WHO KNEW MAMA COULD FLY

 Photography By; Alexandra McGoey

Alexandra, takes beautiful nature shots, I love this one because sometimes I feel just like this old post, still standing but mostly worn out, leaning a bit, weathered, wrinkled and gray. The world around me still filled with color keeps me going, fills my soul with song and cheers me on.

OFTEN TIMES I FALTER

By: Lillian Carol Russell

Often times I falter Lord and stumble along the way,

So busy running things myself that I forget to pray.

Then it all gets in a mess and completely out of hand,

I call on you then and cry out that I just don't understand.

When if at first I'd come to you and bathed it all in prayer,

You'd have made me understand that it all is in your care.

Some days are hard and hold more pain than I want to know,

Yet it is through the pain that you teach us and help us grow.

Teach me to slow down Lord and not to fret and worry,

How can I walk with you when I am always in a hurry?

Forgive me when I falter and please forgive me when I fail,

And help me to remember Lord that you do all things well.

I remember in the long lazy days of a summer gone by the car of my dreams, it was a new white 1959, Chevrolet Impala with the rear wings and cat eye tail lights. There were about eight of us cousins that were about the same age and we all got together as often as we could in the summer time. Mama was always willing to be our chauffeur, she loaded us into that big new car and off we'd go to the swimming hole for a day of fun at the creek. Sometimes she took us to the movies and dropped us off then picked us up when the movie was over, or took us to the drive in picture show at night. The living was easy and life was fun back then, when my cousins came to visit. One afternoon mama took us to the malt shop for hamburgers and cokes. It was before the days of safety belts and we packed in like sardines, well like sardines used to be packed, can't say that old line anymore. We sat under the shade tree at the table by the shop. The Roseland Malt Shop was the gathering place for teenagers and there were a bunch of boys there and they were clowns in the first degree. They teased and talked and suddenly they had to leave. We finished our food and got back into the car.

Floods had washed the bridge out over the Tangipahoa River and a metal suspension bridge had been put across the river until a new and better bridge could be built. What we did not know was that those boys had a very mischievous scheme planned, about eight of them had crawled along the side of that bridge and hid from view. It was a beautiful afternoon and we were riding along at a snails pace across that old suspension bridge, us girls giggling and talking with the windows down, when those boys sprung up over the side of the bridge and yelled. We all screamed as only teenage girls can scream. Mama floor-boarded that new rear winged Impala and those boys said it really flew, it was the first time anyone had seen her drive fast. Now one thing is for sure, my mother never got a speeding ticket in her whole life. She always drove below the speed limit. We knew all the boys that had done this deed, they followed us home and apologized to mama. She was not mad and laughed about it through the years, it was one of her fondest memories, the day she made the wings on that 59 Chevy Impala really do their stuff.