On Your Birthday

Today, you are seventeen.  Where has the time gone?  With each passing year I see less of the little girl who clomped around in oversize shoes, less of the girl who was carried down the sidewalk by her daddy with her long legs – yes, even then – dangling from beneath a pale pink skirt on the way to ballet, less of the  little girl who could play with her Barbies for hours, and more of the young lady you are becoming.

But no matter how old you become,  nor how far away from me you may one day live, you will always be my little girl. 

Happy birthday, my darling daughter!

 

Love,

Mom

P.S.  If you would like to take a stroll down memory lane for this most glorious day you can do that HERE.  I'm sure it will put a smile on your face - or you might just laugh at what a wuss I am. ;)

Ahhh...Polecats.

My paternal grandfather, born in 1910, was a farmer most of his life and was one of the finest men to ever walk this earth.  To this day, I can not hear Randy Travis’ song “He Walked on Water” without thinking of him.   He left us in 2000 just one month shy to the day of his ninetieth birthday and his passing left a hole never to be filled in our family.

Pa Frazier, as most Southerners from that generation, had a way with words and a few that I distinctly remember consist of his description of a skunk and what it could do for certain upper respiratory ailments. 

Anytime we would pass near an area where one of the odorous creatures had recently been Pa would usually declare, “Ahhh…polecat…clears up the sinuses", to which we would giggle while wrinkling up our noses.

Well, as he was about most things in life, Pa was correct in his philosophy of skunks, too.  I have had some sort of a terrible head cold for the past couple weeks which has temporarily disabled my sense of smell.  Yesterday, however, it was momentarily relieved when we all  arrived at church to find that a skunk had somehow made its way under the foundation.  

Ahhh….polecats.

 

P.S.  I also learned yesterday via our preacher that in days long past people would sometimes use the grease from a cooked skunk as a chest salve for croup and such.  Okay, now that really does make me wrinkle my nose.

One of These Days...

...I may blog again.  Coming soon...a review of Christmas 2012.  Just kidding.  Hopefully.