Hard Way to Go: Book Review

Recently I received an advanced reader copy of NC Matheny's new book, Hard Way to Go: The Horse of a Lifetime. The book got a cat scan from Charlotte before I read it.

Charlotte: "Mommy got a book to review. It's about a big animal."

I was delighted to see that the horse on the cover looked very similar to my Tennessee Walker, Melody Sundance, who died in 2017 at age 27. I'd had her since she was nearly six. Here's a painting of her:

After I'd read a few chapters into the book, I learned they had an ancestor in common—Midnight Sun, a two-time World Grand Champion and a major sire of Tennessee Walkers. No wonder they looked so similar. 

From the cover, I thought that the book would be just a basic horse story, but it was actually a memoir about Matheny's life with horses, his "horse of a lifetime," setbacks he'd overcome, his faith, and his missions to Honduras. Here's info from the back cover:

Matheny had been involved with horses since he was a child—his father had grown up with horses and owned several, including a Tennessee Walker mare and some carriage horses. One day in 1998, Matheny and his father stopped at a barn where he saw a 3-week-old orphaned foal called "Trouble." Matheny ended up buying the foal with plans to pick him up soon, but a storm and ensuing flood changed his plans. When he returned two weeks later, the foal was in bad shape. However, with vet care and nursing, Trouble survived.  A friend suggeted changing Trouble's name because "he will adhere to whatever his name is," so Trouble became Casey. Matheny had a hard time coming up with a proper registed name for Casey because most of the names he'd submitted had already been used. Finally "Hard Way to Go," was approved as Casey's registered name. 

There were indeed many hard ways to go throughout Casey's life. Casey suffered from health problems, among them numerous allergies, testicular cancer and several bouts of colic—one requiring serious surgery. Mathey also had some health problems, including a fall from a ladder that resulted in broken wrists and ribs. Despite overwhelming problems, Matheny's faith never wavered.

While it was hard for Matheny to leave Casey, he nevertheless went on three missions trips to Honduras—two to help people with health problems and one to help provide veterinary help to animals. Several chapters detail the work he did there and how he shared his faith.

It was a plus that the book included some pictures. My favorite was of him riding Casey bareback. Because of Casey's health problems and Matheny's previously injured wrists, he rode Casey only six times in the 22 years he owned him. 

While Hard Way to Go: The Horse of a Lifetime included interesting vignettes of NC Matheny's life with Casey, I wish he'd included more details.  For instance, I would have liked a chapter or two about the steps in Natural Horsemanship he used to train Casey. 

Charlotte and Claudine give the book a final cat scan.

If you enjoy memoirs of people who devote themselves to the horse of their dreams, this book will probably appeal to you. 

If you know someone who dreams about owning a horse but knows little about about how hard it can be to care for a horse, you might give them this book. It is cerainly an eye-opener about some of the problems a horse might encounter—and the time, effort, and expense a horse owner will need to deal with those problems.  

Hard Way to Go: the Horse of a Lifetime is available in paperback from Amazon. Alas, no e-book version is available at this time.

~

Two Memoirs About Writing

The last two print books I've read have been memoirs. Or maybe partial autobiographies. Or both. They're both about writing, too. They're way different from each other, but I enjoyed them both. I like reading about writing, and memoir is one of my favorite genres.

I've been a Lee Smith fan for years, ever since I found her novel Family Linen at the Roanoke County Library back in the late-1980s. I remember picking it up to read the first few pages and found "Roanoke, Virgina," on the first page. Roanoke? Books could be set in Roanoke? Who knew. . . ? Anyhow, that got me hooked on Lee Smith's books. Her novel Fair and Tender Ladies, which I've read at least three times, is one of my favorite Appalachian novels.

Last month I read her new book, Dimestore: A Writer's Life, which consists of fifteen essays about various parts of her life. I especially enjoyed the stories about when she was a child in Grundy, Virginia, and how she helped out at her father's Ben Franklin dimestore (where she took charge of the dolls—arranging them, naming them, etc.). The book gave some insights into a writer's life—where she got some of her ideas and how she wrote. For more info about the book, check out the Kirkus review, a segment of the Diane Rehms Show, and this article in Writer Mag.

