JAMES HAWK SMITH

Mike and I in front of the old Shoals theater in Florence Ala.

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Mother and Daddy used to take us to this theater when we were little. I remember that my sister, Wanda and I would sit in the seats right in front of mother and daddy. Daddy would put his hands over our eyes when the cartoon would come on and pretend that he wasn't going to let us see the cartoons. This is where I first saw the movie-Gone With The Wind. I must have been very little-the only scene that I remembered was when the little girl fell off of the pony. Later, when I was a teenager, my friend Linda Hill and I went to the same theater to see Gone With The Wind again, and when I saw that scene, then I remembered that that was the movie that I had seen as a little girl.

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Frances and I in front of the fountain in the park in Florence, Ala.

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Mike and I and our good friends, Charlie and Fran Parson took a trip to Lawrence County, Tn and Florence Ala. We left Friday morning and came back on Sunday afternoon. Mike has family down there and we usually go and spend the night and come right back. Charlie and Fran have heard us talk about Lawrence County so much that they wanted to go down there and see it and I wanted to go back an relive old memories. So Mike and I went as tourist this time. Both of us were raised up there. He in Loretto, Tn and I in St. Joseph, Tn., but it had been a long time since I had been back to some parts of St. Joe. My parents moved from there about 20 yrs ago and now they have both passed away.

We got down there on Friday morning and stopped at Ethridge and got a map of the Amish community. We drove out to the Amish community and saw some of their houses and their school house. We stopped an bought some molasses and some baskets. The baskets are beautiful and very inexpensive.

When we left there, we drove to Loretto and stopped at Riley's restaurant and ate catfish--very good. Then we went on to St. Joe. We drove by a lot of places that I have good memories of. The first house my parents lived in (where they lived when I and my sister were born). But some of the houses on that street are boarded up and look pitiful. One of the houses that I remember very well was where the Farris's lived. It was a large beautiful home, but now it is boarded up. We spent a lot of time with their two oldest sons, Donnie and Ray. It was at their house that I fell and broke my arm. I was five. Ray was riding his tricycle and we had a wagon tied to the back and I was in the wagon. We were going around and around on their porch and the wagon fell off and I broke my arm. One Christmas we went to their house and Santa Clause was there. We were all in the living room and he came walking down the stairs. Now all of them are gone except Donnie.

From there we drove on out to Mt. Nebo. We drove by the house that we lived in when I was in the second grade. Mike and his family lived next door to us then. We drove by Mike's grandparents old home and by the cemetery where some of our relatives are buried. We drove by where my childhood friend, Edith Wilcoxson (Cabaniss) lived. The house is no longer there.

From there we came back to St. Joe and drove by the old elementary school (it is all grown up and looks pitiful), drove through St. Joe. Drove by where my childhood friend, Linda Hill (Talley) lived, by where the old Church of Christ was, by where my childhood friend, Carol Jackson (Neidert) lived, drove by where my grandparents lived. Then drove on up to where my family lived in the rock house in St. Joe. We lived close to a grocery store and my sister and I would walk to the store and get cold drinks and candy and comic books and on Friday our dad would come by there and pay the bill. My mother had a beauty shop in the back of that house. It was fun for my friends and I to have a beauty shop in my house.

That house burned down earlier this year, so it is no longer there. I dream of that house sometimes.

We left there and drove to Florence, Ala. My dad worked in Florence at the Wilson Dam. We always did everything in Florence. Mother would take us shopping there and we would go to Sears and on the way back, we would stop at a little restaurant called Pig and Poke. I couldn't find the old Sears store and the restaurant is something else now. On Fridays we would pick my Dad up at work and we would go to a drive-in movie and out to eat. And sometimes they would take us to the theater in Florence. I found the old shoals theater and the park that is across the street from there. We drove out the Wilson Dam. We spent the night in Florence.

The next morning we drove back to St. Joe and went to the park. My children have a lot of good memories of my mother and dad taking them to the park and letting them swim in the creek and throw rocks in the creek. Our boys carved their names on a tree there when they were little.

We drove by the Catholic church in St. Joe. Someone suggested that because it is so old and has beautiful stained glass windows. We left there and drove out in the country where my Uncle Clifton(deceased) and my Aunt Frances Grigsby (she is in assisted living now) used to live and then drove out to where my Uncle Jr and Aunt Letha Grigsby (both deceased) used to live. They lived in the same house and raised their family there all of their lives. The house sits at the end of a dead end gravel road. Anyway, their children still own the house and go out there a lot. I spent a lot of my childhood at their house. Bobby, Carolyn, Sheila and I would build playhouses in the woods. I remember once Dan found an old steering wheel attached to a long pipe. We stacked up blocks and put boards across them and propped the steering wheel up in front and we pretended that we had a car. We had a lot of fun pretending to travel in that car. Anyway, we drove out to their house and Dan and his wife Ann and his sister Carolyn and her husband, Ronnie were there. They had their campers and were spending the weekend out there. It was great getting to see all of them. Their sister, Bobby, who is my age, passed away in 2001. We spent a lot of our childhood together. I hated to see her have to go. I have a lot of wonderful memories of staying at their house.

After we left there we drove on up to Loretto and spent the rest of Saturday with Mike's family. We toured Loretto and saw Mike's old elementary school. It has been kept up better than my old school and saw the high school that we both attended, but it looks entirely different. Mike's dad and step-mom rode around with us and he told Charlie and Fran a lot about that area. We all went up to Lawrenceburg and ate supper that night. Mike's brother, Sammy and his wife, Debbie joined all of us for supper. Mike and I and Charlie and Fran spent the night in Lawrenceburg. Mike and I have been gone from Lawrence County for 38 years. We have gone back every month since then to visit family. But we would go to their houses and spend all of our time with them and then go straight back home. This is the first time in my life ( I am 57) that I have ever spent the night in a motel in Lawrence County. We've always stayed with family.

These are pictures of a beautiful rainbow taken on Monday afternoon looking out from my front yard.