Father's Day, Old Home, Grandma, a Song

I hope all the fathers had a good Father's Day. Charlie, the kids (including our niece Samantha) and I went to La Hacienda for dinner. I thought maybe he would choose a steak restaurant or Italian, but he went for cheap (but delicious) Mexican. Well, it was his day and his choice. :-)

Shortly after coming home from eating, I took Samantha back to her home in Raleigh. Charlie stayed home to paint the doors and trim on the storage building he built several years ago. After talking with my SIL for a bit, I took my kids by the house I lived in in Raleigh when I was 11/12 years old. It's only a couple minutes away from the apartment Sheila and Samantha live in. The last time I had seen the house was in about '94 and whoever was living there had really ugly'd up the place. But now it looks really nice. The brick has been painted a cream or light taupe color and the siding has been replaced with what looks like cedar shingles/siding. The deck has also been spruced up and painted. It made me happy to see the house looking nice and updated. I'd love to know how it looks on the inside, but at the same time I want to only remember it the way it was when I lived there.

By the time the kids and I got home it was about 8:00 and I was pretty hungry. Charlie said he didn't care what we ate, even after telling him that it was still his day. Kelly wanted Steak and Shake (she'd never eaten there before and I had only eaten there once about 16 years ago) and that was fine with Charlie, so that's where we went. Kelly got a hot dog, though she'd talked about wondering what their burgers were like, and Charlie and I got burgers, which were pretty good. We may have to eat there again sometime.

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I've been doing some much needed housework today. Seems like I wasn't home much over the weekend and between Charlie, the kids and Charlie's 9-month-old puppy Milo (a Jack Russell) who vomited on the carpet twice after eating those black 4th of July "snakes", the house is a bit of a wreck. Though less so now after getting some cleaning done.

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Fourteen years ago today my paternal grandma passed away. She and I were very close. I wish she were still here so that my kids could know her and so she could know them. She was a very funny woman and I loved her very much.

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Charlie had to go to Norfolk, VA, today for work. He said he might be home by Wednesday or Thursday. I miss him already.



An old song, but they've been playing it on the radio a lot lately and I love it.

Down at the Docks in Simpler Times

It was a warm afternoon and the fishing boats were coming in. We road with Mom to the docks on the Cape Fear River in Southport, wind blowing in our hair, laps unbelted, legs sticking to the vinyl seat.

Mom pulled into the gravel parking lot at the fish house, parked the car and turned it off. My little brother and I got out of the car with Mom, our bare feet barely noticing the rocks we stepped on. The strong scent of fish was in the air, as it always was. It was not an offensive smell to me. It was as normal as any other smell.

I went straight to the drink machine, wanting a Grape Nehi. Mom happened to have some extra change and got my brother and I each a drink. We stood there drinking our sodas while we waited for our dad and watched the fishermen go about their business of unloading the fish and getting them ready to sell to local markets and seafood restaurants.

Things were taking a little longer than our impatient little minds could stand, so my brother and I, with our mom following, walked down one of the old, narrow, rickety docks to look at the water and the other fishing boats. My brother, who would grow up to be much more daring than I, was a little more wary about getting too close to the end of the dock.

Me, age 5. Del, age 4.

After a while, Dad was about done for the day, so we headed back to the fish house.

When it was time to go, we all piled into the car. Dad's face was red from the sun reflecting off the water while they were out at sea, his hair was windblown, his skin was grimy from the salty air. He couldn't wait to get a shower and relax on the couch at home.

The road home seemed long with its endless sea of tall longleaf pine trees on either side and its lack of curves. My brother and I often fell asleep in the back seat when it was nighttime. The wind was cool as it blew into the car at night, even in the summer. We would huddle under jackets, listening to Dad's Gordon Lightfoot 8-track playing in the car stereo until our heavy eyes shut and we drifted off to sleep.

Finally we would come to the little dirt road we lived on. We passed Grandma's house on the way to ours. She lived about a half a mile, if that, from our house. Many times my brother and I would walk to Grandma's without telling Mom ahead of time. She always knew that that's where we'd gone and never worried. Different times.

Our little brick house sat across from the train tracks. There were tall pine trees to the right of it and behind it. They seemed to go on forever. Through the woods was a small lake we played in all the time. Blackberry bushes were also nearby. When my mom's dad would visit we would sometimes walk down to the blackberry bushes and pick blackberries.

