....Continued See The Small Children ....

Momma and I use to go to church early on Sundays, ya know to get a good seat; momma use to say we needed a good seat near the front, by the alter so we could be closer to God.

I use to like to sit near the front so as I could see what was going on; besides it just seemed that's where all the kids from my seventh grade class use to sit with their parents.

There was Jason and Mr. and Mrs. Cumberlink, Mr. Cumberlink when he was in town. He travelled a lot selling vacuum cleaners, it always seemed to me they were rich, but momma said having money didn't make you no better than anybody else and that Mr. Cumberlink didn't really have a very respectable position in the community because he was always travelling. Momma said to truly be respectable you ought to be home at the dinner table with your family.

There were Mr. and Mrs. Beetle and Jimmy Beetle. Jimmy had pretty long curly blond hair for a boy and a kid our age. All the teachers liked Jimmy, they use to say what a handsome boy he was; come to think of it everybody seemed to like Jimmy. He was real funny and real smart and captain of the football team. All the guys use to tease him cause he was so popular, but not too much teasin, because even though Jimmy was a lot of fun he could get real mad if you kept the teasin up. I once saw him take his clenched fist right up to Herman Miller's face and threaten to drown Herman dead in the creek one summer if Herman didn't do exactly what Jimmy said.

Herman was our star quarterback for the football team; they said he was real good. I don't know, cause I never liked football or any of the other sports. In fact I hated sports. I hated to run and I hated gym and I hated that we didn't play with a real football cause we didn't have enough money to buy one, instead we use to get a sturdy stick and toss it around and tackle each other to make a touchdown. Momma said it didn't matter if I didn't like sports, long as I studied, learned my lessons well, grew up, got married, had a few kids and got a respectable job I'd do ok. I remember one crisp fall day when daddy suggested he and I go out to toss around the stick, I didn't want to play football, he was ok with it, seemed a little surprised and confused but he didn't say much, just put his arm around my shoulder and said son, if you don't want to play you don't have to, maybe you'll want to bat the ball a little this Spring... to be continued...