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 Minnie was really OLD.
I loved spending the summer with Aunt Carrie even though it involved cleaning Grandma's fouled clothes and hearing her use foul language. Until the holes in her brain took control of Grandma, a more lady like woman had never existed. Helping care for Grandma Minnie got me out of the cotton fields and into the shade if that old front porch to swing with Gandma and listen to her talk about her babies and Joe. Joe was my Grandpa that had passed way from the results of TB several years before my own parents married.
Grandma spent many hours in her faded past as I spent time swinging and listening to her make dirty remarks about how wide Uncle Dan's behind was as he came walking up the steps to hand her a bag of plums that he had bought at Scotts Grocery in Jay on his daily rounds. Being a retired old farmer didn't sit well for Uncle Dan in filing the hours. He would ask Grandma, " Mother would you like a sweet plum or a satsuma"? Gandma would wave Uncle Dan off with, " If I was married to that old man, I would hate to iron his britches, look how wide his ass is".
Uncle Dan would walk on into the house to ease the screen door shut and smile as he went.
I thought Grandma was funny and cool.
I told my friends back home that Grandma was crazy and funny.
Cars stirred the dirt road into red dust curls as they raced by. Grandma called the cars " damned motor guzzies".
Now that was way too cool for a 15 year old, "damned motor guzzies" .
Grandma gave me a whole new vocabulary that summer of the Billy Graham Crusade. I don't remember where he was preaching, but the first time I remember seeing him was when I walked into the livingroom/bedroom to see Aunt Carrie kneeling down by that old snowy screen with her hand on the top of the TV and sobbing as Billy ask the audience in the stadium to come accept Jesus and the ones at home to kneel and touch the TV while he prayed.
That was the most spiritual moment of my young life. An old tired woman begging Jesus to give her the strength to endure this burden of caring for her Mama and helping her to understand why her Mama was so wrong in her words.
That will live in my memory as long as the holes in my brain allows.
RIP BILLY GRAHAM.
