My Love Affair With The Bathroom

Many of you have been reading my blog and following the saga of the bathroom remodel.   My friend Pam has also challenged me to do the picture a day thing on facebook this year...and so I am challenged to find pictures to post.   One day I posted a picture of our new toilet.

 

This thing took two whole days of work to install because something just wasn't level and the toilet kept rocking.  When Mike finally solved the problem, we geekily stood there arm in arm just admiring it like proud parents!  We had to laugh at ourselves.   

One of my church friends who follows me on facebook laughingly said "nice toilet" when she saw me the other day, and it spurred me to think about how many times I have equated God's blessings with something as simple and mundane as a toilet.   

When I was a little girl, I lived in a family with seven people and only 1 1/2 bathrooms.  We weren't really allowed to use the 1/2 bath except for in extreme emergencies because my father worked nights and slept during the day. The 1/2 bath was off of the master bedroom where he was sleeping.   It seemed like anytime that I needed to go to the bathroom, it was already occupied.  I can remember mostly fighting for time in the bathroom. My oldest sister has dry skin, and will to this day buy any product with "moist" or "moisturizer" in it.  Back in the day my Mother and sister loved Avon's Skin So Soft and would load it on in their baths.  I am allergic to Skin So Soft...and it is very hard to get out of the bathtub.  So I would painstakingly clean the bath tub before I got in just to get the "moisture" out of the tub. I've been told that I can clean a bathtub better than anyone!  Early training!  

My older brother had hair longer than mine and it took some time for him to establish that 70s look that all of my friends used to find so cute.   My younger brother would hang out in the bathtub smelling the life buoy soap in hopes that it would "Lift you up and not let you down."  You can imagine how much time I spent "holding it" waiting in the hall for my turn.  

Even though I had to wait,I was glad that we at least had a bathroom.  My Grandmother lived in a home that did not have a working toilet. There was a bathroom in the house, but as long as I can remember it was broken, and we were not allowed to use it.   We would all "hold it" as long as we could...and in extreme circumstances, we would have to go out behind the smoke house and use nature's facilities.   I was never very good at holding my clothes and squatting and not getting anything on me.   Plus....you were always afraid that someone was going to catch you with your pants down!  

When I grew up and had children, even though we mostly had more than one bathroom, I again grew appreciative of  just being able to have the bathroom alone to myself.  It was rare when they were little.   One time Mike took me out on a date night when Mandy was a baby and I went to the restroom by myself and remarked on how great it was.   I can still remember the strange look that Mike gave me when he realized that when I had to go to the public restroom with two children, I couldn't just let them wander around, they went with me.  I would hold Mandy while trying to maneuver my clothes,  and have Michael turned around toward the door telling him "Don't touch!  Germs!"  One of our  favorite children's books during that time was called "Five Minutes Peace"  Where Mrs Lange is trying to teach her children to just give her 5 minutes of peace...but they all end up in the bathtub with her.   

When we lived in Lansing, Kansas we had a home with three bathrooms!   I finally got one all to myself!  I can still remember what a great blessing that seemed to me.   I was the only one who used the tub and so it was always clean.  I never  had to wait on anyone else.  It was awesome.   We lived there one year and then got orders for Germany.  

Most of the stairwell housing in Germany only had one bathroom.   I had been told that, and I was really dreading having to share with two girly girls who loved their primping time in the bathroom.   Low and behold when we got housing, we lived in one of the few apartments that had 1 and 1/2 baths.  Two toilets! Further confirmation that Jesus loves me!   Seriously, I praised God over the blessing of having two! 

When we moved to Hohenfels, we graduated to three lovely bathrooms.   I have never taken it for granted. There are few things I hate more than having to wait my turn.  And have you ever considered what a true blessing it is to have sanitation systems at all?  We support a child in Columbia that doesn't have that luxury. Thank God for the "little" blessings that God gives us.   

One of the dreams that I have always had is to have a nice bathroom with a jetted tub.  I love to take nice hot baths and we have never had one.   It was in the retirement house dream plan...but when we bought this house, it didn't come equipped with one.   It has been in the dream project state for several years now, and we have finally gotten around to making it happen.   So...in the next week or so, I believe the bathroom renovation will be done and I will have my nice bathroom.   I am so grateful that God has given us the resources to have this nice place to live and not only just the necessities...but luxuries to enjoy.  I am grateful for my husband who has the skills and the drive to make this happen...even though it isn't necessarily a priority for him...but just because he loves me.  I will enjoy it every day, never take it for granted,  and Praise God in the little things like a nice bathroom.   

