Blogging before blogging was cool

In preparation for our recent family reunion, I asked people to bring pictures if they had any. I know that Shannon scanned some in for us. They are really old and grainy. I'll continue to look for pictures on my end too. If you have some you would like to post here, let me know and I will give you authorship for this blog, or you can mail or email them to me and I will post them.

So, that's Jim Bob and Rena in the picture above. I don't have a date for that picture.

I don't know if many of you know it or not, but Granny (Rena) used to write little articles for The Enterprise in Wallace. Aunt Devilla made some copies for me and I thought I would share them on here. I hope you enjoy this slice of life from the early '60's as much as I do. Unfortunately, the dates have been deleted from the article, so we can only guess as to the true date.

MY TRIP TO RALEIGH...

by Mrs. Rena Williams

Wallace, N. C.

I arrived home recently from my trip to Raleigh. I was gone a week but it was nice to get back home again, where I can see the sun rise and get a drink of water that doesn't taste like it has quinine in it. I always like a drink of water when I get up in the morning but I don't like bitter water. I know why people in Raleigh drink so much coffee - the water is so bad they have to flavor it up with something and coffee is about the only thing they can use and stay on their jobs.

I can't say I enjoyed my trip to Raleigh because my son stopped outside of the town limits and picked up two men who said they were trying to get to Greensboro. By the time they got in the car and shut the door, I felt like I was in a beer joint. The odor they had was so strong it almost made me dizzy. I wanted to open a window but it was too cold. I almost had a "crink" in my neck by the time I got to Raleigh from trying to look both backwards and forwards. I felt like I had to see what they might do and I wanted to see where I was going - and that was hard to do at the same time.

We got to my son's house about four o'clock and was his wife tired! She had been house cleaning and washing and trying to please their two-and-a-half-year-old son, who had been sick and wanted her to do everthying for him and wouldn't let her do anything else. I tried to be helpful and give her a hand, but I soon got out for the way, beause he wouldn't even let me look at him straight.

I used to have a remedy that would cure such spells but you can't use it now days for it will make the child nervous and it is so much better to be nervous yourself. He is a sweet child when he is well.

I didn't get lonesome for music or noise while I was in Raleigh as they have a TV, hi-fi radio and a boy - and if one wasn't running, the other was!

Another thing, you don't have to wear sun glasses to keep the light out of your eyes because the blinds are always pulled. If people used green shades like they used to they would sleep themselves to death, for they wouldn't know day from night. I really had to blink my eyes for three mornings up there for when I peeped out, there was a snow on the ground.

My son brought his movie camera home Christmas and took pictures of all the family and grandchildren opening their presents and I didn't have any idea everyone was moving around so much. It looked like you had thrown a brick in a wasps nest. Children were running this way and that way. I had often wondered what I would look like to myself, if I could see myself walking or sitting around, and now I know - terrible! But we did enjoy the movies even though they were more like comedies than anything else.

I enjoyed my visit and I didn't have anything to do but sit around and think about the day I would go home and thus I got to thinking that sometimes people go up there and don't come back home, so that makes me even happier that I am back home.

When I was up there over a year ago, I came home with the coffee habit and now I almost have the coffee nerves!