The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Facebook introduces other families’ grandchildren

Whitesburg


Justin Gordon, Micca Watts Gordon behind Eli Gordon, Mike Watts holding Finley Gordon, Michael and Victoria Watts, in front Eli Gordon.

Justin Gordon, Micca Watts Gordon behind Eli Gordon, Mike Watts holding Finley Gordon, Michael and Victoria Watts, in front Eli Gordon.

You know, I was thinking today about my youngest granddaughter getting ready to turn nine years old this Saturday the 25th, and it just doesn’t seem real. Our first grandbaby was a boy and when we first found out she was going to have a boy, we weren’t one bit happy.

Our neighbor, Joyce Baker, told us, “You just wait, honey, you ain’t never experienced anything like it.” She said she just couldn’t explain the kind of love you feel for your grandchildren.

She surely knew what she was talking about. It just turns your heart all upside down and every which way the first time you lay eyes on them. I had to ask God to help me leave my grandson with his mom, because I just wanted to take him for my own. Now he is 17 and the middle granddaughter is 16, and like I said, the youngest is about to turn nine. My oh my, how fast time flies by.

I have so many friends now with grandchildren. I think that’s the type of pictures I enjoy looking at most on social media. My friend Possum (Bob Smith) told me the other day that every time one of his grandchildren came up on his memories, he was going to share it again. He said he just couldn’t help it. Many of my friends do this and I know how their heart feels when they look at their grandchildren when they were younger.

Joy Yonts Hampton and Story Eliza Hampton

Joy Yonts Hampton and Story Eliza Hampton

Mike and Donna Watts have gotten to make a lot of memories this summer with their grandchildren. I’ve watched these kids grow up through Facebook. I graduated with Mike and went to Little Cowan Primitive Baptist Church with Donna. Without Facebook I would not even know what their kids or grandkids look like. I love that part of Facebook.

How many of you all spent time with your grandparents? My Mamaw, Dora Caudill Pennington, lived in the head of Stinking Branch when I was a little girl. Papaw died when I was two, so I don’t remember him. This was our favorite place to play, especially on Sundays after church. Most all of Mommy’s siblings would be there too, with all their children.

LEE BATES ADAMS

LEE BATES ADAMS

Her property had a creek on one side and that stream came right down off the mountain. No other houses were above it so it had no pollution in it at all. It was shaded by huge trees with roots sticking up just enough for us to make our little stick houses with moss for a floor and a roof. We made hog pens, smokehouses, and of course, toilets, out of sticks also, and each one of us had our own section of the tree root for our farm. I can still see and hear that little creek and smell those damp woods.

Oh how I would love to just go back to a simpler time when children were happy to be children and there were no such things as video games with all this violence that they experience today. No wonder they have no problems with destroying public and private property and killing people. They do it all day long on their games. I just don’t understand why parents buy their young children such stuff. Well, I didn’t intend to go into all that, but I guess I’ll just leave it at that.

Ruby Claire Watts is the daughter of Michael and Victoria Watts.

Ruby Claire Watts is the daughter of Michael and Victoria Watts.

Cassie McCool-Solis is doing so much better than she was a week ago. She has had COVID-19 and had major problems breathing and a fever. Her grandmother, Billie June Richardson, told me she is doing much better now and neither her two boys nor her husband have come down with it. The good news is Cassie and her family are making plans to move back to Kentucky. They will now live in Richmond. I know her family here will be so happy about that. It’s an answer to all their prayers.

Okay for the birthdays, first of all my granddaughter Story Eliza Hampton will turn nine on the 25th. Her parents are David and Joy Yonts Hampton. Her paternal grandparents are Dave and Millie Hampton. Her paternal great-grandparents are Clifford and Wilma Hampton, her maternal great-grandfather is Bill Hampton, and Story’s maternal great-grandmother is Dorothy Pennington Tacket. Just like her Granny (me), she is a talker and a half. Sometimes when she is with me I have to ask her to just let my ears rest for a while.

Other birthdays were Phyllis Begley Combs on the 14th, along with Alicia Day Cook. Gerald Baker had a birthday on the 17th and so did Ellie Mullins (great-granddaughter of Oma Hatton). Lee Bates had a birthday on the 20th.

I’ll close here by asking prayer requests for continued prayers for my cousin Helen Sue Hall’s husband Bobby Hall. He had open-heart surgery last week. A brother in our church at Letcher Independent Baptist is in the hospital with double pneumonia, Leon Blair, please remember him.

Also, remember all those that have lost loved ones, especially our pastor, Bill Jones and his whole family.

Try to attend some type of church service this week or Sunday. If you have Internet most churches are still broadcasting that way even if they are having church in the building, too.

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