I started this blog because someone I met on MySpace gave me their blog address and I was so impressed with the postings I felt this was thusfar the best avenue of sharing, venting and otherwise writing stuff that may relieve the daily stress in my life. It may also release the deep inner thoughts I’ve had in myself for quite a few years. I’ve had a need to write a book and recently decided I would start. I was watching the movie Grendel on Scifi one Saturday and the narrator was giving the intro to the story of Beowulf and his battle with Grendel. He stated that in the end (of life) all a man has is his story, and in that story he can live forever.
I looked upon my parents, grandparent and great-grandparents grave stones back in February when I visited my family cemetary and the biggest thing that stood out to me was the hyphen between the birth and death dates. It told me I knew nothing of who they were, only save they lived and died. Who were these people? Of course I knew my parents and a little of my grandparents, but nothing of my great-grandparents. That meant that as time passes on into the future those behind us gradually fade into nothingness. I want to know WHO they were. That led to this need as stated in the first paragraph. I have a need to write something. Now I know what that is. I intend for those after me to know who I was. So. I began writing. I will insert it into this blog as I write. It will come soon, so if you’re interested in my life from my earliest memories, join me as I tell my story intermingled with other thoughts as they come to me.
The beginning of my book is below. I want my family to know who I was in the succeeding generations of my family and others with interest in these sort of things. Not just some hyphen on a grave stone. He lived, he died. That’s not enough. Sounds narcissistic maybe, but I don’t want to be fortten like all the other members of my family that have gone before me. I started with my earliest memories. . .
A Man’s Story
In the end, all a man has is his story, and in that story he can live forever. That’s a statement made in the story of a mythical man called Beowulf. Beowulf is a pre-Christian hero that monks Christianized later and written mostly by the English. Beowulf was a Danish or Norwegian character.
Why would I make that paragraph my opening statement? Well, read it again. I have a story to write even though it’s not really about me, yet it is. I write it to extol the life of God in me over the years. It may take a while for you to see this, but remember I have to develop the story with all the surrounding factors in my life.
This Is Where It Starts For Me. My Grand Daddy and Family
I write from the earliest of memories, even those of little consequence other than to draw a smile on your face. The very earliest of memories I have was when I was yet still a baby. Yes, a baby. I grew hungry as I lay cradled in my mother’s arms in a rocking chair in the living room of the first home I lived in, in a small community called just that. . .Small. It was a community mostly made up of extended relatives in a poor county in eastern North Carolina. Well, anyway, I was lying there and I figured if I cried, like I usually did when I was hungry, mom would get the message and get me a bottle. Just so happens that Thelma was visiting at that time and was sitting across from my mom in another rocker. Mom handed me to her to get my bottle, but I didn’t like her at the moment, so I cried even harder to let mom know I didn’t want to be held by her. I guess she misinterpreted that as “get me something to eat, now”. I still ended up in Thelma’s lap until my bottled was prepared. As my mom returned and took me back and gave me my bottle, my crying ceased and my memory fades away and I go back to the little baby with only this window of remembrance to speak of this day.
Fast forward to another day, when it had rained and I was let out to play in the yard. Ah, the joys of water in a road-side ditch. Oh, did I mention I had a crudely made rocking horse? Oh yes, it was just made for my attempt and using it for a boat. I sat it in the ditch and by golly it floated. My next attempt was to sit on my steed upon the water and paddle my feet down the ditch and make landfall at the far end where my granddaddy’s driveway was. Unfortunately, upon my mounting the worth stead he let me down by sinking to the bottom of the ditch and I was at least chest deep in water. My mom was watching my failure to navigate and immediately took me inside and changed my little shorts and t-shirt. No need for shoes. I didn’t wear any during warm weather. I figured I must have tried to mount in the wrong fashion apparently causing the sinking of my horse. So, after my mom suited me up in a clean pair of shorts and drawers and t-shirt I proceeded to try a new approach to my horse in the ditch full of water. Failing again was the only option apparently and so my mom took me back into the house and cleaned me up again, only this time she let me out of the house only in a t-shirt and drawers. Oh, I should mention this came along with a good scolding this time. Undaunted, I knew I could master this issue and you guessed it. I made my mount from a different angle only to find failure once more. After the spanking this time, my memory fades again and my brilliant experiment with it.
As a young child I was introduced to the Christian way of living, as best my parents knew. My earliest memories were of being in church at White Hill Free Will Baptist Church in Small. My mom taught the class I was in at the beginning. I remember sitting in those small chairs around a bit table while we listened to a Bible story and then we’d color a page or cut and paste something together. At that age I didn’t question why we traveled down the dirt road a mile to it when there was a Christian church right across the road from the house. It was called Mary’s Chapel Christian Church. The people on down in the Back Woods, as we called that area, went to Mary’s Chapel, but we opted for White Hill. I learned later that is where my grand dad was in leadership. I understand he was instrumental in preserving this church’s sovereignty. It was apparently nearing dissolution. My dad, I learned later in life, wanted to be a deacon there, but they never recognized my dad in such a role so he never rose to this calling.
One other note to put here is that church is what got my mom and dad together in the first place. My mother, being a PK, (preacher’s kid) would travel sometimes with her dad along with the rest of the family to where ever he was “holding revival”. My grand dad (my mother’s dad) was a traveling evangelist in his earlier career before he became a pastor.
My Mom & Dad. The Very Early Years – circa 1950
Anyway, he had traveled from the Raleigh area down to White Hill to preach and he brought Peggy with him. Well, she caught my dad’s eye and he couldn’t resist. He was nineteen and she was fifteen. They got married just a few days after she turned sixteen. I don’t know for sure, but I believe she may have wanted to get married for the right reasons, but she also wanted to get away from her family. Her dad believed in divine intervention for healing and she had lain unconscious for several days with an ear infection that rotted out her ear drum in her left ear. I believe she had not trouble with divine healing, but this incident personally affected her, leading her to take doubtful steps to believing God’s healing hand in the day she lived. She was stone deaf in that ear. But she never missed anything any one ever said. Take that from me. I could whisper something and she would tell me what I said.
I don’t want to ramble too far here, so let’s get back to something I’ve written here. I know someone reading this will ask the question about the ages of my parents. Back in the 1940’s and prior the life span of folks wasn’t all to long and marrying young was quite common. My dad’s parents were married at an early age. My grandmother was thirteen and my grand dad was not quite twenty. They raised my dad and two daughters, Miriam and Gerald. I remember Miriam was the youngest because she was still living at home when I was young. Gerald married a “lowlander” down in Lowland of all places, near Hoboken, NC. With names of communities like Small and Lowland, makes you wonder if anyone had any imagination, especially when you throw the Backwoods into the mix. Dad did have another brother that died about six months after he was born. As I understand it he was born paralyzed from the waist down, but I don’t know why he died so young. His name was Hester Darryl Rowe. Dad was almost nine when he came along. Anyway, my mom and dad got married and I was born before my mom reached seventeen. So there really wasn’t much difference in our age, considering there was nineteen years difference between me and my youngest brother. We’ll get into that later on.
Dad Looking Good for Mom
