A morning lost in someone else’s past

I woke up thinking of envelopes of newspaper clippings, short stories typed on yellowed paper, and some handwritten reminiscences–all written by my father. Tom helped me find the collection in the garage before he went to work. I’ve been jumping from one story or clipping to another, wondering if I can finally edit it all into some kind of order, a project my mother handed off to me in the late 1980s.

One legal pad made me smile as it contains such an accurate glimpse into what occupied my parents’ thoughts on a particular day. My father had listed his predictions–including scores–of the football games Alabama and Auburn were scheduled to play in 1982. On the next page were price quotes my mother wrote from Mayflower, Allied, and U-Haul–planning yet another move.

In the same notepad: an account Daddy began of a train trip he took when he was five and a half. His age was important, because as Mr. Hasten Byrd–the ticket master–told my grandfather, my father could ride for free until he was six.

His tale begins…

She was my old maid aunt, my mother’s oldest sister. The man she was to marry had been killed when he was thrown from his horse. And lo these many years later, tears still came to her eyes when she talked of Mr. Stablefield.

Most of what Daddy told me about Aunt Jo has left my memory. An exception: She scandalized the family by walking to town barefooted. In the draft of an introduction I wrote when I first began compiling his papers, I comment, “I believe [my father] thought I might grow up to be a character, someone like his Aunt Jo, and he couldn’t decide if he wanted that or dreaded it.”

I’ve always known Aunt Jo would be okay with my late-night forays to the grocery store in my snuggly warm house shoes.

I wish you a happy morning.