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.

Dangerous Territory

I have had an epiphany this week regarding the pitfalls of staying connected to my children through electronic media. I like to keep up with what is going on in my children's lives.I am a friend to two of them on Facebook. I follow them all on Twitter. When they join the professional world, I suppose I will be LinkedIn to them. I want to be connected to them in this way because I get to hear snippets of conversation between them and their friends that gives me some insight into their world. The problem is that sometimes there are things you don't want to know.

When I joined Facebook a few years ago, I sent a friend request to David, middle son, who was in college at the time. He has yet to respond to my request. I was insulted at first. I get it now.

I should have understood David's reluctance to accept my friendship request. He does post some quirky things on there. That is just his personality. His profile pic was of a random black man and a dog. I know this because he would comment on posts made by mutual Fb friends. I guess when you do rather bazaar things you don't want your mother questioning them. He is a grown man now and if he wants to post bazaar things on Fb, that is his own business.

While an undergrad, my oldest son also had some less-than-flattering pictures of himself (really was him) on Facebook. But college is college. I didn't expect pictures of him studying for exams. Those are no fun. At least he was smart enough to take those pics down before applying for jobs and law school. Sort of like the Dutchess's topless photos, pull them all back in and pretend it never happened. He too is a grown man and has matured past the "firefly" stage. (You think you are lighting the world, but you are really just showing your ass.)

This brings me to my youngest son and the reason why I say staying electronically connected to your children is dangerous territory. Steven, my youngest, has been in college for exactly one month. He came home last Sunday to celebrate my birthday with the family. He arrived about 3:00 p.m. I was outside washing my car and was unaware that he had come in. He was unaware that I was outside washing my car. When I came in he was watching football on TV, playing a video game on his laptop, and tweeting/texting on his phone. He is quite the multitasker. We talked for a while, and by "talked" I really mean I asked him questions and he gave monosyllabic answers. I suppose his multitasking does not extend far enough to having a conversation while watching TV, playing a video game, and tweeting/texting. Anyway, I was use to this type of conversation, after all, I am the mother of three sons. The real blow came when I read his tweets a couple of days later. He tweeted at 3:30 p.m., the approximate time I came in from washing my car, "I wish I could go home." BAM! What a blow. First "home" is now a dorm room. Second, he prefers it to real home. Third, he had already told me that he was alone most of the weekend because most of his friends had left to come home (real homes) on Friday or Saturday because there was no football game in Tuscaloosa, so he would prefer an EMPTY dorm room to being at home.

I would have preferred to be blissfully unaware of all of this. I immediately "unfollowed" him. There are some things a mother just does not want to know. I try to think back to the dark ages when I went away to college at 18. There was no Fb, cell phones, tweets, or blogs. If there were, I would not have wanted my mom cyberstalking me (which I was NOT doing.) She would have wanted to remain blissfully unaware of some of the things I did back then too. I do know that I wanted to be on my own. My first taste of real freedom was without her being able to call me 24/7, or watch what parties I went to, or even if I would prefer to not come home to celebrate her birthday.

I guess some of my insecurities as a mother stem from the fact that I never got to know my mother as an adult. She died before I was able to do that. I don't want to miss out on that with my children. Perhaps after college and Steven is a grown man (not a teenager in a 6' 3" body) I will follow him again. Until then, I am going to close my eyes and pretend this is still "home" and he prefers my company to no company.

Newala School

Newala no longer exists, but at one time there was a school and a community of that name between Montevallo and Calera. The school sat where there is now a mound of gravel from the Chemlime Plant by the railroad tracks just after highway 89, where you turn to go to Walter's house from Hwy. 25. The school was a consolidated school, which the government had opened to combine several one-room schools in rural areas and to attempt to get the farm kids to actually go to school. If you notice in the picture there are kids of all ages even though the school was from first through eighth grades. This is because many farm kids didn't got to school very often and may have been 15 and not really know how to read. Technically, school was required through the age that students would normally finish eighth grade. However, in a farming community such as this, many parents kept the children home most of the time to work on the farm. They might to go school during the winter when there was not much farming to do. School was not a priority for most of the parents, who may or may not be literate themselves. In this time period, it is remarkable that both of my grandparents graduated from college, Walter Sr. from Jacksonville State University, and Clara from Alabama College (what is now University of Montevallo).

