Lunch with the Girls

My sister, Lindsey. and I had lunch with Sally's friends yesterday. We drove eighty miles down flat delta roads to a small community in Arkansas . Colt is square in the middle of rich Arkansas delta farm land. Sally made this trip once a month as often as she could for as many years as she had lived close enough to do so. We were apprehensive as we had not seen our mother's friends since her funeral. We would not win the prize for longest distance for lunch. There are three girls who drive Interstate 40 from Little Rock once a month to have lunch with friends they have known all their lives. Most of these girls graduated from high school together in 1947 or 1948 from Forrest City High School. Some went on to college together. Some stayed and started families.


Ofcourse our apprehension proved to be just that. We were welcomed with love and warmth. There are two of these wonderful ladies that mother would say she could not remember when she did not know them. Lindsey and I have known Verna and Mary Virginia our whole lives. We have known husbands, children and some of their grandchildren. Our lives would weave in and out of the others over the years. We lived in the same small town for a couple of years but our grandparents never left. When we would come back for visits they were always a part of our activities. It is a comfort to know these wonderful women . They keep Mother alive for us by their presence and stories. Mother was always so comfortable when she was with them. As many of them moved away and moved on we remained connected through telephone and visits when we all met in that small delta town. Many more stories to come about these great women.

Lee Mahan Beasley was also at the luncheon. Her mother, Nancy Mahan was also a part of this group of ladies. We knew Miss Nancy and her children our whole lives also. Miss Nancy passed away in September. We are all so sad and miss her. Lee and I lived in Marianna for awhile together as children. Later, when we moved from Mississippi to Paragould, AR she and her brothers were living in Paragould with Miss Nancy. There have been years when we have lived apart. Yet we share so many memories. We share our love of the lunch girls.

Antidote: When the Mahan children and the Rowe children got together there were nine of us. Mother and Miss Nancy had gotten in the habit of sending us out to play and locking us out of the house. I am sure we drove them crazy asking for drinks and snacks. This might be considered child abuse now but I think they thought the older children would watch out for the little ones. One day we were playing "crack the whip" I am not sure if this is a game anyone else played as a child. Maybe we just made it up out of boredom. In this game a line is formed by the players holding hands. The line leader then snakes the line back and forth and round and round trying to knock the last one on line off. For this particular game I was the end of the whip. As I was knocked off I flew threw the air and fell right into a coke bottle. Hand bleeding, screaming, complete chaos. We could not get Nancy and Sally to open the door. Finally, the older children held my hand up until the mother's noticed that my hand was bleeding. Mother rushed me to an old doctor in downtown Mariana. He put my hand over boiling water(I am assuming to sterilize the wound) and then sewed the skin back onto my hand. All I received for that trauma was a lolly pop and a lifelong scar.