Note from Rich Heiland, emptyingmybrain…
For almost 60 years, George S. Smith worked as a newspaper reporter, photographer, investigative journalist, newspaper association executive, travel writer, higher education instructor, motivational speaker, and community development consultant.
But, regardless of where he was or whatever his job du jour, he always wrote columns and editorials, for newspapers … somewhere. And, over the past few years he has been a regular contributor to emptyingmybrain.
George’s first newspaper column appeared in 1966 in the Naples, Texas, Monitor. By his own estimated, over the following 58 years, he has written more than 4,800 columns for weekly and daily newspapers in four states (for about eight years he wrote three columns a week at one paper); in the same timeframe, he wrote more than 2,800 editorials.
In the last three years, as he closes in on 80, he has been writing a weekly column for papers in Arkansas and Texas as well as this blog.
His words — more than 4.2 million in the columns and more than 1.25 million in the editorials— ranged from memories to growing up in rural Arkansas to humorous glimpses of life’s trials, tribulations, and foibles; the musings have included smash-mouth attacks on politics, politicians, and events that have caused the world we all call home to slide sideways at times.
As of this week, George will no longer write a weekly column, but will reserve the right to pontificate on timely events and offer them as “guest columns.”
For his last weekly column, he offers up one written almost 60 years ago about a subject he knows well…family. This column has appeared in various newspapers over the years, because as Smith said: ”You can’t plagiarize yourself.”
But here is a guess from someone who has known George for years as a journalist and best friend. You’ll hear more from him. His “guest columns” may become as frequent as his “weekly” columns. In other words, he won’t be able to just sit on the sidelines and rant to his faithful dog. He can’t help but write….
God’s special gift
My sister Andrea Dale was born two days after my sixth birthday, on June 5, 1951. I think I started disliking her the first time I saw her in the hospital. She had a forest of solid black hair that stood straight up from her head. Her face was red and scrunchified. Slight slits were stuck high on her face where eyes should have been.
She looked like the baby monkey I had seen a year earlier at the St. Louis Zoo. Actually, I said it out loud and was quickly hushed by a bevy of relatives, nose-pressed to the glass in the nursery at the Julia Chester Hospital on Highway 429 South in Hope, Arkansas.
“She’s the prettiest little thing I ever saw,” my grandmother Nannie said.
I thought: Old woman’s lost it.
“I think she’s precious,” grandfather Daddy George opined.
Him, too.
I found myself at the back of the relative herd, looking at backs of knees and assorted sized backsides that ran from XS to Triple X.
Better view than looking at the monkey girl, I thought.
Despite my fervent hopes and single-thought prayers, three days later we brought Momma home from the hospital. Actually we didn’t “bring” her in the conventional sense. We all walked home – about half a block and across the street from the hospital.
I didn’t like the baby much. I tried to because I knew it was expected, but she wasn’t much fun and took attention away from me.
She was too little for me to hold, but Momma promised I could in “a day or two.” She couldn’t play for shucks, and mainly just slept, cried, ate, and set a record for messing diapers. Actually, I didn’t know if she ate or not. The baby would start squirming and then started bawling and Momma would get up and say, “I’m going to feed the baby” and walk toward the back of the house where there was no refrigerator or plates or glasses.
I would look quizzically at Daddy. “She’s going to feed the baby,” he said, smiling.
By that time I was six…but certainly not stupid. “Feed it what? There’s nothing back there to eat.”
“Sit down, Butch, and let’s talk.”
I’ll reiterate – I was six but not stupid. I knew “Sit down” and “talk” in the same sentence uttered by an adult to a kid was never a good thing.
Daddy cleared his throat six or seven times. Then, “Babies are special and have to be fed in a special way.” He stopped and looked at the ceiling. I looked there, too. Nothing.
“Babies eat, or drink actually, mothers’ milk. Do you understand?”
“Not really. But I guess Momma can get milk at the store if you don’t pick it up.”
“That’s not what I mean. Birth is a miracle. It really, really is. When a man and woman love each other, they sleep. . . ahhh, I really hate this . . . ”
That made two of us.
“. . . and anyway the man gives the woman a present and it makes a baby. Do you understand?”
“Not really. What kinda present? Is it wrapped?”
“Aggggggh! Just a stupid present! No! I mean the man gives the woman a beautiful, fun present, and it grows in her tummy and it becomes a baby! Now, do you understand?”
I knew he wanted me to say yes, but since I didn’t understand, so I said, “Not really. The baby, that baby that Momma took to feed in a room where there’s no food, came from a beautiful, fun present?”
“Yes. Lord, yes.” He ruffled my head. “I’m glad we had this talk.”
He patted me on the head again and went out the front door, muttering something about going to the store to get cigarettes.
I thought about what he had said and then went to the bedroom door, knocked and hollered: “Momma, what are you feeding the baby?”
“I’m busy. Go ask your father.”
Shucks! Between you and me, I didn’t care if the monkey girl starved.
The end. Finis. -30-
George Smith views the world from the back porch Bedspring Ridge, a dogtrot house he built in Sutton, Arkansas on old family land on a spot where his great-grandfather’s house once stood. There he lives and opines with his wife BobbieJean and a rescue dog, “Li’l Dawg.” A former newspaper reporter, editor and publisher, he has a master’s degree in business, is a retired director for a global technology company, has been a business owner, student of government and the behavior of politicians. He has been a college instructor, national motivational speaker, community development and festival development consultant and is a published author.