Mama as Midwife

Mama as Midwife
My mother was energetic and thoughtful.

After my Father's death, in addition to holding down a responsible job (as a weaver in the Cord Weave Shop, weaving heavy cloth for tents and other such material on massive looms ) in the large Osprey Mill near our home, Mama also did cooking, cleaning and looking after her family and was always ready to assist neighbors during sickness or childbirth

In the 1930's, babies were born at home in small town Georgia. Our neighbors would send for the doctor and often for Mama. I am told Mama was respectful and good at helping the young mother to rest and stay calm between contractions during labor.

Then a new doctor with new methods came to town. One day our neighbor, Mrs. Geneva Johnson had her eighth baby with the help of Mama and the new doctor. It was a boy.

Mrs Johnson, thrilled with her fifth son and eight child said, "I'm going to name him after Dr. William Baxter and Mrs. Baird." The baby was named William Baird Johnson. One reason Mrs. Johnson was so delighted with the baby and the people who delivered him was the "new" birth technique.

Dr. Baxley actually was able to "put Mrs. Johnson to sleep" before he delivered the baby.

Prior to Dr. Baxley's arrival in town, Mrs Johnson and other women in our area had their babies the old fashioned way...work (long and hard labor.) In other words "natural childbirth" without so much as a aspirin and without a coach. Well, the mid-wife was the coach. The husband-father had been banished from the room.

When Mrs. Johnson woke up and realized her baby had been born "while she was asleep", she was incredulous. Mama said Geneva kept saying over and over (still giddy from anesthesia,) "I don't plan on having any more young'uns (short for young ones), but if I do, I'm sure going to have Dr. Baxley here... and you, too, Mrs. Baird."

Saying of Will Rogers

Will Rogers, an American sage in the early part of the 1900's, died in a plane crash With Wylie Post in 1935.

I well remember the "Breaking News " about the death of Will Rogers in 1935. (on the radio and in the newspapers and word of mouth) Some say Rogers was probably the greatest political sage this country has ever known.

Some of his sayings include: :
1. Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.
2. Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.
3. There are 2 theories to arguing with a woman...neither works.
4. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
5. Always drink upstream from the Herd.
6. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
7. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back in your pocket.
8. There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who ` learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.
9. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

10. If you're riding' ahead of the herd, Take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.
11. Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n puttin' it back.
12. After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.
13.Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
14. When you're full of bull, keep your Mouth shut.

ABOUT GROWING OLDER.

First ~ Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age
and start bragging about it.

Second ~ The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.

Third ~ Some people try to turn back Their odometers. Not me, I want people
To know "why" I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of
the roads weren't paved.

Fourth ~ When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.

Fifth ~ You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.

Sixth ~ I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.

Seventh ~ One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it
is such a nice change from being young.

Eighth ~ One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been.

Ninth ~ Being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.

Tenth ~ Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it's called golf

Eleven~ If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have
anything to laugh at when you are old.

CINNAMON and HONEY

WeeklyWorld News, a magazine in Canada, in its January 1995 edition gave a list of diseases that are said to be cured by honey and cinnamon. Whether it is "Fact or Fiction," it is interesting reading?

HEART DISEASES: Make a paste of honey and cinnamon powder, apply on bread, instead of jellyand jam, and eat it regularly for breakfast. It reduces the cholesterol in the arteries and saves the patient from heart attack. Also those who have already had an attack, if they do this process daily, they are kept miles away from the next attack. Regular use of the above process relieves loss of breath and strengthens the heart beat. In America and Canada , various nursing homes have treated patients successfully and have found that as you age, the arteries and veins lose their flexibility and get clogged; honey and cinnamon revitalize the arteries and veins.

ARTHRITIS: Arthritis patients may take daily, morning, and night, one cup of hot water with two spoons of honey and one small teaspoon of cinnamon powder. If taken regularly even chronic arthritis can be cured. In a recent research conducted at the Copenhagen University , it was found that when the doctors treated their patients with a mixture of one tablespoon Honey and half teaspoon Cinnamon powder before breakfast, they found that within a week,out of the 200 people so treated, practically 73 patients were totally relieved of pain, and within a month, mostly all the patients who could not walk or move around because of arthritis started walking without pain.

BLADDER INFECTIONS:Take two tablespoons of cinnamon powder and one teaspoon of honey in a glass of lukewarm water and drink it. It destroys the germs in the bladder.

