Sunday, August 22, 2010

Count Down To The Big 70

Well I have started my count down to my 70 TH birthday, wow can you believe? My life has been in like three segments the West Virginia years, 13 of them, the Maryland years, 20 of them, and as of May of 2010 I have been in Florida 37 years. I am taking a little trip down memory lane,  if  you are interested hang on and come along. About 4 or 5 years ago a man was writing a book about my home town of Cass, West Virginia and he asked me if I would write about my years living in Cass and I wrote 9 pages, I can't do that for my BLOG so I will try to give you the condensed version. LOL

I was born in Cass on September 18, 1940 delivered at home by Dr. Hanna, he told my parents Sam and Margaret I was the prettiest baby he had ever delivered, LOL Maybe they believed him and decided not to try to improve on perfection, LOL so any way I was an only child.

For any of you that have ever watched the Andy Griffith show growing up in Cass was just like growing up in Mayberry. Cass was a saw mill town and logging town owned by a company The Mower Lumber Company. Most of the people worked for the company, rented their homes from the company, and bought just about every thing they owned from the company store. Tennessee Ernie Ford had a song called I Owe My Soul To The Company Store and that's what most of the people in town did.

Our jail had two cells, our town cop did not carry a weapon, our fire truck was a two wheel trailer pulled by the firemen and they would hook the hose to fire hydrants scattered around town. LOL Luckily we didn't have many fires. The nearest hospital was about 30 miles away.

Spanking was allowed in school and I can remember at least three times having it happen to me. LOL.

We had no TV, families sat around the radio and listened to shows like The Lone Ranger, Amos & Andy, even the soap operas were on the radio. Not a lot of excitement in our little town but when we were not in school we were outside until dark and sometimes later, it was safe to be out back then. Except for my Dad dying when I was 12 tears old I have nothing but great memories growing up in our small town. No organized sports but we played all the sports sandlot style and lots of time at  the old swimming hole. Oh we did have a movie theatre, open on Friday and Saturday. About 20 miles away we did have a drive-in movie that was open 7 days, we didn't own a car until I was about eight so we bummed a lot of rides, when we would go visit family we would go by train or bus.

Will try to get my thoughts in order about the Maryland years.
3 Months Old, check out the smile.
They don't make strollers like that any more. LOL
My Dad and my first dog Pat
Women always like a man in a uniform, my Uncle came home on leave from the Navy and brought me that suit.
Always had an eye for the pretty girls.
Such an innocent kid
That's me in the middle, a real hillbilly kid. LOL
Every kids dream to get a bicycle for his birthday
Until I moved to Maryland when I was 13 years old I had swam in a real swimming pool maybe twice in my life. Good old swimming hole.
Not saying I'm old but the helmet is made out of leather LOL
Pretty spiffy for a hillbilly boy LOL

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Watching Carter Grow

Wow, Monday August 16, 2010 my little buddy Carter will be starting kindergarten, just another milestone in his young life and he has had so many already.As most of you know that read my BLOG I get a lot of ideas about what I want to write about from listening to music. Unless you are of an advanced age you probably have never heard of a singer named Bobby Goldsboro but he wrote a song many years ago about his son called Watching Scotty Grow. I heard that song played the other day and it made me think about what it has been like watching Carter grow.

I was at the hospital about an hour after he was born on February 1, 2005 and the first time I held him I just knew it was going to be a very special Papa, Grandson, relationship and it surely has been. He has brought so much joy to my life I get get emotional just thinking how special it has been. We have had so many great times together, especially our one on one times when we we have gone to the park,when he has went with me when I do my part time job, the wonderful times we have spent together at McDonalds, the times I have kept him when Mommie and Nana have had things to do, and the list just goes on and on.

He is such a great kid, so polite, so caring, so helpful, always happy, always smiling and so out going. He has had such great guideance from Brett, Barbara, Bill and Susan the other grandparents, Nana and hopefully from his Papa also.

And now he is doing the part of being a great big brother to his brother Griffin.

I am posting just a few of the hundreds of pictures I have him, LOL so you can see a few stages of his life.

Carter your Papa loves you so much and he knows that kindergarten is just going to be the first step to a wonderful future for you and he hopes he can be around a long time to share some of it with you.