(Click on image to enlarge) Jeaneane and I had made up our minds what we were going to be when we grew up.  We would both enter the medical field as physicians and/or nurses. 

Nene was a senior in high school, and I was a freshman.  We talked a friend of Nene’s into forming a club with us.  It was called the Future Physicians and Nurses Club.  We are seated in the front row of the picture.  Nene is third from the left, and I am fifth from the left.  As you can see, we got a good group together.   We were great at recruiting people to do most anything.  I have carried that ability through adulthood, to the chagrin of many. LOL

Our first big accomplishment was winning Talent Night at school with our skit “64,000 Operation”.  That right there tells you this took place long ago, because this amount would barely give you an enema to prepare you for surgery now!  I am the one in the dark hair, running around the table.  We had a wheelchair with a Varoom motor on it.  Anyone remember Varoom motors?  It was quite the funny skit.  Yes, we were all into the future doctors and nurses idea.  After all, it was so much fun!

Our enthusiasm was curbed when we were invited to observe open heart surgery.  Just the thought of it deterred me from going and Nene was grounded for washing her hair after Mother told her not to.  Neither of us got to go, and I breathed a big sigh of relief.  I couldn’t stand the sight of blood and I couldn’t imagine viewing the insides of someone else’s body.

I resigned the Future Physicians and Nurses Club and took up Drama.  I won “Best Actress of the Year, in a Dramatic Role”, along with my Thespian honors.  Little did I know that the plan for me was a blend of the two fields.  I am now in health and fitness!  Funny how life’s experiences prepare us for what we are intended to be or do.  I can look back over my life and realize, “That’s why I went through that.  Now I understand.”

I chose the path to preventive medicine and left the nursing to our younger sister, Suzanne.  Jeaneane has done a lot of PR work, drawing from her high school recruiting years, plus she has developed a very successful web advertising company.  We both are entrepreneurs, just as our parents taught us to be.

If you can’t decide what you want to be when you grow up, or maybe you are an adult searching for a business venture.  Take a  little closer look at at some of your previous activities and things that you were passionate about.  You just might find a career path.

 

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the passing of my brother, Curtis.  He was taken from us at the age of 57 from a heart attack.  (pictured on left with my husband, Charles)

Curtis was the family clown.  You couldn’t be around him for more than five minutes without laughing.  He was 6′ 5″ tall, a giant of a man, with an even bigger personality.  He loved to joke around and he teased me unmercifully as a child.   He was the athletic director at the Knoxville Boys Club.  I ran track for the Boys Club!  I guess you could say I had an inside track.  At age twelve, I won the State Championship in Track & Field for three events.  Curtis would say things like, “Why don’t you wear those medals on your chest?  At least you would have something there.”  Then, he would roar with laughter. 

Sonny is the first of six of us.  As teenagers, Sonny and Curtis would go out knocking on doors to find lawns to mow.  Curtis was a salesperson.  He could talk anyone into anything!  He would get the jobs for them to do, then he would sit under a tree and read a book while Sonny did the work.

When he was a young boy, he had a pet duck.  He was playing with it and stepped on it accidentally.  It was then a dead duck and his goose was cooked!  Mother told him to bury the duck in the field.  A few days later, she was walking through the field and saw something sticking up out of the ground.  Curtis had buried the duck with it’s bill sticking out of the ground.  The bill had a daisy in it.  No one could ever say he wasn’t creative.

Curtis and Sonny were only eighteen months apart in age, so they were together most of the time.   They shared a room.  Daddy was a pretty strict father, particularly when it came to dating.  He had set a curfew of 10:00 PM.  “If you aren’t in this house by ten o’clock, I’m locking the doors and calling the police.” he warned.

Curtis was out late and Daddy had locked the doors.  Sonny was fast asleep.  “Sonny, Sonny, let me in.”, Curtis was tapping on the window and attempting to wake his brother.  Sonny stumbled to the window to open it for Curtis to climb through.  Curtis creeped in through the window, or so he thought.  His foot caught on the curtains and pulled them down, along with the window shade.  The racket woke up all of us.  Daddy went flying through the house, and you might imagine the ending to the story.  I can assure you it included an end!

