NEW YEAR"S DAY AND BLACKEYED PEAS AND HOG JOWL & NEW HOPES....

By Olivene Godfrey

New Year's Day is celebrated as a holiday in almost every country. And, it is an old Southern tradition that if you eat black-eyed peas and hog jowl on the first day of a new year you'll have plenty of food during the year and dollars to equal the number of black-eyed peas you eat.

As I thought this week of the upcoming new year, and remembering that the past few years have not been happy ones for me, my first thought was that I would be grateful for a peaceful year with no traumatic experiences. Still, we learn from our despair. I think I am more aware that life offers a great deal of stormy weather, that things test us along the road of life.

By nature, I'm an optimist and in the past when life has knocked me down, I have managed to bounce back. So, I am going into the new year with great expectations. I hope for you as well as for myself that we may experience new times and new beginnings and first things will bloom once more and challenge will come again to enchant and inspire us. And, most of all, I will remember all I have learned, all that I have salvaged from unhappy experiences and I hope I can continue to hold onto my sense of humor.

The greatest tragedy is when something dies within a person while he still lives. If a person lives life to the fullest capacity he will shed tears, become angry, love deeply, and often be hurt. I prefer that kind of life to a shallow experience. But life never stands still and we continue to do the best we can.

Have a Happy New Year's day and eat plenty of black-eyed peas and I'll be here with more of my ramblings in 2004.

So long, for now, and take care.

DECEMBER BIRTHDAYS AND CHRISTMAS....

By Olivene Godfrey

I recently had a birthday that evoked mixed emotions within me. I am grateful that I have lived this long and am not an invalid,
but as the old song goes, "...the days grow shorter as we reach September,,,," And it worries me some days that I am not likely to live to be 100, like my Aunt Helen, because of serious health problems.

My sister, Joan, who lives at West Palm Beach sent me a card on my December 10th birthday that read," I don't care what anyone says, we're too young to be this old." The older people I have talked to agree those words are true for them, too. If we are of sound mind, we are forever young in our minds regardless of how our bodies betray us. Some days I wake up feeling chipper in my mind and I plan a lot of things to do that day and I am frustrated when my energy runs out before I have completed my activities.

Thinking about my birthday reminded me of my 13th birthday when my mother agreed to have a boy=girl night time party for me. I thought she was in a very good mood so I asked if we could play the game, Spin the bottle", and she agreed. Before I became too excited, she explained that her version of the game was that the boy and girl could walk around the outside of our house. Even within restrictions, the party was a success. The next day when my girl friends and I were discussing the party, we were shocked by the confession of a girl who said she let a boy kiss her when they walked around the house. (She, like myself, was a preacher's daughter and you know what THEY say about them!) We were awestruck when she described The Kiss and Keep in mind this was a time of innocence, at least for the girls in my east Tennessee community. If a boy and girl held hands at a movie, it was exciting for both of them.

We have at least six December birthdays in our family and my son, Barry, celebrated his birthday December 14th. When he sat down at his computer that morning, he was thrilled by the news of Saddam's capture. He says he will always remember that historic date that fell on his birthday.

Christmas is almost here and I have finished shopping for gifts and have the gifts all wrapped and the cards sent. And on Sunday afternoon of Barry's birthday we put up the tree and decorated it. This is our second Christmas holidays without my late husband, Ralph. We didn't put up a tree last year as he had died August 20, 2002, and it was too soon for us to be in a festive mood of any kind. This year we are still sad but we are making an effort to have a good Christmas as Ralph would want us to. We will attend a dinner and exchange gifts with some of our family members at my sister, Jeanette's house in northwest Georgia on Christmas day.

May the hope of the first Christmas be with all of you this holiday season.

AUNT HELEN IS 100-YEARS OLD!

By Olivene Godfrey

One recent, cold Saturday afternoon, a large group of relatives and friends gathered in the fellowship hall of a north Georgia Methodist church, and there was a warm, happy atmosphere as they were celebrating the 100th birthday of a very special lady, Helen Rollins.