Last week, I read Mary Norris's Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen. This book also gave me some insights into a writer's life. Norris was a copy-editor for the New Yorker for thirty years, and her book was a blend of memoir and grammar book. She went into great detail about why some words or punctuation marks were used the way they were. And she pointed out a lot of grammatical errors that writers make and told how to fix them. Parts of the book are downright funny! But you'll learn a lot from reading it.

So why isn't Between You & Me a staple in every high school classroom? Probably because of Chapter 9—"F*ck This Sh*t"—in which she explains how to deal with naughty words (including the seven that comedian George Carlin said you couldn't say on TV—and a few more).

ARLO: "This yellow book uses naughty words!"

For more information on Norris's book, take a look at her essay "Holy Writ" (which appears in her book), the New York Times review, the Guardian article, and the NPR review. The NPR review sums up the book thus: "Between You & Me, Norris' first book, is part memoir, part guide to the mind-bending nuances of English grammar, and part homage to The New Yorker's legendary writers and copy editors. It brims with wit, personality—and commas." That pretty much nails it.

Mary Norris has a "Comma Queen" series of short videos, in which she covers many of the grammatical and punctuation problems she addresses in Between You & Me, such as how many spaces after a period in "Space: The Final Frontier" (Answer: one);  she explains how to use who or whom in "Who/Whom for Dummies"; and she explains what restrictive and non-restrictive clauses and phrases are in "Let's Get Restrictive." (No, she doesn't mention Chapter 9, so these videos are safe for all ages.)

I thoroughly enjoyed both Dimestore and Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, but then I'm a former English teacher as well as a writer-wannabe, so I might be a bit partial to the subject matter of both.

~

Memories I Can't Remember

. . . because I was a baby at the time.

Recently, while cleaning a closet, I found a box that hadn't been opened since I moved here in 1999. When I opened the box, I found some of my baby clothes—as well as the pillow case above—that my mother had saved. She even left a note identifying them.

 I can't remember ever seeing these garments before, but obviously I must have worn them.  They all seemed to be made from thin cotton, and most were embroidered. 

They certainly don't look like today's baby clothes. Most looked homemade. I imagine that Mama made them, but some might have been made by relatives.

In the gown below, the neckline was hand-embroidered and a few pink flowers were embroidered on the front. She must have made this one after I was born, since it's obviously for a girl. 

I'm not sure about the one below with blue embroidery. Could this have a baby gift when her first child was born from someone who didn't know that baby boy soon died?

Along with the clothes was a very soft—and hand-embroidered—baby blanket. The moths have done a job on it, but the embroidery and interwoven ribbons still show.

 

She also included two sun-suits that I must have worn when I was two or three. I know I wore sun-suits until I was five. I know where she got the fabric for these—from the sacks that Grandma's chicken feed came in. I can remember those sacks, and I can remember Mama using her treadle Singer sewing machine (which I still have but have never used) to sewing them into outfits for me.

Each sun-suit had a pocket, but I don't know what I would have put in it.

She not only made sun-suits for me, she also made them for my older cousin Marty. Here we are on the back porch of our Floraland Drive house that was built in 1947. The house looks new here, so I'm guessing this picture was taken in 1948.

In the box was a blouse that I must have worn when I was three or four. It's made of the same type thin cotton as the baby clothes.

The box also contained two baby books and a book on baby care. (They're a subject for another blog-post.)

The baby book on the right was provided by Lewis-Gale Hospital where I was born. Inside the back cover is a picture of the hospital, which was located near where Channel 10 is today.

The baby care book had a section on clothes. The ones in the illustration look remarkably similar to what I wore.

 In the box, I found something else—a slip that my mother wore when she was four.

The attached note, in my mother's handwriting, reads: "Alene Ruble wore this slip when she was four years old. Mama made it in 1917." 

I'll blog more about the closet box in a future post.

~

Under a Blue Bowl

 I got my copy of Under a Blue Bowl from author Scottie Prichard in Wytheville last Saturday afternoon. I started reading it Saturday night and couldn't put it down.

Subtitled "The Life of Olive Scott Benkelman Mostly in Her Own Words," it's a wonderful combination of oral history, Appalachian culture, memoir, and biography (or maybe autobiography).

