“A simple act of caring creates a ripple that comes back to you…”

A simple act …

Our home place in Princeton was on the edge of town on White Street to be exact just down from Southside Baptist Church.

By the time I became cognizant of the homestead there were four lots remaining of what was once a farm. We had early in my life an outhouse, a smokehouse, a storage shed that once had been used for livestock, a tool shed, a dog pen, and at one time an apple tree, a small garden and flower beds, a few chickens and my grandparents next door had a goat.

At one time my Dad rented the lots for trailer homes and we had a number of different people including my Uncle Don and his family living there. Later Mr. Sigler and his family would live in one of those trailers, there were others whose names escape me. I believe I recall at one time there was four different trailers, what we now call mobile homes on the old home place.

Of course, there was the “Elders’ House,” the “shotgun” structure at our back door where Aunt Anzie lived and where many of the elders in the family came for their last days.

The original farm house had large trees out front and a hedge, a gravel drive way and my parents usually had a garden of some nature for vegetables and Mother’s flowers. My Mother loved “yard art” and it decorated various parts of the yard. I recall Mother and Aunt Anzie having “Four O’clocks” of various colors growing beside the Elders’ House and numerous other flowering plants in pots here and there.

Wikipedia says that the four o’clock flower or marvel of Peru is the most commonly grown ornamental species of Mirabilis, and is available in a range of colors. Mirabilis in Latin means wonderful and Jalapa is a not uncommon place name in Central and North America. Mirabilis jalapa is said to have been exported from the PeruvianAndes in 1540.

My Mother loved flowers and would share her bounty with all the neighbors, as they also did with their garden vegetables, when harvest time came. My Mother was a “canner” and put away massive quantities of pickles, kraut, and tomatoes and tomato juice, beets, green beans, apples, pears and peaches and cutoff the cob corn. Later, sometime around when I was maybe seven years old, she convinced my Dad to buy a freezer and she froze as many vegetables as she canned. At one time I believe they had two huge freezers, one of which Kay and I still have.

Having grown up poor, My Mother was not one to waste anything or throw away anything. Large Sunday meals she would prepare for dinners “down at the river” or at a “homecoming” would be seen again a few times during the week. In those days, I grew to not like “left-overs” associating the practice with being poor. As an adult, strangely enough I rather enjoy my wife’s renditions of leftovers with relish. Kay still kids me about telling her early on in our marriage how I disliked leftovers. Somewhere along the line for some reason I overcame that fear.

My Mother was one of the finest southern cooks I have ever known and Kay would agree. Often times, I would bring home friends from school or work and she would have us saddle up to a meal that would invariably have 8-10 vegetable dishes and always a meat of some kind with a side of her corn bread. She loved having people take “supper” with us and up until shortly before her death was fixing lavish meals for friends and family. Invariably, Kay and I would take home and have leftovers of her home cooking for a few days.

Pauline Gunther Armstrong was one of the most generous people I have ever known and it was only after my parents passed that I came to find out how generous both of my parents were. Having never made more than $24k in a single year at the very most, they often I was told provided money to family members and friends in need and never asked for any repayment of any kind.

They personified what we would these days refer to as “paying it forward.” I have tried over the years to honor my parents’ behavior. I doubt I will ever be able to duplicate it with the love and compassion they shared.

I commend this video to you — creating a small ripple: https://www.youtube.com/embed/ovj5dzMxzmc?autoplay=1