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.