Growing Up Together

Harry S. Truman was the President of the United States when my uncle was born. Sam was the ninth of nine children and born only eleven months after number eight. 

Did you know Harry S. Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri and coined the phrases, "The buck stops here" and "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen?" He dismissed General MacArthur one month before I was born - totally unrelated. 

Much later, Daddy said Truman should never have fired him but I did not listen to why he thought that.

Sid McMath was the Governor of Arkansas when my then two year old uncle tried to cross Main Street in his endeavor to see why Mama and Daddy had taken "his baby" to Aunt Maggie's little house. 

Back then new mothers stayed in bed for ten days after childbirth. Naturally we went to Grandma's. Mama and Daddy had just left when my Aunt Dorcas and my cousin Jimmy arrived at Grandma's for her ten day confinement.

The year I was in Mrs. Polly's class, Sam borrowed a bicycle from a classmate of his in Miss Kraus' class to get the homework assignment I had left at home. I was glad he did because I sure didn't need to be in any more trouble with my fourth grade teacher than I always was anyway. 

Do you notice this Schwinn is a "Panther?" Would you give $79.95 for one of them now?

This Chevrolet Impala was very popular the year we rode a bus to Oklahoma City. I was thirteen and Sam was fifteen. I do not remember being scared or uneasy about the trip. Although we shared a seat, we did not talk. 

All I remember him saying is, "Get it yourself" when I asked him to go back into the bus stop to get me a comic book. That is the kind of thing you say when you are almost siblings.

What do you think about that commercial? No computer generated special effects there. That girl is really up there - alone.  I think Sam had a car like that at one time. It is my hubby's favorite classic car.

Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "Let it Be" by the Beatles were two of the more popular songs the year Sam was the best man at our wedding. They were drafting way too many of our friends for the Vietnam War then.

A picture of my oldest child and Sam's first daughter in the front yard of the house Grandma and Grandpa bought in the thirties. They were born one month apart and were two of the cutest babies ever. Grandma baked her mother and I sweet potatoes every day while we were expecting.

His fourth child and my second one sitting on the sofa at Grandma's house. My brother's two children are in the center. Four little stair steps. Sam's grandchildren and my grandchildren play together now.

Can you guess how old Sam was yesterday?