Annie's Song: Hospital at Joelton and A Terrible Noise

Following are excerpts from stories written by my Great-Grandmother, Annie Biggs Adcock as they were written to her daughter Clara.  They were compiled in a book entitled No More The Wild Country by my cousin John R. Coles.   He graciously gave me permission to use these in hopes that future generations of our family will know a little bit of our history. 

Hospital at Joelton

"Dr. Lang came to Joelton from Lansing, Michigan, and ran a hospital at what is now the funeral home.  Grandpa Adcock stayed in the hospital for about six weeks in the summer of 1914.  he stayed out in a tent as the house was full.   He got better and my husband went after him in an old buggy.   There is a lot of things I have to tell that can't be brought up because of the present generation. " 

A Terrible Noise

"My husband and I planned to go fishing one evening.   We lived just below a well known hole of water called the Blue Hole.   Just the other side of this hole of water there was an old log house two stories high.   The old log house had been hand built by my husband's grandparents about ten years before the Civil War.   They had spent their days in the old log house and died.   The old house was vacant.   We was sitting on the big rock of the Blue Hole fishing, when all at once we heard a terrible noise at the old house.   It sounded like something running up and down the steps.  My husband said he was going over there and see what all that noise was.  So, he did.  We had heard all kinds of tales about what was going on around this old house.   Well, he tried to slip up and see if he could find out something and he did.   

I had one brother and he had been up the creek for something.   he lived close to us and he was going home when he also heard the noise and stopped.   He went in this old house and there was a bunch of goats that had got inside and, somehow, got the door shut.   They was running up and down those steps.  My brother was chasing them just to hear the racket.   We all laughed and went home." 

Annie's Song: When I Married Your Daddy

Following are excerpts from stories written by my Great-Grandmother, Annie Biggs Adcock as they were written to her daughter Clara.  They were compiled in a book entitled No More The Wild Country by my cousin John R. Coles.   He graciously gave me permission to use these in hopes that future generations of our family will know a little bit of our history. 

Standing:  Morris Riley Adcock with hand
on Myrtle Adcock.  Seated:  Annie Biggs
Adcock holding Clara Adcock. 

"In the late Spring of 1910 at my parent's home I married Morris Riley Adcock.   There was no one except the family at the wedding, and Tom Smiley who was Morris Riley's cousin.  My brother Jack Biggs went to Joelton in his horse and buggy and got the Reverend George Miliken, a Baptist minister whom we all knew well.   He performed the ceremony.  

After the wedding we had a nice supper consisting of chicken and dumplings, turnip greens, and potato salad.   Plenty of coffee, cornbread and biscuits.  The Reverend Miliken ate supper with us.   Then brother taken him home.  

My husband and I went to his home and made it our home for about three and a half years.  We lived with his father and his brother Dave Adcock.  His mother Mary Frances Smiley Adcock had been dead for about a year.   His father did the cooking as I being about seventeen years old did not know how to cook.  I took training from his father and soon knew how to cook.  

We lived with them til we moved into a house my husband bought.  We had two little girls named Myrtle and Clara.   Their daddy would get one on each knee and rock them every evening.  My husband's father moved in with us.   We would leave our children with him and go fishing at night. 

We lived on the creek.  We hunted in the woods.   At that time we never had any extra furniture.   Nothing more than we had to have to use.   We had no means of travel other than a two-horse wagon and two mules.   The creek was between us and everyone who lived around.   When it got up, there was no getting anywhere.  

It was in the days of the coal-oil lamp.   If the creek got out of the banks and the oil got low, that meant no light.   If the matches gave out there was no fire until the old man got out his musket and loaded it with powder and cap, with cotton in the end of the barrel.   He shot it and then picked up the cotton and blew on it to start a fire.   Those were the happiest days of our lives."     

Old Liash McGraw and A Big Fight

Following are excerpts from stories written by my Great-Grandmother, Annie Biggs Adcock as they were written to her daughter Clara.  They were compiled in a book entitled No More The Wild Country by my cousin John R. Coles.   He graciously gave me permission to use these in hopes that future generations of our family will know a little bit of our history. 

"Old Liash McGraw"

"Old Liash McGraw was an old witch so Granpa Adcock said.   He loafed around the Smiley Settlement.   Come to our house one time. My daddy gave him a quilt to lay down on and he stayed all night.  

