Watts Consulting

More than you ever wanted to know about Alabama native Joe Watts

old photos

A Nice Note from a Cousin

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Last Friday night, I got what was one of the nicest emails I’ve received in quite a while. A cousin I see with less frequency than I’d like sent this. Makes me very pleased to have such a strong family! (And I did ask permission to put this out, so don’t fear sending emails to me!)

Nollie told Lillian about your blog, then Lillian told me.  What a blessing you have created!  I love Octagon, too.  I wish gasoline weren’t one thousand dollars a gallon (slight exaggeration) and I weren’t so busy so I could go “home” every weekend.

As I have gotten older, I am mortified that I was not prouder of my parents and my upbringing when I was younger.  We really did have idyllic childhoods in Octagon–roaming the woods, playing in the catch-pens, riding Ida’s wagon-of-death down a 90- degree hill, and jumping off the chicken- house roof.  ( You were not born when we used to do that.  Be very grateful.)  Then there was running from Daddy’s schizophrenic red bull. And the time Nollie stuffed feed corn kernels in my ears and up my nose.  And the time we Hinson children agreed to let Daddy sell our pet baby bull, (which we had named Bull-ette and which we had hand-fed with a calf bottle since his birth) so we could buy Hoola-Hoops. And the sad Christmas children we were at Aunt Sadie Lou’s house because we had to wear Sunday clothes and sit and be polite and use good manners. And leave our new toys at home.

Your Mother’s Day tribute to your Mama was lovely.  Your mother was a remarkable woman.  I am so grateful that she was my aunt.  I wanted to contact all of her children on the anniversary of her tragic death, but I couldn’t find the words.  There are no words.  But Aunt Sis was brilliant and wise and warm and lovely and genteel and kind and wonderful.  I think of her and miss her every day, as I do Mama and Daddy.

Your mother and father; Mammy and Papa; my Mama and Daddy; Uncle Clifford; Aunt Sadie Lou and Uncle Larry; your Uncle Edward and Aunt Gladys–they all influenced the adults whom all 17 of us Hinson first- cousins would become.  I am sure I would be a better person if I had paid more attention to the advice and love they gave when I was a child and adolescent.  I like to think that I absorbed some of their wisdom through osmosis, if not through minding them and taking their instruction to heart.

Although I was nearly grown when you were born, I remember you well as a little boy.  You always wore hats and you usually wore boots and carried a gun.  Your parents were so proud of you.  A son at last!

Cousin Deborah Hinson Kelly

(Well, I couldn’t find photos of myself with a hat, boots AND a gun, but I managed to find a good collection of hats and one with a great toy gun! I really did love a good hat–the captain’s hat was my all-time favorite, though. I think I need another.)

 

A Memorial Day Thanks to Papa

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These are some of the photos brought home from WWII by my dad. Most include him–I’m not sure about the one where they are marching with the flag. Some of these photos have been posted before, but others, I hope are brand new. Thanks to all those who serve, now and in years past. Happy Memorial Day.

Beach Trips in Times Past

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I stayed up a bit last night looking through old photos. I found these photos from tiny negatives (not sure what kind). The quality is pretty bad, but I had to share. This would have been a beach trip in the mid 1970’s with Margaret, Madeline, our parents and, of course, the star below. (Just a friendly reminder to family members: I have several boxes of photos, so before you make too much fun, imagine yourself in a swimsuit in the 1970’s!)

Family

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A wonderful email from a cousin made me want to do this post. I’ve got to do a better job of scanning in family photos. It is one of the things I enjoy most. Searching through photos and finding those gems (most of them really are gems, honestly). I just haven’t had as much time as I would like lately. The picture below is of my Uncle Bud Hinson (my mother’ brother). I’ve found several great photos of him from World War II. Just thinking about the folks of that generation gives me a shiver of pride.

Thoughts on Mother’s Day

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Well, today isn’t actually Mother’s Day, but Ann and I will be gone tomorrow and thought I’d just go ahead and put this out today.

