April 6,
1981. It is nine o’clock on Monday
morning. Jeanne has just gone down to
surgery and here I sit waiting again.
She is so sweet. How many times
have I sat in hospital rooms. A wise man
once said, “God heals, doctors just
help.” I really believe that. Tomorrow is April 7 and Loran and I will have
been married twenty-nine years. They
have been good years. As a small child
just living hand to mouth, I never dreamed I would ever find some one like
Loran Kay “Lefty” White. We were married
at Piggott, Arkansas. Those who were
there were Cliff and Betty, Mother and Papa Thomas, three month old Wyona,
Loran’s mother, Uncle Matt and Aunt Alice.
They all went with us to watch us tie the knot.
Loran has
never been in good health. The doctors
told his mother that he would never live to be a man, but he fooled them. We are planning on at least another
twenty-nine years. We have always loved
to be at home. We never had a baby
sitter watch our children when they were small just so we could go out and
party. In fact, we never partied.
“Memories
are the only paradise from which we cannot be driven.” And my memories are the things I want to
leave. When I finish this, who ever
reads it will know who I am and where I came from. Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do
without. This is the way it has
been. As a child at Lafe, our wildest
dreams was that some day we would have a man who loves us and gives us a large
family, a job making ten dollars a day, a bath with hot water, and a new car.
I can still
see the old house that was our home. It
still stands. Her old roof is all rusty
and the chimney is falling down. The
porch is rotted almost out and bushes are pushing up through the floors. But as I look at you “old House”, I don’t see
your rusty roof or your sagging oak beams.
I see the warm gray smoke coming out of your chimney and Pa Thomas
sitting on the porch steps twiddling his thumbs. The wood box is full of cook wood by the
kitchen door and the water buckets are full on the water stand where the wash
pan sits with the towel fluttering in the cool breeze. The wood on the end of the porch is neatly
stacked, so that we can have a warm fire on cool mornings.
I can still
hear mother calling from the kitchen window, “Dinner is ready.” Papa Thomas is out in the barnyard taking
care of the animals and the children are playing around. In the early morning, Earline and I would
jump out of bed and run down the stairs out the front door. On our way by the June apple tree that was
behind the chicken house, we would gather as many as we could that were big
enough to eat and start eating them.
Then we let the chickens out.
Springtime
was a busy time. The large garden had to
be planted and the potato patch was made ready.
We always planted plenty of popcorn and peanuts, too. Life on the farm was very nice. Hard work, but still nice. We all worked very hard, chopping cotton,
taking up hay, picking berries, gathering corn, and killed our own hogs.