It was a simple life. We were poor, but my brother and I didn't realize that. It was just normal life to us. We had our own chickens and grew some of our own vegetables. Dad brought home clams whenever he'd go clamming with his dad and brothers and would make clam chowder with them. He also hunted deer, the meat of which was sometimes used in meals instead of beef, and he sometimes brought home fish. Flounder was my favorite and still is to this day.

Though things weren't always as they should've been in my childhood, I still look back on my early years in Southport and Boiling Spring Lakes with nostalgia. Life was simpler, safe, more innocent.

I always get homesick for Southport in the springtime. I didn't get to go last year and I'm really hoping I can this year.

Rambling Down Memory Lane

I reckon I'm feeling a little country at the moment. I was getting tired of my previous background and in my search for a new one, I was drawn to the one I have now.

As I've said before (in my old blog, not linked to in my profile), a true Southerner will have at least a touch of country in 'em. :-)

When my brother and I were little and living in Boiling Spring Lakes, along the North Carolina coast, we went everywhere barefooted. (Well, except for church. We put on shoes for that.) It didn't matter if the black pavement in the grocery store parking lot was hot as fire, nor did it matter that we were always getting sandspurs in our feet, stepping on itch weed and having to dodge fire ant mounds while playing in the yard, we were barefooted.

One of my favorite pictures of my brother and I is of us standing on the docks in Southport, NC, where our dad worked as a fisherman and clammer. My brother was 4 years old and I was 5. I'm wearing a gold/tan dress, my favorite for a long time, and we're both barefooted. I need to scan and post it sometime. My mom loves the picture so much that she had it blown up years ago, framed it and hung it on her wall.

We lived on a dirt (well, sand) road in Boiling Spring Lakes. My paternal grandparents lived maybe ¼ mile up the road from us and many times I would just up and start walking to their house to see my grandma. She and I were always very close. I spent the night with her often when I was little, up until we moved to Oklahoma. (We lived in several other places after that.) She would make what she called "Jesus bread" for me all the time. It was just flour tortillas heated in the oven with butter melted over it, but I loved it. She also made me a red satin nightgown (red was my favorite color then) with a robe to match when I was about 4 or 5.

She passed away in June of 1997 after less than a year of battling lung cancer. (She wasn't a smoker.) Sean was only 2½ months old at the time. I'm glad she got to see him and hold him before she died. I often wish she could've lived long enough to really get to know Sean and to also get to know Kelly. I wish they could've known her too. She would've adored them. And they would've loved her. She was very funny and I believe she would've had them laughing like she always had me (and the rest of our family) laughing.

I think most of the time she was unintentionally funny. It was just the way she said and did things, and how she often got my cousins and I mixed up. "Shannon, Jessica, Christine, ... Niki! You know who you are."

Grandma was mostly Irish (her dad was Irish and her mom was Dutch and Irish) and her birthday was on St. Patrick's Day. She didn't have an Irish name though, other than her maiden name - Tracy. She was from Masssachusetts (Springfield) and most of her surviving siblings and their kids and grandkids and great-grandkids still live up that way.

I'd love to someday find out more about my ancestry on her side (and all sides) and hopefully trace it back as far as I can in Ireland. All I know about her father, other than him being Irish and his name of course (William), is that he hated Italians. I have no idea why. I find it funny that he hated Italians and my pastor is Italian. Wonder what ol' Great-Grandpa Tracy would think of that. ;-)

My paternal grandpa's people were from Oklahoma and were Irish, Welsh and Cherokee. One of his brothers was killed by the police when he was in his late teens/early twenties. Grandpa and his brother Owen had picked up a hitch-hiker, not knowing he was running from the law, and when the police caught up to them I reckon they thought my grandpa and his brother were with him. They shot at the car, killing Uncle Owen, who was in the backseat. Shoot first, ask questions later. :-/ Grandpa was arrested and spent a few months in jail before things got cleared up.

Well, I hadn't intended to get into family history when I started this entry. I'm sorry if I bored anyone who may have bothered to show up at my little blog and read this.

Tidbits

It's been a little over a week now since I quit taking Yaz and so far no headaches. I hope they're really gone for good. They made me miserable; sometimes to the point of nausea.

