The Good Ole Days

"You don’t remember a damn thing!" That’s what my oldest sister Janet is always telling me. She’s got one of those minds like a steel trap—nothing gets past her, and nothing ever seems to rust. I don’t know how she keeps it all straight. Me? Not so much. My memories come and go like stray cats—sometimes they show up, sometimes they don’t. She acts like I oughta be able to remember every little thing like she does, but my brain just doesn’t work that way. Maybe the result of one too many concussions when I was a kid

My first real memory is burned into me, plain as day. I was three years and nine months old. Not exactly the warm-and-fuzzy kind either. We were at my grandparents’ house—me, Mom, and one of my cousins. There was a knock at the door, and when my grandmother opened it, I stood behind her, peeking around to see who it was. Two police officers were standing there. They came to tell us that my grandfather—Pappy—was dead.

Pappy had been a coal miner, but when the mines dried up, he started selling life insurance, going door to door in the evenings. That night, he’d just left a client’s house and was sitting in his car when he had a heart attack. Gone, just like that. You’d think I’d remember crying or feeling something big, but I don’t. What I do remember is the way Mom and my Grandmother and my cousin grieved. That’s what stuck. That whole night is locked in tight. Funny thing is, I don’t remember anything before that night. Is that normal? I don’t know. Janet seems to remember everything from the womb on.

The next couple years are kind of a blur. If I had to tell you the order of where we lived and when, I’d probably mix it all up. But I do remember moving to St. Augustine, Florida, when I was about five. Daddy had been laid off from Hayes Aircraft in Birmingham and took a job down there to keep the bills paid. His buddy, Jimmy Roy Johnson, moved his family down too, and we ended up living next door to each other. That’s where I first recall knowing Jenny Johnson—been friends ever since.

We were just regular kids, playing in the sand, chasing seagulls, flying little balsa wood airplanes. It was the 1950s—simple times. We didn’t have tablets or TikTok. We had dirt and sunlight and imaginations.

We didn’t stay in Florida long before we were back in Leeds. I couldn’t tell you for how long, but the next big move was to Midland City, Alabama. Now that, I do remember. Midland City was a kid’s paradise back then. The world was a different place—moms weren’t hovering like helicopters, and dads weren’t tracking us on their phones. As long as you didn’t get hurt, end up in jail, or miss supper, you were pretty much free to roam.

And roam we did. Me and Janet—me five, her four—had little bikes and a whole town to explore. We’d start out in the backyard and before you knew it, we were climbing into the hayloft at the feed store or sneaking into the Baptist church to splash around in the baptismal. We’d ride what felt like miles. Mom never quite believed us when we told her all the places we’d been. I think she thought we just had wild imaginations. Truth is, we were just living the kind of childhood that barely exists anymore.