Beginnings: Growing Up in Miss Annie's Household

Beginnings: Growing Up in Miss Annie's Household
My father was born February 8, 1913, the same year as future President Richard M. Nixon, French philosopher Albert Camus and English composer Benjamin Britten. Abolitionist Harriet Tubman died that year. Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated President of the United States. War was raging in the Balkans, and in the exotic, far-away...
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Every kid has a dream, mine was to own a dirtbike!

Every kid has a dream, mine was to own a dirtbike!
It's funny how kids grow up.  Some realize their potential and become President, others wind up in Jail.  For some reason or another I fall just short of realizing my potential and thankfully I've never wound up in jail (and maybe sometime I'll divulge a few of my stories of "almost"...
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6935 Views
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Bald Mountain

Bald Mountain
Many summers while I was growing up, we took a summer vacation to the Adirondack mountains in New York to visit my grandparents (Grandpa and Grandma Reed).  One of my favorite places to visit was Bald Mountain.  It was always a great outing.  The first part of the trail was mostly...
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1948 Views
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The Reason Behind My Mother's Name That She Hated

My mother was the tenth child and she too young to argue about her name that she grew up hating all of her life . When she introduced herself at school functions she used her middle name Ruth and all of the family used her nickname “ Sis “. It was...
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1798 Views
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My Memories Of Grandma Beavers

My Memories Of Grandma Beavers
Millard “ Don “ Carriker and I are first cousins . He is also a member of Legacy Stories . Matter of fact he is the one that told me about this program . To my memory we have never met in person but a few years ago we met on...
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1791 Views
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One of Many

It was the same plane that he crashed into the mountains killing his wife and dog..

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1917 Views
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Oh Give Me Home Where The Buffalo Roam

Oh Give Me Home Where The Buffalo Roam
In July 1903 my Grandpa Spratt had finished his homestead time on 40 acres of land just south of Ft Smith Arkansas. By November 1907 Oklahoma was a new state and had new opportunities. My Grandpa was just an old poor farmer looking for a better life for his family of...
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623 Views
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The Most Challenging And Most Important Job I Ever Had

The most important and most challenging job that I have attacked was bringing two families together in peace with my wife. I started in April 1988. My wife’s daughter was a strong spirited seven years old that her father had died with a heart attack suddenly three and half years prior...
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1504 Views
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My Mother Vs My Grandmother

All of my life my mother hasn’t liked her mother in law . My Mom and Dad got married and lived with my Dad’s folks for awhile after they were married . My Grandmother ( Her mother in law ) said something that didn’t set well with my mother and my...
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1415 Views
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Thanks For The Memories

It was going to be a full day of nothing but fun for my older brother and I. My brother was four years and four months older than me so he got to help keep me entertained ( out of trouble). We left early in the morning for the forty mile...
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1458 Views
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My Colleague, My Friend

I have lots a acquaintances, but a true friend is a treasue!  Laurel is one of the few acquaintances I have that I would consider a true friend. In the 1980s, I was teaching at Farrer Jr. High School in Provo, Utah.  Bruce Evans and I had been the mainstays in...
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1619 Views
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The Day My Oldest Son Showed He Was A Man

It was a cool day in October 2009 in illinois. We were having a funeral   today . It was for my son that was that had turned 35 years old in August . I was their bouncingoff the walls . That’s just the way I was handling it . My...
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1503 Views
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It Would've Made a Great Trick

Had “Darwin Awards” existed in 1946, Gene Covell and I would have made the list.   It could easily have been awarded posthumously were it not for the fact that guardian angels look over little kids.  The stunt Gene and I dreamed-up seemed do-able at the time.  Sure, in the bright light...
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1502 Views
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His Words Were Few, But "Pithy"

The only grandparents I knew were my Grandma Beavers, who was to me a consummate witch, and my Grandpa Carriker, who was her polar opposite.   Grandpa Carriker came to visit us in the summer of 1942.   Compared to him, Calvin Coolidge was a blabber-mouth but Grandpa was a pleasant old man...
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1747 Views
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Meaning of true friendship

True friends are ones who are your friends no matter what.  They will be with you in the jail cell as the addage goes, saying "Damn we had a good time!!"  They are the ones there with you through thick and thin.  Those are the most precious of friendships because they...
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2086 Views
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If I could visit any relative of my past who would it be?

One - only one?  You would try to impose limits on me?  I have many I want to visit. FIRST and foremost is my great great grandfather John Wesley Martin.  Right now he is my genealogy brick wall.  I have visited his grave in Lincolnton, Georgia and asked him to manifest...
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2065 Views
2 Comments

My Mother, the "Mouse"

My Mother, the "Mouse"
The question posed was, "If you could visit with a deceased friend or family member, who would it be?  What would you do?"  This was an easy one--it would be my mother. Mother was extremely reserved and very proper. Although she was competent and capable she avoided leadership positions. She was...
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2092 Views
5 Comments

Precious Time Lost

Precious Time Lost
I had the most wonderful mother who always had a smile on her face even though she had a tough life. I wish we could have been friends and she would have shared her unhappy times with me,  but that was during the 1940's and parents were so different. I'm sure she didn't...
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1923 Views
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My Brother - My Friend

My Brother - My Friend
I seem to have always had a more stringent definition of what a "friend" is than most people.  I have had many great "acquaintances" in my life, some fairly meaningful, but I have truly had only two or three friends in my 78 years of living.  One of those - the...
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2334 Views
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She'll Meet Me At The Gates

Who would I most like to talk to? She and I have made plans for her to meet me when I cross over.

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1948 Views
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