TOOTHACHE:Make a paste of one teaspoon of cinnamon powder and five teaspoons of honey and apply on the aching tooth. This may be applied three times a day until the tooth stops aching.

CHOLESTEROL:Two tablespoons of honey and three teaspoons of Cinnamon Powder mixed in 16 ounces of tea water, given to a cholesterol patient, was found to reduce the level of cholesterol in the blood by 10 percent within two hours. Asmentioned for arthritic patients, if taken three times a day, any chronic cholesterol is cured. According to information received in the said journal, pure honey taken with food daily relieves complaints of cholesterol.

COLDS:Those suffering from common or severe colds should take one tablespoon lukewarm honey with 1/4 spoon cinnamon powder daily for three days. This process will cure most chronic cough, cold, and clear the sinuses.

UPSET STOMACH:Honey taken with cinnamon powder cures stomach ache and also clears stomach ulcers from the root.

GAS:According to the studies done in India and Japan , it is revealed that ifhoney is taken with cinnamon powder the stomach is relieved of gas.

IMMUNE SYSTEM:Daily use of honey and cinnamon powder strengthens the immune system andprotects the body from bacteria and viral attacks. Scientists have foundthat honey has various vitamins and iron in large amounts. Constant use of honey strengthens the white blood corpuscles to fight bacteria and viral diseases.

INDIGESTION: Cinnamon powder sprinkled on two tablespoons of honey taken before food relievesacidity and digests the heaviest of meals.

INFLUENZA: A scientist in Spain has proved that honey contains a natural Ingredient which kills the influenza germs and saves the patient from flu.

LONGEVITY: Tea made with honey and cinnamon powder, when taken regularly, arrests theravages of old age. Take four spoons of honey, one spoon of cinnamon powder and three cups of water and boil to make like tea. Drink 1/4 cup, three to four times a day. It keeps the skin fresh and soft and arrests old age. Life spans also increases and even a 100 year old, starts performing the chores of a 20-year-old.

PIMPLES:Three tablespoons of honey and one teaspoon of cinnamon powder paste. Applythis paste on the pimples before sleeping and wash it next morning withwarm water. If done daily for two weeks, it removes pimples from the root.

SKIN INFECTIONS:Applying honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts on the affected parts cures eczema, ringworm and all types of skin infections.

WEIGHT LOSS:Daily in the morning one half hour before breakfast on an empty stomachand at night before sleeping, drink honey and cinnamon powder boiled in onecup of water. If taken regularly, it reduces the weight of even the most obese person. Also, drinking this mixture regularly does not allow the fat to accumulate in the body even though the person may eat a high calorie diet.

CANCER:Recent research in Japan and Australia has revealed that advanced cancer ofthe stomach and bones have been cured successfully. Patients suffering from these kinds of cancer should daily take one tablespoon of honey with one teaspoon of cinnamon powder for one monththree times a day.

FATIGUE: Recent studies have shown that the sugar content of honey is more helpful rather than! than being detrimental to the strength of the body. Seniorcitizens, who take honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts, are more alert and flexible. Dr. Milton, who has done research, says that a half tablespoon of honey taken in a glass of water and sprinkled with cinnamon powder, taken daily after brushing and in the afternoon at about 3:00 P.M. when the vitality of the body starts to decrease, increases the vitality of the body within a week.

BAD BREATH:People of South America , first thing in the morning, gargle with one teaspoon of honey and cinnamon powder mixed in hot water, so their breath stays fresh throughout the day.

HEARING LOSS: Daily morning and night honey and cinnamon powder, taken in equal partsrestore hearing. Remember when we were kids? We had toast with real butter and cinnamon sprinkled on it! And real honey from combs.

Happy Birthday Dear Janice

Happy Birthday to our Precious daughter, Janice On June 3. Jan1ce was our first baby. No couple could have been happier when our bright and beautiful Janice Dianne was born to Charles and me just ten months after our marriage. We were young and had much to learn, but were idealistic and eager to be good parents. Janice was a beautiful and outgoing child who learned to walk and talk early. Janice at 7 months in baby stroller.

With no children to play with at home, Janice slipped out of the yard to visit and talk to all the neighbors, children as well as the adults (a safe neighborhood).

With her shy mother close behind her, Janice taught me how to make friends with all my neighbors.

My wise mother mentioned to me that she had tired to teach her children many things but found she had also learned much from each of them.

I can say the same because Janice early on taught her young introverted mother how to be neighborly. Janice and my other children and grandchildren are still teaching me in my old age.


