December 2009

When I was about 8 we went to Lincoln Christmas shopping. We went in the Woolworth dime store on O street. I was familiar with the store, knew where the bathroom was and was pretty self suffieient. Nowdays it would amount to child abuse but then it was safe. Mom gave me $5.00 to buy my Christmas gifts, told me not to leave the store and she would be back in one hour, as she was going to another store. Right off the bat I found these plaster Nativity figures for sale. Each was priced individually, like 39 cents or 29 cents etc. I spent the whole hour googing the figures , trying to figure in my head how I could get them all and have some money left over. When Mom came back I had not bought a thing and was still looking at the nativity figures. So she helped me pick out my figures and she paid for them. She then had to wait for me while I did my other shopping. When we got home my Dad made the stable out of an orange crate. The Star was one piece of an ornament set that Mom had sent $1 to Cappers Weekly for and it glowed in the dark. That nativity set has a few chips but is the original set from my childhood and has been up in my home every year since.

School

Well it is back to school time so guess it's time for me to relay my school years. We moved from Decartur,Alabama to Friend, Ne in May 1946. That July I turned 5. so on Sept.4, 1946 I started to school in district # 68 Friend public schools., a very new red brick building. My teacher was Miss Hariette Hamilton. We had a large lovely room. In fact that room was later my Home Ec. room. A very strange thing that I've never known of in anybody but us---when I graduated for FHS I had 8 years of Home Ec behind me. In 5th grade they went to "Departmental" where we had a home room and moved about to different rooms and different teachers for different subjects. The boys had P.E. but they didn't know what to do with us girls so they started us in Home Ec. By H.S. some of the girls were tired of it and elected not to take it but not me! I loved it. We were also the first class in FHS to have driver's training. I still remain in touch and friends with several of those original classmates. I believe we got a good education in that small town school. Some of the lessons outside of the basic reading, writing and arthritimic that I was taught there I still use today. They have added onto the building and modernized it some but the old familiar is still there. If I looked out the back side of the school windows, looking west right acrossed the street form our playground was where my Father was born. Different house but same land. Now that is Roots! Go Bulldogs!

Pets

The first pet that I ever had was a chicken named "Miss Bitty Hen" because she was a very little bitty hen! My Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Cline gave her to me for Easter. The fact that we lived in an upstairs 3 room apt didn't seem to matter. She lived in a big box when I wasn't carrying her around. We took her for daily walks with a string tied to her leg. She didn't like it much if it was raining however. By fall Miss Bitty Hen was not content to stay in her box so she moved out to the farm of Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Cline. My uncle kept her separate and saved all the eggs she laid just for me!

After we moved to Nebraska I had two gray and black kittens named Smoke and Smut. But they gave me ringworm, so that was the end of that. Next I had a little rat terrier named Ginger. She was a nice little dog but her one failing was she liked to chase chickens. We and all our neighbors had chickens. So Ginger went to the Humane Society in Lincoln where they assured us she would be adopted into a chicken free neighborhood.

Next I had a Scotty named Binky. We were inseperable. But a neighbor put out poison and Binky died in our kitchen floor. I said no more pets! We did have some outside cats but I never let myself get attached to any. Then I raised an orphan kitten, Cinderella, fed with a doll bottle. She lived a long life and raised many litters of kittens. She got her tail caught in the back screen door, which she could open herself. Her tail dropped off and she only had a stub of a tail. She was sleek gray.

Through the years of raising 5 sons many pets came and went. A goat, a Guinea Pig, calves, turtles, fish, hamsters, Hermit Crabs, cats and dogs. But for the most part I did not bond with these animals.

Then we got Gizmo and MacGuyver. Gizmo was a Bichon Frise, and MacGuyver was a Shih Tzu. They were like childrren with fur! We took them on trips with us and everywhere. We lost giz when he was 14 and recently lost MacGuyver at the ripe old age of 18. We miss them so much.

The First of Susan's Stories

My youngest son seems to think I should join this century and post everything I know on the web. I'm not sure how I'll do at this but will give it a try. Next came the decision how should I compose this blog. He suggested started at the beginning of my life but I prefer going through the calandar year , as stories come to my mind. so guess we'll settle for a combination of those two things but other random stuff may very well find it's way in!

As we are beginning this around my birthday time---we'll start there. My parents had been married for years and wanted a baby very badly. Mom had some corrective female surgery and I was born a year later. I was born in Decatur , Alabama at 425 East church Street, only blocks from the Tennessee River. My father was away from home working for the Tennessee Valley Authority. I was born at home and delivered by Dr. James Y. Hamil. His nurse and my Aunt Sammie were also there. It was July 7, 1941 around 11 P.M. I weighed in at 8 pounds. My Dad had left instructions that if I was a girl to call him but if not to drop him a post card! So I guess I was just what they had ordered. We lived in an upstairs apartment which was the top floor of a big house. I was always surrounded by Aunts, Uncles, and cousins due to my Mother's big family. While I was little we often traveled to the places Dad was working {the dam sites} but always came home to our apt. We lived there until May before I was 5. but that's another story.

July 4th

When I was growing up my Dad was absolutely crazy about the 4th of July and about fireworks. We always had to have fried chicken, potato salad, and watermelon. and the more and the bigger fireworks, the better! He built troughts out of gutter to shoot the big sky rockets. And Firecrackers were huge. No lady fingers or bottle rockets for him. He was very careful lighting them but really enjoyed it. Every year he would sneak around under the kitchen window and let off a huge firecracker while mom had her back turned to the window doing dishes. She never learned he was going to do that at least once every year and she'd jump and scream , meanwhile Dad and I rolling in the back yard laughing.

One year we had planned to go to Seward, which is considered the 4th of July city in Nebraska, but it rained all day. I was so disappointed. Dad went and bought more fireworks, as it cleared toward evening. We ate our picnic at home and shot all those fireworks. The next day I remember that Dad decided to go to Lincoln to the wholesale house and Mom said we needed to go buy me new shoes , as mine were getting too small. He said he didn't have any money for shoes. Mom reminded him none too quietly how much he had "wasted" on fireworks! Somewhere they dug up the money and we went and got me new shoes.

Another 4 of July memory is the Olsons {cousins of my Dad} came for the day. Bob Olson was my hero , like the big brother I never had. He took his sister and I downtown and bought us yard long sparklers. It took us all evening to burn down those sparklers.