Dec. 14 is just over the horizon. As you might have probably guessed, this is my birthday. It seems only last month that I just celebrated my 39th. Well, they say that is what happens when the peak of the hill of life is reached and you start the decent on the downward side.
I guess you might say that I’ve started on the down grade. I suppose the proper thing to do is to lock the back wheels of the wagon and take as much time as I can on the way down.
Each December, as another birthday approaches, I try to do something different or unusual. In the past, I have gone special places or have eaten special foods that I don’t especially care for, to prove that I yet have control of myself. On some birthdays, I have gone into the deep woods and stayed for a day and night, something just to be different on that day when another year is being added to the grand total.
Important events
This year, I have decided that I will do nothing more than sit down and try to remember some of the important events that have taken place over the past 39 or so years. I will be the first to admit that I have had a quite interesting life. I have done a lot of things and survived, things that some people try a whole lifetime and spend a great deal of money and never accomplish.
For example, who of my readers jumped out of the first airplane they ever rode in? I did just that; I would go on and jump out of five more before knowing what it was like to land in one. This was no great feat, but you have to admit that it was unusual.
How many of my readers received their high school diploma on a Friday night and left the following Saturday morning for boot camp at Parris Island Marine Training Base? Again, this neither was a great feat, but for a country boy from Sweet Water who had never been any farther from home than Mobile, I assure you it was a very new and different experience.
Which of you were bitten by a poisonous rattlesnake at eight years old? I was alone and about three miles from home when it happened to me. The horse that I was riding spooked and left me to walk the distance back home. I was frightened out of my mind. When I was finally taken to a rough country doctor, he asked my father how long had it been since the rattler had bitten me. My father told him that it had been almost four hours: “Hell, if he ain’t dead by this time, he ain’t gonna die.” I never did really like that doctor after that.
Possum grape record
For several years, I held the record in the community where I was reared for eating the most possum grapes in the shortest amount of time. I considered this an accomplishment within itself, considering the competition that I was up against.
I ate five large bunches of possum grapes in less than two minutes. I never was awarded a medal for this, my darling mother threatened to pump my stomach out if I ever did such a foolish thing again. I was the only one in the group who didn’t complain with the stomach ache. I was afraid to. I was afraid that my mother would make good her threat and pump my stomach out for sure.
I am also the only one who ever finished high school at Sweet Water who was forced to wear someone else’s shoes when I received my high school diploma.
Prior to going out on stage for the presentation of my diploma, this large young lady in my class grabbed my slippers that I was wearing as we sat waiting back stage. As the rest of the class giggled, I was unable to persuade the young lady to return my shoes. She was wearing my shoes when she received her diploma; I had to wear hers as I went forward to receive mine. I did the best that I could, walking in those high heels.
Crazy girl’s shoes
Luckily, no one knew about this but the class. Even to this day, I don’t understand how I made it across the stage without being noticed, wearing that crazy girl’s shoes. Mr. Johnson, the principal of the school, would have killed us both had he known all this was going on during our graduation ceremony.
In looking back over the past events of my life, there are many that stand out in times that you might call special. Time and space won’t permit me to list them all; perhaps, another time or a later date, or another birthday. I can’t let my readers in on all my secrets, just a few, from time to time as birthdays come and birthdays go.
In continuing to look back at all those yesterdays, I shall always consider the time when I visited the Apache Indian family in the state of Arizona as one of life’s most memorable. I shall treasure the memories of being adopted by the family of Slow Man as a son. I would replace his only son who was killed in the terrible fighting of the Korean Conflict.
Always, the events of the adoption ceremonies will forever stand foremost in my mind. As I emerged from the ceremony as the son of Slow Man, my life seemed to take on a new and different meaning. Also, in another ceremony, I would become a blood member of the White Mountain Apache Tribe.
More about life
For a country boy from the small town of Sweet Water, this experience will be remembered for all times to come. In a short time span of a few hours, I would come to know more about life than I have ever known before. From that day forward, life has taken on a totally new concept.
I’ve come to know that man cannot continue to waste and destroy the environment in which The Creator has placed him. We must live in harmony with all forms of life on this earth, regardless how small, if we are to survive. We must return from time to time to the protective bosom of our Mother Earth, just as a small child returns to its mother for love, protection and guidance.
The soft winds of the coming tomorrows speak of change. Are we smart enough to heed the warnings? Perhaps by the time of another birthday or two, the winds will have spoken, and those things that we don’t understand will have explained themselves.
(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born to Vincent William Singleton and Frances Cornelia Faile Singleton, during a late-night thunderstorm, on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County, graduated from Sweet Water High School in 1946, served as a U.S. Marine paratrooper in the Korean War, worked as a riverboat deckhand, lived for a time among Apache Indians, moved to Monroe County on June 28, 1964 and served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from June 28, 1964 to Dec. 14, 1987. He was promoted from the enlisted ranks to warrant officer in May 1972. For years, Singleton’s columns, titled “Monroe County history – Did you know?” and “Somewhere in Time” appeared in The Monroe Journal, and he wrote a lengthy series of articles about Monroe County that appeared in Alabama Life magazine. It’s believed that his first column appeared in the March 25, 1971 edition of The Monroe Journal. He also helped organize the Monroe County Museum and Historical Society and was also a past president of that organization. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)
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