I believe in Mothers. I guess I almost have to…growing up, I had six: my real mother, of course, and my five older sisters. When I was young, everyone took care of me. I guess I was lucky that way. I don’t recall, of course, but reportedly I didn’t speak for the first couple of years. I only needed to point to achieve the prize I wanted, for with a simple point or a quiet honk, I had five sisters snapping to attention to fetch something for little baby brother. Oh, those must have been the days.

And my real mother was magical. She had the experience of raising five children before I came along. (All different in so many ways, but more alike than any of us care to admit.) She had the wisdom of age—she was forty-five years old when I was born. She had the patience of a saint. We went for long walks in the woods, often resulting in my little legs being exhausted before our return home. We’d stay out in those woods for hours and hours, reading stories, looking at bugs and just listening to the sounds of nature (almost always soothing but never silent). When it was time to head back to the house, she’d often carry me home. I really don’t know how. I’m not forty yet, but I doubt I could carry a 4-6 year old child a mile on my shoulders or back. But somehow, she always managed to get us home, and often with a lovely assortment of new sticks or pine cones or leaves. (Once, in the fall, we brought home a collection of beautiful and brilliant red leaves. They turned out to be poison oak leaves, but that’s for another story.)

Those walks in the woods gave me the wisdom to believe in nature, to love the outdoors and to enjoy the simple beauty of an oak leaf or a weed in bloom. The walks in the woods really prepared me for my future. Sure, college, graduate school and years of working and networking gave me some preparation, but the time in the woods getting to know myself and learning from Mama really cemented my personality. Those walks also gave me the strength to endure what was to come.

Just a little over a year ago, my belief in the power of Mothers was sorely tested. Murdered. It is so very hard to type that word that I really can’t express it. My fingers freeze and continue to hit the wrong keys. But that’s what happened to my Mama. Murdered as she was getting ready to enjoy her favorite time of the year—spring. The flowers were just starting to bloom. In fact, she had come to Bessemer to meet several of us for lunch at the Bright Star restaurant to celebrate her 83rd birthday just the weekend before. As we were preparing to part ways after lunch, she reached into the trunk of the car and pulled out a bouquet of jonquils and daffodils for Ann and me. I was so pleased to have them then.

Now the flowers brighten my heart and mind when I think back about them—doubly so when I saw the few bloom this year that I have transplanted from our home place in Octagon to our yard here in Birmingham. Immeasurably so when I saw the thousands blooming in Octagon this spring.

But the flowers are nothing compared to the woods. I’ve gone walking in the woods more in the last year than I had in many years past. I’ve fought my way through blackberry brambles, I’ve slipped through muddy patches and I’ve crouched through wisteria vines wrapping themselves around trees. I’ve paused in the deepest, darkest of these places to think, to pray and to be with Mama. It is at those times when I truly feel her presence, telling me it will be okay, reminding me of the power of those deep woods.

I can really think when I’m in those deep woods, so very changed from my youth but still remarkably the same. I can think, too, when I stare into the bloom of a jonquil or, more recently, an iris. Looking closely, I can make out the beautiful color variations, the intricate details and most importantly, the power of the earth and the power of my Mama. And that’s what all this really comes down to: my belief in my Mama. Those woods and those flowers sustain her today. I feel sadness when I go to the cemetery and put flowers on her grave, but no overpowering connection. Sure, I cry each time and I feel the deep loss that we all feel.

I feel sadness when I walk behind the house to put flowers on the place she was found. Certainly, I feel anger here as well, something I’ll hopefully work my way through in years to come.

But it is in those woods, that land, that dark red, unbelievably muddy, sticky as glue earth that I feel the true power of Mama. I feel love and strength and the gentle beauty of nature, I feel my love of the outdoors, and I feel my Mama when I go to the deep woods. Those woods sustain me. And that is why I believe and will always believe in mothers.

Old Family Photos Again

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Here are two of the old family photos I found while at home in Octagon, Alabama last weekend. The first is dated March 1, 1888. This is my grandfather Hinson. The second isn’t dated, but appears to be my grandmother Hinson.