Twenty Ways To Describe Tony Thompson

Father’s Day is coming up, and I was thinking about my husband Tony. I decided to list some of the unique things about him. He was a funny, wise, delightful  man, and I miss him every day.

1. He had good manners. After all, he was Southern…
2. Tony took out the garbage ….  When reminded……
3. He loved his mama ….  And she was quite lovable …
4. He made delicious Italian Spaghetti from scratch ………  and terrible omelets
5. He prided himself on being able to do everything for the babies …..  so he got to change the dirty diapers when he was home ….
6. He taught the kids and me to fish, and taught them how to clean the fish, but he baited my hooks and removed the fish when I caught one….
7. Tony was an impeccable dresser in business suits …….. and dressed like a street person around the house.
8. He didn’t read stories at bedtime ….. but made up wild and wooly stories that the kids loved. Peter Rabbit was Dee’s favorite. Poncho Villa was a favorite character for Bruce, who was probably startled to learn years later that Pancho Villa was a real person..
9. Tony loved to sing around the house ….. and just made up any lyrics he didn’t know.
10. He often grilled hamburgers, on week ends ….. but had no patience with slow charcoal …………. so we often ate gas enhanced burgers, gas burgers as the kids called them..
11. He got a kick out of running the vacuum ….. so he bought one only he could push.
12. Tony grilled Boston Butts over charcoal, several hours, producing delicious barbeque. On Christmas Eve, he liked to cook bar-b-q and carry about eight ounces to all his pals, in little cups. I never asked how he thought a family of, say, five would get enough to eat.
13. Tony had been a Master 4-H Club speaker, in high school and continued to be a fine speaker throughout his life. His last speech was when he accepted the honor of being made a PAUL HARRIS FELLOW, and he spoke to the Augusta Rotary Club. That was just 10 days before he died.
14. He thought nothing of bringing extra people home to dinner ……….. with 30 minutes to an hour’s notice, on a good night. I’m a very good “meal stretcher”.
15. He loved green beans so he asked the folks at the S&S cafeteria what kind they served, because I never cooked the fresh ones to suit him. They were Del Monte Blue Lakes! That’s still the only kind I cook. However, he always said the very best beans were my mother’s fresh ones.
16. Tony assured one and all that my mother’s fried chicken was the absolute best … and she always cooked it for him.
17.  He was totally dedicated to the Salvation Army and worked tirelessly for them. He was named a Life Member and was very proud of that as well as serving as the local president, in Knoxville and Augusta.
18. The Rector of St.Paul’s Episcopal Church, in Augusta, told me that few people would ever know how much Tony had done for that church. I don’t know either but I’d guess it had to do with money and banking. He tried to contribute not only his money, but his expertise and advice.
19. Tony was proud of the fact that he taught our kids and several of their friends to water ski. He loved young people and enjoyed working with them.
20. Tony and I enjoyed traveling together and even on long car trips could talk for hours and sing … and laugh at the same things….     
    
    

Singing In Church

 Long ago in the county of Cobb, all well-bred young ladies were given piano lessons. Granny and her three sisters were no exception – nor were my mother Wilma and her six sisters.

Some were more talented than others, and my great aunt Willy was truly blessed.

As far as I know, Aunt Willy played the piano at the Acworth First Baptist Church her entire adult life. They had no pipe organ. 

Uncle Gan Awtrey [aunt Hazel’s husband] led the music for the church services. 

I spent many weekends with my Aunt Hazel and Uncle Gan, especially after I received my driver’s license and could use my parents’ car to drive from Atlanta to Acworth.  The only rule Hazel and Gan had for me was that I was required to sing a solo at the Sunday morning church service. The congregation knew me and were very kind. I loved singing for them.

My only problem was that, at times, I ran completely out of breath. I’d been studying voice since I was 12 years old, and I knew how to breathe properly. The issue was that Aunt Willy nearly always chose the hymn she wanted me to sing.

Aunt Willy didn’t care for very formal music that required her to play it the way it was written.  She played kind of like Liberace, with lots of flourishes. Aunt Willy liked to run up and down the keyboard during long words like “salvation” and I couldn’t breathe in the middle of a word [a huge no no] so I had to just stand there and hold the note, until she went on to the next one. 

Sometimes I was forced to breathe in the middle of a word – or keel over in a dead faint!

The church had no air conditioning, so I seldom wore stockings during the hot summers.  I always sat on the front row of the choir loft, and nobody saw my legs or feet. 

One Sunday morning as I started to sing my solo, which was quite serious, I noticed everyone giving me great big smiles.  My dad was there that day and he looked like he was going to bust out laughing. “The Old Rugged Cross” had never been so enthusiastically received. 

After I finished singing, I sat down and discovered that the curtain around the choir loft had been rearranged, and was now about 12 inches from the floor. I had stepped out of my high heels and was happily wriggling my bright red toenails as I sang.

