Montevallo's First Traffic Light

I took some notes about some stories that my dad told me while he was living with us. I started a few blog posts about them, but the posts never got past the draft stage. Tonight, my son said that my blog needed more posts, so I thought I would take a few off the draft list and publish them.

Daddy told me about being a little boy and seeing the first traffic light in Montevallo. I believe he said it was where the traffic light is today at the intersection of Main Street and Middle Street. The streets were not paved, but they had a traffic light. He had never seen a traffic light and guessed that probably most of the people in Montevallo were the same. He was standing on the corner with his father when the blacksmith, Mr. Logan, was coming from down the hill and a man who ran a saw mill was coming from the other direction. When the light turned red, Mr. Logan turned right and the other man turned left and they hit each other. Both got out of their cars and started saying, "I had the green light." It seemed they didn't understand how traffic lights were supposed to work or the traffic laws that included them.

There were no driver's licenses back then. My grandfather got a chauffeur license through the mail because he drove a school bus. He had the chauffeur license before he ever got a driver's license, and he never took a driving test in his life.

Daddy also told that their family's car was actually a school bus for years. My grandmother never learned to drive, which was not uncommon back then. There was no need, nor money, for two automobiles. Both of my grandparents were teachers. In order to make more money, my grandfather drove the school bus, which he bought himself. I am not sure who paid the school bus driver, but I do know it was a source of income for my grandparents. In fact, during the Great Depression, the state paid the school teachers with vouchers but continued to pay the bus drivers with money, that was a huge advantage. The school drew students from many miles around in a rural area. Many of them didn't have a way to get to school because their families only had a horse-drawn wagons that were needed on the farm. If they couldn't walk, they didn't come. After my dad got old enough, he would drive the school bus. He also told of driving that school bus when he went on dates before he had a car. I would like to have seen that.

Where did this come from, and why now?

My father has been dead for almost two years now. I rarely think about him. Today was different. I found myself crying in my car as I left the parking lot at school today. I’m not sure exactly what is going on in my head. It could have come from the conversation David, Bill, and I had at dinner last night. We laughed about the time that he nearly set fire to the house and said that it was just some steam. Clearly there was smoke in the air in his room. He had set off the smoke detectors trying to heat up an old piece of corn on the cob which he was going to place in the freezer section of his little refrigerator to defrost it. We joked last night that David needs to write a screen play about what happens when Clark Griswald gets old and moves in with Rusty.

Or, my tears could have been brought on because there was a Jimmy Buffett song on the radio when I started the car that always reminds me of Daddy, “The Captain and the Kid.” There is no doubt in my mind that when we were kids, Daddy and I shared a closer bond than Delores and he did. I was the one who always hung out with him when he was working on the car or tractor. I kind of think of myself as that kid on his knee. If you are not familiar with the song, give it a listen sometime. (Captain and the Kid) Daddy was definitely a sailor, even though he got out of the Navy after participating in two wars. I think he always wished he had remained in the Navy.

I had a guest speaker in my JUNA class today from Greece. He described what his village in Greece was like. They are poor. They didn’t get electricity until the 1970’s and they still have an outhouse at his house in Greece. He talked about the olive groves and the goats and chickens and his grandmother killing a chicken from the yard to cook for dinner. It reminded me of the stories Daddy would tell of his life on the farm in the 1930s.

Maybe it was a combination of all of that, but I really began to miss my Daddy today more than I have since he died. I remember randomly crying over my mother for many years after her death, but somehow that seemed understandable. Her death at such an early age was so tragic. I loved my mother with all my heart. Daddy’s and my relationship was much rockier. I felt he didn’t keep up his end of the relationship. He was 90 when he died. That’s a lot different from death at 51.

I don’t know why grief shows up out of nowhere, but I wish it would go back where it came from.

Sam's Eulogy

My father died March 7, 2015, at the age of 90. He was quite the character. Because he was never in church unless for a wedding or a funeral, he didn't have a preacher or priest or anybody close to that to preside at his funeral. Delores, my sister, asked her priest to preside at the funeral. He agreed, but because he didn't know Daddy, he told her she would have to do the eulogy.

This is a very difficult thing to do, even if your father is 90 and was never exactly
in the running for Father of the Year. I wrote something to say too, but was not sure I could do it. Delores got up and did a fine job interjecting humor and fond memories of Dad and our family. I was sitting there, thinking, "I can do this too." Then, at the very end of the eulogy, she got choked up. That was it. I knew I couldn't get up there without making a complete fool of myself. Delores understood. So, that is why the eulogy I wrote was never spoken. Instead, I have chosen to post it here.


A Tribute to Sam

The past few weeks and especially the past few days have been difficult. I think Daddy would say the past few years have been difficult. He was a fiercely independent man and having to depend on us has been very hard for him to accept. In fact he never accepted it, always saying when I get stronger I’ll do this or that.

Our relationship was not always a smooth one, but when I remember him I will remember him singing Hank Williams tunes around the house. I can still hear him singing “Hey, hey good looking, what ya got cooking?” to Momma to ask what was for dinner. I will remember hanging around him when he was tinkering on our old cars or tractors to hand him tools and turn the key to see if it would start. I learned a lot about tools and cars that way. I will remember trying to whistle like he did when he was calling the cows. He could whistle so loud and those cows would come running.