 Some years back, when Scottie and her husband were living in Germany, she and her mother Olive kept in touch by exchanging cassette tapes. Olive, who led a long and remarkable life, often taped stories about growing up in Grayson County, about her ancestors, and about her life beyond Grayson County and back. After Olive's death, Scottie transcribed the tapes and compiled them into this book, which she self-published in 2007.

Olive had some pretty interesting ancestors, including her father, Dr. William Worley Scott. When I heard Scottie read the section about her grandfather, I had to have the book:

Is that a great story, or what? Under a Blue Bowl is full of great family stories, many of which happened in Olive's childhood home of Elk Creek in Grayson County.

The book's title is from Olive's observation when she was a child: "Elk Creek was the perfect place to live when I was a child. The mountains surround our sweet valley and I thought the sky was a big blue bowl that God had turned upside down and rested securely on the mountain tops." (p. 55)

During her life, Olive goes far beyond Grayson County but eventually returns. Her first foray away from Elk Creek was when she and her friend Edith Hale went 65 miles away to attend Radford State Teachers College: "Our parents took us to catch the train in Crockett in the morning and we got into Radford in the afternoon, after stopping at every little place along the line. We knew we would not be able to come home until Christmas. It was exciting but I was scared sick. . . . My mother's butter-and-egg money sent me to school. She scrimped and saved and cut corners constantly to pay for my education. I just didn't dare spend much money. I was awful tight with my money then, and for most of my life it seems now." (p. 103)

Olive goes on to teach school in Grayson County, work at Radford College, become director of guidance at Mount Vernon High School, and have many interesting experiences in Idaho, Illinois, Florida, and—finally—back in Elk Creek. Scottie Prichard is to be commended for capturing her mother's voice and personality so clearly. The multitude of pictures —such as a photo of Olive and Edith enjoying a childhood tea party—are an added plus.

If you love Appalachian culture and history, recollections of the old-timey days, and true stories about remarkable women, odds are good you'll love this book as much as I did.

Since the book was self-published, bookstores aren't likely to have copies on their shelves. Even amazon.com only has copies for sale from resellers. If you'd like to buy a copy, contact Scottie Prichard directly at hillsofhome@gmail.com.

~

Seventh Grade at Lee Jr.

School Security in the 50s, Part 2

In 1957, when I started the 7th grade, I had to leave the neighborhood. Huff Lane Elementary—three blocks from my house—only went to 6th grade. William Fleming High School—this was back in the day when Fleming was on Williamson Road—was about a mile from my house, but it went from 8th to 12th grade.

Anyhow, because all us Williamson Road area baby boomers were crowding the schools, most of us (except for two 7th grade classes at Preston Park Elementary) were sent downtown where an actual junior high existed. We had to ride an overcrowded city bus (with folks going to work and kids going to Roanoke Catholic High) to downtown Roanoke and then walk six or seven blocks to get to Lee Junior on Franklin Road. There was no school bus. The powers that be weren't picky how we got there, as long as we did get there on time. Our safety wasn't a public concern.

If Huff Lane was open and non-secure, Lee Jr. was a fortress. Here's a picture I found on the Internet of Lee Jr. in its early days.

Note only one front door. The school was built of brick and stone, so it was pretty solid. All those big windows opened (no air conditioning), so if there was a fire (there never was)  the firemen could have reached us with ladders. If a terrorist had wanted in, He'd have had to climb a pretty good ways and no doubt furnish his own ladder. Plus the teacher could have whacked him a good one with the long pole with the hook on the end that was used to open the windows.

Here's a side view from what looks like an earlier time than the first photo. Note that there is no side door. Classes were held on the three top floors. The cafeteria and gym and shop were on the basement level. The office was to the right of the front door.

When we had fire drills, we lined up on the sidewalk or in the small paved area surrounding the school. If there had been an actual fire, we'd have been blocking the firefighters' access. If there'd have been an explosion, the falling bricks and stones and glass would have crushed us. If a terrorist had been patrolling the area, we'd have made an easy target. Our security wasn't a priority— the important thing is that we stayed in line and exited the building quickly.

Because the school was named for General Robert E. Lee, the yearbook was, of course, The General.