In fact today, when people compliment me for being "smart" because I went back to school and earned college and Seminary degrees after my children had already earned theirs, I tell them that if I have any "smarts" it is because I have been taught so much by my wonderful seven children, starting with Janice.

Janice was -- and still is -- a daughter to make her parents proud. She was and still is a loving “big sister" to her younger siblings, setting an example of excellence in school and in life and in her Christ centered career .

Happy Birthday to my precious, daughter...now a wife, mother, grandmother and Christian leader.

The Star Spangled Banner

The Star Spangled Banner

Lyrics By Francis Scott Key 1814

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave ...O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,

A home and a country, should leave us no more?

Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave ,O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.

Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: “In God is our trust;”

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The Boll Weevil and Peanut Butter.

I have written in another family story about my mother blaming the tiny bug called the "boll weevil" for our family giving up cotton farming.

The farm was in the community of Oak Hill. (Oak Hill is in Newton County near the Henry County line and also near Rockdale County.(about 30 miles Southeast of Atlanta). Cotton was king in the South, and most farmers made their living by raising cotton. When the boll weevil infested the cotton plants, it wiped out the cotton farmers’ profits. Many farmers lost their whole year's wages.

My father got a job in a nearby textile mills in Newton County and moved our family into Porterdale, a “model mill town” in the fall of 1922. I was born the next year
Giving up farming for life in a Textile town was a difficult decision. My father, also in failing health thought this his only option after the boll weevil wiped out his whole years profits.

However, Porterdale became "home sweet home" to my family. It was a great place to grow up with dedicated school teachers, as well as many church and community activities. My brothers, Tom and Jack who served in the Armed Forces during World War II, talked with such nostalgia about Porterdale, all their buddies declared they were looking forward to one day visiting Porterdale.

But Mama, in a time of class as well as race divisions was aware that "mill workers" were considered low class. She said she first thought of Porterdale as "the jumping off place,"a place where she would never have lived had it not been for the pesty, destructive Boll Weevil. Mama loved the farm and she sure had a "green thumb" in growing flowers in our small plot of ground as well as pots of flowers growing on the front porch.

Aunt Cora, Mama's older sister visited from Atlanta a week or so every year in her old age. After breakfast every morning she would say to Mama, "Lets go out and sit in the garden awhile." She and Mama would walk the few feet out the front door, and sit on the porch swing or in one of the comfortable rocking chairs amid the pots of flowers Mama had blooming.

We are told boll weevils first came to the United States from Mexico eating through Texas all the way East into the cotton fields in Alabama and Georgia.
I grew up hearing the boll weevil blamed for much of the continued povety in the South following the Civil War Between The States.

When the Cotton Factory Owners moved South looking for cheap labor, they apparently found plenty of hungry people, both Black and White looking for work. Early on, even children were hired for some of the jobs early on and later as soon as they were old enough. The Cotton Boll Weevil took people out of cotton fields into cotton mills.

So I was amazed to learn that someone actually built a monument to the boll weevil in Enterprise Alabama in 1919. The 13- and- a -half feet tall Boll Weevil Monument consists of a statue of a lady in a flowing white gown, with arms stretch high above her heard to display a big black boll weevil. It is surrounded by a lighted fountain. It seems that two enterprising business men (H.H. Sessions, C.W. Baston) in Enterprise Alabama determined that peanuts would make a good crop to plant where cotton had been grown.

Dr. George Carver of Alabama's Tuskegee Institute also did research to find as many products as possible using peanuts. . Carver did not invent peanut butter but did popularize the use of peanut butter and found hundreds of industrial uses for the peanut plant. It is hard to believe that when cotton was king there was "no such thing" as peanut butter?

I like the story Gregg Lewis , my son-in-law tells about George Washington Carver's conversation with God. In Carver's words: "I said to God, Mr. Creator, I would like to know all about the creation of the world." And God answered, "Little man, your mind is too small to understand creation, ask something more your size. Then I said, Mr. Creator, I would like to know all about the little peanut." Big men like Dr. George Washington Carver are brilliant enough to understand human limitations. Little men like whats-his-name in California who brag about their atheism are too small to ever see more than an inch beyond their nose and beleive in anyone or anything they cannot fully comprehend.

Albert Einstein said, “The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious . It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead.” Einstein’s view is shared by other great scientists like Niels and Bohr, who concluded there is room in a rational universe for incomprehensible wonders.

Fresh off the Farm.

