As we add, hopefully, more and more, these will probably get it’s own page by Author, but for now, they are all here. ENJOY!
In 1980, I was working at West Georgia College. We were moving to a house that wasn't ready, so we stayed with Mother and Daddy a bit. I was lying on the sofa one night, sick as a dog (probably getting the flu), hurting all over and planning to call in sick the next day. Four-year-old Brandon came over to me, put his little hand on my forehead and prayed, "God heal Mama, please, in Jesus' name. The End." Within half hour, I got up, feeling fine, went to work the next day, and from then to now, believe Brandon's prayer brought a miracle.
Sometime in the 1940's, Winston and Harold were sound asleep when all of a sudden, Winston punched Harold and said, "There's A DOG in here!" Turns out it was Daddy. He'd sneaked in after a night of carousing, drunk and probably passed out, he was at the foot of the bed snoring.
Near the end of her life, Grandmother Hix was blind, crippled and just about deaf. Shortly after Stacy was born, she told Mother, "That baby is so sweet, but I'll never understand why they named her Sassy!" Till the day she died, Gran'maw called her Sassy.
"WHY did they name her MEDICINE???"
At Villa Rica COCOP, Danny and I were sitting together during service. Stacy was in Danny's lap, and she looked around, sighed, and said, "Awww Sh#t!" Danny stopped cursing around her after that.
Daryl was spending the night with Mother & Daddy and suddenly decided he wanted to go home. (He was really little.) Daddy got aggravated when they couldn't get him to change his mind. Daryl kept trying to talk to Daddy to make up, but Daddy wouldn't say much. Daryl got quiet a few minutes and finally, said, "Grandpa! How come snakes don't got no ears?" Daddy started laughing and that was the end of his "mad spell."
They were about 6, in the back seat of my car, and Lisa was telling Stacy about a movie she'd seen. She said, "THEN he stabbed him in the chest with a knife and GUESS WHAT??? There wasn't a God or a Devil in there! Just BLOOD!"
As told by Mother: "Everyone was a Miss White's house one Sunday and Beverly went missing. I was scared to death she'd gotten in the road. After about an hour of looking everywhere, Miss White yelled, "I FOUND HER!" She was sound asleep in the middle of a pile of Winston's hound dogs."
She also insisted at 4 that she was old enough to drink "foffee."
When Stacy was about 5, she said she wanted to be a nurse when she grew up. I said, "That's great! You can be anything you want to be!". She looked at me skeptically and said, "Uh uh!!! I couldn't be a doctor!". I don't think she believed what I said after that... 🫣 When she was 12, she told me she wanted to be a psychologist.
When Brandon was about five he had the cutest little powder blue suit and print tie. He'd get Daddy's piano bench and pull it over so that the other cousins could be his congregation to listen to him do a sermon. Man! He could preach!
1994: Mother, Corina and Rose came to visit me in Nashville. We were trying to find the famous Stockyard Restaurant. A man was walking down the street and I pulled over and asked mother to see if he could give us directions. Mother rolled down the window and said, "Excuse me! Can you tell me how to get to the stockade?"
1994: Mother, Corina and Rose visited me in Nashville and we got to the night club for some live music. After teasing Mother we'd have to keep an eye on her since she was a man magnet, Rose couldn't stop laughing when we got out of the car, and Mother said, "C'mon, yall! We got to get BUSY!!!"
Circa 1964, David was playing with matches in the kitchen and set fire to the kitchen curtains. Lesson learned! 🤣 I don't remember anything about that except seeing those curtains swoosh immediately into flames. David? Would love the rest of that story. 🙂
Circa 1963, one weekend, Uncle Albert, Uncle Robert, and Daddy decided to swap houses. Within 48 hours, we had all moved based on that Friday night conversation at Grandmother's house. Robert took our house next to Grandmother White, we took Albert's house next to Grandmother Hix, and Albert took Robert's house. As far as I know, everybody was satisfied with the changes.
When I married in 1972, it was hard for me to buy tomatoes, cucumbers, apples, peaches, pears, blackberries, cherries and plums. All we had to do when I was growing up was walk out in the yard at either Grandmother's house and pick them! True story!
Danny was a hunter when I married him and I suspect still is. I decided I was going to share that hobby with him so, taking my hints 😁, he bought me a double barrel shotgun for Christmas. Within a couple of months, we had an in-home demonstration for the newest version of stainless steel cookware. I got the full set in exchange for a double barrel shotgun.