Here's my yearbook picture—first one in the third row.

Junior high opened my eyes to a different way of life. I took PE for the first time and learned to play volleyball and basketball, both of which I disliked. We had to do calisthenics, which mainly consisted of "jumping jacks" on the hard wooden floor. The $2.99 Keds we wore weren't cushioned like today's fancy sneakers. I hated calisthenics and now blame them for the plantar fasciitis and heel spurs I developed later in life.

All 7th graders rotated through electives: music, art, home ec (for girls), and speech. In music, I learned about opera (we studied Carmen), and symphonies—Peer Gynt (I liked "Morning," but  "In the Hall of the Mountain King" was pretty good, too) and Peter and the Wolf. I'm pretty sure we listened to The Nutcracker, too. We sometime played a musical Bingo game that had notes and musical symbols instead of numbers.

In art, we drew a lot of dead trees because they were easy and did some kind of clay project. Our main media for our dead tree landscapes were crayon and water color.

In home ec, I learned to sew some basic stitches and to use a sewing machine. I can't remember if I made the set of really ugly placemats or the dreadful skirt in 7th grade. (One of them was in 7th, though, and the other was in 8th.) I also learned housewifely-type skills like dishwashing, which I'd never done before because Mama could do it better and I'd "make a mess." Home Ec is where I learned that you wash the glassware first and the pots and pans last. I'm pretty sure we made cookies, but I can't remember what kind. I do remember the home ec teacher demonstrating how to make a Waldorf salad and then giving us samples to taste. I'd never heard of a Waldorf salad, never even eaten any kind of salad, and was surprised that apples and walnuts could be salad ingredients.

In speech class, we mainly learned parliamentary procedure. I have no memory of ever giving a speech, but we must have. I do remember we had to take "minutes" every day about what happened in class and keep them in an envelope. I guess I was too busy taking minutes to remember what was going on. The room was dreary and the seats were bolted to the floor. 

The big thing in 7th grade was that we studied Virginia history, and we took a three-day field trip to Richmond, Williamsburg, and Jamestown. A few teachers rode each bus and patrolled the hallways of the Williamsburg Lodge at night so we didn't escape or something. In the mornings they yelled "Rise and Shine!" I love Virginia history, and it's possible that my love of it originated with that field trip.

Lee Jr. also introduced me to people that we didn't find in the middle class and lower middle class Williamson Road area. There were rich South Roanoke kids with nice clothes and nice manners, West End kids who weren't rich, some middle class kids who didn't live in Williamson Road, and some who could only be classified as hoods. A lot of boys smoked. It was an interesting blend. 

The first page of the yearbook is a picture of the front with actual students exiting the building.

Here's a closer look. At the bottom left, you'll see a couple of hoods wearing jeans, black leather jackets, and the requisite ducktail hairdos that all good hoods sported. At the lower right, a non-hood lights the cigarette of another. 

If a terrorist had gotten into the building, the hoods could probably have taken him out, or maybe other students could have set fire to him with their lighters. I never saw any actual switchblade displayed (although the art teacher was rumored to carry one), but I wouldn't have been surprised if a lot of the hoods were packing them. A lot of kids—and many teachers—packed cigarette lighters, though.

Lee Jr. was demolished around 1970 to make room for the Poff Federal Building. To replace Lee Jr.,  a new junior high—James Madison Jr. High—was built near Fishburn Park. In fact, when I returned to Roanoke in 1971, that junior high was where I worked.

But my experiences there will have to wait for a future post.

~
Edited to add photos of the faculty:

~

School Security in the 1950s

I started first grade at Huff Lane School in 1951, the year after the school was built to serve the rapidly growing Dorchester Court neighborhood. Dorchester Court, which provided homes for many returning Korean War vets and their rapidly growing families, seemed to spring up behind my backyard almost overnight. On the other side of Dorchester Court was farmland; on the backside of Huff Lane School was Pete Huff's Dairy Farm.

At age 9, I was toting my capgun. Couldn't take it to school, though.

