I’ll never use that comb again
Published 4:54 pm Thursday, October 9, 2008
The drawer stuck out just a little too far; I started to push it back in to match the others.
Wait a minute. I haven’t actually looked in here in a good, long while.
Look at all these piles.
And look at this picture of me during my senior year in high school. I actually remember being that skinny.
Dang, what happened?
My parents’ 50th wedding anniversary pictures. It was in August of 1998. My mom always said that she and Daddy didn’t have a real wedding reception back in 1948, so we kids tried to put together everything that she always wanted the first time around. Smiling faces. Mama’s beautiful rose corsage; Daddy’s matching boutonniere. I always loved that tie on him.
Why would anyone keep car insurance papers from a vehicle she no longer owned? That 1999 green Explorer XLT was great. I loved sitting way up high in it. Why do I still have these?
Miss Mary Fannie Hinkle at a birthday party. She was 90 at the time. Tough, sweet, generous. She once told me that her husband had hit her one time, and she told him if he ever hit her again, she’d kill him.
He listened to her.
A whole stack of Christmas cards. From when? 2000? You’ve got to be kidding.
Oh, well…I’m not throwing them away now.
Look at this picture! Did I have a mullet or what? March 1991.
“Business up front, party in the back…”
I’d give Billy Ray Cyrus a run for his money any day in this picture.
A not-so-clear picture of me and Luke Duke himself. That’s right. Tom Wopat from “The Dukes of Hazzard” actually came to Greenville, Ala., to the Watermelon Jubilee for a concert around 1988. It was August, he was sweating, and my entire shoulder got wet from snuggling close to him to take a picture, but I didn’t care. It was Luke Duke.
And look at that hair.
There’s enough Aussie Sprunch Spray in that tangled mess to start a fire. The bigger the hair, the better in the ‘80s!
A letter from Auburn University at Montgomery dated August 4, 1994.
“Dear Ms. Grayson: The committee which evaluates the Secondary Education Comprehensive Examinations has evaluated your responses as satisfactory. Congratulations on your successful completion of this portion of the degree requirements.”
That was a happy day that I got this letter, I can tell you. I had passed my comp exams for my Master’s degree. I think I cried when I opened it.
Oh, my goodness. I don’t believe it. It’s that orange comb that belonged to my best friend Lynn Duncan Sessions. When we were 15, we went to see Southeast Championship Wrestling that used to tour throughout the counties. Back in the day, they were based out of Dothan and would travel to area high schools and armories. (If you don’t remember, just ask Pete Hayes the next time you’re in It Don’t Matter…)
Lynn and I got to meet Dennis Condrey and Randy Rose, the good-looking, bad guy tag team known as “The Midnight Express.” With them that night was the blonde heartthrob Stan Lane. Lynn would carry that orange comb in the back pocket of her Levi’s, and she would pull it out to comb her long hair.
I’ll never forget Stan Lane asking her if he could borrow it.
“Sure,” I believe is all either one of us could squeak out.
We made a pact after that.
“We’ll never use this comb again,” I know we said with a heavy sigh. And here it is 27 years later in a drawer in my house. I have got to get a life.
Okay, that’s enough of walking down Memory Lane—I mean, it’s not like I can throw any of this stuff away, right?