Four from My Forties

Margie has challenged me to post and write about four pictures from my forties. She probably thinks I don't remember my forties, but I'm up to the task.

When I turned 40 we were living with our three boys in Texarkana in the Pleasant Grove area at 18 Clay Avenue. Not too long after moving to Texarkana from Little Rock we adopted a cat. Blackie had lived across the street, but her owners built a new house and moved about a mile away.

Blackie was an outdoor kitty, and she missed Clay Avenue. So she kept running away from home and hanging out at our house. I would dutifully call her owners and tell them that Blackie had come back again. They would come pick her up, and the whole cycle would start over. They finally asked if we wanted to keep her. We did. Knowing that she would face a long trek from Birmingham to Texarkana, we left her with our neighbors Maurice and Irma Short when we moved here in 1989. She lived out the rest of her days with the Shorts.

Does anyone remember Hands Across America? The event happened on Sunday, May 25, 1986. Technically I was only 39 at the time, but I thought I would include this picture anyway. The line wound through Texarkana, and the boys and I joined it at Summerhill Plaza Shopping Center.

A couple of years after moving to Texarkana, Laura Butterfield and I opened Rose Hill Emporium. Laura's husband Andy offered us the empty space in the front of his small motor repair business, and we taught painting on wood and fabric and sold gift items. I don't think we ever made any money, but we had a good time.

By the way, this picture is proof that big hair was alive and well in Texas.

In 1989 we moved to Birmingham, Alabama. Larry and I decided that we would buy a lot and subcontract our own house, so in 1991 I became a builder. Since Larry was working all day, I had the task of overseeing the project. I ordered all of the materials, hired all of the subcontractors and made sure everyone showed up on time. Well, more or less on time. Seventeen years later I'm still building and remodeling, and a couple of those subcontractors are still with me.

Each summer the boys and I headed to Camp David for a week on Pickwick Lake. Camp David is my sister-in-law Billie Anne's lake house. My sister-in-law Mary Katherine brought her three children, Mema Martha was there, and sometimes Anne and David, BA's kids, would spend a few days with us. Fishing, boating, tubing and playing tennis took up most of our days, and BA always organized an outing to Shiloh National Military Park. At night we played games, and the cousins performed impromptu shows.

So there's my four from my forties (I know it's really five, but I'm not counting the one when I was only 39). It's fun to remember the Good Ole Days, so if any of the rest of you are up to the challenge, just pick a decade and post some pictures.