LITTLE GIRL LOST

      

                    

It’s funny, but when I walked into Wal-Mart today to get my medicines today, the first thing that caught my eye was the CODE ADAM sign posted on the front door. This means, among other things, that if a child is lost, an alert goes out and each associate works hard to try and make sure that child is found.

You know, looking back, I think God was trying to tell me something….

While at the store,  I decided to get me some new ankle socks. I try to save as much as possible, so I buy my socks in the boys section. (You get more and they are cheaper. )

While I was looking at the different brands and prices, I noticed a little bitty girl walking up and down the aisles. She looked to be about Wyatt’s age…around three…much too young to be on her own.

The grandma in me immediately went on alert.

I stood there looking at the socks, yet also keeping an eye out for the child. She was still walking up and down the aisles. It wasn’t very long before she came up to me. With tears about to spill over, she said, “Do you know where my mommy is?”  I said, “No, but we can go get someone to call her for you.” 

Being right behind the ladies dressing rooms, I quickly walked with her around to the front and sure enough, there were two Wal-Mart associates standing there at the desk. I explained to them that we had a “lost mommy” and one of them immediately took the little girl up to the front of the store to the courtesy desk.

I walked back around to the socks and it wasn’t very long before I saw a lady calmly describing a little girl to a Wal-Mart employee near there. This lady was holding on to a buggy and had two more little girls walking along beside her. I walked over and asked the associate if the lady had lost a child in the store and she told me she had. When I told that lady that her child was at the courtesy desk, and explained to her how she had came up to me asking for my help, she actually seemed more agitated than worried and said, “Well, she won’t stay in the buggy and then she wanders off all the time.”

Oh man…

I wanted so badly to say to this mama..”well then you MAKE her stay in the buggy, no ifs, ands, or buts about it”. I also wanted to say,” your little girl just walked up to a complete stranger and came right along with me when I asked her to. I would rather her be kicking and screaming in that dang buggy than be kidnapped!” But the mama had already left to go to the courtesy desk….leaving me stunned. All I could think, as I watched her walk away was that;  I could have been someone who was not so nice. I could have been an evil person…

And that baby walked right up to me, trusting me to help her.

God forbid, but I would have been frantic had I lost Wyatt or little William. We have entirely too many little ones being kidnapped and worse. We have got to start keeping a better eye on our little children.

This morning,while walking my pups, I saw the mother hen and her eight little fuzzy yellow chicks in my yard again. All eight of them chirping and running all about, scratching around in the dirt just like their mama. The mother hen was constantly rounding them up and guiding them closer to her and at one time she actually nestled down on top of them, to try to keep them all together…

To keep them safe.

Shouldn’t we as humans do at least that much for our little ones?

Thank You God for for helping me be where I was, when that child was lost.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

10 THINGS I’VE LEARNED

 

          

We begin our lives by learning….

Why, our very first breath is our first learning adventure, though I believe that we are fortunate not to be able to remember that one.

                

If you stop and think about it, things were pretty comfy for us while still in our mother’s womb. Yep, we are snug as a bug in our own warm, quiet and dimly lit little world. Then all of a sudden we are literally forced out into a place where there is a lot of bright light, a lot of loud noise, and Lord help us, Mom is not our oxygen machine any longer! For the very first time in our existence, we have to breathe on our own in order to live! Now, I tell you what; that first breath had to have been a very traumatic experience! God bless our little hearts, no wonder we usually cry when we are first born.

                

Fortunately, within a very short span, if all goes well, we are able to learn to eat, sit, stand and walk. Yep, we usually get the basics out of the way fast and with no problems.

It is the lessons we learn later on in life that are usually the hard ones, the ones that seem to take us such a long time to get though our heads.

Lesson # 1. Parents were people before they ever were parents and they are smarter than we ever thought.

Lesson # 2.  Parents grow old and pass away. Sometimes we can lose them before they die, so we need to love, respect, and honor them before that happens.

Lesson # 3.  Children are a blessing and they grow up way too fast.

Lesson # 4.  All the important things, like love, respect, honesty, common decency, and being a law abiding citizen, we need to teach our children before they grow up. The ten commandments are a good start. 

Lesson # 5. Sometimes we are lucky enough to find that special someone…someone that our very soul knows is the right one to spend the rest of our life with…to grow old with.

Lesson # 6.  Sometimes God has other plans. So we need to remember to tell our loved one everyday how much they mean to us…not just on holidays.

Lesson # 7. Sometimes GOD does things or turns our lives in directions that we can not understand with our mortal minds.

Lesson # 8  FAITH IN GOD will bring us through all these rough spots…It may be a long journey. It may seem to be all up hill. It may HURT us more than anything has ever hurt us before, but it is then that we need to hold tightly to our FAITH, and we will eventually make it through.

Lesson # 9  GOD IS GOOD.

Lesson # 10  GOD IS GOOD.

Yes I know….

Lesson 9 and 10 are exactly alike.

You see, I  learned these two lessons as a child,

and it keeps coming back to me….

 over and over again.

GOD IS GOOD.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

I SAVED A RABBIT TODAY...I THINK.

