Month: July 2020

My brothers knew how to ride bicycles. The oldest brother took me for a ride one time on Ernie’s bicycle. I crawled up in the basket over the front tire and got off involuntarily when my brother rode through a ditch and dumped me out breaking my collar bone. My middle brother went for a ride one day and got dumped off by the railroad tracks all by himself and broke his collar bone. My youngest brother, still older than me, was the only one I remember having a bicycle all his own. He broke his arm once and when the doctor took of his cast for the last time it was stuffed full of pencils and other things he stuck in there to scratch his arm.

My sister and I had a bicycle without tires or a handlebar. It was one of those big spools that at one time had telephone line or cable wrapped around it. That spool was much bigger than us. We flipped it on its side and somehow managed to get on it and move our feet to make it roll up or down the driveway. It’s a wonder we didn’t fall and break something. I don’t know how we managed to keep our balance long enough to stay on the thing. It may not have moved very fast, but I seem to remember having to run on that rolling spindle just to stay on top.

I often went visiting with Daddy. There was a family in Dewey Rose who had a little girl about my age. She was rich! She had her very own new bicycle. I was envious. Whenever Daddy went to visit her family, I liked to go along. One day she asked if I’d like to ride her bicycle. Would I? You bet! That’s when I learned to ride. I was probably six or seven years old and thought I was grown because I could ride a bicycle.

The Duncan kids had bicycles. They even had extra bicycles. Sometimes they asked my sister and me to go bike riding with them on those back-country roads. They also had chicken houses. We’d go in the chicken houses, especially when they were full of little chicks. I was usually always barefooted. You know, it can be quite messy to go in a chicken house barefooted. That’s not something I’d recommend. It was hard to dodge those little squishy chicken bombs even though most of them were covered with wood shavings.

I never did get my own bicycle, but I was glad I had friends willing to share their riches. Sometimes the simplest of things others might take for granted bring the greatest joy to someone else.

My grandmother was a churchgoer. She was a faithful member of Mt. Bethel Methodist Church. When we stayed with her, we went to church, too. My granddad only went on special occasions, but he did attend the daily devotion every morning in his living room right after breakfast. My grandmother read the devotion out of the Upper Room – the scripture, the story that went along with it, and the prayer. To my knowledge, she never missed a day – and neither did my granddad – nor did he complain about it.

The little church was organized in 1833 and served the farming community known as Ola. In those early years, the main crop was cotton. When my grandparents moved south in the early 1950’s, they soon became an asset to the community and to the church. They were good neighbors and always willing to lend a helping hand. It didn’t take long for the church family to find out that my grandmother had some mad baking skills. When the church had fundraisers for various ministries, a pan of her cinnamon rolls was auctioned off at a hefty price.

A church isn’t a building, it’s the people that come together to worship, fellowship and care for one another’s needs. Within the church was Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson. When I was born, Mr. Wilkinson made a highchair for me. It has survived all these years and three generations have used it. Leroy and his family were part of the congregation as well. You may have read about him in a previous story. Another person in the congregation was a lady who was a dwarf. She was as short as me, maybe even shorter, and I was just a kid. Her short arms hung unnaturally by her side and her disproportioned body caused her to waddle when she walked. She was always so kind. I think she liked me because we were both short. These country people were a community of people who came together to support one another in good times and bad.

Some Sundays after church, we had lunch on the grounds. There were some good cooks in that little country church. However, there were some things I didn’t care for such as okra, turnip greens, collards and southern cornbread. There were also plenty of salads. My grandmother would take carrot salad, pineapple salad or some other kind of odd salad. I bypassed those but the ladies of the church sure liked them.

Someone always made a “chocolate cake” that was not a chocolate cake. Daddy laughed about that. When he got a slice of chocolate cake, more often than not, it was white cake with chocolate icing. A chocolate cake should be just that, chocolate.

Whether my granddad entered the door of the church or not, he lived an exemplary life of Christianity. He walked his faith. He was genuinely kind and complimentary. No matter what he was doing, he would set that aside to help a neighbor or a stranger. He didn’t show love by empty pious words but rather by his actions. If we walked such a path, our world would be a much greater place.

On warm humid southern evenings as the sun sank over the horizon, the yard came alive with little flashing lights. We called them lightning bugs. Some folks called them fireflies. It was a sure sign that summer was well on its way.

As a kid, I spent hours catching lightning bugs. My sister and I got little jars, punched holes in the lids, and headed outside to collect nightlights. By the time I got to the spot where I saw a flash, the bug was already gone. It wasn’t long before lights flashed all around me. I scooped up some bugs and added them to my jar that was padded with grass. 

For me, catching lightning bugs was a yearly childhood game. By the time the warm evening was over, my jar had enough lightning bugs to light up the bedroom. Sometimes they mysteriously escaped and flew all over the room flashing as they went. Whatever lightning bugs were still in the jar by morning were released – only to be chased again the next night. 

The other evening, my youngest granddaughter and I sat on the porch when the lightning bugs started flashing. So, guess what we did. We ran barefooted through the damp grass and scooped up those little flashes of light that blinked in harmony with each other as they sang their summer song. 

Mama was not a believer in throwing anything away. She even reused plastic forks and disposable cups. Washed Ziploc bags were hung to dry over bottles or pan handles so they could be used again. She didn’t throw away any food either. Fortunately, when all of us kids were little, we didn’t have very many leftovers because the boys scarfed down everything. In fact, they would say, “Hey look at that!” When I turned to look, they snitched food off my plate. We ate as fast as we could so we could get second helpings. As the bigger kids started going their own way, leftovers became more common in our household.

One evening Mama called us for supper – leftovers. We sat down at the table waiting on Daddy. He came in, sat down, and started to eat. We kids followed suit. Mama stared at Daddy and said, “Aren’t you going to bless the food?” His response was, “I’ve already blessed it twice!” Not missing a beat he continued to eat his doubly blessed meal.