RRN Online Volume 253

April 07 '01

Volume 253

Opal Austin A Family Friend

At some point, at or Electric Mobility near the time of my entrance into this world, Mom and Dad lived in a duplex in Pontotoc with Colonel and Opal Austin. The actual year is not overly important, but the event was a milestone in the life of my family and in the relationship between the Carters and the Austins. Perhaps, seeds were planted around that time that would later bring to fruition a business partnership lasting roughly a decade and a half.

Prior to my dad becoming a grocer, he had been a farmer. In looking for a better means to provide for his family he also worked in a pool hall owned by Mr. Austin. During those years, Dad became quite adept with a cue stick. By the time I was big enough to see across a pool table, my family had returned to Pontotoc, having been gone for nine years, living in both standard and sub-standard housing in the likes of Corinth, Iuka, Starkville, and Okolona, all Mississippi towns and cities.

While we were living in Okolona in the early fifties, the Carters and Austins visited one another on several occasions. I don't remember any business propositions being discussed, but then a ten-year old wouldn't have gotten much out of the conversation had he been present. For some strange reason, I remember our families eating together at our house in Okolona, and I particularly remember that the younger son of the Austins, Paul David (Yes, we used both names in addressing him.) loved canned spaghetti. It was never big on my list, but Paul David could put back a whole can of Franco American Spaghetti, with no problem.

I recently talked about Paul David's fondness of canned spaghetti with his mother, and she explained that they once had to purchase spaghetti by the case, in order to have enough on hand for their spaghetti-loving son. I have a hunch Dad might have been giving Mr. Austin a good buy on the spaghetti, even while we still lived in Okolona.

After living in Okolona for three years, my family returned to Pontotoc with one member more than when we left. My sister, Sarah Sue, was born in Tupelo while we made Okolona our home. Dad and Mr. Austin formed a business partnership that placed Dad as the owner/ manager of "Carter & Austin Grocery" in Pontotoc. The business was adjacent to the corner drug store, "Rutherford's Drug Co.," which soon afterwards became "Whitworth and Ashmore Drug Co." and remained the corner business until the business sold to Fred's, Inc., about five years ago.

"Carter & Austin" was a family owned and operated business. There were few workers that were not family members. After school and on Saturdays, both my older brother and I worked in the store, as did the two Austin brothers, Billy Carl and Paul David. Miss Opal was not a full time employee, but she would often drop by to help "clean up." The woman was a whiz with a feather duster. Dad was not too keen on using a feather duster, claiming it only stirred up the dust. Yet, that didn't stop Miss Opal from her appointed rounds. I can still picture her "flying in" to dust or straighten up a work area. She was the human equivalent of the cartoon character named the Tasmanian Devil.

I don't know if Miss Opal's parents gave much thought to the meaning of "Opal," but "opal" comes from the Latin opalus, meaning seeing jewel, and she is definitely a jewel. Maybe they knew that symbolically "opal" expresses "hope, happiness, and truth," all desirable characteristics for their newborn.

With four children to tend, a husband, and all that goes with a household to maintain, I once wondered where she got the energy to do all the things she did. Somehow she managed, and has managed to outlive her husband, her two sons (both of whom died in unrelated automobile accidents), and she now resides across the hall from my mother-in-law in the Pontotoc Hospital Nursing Home.

As long as I've known Miss Opal, she's had a thirst for knowledge. She knows the Bible as well as a lot of preachers. If she weren't "died-in-the-wool Church of Christ" she'd be a lot more fun in the scholarly/ theological sense, but I don't hold that against her. I respect her beliefs and hope she respects mine, though I expect she'll be more surprised to see me on the other side, than I will to see her.

At age 53, Miss Opal went back to school. As a bright student of Science, she soon earned enough college credits to become a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN), and later worked at the hospital in Pontotoc.

Opal also took in boarders during the pipeline construction days in the sixties, ran a day-care center in the seventies, and, somewhere along the way, found time to pursue an artistic interest in painting, both oil and water color.

These days, limited by a nerve/ muscle dysfunction, she relies upon a motorized wheelchair for mobility. Common sense and her medical knowledge stimulate her to maintain a modest exercise regime. She extends her exercise program to her mind, too, reading as she says, "anything I can get my hands on."