Most of the family called Curtis, Brother.  I called him Bruth.   I miss him so much, but his memory lives on in my heart.  When I think about him, it brings a smile to my face.  He brought lots of smiles to lots of faces, and now he is doing the smiling…down on us.

 

Homemade buttermilk biscuits were a staple at our house.  It would have taken a loaf of bread to make toast for everyone, and that was too expensive.  Mother prepared food that would stick to our ribs, to use her words.  Biscuits, bacon or sausage, and gravy were on the table every morning.  The only break was the rolls she would purchase for Sunday lunch at Cas Walker grocery store. 

My cousins would fight over any left over, cold biscuits that might be sitting on the stove when they came to visit.  Nobody could make bread like Aunt Mildred.  Mother was an extraordinary baker.  She was known for her cakes, pastries, biscuits, and yeast rolls.  If she was in the kitchen baking, I was usually right by her side.  I would drag the step stool over to the table to observe and help.   It was fun to watch her knead the dough.  She would pinch off a piece and give it to me to knead.  She would sift flower on the dough board.  We would make handprints in it to cover our palms, to keep the dough from sticking to them.  Methodically, we used the rim of a drinking glass to cut out the rolls or biscuits.  The rolls were dipped in melted butter, folded in half, and placed on a greased cookie sheet to rise.  Just before supper, the rolls were put into the oven to bake.  The aroma of freshly baked bread filled the house and drifted outdoors, so that when Daddy came home from work he would know he had a nice meal ready for him, after a hard day at work. 

One of my favorite memories is Daddy coming in from work, going in to the kitchen to kiss Mother hello.  He laughed as he brushed away the flour off the tip of her nose.  That was so romantic to me. 

Mother and I were making rolls one day, when the question came to my mind.  “Mother, did your mother make yeast rolls?”  My grandmother died many years before I was born, so I didn’t know that much about her.  A little sparkle came from deep within Mother’s brown eyes.  She began to laugh very hard.  The only thing funnier than one of my mother’s stories, was watching her while she attempted to tell it.  She would laugh so hard that she could hardly breathe.  She would get a few words out and then erupt again into a fit of uncontrolled hysteria.  This was one of those times.  When she finally settled down enough to tell the story so that I could make sense of it, she said.  “No, honey.  Mama was a wonderful cook, but she never could make yeast bread.”  “Why not?”,  I was curious.  “She just never had any luck getting it to rise.”  The hilarity overcame her again.  She continued.  “Papa was very frugile.  It was just after the depression, so flour was not anything to be wasted.  He had told Mama never to try to make yeast rolls again, that it was just a waste of time and money.” 

I thought that was the end of the story, but there was more.  “Mama decided she was going to make yeast rolls, and that they would be so fat and tasty that she would make Papa proud.”  Mother got that familiar look of mischief on her face, as if she had been the one doing the dastardly deed.  “ Once again the dough didn’t rise.  She didn’t want Papa to find the dough in the trash, so she instructed Aunt Mable to bury it outside.”  Another laugher episode ensued.  After gathering herself, Mother continued.  “Papa came home from work, later that evening.  When he came into the house he said. ‘There’s the strangest thing growing out back.  It’s just bubbling through the dirt.  It looks like dough or something.’  Mama never said a word about it, but she knew that the strange planting had found it’s home in the warm earth, which triggered it to rise.”  At this point, I joined Mother in the laughter, and the story has stayed with me for more than fifty years.

I guess you could say it stuck to my ribs.

 

I was sitting in church Sunday night when suddenly I was covered with a wave of nostalgia. 

It all started with the old hymn “Are You Washed In The Blood”.  Instantly, I was in a time machine, traveling back to Lea Springs Baptist Church, in Grainger County, Tennessee.  I pictured Daddy singing in his deep, bass voice, “Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?  Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb…Are your garments spotless, are they white as snow?  Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”

Daddy loved that song.  He belted it out with passion and conviction.  He would get all fired up during his sermon, because some segment of the Southern Baptist population was trying to take all of the “blood music” out of the hymnal.  “Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.”  he would preach, as he pounded his fist on the pulpit.  Daddy was an old time preacher man.  He verged on being an ah-ha preacher.  You know what I mean?  “And I tell you brother, ah-ha, there is nothing on this earth, ah-ha, as wonderful as heaven, ah-ha.”  Grady Nutt used to say that his daddy could sling sweat three rows just making announcements.  My daddy was right in there with him.