Fresh off the Farm: Hometown Proud! Mama always said that the boll weevil ran us off the farm. The farm where my parents and siblings had lived was in the community of Oak Hill. Oak Hill is in Newton County near the Henry County line and also near Rockdale County. When the boll weevil ate it's way from Mexico through Mississippi and Alabama all the way to Georgia, they found the place here "cotton was king" and took over, infesting a treasure of cotton plants and wipeing out the Georgia farmers' profits. Many farmers, like my father lost their whole year's wages. I found it most interesting when my older cousin. Aubrey Simms told me a few years ago that he remembered the very night, as a boy of 7 , when my father told his father about his decision to sell his farm and get a job in a nearby Textile plant. Aubrey said his Dad replied, "Uncle Wilson, I will go to share cropping before I will raise my children in a mill town." In a "class conscious" society, this was a step down. Apparently, my father, Benjamin Wilson Baird felt this his only option. He was in failing health when he made the difficult decision to get a job in one of the three mills in Porterdale. I am told he got a job and worked in the Old Porterdale Mill located on the Yellow River (picture above). Papa then moved his family "fresh off the farm" into that model mill town in the fall of 1922. I was born the next February.

After my father's death, when i was nine, my mother was employed in the Cord Weave Shop in Porterdale's Osprey Mill where heavy cloth for army tents and auto tires was woven.

During World War II, patriotism was high in town and in the mills. With may men away, more women and youth took on the needed jobs. The warps and looms ran 24 hours a day, weaving the heavy cloth that was used for tank tires and other defense materials.

I worked with my mother briefly, as a teen-ager in World War II and saw how proficient my mother was as as a weaver and in handling the massive looms and especially in threading up the looms for new widths of cloth. Long after she retired, mill officials would send a car to her home to take Eula Baird back to Osprey Mill to thread up the looms and to teach others for a new batch of the heavy cloth. (1) Porterdale became " hometown" to my younger brothers and me early on! Two of my brothers, John Thomas (Tom) Baird and Jackson Irvin (Jack) Baird served in World War II. Tom served in the Army in Europe. Jack served in the Air Force in the South Pacific. They both spoke so highly and longed so fervently to get back to their hometown, many of their World War II buddies vowed they would someday visit Porterdale. However, the Textile Industry that had moved South in the early 1900's looking for cheap labor and found plenty of both White and Black people needing jobs moved on in late 1940's. Shortly after World War II the thriving Textile Industry that had hired so many farmers, providing small salaries but also providing adequate housing, schools, churches and clubs, moved farther south all the way out of the United States. In the mid to late 1940's, Bibb Manufacturing Company, Callaway Mills and other Textile Companies closed down most of their textile plants in the Southern United Sates and sold their houses to their employees. Whether a good move or not, there was no longer large numbers of textile jobs available. Times were changing but other opportunities also opened up in the south. My brother, Tom Baird, worked briefly as a policeman in Porterdale after World War II and later qualified as a State Patrol trooper. He lived with his family in Cedartown as a Sergeant in the Georgia State Patrol until his death in 1998. My younger brother Jack worked as the supervisor of pipe fitters at large Mall construction sites in South Carolina until his death in 1989. However, my brothers thought and so did our classmates and I that Porterdale was a great place to grow up in the depression years of 1920s and 30’s. Our school teachers and other leaders were the best. Beyond the low wages from the factory jobs was the community spirit of love and cooperation. Even today, there is a great deal of Porterdale spirit, including happy and successsful former residents returning to Porterdale for an annual Homecoming reunion. I started to Porterdale school at five, skipped a half grade and was the youngest in my class from the Fifth grade on. (2) After the Ninth grade, one had to pay tuition and find transportation to go to the high school in Covington. The Porterdale School had classrooms for First Grade through Grade Nine. There was also a Music Room with piano and band instrumentds and a Home Economics classroom with sewing machine and stove. My brother, James Leon Baird (who died at age 3 of measles complicated by pneumonia) is buried in the Liberty Methodist Cemetery in Porterdale where Mama and Papa are also buried. This, I am told, was where Porterdale's first Methodist church building (Liberty) had been. I joined the Girl Reserves, (more details in another post) a civic club provided by Bibb Manufacturing Company for all the girls in town. It was similar to Girl Scouts in that we had regular meetings and wore uniforms. Our uniforms were white dresses with blue belts and blue scarves and blue dresses with white belts and scarves. The shirtwaist type dresses were made by our mothers or a dressmaker from cotton material woven in one of the mills and sold at a discount. I loved being in the Girl Reserves. One of the advantages of belonging to the Girl Reserves was the opportunity to make a trip each summer. I remember at least two trips to Savannah by train. The first time I saw the ocean and the first time I stayed in a hotel was in Savannah on one of those outings when I was about ten or eleven years old. I especially remember the large formal dining room in the Desoto Hotel in Savannah. It was at the Desoto where, for the first time, we were served fish that still had its head. None of us would eat the fish, and we little girls giggled and whispered into the night about the ridiculous idea of eating a fish while it looked at us. Our neighbors, who were so much a part of my life, included Obie and Grace Moore, Albert and Blanche Fincher, the Hornings, Capes, Moodys, Johnsons, Parnells, Martins, and Loyds. My mother used the term "We were neighbor to..." instead of saying "We lived next door to..." or "We lived near..." so and so. I have fond memories as a child of being in and out of the homes of the Finchers, the Parnells and the Moores. And they visited with us daily. We did not lock our doors - even at night. Neighbors were in and out all the time - often to borrow a cup of sugar or flour or an egg or two to finish out a recipe for a cake. Often they stopped in to share vegetables or cookies or cake. Mama also always had an extra dollar or two to loan to a neighbor who ran out of cash before the next payday. She always found time to take food to a neighbor who was sick or in need. Our house seemed to be the gathering place in the evenings after a long day of work. Neighbors would sit on the swing, the big porch rocking chairs or on the steps after the chairs were filled. Sometimes the visits lasted late into the evening; the adults sitting on the front porch and talking while the children played "hide and seek" or "kick the can" out in the front yard or on the unpaved road in front of the house. (3) Notes. 1. Bibb Manufacturing Company. Built the three large factory buildings, all the housing for employees, the schools, churches...the whole town. 2.My teachers in Porterdale School were: First Grade - Miss Jones; Second Grade - Miss Wright; Third Grade - Miss Webb; 4th Grade - Mrs. Tommie Hood; 5th Grade - Miss Bura Bohanan; 6th Grade - Mrs. Pearl Hacket; 7th Grade - Miss Willie Hayne Hunt; 8th Grade - Mr. John F. Allumns; 9th Grade - Mrs. Willie Hayne Hunt. Miss Ethel Belcher was principal of the school when I started to school. Miss Maud King was principal when I finished at Porterdale and started to Covington High. 3.My Hazel Street playmates included Dorothy, Hazel and Lamar Fincher, Mamie Miller, E. F. Parnell, Obie and Billie Moore. Hazel and Sybil Horning, Jeanette and Betty Martin. Other Hazel Street friends were Julia Sellers, Mildred Yancey and Frank Ingram. I kept in touch with Julia Sellers Smith until her death in 2000 but have not heard from most of the others in many years. I think of them often and would like to hear from them and their family and friends.

