"Happy Birthday Earline, hope it's your best one ever".
Well howdy do, it gets better every year.
Now it's public and thank you very much.
Let me tell you all a bit about myself in case you haven't yet figured me out.
I was born in the wee hours of the night on January 31st, 1941. Being the dead of winter it was COLD. In fact, my memory of how cold my birthday was is from hearing my parents tell about the situation at our house during my birth.
My family lived in Flomaton, Alabama on the south side of the railroad tracks ( south side/wrong side) near Rosehill Cemetery.
The little faux brick tarpaper wrapped bungalow house was where I came screaming at Dr. Sallie when he slapped my hind end. Mama was sweating and clawing the sheets and Daddy, Grandma ( never knew which, Smith or Grissett) and others helped in my delivery. My three siblings were in another bedroom dealing with the dreaded whooping cough. Dr. Sallie assured Mama that I would be immune to the mess because I was born into it.
True or not, I never suffered whooping cough.
Back to the cold, the story goes that all the waste from my birth was contained in the chamber pot. Come daylight, Daddy took it out to empty the waste into the outhouse, he tripped on something, the pot went flying and my DNA splashed all over him.
I remember Daddy telling that the frost was blue. It was so cold all my offerings were frozen into ice chunks before it landed on him.
No way to verify that tale, but it sounded like the morning was COLD in Flomaton Alabama. The city had its newest citizen and she was off and running.
The United States was being pulled towards things we feared because of Adolph Hitler and his jack booted Nazi followers. Flomaton was a railroad junction. Our country was just coming out of the Great Depression but still struggling. Men looking for a better way of life, a job or trying to get to a destination by riding the trains because they had no money for transporatation costs jumped on and off the trains at Flomaton. Our house sat facing trackside and probably was marked as a good place to get a meal.
Mama and Daddy told about handing out plates of biscuits, fried eggs and gravy, sometimes hot coffee to those hoboes. Mama was alone most of the time with us kids while Daddy was working to keep that proverbial wolf at bay. Mama told us many times that she would open the old rickety screen door to hand out a plate of food and tell the person to set the plate back on the steps when he was finished. Mama was a bit nervous but followed Daddy's suggestion to feed anyone that asked because he didn't like to know about anyone being hungry.
That house beside the tracks where I was born was always refered to as, " a little tar paper shack".
I know it was a humble little house, but it always held a special place in my heart.
I remember driving by there to look at my birthplace while wishing I could see it inside.
The house was torn down some years ago to make room for new homes and now I cannot remember the exact spot it sat, just the general location.
Our family moved to our first owned home on 3rd avenue in Atmore just after Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 so Daddy could work at the shipyard in Mobile to help build warships used to defeat Hitler. I wasn't yet a year old. Mama kept a cow and grew a victory garden to help feed us.
The war ended, we moved to our home at Barnett Crossroads on Thanksgiving weekend 1945.
I was blessed with eight siblings.
I grew to adulthood here at Barnett Crossroads. Life took me to Pensacola, Jay, Allentown, Hollandtown, Dade City, Laurel Hill and back here to Barnett Crossroads.
God has blessed me with a good husband, two wonderful children and two precious grandchildren.
I have been blessed to visit all fifty states and eleven foreign countries.
Life has been good and I am grateful.
Today I have a soft spot for the place of my birth.
I have been blessed with a good and happy life. I learned early in my childhood how to work and pull my own weigh. Many times I tried cutting corners on my share, but that was readjusted pronto.
I learned the difference between want and need from my parents.
Many times I have wanted for things I didn't get, but I always had what I needed.
Being disappointed was temporary, pitching fits brought correction.
Knowing the difference and accepting that fact is necessary for being happy.
Being happy is a choice. I chose happiness.
I'm from the south side of the tracks, but that don't mean I'm from the wrong side of the tracks. I make an effort to be a good citizen, that is another blessed choice. I take pride in where I came from, that too, is a choice if you get my drift.
Thanks to The Tri-City Ledger, the leading newspaper in Flomaton, I'm proud to write,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY EARLINE!
And many more...