I don't think anyone gave any thought to school security back in those days. The closest we had to security guards were the safety patrols, selected fifth and sixth graders who wore a belt and badge and made us wait before crossing the street. Sometimes we didn't even have those. All the teachers were female, and they weren't dressed for action. They wore dresses and high heels. The only male in the building was the custodian, whose main job seemed to be firing up the coal furnace or appearing with a mop and bucket if someone threw up.

The primary grades had doors that opened onto patios, where the sun beat mercilessly on us if we did activities out there. (Sunscreen hadn't been invented and no one wore hats except in winter.) There were no trees to speak of, except a few saplings out front—nothing to hide behind. In front of the school was the main door. We lined up in front of it every morning while we waited to go in. There was also a back door, at least one side door, and the cafeteria door. Nobody monitored those doors.

I don't remember an intercom in those days. Any messages for teachers were hand-delivered from the office. We had an occasional fire drill, though, indicated by a loud blast of sound. During these drills, we lined up, walked in a line out the nearest door, and stood out in the open—close enough to be in the way of any firetrucks if the school did catch fire. It never did. We didn't do tornado drills—it would be two decades before anything like a tornado would touch down in the area, and even then it only peeled the roof off part of Westside Elementary, about five miles away. Despite an air raid siren which sounded from the school's roof every Saturday at noon, we didn't do any disaster drills, even though airplanes from nearby Woodrum Field flew low and close to the school. I guess if a plane were to hit the school, it would be too late to warn anyone.

If we had to exit the school suddenly (and we never did), we'd have had to go through the halls. We wouldn't have fitted through the windows that were hinged at the bottom and pushed open, no doubt a safety feature to keep any kid—no matter how small—from falling out. The only place to hide in the classrooms were the wooden coat closets—one for boys and one for girls—which weren't at all secure and wouldn't have held everyone. If we got outside, we'd have no place to hide so we'd have to run for home.

This is how Huff Lane, now closed, looked recently. It didn't look like this in the 50s.
(I found this pic on the Internet, but I don't remember where.)

But the 1950s were a different time, a safer time when kids walked to and from school without parental supervision. Sometimes those of us who lived close enough even walked home for lunch. During the day, fathers were at work and mothers were at home. Most mothers didn't drive. I only know of one mother in the neighborhood who drove and had a car, but her son went to Catholic school.

Kids in those days had been warned, of course, not to speak to strangers and never to get in a stranger's car lest we get kidnapped. We never knew anyone that had been kidnapped or even what happened to kids who were kidnapped, just like we never knew any kid who'd lost an arm from sticking out the car's open window. But we heeded the warnings anyhow. Plus, if any stranger should approach us, we were secure in the knowledge that we could always run to the nearest house where the housewife in residence could call the police or something. 

That a stranger might come into our school to do us harm was something that never occurred to us. But those were different times, safer times. . . .

~

Bleak December

. . . and memories of Christmases past. 

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December . . . .

Lately the weather has often been bleak, which it should be at this time of year. In late December 2012, we've had rain, clouds, and what the weather folks call a "wintry mix." The bleakness has its own beauty, stark and silvery.

Granted, most of December's bleakness as been obliterated by sparkly lights, plastic decorations, inflatable lawn ornaments, and whatever else many folks think makes the season brighter. A lot of these things went up before Thanksgiving. Or just after Halloween.

Lately I've been remembering Decembers when I was a kid. Back then—the late 40s and early 50s—things were different. We accepted December's bleakness because it would end with Christmas's brightness, and there was a distinct gap between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Nobody decorated for Thanksgiving, and nobody thought of putting up Christmas decorations until a few days before Christmas.

The first Christmas event was Roanoke's Christmas Parade in early December. Mama would bundle me up, and we'd ride the bus downtown. Then we walked a few blocks to stand in front of the Elks Lodge on Jefferson Street, one of the best spots to view the parade. I really liked the big statue of the elk that, in later years, sometimes sported a red nose. (The Elks Lodge hasn't existed on Jefferson Street since the late 50s-early 60s.) We waited under streetlights in the cold until we heard the sounds of a band in the distance. Before long, the parade came into sight. There were high school bands, some Christmas-themed floats, a few fur-wrapped beauty queens shivering in convertibles, and—at the very end—Santa Claus himself. After the parade, we waited for the Williamson Road bus, and rode back home.