I'm sure each guest at the party has their own memories of my Aunt Helen. She has been an important person in my life as far back as I can remember. She and her first husband, Skylar Winfree, and their two children, lived near my parents and sisters and I during my childhood. When my mother gave birth to identical twin daughters, Aunt Helen was always there to help with the babies. Her children, Enenestine and "Brother"
as he was called by family members, were often at our house and Mother said many times over the years that without Aunt Helen's help in those early years she didn't know how she would have managed.

When the twins were toddlers they loved to sing even if they weren't always on key. And I remember when one of the twins, Jeanette, would sing loudly, San Antonia Rose" over the phone to Aunt Helen almost every day.

Over the years, Aunt Helen was always there when any of her relatives needed a helping hand or compassionate listener.
She and I had a correspondence that lasted from my teenage years until recently when Aunt Helen's vision and unsteady hands has kept her from writing. I still send her notes and cards and I miss her letters.

Until recently, Aunt Helen, an independent lady, lived alone in a small apartment, but now lives in a nursing home in north Georgia. One of her grandsons, Donnie, saw to it that she has a telephone and television set in her room. Over the years, Aunt Helen crocheted many items including exquisite white angels which she sold and also gave away. I have one of the angels which I treasure and keep behind glass in my china cabinet.

Aunt Helen and her family lived for a number of years in Fort Wayne, Ind., and we exchanged letters and snapshots often. She would sent us pictures of the snow covered grounds around their house. When Aunt Helen's first husband died, she returned to north Georgia to live. My late husband, Ralph, and I were living at Treasure Island, FL in a small duplex on the beach. I invited Aunt Helen to visit us and to our delight she accepted the invitation. Over the years, since that three week visit, she has often told me that was one of the happiest times in her life. She loved to eat fried fish and we would go down to the docks and go on the boats and buy fresh fish and take it home and fry it with all the trimmings. How she enjoyed those meals! And she would always save a couple of pieces of the fish to eat at breakfast the next morning. At her 100th birthday party, I asked Aunt Helen if she still remembered those days and she smiled and said, " OH,yes."

When my niece, Charlene Norton, gave Aunt Helen some warm socks for her feet at night, I recalled that she used to have cold feet in winter months. Before Ralph and I married 56 years ago, I went to work for a while in an office at Chattanooga, TN. Aunt Helen's children were out on their own and so I lived with her and her husband until I could find a place of my own. The small apartment was heated with coal grates in each room and that was a bitterly cold winter. I can still remember vividly Aunt Helen heating bricks in the fire grates at nights to keep our feet warm.

After Aunt Helen was widowed and lived alone for while, she married Fred Rollins and they lived in northwest Georgia and often visited family members and they enjoyed trips to Gatlingberg,TN in the Great Smokies. Following Fred's death, Aunt Helen lived alone. She lost her beloved son, Brother, to death a few years ago and was devastated. In earlier years, her brothers, Alvin and Clyde, had passed away and three years ago, her sister, Pauline, my mother, died at the age 92. Several of us remarked at the party that those family members would have enjoyed being with Aunt Helen on her special day.

But, Aunt Helen's "kid" sister, Willodean. was at the party and her late husband, Millard, would have had a ball at the event. Willodean and Millard's daughter, Lillian Ann, helped Donnie make arrangements for the party and.

Aunt Helen has always been a truly good person and is most loved by those who know her. My sister, Joan, one of the twins, who lives in West Palm Beach, FL would have liked to have been at the party. So would my youngest sister, Dianne Vaughn, who lives in Memphis and was unable to attend the event. My son, Barry,, made pictures with his digital camera and also mini movies that he has e-mailed to Joan and Charlene. We also sent pictures to our cousin, Mary Leegain, of Hermitage, TN. It was good to see Mary and her brother, Bill Green, and all the other kin folks we hadn't seen in years.