Our old church did not have air-conditioning. The large stained-glass windows pivoted from the middle and the tops of the windows leaned inward to let air flow throughout the sanctuary. That, plus, the hand-held funeral home fans were all there to cool off the folks in the pews.

With the windows at a tilt birds and wasps found their way inside, too. An occasional bird would fly around for a while and then find its way back outside. It was more fun to watch folks’ reactions when a wasp was buzzing around the sanctuary. Some would duck, some would lean to one side or the other. Then other folks would fight back and try to swat them.

I remember the Sunday evening when a wasp was buzzing all around the preacher at the pulpit. He tried his best to ignore it at first. Then he did the tilt and duck motion. Finally, the wasp made the mistake of landing on top of the pulpit. The preacher quickly shut his bible and slammed it down on the pulpit , crushing it.

After finding the passage he had been reading from he mumbled, “Sometimes you just have to lay the word of God on those pesky things.”

On another Sunday morning I wasn’t interested in drawing on the paper my parents had handed me to keep me occupied during the service. I was having trouble sitting still and paying attention.

Daddy leaned over and whispered, “Son, would you like to leave?”

Stunned, I sat there for a moment looking up at my father. I had never realized I had an option before. Did I want to leave? What a silly question. I blurted out, “Heck yeah!”

Daddy gently took my hand and we eased down the pew full of people. We walked hand in hand out of church and down the tall front steps to the old 48 Plymouth parked out front. I remember thinking, “This is great! Ask and you shall receive.”

As we got into the car it dawned on me that we’d left my mother and brothers sitting back there. How where they going to get home?

Daddy backed the car out of the parking place, put it in drive and we were heading out of town toward home. I was still mulling over the dilemma that we were the only two in the car when we hit the edge of town and were suddenly taking a left-hand turn onto a gravel road.

“This isn’t the way home, Daddy.” About the time I started to voice my concern even louder, Daddy pulled over to the side of the road and parked.

“Huh? What’s going on?”

He never said a word. He simply got out, walked around the front of the car to a bush on the side of the road and broke off a switch.

Then he jerked open the door on my side of the car, snatched me out and lit into me. Suddenly it was becoming crystal clear that I had given him the wrong answer about wanting to leave church.

So with that lesson learned we drove back into town, found that empty parking spot in front of the church and waited until church was over for Mother and my brothers came out.

Note to self: Beware of loaded questions.

The farm was all consuming. We rarely went anywhere because someone had to take care of the livestock. About once a year we would make it down to Jackson for a daytrip to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins, Marsha and Donna. Once we even traveled to Tennessee to see our cousins up there.

The only real vacation we took as a family that I can remember was to Memphis. Daddy found someone to watch out for the livestock so we could get away for a couple of days. At that time we had a green 1956 Plymouth. It was one of those big cars that had huge fins in the back. I thought it looked like a big catfish, and of course, there was no air-conditioner. It may not have even had a radio. With today’s good roads it’s only about a three-hour trip. Back then it was at least five or six hours on the two-lane roads that seemed to take forever.

Our main goal was to visit the Memphis Zoo and stay somewhere with a pool. None of us boys had ever seen Memphis’s zoo before, so one can only imagine our amazement at all the exotic animals we encountered. There was certainly nothing like them on our small farm, and like most little boys, the monkeys, giraffes and elephants fascinated us the most.

The zoo was great, but the thing that I remember most vividly was the drive-in movie and the motel we stayed at. The motel was one of those little motel courts that was popular in the 50's. We had our own little cottage amid about thirty others at the Alamo Plaza Motel. All were painted pink.

There was even a swimming pool. I had never been swimming in a real pool. Most of our swimming was in the creeks and ponds on the farm, which we shared with the cattle. I was really looking forward to leaving the zoo and going back to the motel so I could get in that pool.

That was not to be because it began to rain. Not just a little rain, but a full-fledged lightning and thunder boomer. The rain came from the west for a while, then the wind came from the east for a while, then at times it seemed to come straight up from the ground. Water was everywhere.

My parents were disappointed for us but, there was no way they were going to let us outside in all that lightning. After we ate the sandwiches my mother had packed my father had the idea we would all go to a drive-in movie. He thought that should keep our minds off the pool and it would be something affordable for the five of us.

I remember well the movie that was playing. It was The Shaggy Dog. I had never been to a drive-in before. We sat there with my father's window cracked enough so the speaker could attach to it. Rain was splashing in on him as the rest of us watched the movie.

After a while the windows began to fog from all of of us in the car. Occasionally, Daddy would turn on the windshield wipers to give us a better view. He was afraid the wipers would run the battery down and he didn’t want to get stranded at the drive-in in Memphis, Tennessee.

Somehow, we managed to see most of the movie with the help of my mother wiping away the fog on the inside of windshield and the wipers clearing the deluge on the outside as my brothers and I devoured popcorn in the back seat.

When we made it back to the motel that night my father was cold and wet, but only on his left side. The cottage had a real air-conditioner in it and we thought we were in heaven; all of us except my father who was still cold from the soaking he took at the drive-in.

Early the next morning we began our journey back to the farm. As we left the motel’s cottage my brothers and I looked one last time at the swimming pool and wished we could have gone in just once before we left. But there were horses and cattle waiting for us back in Winston County… five hours…or days away. That was the first and last vacation I remember that we took together.

(To be continued)

Baptism held in a pond on the west edge of town. Probably in the vicinity of the old Giffin place.	Baptism near Louisville. It was said that when my grandmother, Alice Cockrell Foster, was baptized a snake swam over the top of her while she was being held under.
The rear of the Methodist Church and its parsonage.	The old First Baptist Church in Louisville.
The Luther Tate Hotel near the Depot.	Our Memphis vacation in 1959.
Left to right: Nona Majure, Rochelle Foster Algood, (my mother) and two unknowns. McCully's Grocery 1940?	McCully's Grocery. Nona Majure is the lady in the plaid dress.
This is my Bennett ancestors. Dionysius and Alice Bennett are seated with a child separating them. Corrie Bennett Algood (my grandmother) is standing behind her mother, Alice. The rest I cannot name. Location unknown.

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Rick Algood
August 26, 2021