The first year Stacy was old enough to understand what Christmas was about, on Christmas morning, I called to her from the living room full of presents just waiting for her and yelled "Stacy! Stacy! Santa came!" No response. I yelled again, "Don't you want to see if Santa came???" Her reply? "He didn't." I will never in my life forget the look on her face when I finally convinced her to join us in the living room. She walked in, threw up both hands, eyes opened as wide as possible (she had the most adorable eyebrows!) and , "He DID!!!!! Santa came!" That year, I got Danny to take a pic of my leg and foot in red pj's and a black boot to make it look like he almost got a pic of Santa! It was magical to Stacy!
Daddy loved his grandchildren! Every single one of them! When I lived three or four houses away, I'd be sitting in the living room watching TV and all of a sudden I would see Daddy's motorcycle passing by with Brandon on the back. I hadn't even heard him pull in, much less seen Brandon hopping on the back.
Across from Aiken's Store, there was an encampment of REAL Romanian Gypsies, complete with painted wagons and tents. (It was behind Aiken's Laundromat that Mother used when her ringer washer was on the fritz.) Debbie used to scare me by telling me that Mother was taking me with her to the laundromat on Saturday to use me as a trade for something with a Gypsy woman.
Daddy was coming home with Papa, Harold, Winston and David when he saw something at the mailbox jump into the tall grass. It wa me. I barely remember it at 4 years old, but THAT I do remember: For some reason, after my bath, I put on some little gloves and went to get the mail. I forgot my clothes. SO embarrassing sitting in Papa's lap and the long driveway seemed even longer looking in the backseat seeing David, Winston and Harold snickering!
After eating Sunday dinner at Mother's, we were all sitting around in the living room talking. Wayne started sneezing when Danny asked simultaneously with Wayne falling over to give Debbie a kiss on the cheek, "Do you get like that very often?" Danny meant being sneezy, but Debbie didn't miss a beat about Wayne's smooch. She said, "Not often enough these days!" It was AT LEAST 10 minutes of laughing before anyone could speak again.
We absolutely thought it was gospel that, if you killed a snake, it didn't die until the Sun went down.
I loved being taken to Raymond's store a mile away during hot Summer days. Grandpa would carry me when I was 5 on his shoulders to visit Pauline and Raymond's store and get me a Coke! 5 cents in those days with 2 cents refundable on returning the glass bottles! (David probably still has the baseball glove he earned.)
"It seemed like Grandpa always had a motorcycle. But he pronounced it motor-siccle, like bicycle. To this day I have never heard anyone else call it a motor-sickle." -from Daryl
1960: Mother kept a jar of starch in the fridge for ironing. We also always had a jar of drinking water. One day, I drank from the starch jar. Daddy saw it and told me I was going to die. He stooped, took my hands, and told me to go lie on the sofa because soon, I'd become stiff.
Grandpa had a “preacher’s voice” that he always used when preaching. He looked so serious and he actually looked like he was mad when he was preaching, he had such a serious face.
So MANY times, when Grandpa's brother, Henry, would walk up the road to visit, I'd be playing Uncle Lyndon's player piano. They'd be trying to talk when Grandpa would turn to me and say, "I'LL GIVE YOU A NICKEL IF YOU STOP AND GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY!" I never made him give me a nickel, but still he'd take me to the store to buy candy!
Grandpa Hix was a dairy farmer. When I was about 17, Grandmother gave me one of the old milk cans they'd had for decades. I LOVED it! I don't know what happened to it over the years, but what I wouldn't give if I still had it!
My kids did so many things that were SO adorable and sweet, I remember thinking, "I will never, for as long as I live, forget this!" Guess what? I didn't write them down, and I have forgotten so many thing.😭
Mother used to worry about Brandon when he played with Daryl. 🙂 Daryl wasn't afraid to try anything at least once! Brandon wanted to be like Daryl so he tried keeping up as best he could. Luckily, they both survived but the stories each could tell...!
One of Mother's best friends, Elsie Mae Golden, was on her death bed. Mother went to visit and while she was there, Elsie's face suddenly transformed into one of peace, comfort and joy. She told Mother, "Jesus just walked in to take me home!!!" Elsie passed within hours. If I remember correctly, she was in her 30's. It was because of her deaf mute son, Danny, that I learned sign language.
At Debbie's one day during a family dinner, Beverly walked outside to smoke a cigarette. Wesley was sitting on the front step, and when Beverly lit up, he said, "You know you're going to Hell for that, don't you?" I said something to the affect that yes, I knew that and that is EXACTLY why he should never try it! ---Only one of my favorite memories of this sweet boy!