Seven Wonders of the World

The number "seven" is a good and important number to me and was to my husband because we are blessed with seven "wonder" children.

It is interesting how many people will ask a couple, with a laugh, as if no one had thought to ask before; "Are you Catholic or just careless that you had so many children?"

We sometimes just smiled with them but sometimes replied we had hoped for eight children but had stopped with seven because "seven" in the Bible means "perfection" and "completion."

Then one day a college girl asked a more respectful question; "Mrs Shaw, was it your decision or was it your husband's or a joint decision to have seven children?"

Pleiade (PLEE-uhd), a noun meaning a group of (usually seven) brilliant persons or things. It is a word I love!

It reminds me of my husband's poetic words about each of "our seven," He loved to say, "if I had searched the ramparts of heaven, I could not have found a more wonderful baby."

To the left is the photo of the Pleiades Star Cluster. All kinds of myths are written about this seven star formation. "Seven" continues to be an interesting number.

A group of students were asked to list their present "seven wonders of the world."

Though some disagreement, the following got the most votes:

l. Egypt's Great Pyramids
2. Taj Mahal
3. Grand Canyon
4. Panama Canal
5. Empire State Building
6. St. Peter's Basilica
7. China's Great Wall

While gathering the votes the teacher noted that one student hadn't turned in her paper and was still thoughtfully working. She asked the girl if she was having trouble with her list.

The girl replied, "Yes, a little. I couldn't quite make up my mind because there are so many." The teacher said, "Well, tell us what you have and maybe we can help."

The girl hesitated and then read from her paper, "I think the seven wonders of the world are...
l. To Touch
2. To Taste
3. To See
4. To Hear...She hesitated a little and then added...