Morris Riley Adcock (1840-1919)

He first went to Grandpa Adcock's and he run him off.  Then he came here.  In the morning he wanted to sew up a hole in his britches.  I got a needle and threaded it for him.   He took the needle on with him.   

Grandpa Adcock said he buried that needle, and if I ever stepped over the place, I'd die.   That tale scared us so bad, my daddy wouldn't let him stay anymore.   I could write some that would take legs and walk.   But I'd better not."  

"A Big Fight"

"This was an occasion I attended in 1902.   This happened at the old Turn Hole bottoms, where the bridge goes up Huffman Road, better known as Dividing Bridge Road, just a little above the small creek called Bednigo.   They had fruit stands, about three of them, just a square made of planks and shelves where they had ice cream and cold lemonade, and sandwiches.  

Two big places built about two feet high for the musicians, which was mostly violins and banjos.  They had sawdust from the saw mill hauled up for to dance on.  There were two areas.  Each was big enough for about eight couples to dance.  There was a young man dressed up, sitting on one of the stands.  He was already drawing the bow on his violin.  His hair was curly and a rich auburn red.   Eight years later I married him.  

Well everybody was having a lot of fun when two men got into a quarrel over a small girl who was dancing.   She was about sixteen years old.   From that the big fight started.  There sure was a battle. Two men from Springfield almost got cut to pieces with knives.  Everybody got to leaving. I'll never forget that dance.  It was the thirty-first day of July, 1902.  There was several got hurt in that fight.   They had to be carried to the doctor's.  The young man I mentioned playing the violin, put his violin under his arm and up the creek he went."  

My Great Grandmother Shares Her Life

I am going to be posting a series of blogs that contain stories that my Great Grandmother, Annie B. Adcock wrote to her daughter my Great Aunt Clara.  My cousin, John R. Coles compiled them together and has graciously consented to share them with me in hopes that more of the Grandchildren can know this fascinating woman.

Grandmother (Mammy to most of her Grandchildren) was born on March 9, 1892.  She had eleven children of which my Grandmother, Myrtle Harris, was the oldest.   She died February 7, 1978 at the age of 85 and is buried at Forest Grove Cemetery.   

Unfortunately, I don't have very many memories of Grandmother.   I do remember going up to her house up in Joelton,TN with my mother when I was about 5 or 6 years old.   I remember that there were lots of people, and lots of food and the floor of their house kind of sloped.   I sat at the kitchen table, and there were huge biscuits offered to me.   Another memory is when Aunt Ruby brought Grandmother up to our house in Clarksville to give my sister Mary Tom, a white bible engraved with her name on it, for her graduation from high school.   I was so jealous of that beautiful bible.  

"Annie Biggs Adcock wrote a series of letters to her daughter, Clara Adcock Coles, telling her of her life.   She begins about 1901, when she moved to the land around Sycamore Creek in middle Tennessee.   I have included these letters just as she wrote them.   I knew my grandmother well and heard her tell most of these stories when I spent my childhood summers at her farm."  - John R. Coles  No More The Wild Country

Stay tuned for the actual letters....

Remembering... Where Dreams Come True

In the United States it is almost a right of passage to go to Disney World.  There is a sign in the park that says...

The first time that I went to Walt Disney World I was 18 years old and in my first year of college.  Someone that I knew had won a free trip to Daytona Beach for four days and three night.   My sister and I decided to go even though that meant I would have to use my college tuition money and take off a semester to finance it. (As a side note, obviously my thinking was flawed at 18 years old...stay in school!)   We went in January and it was wonderful to get warm and away from cold Tennessee in the winter.  A memory that stand out from that trip is my first time on the Small World Ride and recounting the song I had made up about sixth grade to that tune "It's a world of torture, a world of hate, It's a world of something you never ate.  Though the windows are wide, you are still locked inside.  It's a boring school!"   Ahem...back to Disney... It was a wonderful day.  A day of first.  My first time at Disney , my first time on Space Mountain, my first time in Florida...  My favorite show was The Carousel of Progress "Now is the Best Time of Your Life" was the song, and it showed how we had progressed with a spinning timeline from the perspective of General Electric.   It was so cool!  And that was before people had computers and cell phones.   I don't think we had even taken the plunge to buy that new device that everyone was talking about....the microwave!

The second time that I went to Disney World was on my honeymoon!  Mike and I had been given the same trip.  The price was right for poor college students, so off we went on a repeat trip for me except for now I had a brand new husband!   I did have to keep myself from saying "When my sister and I were here...."  so I wouldn't hurt my new husband's feelings.   Honestly, I don't remember many specifics about that trip...only that I was so in love and with the greatest guy on earth at the happiest place on earth.

