GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

A REMEMBERAMBLE for Friday 13/2026

Happy Friday 13th, a day like any other that the Lord has made. It looks as if today and tomorrow will be mild and dry, but Sunday, Valentine's Day is going to be a washout. We should get measurable rain. It just hit me that although I harbor no superstitions about particular days as they relate to luck or providence, today, Friday 13th falls the day before Valentine's Day, which historically brought worse luck to me and many others than a Friday 13th ever did. Huhuhuh. I do believe that I said I would write a bit this morning of when we moved from the small house in town, to another rented home on US80 just west of Swainsboro, and some memories of that place seen here.

The "Henry place," we moved into this old house just outside of Swainsboro in 1964, and lived there for just over four years.

The old place on US80 is getting shabby, as no one lives there now, and it shows. As you see in this photograph there were no ditches there, and it was level ground right up to the highway, if you go west, the direction you see in the picture, "Pop and Esther's" store was just up the road. No outbuildings are there now, but when we moved there, there was a barn, a corncrib, a smokehouse, and an outhouse, although the house had a good deep-well and indoor plumbing. My first memory of the place was after mama and daddy rented it, and before we moved in mama was going to paint some of the rooms after the landlady bought the paint. As I said, daddy did not let her drive, so he dropped us seven kids and mama at the house, along with the paint, brushes, etc.. and there was supposed to be a door key left there so mama could get into the house. After daddy drove away, my brothers and I went exploring, while mama sat on the backdoor steps crying in frustration because someone had forgotten to leave the key. I was not yet four years of age but I remember that well. we were there all day locked out before daddy came back. The weeping then turned to the gnashing of teeth. Us boys went far afield that day, knowing to make ourselves scarce, or "scace," as it was said back then. Later, the house had been made ready and we moved in. It was a better place indeed for us since we then had woods and fields to tramp and trample. Before long after moving there, daddy's crews had begun parking some of daddy's trucks and equipment there as needed.

Daddy had two White Motor Company trucks, a red one like this and a blue one. His crews used them to move the equipment to different job sites with the low-boy trailer.

As I said, the area from our yard to the highway was flat ground, so the men left one of the Whites (White Motor Company) parked a few feet from the road just before our house and the other facing parked the same way just beyond the house. Generally they used the red one, it was a bit newer and in better shape so "old blue" sat beside the road most of the time. My brothers and I would get in the trucks to play truck driver now and then, but not regularly. One very cold morning, one of our uncles and another man who worked for daddy came to get the blue truck to use it for something, and when they opened door, there was a man sleeping in it. He was what was called a hobo, yep, just like in the movies! He had shoes made from old shoe boxes tied with string. He was not happy to be awakened and told them to leave him alone, it was his truck and he had been sleeping in it for a long, long time. They rousted him out and sent him on his way, fussing and grumbling. Bless his heart. Yep, now we feel sorry for him, but then, not so much. It was scary that he had been living in that truck right beside the road in our front yard and no one knew it. He had evidently been hoboing for a very long time and was skilled at being sneaky. There are many more storis of the saga of our growing up among strange men who came and went, but I will close with this example. As I said, daddy did not let mama drive, nor have a car, so when he was gone, we had to fend for ourselves. One day in the early fall after the cornfield behind the house was picked, it is was just stalks on the ground, we saw a man had appeared standing directly behind the house in the field, maybe five hundred feet out beyond where the backyard ended and where the field began. None of us saw him walk out there, nor knew the direction from which he had come. He was a stranger, and just standing stock-still not moving a muscle as he stared intently at our house. Mama had all seven of us younguns hurry inside. I am serious, it was just like on Gunsmoke or any western movie, when the bad guys or Indians had the cabin surrounded, and every able-bodied woman and boy, or gal had to be armed with a weapon and stationed at a window. Mama called the sheriff and told them to get out there quickly before the anticipated attack took place. Now, I will tell you this, mama was married to North Carolina hillbilly during the war and lived in Phenix City, Alabama while he was in the Army. Back then Phenix City was world famous as a "wide open town," meaning the mob, gangsters, and hoodlums ran things and it was a wild and wooly place. In reeadingher letters home from that era, she mentions having to pull gunsor use guns a good bit, and it seems that she was flirting with the idea of becoming a gangster's "gun moll" (look it up). But I digress, let's move from war era Phenix City to the outskirts of Swainsboro, Georgia, circa 1965. Mama had passed out guns and stationed our older sisters at strategic locations, you know, the bathroom window, the girls' room window, and the small window over the kitchen sink, with orders to shoot-to-k*ll...this is Facebook, I don't take chances with these idjits...and I can attest, affirm, swear to, and "gare-on-t-u," that us boys hoped there would be some shooting, and some blood, even t if it meant loosing a sister or two, I mean, we had several to choose from. That man stood out there not moving a muscle as he saw gals-with-guns-galore arrayed against him. Sadly, the Sheriff's deputies came and took him away. The whole thing was a big disappointment, even the crazy man went with them peaceably, there was not even as much as a single cussword to be heard. Okay, moron this later...

Numbers 6: 24-26, KJV

we boyz 3, babee conway, lil merle, & me