I’ve heard it said that what we think is an opinion.  What we are willing to die for is a conviction.  My daddy had plenty of conviction and he was more than willing to share his point of view, too.  “Bill, you come across as harsh sometimes.” Mother would scold him.  “Well, it’s what I’m supposed to do.  I’m not going to tickle anybody’s ears or beat around the bush.  I’m going to preach the truth from God’s Word.”  He never waivered in his philosophy or his message.

I was jolted back to reality when our Minister of Music led us in the toe-tapping (Baptists don’t dance, LOL) song, “I’ll Fly Away”.  Another wave of memories flooded my mind.  We were at home.  Donna was playing the piano.  My brothers and sisters-in-law, Mother, Daddy, me, Nene, and Suzanne were standing around singing.  “I’ll fly away oh glory, I’ll fly away.”  Daddy, Curtis, and Sonny would echo “In the mornin’”  “When I die, hallelujah bye and bye.  I’ll fly away.”  we would all join in, raising our voices in one accord.  How precious the memory.

Then, from some random place, lodged deep in my brain, came a flashback of my Grandpa Payne.  I don’t recall that he was a devout Christian.  I never gave it much thought when I was a child.  I just know that his last day on earth was spent moseying around the house singing, “Whispering Hope”.  He vocalized those beautiful lyrics, “Whispering hope, oh how welcome thy voice. Making my heart, in it’s silence rejoice.”  A few hours later, he sat down in his recliner and went to sleep, to wake up in heaven.  What a way to go, no suffering, no pain.

Contemplatively, I left the evening worship service.  All the way home, I pondered the unusual chain of memories.  It was different from times when thoughts of the past would pass through my mind.  These events marched through my soul, like a breath straight from heaven.  I had received a visit from family members who have gone before me.  I had experienced something very rare and special.  No, it wasn’t something of the occult or other-wordly.  It was a gentle reminder of how much God loved me, and that I have received His free gift of eternal life, through my faith in Christ.  It was a thankfulness that I had been taught to “cherish that old rugged cross”.

One might interpret this post as being sad, but I don’t write it as such.  I feel overwhelmingly blessed.  Blessed to be so rich in heritage.  Overcome with emotion that God would allow me to be born to parents who loved the Lord with their whole hearts, and taught me to do the same.  My life has been enriched to have siblings with such warmth, character, charm, personality, and charisma. 

In a world where the family unit is becoming a thing of the past, I hold tight to the values taught to me by God-fearing parents.  I live with the knowledge that the separation from them is temporary.

I feel abundantly blessed, indeed.

 

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Dear relatives of mine, don’t go getting insulted by the title of my story.  I am merely referring to numbers when I say fat.

My ancestors were, if nothing else, prolific!  The above picture is one of my maternal grandparents, Curtis and Bertie Haggard.  They had six children and fifteen grandchildren.  I am the second from the right in the picture.

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This is a picture of my paternal grandparents, Grandpa and Grandmother Payne.  The children are but a few of their grandchildren.  Several more were born after the photo was taken, including me!  They had seven children and twenty grandchildren.

Neither set of my grandparents had large homes.  In fact, they were very small, tiny even.  But, that was the norm in their generation.  I guess you could say that every time they got ahead, it had a mouth to feed. 

Getting together with my aunts, uncles, and cousins was a treat.  It happened more frequently with my mother’s side of the family, because we all lived within a five mile radius of each other.  Dad’s family was spread out all over the US, the world even, because all of daddy’s brothers were in the military.  

When the Haggards got together, there was a lot of food and laughter.  When the Payne’s got together, there was a lot of food and arguing over politics and religion.  Grandmother and Grandpa Payne were staunch democrats, and Daddy wasn’t!  They all had strong opinions about everything, but politics was at the top of the list.  Other conversations centered around baseball, of which they were all great fans.  That was the neutralizing factor in the heated debates. 

My grandmother Haggard died before I was born, so I never knew her.  We all tended to hover around Papa Haggard, because he lived alone.  The fact that there was no grandmother didn’t stop us from gathering at Papa’s.  Not to worry, there were enough women to do the cooking, with Mother and her four sisters, Margaret, Mable, Nina, and Wanda.  They were prize winning cooks, so we had the best of the best Southern cuisine.