About mid-December, we'd ride the bus to town again, but this time during the day. Mama would take me to Pugh's Department Store, where we'd ride the elevator to the top floor where an imposing Santa sat on his throne. I waited patiently in line until it was my turn to sit on his lap and tell him what I wanted. As I recall, he listened politely but made no promises, and I never got the pony I asked for.

Less than a week before Christmas, we bought a tree—usually a fresh cedar from one of the many places that temporarily sprung up on Williamson Road. (In later years, it was a white pine, and by the 60s a spruce.) Mama put it up in the living room and we decorated it with lights (which we only turned on for a limited time and never left unsupervised), fragile glass balls, tinsel made of metal (not vinyl!), and—for a year or two— something called angel hair which made you itch if it rubbed against you. We usually had running cedar on the bannister, and a homemade evergreen wreath on the front door.

No one had anything plastic, and no one had outside lights that I can remember. (This was a time when a 40-watt bulb was sufficient to light a room, and any higher wattage was considered wasteful.) Outside was bleak, as it should be, but everyone's living room was brighter than usual—at least while the tree was lit.

The tree stayed up until New Year's when it was usually shedding needles all over the floor. While it was up, it smelled wonderful, though.

By the 60s, extravagant folks put lights on an outside shrub or two. Some even bought artificial trees and displayed plastic poinsettias, but—as I remember—the tackiness that is a plastic, inflated, over-lit Christmas didn't really arrive until the 70s, a decade noted for tackiness in decorating.

As for me, I'd rather have bleakness and the smell of cedar.

~

Repeating Dates

Today is 12/12/12, a date that hasn't occurred for a hundred years. On the last one, December 12, 1912, my grandmother—a young housewife living on either Hanover Avenue or Staunton Avenue in Roanoke—was six months pregnant with my mother. Her grandfather, a Civil War veteran, was still alive. The world on that 12/12/12 was considerably different than it is today.

December 12, 2012, dawned cloudy—and cooler than it's been for a while. We're in the midst of a drought. This fall is the driest it's been for ten years and the past few weeks have been unusually warm for November and December. Even some flowers are blooming, like the rosemary in my herb garden near the gazebo.

I remember my first repeating date. On May 5, 1955, I was in the fourth grade at Huff Lane Elementary School when my teacher, Mrs. Clark, told the class that today was 5-5-55. She told us that it would be eleven years, a month, and a day before we'd see another date line up like that.

Mrs. Clark and the 4th grade.
I'm in the striped dress on the center aisle on the right side.

On June 6, 1966, I'd just finished my junior year at Richmond Professional Institute (now VCU). My summer job would begin in a couple of weeks—working as an aide at a Head Start program for Roanoke County Schools. I'd be at Academy Street School in Salem that summer. I drove a blue and white 61 Ford Falcon. I was getting ready to be a bridesmaid in my roommate's wedding in mid-September.

On July 7, 1977, I was off for the summer from my teaching job at James Madison Junior High in Roanoke where I'd taught English, speech, and drama for five years. I was driving a new red Ford Pinto, a replacement for the 67 Firebird I'd bought when I signed my first teaching contract. I was still recuperating from a riding accident in March, and I'd just bought Blackie, my first horse. That summer, my husband and I went to Niagara Falls and walked across the bridge to Canada.

On August 8, 1988, I was a few weeks away from my last year teaching at Stonewall Jackson Junior High. I was driving a silver 76 Camaro, my favorite car. I was trail riding and showing Cupcake, my second horse. I owned am 80-something green Chevy Longhorn truck.

On September 9, 1999, we'd lived in Penhook for a month. I'd been retired from Roanoke City Schools for two years, but I was still driving a Camaro I now had a 94 Dodge truck, too. I'd just finished an English-teaching stint at ECPI in Roanoke and had started a part-time adjunct English instructor job at Ferrum College. And I had two horses.

Then the repeating dates came closer together: 1/1/01, 2/2/02, etc., if you count the years with those extra zeros.  Like them, 10/10/10 and 11/11/11 and today—12/12/12—were each separated by a year, a month, and a day. But today breaks the string—at least until February 2, 2022. Maybe I'll still be around for that one. Time will—I suppose—tell.