Well, today has started out to be a pretty interesting day.

On my way home from town a while ago, I saw the big black and tan sheppard dog running up the sidewalk about a block from my home.

This dog is one of the many that run loose around our neighborhood. You wouldn't think that our city has a leash law, but it does. No matter how many times I call the animal shelter to come round them up, somehow or the other, there are still big dogs running loose around here...and chickens..and roosters...and turkeys.  Some people seem to think that just because they come from' far away', that they are above out laws and customs!

Okay back to the subject...

On my way home, I saw the big black and tan dog running up the sidewalk.

Only this time he had a huge white thing hanging from his mouth. At first I thought it was the beautiful solid white cat that had been hanging around here, but then I remembered that it had been killed a couple of weeks ago. I took a closer look and the big white thing was a rabbit that was dangling helplessly from that dog's mouth... and it was still alive..

I really needed to get home, but I could no more let that poor rabbit go to it's fate than if it were a child...

Sooooo.... here I go up the street in my car blowing my horn  and yelling constantly out the window at the dog to "DROP IT!"  The  dog turns around and heads back down the street, the rabbit still helplessly dangling from it's mouth, so I slam my car in reverse and chase the stupid dog  backwards...screaming; " DROP IT! " 

Well, I be danged if it didn't turn around again and head back up the street!  Soooooooo... I throw the car back in drive and chase it back up the street. This time I was able to corner it in my mom's old home place's yard. 

It was then and only then that the stupid dog finally, blessedly;

 "DROPPED IT".

The poor rabbit runs around to the side of the house and I now see  yet another dog running towards it. By this time I am out of my car and on my way to the rabbit. The new dog must have seen the fury of hell that was shining in my eyes, because one look at my face and he just cowards down and walked back across the street!

I go up to the poor rabbit, thinking this thing is going to claw me up, but no it did not. Poor little guy just cuddled way down into my arms. I could feel it's heart racing ninety miles an hour against my jacket... and mine wasn't far behind it.

Thinking back...I bet the folks who may have been looking out their windows at me driving wildly up and down the street, honking the horn and screaming out the window to "DROP IT"   probably thought I was deranged or on drugs... or both!!! lol

I take the rabbit and get in my car and go to the Mexicans' house that I had seen white rabbits running around out in the back yard in a fenced in area. When I knock on the door, a young lady answers and I ask, "is this your rabbit?" As she nods yes, I say, "the big black dog up the street had it and was going to kill it, so I chased it down and got it back" She nods  again and backing away from me  says, "wait a minute" and goes in another room, to come back with a young man. He comes up to me and I give him the rabbit and explain again. By this time, the young lady is now half hiding behind a door to the side and I don't know if she is scared of me or the rabbit! Soon enough, the young man tells me thank you and I leave feeling better.

After all, I saved a rabbit today!

Now, when I was a little bitty girl on Horseshoe Bend, my daddy would go rabbit hunting and he would come home loaded down with rabbits in his hunting jacket. That night, mama would cook those rabbits that my daddy shot, skinned and cleaned and we would have either stewed or fried rabbit for supper. And you can bet I ate it. We were hungry and very grateful to have such good   food for supper!

But this situation today was totally different...

This was a pet white rabbit and a dog was going to tear into it.

And besides....

I buy my food at INGLES now.

When I got home and told my son of how I saved that poor little white rabbit....

He informs me that he thinks those folks that I gave it back to...

 Eat those rabbits.

After all this...I sure hope not.

For mine and the rabbit's sake.


GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

MY GRANNY'S HOUSE

This is the house that my Granny lived in when I was a  little bitty girl still living on Horseshoe Bend. It is on the  Madison Hwy, State Road 12, across from Mr. Phelps old house. Me and my sister Dorris stopped out there today to get a picture. 

While there, we couldn't help but look inside the window. I saw way past the mounds of  trash, old rags, clothes and an odd assortment of stuff that was strewn all over what is left of the floors. Instead of the old bare wooden walls, my mind's eye saw the walls that Granny always kept papered with clean news paper to help keep the cold wind out.

I notice that there is still no running water in the house to this day...over 50 years later. Granny always made a trip down to the spring that ran close beside the house with her bucket for her and my Uncle Tommy's water. Water that was used for bathing, washing their clothes on the scrub board and also for cooking. Can you imagine?

Her old upright piano sat just to the right of the front door...the piano my mama learned to play by ear on ...just like her mama.

I remember walking in that front door as a little girl, and although sparse, my Granny would have this little house so clean. I  remember the crocheted doily's she use to make that would be on every chair arm. It seems like there was always a coconut cake on her table with a lacy white doily placed neatly under the plate that held it.

I guess this is why I find it so hard to understand how people around my neighborhood can let their homes go. They throw beer cans and trash all in the front and back yards. I realize that they don't own these old mill houses that they live in here...but my Granny didn't own her house either....and you can tell from the photo that it wasn't a grand manor!

To have so little, to be so poor, she still worked very hard to make it into a cozy little home...

and

She kept her house clean.


GOD BLESS YOU ALL.