Snow Day!

January 1 or 2, 1964

Brrr...it's cold!

This picture isn't from yesterday--it's from January 1, 1964, in Lauderdale County, right after a huge snowstorm dropped buckets of frozen stuff on the South. I'm one of those two children trudging through the aftermath. None of us had proper gloves, shoes, outerwear, and it's a million wonders we didn't get frostbite!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year%27s_Eve_1963_snowstorm

Years later, on March 23, 1968, there was another freakish event, and Mother snapped a shot of me in (again) inappropriate garb, sporting a VERY short hairdo, and packing a snowball, probably intended for my brother.

March 23, 1968

We are never prepared for snow and ice here in Mississippi! So I sit at home today, trying to keep warm and waiting for the roads to melt off. --Which may not happen, in 23-degree weather, sunshine notwithstanding.

Today I'd like to think of warmer days in other times. So let me just post a few pictures of that:

Bessie Alawine Smith with Beth, Nancy, Janice, Sheila, Jack and some other unknown kid, I'm guessing about 1957 or so

I am in the plaid dress at the front (as usual, mugging for the camera); I THINK Beth Pilgrim Mullins is at the far right; Nancy Pilgrim Giles is right beside Bessie, her grandmother; Beth and Nancy's sister Janice is in my Aunt Bessie's lap; my brother Jack is beside me. I have no idea who the other little boy might be. And the original photo was just as fuzzy as this cleaned-up, photoshopped one, so I apologize in advance; I did what I could with it. 

But take a look at all of us!

We're in short sleeves! Some of us are BAREFOOT! Makes me want to cry today. Or, as Jimmy Buffett would say, "I want to go where it's WARM."

I've said from the onset of this blog that part of my goal is to post photos others may not have seen, or not for a while. Here's one of my father Bob holding his youngest sister Omera.

Bob Alawine and Omera Alawine Dallas, about 1924

He doesn't appear to be all that happy about the babysitting job, but you can't tell--maybe he had to squint in the sun. Ouch...another warm day, or warm-ish; Aunt Omera does appear to have a cap on. She was born in 1924, so Daddy would've been about twelve here.

Another picture I have shows my mother around the age of sixteen, wearing a hat. I've been told she was quite vain about that hat.

Cecile Tolbert Alawine, about 1933

For those of you who don't know: Mother's mother named her after a friend of hers from the Tucker community in Neshoba County. My grandmother died very young, when Mother was only two; I have her portrait here at my house, and sometimes I look at it and think how sad it was for her not to see her daughter grow up. The friend Mother was named for spelled her name "Cecil." Probably most of you don't know that Mother always thought her name SHOULD'VE had an "e" at the end and, later in life, she started using one. So I have remembered and honored her wishes about that when labeling pictures of her.

Since she was born in 1916, this would've been around 1932 or '33, possibly. She's got long sleeves, too, but look: the trees are leafed out. Must've been spring. I ache with longing, right now...

I end this cold post--where I'm hunched over the table, with the big heat unit running full blast AND a small space heater at my feet, besides--with just a picture of a lovely aunt of mine on another sunny fall afternoon in 1978: Aunt Sylvia.

Sylvia Alawine Scarborough, 1978

I'm sure family members have other, better pictures of her, but to me she always seemed to have a smile and this cheerful countenance. This photo was taken at the family reunion at Alawine Springs. (I posted a while back another shot taken that day, with the brothers and sisters still alive at the time.) 

OK...stay warm, cousins! I'm addicted to scanning the Internet today, in particular the weather forecast of several days from now, which makes 64 degrees look like a heat spell... 

Jack and Sheila, tricycles, doll
"Catch up! Stop looking at the camera!"