A true fan of this newsletter, she has kept every issue since subscribing a few years ago, explaining that she sometimes rereads the old issues.

I had only visited Miss Opal a couple of times in the nursing home, prior to our moving Lillie Belle there, but now, I try to check on her each time I'm there to visit Lillie Belle. I'm always impressed with her positive attitude and sense of humor, and I have yet to leave her room feeling worse than when I entered.

If I had to name an activity that she misses as much as any since being unable to walk for the past couple of years, it would be vegetable gardening. Fiercely independent, Miss Opal refused to live with either of her two daughters. Prior to her relocation to the nursing home, she had lived in a Senior Citizens complex of apartments on Lake Shore Drive where she truck-patched a hundred square feet or so of dirt, raising some fine tomatoes, squash, okra, and the like.

Miss Opal continues to express herself in various forms. As a leader, she is the current president of the Resident Council at the Pontotoc Hospital Nursing Home (a.k.a. Extended Care Facility). As a church member, she attends the Church Of Christ as often as her daughter can make the arrangements to get her there. As an encourager, she visits with others in the nursing home, conversing with them, and sharing unabashedly her good humor with all. As a seamstress, she shared that she is about to undertake sewing a few christening gowns to be passed from grandchildren to the generations that follow. Thus, at a time when most folks in their upper eighties might think of slowing down, Miss Opal, like the Energizer Bunny, just keeps going and going.

Joel's Shiner Battered Boat Update

A few weeks after the Pontotoc Tornado upset the routine of many in the small city of Pontotoc, my hometown, nestled in the heart of northeast Mississippi, I phoned Joel Hale and asked about my boat moored at his lake. Readers may recall my sister made me aware that the boat had sustained some minor damage in the storm.

Joel assured me the damage was minor, explaining that a dead tree he had long expected to topple into the water at any time had its slow descent changed from imperceptible to rapid in the storm’s fury. He also described how the tree had been blown in a direction almost the opposite of its lean and was lying across the bow of my boat on the bank of the levee.

I told Joel that I was not too worried about the condition of the boat and that I would be glad to help him cut the tree off the boat. I explained that I didn’t own a chainsaw, but I could help him with the heavy work of moving the limbs and sections of the tree trunk.

"It won’t be nothing to it," he surmised. "I’ve got me a new chainsaw ordered, and I can get it done."

Though I repeatedly assured him of my willingness to help, he insisted it was a one-man job. Joel did tell me his newly stocked lake was ready for some light fishing.

"If you fellows, (speaking of Sansing, Hess, and Gordon, and me) want to fish out here this spring, y’all are welcome to keep all the crappie, bream, and catfish, but I want to let the bass grow some more before I let them be taken out of the lake," Joel offered, then added a personal note, "You can come out and we’ll fish some Saturday."

I thanked him for the offer and explained I would get in touch with my other fishing buddies to see what they wanted to do for a spring trip. Though I’ve not done that, they’ll know about Joel’s offer when this week’s newsletter arrives.

In talking to Joel, I learned that one of my plastic boat seats had been crushed, a limb had punctured the aluminum covering of the flotation material on one of the gunwales but had not pierced the hull of the boat, and that the right rail on the bow had a small indentation.

With apparently nothing that needed my immediate attention regarding the damages to my boat and with Joel insisting he needed no help with the dead tree removal, I had not thought much more about the situation until arriving at church last Sunday. Though late by my standards, since being held up by my daughter and her two youngest girls, we were not actually late for the service, but were too late to sit on our regular pew. As I sat down behind Bing Crausby, he looked over his shoulder to tell me I might need to update my battered boat story.

"Have you seen Joel?" Bing inquired. "He’s got a black eye. He was cutting the tree off your boat and a limb whopped him. He’s got himself a real shiner."

I looked toward the back of the congregation and seeing Joel’s wife Shirley, alone, figured he was not hurt too badly to sing in the choir. Sure enough, when the choir filed into the choir loft, Joel looked like a football player who had left a non-glare black smudge under one of his eyes. I kept trying to catch his eye, thinking I would grin at him and point to my eye, conveying the message that I could tell from where I sat that he had a black eye. However, we never made visual contact before the sermon started, so I gave up trying.

