Skip to main content

FALL HAYRIDE

 It was September 14, 1957, a beautiful early fall Saturday night.  I was so excited.  This would be my first date with Milan Hart. 


 My Grandma Dame was an active member of the local Rebekah Lodge and at this point in time, the Lodge had organized a  chapter of Theta Rho which was a girls’ club affiliated with the Independent Order of Oddfellows and our first big event was a hayride and I had invited Milan, whom I knew only from church, to go with me.  


He was very handsome, with dark brown hair and beautiful chocolate brown eyes, and we were so young.  I had turned 14 in August and he was still a month away from his 14th birthday in October.  His mother was having a hard time with this.  He was the oldest of her five children, but was always her “little boy” and she was not happy with the thought of sharing him with me.  But she had known my family for years.  The two families of “Hawks” and “Jennings” all grew up in the Flatwoods/Brice area, Brice being another name for Bennett Spring in the early days.  So that helped the situation.


The details of this hayride were printed in the Lebanon newspaper because even then I was writing for the church and social pages.  I kept the clipping because I have kept in a huge pile of scrapbooks everything I have ever written, and Milan, always the romantic one, eventually matted and framed it for me as a reminder of our first date.


According to the clipping we had a wiener roast at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Butler, then we all piled on to a truck donated by the T.H. Rogers Lumber Company, and driven by Orval Smart, for the hayride.  Mr. and Mrs. Butler and Mrs. Smart came  along as chaperones because we were such a wild bunch of kids as you can tell by the guest list below.


Boys attending included Donald and David Pearcy, Mike Brown, Ivan Eilenstine, “Sonny” Kelly, Bill Bauer, Dale Hite, Jerry O’Quinn, Jimmy Bohannon (yes THE Jim Bohannon, host of the nationally syndicated radio talk show on Westwood One) Jimmy McClure, and of course Milan Hart.


Theta Rho girls who attended were Martha Pickens, Mary Jones, Judy Jones, Wanda Stewart, Carol Fields, Wilma Stewart, Kay Aldridge, Donna Huitt, Diane Cowden, Billy Lopeman, Georgia Justice, Bonnie Eilenstine, Janet Davis, Pat Monnersmith, Betty Brown, and me.


I have purposely not paired them up as I did in the original column.  Even though it has been 61 years I would not want to fan the flames of jealousy just in case one of the attendees might say “I never knew you dated HIM” or “You never told  me you went to a hayride with HER.”


© Joan Rowden Hart 2017
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Near Death Testimony from Judge Larry Winfrey

Larry Winfrey has given me permission to share this testimony.   Grab a box of Kleenex and maybe a sweater for the cold chills you will get in the middle of it. "During my recent medical crisis, I was unconscious for two days. The following is what I experienced during that time. If you have the time and the inclination, I would be interested in your thought. I am pasting what I have sent to others who have inquired. Thank you! Thank you for expressing interest in hearing what happened to me during the two days of unconsciousness, it has had a profound effect upon me. Whether real or imagined, or you believe it or not makes no difference, it will all depend on your relationship with God. Nor will it affect my appreciation for you. I could not breathe! I remember thinking I was dead and that I was not ready to die. I thought of my family. I did not see any bright light or passed loved ones. I did not see any angels enveloped in a holy penumbra. What I saw was Sata
1 comment
Read more

LDR column published 05.09.12 - Jess Easley

Straight From The Hart By Joan Rowden Hart Jess  Easley , Lebanon Historian and StoryTeller I’ve been trying to trace a place called Railroad Pond from the early days of Lebanon.  Perhaps some of you “old-timers” will have more information, but I found a reference to it in Jess  Easley ’s recollections of Lebanon. Jess talked about skating on Railroad Pond when he was just a kid, and also working to cut ice on it during the cold winters that Lebanon experienced.  The grocery stores which had meat markets would hire people to cut ice from the pond to put in their ice house and store for the summer. Jess was one of Milan’s favorite customers when Milan started working at the barber shop with Fred Pitts in 1968, and he quickly became one of Milan’s mentors in collecting oral memories and memorabilia of Lebanon history. Jess was born in Lebanon in January of 1891, and died here on March 1, 1983 at the age of 92 , and had a good strong mind right up to the very end, so he had many memories
1 comment
Read more

EBOLA CZAR

     ·  Shared with Your friends My column from yesterday's LDR. WHERE IS OUR EBOLA CZAR? Has anyone seen our Ebola Czar? No, not Ron Klain. (Although no one has seen him yet either as I write this on Thursday afternoon. But more about that later.) But I’m talking about the one we have had since 2009. Her name is Dr. Nicole Lurie. She is an assistant secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and her job is “to lead the nation in preventing, responding to and recovering from the adverse health effects of public health emergencies and disasters, ranging from hurricanes to bioterrorism.” Her job description is to help the country prepare for emergencies including the responsibility of developing “the countermeasures - the medicines or vaccines that people might need to use in a public health emergency”. She has been referred to as the “highest ranking federal official in charge of preparing the nation to face such health crises as earthquakes, hurrica
Post a Comment
Read more