Mike took this picture of
21 year old Kathy on her honeymoon at Disney World.

Fast forward to the Spring of 2000.   I am now 36 years old and have three children Michael (age 12), Mandy(age 9) and Christy (age 4).  I work at First Presbyterian Church School as a sixth grade teacher and we are on Spring Break.   Mike is at an Army School in Fort Leavenworth so I am on my own with the kids. They were at the age that if you tell them you are going to do something, they will worry you to death asking you "Can we go now? now?  NOW???"  I didn't know if I was going to be too tired to do anything...so I had kept quiet about any plans.   We are on day 3 of Spring Break, so I am feeling pretty rested and about lunch time we went to Kmart in Hinesville.   I bought all three kids a new outfit, and new toothbrushes and we went to get some lunch at Captain D's.   I asked the kids where they would like to go for Spring Break? I got a joking "Disney World" from Michael, the beach from Mandy, and Christy also thought Disney World was a grand idea.   I gave them a "yeah, right" look and we loaded up in the van.   When it came time to turn off to our house and I didn't turn, they asked...."where are we going?"   I didn't answer them and they speculated that we were going to the beach.   When we missed the turn off for Tybee Island they again asked "where are we going?"   I said "Where do you think we are going?"   Christy said "Disney World!"  Her older and wiser brother and sister said, "No really, where are we going?"  I said, "Disney World.".   Again they said "No really, where are we going?"   They could not believe that we were REALLY going to Disney World!   Michael even seemed to get upset.   He said "I can't believe you, you don't have a map or anything!  And I don't have anymore socks!"  The boy was obsessed with having clean socks on :).   When reality set in, they were so happy!   Another side note....probably not a great idea to drive to Disney during Spring Break with no hotel reservation.  We had a hard time finding a vacancy and Disney was SO CROWDED.   In spite of the long lines, we hung in there with good attitudes and had a wonderful time and made some great memories.

Six years later I had my fourth experience with Disney, only this time we were living in Europe.   Mike is deployed to Ramadi, Iraq and the girls and I were going stir crazy in Friedberg, DE.   I had yet to venture too far from home, afraid that I would get lost and not understand enough German to get home.   I decided that I really needed to be more adventurous or I wouldn't last the deployment with my sanity.  I impulsively booked us on a tour leaving the next day (I haven't changed that much in six years) to Paris, France.   It was an exhausting bus ride, but we had a blast in Paris.   On the last day we had a chance to choose going up in the Eiffel tower or going to Disneyland Paris.   Mandy and I were mostly interested in going to the Eiffel tower, but Christy had been too little before to ride many of the rides, so she was really wanting to go to Disney...so we went to give her the experience.   Disneyland Paris is way different from the one in Orlando. For one thing the shows were in French....."say what?" "Le monde est petit, après tout." instead of "It's a small world after all."

Space Mountain was very hard on my 42 year old neck....but Disney is still always a fun day...and Christy had a wonderful time! 

  

Paris Disneyland March 2006

So far in my life I have "left today and entered the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy", The Magic Kingdom, four times.   As we live out our real lives day to day, it is good to remember that inspiring and true quote from Genie in the movie Aladdin, "Today's special moments are tomorrow's memories."

My Mama's 15 Minutes of Fame

View Standing on the Stage at the Ryman Auditorium
Nashville, TN

In 1948 my mother, Katherine Earlene Harris, was eleven years old.   She was the child of a broken family back when divorce was very unusual.   She lived with her mother in Ashland City, TN and they had very little money.  Her father had taught her to love music and she and her sister Juanita who was sixteen years old had very good voices and could sing harmony. They especially loved gospel music. Juanita had gone to live in Nashville with her Uncle George and Aunt Ruby, because she was prone to being "a little wild."   

Big things were happening in gospel music in those days!  There was an enterprising young man named Wally Fowler who was taking Nashville by storm.   According to the "Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music" by W.K. McNeil, "In 1948 he fused two earlier traditions in gospel the "all-night singing: that for years had been a feature of the old Stamps-Baxter singing schools and the "battle of the quartets,"    He tried his idea first in Nashville at the Ryman Auditorium on November 5, 1948; advertisements promised that "25 quartets" would sing nonstop from 8:30 p.m. to 4:00 am.   The result was dramtic; letters poured in, and soon Fowler was taking his new style of show on the road."   