I always assumed the Newala was in someway derived from New Alabama, but that is not so. The name was the same as another community somewhere up north.

My grandparents both taught at the school where there were four teachers some of the time and three teachers some of the time. My grandmother taught first and second grade. She is the woman on the end of the second row in the picture below. Notice how she is dressed. Walter said she never knew how to dress and always looked shabby. My grandfather is on the end of the third row. Notice how he is dressed, always neat and rather formal. He taught fifth and sixth and then fourth was added and later seventh and eight grades, was the principal, and drove the school bus.

Walter is in the second grade in this picture. He is sixth from the right in the second row wearing the plaid jacket (106). My grandmother, Clara Adkins, is 94. My grandfather, Walter R. Adkins, Sr. is 35. Julian Hardy, MD is 74 and his more famous twin brother, James Hardy, MD, is 75. Walter's friend and neighbor, Buck Anderson, is 111. One of the other teachers, who Walter only knew as Ms. McLaughlin, is 93. My dad is not in the picture because he is not old enough for school at this time. This picture was made in spring of 1928.

There will be a dedication of an historical marker near the spot of Newala School on September 9, 2012, in memory of Dr. James Hardy, a pioneer in heart transplant surgery. I am proud to say that my grandparents were an integral part of the early education of some very influential people. Some of them are in this photograph. There are at least three doctors, one lawyer (who Walter believes became a judge) and, of course, one Colonel. Many of these kids remained in the community and were equally as important to the people there. Otis Bean became the town barber in Montevallo and was in business there as long as I can remember. Many of them were farmers who raised the food that sustained themselves and other through the depression.

Walter commented that even though many students would skip school often, most all of them showed up on picture day, wearing their best clothes. You can tell by the picture that this was a very diverse socioeconomically. The Hardy family owned a lime plant. Of course my uncle was the son of educators. Most of the others were either miners' children or farmers' children.

My father is not in this picture because he was not of school age yet. He told me that he was taught by his parents for all six of his elementary school years. His mother taught first and second grades. As he was about to begin third grade with a new teacher, his third grade teacher died suddenly and she was not replaced. Instead, his mother added third grade to first and second and his father added fourth grade to his fifth and sixth. My dad said that he received an excellent education from them and that he could have probably done just as well in college after leaving sixth grade as he did after graduating from high school. His parents made sure he did his work and taught him well. After beginning Montevallo High School in seventh grade, the system began what was called "progressive" education where they did not give grades and each child was supposed to move at their own pace. That didn't work so great for my father who's own pace was to skip school whenever possible. I guess this is a story for another post.

Labels of our lives

Labels. We have many during our lives. I have been thinking about all my labels since I added a new one, "empty nester." I am still "Mom," "wife," "daughter," "friend," and "sister" just to name a few, but "empty nester" seems like somebody else. I thought I would be sad when I moved into this phase of my life, but I am not. I think it is mainly because Steven was so excited about his new label, "college student."

This is, of course, not our first college drop-off of a son, and each time it has been a different experience.  John's teenage years had been challenging for us all. Bill and I were convinced that God made eighteen year olds so that parents would be ready to let them go. However, John seemed to figure out the college thing early on and was very successful at it. When Steven scheduled his Bama Bound for the only two days that I couldn't go with him, I think John was the perfect pick to take my place.  John did a great job with his label, "big brother" and gave him tips that I could not have done. I am now kind of glad that I was unavailable.

