Making Memories

My Grandparents were Wallace Henry and Serepta Cox.  They were my mother’s parents who gave dad the land to build his house.  We lived directly behind them in a two-story cinder block house.   I know now what a blessing it was to live so close, to at least one side of my third generation.  I have so many memories of them that I consider priceless.

They were both born in the late 1800’s and married in December of 1919, only two months after his military discharge from the Army.  Granddaddy had served in World War I as a military policeman in France.  He had many occupations as he traveled around the Southeast seeking income for his young family.  Grandmother would often joke every time they passed through a small town, “Wallace said he helped build that plant”!  They grew up in harsh economic times.  Granddad was forty-one years old when the depression hit.  By that time, he owned a dump truck and was able to make ends meet hauling whatever he could.  He was able to open a small grocery store in Alabama City, near their house on Dozier Street.  Mother said he didn’t make much money because he would over extend credit to those who were in desperate need. 

He closed that store and opened a larger one near the Dwight cotton mill at Canterberry Station.  By the time I came along in 1958, he had retired and was only selling Watkins products, and those mostly to the black community near Forrest Cemetery in Gadsden.  My early driver training was helping him deliver orders to his clients.

He loved to go fishing.  He would walk out to our house and ask Mom if I wanted to go fishing.  Of course, I always did.  His favorite spot was Lack’s fish camp, on the low side of the dam at Leesburg.  He liked to go early and fish till mid-afternoon.  We’d tie up, usually not too far from the dam.  He fished with three rods to my one.  We rarely left with an empty cooler.  He would clean and cook the fish when we got home.   Grandmother always refused to cook fish.  She didn’t like the smell of it cooking but she usually ate some.

She was probably the best cook I’ve known.  Her back door was the kitchen door and I was there often.  I still remember the blackberry and apple cobblers she would make.  They were just the best!  I remember eating simple lunches such as pinto beans and cornbread, butter beans and rice, or just a tomato sandwich.  She would cook a big spread with mother’s help if company were coming.   Oddly, Granddaddy always fixed breakfast.  I’ve always known that, but for some reason I have always given her credit for those great leftover biscuits I grabbed, as I passed through the kitchen.

I probably spent as much time at their house as I did at mine.  I remember watching Bonanza on TV, along with Hawaii 5-0 and Perry Mason.  Granddaddy would also listen to the Braves play baseball on the radio while Grandmother sewed or cleaned house. 

My Grandfather served as an elder at the Sansom Avenue Church of Christ for over forty years.  He loved studying the Bible and I remember listening in on several conversations with preachers, who came to visit and discuss scripture.  He had cataract surgery when he was in his eighties, and it distressed him that afterwards, he couldn’t read his Bible as well.  Grandmother was a member of the Sansom church but still had most of her Primitive Baptist blood still in tact.  She was from a   Sand Mountain family named “Wootten”.  Famous for their sacred harp singing or “fa-so-la” as some call it.  We usually attended the Spring Decoration at Antioch Baptist and enjoyed the dinner on the ground afterwards.

In our neighborhood, we knew everyone’s name on our side of the street and most of those on the other side.  We would sit on the front porch like greeters.  If a passer by saw anyone on the porch, they would usually stop and chat.  It was just a friendlier time with friendlier people.  The front porch was also our family gathering location.  As the youngest, I remember being the “gofer”.   If someone wanted a coke from the corner store, I’d take the money and run get it.  Herdon’s was at the end of our block and they sold drinks for 10 cents.  They were in a coke display box filled with cold water.  You identified the drink you wanted by the cap and then slid it to the end to remove.  Bringing the empty bottle back also got you three cents, so I could sometimes get a drink just by returning bottles.

I’ve been mind wandering a lot since working on family genealogy again.  We tend to think of history as the Crusades, famous battles, or the birth of nations.  Family history is a treasure that is hidden in each of us.  Don’t forget where you buried it.  Even more important, new treasures are formed every day.  Still got your grandparents?  Go make some memories!

Missing Dad

As this Father’s Day approaches, I’ve found myself thinking more about my Dad.  He was in his fifties when I was born, so we didn’t have the close relationship of most.  I don’t ever remember playing football or tossing a baseball with him. 

He was a quiet man, except when something didn’t work right.  He had served on a submarine in the Navy.  That experience endowed him with words that could make my Mom madder than a wet cat.  “Jack” she would scream after hearing a sixty- second barrage of harsh language.  He’d look, and say, “what”?  The salty language would just come out automatically.  He didn’t even realize it. 

Mother was a devoted Christian and a faithful member of the Church of Christ.  Her Dad was an Elder who lived within rock throwing distance of our house.  Dad didn’t go to church.  He did at one time, but got angry over an incident involving a preacher and something about the Lord’s Supper.  The details remain a mystery to me and I’m not sure why I never asked.  I guess I figured Dad wouldn’t say anything about it and Mom was just too embarrassed.  He would listen to gospel music every Sunday morning.  I think now that he probably missed attending.  I did see Dad in church one time at Easter, when I was little.  Then, never again.  It must have brought back too many memories.

Again, Dad was mostly quiet about things.  He didn’t say much in a conversational way.  Course, it was probably because Mom did all the talking.  They were opposite in most regards.  I easily figured out neither were happy with the other, even at my young age.  They fought a lot, not loud fighting, but the quiet kind.  They wouldn’t speak to each other for days, and then suddenly everything would be back to normal.  He probably learned, like most married men, it’s best to be quiet!

Money was always tight.  Dad didn’t make that much as a meat cutter and Mom tended to impulse buy at times.  She controlled the checkbook, and for some reason, couldn’t keep the balance correct.  I remember meals of cornbread and milk.  We had a lot of pinto beans and discounted meat that Dad would get at work.  We never went hungry, so Dad was a good provider.

He had tons of integrity.  I saw Dad cry once. My sister’s boyfriend was arrested by the Sheriff for theft.  No one in our family had ever had trouble with law enforcement.   Dad took that hard, but moved past it. 

He smoked two packs of Cool cigarettes for most of his life.  Finally, he decided to quit smoking somewhere around my high school years.  Five years later, he was diagnosed with emphysema and began a slow suffocating death.  It is a cruel disease because it slowly takes your breath away over a period of years.

Dad fought it admirably, but death finally came to the quiet man who was devoted to his family.   Being much older now, I respect him more now than I ever did while I was young.  I know he went through hard times with difficult people.  He probably had much to tell me, but I was too busy to ask or listen.  Most of us take our parents for granted.  All you can think about, being young, is fledging the nest and starting out on your own.  After that, most never look back. 

This Father’s Day, if your dad is still around, appreciate it.  Maybe you’d like to ask him something that will bother you twenty years from now, when he’s gone.  It’ll bother you, not because you don’t have the answer, but maybe because you didn’t ask the question.