Reflections
Common Sense Beats Pills And Therapy Every Time
By Charles Cooper
Hello everyone, hope you’re having a good week. Since this column is written about a week in advance, I neglected to mention Mother’s day, and I’d like to make some belated comments.
It doesn’t seem possible that Mother has been dead for ten years but the loss is still felt. My most vivid memory of Mother’s day as a small child at Jumper’s Chapel was that everyone wore a rose. A red rose meant your Mother was still living and a white rose meant she was dead.
Those days nearly everyone had roses growing in their yards and I remember Nannie cutting a bud and pinning it on us. Mother told me when I was a toddler I kept trying to take mine off so they solved the problem by pinning it on the back of my outfit.
Child raising back then employed common sense instead of having a doctor prescribe a pill for mood adjustment. Here are two classic examples: When I was about four I was a very active kid. I learned that when all the family was outside I could go in and hook all the screen doors and no one could get in.
I would laugh when they asked me to open the door then they would threaten me with a spanking and then they would promise me they wouldn’t spank me if I’d open the door.
Needless to say when I did open the door I’d get a spanking anyway. Papa didn’t like that and he solved the problem by taking the hook off one door.
I had a habit of opening his corn crib and taking an ear of corn out and get the chickens to follow me by dropping a few grains along the way. I didn’t know how to close the crib door and the mules and horses would go to the open door and eat the corn. Papa solved that by putting a padlock on the door.
A kid today would probably be taken to a therapist who would try to determine the motivation behind such behavior. Most of us turned out all right and didn’t wind up hating our parents or society in general.
Today all kinds of criminal behavior is blamed on poverty. When people were really poor during the depression they didn’t steal or rob so I don’t buy the poverty excuse. The so-called experts in most fields will do you in every time.
I’ve been wanting to get some of that off my chest for some time–end of message.
I was sorry to hear of the death of James Goodwin who was part of the Jumper’s Chapel community. He was much older that me but his younger brother. J.B. was about my age. James was a short stocky man with a laid back manner.
I remember when I worked at Newman-Gardner taking his wife home with a new baby. The last time I saw him was at a Jumper’s Chapel reunion and we talked for some time. I kidded him about being taller than me when I was a kid and how now he had to look up at me.
He was a great guy and I’m proud to have known him. It’s graduation time again and I’m sure the seniors are excited as they enter another phase of their lives.
I remember the day of my graduation. Edwin Blackmur invited me to speak at the rotary club and I believe the only two members then that are still living are Paul Parker and Bill Trusty. It was a big moment for me but I don’t know how the speech went over as I’ve never been asked to speak to them again.
Don’t forget to sent me your memories at my email address charlescooper3616@sbcglobal.net or write me at P.O. Box 613189 Memphis, Tenn., 38101 and have a great week.