Moving Steven into the dorm was, dare I say it, easy. Not because I wanted him to move out or because he was being difficult, in fact, I may have found it easy because he was easy to live with. It seems that he has been making decent decisions for an eighteen year old boy. I am confident that he will continue to do so, for the most part. College students always make some decisions they don't want mom and dad to find out about, but as long as they don't involve the three B's (explained in another post), they are going to be okay. The fact that Steven has a great support group at school makes it a little easier on me also. Nearly all of his close high school friends are only a dorm or two away. Some of them we have known since kindergarten and they have called Bill, "Coach," "Scout Leader," "Billiam," or "Dad" and me, "Mom2" for years.

Being an empty-nester is not so bad. I can dash to the laundry room in my towel. Our grocery bill is lower. I can cook with onions, tomatoes, and carrots. All of my glasses are in the kitchen. There are fewer single socks left after the wash is done. There is a lot less smelly athletic clothes and less laundry in general. I can go to sleep without listening for the knock on the bedroom door to announce, "Mom, I'm home." David and Domino moved out recently too. Now there is a lot less dog fur to vaccuum up. Bill and I can go out to eat for less than $50.00 (if we pick the right restaurant.) I am looking to replace carpet and can pick any color I want. It is the beginning of a new era.

For the first time in twelve years on the first day of school I didn't have the label, "teacher." I have no remorse over trading this label for, "self-employed."  My new freedom as "self-employed" and "empty nexter" is wonderful. These new labels give me flexibility to be a better and less-stressed "wife," "sister," "friend," "daughter," and even "Mom."

On the Back

One of Walter's friends requested a copy of a picture of Walter and John Paul Vann that was hanging in Walter's office. I had never paid that much attention to it. I had no idea who John Paul Vann was. I assumed he was someone important to Walter or someone famous, but I didn't really know who he was. That is, until the funeral. Ed Babbin, who spoke at Walter's funeral about his military service, mentioned JP Vann and Walter's friend, Lanny McMinn, also mentioned him. I took the picture off the wall to make a copy and found an article from the June 19, 1972 issue of Time  entitled "Death of a Perfectionist." It was an article that briefly described John Paul Vann's involvement in Vietnam and his untimely death in a helicopter crash during a night flight to Kontum, South Vietnam. This made me do a little research on JP Vann.

He was an outspoken critic of the way the United States handled the war in Vietnam. This outspoken, on-record, criticism is what cost him his military career, but also what made him the most influential American citizen in Vietnam. A couple of quotes from JPV: "It is not true that we are here to solve problems, sir. WE are the problem." and when in 1967 he was asked by a Johnson adviser and advocate for sending additional U. S. troops if he believed the worst of the fighting would be over in six months, he replied, "Oh hell no, Mr. Rostow, I'm a born optimist. I think we can hold out longer than that." Walter's friend Mr. McMinn told me that Walter told him that he knew JP Vann would die over there, he just hoped he was home before it happened. He was, but not long before. This is one of those things that I wish I had known to ask about before Walter died. I know he had some interesting stories about this time period, which he never shared with me because I never thought to ask.

 Walter is in the center with the champagne glass. John Paul Vann is on the right. The inscription reads, "To 'Tiger' Atkins (sic) - whose sober appearance belies his 'swinging' reputation. John Paul Vann 3 Dec. 1970"

Senior moments

I'm not talking about the type of senior moments that leave you wondering why you came into a room. Instead I am talking about the senior moments that occur during your last year of your high school education. The one that you will always measure a person's age by, like " I think she graduated in 1971, so she is probably getting close to retirement." Tonight was a senior moment for Steven.

Tonight was his last home basketball game of his high school career. The gym was full of cheering fans - and they lost. JCCHS Played Holy Family, a team they lost to earlier in the season. Steven had high hopes and a conviction that they could win tonight. They came close, even taking the lead for a short time right before half time. However, by the end of the game, the margin was much greater.

Steven always is disappointed when the team loses. He feels that they could win every game. He has such a spirit about him. He doesn't play most of the game, but doesn't care as long as they win. Tonight was different. His last game in front of the home crowd. He wanted to play and he wanted to win. He thought that he had a chance to play more because it was senior night and the seniors REALLY wanted to win this game. When neither of those things happened, he was sorely disappointed.

