Probably the best part of my job is the elderly. So many come in or call the office and tell me they knew my mom and dad. And stories. I love the stories!!! When mom died I was only 18 and hadn't really gotten to the age of stories. Though I loved family reunions listening to my aunts and uncles about the olden days. What days those were!
It's especially nice to hear the stories because mom and dad are both gone. It just brings a smile to my face for someone to come by the office and say "I knew your momma and daddy. They was good people." And then proceed to tell me how they had known my family and how my parents would be so proud of me and how I turned out.
Last tax year a man told me, "I was there the day your daddy could have signed with the majors". (Baseball. Daddy was a pitcher.) I've never seen photos of daddy playing baseball. We have lots of photos from the Navy in WWII but no baseball. I asked the man if he had any old photos of baseball. He said he didn't know if he had any but would look. I never heard anything back so am assuming not.
(My family would LOVE to see photos of daddy pitching so if you have any please let me know. Would have been sometime in 40's?)
Yesterday a lady called about her appraisal and the fact it had gone down this year. She was worried about that. We talked for a while and she said, "Is your daddy still alive?" I told her no, he had died in 2008. She said she had thought so. Then she told me they had rode the same bus in elementary school. She talked a minute more and then said "Glen lived at the end of Dawson Street." Down from her and her family. She told me about daddy trading with somebody (I can't remember the name) for a blue convertible. She said she couldn't believe Glen Maynard traded for a convertible!
Today was the greatest, funniest story I've heard..........in my life.
Larry walked an elderly lady to my counter window who had been visiting with him in his office. She had questions about her tax relief. We talked for a while and she asked if I was a Maynard. She told me about working with my aunts at the sewing mill years ago. I said, "Really? Charlsie, Bobby, Phoebe and Lucille?" She said yes and talked some about them. I told her that Charlsie was 91 and doing well. The last of those Maynards. She asked about my aunt Bobby and what she had died of. I told her breast cancer when I was a little girl.
The lady looked at me, dropped her voice and kinda bent in toward me over the counter. She whispered like it was scandalous, "There was one of the Maynard girls who had a baby when she was old."
I thought to myself I was fixing to hear some big family secret because only one of the Maynard girls had married out of the four. And the one who did didn't have any children!
Then I immediately thought, realized and said......."I'M that baby!!!" She giggled and giggled and giggled to learn that and I told her I was Glen Maynard and Clara Belle's daughter and that momma did have me late. That I was the "oops baby." (Women in 1971 did not have babies at mom's age.)
The sweet lady said, "I worked with your momma at Cherokee" (Cherokee was a sewing mill.) I gave her the hardest time about you!"
"You're momma told us she had the flu. She was out a few days and when she came back she told us about you. I gave your momma hard time for a long time. I kept telling her 'that was some flu!!"
In a few more years I'll hear no more stories like this. That generation will have all passed. That is something I do not forward to........
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