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[written 2022-05-01]

Yesterday, June 9, 2022, began year 61 that Maxine has kept me around and put up with the grumpy old guy, still teenagers in so many ways.

Life begins with meeting “that girl” at her sweet sixteenth birthday party, something unusual, for some strange reason she seems to like me, that’s a first for me.

Time passes, a few days following her high school graduation I have a seventeen-year-old bride. We make our home with my parents, two dumb kids starting out on life. Whatever the obstacles, I’m blessed to see that smiling face on the pillow next to mine.

Life moves fast and slow all at the same time. A couple of kids arrive, as the first finishes high school and departs from home a third kid arrives. Mid-life often seems a blur of cars, houses, and careers with time racing past, yesterday was years ago. Grand children arrive, but wait, there’s great-grandchildren, where did time go, how did I miss its passing, it was all just yesterday.

How did we get here, old people?

We picture retirement as sunsets in romantic places, travel, and excitement, maybe it works for some, but don’t wait too late. Somehow days run together, travel seems to be trips to doctor appointments, excitement may be waking up from a nap in time for lunch or the bowl of ice cream before bedtime, but at the end of the day “that girl” who is now seventy-seven is still the smiling face on the pillow next to mine. I’m still blessed.

[written 2011-12-07] 

Let’s go back 40 years or so, around the time our oldest son was born.

Don’t know just why I was over in our old neighborhood, The Block, Whitaker Street, well actually on 38^th Street at Barnard across from the old number 3 fire station, and in front of a row of apartments that line the north side of the street I saw a car for sale and fell in love with it, red roadster, 135.00, a Singer, made in England, looked much like the classic MG or some of the American cars of the 30’s.

Price was right, tires looked good, no business at all with such a car at that time of my life, but then I have always been car crazy, seemed like a good deal for the price, but unfortunately the motor had a rod knocking.

I thought I had to have it and went and bought it after work one evening and brought it home with the help of a friend and without even asking Maxine, bad move.

I guess I learned some things including that I was not a great mechanic or car salesman; looking back I was just a kid playing.  If mama and daddy were not feeding and housing us, we would have been hungry, I had not grown up enough to understand life at that time.

In my quest to get it running I found a second 1953 Singer at a junk yard on Ogeechee Road, about at the intersection of a cut-off road that went in the direction of the train station, I think.  Paid 50.00 for this vehicle and hauled it home for spare parts, the main item in need being a crankshaft since the one in my red roadster had a worn place due to the rod knocking.

I think it was around this time that daddy rented the garage over in our old neighborhood on Desoto Avenue and 35^th Street and suggested I could stay, but that my “junk” needed to leave home.

I ordered some parts out of Tampa, Florida, and others from New York City.  For a first attempt at rebuilding an engine guess I didn’t do too badly but it was far from perfect.  Guess one of the first jobs was to get the engine removed from the car, hard job when you don’t have an engine hoist.

At some point the car was in the back yard of Aunt Doris and Uncle Herbert, Maxine’s aunt, and uncle, at the home down on Bolton Street where I gave Maxine the engagement rings a few years earlier.

Anyway, back to the story, without a lift I had removed many of the parts that just bolted on the engine and Uncle Herbert being a big husky fellow just reached in and lifted the remains of the engine out manually, by himself.

I did two things wrong that I remember, put the rear main bearing cap on backwards, found the problem but had damaged the bearing, also broke one piston ring, and used an old one, as a result the roadster always used oil and fouled out that sparkplug.

It would have seemed simple to have just ordered additional replacement parts, but money was not available, and I was just an impatient kid not waiting to wait another month or so to reorder parts by snail mail.

After being painted white and the addition of a new top and interior it became a nice-looking car, drove it a while but it was not a practical car for us, and I really needed to get my money back out of it for other things.  Sold it twice, but I don’t believe I ever got much of my money back from the adventure.

Anyway, the short fun story with this car was trying to get the engine started after the rebuild.  Needed to pull the car to get the engine started that first time, remember the bearing was put in backwards, but I had not caught on to that problem at the time.

I asked Maxine to drive our other car, a big 1955 Packard Patrician, and pull the Singer so hopefully it would start.

Now you must consider several things, Maxine had never really done much driving, may not even have had a license to drive at this time, but in those days streets in Oakdale were dirt and little traffic.

The cars were parked bumper to bumper in from of mama’s house at 611 Johnston Street, connected by a long chain of Grandpa Wilson’s, Maxine’s dad.

This chain was likely over 50 feet long but Maxine not being a driver, did grasp the idea of moving slowly till the chain tightened, so she just stomped the gas on the Packard and was somewhere across in front of Betty White’s house next door when the chain finally got tight, I’m sure it wasn’t, but it seemed like she was going about 40 miles an hour when the chain reached its limit.

Bam, what a jolt, I had just wrapped the chain around the bumper of the Singer which was now pointed somewhat like the cowcatcher on an old steam engine, the bumper ends curved so far around that they cut into the front tires and just about sliced the top from them, luckily it was rolling on the tires that came with the parts car from the junkyard.

Guess we did have some fun with the car; know I have pictures of us at Hilton Head in the car with Maxine’s friend Paula and husband John.  The picture shows Maxine standing by the Singer at the edge of the dunes between a watermelon field and the beach, but today, or should I say 20 years ago this area was full of fine, high dollar homes instead of melons.

Might be fun to have it today, I’ve seen a few on e-Bay, but don’t know that I have succeeded that well with the 1948 Packard that sits because I don’t have time to tinker or enjoy playing, maybe one day, I hope.

[written 2022-05-24]

Shortly before moving to Boone, the motel, we purchased a large grey van for family vacations, saw the motel for sale on one of those trips. I knew a number of older folks at our church that drove around town but not so much on vacation as many had lost their spouse. After finding the motel I began to play with the idea of using the van
to offer small group visits to such groups since we wouldn’t be traveling often.

As we followed this idea one of our earlier groups drove their bus and visited from Parkway Baptist in Macon, GA. I don’t know that the group idea ever proved that profitable, but I had fun and made many good friends. One of our day trips usually included a stop at Shatley Springs Inn, a rambling place in Ashe County. Their outdoor decorating at that time included various bits of old farm equipment which appealed to my interests.

The late 1990’s was a tough time, mom suffered a stroke and her health declined, my wife Maxine had back surgery, son Frederick and I managed, sort of, but had to hustle faster than I could today. Early 1998 I found I needed surgery for colon cancer. I’m a chicken, it was a frightening time for sure. Maxine couldn’t leave the motel; I was really depressed that week in the hospital.

A few local friends popped in, talked to others, but several calls from Oliver from the Parkway group in Macon along with prayers and cards from others carried me through. I was just a guy running a motel where they visited but I look back on them and their words of faith as carrying through that dark time. I think I’ve lost many from that and other groups over time, but Oliver and I remain fast friends.

A number of years ago Oliver was visiting the motel and I was sharing dreams of adding old things around the outside to give that feel I had enjoyed at Shatley Springs. Oliver commented, I wish I had known, one of our members just sold an old tractor that would be ideal. A day or two later it developed that the tractor hadn’t been sold after all and would I be interested. I said sure, and being a bit of a smarty pants, replied, you gonna bring it to me. I was being silly, but Oliver and son-in-law returned with the tractor a few weeks later.

The motel, like many tiny businesses, you earn a life, more than a living, a roof over your head, maybe some groceries. Until well after retirement age I worked a weekday job and helped Maxine evening and weekends. The real riches are the folks we meet, that’s the blessing received.