October Birthdays

I decided to write my mother’s life history as a gift for her 95th birthday on October 27th. Now as one of the characters in “Steel Magnolias” said something like, “If you reach puberty, you have history.”

Born in 1917 during the coldest winter in West Tennessee, the Mississippi River froze and people walked and rode in wagons over the river to Arkansas. When the snows from up North melted and met the melted snows of Tennessee, an unprecedented flood occurred, the Mississippi River swelled to 40 miles wide.

Now that year, if there wasn’t frozen rivers and flooding, there was F3,4,and 5 tornadoes and of course, there is an earthquake there nearly every day.

She met my father at a swimming pool which doesn’t make any sense, because she never swam a lick and is scared of water. When I was growing up we would go to the Gulf beaches and I was allowed to put my toes in the water while holding her hand as if a wave would jerk me up and carry me out to the Deep.

Her philosophy on food, “if it don’t kill you first, eat it!” She fried bacon in lard, still eats five half-gallons of ice cream a week and is like a locust invasion when given a box of chocolate bonbons.

She grew up on a rented farm. The house never had running water, electricity or an indoor bathroom. All the while living through the Great Depression, two world wars, the influenza pandemic, and on and on.

I really think she is determined to outlive everyone. In the meantime, Happy Birthday to my Mama and to all the others that I know who have October birthdays, Dianne, Barbara, Ginger, Susan, Linda, Judy and especially you, my son, Ed.