What Happens In This House Stays In This House

It's A Family Affair: James Anderson 98th Birthday

• Tammy Montgomery-Dozier

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It's my grandfather James Anderson's 98th birthday.  Help us celebrate with him and his children as he speaks about life, legacy & the love of family

SPEAKER_07:

Hello, and welcome to what happens in this house stays in this house to silence podcast. I am your host, Timmy Montgomery Dozier, and I am excited today, guys. I have my family on here with me. And this podcast is going to be called It's a Family Affair. So everybody say hello. Hello. Hello.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello?

SPEAKER_07:

Guys, so awesome to have you on here. So this time, last year, I had my granddad on for his 97th birthday. So in a couple more days, he's going to be 98 years old. And I am so excited that we can talk to him again for another year with his children on here. So that is such a blessing. So what I'm going to do, well, you see my granddad right there, Mr. James Anderson, who's turning 98. I want to, for the children that are on here, introduce yourself from the oldest to the youngest that's on here now. Janie Montgomery. All right. Next. