MAY

Have you ever seen those commercials where the old lady is laying in the floor hollering, "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up?" I always admonish my mama to keep her cellphone on her so she won't be helpless like that old woman on TV. I'm glad she listened.

I got a call last Sunday. Katie told me to get to Mama's house right away. She had fallen. Mama tried to call us but couldn't get anyone. Scout found her and called 911. We rushed up there in time to see her being loaded into an ambulance. They took Mama to the hospital to examine her. She broke her leg.

The doctor couldn't do surgery right away because she takes blood thinner medicine. They finally did surgery on Monday and the doctor inserted a long metal rod in her thigh bone. 

Mama spent several days in SICU* until they finally moved her to a private room. She sounded coherent when she was in SICU but began to sound unclear later on. I stayed with her most of the time at the hospital because she didn't need to be alone. 

It took a while for them to regulate her oxygen level and heartbeat. She began to get feisty and kept wanting to get up. She couldn't stand laying in bed any longer. Her doctor released her to go to rehab today. I'm glad because she wasn't in any shape to go home alone yet. I'd make some lame joke about my mama going to rehab if it wasn't so sad. I hate seeing her so helpless.

Everybody was concerned about Mama. Aunt Jonnie and my uncle, Robert, drove down from Chattanooga to check on her a couple of times. We went to the Oakwood Cafe for dinner while Mama was in surgery.

Patsy sent Mama some flowers in the hospital because she couldn't be there. She moved back to Illinois recently. Mary Jane had moved back to Savannah a couple of months ago to be with her son so Patsy thought it was time to move closer to Donna and Butch.

It seems like we have lost so many people we love in one way or another. I counted and I've been to four funerals since Thanksgiving. Daddy and his sister, Vivian, passed away six weeks apart. Then Scout's fiance, Katie, lost her father three weeks later. Two weeks after that, Daddy's best friend, Gordon, lost his battle with cancer. 

Since November we have lost four loved ones and Donny had a quadruple bypass. To say we are up against the wall is an understatement. I was finally glad Donny was released to go back to work and thought things were improving until Mama slipped and fell. 

I felt like we were under a stormy cloud and hoped things wouldn't get worse but they did. 

A friend of mine who is on Facebook contacted me and told me that her husband had a heart attack and they weren't able to save him. I was shocked and devastated because he was a good friend of mine, too. I've known him most of my life. Steve was four years younger than me. I couldn't believe it. I went to the funeral home to pay my respects to his family today.

It seems like when it rains, it pours. It breaks my heart that my friends and family are passing away. There are so many wonderful people that used to be in my life that are now gone. I miss them so much and I wonder if things will ever be normal again. I doubt it. Nothing's ever the same after you lose someone. I only hope all our luck improves soon.

*surgical intensive care unit

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Rachel, Steve, Connie, Maranda, Vivian, Nita, Junior, and Madison

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

RIP

Edwadene McAllister, Grampaw Carter, Ev Chastain

REMEMBER

Mother's Day, Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day

AS ALWAY

PIO

Memories

Donny and I were driving down highway 41 through Dalton the other week. We passed the old Coca Cola bottling plant and the bowling alley. I saw the little yellow brick building that used to be the State Patrol Station. I wonder how many people remember that. On up the street was a store standing where my favorite store used to be. Wood's Store used to be there. I always get nostalgic when I go by that place, even though the old building had been torn down long ago.


I told Donny about my favorite memory of going to Mr. Wood's store. Pawpaw took me and my cousins, Randy and Mike, to the store many times. We all lived near Pawpaw and he was a good and generous grampa who bought us plenty of candy and soft drinks. It was always a treat to go anyplace with our grandparents.


One time my cousins were all together so Pawpaw took us all to the store. Randy, Debbie, Stevie, Eddie, me, and probably Mike went to the store. I'm not sure Donna was with us. We all rode in the back of his old cattle truck. I remember how much fun we had riding along with the wind whipping around us as we all laughed and jockeyed around the back of the truck. We lived several miles from the store so we felt like we were on an adventure.


It's a wonder we didn't fall, or push someone out. Nowadays somebody would call the law on you for having a truckload of young ones, but when I was growing up kids must have had more sense because we rode in truck beds all the time.


When we got to Mr. Wood's, Pawpaw told us all we could get one drink apiece and some candy. We all swarmed over the sides of the truck and into the dingy little store. Woods' was unique because you had to walk into the store through an aisle with low tables lining each side filled with every kind of candy you could imagine. It was kid-friendly and heavenly. 