I spent many happy times with Aunt Hazel and Uncle Gan, and Aunt Willy always kept me on my toes in church!

My Bucket List

I’d never heard the term until not long ago when we watched a movie about two terminally ill guys who rush around and accomplish everything on their BUCKET LIST. The term came from the expression  ” kick the bucket” - as in dying. Of course if we all had unlimited funds like the men in the movie, we’d come a lot closer to achieving the goal.

What is on your bucket list? I’m thinking there would only be items that are do-able if you only had time and money and, yes, good enough health. Uh, I have time…If, indeed a 79 year old has lots of time – well, at least spare time. If I’d had one, my original list  would have included lots of travel but that has all changed now. Actually, I’ve done some of those trips but lots of others just don’t sound like fun anymore.

My long-time friend Anna and I used to say if the time came that we both were widows, we would fly to Switzerland  and stay in a beautiful hotel, on a mountain lake, in the Alps. She’d spent one night there at the end of a tour and always wanted to go back.  But after sharing a week with her, in my condo, at Hilton Head, I decided I didn’t want to be arrested for murder in a foreign country.  

OK, there are few big trips I care to take without my husband so guess I’ve done all of those …. and that’s alright. I would still like to get back to any one of several beaches in South Carolina or Georgia and perhaps going the opposite way, to the Smokies.

One place I wanted to visit for ages was Key West. Because of my husband’s severe health problems, I knew it was probable that I’d be living alone at some point. So I tried to console myself by thinking of where it would be pleasant to live, with not so much worry and stress. You know, just be a modified beach bum; have a modest  small house; eat when you want to and what you want to eat, mostly seafood; maybe play piano or sing  in a sleazy bar; and only be responsible for yourself. Since that’s not going to happen, I’ve been doing a little research on the island .I’ve come to realize that even in years back, excessive use of alcohol and drugs among some of the islanders plus bugs and heat would possibly have me running for the hills. I did live alone for nine years and got along quite well. It was a huge far cry from being the beach bum tho’.

Some things I’d never have thought of, we did. Just think of it. A bucket list from, say when I was 16 years old, 1950, would be amazingly limited. World travel was much more tedious.   Even in the home, in my world at least, clothes dryers, dish washers, microwave ovens, wall ovens, ice makers, huge color TV’s,  newfangled phones, tons of electrical thingys in the kitchen, to say nothing of computers and all their relatives. Even in the hot south, few expensive homes were completely air conditioned. Open windows and electric fans were the norm. I drove my first car with automatic gear shift, in 1959.

On another level, even in the Episcopal Church, women did not go into the ministry. Perhaps they were there but in lesser jobs. I was raised a Baptist so am not totally certain of this. I never heard of a female Baptist minister. My husband was also raised Baptist but in the early years of our marriage we decided to research other denominations and finally decided after much deliberation and many classes to join the Episcopal Church. We were never sorry. So if I were a young woman now, I feel fairly strongly that I’d seriously consider going into the ministry.

After taking all the required education courses in college, my desire to teach college or graduate level education courses was quite strong. Very little of what I was taught and had to regurgitate was helpful. Though all are different, there are some characteristics that are common to all good teachers. This could be another blog or even a book so I’ll just mention a couple. Self confidence would top the list and enthusiasm would follow. I loved teaching and I was a good teacher but if I were to teach now, it would have to be in a one room schoolhouse back in the woods somewhere! With the epidemic of political correctness, politicians, regulations, and, yes, fear of the students, I’d be fired the first week.

When my daughter was in the second grade, I substituted in her school every now and then just to help out. Even that far back, I had a child refuse to say the pledge to the flag. I could not force the big 7^th grader to say anything at all but I could allow her to stand in the hall while the rest of us pledged our precious flag. Oh well, another item on the “bucket list” hits the dust!

When I was young, it was said that many young women just went to college to find a husband. May be some did but I never heard that expressed. I worked very hard with little help from my parents. I finally had to get student loans my senior year. I married the next year and my husband and I paid off both our loans the following year.

Having a good and loving family, great friends, and several dogs over the years would have made a bucket list to be proud of, I think. Lots of fun times thrown into the mix was icing on the cake.

Jack and Don and Me

It seems right funny to be my age, trying to remember sixty plus years ago. It doesn’t feel like I am 79.

There are so many happy memories of my brother Don and my cousin Jack Butler, and I've been thinking about them both lately. 

I’ve written about the almost total lack of housing when we moved back to Atlanta in about 1945, almost the end of the war. My family owes Don thanks for noticing a moving van in front of a house on 9^th St, one block up the hill from old Boys’ High School, which had been renamed Henry Grady High School. My timing may be a bit off here but you get the picture.

Brother Don was in the first class that graduated from Grady and I was in the first class that went all five years there. It was a fine school because we had the cream of the crop of teachers from all over Fulton County. At that time, Fulton County drew the best teachers in the state because its pay was the highest. After a short time, we also got the best principal in the state, Dr. Rural Stephens. The first and only year I taught in Fulton County, Dr. Stephens was my area supervisor.