Daddy was a sailor till the day he died. He was very proud to tell the story of going off to the University of Alabama in the fall of 1942 and getting our grandfather to sign a form allowing him to join the ROTC at Alabama. What he didn’t tell my grandfather was that it was the same form that allowed him to enter the Navy before his 18^th birthday. He joined up and left for boot camp on his 18^th birthday in December 1942. 

After returning from the War, he met and married my mother, the smartest thing he ever did. He would give her credit where credit was due. Whenever someone would say something nice about Delores or me, he would be quick to say that his wife had done a fine job of raising us.

Daddy worked nearly 30 years at US Steel. He was a metallurgist, chemist, or whatever they needed him to be. He was a smart man and learned several jobs during his time there. His tenure there allowed him to take extended vacations every few years. Because of this I have many fond memories of our camping trips to California and Maine. We would be gone for several weeks, never having a real plan, just taking off in the general direction. He was never one for having a specific plan or telling anyone exactly where he was or when he would be back and that extended to our vacations. I remember him saying often, “Look for me when you see me coming.”

There were a number of years after our mother’s death that we did not see our dad often. In the past five years as his health declined, Delores and I have had the chance to get to know him all over again, develop a deeper understanding of the man who was so fiercely independent and recognize that we both have some of that in us as well. As he was being forced to give up that independence, we got the chance to give to him a gift that he did not want, but he needed, and we wanted to give. It was also a gift to us, a gift of time and of healing. For that I am thankful. 

I hope to see both of my parents again one day, but please just look for me when you see me coming.

I can't believe it has been over a year since I last posted to Something from Sammie. It is not that I haven't written anything, I just felt discretion was called for. You see, writing is therapeutic for me. If I can write it down, I can pretend that I have said the things that I have written without actually saying the things that would hurt someone else or just don't need to be shared. Writing also helps me analyze my thoughts. What is really important seems to emerge from the written page where as in my head thoughts get muddled with emotion, and what emotion deems important, reason does not.

Words spoken in the emotion of the moment sometimes are not what you mean for the other person to hear. Emotion filled words spoken are often heard with emotion filled hearing, muddling the truth even further. Words written in the emotion of the moment are not always what the other person needs to hear, but what I need to hear, think through, speak up about or get over and move on. But words once spoken, can't be unspoken, once published, can't be unpublished. Emotions cloud my thinking. Writing helps clear the emotional clouds.

In the past year, with the help of others, I have learned a few things about improving communication, the real kind, not the kind I write to myself. Some of things ARE better left unsaid and some things SHARED can make life better.

I am trying to make a conscious effort to tell someone when they do something that brings a little sunshine into my life. It usually brightens both of our days. My friend, Wanda, is especially good at this one. She is my inspiration. Even sharing a "thank you for being so pleasant" to a particularly helpful tax clerk at the Birmingham City Hall (Tuesday, rainy day, long line, then nice clerk) made her smile bigger and my day a little less rainy.

I believe this is especially important for those close to you, spouse, kids, parents, and siblings, because they are the ones with whom there will most likely be stormy days. If I have packed away a little sunshine, the cloudy days brighten a little sooner because it makes it easier to believe that as Annie sang, "The sun will come out tomorrow." Without that sunshine in my solar batteries, the cloudy days seem to never end and it is hard to believe that the sun will ever come out. Living in a cloudy place all the time is depressing, but if there is enough sunshine in our batteries, some of the clouds actually dry up.

Another part of my communication education has been learning that sharing some things that bother me is not altogether bad either. Only writing it down, without ever sorting it out to determine what is important enough to share, is not good. The emotional ranting that does not get analyzed, only buried among the pages, does not get dealt with. The difficulty comes when analysis reveals what needs to be dealt with and having the courage to bring it back out when there seems to be no immediate need to do so. Bringing up the important, but not urgent, things that need to be worked through is the hardest part because it does not always make me or the other person feel better immediately like sharing the sunshine does. It sometimes is difficult to cloud up a sunny day by bringing out that cloud I have been hiding. I learned that holding in all of those clouds made me bitter and the little clouds clumped together for so long make for one bad storm and it was hard to see the sunshine with all those clouds hanging over my head.

I have to keep reminding myself to practice the good communication education lessons so that they come naturally. When I use them, the sun shines more often in my neck of the woods and I get to post more of my writing.

Mud Therapy

I had heard of mud baths that heal aches and pains. I had heard of mud facials that removed impurities. But I had no idea how therapeutic mud could be. I don't intentionally smear it on my body, however, I do get rather dirty. Instead, I intentionally smear the mud with my hands. I am talking about the mud therapy I have found in which you throw pots. Technically, it is not mud, but clay.

