I was thinking about my grandma Stevens today. To me she was awesome and I hope I can be as good as or better grandmother than her. She had great interest in doing things.
The memory that I seem to be stuck on today was when she use to go black berry picking. She'd set out first thing in the morning and she would take any of us, who wanted to go, with her.
She would be dressed from her head to her feet in anti-chigger / anti-snake gear; straw hat, long sleeve shirt, overalls, rubber boots.
Off we'd go down the road and up the hill side, through a thicket of briars and into the berries. When the season was young, and we'd hit the patch, not a lot of berries would hit the pail. We'd be busy eating them. Fortunately, we had several places that we'd harvest from, so eventually, we'd get a decent haul of berries and head home.
As I was thinking about this today, I remembered the summers when my sisters and I would go on our own and pick blackberries to sale; mostly to our sweet aunts. We sold blackberries, returned drink bottles, and did chores to earn money to take on our trips to my sister, JoAnne's house.
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I finished writing the above entry, and closed the laptop; finished for the day with 20 minutes to spare. Then, I started watching Charlie Rose. He had a round table of historians talking about U.S. presidents, as this is President's Day. And suddenly I remembered that my daughter and I started talking today about President Kennedy's death. I was ten years old and his murder scars me to this day. I choked up as I talked to my daughter. It's still hard to talk about it.
I was in the 5th grade. We had come back from lunch and maybe even a short recess. I want to say it was around 1 o'clock. My teacher entered the room. She was such a beautiful woman; young, blond hair and such a good person to us. As she walked to the front of the class, she started to cry. This shocked me and upsets me, even now. And then she told us that the president had been shot and killed. There was a gasp among all us kids, except for one boy, whose name I will not mention here because he is a man now and may feel badly about his poor behavior at that time, anyway, he did give a "yay". We all looked at him immediately and I think the teacher scolded him - not harshly but more that he should show respect.
It was a hard time in my family too because my Mama was gone to my sister, JoAnne's house to help with my new nephew, William. Mama just knew how to soothe, sad souls. Dad was a Republican, he didn't like President Kennedy, but he never said an unkind thing about the deceased president from that time on. He fussed a bit about the constant news coverage but he was respectful and that now, means so much to me.
There was a lot of news coverage. They covered the actual shooting, the grassy knoll, the shooting of Oswald, the First family, the siblings of the President. Anything and anyone they could think of to cover who might be even remotely associated with President Kennedy, was covered. It was a bit much
But I do appreciate the coverage of the president's funeral. Jackie Kennedy did this nation a great service in planning things out so beautifully. The image that stays with me to this day is the riderless horse that made it's way down the street with the funeral procession. I cried and still do when I think of that man, losing his life, in service to this country. And his children, so young and now without a Dad. And me without my Mom. I was so glad when she came home.
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