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Have you ever had someone ruin something you once enjoyed? I remember back when I was in my late teens to around twenty, a perfume called Escape was popular with my friends. I thought it smelled really wonderful, but never bought a bottle myself.

When I was twenty, I began working at a shoe store here in Greensboro. My boss (Deborah) wore Escape perfume. That alone was enough to make me no longer interested in buying and wearing it. (I remember wearing Giorgio at that age. I now wear Beyond Paradise.) But to make things worse, she began having an affair with my dad. Yeah, that pretty much completely ruined it for me.

Then one day my mom came storming into the store, grabbed me by the hand and dragged me out. She said, in a less than quiet voice, that I was not coming back to work for that "whore". Soon after I quit, Deborah moved in with my dad, who had left Mom or had been kicked out by her.

All these years later, I can't smell Escape without it reminding me of Deborah. :-/

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We got our state refund yesterday. (Federal came about a month ago.) Charlie (who's still in Texas) asked me if there was anything I've been wanting. Hmm. Haven't really thought about it really. My main buying interest for the past few months has been books. I did see a copper canister set at World Market that I really liked. And I've been wanting to get a pepper mill. I'm really into cooking and making things from scratch lately. Nothing else comes to mind at the moment. Maybe I'll just go to World Market and grab a few things.

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Underneath Sean's toe nail (the one on his right big toe that he sprained) the color has changed from light purple to nearly black. It's still sore of course, but he's doing okay.

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I watched Lost in Austen late Thursday night. I really liked it. There are several humorous moments that made me laugh out loud. I recommend it to anyone who's a fan of Pride and Prejudice. Yes, things get changed in the story, but it's still enjoyable to watch.

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I added a few songs to my music player. (In the right margin.) "I Told You So" by Carrie Underwood (originally done by Randy Travis), "Against All Odds" by Phil Collins, "Right Here" by Staind, two songs by David Cook ("Permanent" and "Come Back to Me") and "Mad World" by Adam Lambert.

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Breakfast for supper is one of my favorite things. Last night I made French toast for Kelly and pancakes for me and Sean. :-)

I may make rigatoni with tomato cream sauce tonight or salisbury steak with homemade macaroni and cheese. Haven't decided yet.

Memory Lane

Kelly and I got groceries yesterday and ate supper at La Fiesta. (Sean was at Mom's.) Later in the evening, we went to Borders and bought some more books. I got Shopaholic Takes Manhattan and Shopaholic Ties the Knot. Kelly got another Magic Tree House book.

The weather was so beautiful yesterday. We rode around with the windows down and enjoyed the breeze. A couple times while we were out, this feeling of being in Southport and at the beach hit me strongly. Just something about our short sleeves, sandals, flip flops, pleasantly warm sun, and the gentle breeze really put me there in my mind. Seeing seagulls flying above us and walking around in the parking lots added to it. Why seagulls come so far inland I don't know.

This brought memories of my life in the Southport area to my mind and made me long to visit there again. I hope y'all won't mind if I take a little stroll down memory lane.

I was born in Wilmington and lived in Southport and Boiling Spring Lakes (a small "town" outside of Southport) for several years as a child. Life was very simple then. I don't know if my mom would agree or not. Things were probably hard for her because of my dad's drinking, pot smoking and unwillingness to hold down a job for very long. But when you're a small child, some things just go unnoticed. You're blissfully unaware of the hardships around you. Yes, I witnessed a couple situations I wish I hadn't, but overall my brother and I were very happy.

We lived in a little house on a dirt road. Diagonally across from our house was a short road (about the size of a driveway actually). There were blackberry bushes there and I can remember picking them with my maternal grandpa. (Who lived outside of Fayetteville, but would come visit from time to time.) Beyond the little road and the mass of trees were railroad tracks. Behind our house and to the right of it (as you were facing it) were many tall pine trees. Many times we walked through the woods behind our house, crossed a dirt road, and went swimming in the small lake there. It's now privately owned. A lot of people from up north have come down and built houses in an area that used to be all trees and dirt roads. It's sad.

My paternal grandparents lived about ¼ mile or so down the road from us. From a young age, I would walk down that road by myself and visit my grandma. My mom would either call Grandma's or show up to see if I was there. Different times. If my kids tried something like that now I'd have a heart attack worrying about where they were.

