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One of my favorite places to be authentic Earline was in the hay loft on a rainy day. See, with so many siblings I always had plenty involvment of others around me. Sometimes I needed time out from sharing and fist fights, so when rainy days came to fill the house and Mama issuing noggin thumps and orders to go out and play on the porches I simply went to the barn. Who goes to play in the barn on a rainy day with the smells of soggy manure and rats. " Me"! I climbed the ladder to the loft where Daddy had stacked the hay bales for us to...
So Santa Claus had come and gone. The house was a wreck, Mama was a wreck from all the work she had done before and now had waiting to do after we were back in school after New Years. We all had eaten so much fresh fruit and candy everybody was suffering fruit and sugar overload. Who cared, those chocolate mounds and orange slices had to be eaten. Washington Delicious apples were still smelling up our house with wonderful memories. I stopped to jig when the radio played Red Foley singing, Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy. " Shut up y'all, I'm...
This being the season to celebrate Christmas I decided to write my Chistmas memories all this month. My earlist memory of Christmas must have been when I was almost five years old. It had to be 1945. We had just moved into our new house here at Barnett Crossroads community during Thanksgiving weekend. Our house was not finished inside. Daddy called it "dried in", meaning we had a solid roof, walls all around and floors. The rooms were outlined with 2x4 studs. Everybody had bedrooms to share with views into every room inside. We could run from t...
Way back when Christmas trees were free for the taking for country folk we started the process of finding one as early as late October during the great chinquapin and hickory nut hunts. This time wasn't for the cutting down and dragging home the tree, but for finding and deciding. On an Indian Summer Sunday afternoon we went into the woods as a group of free range kids. Before the hunt clubs had put up gates across roads and Keep Out notices nailed about we stalked the time worn trails towards the branches and creeks to where we knew the best...
Christmas season brings such sweet memories and I have the need to share. So, my baby brother, three years younger than I, James Carlton ( Buddy) was the pet of ALL the Smith side of our family. Uncles claimed him, aunts hugged him extra tight, boy cousins thought he was the pick of the litter, girl cousins stepped over me to hug him and say, " Y'all look how sweet he is". I just thought of him as something to get our fun projects made "funner". See, Buddy was the last boy in a long line of Smith boys, so there you have it. Two older brothers,...
I have decided for this season to write my memories of Christmas past for the simple reason of sharing my childhood history in the joy of ecstasty and agony of this magical time. Thanks to my friend Kevin McKinley and his article about the history of Fore's Store in Robinsonville, our discussion on the first Fore's Store and my memory as to how I could document my knowledge of that important place in history, this story came to mind and I decided to write it here. Christmas Eve 1947. Mama was expecting a new baby. Baby sister Ila Mae was born...
Daddy and Mama moved us from our home on 3rd Ave in Atmore to our new home here at Barnett Crossroads Alabama on Thanksgiving weekend 1945. What a memorable time that was for me. I was heading towards my 5th birthday and growing like kudzu. My memories of my early life seem to come from dramatic events......moving day was dramatic. Mama scrambled us some eggs and fried flapjacks in a cast iron skillet in the hot coals of the fireplace. The reason was because the woodburning stove had been disassembled and loaded onto the trucks for hauling out...
Way back in the days before television or things tech worthy and time wasting, we had free and joyful time for things like stalking the best chinquapin trees that had a possibility for the best crop, best persimmon, best walnuts, best pecans, best quince, best rows of blue ribbon sugarcane. The location stalking was done on these Fall Sunday afternoons. All these things except blue ribbon sugarcane and quince would be taken for the simple joys of childhood sometime after the first frosty days in November. Blue ribbon sugarcane and quince were...