Nothing hurts a mother's heart quite like seeing your child's heart get broken. It doesn't matter if it is a girlfriend or a basketball game that does it. If only we could smoothe the road for them. Instead, we can only hurt for them, cry with them, and hug them tight.

I couldn't be prouder of Steven's performance on the basketball team if he had scored every point John Carroll made. He has such a good attitude and team spirit. He is a leader and is always the first one off the bench to congratulate or encourage his teammates. He knows every play and everybody's position. He has real insight in issues the team experiences. This year has been a tough one. One team member quit in the middle of the season. Another team member lost his academic eligibility. They struggled to pull together to play as a team. Steven didn't get the amount of playing time he wanted or felt he deserved. Through all of this, Steven kept his chin up and his attitude positive. That attitude and perseverance is what will serve him much more in life than scoring points in high school basketball.

Steven, I love you son and am so proud of you. I hope the rest of your senior moments are good ones.

The Stuff We Keep

I have been handling a lot of "suff" lately, cleaning out Walter's houses, clearing out my own house, and going through Daddy's papers for the hundreth time. Starting with my own "stuff." I worked for at least two hours cleaning out my walk-in closet so that I could actually walk in it. I filled three boxes with clothes and shoes that I didn't or couldn't wear any loner. I organized my blouses/tops/sweaters by color. After doing this, I realized that even after filling three boxes, I still have so many that I hardly have enough space on that rod to see what I have in my closet. There is something wrong with that. I need to apply the one in and one out rule. I have so much more cleaning out to do. I want to take one room at a time and give away or throw out about half of the "stuff" in my house. I think that with less clutter, it would be so much easier to keep the house clean, which would let me relax at home.

My sister and I realize now that Walter was almost as bad of a hoarder as our father is, he just had more space to store it. We have thrown out bags of paper. He kept every piece of mail and the envelope that it came in. Now, having said that, I have found a couple of very interesting things that I am really glad he didn't through out. He had a cigar box of letters that my grandmother had originally kept (I guess hoarding is three generations deep). They were letters that he or my dad wrote when they were overseas during WWII and the Korean War. She also had kept newspaper articles about Walter's heroism that earned him the Bronze Star. He also had the letter sent to my grandmother on the event of her retirement from teaching in 1952 after 32 1/2 years. The letter showed that she was going to receive $52.24 per month in retirement.

Daddy is still looking for his checkbook he lost somewhere downstairs three weeks ago. He has looked through the same stack of papers 30 times. It is still not in there.

Happy New Year

As a year ends and a new one begins, I think most people reflect on the past year and wonder what the new one will hold. I have done this and must begin by counting my blessings. Bill seized the opportunity to start his own business and it is going very well. He is much happier, which is worth all of the time he puts in. John started the year off great by starting law school. Then his and Jordan's wedding was wonderful. David survived the tornado, which was such a blessing. Jobs can be replaced, but sons can't. Steven made the varsity basketball team and seems to have a good idea of what he wants to study and do with his life. I have spent much time with my family, which has been a blessing, even though the reasons I have seen so much of them has not always been.

2011 also held some very difficult times, the most significant was Walter's death. I miss him. Daddy is now confined to a wheelchair, a difficult thing for him to accept and obviously brings many difficulties for him. Because I changed grade levels at school, I am missing the commeradarie of my friends in seventh grade. It has been much more difficult than I anticipated. I had to have my fourth surgery to repair a pelvic floor prolapse. I pray that it is the last one I will ever need. On the positive side, the surgery was actually much easier than the last couple have been.

Looking forward to 2012 will certainly have many changes in store for our family. Walter left Delores and me money and land in his Will. This should make our lives easier in the long run, but because I am executor of his estate, I am going to be very busy. I am more than a little nervous about it. Steven will be going off to college. Our nest will be empty. It is hard to imagine what that is going to be like.