Nonetheless, I was able to catch him in the basement, hanging up his choir robe after the church service.

"I asked Shirley which hand she used on you, but after checking her knuckles on both hands, I figured the tale I heard from Bing Crausby must be true," I laughed.

When I asked if he were wearing his glasses at the time of the accident he said he was not, adding that the pool of blood under the skin below his right eye was the result of a blow to the side of his head. Sure enough, when he turned his head to his left, I could see the abrasion and the resultant lump that had risen after the blow. Before I could remind him that I had offered to help him, he told me he had thought of my offer several times since his accident.

Joel explained that as he began to cut the tree, his chainsaw begin to pinch as he cut down through the wood, so he began to cut from the under side. As the saw completed the cut, the boat, freed from part of its load, righted itself, and in doing so pushed the remainder of the tree upward, rapidly. A limb clubbed him in the process. I think the only thing I should have asked that I didn't was if he was knocked out in the process, at least, my sister thought that was something I should have found out.

I didn't tell Joel that I bought a new chainsaw in Hattiesburg the same week as his accident. I haven't cranked mine yet, but when I do I may ask Joel to drop over and give me a few pointers, pointers on how to stay out of harm's way.

Corrections & More Catching Up

Corrections to RRN are not always timely, but the staff and I strive to correct those mistakes that others point out. In reporting on the birth of my newest granddaughter, I mentioned that Rayanne had an epidermal anesthesia. It should have read, "epidural anesthesia." Both words are valid, but only the second is the intended phrasing. I had double-checked the spelling of epidural in the dictionary, but I guess my MS Word "spell checker" prompted me to substitute the wrong word. I really don’t know how the mistake got by me, but I assured my daughter I had not erred in ignorance.

Immediately after the article had been printed last week concerning Kim Goslin’s visit in which it was mentioned that Jason helped clean out the gutters, I spotted a typographical error. I had complied with my proofreader’s request (my wife) to tweak out some of the negative phrasing I had used to describe my shock over Jason’s offer to help, and I carelessly mistyped a word without running the spell check program. Later Brett Brown observed the word assistance was erroneously typed "assistnace."

Though, I tried to exclude readers from a verbose rendering of the prostate biopsy procedure, Felicia Brown and Lisa Rolik allowed the article contained more than they wanted to know about the procedure. Lisa’s mother and sister are both nurses, so I imagine she’s been exposed to much worse. While Felicia had enthusiastically asked to be in the birthing room to see Rayanne deliver her latest child (request denied), when I told her she could tag along for my biopsy procedure her response, though definitely emphatic, was a far less enthusiastic, "No! Uncle Wayne that’s gross!"

Bodock Beau Things I've Learned

A few weeks ago, someone sent in the following. I regret I did not save the name of the contributor.

"They're written by Andy Rooney a man who has the gift of saying so much with so few words."

I've learned that....

The best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.

When you're in love, it shows.

Just one person saying to me, "You've made my day!" makes my day.

Having a child fall asleep in your arms is one of the most peaceful feelings in the world.

Being kind is more important than being right.

That you should never say no to a gift from a child.

I can always pray for someone when I don't have the strength to help him in some other way.

No matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.

Sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.

Simple walks with my father around the block on summer nights when I was a child did wonders for me as an adult.

Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.

We should be glad God doesn't give us everything we ask for.

Money doesn't buy class.

It's those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular.

Under everyone's hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved.

The Lord didn't do it all in one day. What makes me think I can?

To ignore the facts does not change the facts.

When you plan to get even with someone, you are only letting that person continue to hurt you.

Love, not time, heals all wounds.

The easiest way for me to grow as a person is to surround myself with people smarter than I am.

Everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile.

There's nothing sweeter than sleeping with your babies and feeling their breath on your cheeks.

No one is perfect until you fall in love with them.

Life is tough, but I'm tougher.

Opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.

When you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.

I wish I could have told my Mom that I love her one more time before she passed away.

One should keep his words both soft and tender, because tomorrow you may have to eat them.

A smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks.

I can't choose how I feel, but I can choose what to do about it.

When your newly born grandchild holds your little finger in his little fist, you're hooked for life.

Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.

It is best to give advice in only two circumstances: when it is requested and when it is a life-threatening situation.

The less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.

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