We are starting to see all things Christmas. ((((Stop In The Name Of Love))). Lets do Thanksgiving first okay? I'm using memories gathered from multi family gatherings through the years for this story. We all know us. We all have suffered us. We all love us as we are. That is why we celebrate, congregate and hesitate but cannot wait to do it all again next year. So we gather at the old place cause Thanksgiving is all about Grandma's cooking. Grandma ain't going nowhere outside her own kitchen to be told how to do squat on Thanksgiving dinner. G...
October always brings memories of the Escambia County Fair in Atmore during my youth in the 1950's. Crops had been grown, vegetables from gardens were canned in mason jars awaiting their need. Cotton and corn had been harvested, sold or cribbed. Peanuts were being dug for market or livestock. Sweet potatoes were either dug and banked or being. Cane was waiting for the end of the month to be stripped, cut, hauled and squeezed of juice for syrup making. Hogs were still fattening until colder weather in November for the big butchering. Things...
I'm changing the names in this story because it is about family a bit removed, and family can sull up hard and fast when they feel a poke. If one was a legend in ones own mind and from the South that still lives in the South of Southern Alabama, one always used ones full name no matter. We had our standards. Our standards were measured and held against everything that we thought reflected our standing among the townspeople. Whatever our standing was.......... So cousin Patty Anna got engaged after a long dry spell between she and her mama...
I was never acused of being ladylike. I was a rough and tumble sort, short on manners and dress. Mama tried and failed miserbly. Grandma Minnie did get my attention with this warning, "Earline keep your dresstail down over your knees". They both aimed for me to be refined. Never happened. I did heed Grandma's admonishment with having the hemline of my dresses torn out halfway to give me an uneven look. It never bothered me, but poor Mama and Grandma were forever stitching me up. It was fine with me as long as I was covered. Feed sack dresses...
When I die I want to eat at Morrisons Cafeteria in Heaven when I get hungry. If Heaven is a place of perfect happiness, then I'll eat at Morrison's again. My earliest memory of Morrison's was from the bragging tales of my Atmore cousin. She told me about catching the Greyhound bus to ride to Mobile, do some shopping and eat lunch at Morrison's Cafeteria with prissy (my 10 year old opinion) privileged girlfriends. Morrison's Cafeteria opened at Mobile in 1920. I became aware of this wonderful place to dine and die for, circa 1950. I was about...
Mama had shown me how to wring a chicken's neck by watching her do it. Now let me get this out right now so you understand my story right here. Mama never told me to wring a chicken neck, but by watching her do it I was pretty sure I could wring one easily enough if the time came for fried chicken or dumplins. So one day I was playing out near the woodpile and happened to get a craving for some dumplins. I looked around to see if I could maybe catch an old fat hen because I knew old fat hens made the best broth for dumplin making. Young spring...
Recently I took pictures of two old Grand Dames of Belleville Avenue in Brewton Alabama. Rankin street separates the two beautiful mansions. In 1959 a big oak tree separated Rankin street just at the intersection of Highway 41. Brewton, in the early days was home to the most Millionaire's for a town it's size in the country and is the county seat. Timber was king here around the county at the confluence of Murder and Burnt Corn creeks. Brewton was born from this industry as the timbers were floated down to the Escambia River and on to...
We plan to get our flu shots in the coming weeks. Old folks should do all they can to avoid that demon. This memory of having the flu sticks in my mind like no other when compared to many childhood illnesses. My family had a seemingly strudy hold on well being, but one long ago time the flu put us down like a stack of dominos and it wasn't pretty. My most memoriable experience being sick with the flu was circa 1946-47. Deep into winter, cold as that proverbial well diggers hind quarters, our house not finished inside as yet and not insulated...
Circa late 1940's/early 1950's In our community of Barnett Crossroads in Escambia County Alabama lived family's headed by hard working men, men who worked in paper wood, tar wood stumping and logging. Men who worked for the county road department, linemen for Southern Pine, merchants, several worked for the U.S. Government, preachers, a few school teachers and a Principal, many were farmers. My daddy, due to many young'uns with hungry mouths open, worked for the county road department AND farmed to insure we had plenty to eat. Few were idle....