We truly enjoyed our big old white frame house after getting by in a small apartment. We began catching up on many family and friend get-togethers. Most of the family was back in the area, or at least the south. My oldest brother was back home from WW2.

My Uncle Dan, Mother’s youngest brother, and his very loved wife, Estelle, moved to Macon and had another child, my cousin Carol. They had three older children. Their middle child, Jack, had lived with us for a while. He loved music, as I do, and I spent many hours curled up in a big old chair just listening to him play and noodle on the piano. He was a fine accordion player as well. He graduated from high school and joined the Navy. All of us adored him as he was like our older brother. 

After his stint in the Navy, he came home, graduated from Mercer, and then Emory Dental School. He married his beautiful Frances and set up a dental practice in Clarksville, Georgia.

I graduated from UGA the same year and married about three months after they did. My memory may be off, here, but I think Frances wore my hoops for her “something borrowed.” My “something borrowed” was my beautiful wedding dress which had been worn by my friend, Babs Hezlett and, yes, I wore the “family hoops,” too. Jack and Frances were married by Dr. Gus Verdery, Baptist Hospital Chaplain. He married Tony and I, also.

Those growing up, teen years, were busy ones for Don and me. We were solidly immersed in the activities of Atlanta’s old First Baptist Church, on the block of Peachtree Street between 4^th and 5^th streets. We sang in the young people’s choir, and later in the senior choir. Dad was a member of the 20^th Century Men’s Bible class and an usher, for years. Mother was active in all the women’s groups. 

aboe, the Butler family, early 1920's

My mother worked away from home from the time I was 9 or 10 years old until I was in college. I was usually the first one home in the afternoon and I absolutely hated coming into an empty house. I was afraid and lonely. My job was to clean up the kitchen before Mother got home. Also, after moving to 9^th Street, in cold weather, I had to rebuild a fire in the huge old furnace, in the basement and feed coal into it. I hated it so much, I’ve tried to make sure my children and grandchildren never come home to an empty house.

So many of the good memories of my teen years were of times spent with my brothers and cousins. We often moved around as a group with various friends mixed in. Don had lots of friends and I guess I was the little sister tag-a-long. If Don resented my being ever present, he didn’t show it. As we got a little older, Jane was Don’s steady girlfriend, and I began actually dating. We had fun together. We all loved music; and harmonizing when we sang was great fun to me. I remarked, not long ago, that I wish Jane and I lived close enough to sing together if only for our own pleasure. I remember one day trip we took to a beautiful park, south of Atlanta, called Indian Springs. Jane’s brother, Bill, a few months younger than I am, went along to make a foursome. We carried a picnic lunch and had a grand time.

I still chuckle when I recall Don’s and my foray into the first really racy movie

scene. The film THE OUTLAW, with Jane Russell released in 1943, according

to Google. But I’d have only been ten years old and Don, 13. So I guess it was

re- released when we were teenagers. It was shown to a packed theatre, the

Lowes Grand, in downtown Atlanta. We were SO straight, but we went to see

THE OUTLAW three times! Each time we agreed on an “acceptable movie”

our parents would have approved of in case they asked. So three Friday nights

we spent our money to see Miss Russell’s  naked hooters for about five

seconds. It really did nothing at all for me except, perhaps, an inferiority

complex. Our cousin, Jeannine was living with us at the time so we carried her

along once.

I believe I’ve written about singing in Jane and Don’s wedding and how the substitute organist lost her place in the music. She just took her hands off the keyboard until she found her place. Thank heaven I was still on key when she jumped back in. At that point, I’d been singing a long time and it did not bother me that much.

Jane and Don's wedding, above.

To me, it is such a shame that families live far apart. My parents always stayed in touch with Jack and Frances and kind of kept me informed about the little ones as they grew. One day, in about 1968, someone rang my front door bell. It was my favorite cousin, Jack. He’d been in Augusta for some kind of meeting and was on his way home. He spent the rest of the day with us; rode with me to pick up my kids at school; and stayed to visit with Tony at dinner.

After Jack established his dental practice, he took care of my parents’ teeth from then on. It was a win-win situation for them. They totally trusted Jack plus they got to spend time with Frances and the children. Quite often they could hardly wait to tell me something cute the kids had said or done so I got to enjoy them too.

Not too long before he died, Jack drove down to Don’s, in Marietta, so they could go together to another cousin’s funeral, in South Georgia. I believe Jack was having some vision problems so it was doubly good that Don could drive them. Don told me later how much he treasured that last visit with Jack.

I moved to Knoxville in 1971 and didn't see Jack for years after that, which I regret. He died in the 1980's. However, I am so happy to be back in touch with his sisters and some of his children.

I am fortunate to still have precious brother Don and my sis Jane.