Children…there were sooo many children.  That was the best part.  We didn’t have to have a single toy to play with.  We played Tag, Hide-and Go-Seek, Kick-the  Can, Red Rover, Hopscotch, Duck, Duck, Goose, softball, just about any outdoor game we knew.  We made up a few others along the way.  There were always plenty of players.  We laughed and played until it got dark, at which point our games turned to catching lightening bugs.  Fireflies, some people call them.   The evening almost always ended with a watermelon cutting or homemade ice-cream.

Mother and Dad were both raised Methodist, but later converted to the Baptist church.  That was true of both sides of the family.  They started out as Methodists, but are almost all Baptists now.   I don’t know why, but it is the truth.

As good Baptists did, we generally had the preacher over Sunday lunch.  Sometimes we invited him to join us!  Yeah, everyone had an opinion on the sermon and whether or not the preacher was worth his pentance of a salary.  Attitudes changed considerably when Dad became the preacher.  Funny how that happens.  We are great at criticizing, until we walk in someone else’s shoes.

My parents were often criticized and ridiculed for having so many children.  They had grown up in large families and they were well aware of the challenges of raising a large family.  They also knew first hand all the joys of having a large family.   They knew that the love, support, and commaraderie could not be duplicated in any other environment.  We, as their children, learned that the benefits of having so many mouths to feed far outweigh the costs. 

We might not have had the material things that our peers had, but we had so much more.  There was always someone to play with, someone to fight with, an ear to bounce dreams and ideas off of, and a shoulder to cry on.  We shared everything.  Clothing, toys, food, it was all fair game. 

Come to think of it, we were the wealthiest family in town.

Easter Sunday was a big day at our house.  This day represented many things to us.  As Christians, we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  My parents explained the differences and the similarities in the Christian and secular celebrations of the day.

“Easter represents a new life in Christ.” Daddy explained.  Mother elaborated on the subject.  “Easter is always in the Spring.  The flowers begin to peek their heads through the warm earth, and the trees extend their branches to welcome  freshly sprouted leaves.  Wearing new clothes reminds us that we have a fresh start, through Jesus.  We remove the old clothes and put on the new ones, just like we do when we accept Christ into our hearts.  We put away the sinful nature and experience rebirth.”   I listened intently.  In my five-year old brain, I comprehended as much as I could, but my inquiring mind wanted to know “Then, why do we dye Easter eggs?”  “Because, they are pretty colors, just like the flowers.  Now go outside and play!”  Mother insisted.

My dress was yellow, dotted swiss.  It had a crinoline that was stiff and crisp.  When I sat down, it made a crunching sound.  I felt girl power flowing through every fiber of my being, when I tried on that dress.  I think it cost a whole $3.00!  I couldn’t wait for Easter Sunday to wear that dress.  My frilly, lace trimmed, socks would accessorize just right.

On Good Friday, we colored the eggs.  Meticulously we dropped the eggs into the dye and experimented with various color combinations.  It was great fun for me and my sisters.  All the eggs were counted and carefully placed on Mother’s finest platter, which had been surfaced with Easter grass.  We spent hours studying the rainbow of colors.

Saturday night was spent shampooing and curling hair, shining shoes, and searching through drawers to find a pair of white gloves that matched.  All the women had to have white gloves.  Since there were several females in our household, gloves were as much a staple as a loaf of bread.  The last preparation, before retiring for a night of restless sleep on those awful, foam curlers, was to put our Easter baskets at the foot of our beds.  All of this in hopes that the Easter Bunny would visit us during the night.

It didn’t take long to spend the night at our house on Saturday nights.  We had to get up early for all eight of us to have time in the single bathroom and to eat breakfast.   We awoke to the aroma of Mother’s homemade biscuits drifting through the house.  The Easter Bunny had indeed hopped through our house, delivering chocolate eggs, Peeps, jelly beans, and more colored eggs.   I could hardly contain my excitement.

I jumped to my feet, calling to my sister “Nene, Nene, look!  The Easter Bunny came last night!”  Hopping down from the top bunk, she squealed “What did you get?”   We compared our treats and slipped a couple of them into our mouths, giggling the entire time.  “Girls!  Come eat breakfast so that you can get dressed.  We don’t want to be late for church.” Daddy implored. 