While Pawpaw went on into the store and talked to Mr. Woods we were squealing and arguing over which candy was the best and what we were going to pick. Pawpaw got a coke and propped up against the counter bragging about all his grandkids. He was telling the old coots that liked to hang out at the store who we were and who our parents were. Pawpaw acted tickled to death to bring us all to the store. 


After Pawpaw paid for our purchases we all climbed back in the back of the truck to wait. Pawpaw stood around smoking with the old men from the store and after they finished their conversation he took us home. 


What more perfect memory than that wonderful time that Pawpaw took us all to Mr. Wood's grocery store? 


I have to be honest. I don't remember if it said Woods on the store or Wood's so bear with me if you can remember and know the difference. 

As Always

PIO

Lake Winnie

Picture courtesy of Paul Drabek at Negative-G www.Negative-G.com

. . . or why mothers eat their young.

Like grains of sand in an hour glass, these are the days of our lives.

For joy, for joy! Long before Disney World, and even long before Six Flags Over Georgia, way back in the beginning of the TV era when I was young . . . long, long ago there was only one main attraction for all the amusement ride lovers in our area and that place still stands today. That place is Lake Winnepesaukah. The place has been here for eighty-five years and it is far better to spend the day there and ride all the rides you want to, than to drive all the way to Atlanta and stand in the lines for hours waiting to ride only a few rides. I hate waiting in lines.

Lake Winnie is the place that a lot of people got their first kiss as they rode the boat chute through the Tunnel of Love. It was reputed to have snakes sleeping in the rafters which sometimes fell into the boats of the helpless victims below. That story always had to be related aloud to some young person who was taking his first ride on the boat chute. The spooky tunnel is at the beginning of the ride.

We had some good times up there. I remember one time when we were young that my cousins Randy and Debbie and I rode to Chattanooga in our great uncle Cletus' white Cadillac. He drove below the speed limit because he believed the sign that said "Keep off the median" meant to drive below the speed limit. We all argued with him that it didn't mean to drive that slow but he wouldn't listen. Old people. Sheesh!

We had a family reunion up there that day. They rented a pavillion and the table was covered with food from one end to the other. Naturally the kids all took off to ride the rides after we ate. We lined up to ride a ride that goes across the lake. Two people to a gondola allowed you to ride high above the lake and you can look down on the people below you riding paddle boats and see all around the park. It was really high. And the water down below looked really dark and uninviting.

Debbie and I were in line behind her brothers, Steve and Eddie, but we could still talk to them. As we started across the water it became obvious that they were starting to panic. Steve was afraid of the height and Eddie was afraid of falling in the water. They kept talking about jumping off because the ride turns around at the other side and rides you back across the lake before letting you off the ride. The turn around is next to electrical wires and equipment working the ride. There are signs posted all over the place with "Warning", and "Danger".

Debbie and I tried to talk them out of jumping but they were determined not to ride back across the lake. We saw them jump. They cleared the wires and hit the ground running. We were stunned. What dummies.

By the time we got off the ride security, in the amusement park, was looking for the two boys who bailed out across the lake. Debbie and I denied knowing them. The rest of us wandered off and tried to distance ourselves from the search. We all eventually got together again and found out that Steve and Eddie had been dodging security and thought they had ditched them. Whew, that was some adventure. You wouldn't believe that years later Eddie joined the Navy and Steve joined the Air Force.

I also remember Debbie and Randy and I were playing when Moma told me it was time to leave. I wanted to stay a little longer and tried to get her to let me ride back home with somebody else. She said "No" but Debbie and Randy and I decided to run away and she started chasing me. We started running around the bumper car shed and would dart in the opposite direction when we saw her coming. This went on for a while and we were laughing and having a good time until Moma tricked me and jumped out and grabbed me when we ran the wrong way.

Moma was shaking with rage, mad enough to kill me. She had me by the hair and began shaking me by the hair of the head. I was tiptoeing and trying to get away. She was furious as she got close to me and said, "I ought to whip you right here and now but I won't, I won't . . ." and then she suddenly leaned toward me and bit me hard on the cheek. She drug me off and told me I better not talk back to her. How could I? She might bite me again. Sometimes it's best to leave well enough alone so I did. It was time to go home.

She was mad because people were watching me and my cousins running away from her and not minding her. She said one old man was watching us and laughing and that really made her mad. Oh well, I guess I learned a lesson there, about minding your mother, especially if she bites.

AS ALWAYS

PIO