Changes that I want to make this year include taking better care of myself. I have to carve out time to exercise. I need to eat more healthily. Hopefully, doing those two things will help me lose a few pounds. I want to do more counting of my blessings and letting go of my troubles. I also would like to let go of a lot of "things" and live more simply with less clutter and excess.

Out with the old and in with the new. I am looking forward to working on myself this year. I want to be happier and I know only I can make that happen. "God bless us, every one."

Walter's Story of His Closest Brush with Death - to date

Last June I was at Walter's when he told me the story of what he believes to be the closest he had ever come to death. He was assigned the duty of escorting a South Vietnamese general as he was viewing the troops. According to Walter the General only looked at the troops and nothing more. I asked Walter how he communicated with the General. He said the General spoke some English and French fluently. Walter spoke, or more understood, some French.

They were in a helicopter leaving one location where American troops were located. In the helicopter were two aviators (Walter's words, I call them pilots), two "kids" with guns at the doors, the General, and Walter. As the helicopter rises, once they get above 1,500 feet, the doors can be closed because the gunfire from the ground can't hit the helicopter. That is unless they have bigger guns, which they almost never had. This time just as they were above 1,500 feet and closed the door, they were hit by gunfire. He said it sounds like gravel being thrown at and hitting the metal sides of the helicopter. The rotors were damaged and the helicopter started an immediate fall. The pilot told Walter to feel the control stick, which was shaking violently. Walter said he thought they were going to die because he had witnessed many helicopters that were in this very situation explode upon impact. Thankfully the pilot was able to set the helicopter down in a rice paddy. He came down hard and took a hop forward. As the helicopter hit, Walter grabbed the General by the shirt and yanked him out of the door of the helicopter, rolled, and jumped up and ran to the hill over the rice paddy. He said the General didn't know what was going on because he could not understand all of the excited talk inside of the helicopter. As soon as the helicopter came to rest, the two gunners grabbed the guns and followed Walter and the General to the hill to fire upon whoever was firing on them.

I asked him how they got out of there. He said that the Marines came to the rescue. Almost immediately Marine helicopters appeared. The Army helicopters soon arrived and picked up the General. Walter and the two gunners stayed with the helicopter until the Army crane helicopter came to pick up the one that had been damaged.

Walter said we were lucky as hell that day. I sure am glad that he was the one to be able to tell me that story.

I have a few other stories that I wrote drafts of some months ago that I will be publishing now. I want anyone who wants to know about Walter to be able to read them.

Goodbye

We all know that we have to leave this earthly body one day. Most of us hope to go in our sleep when we are old and have lived a long, full life. If that was my Uncle Walter's hope, then I would have to say that he got his wish. His full life included his escape from the farm by getting an appointment to the Military Academy. He was a cadet there when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He served in three wars. He worked for the CIA during the Kennedy era. He visited every continent. He Enjoyed life, then at the age of 49, married the love of his life, a beautiful woman 18 years his junior. After his last tour of duty in Vietnam, they picked up his new Corvette on their way to Leavenworth, where he was promoted to Colonel. After his military career was over, he designed his farmhouse, built it, and moved back to the family farm, where he and Jackie established a happy life with new friends and friends from years long before. He received his PhD in political science from the University of Alabama. He taught there for a while until he decided he didn't enjoy teaching students to whom he couldn't give orders. (I have to admit I totally understand this decision.) He wrote two historical fiction novels. He won many awards and honors in and after the military. And, finally, he was the coolest uncle, ever. He always drove the coolest cars and sent the best gifts. He was always sending home interesting items from exotic places for us to hold for him till he got back home. He flew himself home in a plane. He wore a uniform. He was somehow mysterious because we saw him so seldom and he was very different from my dad.

Even though he lived a long and full life, there was sadness and many trials. We were all shocked when Jackie died. That was never in his plan. In fact he had planned extensively to take care of her after he was gone. He missed her terribly. He certainly had to endure many indignities of old age, which was difficult for someone who was private and dignified as he.

