourmet salad dressings from their home kitchen. This allowed him to stay home and tend to Bobby. Later, he expanded his venture to prepare "Quick Meals," frozen dinners, made to order for working people who had only to thaw, heat, and add bread and drink. On the day Bobby began kindergarten, Bob had gotten him ready and on the bus that morning. When Pam got in, she met the bus. They saw Bob on the couch. Thinking he was taking a nap, because earlier in the day he had said that he wasn't feeling well, Pam and Bobby took a walk. When they returned, they tried to wake him, but could not. He had died as the result of an apparent heart attack. Upon his request, he was cremated and buried in the Providence Cemetery in Millry. Pam's job was the victim of "downsizing" not long after Bob's death. She moved to another place south of Alexandria, VA, and is working for another law firm. She met a guy named Joe Masella, in what she called "Widows 101", who had lost his wife. After a couple of years, they were married and now live in Manassas, VA. Joe has a son named Joseph. Alison Michelle graduated from Florida State with a degree in Finance. She married Steve Robinson, Kathy Knight's brother. She ran a clothing specialty store, called "Australia Design" with stores in DC and Baltimore, MD for several years. Apparently the "fad" played out and they closed down. Steve worked as a food manager for a hotel chain in the DC area. Later, he was transferred to Huntsville, AL to the University of Alabama at Huntsville as food manager. Things didn't work out too well in Huntsville, so he started Sumner Catering, with Sumner (TN) Regional Hospital. One thing that did work out pretty well was "Chillun Production!" They became the proud parents of a daughter, Kendyll Sage, and a son, Kyle Christian. Alison was district manager with Tupperware while in Huntsville, and transferred when they moved to Gallatin. She gave up on the sales career and changed to full time Mommy for Kendyll and Kyle for a while. Later, she returned to college and completed her education and is now teaching full time.

Part - 13b - Joe & Family - Work

2009-06-10T18:35:00.000-07:00

(Joe & Eleanor on one of their wonderful worldwide trips)

RAISIN'

Joe & Family

13b Work

As with all Military Personnel, he was, typically, transferred from place to place, all over the world. Places such as Ft. Rucker at Enterprise, AL (where Alison was born.), Ft. Leavenworth, KS, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Ft. Belvoir, VA and finally, the Pentagon, in Washington, DC.

The Army also sent him to finish his Engineering degree at the Missouri School of Mines, in Rolla, MO, and later to get his Masters in Engineering from Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ.

On December 31, 1978, after twenty-six years of Army life, he retired with the rank of Colonel. (Never did figure why that's not spelled "Kernal!") Since he had no hair left, his CB Radio "Handle" was "The Bald Eagle!"

He took a job in Saudi Arabia for about two years. Then, moved to Atlanta where he began to work toward more (as Daddy said) "Far Fetched Things!"

He returned to Saudi for a four-and-a-half year stay as Project Manager to construct the Saudi Army Engineers Center and school, a very large project at, "King Kahlid Military City."

Upon his return to the United States, he and Bea "agreed to disagree!" Later, he married Eleanor Scheib. They married later and now live in St. Augustine Beach, FL on the Atlantic, where he is still working on his "far fetched" projects that's gonna make us all super rich "One Day!"

He has been active as President of their Condo Association. Also, he had pulled out his golf clubs and is using them occasionally. Hope he doesn't have to use his as much as I did when I played!!!

Bea, died a couple of years ago while in a nursing home in Gallatin, TN from Alzheimer’s disease

Joe did another assignment back in Saudi to run a job, by remote control to build several thousand tents for the Muslim people to stay in during Muslim high holy days at Jedda each year. He couldn't go to the site, as he's not a Muslim. So this presented another challenge for him in managing the project. This was to be about a three-year job, but the company was not awarded the contract to finish the project past the design and initial start-up portion of the job. So, Joe is back in St. Augustine, working on other "far fetched things!"

I helped them get a safety program and a number of ASTM and ANSI Standards for the development of the tent project. Since I don't have much luck with the "Far Fetches", I only got paid for about half of my work on that one.