More on Christmas

Christmas will soon be upon us and I have been dredging through my memories for my most memorable Christmas.

There is the one Christmas when I received a brand new bicycle, my very first adult sized bike. My brother Carl (by the way, I was six years old before I found out his name was Carl not Brother), also got a bicycle, but his was not brand new, it was recycled. My dad had taken my old smaller bicycle, repainted it and added what I would call a passenger rack on the back. He had also painted Carl’s name on the chain guard. I have to admit, I envied that bicycle, though mine was new, his was a lot nicer.

Now, my most memorable and favorite Christmas was the Christmas of 1973. That was the first Christmas I shared with my new bride, Vicky (by the way, that’s just the name she has been call all her life, her name is really Vilinda). Vicky and I became husband and wife on December 22^nd of that year and will be celebrating our 39^th anniversary tomorrow.

In those 39 years we have celebrated and enjoyed many memorable Christmases as our family has grown to include 2 sons-in-law and 6 beautiful grandchildren.

Til next time…. MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE.

Christmas, Christmas Time is Near

My mom tried to get her Christmas decorating done last week, but her doddering old man (my dad) and his cat Sam managed to nearly destroy her work.  She ended up taking the first tree down and replacing it with another.  She usually has a house full at Christmas time with my sister, Sheila, and family coming from North Carolina; my brother, Shawn, and family coming from Texas and of course me and my local family and probably my brother, Carl, whom I have written about previously, and his wife and youngest daughter.

Carl and I have the honor of having older married children and grandchildren.  Carl’s daughter Kime’ will be giving him another grandchild this coming year and his son, Donovan’s wife will also bring him another grandchild.

Vicky (my dear wife) and I have six grandchildren.  Our daughter, Robyn (the oldest) gave us our first, a beautiful little girl who has since grown into a beautiful young lady, her name is Hayley.  A funny thing happened shortly after Hayley’s birth, Vicky became pregnant with our youngest daughter Lilly and Robyn became pregnant with our second grandchild Dalton.  So Hayley is a year older than Lilly and Dalton is three weeks younger than Lilly. Cole, her last child, came as a bit of a surprise, but has been a blessing to us all.  I really had a lot of fun messing with people’s minds at our church after Lilly was born.  I would change out the kids on Sunday morning, so they never knew whether I had Lilly, Hayley or Dalton.

Jaime, daughter number two, also has three kids.  D’vante, from her first marriage and Elijah (Eli) and Chloe from her current marriage, we don’t expect any more from her since Chloe and Eli caused her some serious health problems.

We currently have a 21 year old son, Ethan, and, of course, 14 year old Lilly still living at home.  Ethan is enrolled at Enterprise State Community College and expects to transfer to Auburn to complete his degree.

Enough, this is supposed to be about Christmas.

I recently told a friend how I gave Vicky a box of Crackerjacks one Christmas.  When she unwrapped the box she just stared at it.  I told her to open it up and see what kind of prize she got.  When she opened the box inside was a pair of ear rings, all she could say after that was, “How did you do that.”  I told her that I slit the top of the box open and took the original prize out and replaced it with the ear rings, then sealed the box back up so that you couldn’t tell it had been opened.  I did the same with Jaime, but instead of a replacement prize, I left directions to her special prize.

There have been many memorable Christmas over the years and hopefully there will be many more.  We must all continue to remember that there would not be a Christmas without Christ.  Merrrrrry Christmas.

Til next time…..

Adventures at Maw and Paw’s

It was just your average wood frame farm house, but it was huge to a little boy.  I speak of my Maw and Paw’s house.  A lot of memories were made there.

The house as it appears today.

It had the high ceilings.  One room had a fireplace and  it was in this room that I can remember playing underneath a large frame which hung from the ceiling.  The frame held the makings of a quilt and was surrounded by my Maw, aunts, cousins and other neighborhood ladies, busily sewing the quit together.

When I was a kid, I was like a lot of young'uns; I liked to plunder through drawers and things to see what I could find.  It was during one of these plundering's that my plundering came to a complete halt.  I pulled out the drawer of an old dresser in a back bedroom and a snake stuck its head out, thus ending my plundering days.

That was not my only encounter with a snake.  On another occasion I was simply sitting in front of the fireplace when a snake poked its head up through a hole on the edge of the brick hearth.

On both occasions the snake was a harmless king snake, so there was no chance of harm, but they definitely scared the living daylights out of a young Ronnie.

My aunt Marie Anderson, my late uncle Mutt’s (Lloyd) wife, lives in the house now.

Til next time….

Oh, Brother

As a young boy growing up I spent a lot of time around my maw and paw (mom’s parents). We lived with them for a while during the mid-fifties, after my dad was drafted into the army. It was during this time that the following incident occurred.

On this particular day in my life, paw was having trouble getting his old car to start, so he and mom tried starting it by pushing it off. They pushed it down the hill toward my great uncle Harvey’s house, but it still refused to start.

While they were doing all the work, my brother Carl and I were in the back of the car. Carl was not quite 2 years old at the time (I believe that’s right) and had the bad habit of drinking just about anything. He happened to find a can of lighter fluid in the floor board of that old car and before I knew it had taken a swallow of it. The minute he did, he went out like a light. I let out a yell and got mom and paw’s attention. Mom grabbed him up and they went to work trying to get him to wake up. Mr. Miller, the area mailman, happened along at about that time and wasted no time getting mom and Carl into his car and off they sped.

Needless to say, there were some tense moments after that, but mom and Carl returned home safely later that day. Mr. Miller had gotten them to the hospital on time and the doctor pumped Carl’s stomach out and got him revived. Mom told us that Mr. Miller went through Opp running every traffic light, blowing his horn and flashing his lights.

Thanks to Mr. Miller’s quick action and the doctor and staff at Mizell Memorial Hospital, my brother Carl survived his life threatening ordeal.

This event happened because Carl was young and didn’t know any better, but there is one other incident that was pure stupidity. Til next time…