Even though I know he was ready to go, it is always hard to say goodbye even after a long and full life. He was the keeper of the family history. Even though I tried to glean as much as I could from him over the past few years, there is no way to know what he knew. He always taught me something everytime we talked. I will miss our daily phone calls on my way to work. I will miss asking him about this and that about local and family history. I will miss his crooked, smirky smile. I will miss him.

Sam's Turn

Last week as I was driving my dad to get his blood checked, the conversation turned to government housing projects. I have no idea how, but it did. Anyway, we talked about his Aunt Verna who lived in Elyton Village when I was young. I loved going to her apartment because at the time, I didn't know anyone else who lived in an apartment. Her apartment was so cool because it had an upstairs. I also didn't know anyone else who had a two-story house. I remember playing on the steel barrier poles that kept cars from driving on the grass between the apartments. I remember the little courtyard off the kitchen. Everything about it was small and wonderful to a small child as myself.

I didn't know that my mother's sister, Aunt Agnes, also lived in government housing at one time. This led Daddy into telling the story of how he met my mother. He said that the night before my Uncle Buddy, my mother's only brother, and my Dad's best friend, Roland Lucas a.k.a "Runt", left for boot camp during WWII, they both went to Aunt Agnes and Uncle Gene's apartment to eat dinner. My mother was at the apartment that night as well. My Dad was already serving in the Aleutian Islands. After both my Dad and Runt had been overseas during the War, they were both home on leave at the same time. Runt had used some of the money he earned in the Navy to buy him a new car. He and Daddy were driving around Montevallo showing off Runt's new car, when Runt saw Agnes and my mother coming out of the Dime Store in Montevallo. The Dime Store was in the building where Smitherman's Pharmacy is now. Runt said, "I know them," and turned the car around so to show off his car and introduce my Dad to Agnes and my mother. My dad said when he saw my mom, he thought, "I want to get to know that pretty gal." Runt told my mother that when she met my Dad she started at his feet and moved her eyes from his feet to the top of his head. My mother was relatively tall and wanted a tall man. She found one. Runt, as you might have guessed, was quite small in stature, probably no taller than 5' 5" and my dad is a full foot taller. Well the rest is history as they say. My mom and dad began dating and got married in 1948 at the parsonage of Enon Baptist Church.

Cars by the Creek 2011

Today we took Walter's Corvette to the 10th annual Cars by the Creek car show.This is a car show in Orr Park in Montevallo, less than five miles from Walter's house. I told him last year that we should have shown the car last year. So, when I saw that the show was coming up again, I asked him if we could show it. He agreed that we could, if we could figure out how to do it. David called the organizer and Kathy took Walter to Columbiana to get a tag for the car on Friday because Walter was afraid to take the car on the road without a tag even thought it is less than five miles from his house. I come by my rule-following honestly.

Walter arranged to have the man who works for him, Roy Smith, drive the car to the car show. I don't think he trusts anyone else with the car even though I assured him that David or I could handle it. David was excited about maybe being able to drive the car. I was a little nervous about that because David has very little experience driving a straight shift car and no experience driving a car without power steering or power brakes. I had confidence that I could handle the driving part, but was a little fearful that something unexpected might happen and I know that the car is not insured for the full value of the car. I would die if something happened to that car when David or I was driving it. However, all turned out well. David got to drive it a little way to move it close to the trees so that the photographer could take a picture of it, I got to drive it back to Walter's from the park and the car won second place in the '70-'79 stock car division. Honestly, I am not sure how many cars were in that category, could have only been two, but Walter didn't seem to mind.