But I won't see another 12/12/12.

~

Cakes and Old

Today, I'm old, at least older than yesterday and way older than when I blogged about being old three years ago. Today marks the twelfth year I've been eligible for Kroger's senior citizen discount, and the second year I've been on Medicare. It's been years since I celebrated a birthday (What's to celebrate?) and that's fine with me. Birthday celebrations are for the young.

To celebrate my birthday when I was a kid, Mama always baked me a birthday cake. Most years she took my picture. Here I am celebrating my first birthday at my grandparents' house on what used to be Watts Avenue. My parents and I lived with my grandparents until I was two.

Guests at this auspicious occasion were my cousins, Marty and Tommy Ruble. we're sitting in a chair that their father—my Uncle Raymond—made. He made a bunch of these chairs. I guess the main entertainment for my birthday was Marty pushing me in the swing.

 

Here I am at two. Same location—notice that the swing is still hanging from the same tree. Why Do I have a tag on me that says "2"?

I still have that chair that Uncle Raymond made for me.  Now, it's painted burgundy and makes a sturdy step-stool. I'm wearing a pink dress that was crocheted for me by Mrs. Sharp, who also lived in the Rugby area. She was the mother of Irving Sharp, a playmate of my mother and uncles and who later became a local radio and TV personality. Mrs. Sharp also crocheted a matching doll coat. I still have the dress and doll coat, too.

I couldn't find a picture of birthday #3, but here's birthday #4. Location has changed to our new house on Floraland Drive in Roanoke's Williamson Road area. Ours was the last street before farmland began. Way the other side of fields and farms was the airport. 

Notice the chairs behind me. You can guess who made them, can't you? My dress, which Mama would have made, is a bit revealing for 1949, don't you think?

Here's #5. Same chairs. Better hairdo. Less revealing dress. Hated those hard shoes—same style as the previous year. Mary Janes, I think they were called.

Here's #6. I'm back in party mode, with both cousins and neighbors attending the festivities.

Billy Meador, Johnny Campbell, Marty, Tommy, me, Carolyn Ferguson, and Judy. Billy and Johnny lived up the hill; Carolyn lived next door. Behind us you can see the new houses in the new Dorchester Court neighborhood where farmland used to be. Those chairs are holding up pretty good, huh?

Here's a solo picture of me in my first car, which I'd gotten a few Christmases earlier. At six, I'm way too big for the car.

Yet another picture of me and the cake, with Dorchester Court in the background. I still have the table (made by Uncle Raymond). It matched the chairs, but Mama used it on the porch for years to hold her plants; now it holds plants on my patio.

I don't remember the dress, but I know Mama made it. I do remember the sandals which I loved because they were wonderfully comfortable. I remember being delighted that I could wiggle my toes.

. . .and here's another closer picture of the cake, even though you can't see all six candles:

In the background at right, you can see a tiny bit of the lot (the tree) that my husband and I still own. Next to what would eventually become our lot is where the Via house was built the following year.

Here's birthday #7. The socks with multi-colored sandals were an unfortunate fashion choice. Notice Mama was making me more elaborate dresses, too.

I think the photo below is #8, but it's hard to count the candles. Notice I'm wearing a cowgirl outfit and there's a cat at the bottom step of our house on Floraland.

See the little table on the porch? I still have that, but it isn't in very good shape now. I think Grandaddy Ruble made it.

In the picture below, I think it's birthday #9. (I know I was still wearing braids at age nine. A fourth grade picture of me is here.) Notice I get to wear shorts instead of those sissy dresses with sashes.

Below is #10, I think. Again, I can't see all the candles to count them. I'm sitting on the front porch and wearing a genuine store-bought dress. (I wore the same dress for school pictures, too.) I didn't wear braids anymore, but mama often subjected me to curlers. Hated having my hair rolled up!

You see the chair I'm sitting in? Mama had three yellow metal chairs on the front porch. Now they're in my yard.

Birthday #11 (or it might be 12). Note the chair is still looking good. I'm starting to grow up. 

After that year, the cake pictures ceased. Maybe I thought I was too old for birthday pictures. I still had a cake for the next few years, though.

Now, there's no more cake. Too many carbs for this diabetic.

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