21, my first year of school started a week or so after Labor Day. I was as green as any little country bumpkin that ever entered the hallowed walls of A. D. Kelly School in Wallace, Alabama. Everybody refered to our school as "Wallace". I still call it Wallace. 1947 was the last year that Wallace had all twelve grades. Economics dictated change. Fall of 1948 we changed to A. D. Kelly Jr. High. We were a "feeder" school for W. S. Neal, the big county school in East Brewton. Wallace tenth thru twelfth grades entered Neal along with North...
In our community lived two eternally, very young ladies. Matt & Mae. Each lived with sisters by necessity and fate. I was never sure about the order of birth with their sisters, but both had been left in care of their sisters for life. Both were born with Downs Syndrome. I was a child and children learn from parents and others. We said Mae & Matt were,"flicted". I personally never heard the words Downs Syndrome until years later and realized our playmates had been born with the genetic disorder. Matt was living with less than Mae due to economi...
Circa 1950, A.D. Kelly School in Wallace, Alabama. The "Pitchur Show" was held in the auditorium. Mr. Bill Grissett made his regular run on our route to haul us to the school house on Friday nights. Ride cost a dime, "Pitchur Show" cost a dime and a "cocolar" cost a nickel. Life was really, really good back then. I cannot tell you how our school got a film projector and screen. Our Principal, Mr. B. G. Tew somehow gave our communities of Wallace, Barnett Crossroads, Wildfork and others something wonderful to experience just like our...
In the summer of 1955 I met Billy Graham face to face on an old black and white Admiral. It sat in the corner of the livingroom/bedroom in an old wooden frame house on a dirt road across from Cora Baptist Church just a short way down what is now known as Hazel Godwin road near Jay Florida. I was sent by my Daddy to spend the summer with his oldest sister, my Aunt Carrie Williams and Uncle Dan to help attend to my Grandma Minnie Smith. Grandma Minnie was sufferng with what is now known as dementia or Alzheimers. Aunt Carrie was OLD and Grandma...
Circa 1955 we worked in our own fields everyday to fight the scourge of watergrass, bahia grass, smut grass, watergrass, ironweed, pursley, watergrass, sandspurs, sawbriers, crabgrass, nutgrass, persimmon bushes, watergrass and watergrass. Let me explain watergrass. Watergrass will double it's size overnight. I know. We would dig up a big old clump, shake off the rich soil that always hangs on those hairlike roots to lay them up ended to let the sun scald them into death. Didn't work! What happens with a clump of shaken off watergrass with...
Daddy and Mama would occassionlly make a trip into town to do some much needed shopping or business at the bank. No, not to deposit money into the bank because we never had any money, but to humbly ask to borrow some money so we could plant crops so we could give the money to the bank after the crops were sold. Banks loved folks like my Daddy. Circulate the money to make money. See how it worked? We stayed at home alone and loved it. Here is why. So Daddy had roofed our big old barn with sheets of the shiniest aluminum he could find. Certain...
She made some over half a century ago. All handmade, all gifts, all used and used and used. All worn out and frazzled and frayed now. All retired. None can be disposed of. I cannot do it. Others will have the job of what to do with the quilts when my life here is closed out, whenever that may be. The first gifted one had hung in the big old kitchen over the family table in its homemade frame for months until the crops were in and the winter hours allowed time for the quilting. It had collected dust and grease film from all the cooking. We had...
I saw her in the 4-H parade in Atmore. I saw her picture in the Mobile Press Register leading the high school band down Government street during Mardi Gras, I saw her picture in LIFE leading a band in New York City for the St. Patrick's Day parade. She was the most beautiful girl in all creation. MAJORETTE She strutted and twirled and smiled through gleaming Ipana whitened teeth and lips outlined and glowing with Helena Rubinstine candy apple red lipstick. Huge hat with fluttering feathers held by gold braiding, chin strap holding it all on...
