Last week was vacation time for Pat and me. So, you may ask, what do we have to vacation from? Good question but nevertheless, off we went. Went back to “Sweet Home Alabama.” No, I never lived there but my dad came west from there. A place called Gadsden. Whenever I visit there I wonder why they chose to leave this beautiful part of Alabama and move to a somewhat unimproved place called Leflore County, Oklahoma. But they did and in my journeys there I found out their reasons.

The times I visited back there I met several kin including one cousin Lara Mae. She is a bit older than me (98) but has a good mind and regaled me and my wife with a lot of family lore and stories I didn’t know. I also met Cousin Betty there in Gadsden. She is a pretty lady who has already retired, gone back to work at another job and one of the neatest persons I met down there. Like Lora Mae, she is widowed but lives with her mom there. My main guy back there is my cousin Jimmy Bullard. Since I have a brother named Jimmy, I call him “Alabama Jimmy.” There have been more than a few Jimmies back in the history of the Bullard Family. The ones who can relate old history, such as Civil War happenings have passed but lucky for me, Jimmy has an excellent memory and pays attention to family history.

I shared with my readers a few years back a story Alabama Jimmy told me about my great-great-grandpa Amberson’s return in 1866 from the civil war. He was a year late and feared dead. But not by grandma. Grandma would have her four youngest girls to sit on a retaining wall in front of the house, watch the road for their daddy. She would say, “this might be the day your daddy comes home.” But she was right. One afternoon she heard squeals of delight, Yes, daddy came home, missing a few shot off fingers. But their daddy was home.

Jimmy told me this story while we stood on that retaining wall, in front of the same old house (still standing and looking good) that my great-great-grandpa had built in 1832. But I would have sure liked to have met him. He must have been quite a man. Much like some others I met down there.

My cousin Jimmy toured me around a bit. Two of the places we visited were the Barber Museum in Birmingham and then the big NASA space center in Huntsville. The Barber Museum was not, as I thought, a barber museum but it contained thousands of all kinds of motorcycles and antique cars in a Huge five storied complex. At NASA I ran across a guy named Bob. Like me, just another old guy but he wore an employee name tag, so I talked him up a bit.

While we visited a woman ran up to us, “Oh Bob”, she said excitedly, “can I have your autograph?” My slow mind was busily at work, I asked my new acquaintance, “You an astronaut?” Yep, he answered. “How many times you been in space?” “Seven times,” he answered. Then he introduced himself, I’m Brigadier General Bob Behnken and I, in turn, told him who I was. He was proper but less than impressed. We chatted a while longer and I had Pat take my picture with him. He seemed glad to have had his picture made or perhaps he was just glad I went on my way. You never know, people are so strange. But anyway, it’s good to be back home here in Allen.

Have a good week and remember I am always glad to hear from you. Be sure and go to church Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh cwaynebullard@gmail.com

cwaynebullard@gmail.com