My First Permanent

When I was in the 5th grade I begged my mother to let me get a permanent wave and cut my red pigtails off. I wanted short curly hair for a change. I didn't like having my hair combed and braided every morning before going to school. I think she relented and let me get a permanent so she would be relieved of having to comb and braid my hair.


I found this photo on Google
and it looks just like the
machine in the beauty shop where I got my first permanent.
The instrument of torture stood tall in the corner of the shop. There were wires or electric cables hanging from the top of the pole and metal clamps on the end of each of the long cords. After having my hair shampooed, the beauty operator put an awful smelling liquid on each strand of my hair and wrapped it in foil strips, rolling it up and putting the clamp over the roll. I just knew I would be electrocuted when she turned on the switch. I still remember holding on to the arms of the chair when I heard a sizzling noise which was the steam evaporating when the heat was applied to my hair. The odor of the solution almost made me faint. But I just knew I was going to be beautiful when it was all over. I watched the ladies underneath the tall hooded dryers as they smoked and read True Romance magazines. I was out of my "environment" and felt so grown up. I was alone during this experience. My Aunt Barbara took me to the beauty shop and told the beautician that she would return for me later. I was very apprehensive that something would happen to me but I tried to be brave. When the timer went off, she began to remove the clamps, unroll the foil papers and led me back to the shampoo bowl to wash the foul smelling lotion from my hair. I was afraid she was also washing away the curls I wanted so badly.


But not so! I looked in the mirror and I could not believe what I saw. To my horror all I saw were dark red curls that looked like snakes crawling all over my head. I almost cried when she used a comb to pull through the tangles. She then rolled my hair into little spit curls and held them in place with a metal bobby pins, which burned my head when I had to sit under one of the funny looking dryers and left to toast. I remember how my ears and eyes burned, and was concerned about the odor and wondered if it would go away any time soon.


When the dryer buzzed, she came and led me to a table with a mirror. She removed the bobby pins and started to comb my hair. My head felt as big as a basketball! I had never seen so many curls on one head. I had wanted curls but not this many. She looked me over and smiled at her
"creation". I tried to smile but all I could think of was would anybody recognize me!


I remember my daddy coming to town to pick me up at my aunt's house, and he tried so hard not to laugh. He had begged me not to get my pretty red curly hair cut and permed. We went home and the next day when I got up I tried to comb my hair and it was so tangled and matted I had to get mother to help. We worked and worked to get it looking decent so I could go to church, but to no avail. She let me miss church that day and we worked some more with my hair, trying to straighten it a little. The machine literally burned my soft curly hair and it looked like dried corn silks, and was so frizzy. It was weeks before my hair was long enough to get all the damaged hair cut. I never asked for another permanent. I have only had 3 or 4 more perms in my lifetime, all making my hair frizzy. Mostly I wear my hair cut short and naturally curly. I only go to the beauty shop to get haircuts these days. No more perms for me.

Joining the Wellness Center

All of this workout equipment was new to us. I bet we are going to be sore tomorrow. We tried out a lot of things and the cross training (like cross country skiing but sitting down instead of standing) was the one that stretched our legs and worked out our arms.

Headlines in newspaper: Fitness Counts More than Fatness for Living Longer. I read this and decided that I will probably never be the thin person I would like to be but I can become more fit. Actually at my age, if I lost a lot of weight, I would have so many wrinkles. I'm not at the obese level - yet.

So last week Jim and I joined a 10-week program called Scale Back Alabama, http://www.scalebackalabama.com/ (it's all free). This is the first week. We attend classes every Monday at noon at Opp Mizelle Hospital. The classes are taught by the hospital dietician. We participated last year and I lost 10 pounds and have kept it off. Now I want to lose 10 more.

We brought earphones from our portable CD players and used them to plug into the TV monitors mounted on some of the machines.

But most important, we signed up for 3 months of fitness training and exercise at the hospital's wellness center and plan to work out 3 days a week for an hour. Today was our first day. We went early to be measured, and all the other things they do when you start out (body fat measurement, etc). Then we checked out the machines we would be using

. Neat place! The wellness center is in temporary quarters right now while the new center is being built, which will have a big heated swimming pool across one end of the new building.

When we work out on Friday, I will take some pictures of us on the machines and post here so you can see the action! We were happy that we weren't the only seniors working out - they all were our age or older, working out in the middle of the day. I guess younger people were all at work!

Trees, trees and more trees

Trees by Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Guess you know by now that I love trees. When we moved into our present home there was nothing but bermuda grass in the yard - not one tree! So in 2004 we started planting trees.


First we planted 4 Leyland cypress trees. One was not a good specimen and we bought it for only $3. We planted this tree at the back corner of the house, thinking someday it might provide a shade from the hot afternoon sun. Pictured here is the small tree and another photo as it looks today.

When we moved from the farm, I brought a potted plant and a small oak was coming up in it. I stuck it in the flower bed and didn't expect it to live. Four years later look at the size of it now!

In the summer of 2004, I bought 3 Natchez Crepe Myrtles and a friend gave me one. I planted them in the hard clay soil and it didn't rain all summer. They have grown so fast and I prune them at least once during the summer.

Our Texas Granddaughters

Elizabeth (Lizzie) and Allison (Ally) Gilmer are our oldest granddaughters. They live in Austin, TX. Lizzie goes to Univ. of TX and Ally attends North Texas Univ. in Denton, TX.


 There's 4 years difference in their ages. This year Lizzie will be 24 and in March, Allie will be 20.


Liz always loved this pink shirt with the face of a cat with big eyes. She once told me that she thought she was "part cat".

