Beth Ann and Billy

I went to my first movie with Beth Ann in Commerce soon after we had moved there. I guess I was four and Beth Ann (Elizabeth Ann), born on January 30, 1918, was six.

Once she and I went alone to see Jackie Coogan in some tear-jerker. His father died, his mother died, and when his dog died, I got up and walked home—about two blocks away.

Beth Ann came home a few minutes later just furious. “I looked around and Kathryn had disappeared, and I had to leave the picture show.”

Uncle Bill and Aunt Eva’s youngest son, Billy Browning (born in March 1923), and I were real buddies. Beth Ann had skates, but Billy and I didn’t. Beth Ann was too sophisticated even then to play with Billy and I. When she went to a movie or something, Billy and I would borrow the skates, each one of us using one skate, and have a great time.

He and Beth Ann took “expression.” They learned poems, like I took piano, and there were recitals in Commerce. I still remember Billy’s poem:
“I wish I wuz a little rock a sittin’ on a hill,
Doin’ nothing all day long but just a sittin’ still.
I wouldn’t eat, I wouldn’t sleep,
I wouldn’t even wash.
I’d just sit there a thousand years
and rest myself, by gosh.”