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Thread: Kind'a cool ... well, to ME anyway. (Thump post, sorry)

  1. #1
    pUMpHEAD SYSOp Thumper's Avatar
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    Kind'a cool ... well, to ME anyway. (Thump post, sorry)

    My grandmother was a cool lady and passed away in 1995. She was in her 90's, but nobody actually knew how old she REALLY was. The story goes, my grandfather was younger than her and she lied about her age to make the marriage "more appropriate" for the times, so she may have been older. I don't know if official records existed or not, but as far as we know, she was born in 1904 on a rural farm in Georgia. I never knew my grandfather (mom's side) as I was told he was crossing the street one day and was hit and killed by a truck. Granny was left with 4 kids (2-boys, 2-girls) to raise on her own, kind of a tough feat in the 30's-40's. As I said above, she was born on the farm and had to help run the family business and only had a sixth-grade education. She was a strong woman and after my grandfather was killed, she opened her own beauty shop. It did well and she eventually had a space in a major department store in downtown Orlando. Right after the war, she had her own house built which is where she still lived until her death. (my uncle, her last remaining child, now owns it) She went the way I'd like to go. She was living alone at home, still caring for herself and worked in her garden every day. One day, she went out to lunch (one of her favorite restaurants) with my aunt and just keeled over, dead in her chair during the meal. No illness, no suffering, just here one minute, gone the next.

    Well, my uncle received the house in her will and boxed everything up to put in storage as he fixed the place up and rented it out. That stuff eventually made it to a shed at my mom's house. When my mom died, we had an estate sale and dug through those boxes to rescue old family photos, etc, but it was mostly dishes and nick-nacks, etc. Most of the family had already snagged whatever momentos they wanted years ago. Well, in one of those boxes I found an old cutting board I'd made for my grandmother in 7th grade shop class. It is made with alternating hardwood strips of oak and walnut. It's pretty cool that it has obviously been well used and she even wrote an inscription on the back. Again, she had very little formal education and her spelling was a bit rough. She even misspelled my first (I spelled it with a "Y") AND last name (2-"B's") but that was Granny. She always did things her way and it was always accepted by all. Well, here's the front and back of my new "heirloom". (I may pass it on to my son) Why she switched from printing to cursive is anybody's guess, but we never questioned anything Granny did, we just loved her for who she was.

    Note: Since my grandfather, my dad and I have the same name, I grew up as "Little Jimmy".


    DSCN3346.JPG DSCN3348.JPG DSCN3352.JPG
    "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness" - Mark Twain

  2. #2
    Senior Member (too much time on their hands) Chicken Dinner's Avatar
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    That is pretty cool.


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  3. #3
    Delta Dufus Big Muddy's Avatar
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    Great story there, "Little Jimmy".....however, I just can't imagine that you were ever little.
    Southern Gentleman

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    pUMpHEAD SYSOp Thumper's Avatar
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    Awww bite me, a little bit.

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    Senior Member (too much time on their hands) Bwana's Avatar
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    Way cool

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    Administrator BarryBobPosthole's Avatar
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    That is neat, Jim.

    BKB
    Viva Renaldo!

  7. #7
    Administrator BarryBobPosthole's Avatar
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    Viva Renaldo!

  8. #8
    pUMpHEAD SYSOp Thumper's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BarryBobPosthole View Post
    Ha ha ha! I have to admit, when I "dressed up" for church or whatever, I always wore a bow tie!

    (but that pencil-necked geek can't be me .... he has a big ol' haid!)
    "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness" - Mark Twain

  9. #9
    pUMpHEAD SYSOp Thumper's Avatar
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    Odd, I remember making that cutting board like it was just yesterday. In fact, I made two of them, one for my mom and one for my grandmother. (no clue whatever happened to my mom's) It was early in the school year (I was in 7th grade from '64-'65) and this was my very first project in wood shop. My shop teacher was Mr. Powell and he was 7' tall. I remember he was the ONLY male teacher in the school who never wore a necktie, for obvious reasons, which we were immediately taught in shop class. We also had a coach (Mr. Cluggish) who was 7' 1" tall. Which reminds me, there were only two people who had the honor of swinging that ol' paddle across our butts when we deserved it. One was the Principle (Mr. King) and Coach Cluggish. Trust me, you did NOT want Coach to be the one connecting that paddle to your ass! Especially once he upgraded from the old wooden paddle (with holes drilled in the business part) to his newfangled fiberglass paddle! It was thinner than the wooden paddle and had a bit of flex to it. That dang thing would actually wrap around your ass and cover a lot more ground than the solid wooden one. (or so I'd been told)
    "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness" - Mark Twain

  10. #10
    Senior Member (too much time on their hands) HideHunter's Avatar
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    coool..
    If you turn a dog loose to hunt – you’d better to be ready to deal with what he trees.

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