Christmas in Clemmons, NC

Liz and Ally  at our farm in AL

Sharing

Texas bluebonnets

Little Women

One of my favorite books when I was growing up was Little Women. Watching our 5 granddaughters grow up reminds me of the antics of the sisters in Little Women. We have 2 married sons. Bill has 3 girls and Ronnie has 2. Today I am posting pictures of Bill's 3 girls to show much they have grown in 11 years. The first photo of Katie, Nerissa, Bill and Caroline was made only one month after the death of the girls' mother, Barbara in November 1996. My sister Carolyn, who was living in Indianapolis, made the Christmas vests for them and spent a week with them in SC to help out. Then Bill and the girls came to Alabama to spend Christmas with us on the farm.

Easter

The next photo was taken at Easter a few years later when Nerissa was about 12, Katie 10, and Caroline 6.
Nerissa was wearing braces and wore her hair pulled back in a pony tail, and this was before she started wearing contacts.


Then last December I received this latest photo of Bill and the girls. They are now 18, 16, and 12. Nerissa is a freshman at Clemson Univ in SC, Katie is a Jr in high school and Caroline is in the 6th grade.

Bill took the girls to England for Christmas holidays to visit their mother's relatives. They had not been since 2000 so I'm sure the relatives were very surprised at how much they had grown in 8 years. Nerissa went alone one summer about 2 years ago.


As I get older (in my 70's now), time flies! And Christmas seems to come more often. I hardly get things put away when it's time to get them back out again. And I know that the girls will be grown before I know it.


Tomorrow I will post photos of our other two granddaughters, Elizabeth (Liz) and Allison (Ally) who live in Texas. They are both in college and it just seems like yesterday they were babies, and then later coming to spend time with us in the summers. We don't get to spend as much time with them as we would like, but when we do it is "quality time" and we keep in touch with email and cell phones. Nobody writes letters anymore. I have saved many of their drawings, letters, and cards from past years.

Pe-cans or Pe-cons?

In this part of the country we say pe-cons. In GA they call them pe-cans. I prefer pe-cons.


Today we took a 5-gallon can of pecans to the farmers coop bldg. to have them cracked with a mechanical pecan cracker. What a great invention!! It's a far improvement from when we used to use a brick or hammer to crack them. Not only that, but they almost come out as two halves instead of broken pieces. Our neighbor let me pick up some pecans in their yard since we don't have a pecan tree of our own.

My parents and grandparents always had pecan trees in their yard and when we were young, it was a dreaded chore to have to pick up pecans every winter. And picking them up wasn't nearly as bad as having to pick them out. My mouth would break out from eating too many pecans.


We would keep some to eat and then bag the other pecans and take them to town and sell them and use the money to buy Christmas presents.


I guess that next to peanuts, pecans are my favorite nut. I love using them when baking cookies or making candies. But most of all, I like to sprinkle salt and spices on them and roast them in the oven. My mother made divinity candy and put pecans in it as well as chocolate fudge. And those delicious pecan pies were a favorite at holiday time.


During WWII my mother would make a cloth bag like a pillow case and fill it with pecans to send to her sister in Washington, DC. She would sew across the open edge of the bag and then write Aunt Faye's name and address on the bag. Then we would take these to the post office and mail them to my aunt who was so excited to get Alabama pecans. Then my mother did the same thing for me when I lived away from Alabama. Now I am carrying on that tradition and I package pecans and peanuts to give to family members at Christmas. Anybody can go to the grocery store and buy packaged pecans and peanuts but they are very expensive and sometimes are not fresh. They just aren't the same as those we gather, crack and shell ourselves.
There's a big problem with pecan trees if you use them for shade trees. They have those fuzzy green blooms in the spring that look like worms that fall on the ground and are a mess. Then about the time the pecans start to fall on the ground, a ton of leaves start falling also. You have to keep the leaves swept up so you can see the nuts on the ground. It's a good thing that I like pecans or I'd never go to all that trouble!

Favorite Recipes of Mine

Someday - I will put my time-worn, many handwritten recipes in a cookbook. I have many of them in my computer already and when I need one, I go to my computer, click on "Recipes" and look down the alphabetized list until I find the one I want. But not all of my favorites have been typed and saved in my computer. But I will also keep those old, hand written recipes in a special place. Some are scribbled on the back of envelopes, note paper, and whatever was available to write on. Today I was looking for a recipe from a friend from Albany, GA. It was for " Chicken Spectular" and a great casserole. I had surgery on my knee while living in Albany and Mrs. Emily Buce cooked this great casserole and brought it to us for dinner one night.

Another favorite recipe I plan to make this week is called Sausage Bread. My Aunt Mattie Lena gave me this recipe several years ago and it became a favorite right away. She was visiting us in NC and made this delicious recipe for Jim when I was away on a trip. He asked her to teach me how to make it. She was the best cook around. I think Jim probably gained 10 lbs. the week she came to stay with him and James.

I came across another recipe today that was from a friend in Texas (who died at a young age). Today her husband was buried in Paris, Texas. What memories that recipe brought back as I looked at her handwriting.
Yes, I will type my recipes and print them out but I will not discard all the handwritten copies, so that I can take them out of the box and hold them and remember where they came from.

A few years ago I encouraged the ladies at New Ebenezer Baptist Church near Elba, AL to write down recipes and I typed them and we made a cookbook for family members. This is my favorite cookbook and I use it often.
They didn't want to sell these as a fund raising project; they just wanted to make the cookbook to leave behind. Some of those ladies are no longer with us but we have their recipes to remember them by. I contributed my Mama Wilson's lane cake, my aunt's sausage bread, and many others - including some of my own. I am not a true southern cook - I have never mastered the art of making biscuits and making divinity candy. Nor do I fry foods very often or make cakes. I'm a salad maker and deli meat person. I love to use my food processor to chop, shred, slice, etc. Speeds up preparation time for me. The kitchen is not my favorite place to be. I'm an "ourdoors" person.