We all gathered at the breakfast table.  Mother already had a ham in the oven and desserts lined the counter, where she had worked into the night hours to bake.  Coconut cake, German chocolate cake, chocolate pie, there were lots of choices.   Breakfast was hurried and not interrupted with much conversation, other than the occasional comment on one’s Easter basket.

I needed a little help getting ready.  Donna buttoned up my dress, and I took my place in line for Mother to fix my hair.  How in the world she got four girls, herself, breakfast, and lunch ready every day awes me.  Sonny and Curtis were old enough to get ready without assistance.  I could hear them fighting over the razor in the bathroom.  “Curt, stop it!”,  Sonny pleaded.  “Sonny, I need to get ready, too.  Give me the razor!”, Curtis insisted.  “Boys!  Cut that out and get ready!”  Dad’s speech was stern.  “I’d better not have to come in there!”  he added, after a few more spiffs between the two of them.

About this time, there was a knock on the door.  “Hey brother, come on in.”,  I heard Daddy’s bass voice say.  It was Ben Thomas.  He was another one of Dad’s close friends.  “Just stoppin’ by to see how the Payne family’s doing on this Easter Sunday.” Ben’s voice was a familiar one.  I ran into the living room to see him and flung myself into his open arms.  He had stooped to greet me.  What I didn’t notice was the cigarette in his hand.  As he gathered me into his arms, his cigarette lit fire to my delicate, dotted swiss.   The hole in my sleeve was encircled with a black singe mark.  I was devastated!  All the hugs, and kisses, and “it doesn’t show” condolences couldn’t console my broken heart.  Ben Thomas had ruined my Easter dress!  My girl power dress had a cigarette burn in it.

Mother put a white sweater on me.  I didn’t want anyone at church to see the hole, so I kept the sweater on, and focused on the scrunch and fullness of my crinoline.   The hole didn’t cripple the priss in my step that day.  I wore my white gloves and carried myself with pride that day. 

After all, it was a fresh start.

Homemade ice-cream and writing are two of my favorite things.  You can see by this picture that I had been introduced to both by the age of four.  I couldn’t read, but I would pretend by making up stories and reciting them aloud to anyone who would listen.

I remember vividly when this picture was taken.   

Virgil Lindsay was a close friend to my dad.  He came over often.  He and Daddy would talk about the Bible and discuss world news.  Mr. Lindsay had come over to enjoy some homemade ice-cream with us.  I was on my way outside to play when I caught sight of Mr. Lindsay sitting on the back porch.  He was sitting there smoking a cigarette and reading the newspaper.  As I peered at him through that rackety, old screen door, I concluded, “He’s out there all alone.  I should go out there and keep him company.”   The door screeched as I opened it.   I didn’t wait for an invitation.  I walked over and sat down beside him.  “Whatcha’ doin’?” I inquired.  “Just reading the paper, honey.”  We sat in silence for a few moments.  I looked into his eyes and then to the newspaper.  I searched them to see if I could follow what he was reading.  It must have been important, because he wasn’t the least bit interested in continuing our conversation.  “I can read the paper, too.”  I informed him.  “You can?”  he snickered.  “Yes sir, I can.  Do you want me to read it to you?”  I politely asked.   Mr. Lindsay handed me the paper with eager anticipation of what was going to come out of my mouth.  My eyes focused on the comics.  An entire oratorial flowed from my lips about some random subject.  He made a valiant attempt to contain his laughter, so that my feelings wouldn’t be hurt, but he couldn’t stifle all the giggles.  Someone came out of the house and snapped the picture with a Brownie camera.

The rusty, crank style ice-cream freezer was on the porch beside me.  I wish I had a penny for every gallon we made, and a nickel for every gallon that I ate.  Mother would make a mix of vanilla, banana, peach, or strawberry cream, whichever received the most family votes.  She would pour it into the cannister.   Daddy would put the cannister into the freezer and pack it with ice and rock salt, layering it in such a way to create cold water, as the rock salt melted the ice.  The freezing water is what made the cream solidify.  Each of us took turns cranking it until it was ready.  It seemed to take forever to crank.  Once done, Daddy would drain the water out of the freezer.  He would remove the crank, add fresh ice, and cover it all with newspaper to cure.  This would be the destiny of the comic page I had been reading aloud to Mr. Lindsay!  That was okay by me, because I couldn’t wait to have a bowl of that ice-cream!