The history behind the car is what makes the car special, not the fantastic restoration job that he paid dearly to have done. Walter bought the car through the PX in Saigon when he was overseas during the Vietnam War. When he got back stateside, he and Jackie picked up the car in St. Louis and drove it to Leavenworth, where he was going to be stationed for the next few years. He said driving that car with that big engine was something else on all those straight, flat roads through Missouri and Kansas. Of course, back then (1970) the price of gas was about 25 cents a gallon and gas mileage was not even a consideration. He ended up driving the car for a number of years including two or three when he was working on this PhD and teaching at University of Alabama. He drove the car from Bessemer, where they lived, to Tuscaloosa every day. Finally, about 20 years ago, he parked the car in the barn and covered it with a cover, where it stayed for the next 15-16 years. The tires were rotted, the brakes didn't work, and the car had not been started in all those years. In 2007 Jackie talked Walter into getting the car restored for her to tool around Montevallo in. He found a man in Alabaster who restores cars and had it towed to him. The process took many months. Unfortunately, Jackie became ill and died before the car was ever finished.

He is not sure what he wants to do with the car after he is gone. His current plan is for Delores and me to decide what to do with it when the time comes. At one time he had thought about donating the car to the American Village because Jackie volunteered there before she died. He has recently changed his mind about that because he knows that they would just sell it for the cash.

I am not sure what the final resting place for the Corvette will be. David, Steven, and Bill would love for it to be our garage, but I am not feeling it. I am glad that Walter got to show off his car a little today. He seemed to really enjoy it. I know I enjoyed driving that car back to Walter's house. On the straight part of Hwy. 25 between Montevallo and Calera, I admit that I punched it a little just to see what the old, big muscle cars feel like. My best comparison is the same g-force feeling you get when you take off in a speed boat and the bow of the boat comes up out of the water and the stern seems to sink a little. Maybe our garage wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.

The Civil War Vet

Walter met a Civil War veteran when Walter was about 14 years old. His parents took him to an all-day singing at a church between Montevallo and Centerville and the veteran was there. He was in his nineties by then, Walter estimated. The veteran's name was Mr. Honeycutt and he was seated in the shade of a tree so that people could come to meet and talk to him. My grandparents took Walter up to shake his hand and talk to him. Walter said he didn't really know what to say to him, so he asked him what battles he was in. The vet answered, "I weren't in no battles, sonny. I were a guard in 'S-a-i-lma' (Selma)."

In case some of you young readers or city-folks don't know what an all-day singing is, it is an annual church event that occurred in small, country, protestant churches. The church would invite many gospel singers and singing groups to come to their church for the day. After regular Sunday service there would be "dinner on the ground" which is another way of saying a picnic-style potluck somewhere outside on the grounds around the church. After the dinner was eaten, everyone would go back inside and participate in a gospel-style singing. This was before air conditioning, so the churches would be hot. The windows and doors would be opened to let in some air and most people had paper fans to fan themselves. Sometimes the groups would sing without the congregation joining in and sometimes they would invite the congregation to sing with them. Usually there were several groups that would take turns leading the singing. People from other country churches within several miles would come to the singings. They were usually held on the same Sunday of each year, such as the third Sunday in July for Enon Baptist and the second Sunday in June for some other church, etc. It was weekend entertainment for people back then. Since there was almost always a small cemetery associated with the each church, the grounds of the cemetery would be cleaned up before the singing because families would bring flowers to put on the graves of family members before the singing. Many rural churches have maintained part of this tradition, but now it is called "homecoming" instead of all-day singing. It usually no longer lasts all day and the dinner is in a "fellowship" hall in the air conditioning.

The Old House

Delores and I went to Montevallo to begin the difficult discussion with Walter of, "What are we going to do when you need more help than Mary and Roy can give you?" Allison, the caring and insightful hospice nurse, was at Walter's when I was there two weeks ago. She told me that it would not be long before he was going to need help most, if not all, of the time and suggested that we begin planning in that direction. I thought about our options on my drive home and decided to ask Delores if she thought Kathy and James (her daughter and her husband) would be interested in moving to Montevallo to take care of him. He could pay them a nice salary to supplement James's retirement and still be less than half of what he would have to pay based on most any other scenario: hiring people to rotate through 24/7 through an agency, hiring individuals to do shifts, or hiring someone as a live-in. James is going to be discharged from the Army as soon as his recuperation at Walter Reed is finished, probably in two months or so. Kathy is a stay-at-home mom and is the perfect temperament for taking care of old people, patient and kind. Delores mentioned the possibility to Kathy and she was quite excited. It seems like an almost perfect fit. Kathy and James wanted to move to a rural area after he retired anyway and James can't do physical labor for at least a year after his surgery.

