Mama

Today is Mother's Day. I always miss my mom a little more on days like today. I was truly blessed to have a remarkable woman as my mother.In the late 40's my mom was a busy lady. She had 3 children, a job, and a husband who tended to drink too much after work so she had most of the everyday stuff to do by herself. Then somewhere around 1950, she had  trouble with her back and ended up having to have back surgery. Because of a doctor who was incompetent due to abuse of drugs and alcohol, she was paralyzed from the waist down. Now she had to deal with that plus try to continue to take care of her family. To complicate matters even further, in the early summer of 1951, here came one more little problem in the form of a 4 lb. baby named Ann Marie.(Me)
According to what I have been told, my oldest brother took care of Mom and of me quite a bit then. I have also been told through the years that many of the ladies in our community would come and help take care of me. One lady told me years later that I was the "community baby".But as time went on the care of her children once again became my mom's responsibility. She went from being confined to the bed  then to a wheelchair. Then she went to braces and a cane and eventually to just her braces.When I was little, I would ride on her lap. I used to claim that this was the reason I loved to ride in cars and later drive because I spent my first few years on wheels.
Mama cooked, cleaned, worked in her flowers, and did all the things other mamas did. Sometimes she would fall (pretty much like a tree) but she would get up with a little help and go right back to what she was doing. I remember once when she and I was walking from my grandmother's back home and she fell on the highway. She drug herself off to the side of the road losing a lot of skin as she went and I ran for help to get her up.My mom painted the rooms in our house, she really did anything she set her mind to do.
With all of the things that went on, our home was a happy home most of the time. There was a lot of love in that house because of my mom. There was music and laughter. Mom made sure we all developed a love of reading. Of all the lessons I learned from my mom, the ones that stick with me the most are these. Love with all your heart, never give up, and always remember God is with you all the time.

Gone Fishing!

When I was very young, one of my favorite pasttimes was going fishing. My daddy was my first fishing buddy. He would take me fishing at some of the ponds around the area and also in the creek behind our house and Deep River .  My dad taught me how to bait a hook and how to remove the fish from the hook once I had caught one. He also taught me how to  clean the fish that I caught. Those were some of my favorite times spent with my dad. But of course, not all of those trips were as safe as they should have been. I can remember one time in particular when Daddy took me fishing off the banks of the river.  He brought his 'refreshments" with him and while I fished, he drank and then took a nap under a tree. I fished for a few hours and even fell into the water .I was dry by the time he woke up and then we went home. I look back on it now and thank God that he kept me safe but back then I thought it was fun. But even then at around 8 years old or so, I had enough sense Not to tell Mama what happened. She would have thrown a fit.

Daddy used to tell me stories about things he did when he was a boy while we fished. Those are some of my favorite times with my dad. As I got older, these times became fewer because he spent more and more of his "off work" time drinking  so each one of our fishing trips are treasured memories.

God's Children

When we were around 3 or 4, my cousin and I got into what was probably our first argument. She called me "a dirty ole publican" and I called  her " a mean ole democat". From what I was told, everyone laughed and thought we were cute. Today, so called adults are still calling each other rediculous names and it is no longer cute. I wish the world would remember that "God so loved the world that he sent his Son..." It does not say God so loved the Democrats or God so loved the Republicans.There are sooooo many verses in the Bible that apply to how we should treat one another. I wish more time was spent reading those instead of screaming, yelling and lying to and about each other. We are all God's children.

Just Call Me "Big Ears"

I was born with ears just like my daddy's. This brought no comfort to me as I grew up. I was always being teased about my ears and was very ashamed of them and very self-conscious about them. I kept my hair long enough to make sure the were always covered as I became a teenager and young adult. My attitude about my ears changed in my second year of teaching. I was teaching a class of second graders. One of my students was a young man with very large ears that stuck straight out. He was teased alot about those ears at home and at school. One morning he came in with tears streaming down his cheeks. He put his coat on over his head and would not take it off. After giving him a big hug and talking to him, I found out that everyone on the bus had called him "big ears" and "elephant ears". I sat him on my lap and told him my secret. I then pushed my hair back behind my ears. His face lit up like a Christmas tree. My ears were just like his!. I told him that our ears were cool and made us special. I never again hid my ears and every time anyone picked at him about his ears he would tell them that his ears were just like his teachers and they were cool.  I learned more from him that day than he learned from me. God made me just the way he wanted me  and that is just fine.
Have you ever been ashamed of anything about you? Remember, you are the way you are supposed to be.

There's A Hole in My Biscuit, Dear Billy, Dear Billy

The title of this posting is an adaption of an old song that goes"There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza,dear Liza..." I grew up among a sister, and two brothers. My eldest brother, Donald, was 15 years older than me and was more like a second father, than a brother. My other brother, Billy, was 8 years older than me and was the bane of my existance at that time. He took his job of irritating his two sisters very seriously. Among the many tricks he used to play on me was the "hole in the biscuit".
I used to tell my children that I didn't know that biscuits came without holes until my brother left for the navy. My mother cooked a big dinner every night right down to the biscuits. If you needed anything, it would be passed around until it got to you. We sat in the same spots every night. The biscuits always set between my brother Bill and my daddy. Whenever I wanted a biscuit, my brother would take one, poke his finger into the bottom very quietly and then proceed to pass it one to me. It took me several years to discover why only my biscuits came with holes in the bottom. I should have known something was going on since my brother was always smiling and snickering when I got my biscuit.

Lessons from Mama's Kitchen

The lessons I learned from Mama's kitchen while I was growing up were many. The obvious ones were those of learning to cook many things the way Mama did. I still cook many things just like Mama. I not only learned how to cook but also how to enjoy food.
But even more important than those lessons were all the other things I learned while I was in Mama's kitchen. I learned to sing harmony as I blended my voice with the voices of my mama, sister, and father and occasionally with my two brothers. It was literally "daddy sang bass, mama sang tenor". My sister sang soprano and I sang alto. We sang without music most of the time. We just sang.
I learned the value of words sitting at the table while Mama cooked supper. I would do my homework and then I would get the dictionary and play "Try to Stump Mama". I very seldom did. That woman's vocabulary was AMAZING! I would thumb through the dictionary picking out words. I would read the definition and she would guess the word. Sometimes I would read the word and she had to give me the definition. Little did I know that while I was working so hard to "stump Mama" she was expanding my vocabulary and making me a better reader.
Another lesson I learned in the kitchen was actually from my daddy and not my mama. My daddy use to dance with me as we sang or as the radio played.  It was made up silly dances but it filled me with joy and a love for dance.
Our family always sat down together for dinner. We had a big "eat-in"kitchen. Everybody knew what time supper was and that we had better have our behinds in those chairs. We ate ,talked, laughed, and solved the worlds problems sitting at that table. When I had my own family I tried to do the same and managed to succeed most of the time .If I could wish one thing for families today, it would be for them to have the opportunity to create their own "lessons from mama's kitchen".

Graduation Day

What a day it has been! Today is my sixty-first birthday. It is also my "Graduation Day".After 55 years of going to school either as a student or a teacher, I have finally stopped going to school. Today I retired from teaching. I am happy, excited, scared, and grateful all at the same time. I have been blessed to be able to do what I love to do for so many years.  I decided to be a teacher when I was seven years old. I never once changed my mind. One thing I promised myself was that if I ever felt that I could not do the job to meet my standards that I have set for myself that I would leave. My students deserve the best each and every day. Over the last week or so it has become obvious that that time has come. I will always love teaching and in a few months will sub now and then, but for now I am excited to start a new chapter in my life. I feel that God has opened this door for me . I can't wait to see the blessings that are awaiting.