How it all Started

 

This is a cup that I found at a gas station.  It was so funny when I bought it because it said:
2020
⭐
Would Not Recommend

As you can see, I filled in the rest of the stars and crossed out the word "not".  Truth is, I don't see anything wrong with this year.  It is as good as you want to make it!!

I was born in what is now named Lakeland Community Hospital, Haleyville, Al in 1975.  My mom and dad were cattle and chicken farmers in the town of Addison. I do not recollect much of the goings-on in our family from when I was in pre-school, but the next few sentences and posts to follow are things that I do remember.   The first one that I will share is the lesson I learned from a Poke-salad bush. I remember having a big family get together at our home.  We lived in a small rural community just on the outskirts of Addison, AL.  The name of the community was Upshaw and we had these tree-like weeds that grew everywhere and they are called Poke-salad bushes.

  As a small boy, I thought the red berries that the bush produced were beautiful and good for eating.  I plucked four or five of the black colored berries and proceeded to try and get everyone at the gathering to try the berries. Thankfully I did not ingest the berries immediately after picking them, while I was by myself.  Not to be denied, I decided that I would try them and the next thing I remember is being at the hospital and my mom telling me that the doctors had to pump my stomach. It is funny that when I go back and read what I just wrote, the story itself is not that funny, but it must have been very traumatic to me in order for me to remember that I absolutely do not want to eat any more poke-salad berries.

 I also remember terrorizing my older sister and her friends by chasing them around the house with sticks and making mud pies and thinking I could eat them.  I was diagnosed with Asthma as a kid, so I also remember being sick and being in the hospital every time the seasons changed.  But I also remember mom and dad having to work even when I was sick.  There was one particular time that I remember being sick and dad was at work in Decatur, Al, so mom had to tend to the chickens.  It was a hot day, so my mom parked our old gray Chevrolet 4x4 in between two of the 400ft chicken houses and she spread out newspapers over the windshield to keep the sun out and she let me lay down on the bench seat of that truck. I remember wanting so badly to get back to the house, it was miserable.  The times spent in the hospital wasn't bad.  Most of those trips to the emergency department (ED) were actually benign because, after the ED visit, I would be admitted to the hospital for about three days with daily breathing treatments included.  I remember my dad and I playing dominos in my hospital room during one of those seasonal stays.  That doesn't seem like much, but that memory has stuck with me, I guess because it meant a lot to me for my dad to do that.  It is amazing to me the memories that stick with a person, I don't know if my dad would remember that or not, but that is not the point.  As parents, we have no control over what our kids will remember, for that matter, we have zero control over what anyone remembers about us.  Most of these memories are bad, but just so I even it out, I also remember the time that my Grandma Carpenter took me fishing at a little pond behind our house and she helped me reel in an 80lb catfish.  Well, maybe it wasn't that big, now that I think about it, but as a little guy, it was HUGE!! Sometimes, the things that we wished people would remember, they don't.  Maybe what we should do is see every day as a gift from God and concentrate on taking that gift and doing what God has told us in His word to do with each day.  This one has gone kinda long, so I will stop here.  I hope you are enjoying it because I look forward to each day that I sit down and write.  See you next time.