The main problem that we saw was about where they could live. Walter is very peculiar about his house. He designed it and is very proud of and attached to it. Right after Jackie died her brother, Kenneth, moved in with Walter to help take care of him. Kenneth stayed about three months until Walter accused him of being a mooch. His words were something like, "I'm not running a flop house." We were reluctant to bring up the subject of them staying with Walter in his house even though the house has two stories, one with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a large bonus room, which Walter can't get to any longer because of the stairs. He lives downstairs where there is one bathroom, a den, kitchen, dining room, living room, and office-turned-bedroom. We were trying to come up with alternative living arrangements for Kathy and James where they would still be close enough to Walter to be available on a moment's notice 24 hours a day.

That is what brings me to the "Old House." There is an old house that Walter had moved from the site where his house now sits to a spot about 100 yards from his house. This is the house that my parents and sister and I lived in while the house where I grew up was being built. Part of the house is Antebellum. Delores, Walter and I went out there yesterday so he could tell us about the house and Delores and I could see what kind of shape it was in so to determine if it was an option for Kathy, James and Fiona, their three-year-old, to live in while taking care of Walter. There is a front porch on the house that was added when it was moved to its present location. The front porch is where another room used to be, but was in too bad a shape to move with the rest of the house. The house was built in several sections at different times. The room that is on the front of the house to the left of the door on the porch is part of the original house, which Walter believes was built in 1840. There is no proof of the exact date. The original room of the house is built with post and beam construction, which shows that it was built before the Civil War. The majority of the house was built after "the War" meaning the Civil War. The older parts of the house were built with square nails. I remember seeing those from my childhood. When my immediate family lived in the house the front porch was where the side of the house is now. The original front door with glass side lights is still there, but now it is inside the added-on room instead of off the front porch.

Inside the Old House

There has been a bathroom added into the house as well as a sink and refrigerator in a rough kitchen. Walter said the water has been run to the house, but was never hooked up to the house. It is a small matter to get the plumbing finished in the house. There would have to be a septic tank put in before the bathroom would be usable. There is electricity throughout the house. Roy has been painting in the house using paint that is called "white wash" but is actually paint and costs $50 per gallon according to Walter.

Delores and I walked through the house piecing together memories of our time living in the Old House. The wind would whistle through the house which was creepy to little girls at night. It was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. We both remembered the book shelves that were right inside the front door that held our much-loved Worldbook Encyclopedias. I remembered the Christmas that we spent in that house and where the Christmas Tree had stood in the living room. I remembered that I got a convertible car for my Barbie doll  that year. I believe that was also the year that I had pneumonia and couldn't go to Mammaw's house for Christmas, so Momma pulled me around the old house in a red wagon to entertain me while everybody else was at Mammaw and Poppa's. Delores remembered sitting in front of the window fan reading her books in the summer. We remembered the old tree that we played under that has since fallen after being struck by lightening. We all three sat on the front porch for a while to let Walter rest before going back to the big house. It was quite pleasant there with a nice breeze.

The Old House is in the background of this photo.

Delores and I were both surprised when I started the difficult discussion about what Walter wanted to do in the next step of his life. He quickly agreed that Kathy and James coming to take care of him sounded like a good idea. Even more of a surprise was when it was his idea that they live in his house. He said, "It seems such a waste if they didn't live here in this big house." So it seems that is the direction we are headed. Next weekend Delores and I are going to start the process of packing up pieces of Jackie and Walter's lives that are stored in the upstairs so that room can be made for next and, probably, last phase of Walter's life.

 The family land, the big house, the old house, his books, the photographs, the history, all these things are so important to Walter. He is the holder of our family history. I want to hold on to him and all that he holds forever, but I know it will not be possible for much longer.