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Special Birthdays

Margaret Crowder         94                   18th January
Elizabeth Boys                89                 14th February
Helen Smith                    85                           2nd Dec
Esther Clarke                84                   22nd October
Hildi Beaty                     84                             8th Dec
Mildred Laughner         83                             8th Dec
Mary Burcham              82                     30th October
Thelma Beaty                82                          28th Nov.
Charles Wilson              82                    23rd January
Iris Drabing                   82                         7th March
Gladys Abel                   81                         12th Nov.
Mary M. Sark                81                  12th February
Freda Patterson            80                       10th March
 

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Wedding Anniversaries
 

William & Helena Beatty - 55th          18th February

Teddy & Eva Zumwalt    - 50th           21st February
 

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On Margaret Daniels grave, Hollywood Cemetery Richmond, Virginia

She always said her feet were killing her but nobody believed her.
 

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Am I dying or is this my birthday?

When she awoke briefly during her last illness and found all her family around her bedside.

 

Lady Nancy Astor, d. 1964

 

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My new office is located in the sun room of my new apartment which has wrap around windows all the way to the ceiling. It looks out over the Vanderbilt complex. I can see the building where Billie died. I don’t look that way very often.

 

The Olden Days

 

Several years ago, George Jones came out with a song entitled “Who’s gonna take their place.” He was of course, referring to the country music icons such as himself whose careers were winding down. The answer is rather obvious, no one will take their place. The music they are recording in Nashville today does not even resemble the music that made George, Stonewall Jackson, Johnny Russell, and all the other old timers famous and the worst part is; that kind of country music is gone forever.

I got to thinking the other day that this same fate awaits those of us who write about the old days in the Valley. I am eighty-one years old and to my knowledge, I am the only one who writes about “the good old days” on a regular basis, with the exception of Parke Flick, who now and then favors us with a historical masterpiece. Don’t get me wrong, I have no desire to return to that way of life. Like Lester Flatt’s song that starts out; “I remember when I was a lad, times were hard and things were bad.” No way would I want to repeat that kind of living but I think we had something back then that folks don’t have today. Today we are pretty much a transient society where tbe kids hardly know their grandparents. Not so back then, most all my relatives lived within walking distance.

I am talking about the days of the big depression that started in 1929, when the stock market fell and lasted all through the thirties. Ask a youngster today about the big depression and they will give you that blank look that says it all. The same holds true about WW II, I don’t think they teach it in the schools, if they do it is not a required subject. Ask some of the younger set today what they know about the “Evacuation of
Dunkirk” and they will think you are referring to a book or something.

 

 

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