Talking with an Old Friend

As your favorite writer is still fighting to get a little better, here I am once again the oldest daughter putting pen to paper.  Well you know that is just a tale as I am sitting at the computer writing an occurrence of today on a laptop while I sit with my Mother, who is resting comfortably for the moment.

Thinking of all the friends that this one lady has and who would want to know her dour situation, I thought of old Georgia Friends of John and Billie Crumly, named the Finney’s.  I cannot remember exactly how Vickie and Billie met but I believe it had to do with the Cobb County extension service.  Vickie is a terrific cook and you are surely aware that Billie loves good food and had written about it many times in her blog.

I am certain that Jimmy and Vickie and John and Billie have been friends since before Jimmy and Vickie even started their family.  Jimmy is an architect and was the one who did the plans for the Crumly home place when they were adding on and making it theirs as it stands today.  As you know that was the place where Billie was born in one of the front rooms.  She wanted a more modern kitchen, of course and they were adding a sun porch and modern plumbing to update the place.  I remember going there to see grandparents when there was no plumbing and as a little girl I was told to just squat in the yard and make a branch.  I always hated having to go to the outhouse because the holes were so big and my bottom was so little.  I was frightened that I would slip and fall in that horrible thing.

I was off chasing rabbits but your favorite author has trained me well.  Vickie was so very glad to hear from me.  I did not have her telephone number but this day I had access to the Crumly cell phone and I called her with it.  Giving as many particulars as I could which would bring her up-to-date on the health situation which is grave at best.  While I was talking with Vickie my mind went to a time when I opened a Christmas package and all of a sudden Mother grabbed the box I had just opened which was empty at this point and said.  I must take this to Lea Rose because it has a beautiful rose across the top of the box and she has not had a “keeping box” all her own.  This is just perfect for her.  Billie had given her big brother, Hanes, a box in prior years which was a Hanes underwear box to use as his “keeping box”.  Vickie told me that they still kept all their treasures in those boxes.  She asked if I wanted it back and I was just tickled to tell the story.  It was just a box to me and to Lea Rose it was just her special “keeping box.”   Vicki also reminded me that her now grown children still cherish the Christmas quilts that Billie had made for her children.  Would you believe I have always been jealous that as much as I love Christmas, I was never made a Christmas quilt to sleep under just during the Christmas season.  I wish I had asked Vickie to take picture of those quilts to place here in the blog along with her children and family.

This only reminds me of all the friends and the various goodies and gifts that Mother, Billie Crumly, has bestowed on her friends.  One friend, Brother Harvey, as I spoke with him talked of the many pound cakes that Billie had made for him.   I think she has written of this infamous cake which is square and baked in an oversized oblong pan.  I have baked this one too and it will absolutely run over a stand bundt pan so if you find her recipe, be sure to have an oversized pan.  I purchased my pan on the internet, can’t you just find everything there.  Back to the cake, Brother Harvey said that he had spent many a morning in the deer stand with a slice of the Billie Crumly cake and a cup of coffee and that he would even like to have one just now.  No way to know how many of those cakes or half cakes have traveled on vacation with my family and others and since her favorite, John, is a sweet-a-holic, she always had one in the cake plate for him or in his lunch pale.

Friends and fond memories is just one best facets of country living.