It’s funny how the events of our youth prepare us for what’s to come later in life.   I am a columnist for a local paper, and writing is my passion.  The stories I tell now aren’t made up, rather they are true.

 As for the ice-cream, my sister-in-law owns a homemade ice-cream business.  On occasion, I help her with that.  My love for all the flavors is still with me.   Like Virgil Lindsay with my paper reading, I have to make valiant attempts to contain myself by not diving into the cream headfirst.  Sometimes I am able to stifle the urge, other times not.  I just hope that no one is close by to snap a picture.  I wouldn’t want that to end up on the Internet!

Mrs. Henderson!  That was my first grade teacher’s name.  I had to go deep into my psyche to dig that one up, because she so traumatized me.  After leaving school and walking home that day, Mother and Daddy told me that while they understood why I was so upset, if I ever did it again that Daddy’s J.C. Penney #32 and my behind would collide.  Furthermore, if I ever got sent to the Principal’s office, I would really be in trouble deep.

I was an obedient child, but not above mischief.  When Mrs. Henderson wasn’t screaming at us, her teaching methods would bore us to tears.  Honestly, watching paint dry would have been more interesting. 

It was early afternoon and I was getting fidgety and restless.  One child had already been sent to the hallway outside the door to stand.   I began to reason this in my mind.  The thought of being released from this prison to the hall sounded like a pretty good idea to me.  I thought, “It would be even more fun if I took a few friends with me.”  I started whispering to some of my friends.  The tactic worked, because three more of us found ourselves in the hallway.  A few minutes later, a couple more joined us.  They had caught on to the trick.  That idiot teacher!  There were five or six of us first graders standing in the hallway.  We were giggling and having the best old time.  We overdid the fun and got sent back into the classroom .

At the dinner table that night I was so proud to announce, “I GOT to stand out in the hall today.”  My parents looked at me and my brothers and sisters glared at my parents with eyes as big as saucers.  They were holding their breath, knowing that Daddy would pull off his belt and give me a whipping.  Mother often intervened with words of wisdom.  “Pamela, what if the Principal had seen you out in that hall?  You would have gotten into trouble.”  Nonchalantly I replied, “Oh, he did see us.  He came down there and asked us what we were doing, and we told him that the teacher was giving us trouble.  He just told us to go back into class, and then he told Mrs. Henderson to come out into the hall.  When she came back in, she was a whole lot nicer.”   

My parents gave us all a little lecture about respecting our elders, behaving in school, and that they had better never have to go down there to that school and find us in the Principal’s office.  Who knew that those words would come back to haunt them.

Sometime after the hall incident, there were doctors and nurses set up in the gym to give diphtheria inoculations.  I recall standing in line with the other children waiting for my turn.  I would see them get the shot and start crying.  The whole school sounded like a nursery ward in the hospital.  I was determined that I would not cry, no matter how bad it hurt.

It came my turn.  I rolled up my sleeve, got my shot, and even though I could feel the tears welling up inside, they never made it down my cheeks.  You might remember, from a previous post, that our school was so overcrowded that my classroom was in the boys locker room.  There were about five steps leading out of the gym to our classroom.  I perched myself on the steps and started laughing and heckling the kids who were crying.  My teacher heard the commotion and came across that gym floor to find the source.  She shook her finger at me and said, “Pamela, you are coming with me to Mr. Robertson’s office.”  “No, I’m not, I retorted.”, and off I ran.  I hid under her desk.  When she finally drug me out from under it, she marched me to his office.

Mr. Robertson didn’t fuss at me very much.  He told me that I should be kind to the children and not make fun.  I was very remorseful and felt the sting of humiliation, much like I had inflicted on my peers when I laughed at them.  I went back to the classroom with a note to my parents in tow.  I asked my friends to forgive me. 

I didn’t readily turn over the note to Mother, but when I did it was a while before I could sit comfortably again.  I was never sent to the Principal’s office again.  Once was more than enough for me.