Drawing a Blank

Looking out this morning through an old grapevine wreath that Poppy made me when we first started clearing a spot to have a yard.  That makes me think of Aretha Franklin's song that said:

                  "Looking out on the morning rain
                   I used to feel so uninspired 
                   and when I knew I had to face another day
                   Lord, it made me feel so tired"  :)

Drawing a blank!!!  Exactly!!!    I've simply had nothing to talk about lately!!   Lynn and I met last Sunday and we enjoyed the afternoon together doing a little shopping and looking...more looking than shopping, and lots of talking and laughing!!  How fortunate I am to have two daughters who call me every day!  Two daughters who actually don't mind spending time with me, or me spending time with them!!!  How special is that!!!

 Of course, my favorite subject to talk about is growing up in the small town of Robbins, North Carolina in the 1950's.

The Robbins town sign has changed since we lived there.  Unless there is more than one  sign now.  The sign I remember said, "Welcome to Robbins, a Friendly Little City Still Growing"

Lots of mornings I wake up thinking about those days in Robbins.  Even this morning I was thinking about when my best friend Becky and I used to take our twenty five cents and walk down the hill past the mill to a small cafe run by her uncle.  We would each buy a "zero" candy bar, a pepsi, and play a song on the jukebox.  We sat together in a booth, feeling pretty grown up !!  "The Yellow Rose of Texas" must have been popular at the time because that's the song we played!  Becky's uncle hated tomatoes and told Becky that he would buy her a dress when she grew up if she would never eat a tomato!  I wonder if she ever got that dress

Jackie and I were close growing up.  He was only fourteen months younger than me.  I was bashful and shy, Jackie was not!  Jackie didn't mind asking anybody anything!!!  One Halloween...we loved Halloween...Jackie and I left our house with our sacks, going "trick-or-treating".  We walked down the hill and decided to stop at this one dark, unlit, no porch light burning house.  We walked up the front steps and Jackie knocked at the door.  No one answered.  Jackie knocked again.  No one answered.   Jackie looked around and said, "okay, we've got to play a trick".  We each picked up a chair from the front porch and started down the steps.  We were just going to set the chairs in the yard, nothing mean, but the front door opened and a voice said, "YOU PUT THOSE CHAIRS RIGHT BACK WHERE YOU FOUND THEM"!!  Well, I was scared to death!  We put the chairs back and ran.  I never liked walking past that house.  It was always cold and unfriendly looking and we never saw a human being there!  We still had lots of fun and got back home with a bag of treats! 

Halloween night in Robbins was just the most fun!!!  The street were roped off and it seemed like everybody in town came out.  There was music and dancing and all sorts of games and fun things.   There was a cake walk...I didn't know exactly what that was, but I remember mama and daddy encouraging me, "it will be fun, all you do is get in there walk around in a circle with the others until the music stops".  When the music stopped, guess who was on the right spot and won the cake!!??  I was so embarrassed, but went home with a cake!! 

 Well enough about me, and Robbins, in the 1950's!!!  I think these pictures of Jackie and me were taken while on a trip to Charlottesville, Virginia.  That was a fun trip...I remember Jackie was proud of those new dress pants he's wearing in the picture.  The pants were a very pale yellow.  Bless his heart...I spilled my pepsi and it went all in the cuff of Jackie's new pants...and I got tickled...it just looked funny seeing the cuff filled with pepsi!  I'm sure I got fussed at!!!

Thank you if you're still here.  Hopefully, I will improve!  :)

Love,
Henny Penny