Southport is the place where we did our grocery shopping and went to church. Lots of memories of running across the hot parking lot barefooted to get into the grocery store. And a lot of memories of singing on the platform at church either with my brother (we usually sang "Ain't It Grand to be a Christian" or "Let the Sunshine In") or with all the other kids ("Building Up the Temple", "He's Still Working on Me", "The Lord's Army", "The Little Birdie With the Yellow Bill", "The Devil is a Sly Old Fox", etc.); Easter egg hunts in the church yard; Sunday dinners in the church fellowship hall.

Dad, his brothers and their dad were deep sea fishermen and clammers. I always liked going down to the fish house after they came in with a catch, walking the docks, getting a Grape Nehi or Mr. Pibb from the drink machine. One time, my brother (he was about 3 or 4) stepped on a spot where part of a board was missing on the docks and his leg fell through. He freaked out. It didn't help that my dad told him the crabs (or was it sharks?) were going to get him. One of my favorite pictures of my brother and I is of us standing on the docks. I was about 5, my brother was about 4.

Southport is a beautiful and charming small town. Tree-lined streets with old Victorians; a water front park with a gazebo, seafood restaurant and small pier (the water front park and parking lot were in the movie A Walk to Remember in a night scene); boat docks; yacht basin; a cemetery with old graves and tall, gnarled oak trees; antique shops; a view of some of the islands in the Cape Fear River, including Bald Head Island and Oak Island with their lighthouses (only the Oak Island Lighthouse works); and the ferry to Ft. Fisher.

Oak Island can be reached from Southport by boat or by the Oak Island Bridge. (I think they're building a second bridge.) They're so close to one another that they're almost one town. I spent a lot of time there on what was then called Long Beach. There was a pier there (they tore it down a few years ago after the owner sold it to the town; I think they put condos in its place), at that time "North Carolina's longest pier", that we fished from many, many times. My brother and I even slept on it a time or two while our family (Mom, Dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles) did some night fishing.

When I was about 1½-2 years old, I nearly drowned on Long Beach. My dad had jumped into the water for a swim and I went in after him. My mom and grandma were there, but couldn't swim. Dad saw me go in though and got me out. :-)

Really, the only thing I remember not liking about living there were the big spiders that got into our house. *shudder* They were so big you could hear them walking on the kitchen floor. My mom once found one in the pile of laundry on the floor as she was loading the machine. I went into my bedroom once to find ol' Shelob sitting on the floor in front of my dresser.

For a time, we grew our own potatoes. (We also grew other vegetables and had chickens for meat and eggs. Dad would go deer hunting for meat, catch fish and clams. We were poor and it helped to not have to get as much of our food from the store, if we could help it.) I remember one time helping dig up the potatoes. I grabbed what I thought was a potato and it turned out to be a spider. Oh my word, did I freak when I saw those legs moving around! Of course, now that I think of it, the spider was probably a little freaked out too when all of a sudden something had a hold of him and he was up in the air flailing around.

Other than the hideous spiders, it was great living there. I really could go on.

• Eating at the Sea Captain Restaurant (it's since been torn down, replaced with pastel-colored condos, and then rebuilt with a new name - PJs - next to the condos). I remember really liking their burgers.
• Powerful thunderstorms.
• The way the beach smells right after it rains.
• Walking on the beach at night.
• Eating "Jesus bread" at my grandma's. (It was really just flour tortillas she warmed up in the oven with butter melted over them).
• Spending the night at Grandma's house all the time.
• Seeing the light in the sky from the lighthouse at night.
• Playing outside all day, barefooted in spite of the sandspurs and itch weed.
• Going to the little curb market with my maternal grandpa to get a Push-Up or Nutty Buddy (they tasted better back then).
• Trying to rollerskate around the kitchen and dining room.
• Birthday parties with a bunch of yummy food (cake, cupcakes, chips, ice cream, candy) and family around.
• Prayer meetings in Grandma's living room.
• Singing "Jesus songs" while swinging on our neighbor's swing set or the swing set at Grandma's house.
• Hearing whipporwills in the evening.
• Finding doodle bugs.
• Dodging fire ants.
• Making crafts at church or Grandma's house using seashells.

And on and on I could go.

I realize this was probably boring to anyone who bothered to read this. Sorry about that.

You can find links to Southport sites along the left margin of my blog. Scroll way down. :-)