I have been going to a studio every Thursday night for several months and getting my hands dirty. I am not very good, but I have improved over the last few months. I will never be an artist, in the way that others who go to this studio are, but I love to create pieces that are appealing to my eye. The main thing I love is the "me" time, where I forget about work, family issues, and old people. All I think about for three hours is what will I be able to do with that lump of clay; what makes me be able to make one lump of clay into something relatively tall and fairly symmetrical one time and the next lump of clay ends up a lump of clay after I have messed with it for 3o minutes.


I have been surprised by how much I love my Thursday Therapy sessions. I hate it when I have to miss it. I have wanted to learn how to throw pottery on a wheel for a long time. However, I thought it might turn out like all the other artistic endeavors I have tried--stained glass, painting, drawing, sewing, cake decorating, jewelry making--with some moderate success, and sometimes more than moderate investment, but nothing with which I felt I really had a connection. I have stuck with this longer than any of the others and don't see a place where I will tire of it. I could be wrong, but for now, I love my Thursday Therapy sessions with a benefit of having something I have created, some of it that I really like, to show for it. In fact, I need to start culling out the ugly stuff that is spilling out of my cabinets. I have a friend who suggested that I use it for a different type of pot-throwing therapy and just smash it when I am frustrated/angry. That might be a good idea. But for now, I will go get my hands dirty in the clay that heals my aches and pains and removes the impurities of my day.

Great friends are PRICELESS

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” 

― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

I have come to realize that what C.S. Lewis wrote is absolutely true. Since changing jobs, I have really come to appreciate the value that friends add to life. It is not that I didn't appreciate my friends before. I have had wonderful friends my entire life. But working basically alone in a small office with only Bill and Jim coming and going, I have come to realize how much I depended on the daily interactions with friends to cope with the stress of life.

I have always worked where there were other women. Women do things for each other. Sometimes they seem frivolous or even silly, but there is some kid in me that enjoys the silly and frivolous. I miss Ghosting at Halloween and Secret Santa at Christmas. And I like to talk about stuff. "Your hair looks great, is that Nice 'n Easy Ash Blond?" "Her baby is just as cute as he can be." "Oh, good Lord, if I have to hear about her cousin's cabin one more time, I'm gonna scream." "How many points are in this two inch square brownie?" "He's as dumb as a post, bless his heart."

I sure am glad I have great friends who remember this lonely, one-woman office person. Thank goodness for GNO. And thank goodness for all those wonderful women who give value to my survival.

Cars

Cars are a part of our everyday lives, necessary to get us from point A to point B. We often don't think too much about them unless they breakdown, or at least I don't think too much about them, ordinarily. This past couple of weeks has been different. A car can be a part of a person. The type of car that you drive does say a little bit about you, even if you deny it. Uncle Walter was like that. He always said he didn't care much about cars and never did. He even said that he never was a very good driver. He said when he was young, his family didn't have but one car and my dad wanted to drive all the time, so he did and Walter didn't. He said when he graduated from Westpoint, he had people drive him around. The army didn't want officers to drive themselves. While the driving part might have been true, I don't believe the part about him not caring about cars. He always had the "cool" car. We didn't get to see him often, but when he came home in a car, not flying home in a rented private aircraft, he always had a cool car. He had an Austin Healy convertible. In the early 60's he had a long car with big fins. And then in the 70's he had a Corvette.

The "Colonel's Corvette" is what the 1970 Corvette Stingray that Walter owned was known by at the Cars by the Creek car show; Impatient Creations, where it was restored; and, now, Eric Joiner Classics; the broker who sold it. It is a beautiful car. My son David LOVED that car. I thought of it more of a rocket on wheels. A dangerous, expensive, money pit, rocket on wheels. When you have to take the t-tops out of the car so that you can sit up straight behind the wheel and two inches of your head is above the windshield, I don't think it is safe for you to drive; not to mention the huge engine that just begs you to, "See what she will do."

Even though I didn't have the same type of affinity for the car that David did, I still feel sad that it is gone. My sadness is a sense of loss of another part of Walter. He bought the car when he was in Vietnam from the PX in Saigon. He picked it up when he got stateside in St. Louis and drove it to Leavenworth, KS, where he was stationed through the end of his career. He drove the car for several years until he parked it in the barn on the farm because it needed some work done and it was no longer practical to drive everyday. Jackie talked him into getting the car restored in 2007 so she could drive it around town sometimes. She said it was a shame to have a car like that just deteriorating in the barn, and she was right. He had it towed to Impatient Creations for them to restore the car and spent much more than the car is worth to have the work done. Sadly, Jackie became ill and passed away in early 2008, many months before the car was finished. Walter could not drive the car and he could not bear to get rid of it. He said, "You will have to figure out what to do with it after I am gone." At least we took it to Cars by the Creek once before he passed away last year. I think it made him happy. We took it back this year and it won first place in its muscle car division. I think it made him happy again.

Even after restoration you have to drive a car to keep it running properly. That was not done enough over the past four years. We had to invest more money into the car to get it ready to sell. We took it to a broker and within three days, it was sold. I don't have to worry about my son's brains being above the windshield, which is a good thing. I don't have to worry about what will have to be fixed next (nothing's cheap, even headlights.) But, one more part of Walter is no longer with us. I miss him.