..."there was probably no one in the southeastern United States better at drawing a crowd than Wally Fowler.   He had been doing it since the first time he filled Nashville's Ryman Auditorium on a rainy, icy November night in 1948-the night of the first gospel music all night singing in the South.   A portion of the Nashville all-night singing was broadcast by WSM, the fifty-thousand-watt clear-channel station that broadcast the Grand Ole Opry."   

Wally Fowler

Juanita had heard about these concerts and she started wheeling and dealing to get on the show. It was to be held on the first Friday nights of each month, because the Grand Ole Opry aired on Saturday night in those days. The first one was in November, and she was aiming to get on the show in December.    She also knew Lovie Allen,  from the church who was also going to go with her singing group and helped her with some information.   She gathered up a singing group consisting of my mother, herself, Lavonne Featherstone, another girl and a boyfriend whose names Mama can't remember.   They called themselves "The Singerettes."  Mama wasn't too sure how the boy in the group took to the name they came up with.   She contacted someone and entered their names to be considered to go on stage.   Boy they were shocked when they got the opportunity!  

Because they were so poor, they didn't really have anything to wear, so they borrowed some clothes from a lady named Dorothy Patterson.   Mama remembers how much fun they had dressing up...and she is sure that they overdid their costumes.   She said that she had on nylons that had the seam on the back of the leg and connected to a garter belt.  She said the nylons were kind of turned around her leg funny.   She didn't have any shoes, so George and Ruby, although they were poor took her to a dry goods store she thinks was called Stanley's and was owned by a Jewish man and bought her some cute black flats to wear.   She was so proud of those shoes!  So off they went to the Ryman Auditorium to get ready.

The All Night Singing started at 8:00pm, but WSM would start broadcasting at 11:00.   The Master of Ceremonies was Grant Turner and the sponsor of the radio program was Martha White Flour.

Grant Turner

Sponsor of the All Night Singing
the night the Singerettes sang.

As 11:00 neared, The Singerettes got ready for their cue.  A gentleman told them not to look at the audience, but to look at the balcony so they wouldn't get stage fright.  Mama said that the first thing she did was  look at the audience, and she says it looked huge from up there!   They sang "Silent Night' and opened the radio program. Later my mother found out that her Grandmother who wouldn't be caught dead listening to the Opry, had stayed up late to tune in and hear her grand-daughters sing.  As the program ended, they were surprised when Grant Turner again called them up to "sing them off the radio."   Unfortunately no pictures were taken of the actual event.  Film was hard to come by for poor families.  But these all night singings were big news at the time!

Mama fell further in love with gospel music. One of the groups that she loved so much was the Speer Family. One of their girls was named Mary Tom Speer.   Mama just loved that unusual name and would grow up to name her own daughter Mary Tom.

The Speer Family at the Ryman All Night Singing

Other young people were also being influenced by the All Night Singings.  People like Elvis Presley.  In Flashes of the Southern Spirit:: Meanings of the Spirit in the U.S. South,  Charles Reagan Wilson says, "In the 1940's when promoter Wally Fowler popularized packaged all night gospel singings that soon spread across the region and Memphis welcomed them.  Elvis heard dignified older groups like the Speers and the Chuck Wagon Gang whose songs grew out of shape-note influences, and he heard the soaring harmonies of the Blackwood Brothers, who adapted songs from black quartets such as the Soul Stirrers and the Golden Gate Quartet."  

Bill Gaither also was influenced by the Singings and would grow up to gather the "Homecoming Singers", famous gospel groups who sang at those events, to produce recordings to share with the world.   One of those recordings is called "Ryman Gospel Reunion."

Although Mama didn't become a famous singer, she does pass on her  love of gospel music to her children.. We still sing the old songs anytime we are all together.  Precious Memories how they linger.....

My Family of Warriors

My Daddy, Waller R. Stockdale

My young LT Michael D. Wood

My LTC husband ( a little bit older :) 

Michael Daniel Wood

Katherine Amanda (Mandy) Wood

Mike's Dad and Mom
Chuck and Kathy Wood

Young Charles Wood

Jeff Stockdale

           

Patrick Stockdale

 

Back Row:  Kathy (Mom) Chuck (Dad) Mike
Front Row:  Jim, Chuck, Don

James and Faith (Katina) Tinker

Wesley, Chuck II and Chuck III

Brent Wood

                                                       

"Praise be to the Lord my Rock, Who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle."  Psalm 144:1