5. To Feel
6. To Laugh
7. To Love"

The most "wonder filled" things in life are often the things we take for granted.

Life After Life.

Back in the seventies, I heard about the bestseller, "Life After Life" by Raymond Moody, Jr. M.D. "Life After Life" was on the New York times best seller list for several years.

It is about people declared clinically dead, and against expectation, came back alive to tell of an experience of being outside their own physical body, looking down at their physical body and hearing themself pronounced dead by a doctor.

Some tell of being in a bright light, after moving rapidly through a dark tunnel. Some tell of glimpsing the spirits of relatives and friends who have already died.

In the back of my mind, I thought the author must be the same Raymond Moody, a few years older than I, who grew up on the same street as I, who married a girl named Josie, who was a classmate of mine in high school.

I married in my teens and moved away from my hometown but had been told that Raymond Moody went to medical school. So when I heard after the book, I wondered if it was the Raymond Moody I had known as a youth.

My husband and I raised a large family. He served in World War II, went back to school. Every day of my life seemed to have been filled to the full.

Then, A few days ago, I stopped at a Flee Market and among shelf after shelf of used paperbacks for 25 cents each, I picked up Life After Life and read the interesting book. I learned Raymond Moody, Jr. born in 1944 is too young to be the Raymond Moody who grew up in my town and on my street!

So after checking the internet and found page after many pages about the famous doctor. Yes, he was born in my town in Georgia and is the son of the Raymond and Josie I knew as teenagers.

Other Worlds to Sing In.

Like many of us in 2010, I have several phones in my house and a cell phone in my purse but this has not always been true.

One of my favorite stories is about Wayne, a young boy whose Dad installed one of the first telephones in their neighborhood. It was a polished, old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box.

Wayne was too small to reach the telephone, but listened with fascination when his mother talked to it. He tells how he discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person! Her name was "Information Please" and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anyone's number and the correct time.

His personal experience with the genie-in-a-bottle came one day while his mother was briefly visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, he whacked his finger with a hammer, the pain was terrible, but there seemed no point in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy.

Wayne tells how he walked around the house sucking his throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway. The telephone! Quickly, he ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, he unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to his ear.

"Information, please'" he said into the mouthpiece just above his head. A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into his ear. 'Information… I hurt my finger" ... he wailed into the phone, the tears came readily enough now that he had an audience. "Isn't your mother home?" came the question. "Nobody's home but me," He blubbered. " Are you bleeding?" the voice asked. 'No,' he replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts.'" "Can you open the icebox?'"she asked. He said he could. 'Then chip off a little bit of ice and hold it to your finger,' said the voice.

After that, Wayne called "Information Please" for everything. He asked her for help with his geography, and she told him where Philadelphia was. She helped him with his math. She told him his pet chipmunk that he had caught in the park would eat fruit and nuts.

Then, there was the time Petey, his pet canary, died. He called, Information Please, and told her the sad story. She listened, and then said things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But he was not consoled.

He asked her, 'Why is it that birds sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?' She must have sensed his deep concern, for she said quietly, 'Wayne, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.'

Somehow he felt better. Another day he called and asked, "How do I spell fix?'" All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest.

When Wayne was ten years old, the family moved across the country to Boston. Wayne missed his friend very much. but "Information Please" belonged in that old wooden box back home and he somehow never thought of trying the shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall.

As he grew into his teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left him... he would recall the serene sense of security he had then. He appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.

A few years later, on his way west to college, his plane put down in Seattle. He had about a half-hour or so between planes. He spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with his sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what he was doing, he dialed his hometown operator and said, “Information Please.”

Miraculously, he heard her small clear voice; “Information.” He hadn't planned it but heard himself saying, “Could you please tell me how to spell fix?'”There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, “I guess your finger must have healed by now.” He laughed, “So it's really you,” he said. “I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time?” "I wonder," she said, “if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children and I used to look forward to your calls.”

I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister. "Please do," she said, “Just ask for Sally.”

Three months later he was back in Seattle.. A different voice answered, “Information.” He asked for Sally. ”Are you a friend?” she said. “Yes, a very old friend,” He answered. “I'm sorry to have to tell you this,” she said. ”Sally had been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago.”

Before Wayne could hang up she said, “Wait a minute, did you say your name is Wayne?” “Yes.” Wayne answered. "Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you.” The note said, 'Tell him there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean.”