August 10 plus

Aunt Jane wrote:
An experience: Back in 1946 when we were at Mississippi State, Oby had to write a theme every Wednesday in Freshman English. He wrangled and tangled over that theme and I would help him write them. When the end of the semester came he had to do a term paper, and he chose Air Conditioner as his subject, and really got interested in writing it. It was all "above" me so he did it all by himself. He was so proud of it and handed it in and just knew he was going to get an "A" on his paper. When the teacher handed him his paper he said, " This is so far superior to the work you have been handing in all year, that you must have copied it, and I'm going to give you an "F" on this work." Needless to say he was crushed. There is a moral to this story, do your own work and not rely on anyone else's.

jm

Connie wrote:
I love your looking back memories, Aunt Jane and Emmett and everyone else. I guess what I remember most about our summer visits is sitting outside on the porch under the fan playing Hearts. It also seems like I got stung by a yellow jacket on that same porch every year!!!

Aunt Jane wrote:
Connie, I had forgotten about you children playing Hearts on the front porch. That was before A/C and you had to sit on the front porch to get a little relief from the hot summer weather. Did the same yellow jacket sting you every summer?

8/11
Something I remember: We used to have a Commissary at the foot of our driveway. Daddy kept farm supplies and different kinds of groceries, and would let the blacks that worked on the place have supplies and pay for them when they harvested their crops. We had about 25 tenant farmers, and they were what we called "share croppers" on the 1/4 with us. They got a 1/4 and we got 3/4. Each tenant had some land (am not sure how much) and they farmed it, with Daddy furnishing the land, seed and fertilizer. We can tell where the houses were located by the jonquils that come up every spring. One by one the tenants died or moved to town. They all loved us, and were very loyal to us.

8/12
Aunt Jane wrote:
Another memory: Yesterday I wrote about the Commissary, and today is about Under the Commissary. There was a ditch running under the building, and when it rained the ditch filled with lots of water. One day my brother, David, my sister, and I decided to go wading in the ditch. That wouldn't have been too much of a problem, but David had on a borrowed pair of white duck pants. You can imagine how white duck pants and muddy water mixed. Of course all of us were wet and muddy, and when Mother saw us she had a fit. Daddy wasn't home, so she would not let us in the house, because she wanted Daddy to see us as she saw us. Daddy finally came home, and his reaction was similar to Mothers. They decided we would have to eat our supper out in the yard. We had some little puppies and they came to eat with us, and were trying to eat out of our plates. I can just see us now trying to shoo them off. Am not sure how we got all that mud off of us.

JM
Connie wrote:
I will be happy to cut and paste all these Family Memories onto a blog.

Marilyn Lambert wrote:
Great idea, Connie!! I just love it!

Marilyn L.

8/14
Emmett Roan wrote:
Such a good idea. I love history. Did you know that your Grandfather, Mr. David M. Dowdell, had the first mechanical farm machinery in Claiborne County? I read that in the Looking Back column of the Port Gibson paper some years ago. I wish I had clipped that piece.

Emmett

Aunt Jane wrote:
Connie, the Blog is great. Glad you took the bull by the horns and just did it. I didn't know how, and it took you "know how" to get it done. You will have to tell us how to add things to it. Am a still a little confused as to how to add on to it. Am I supposed to keep on doing what I'm doing, and you will put it on the blog, or how will we do that? Marilyn Easley says that they can't get your blog. Glad that Tommy is visiting you this weekend. Tell him hi for us

It is my bed time. Good night.

Lots of love to each of you,

JaneMalc

A memory: Oby, do you remember when you got a fish hook caught in your head? I was in the middle of making a Chocolate Pie for supper, and you came running in with you fishing pole in your hand and told me what had happened. I turned the oven off and proceeded to take you to Dr. Segrest to get the hook our of your head. I was so upset, and told you to get in the car and then I was trying to get the fishing pole in the car, too. Oby calmly said, "Mama, if you cut the fishing line you can leave the fishing pole at home." I immediately went inside and got something to cut the line. I felt so stupid.
JM