Page 59 - From the Outhouse 4 -21

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He had only been there about thirty minutes. My grandmother, Daisy Brown (Mom’s mother), was sitting at the dining room table
so she could see and hear our courting conversation. This was her usual post whenever my boyfriends would come to see me. I was so

embarrassed that I had to ask the young man to leave because it was literally storming outside. An extremely heavy rain was pounding

the neighborhood. Trees were bending, leaves were blowing, and branches were falling everywhere. I remember giving him some
newspaper to put over his head (as if that was going to do something). I didn’t have a parasol (an old term for an umbrella) to give

him. I just thanked God he only lived five or six blocks from my house.

My father didn’t like the young man because he would see him several times a week in the pool room (a local gathering place for mostly

men to shoot the game of pool). My father did not think this was a place for decent young men to hang out, since he knew there was

cursing and Lord knows what else was going on in there. My father would know for sure! Thinking back … I’m glad that guns weren’t
used as weapons of mass destruction in those days, but were predominantly for hunting.

It wasn’t until I became a debutante that I could court without a chaperone. My father said by the time I got to be a senior in high

school and reached debutante status (the test that I could conduct myself as a refined young lady), it would be time enough for dating.

I’d be heading to college out of state by the time the real trust journey would begin.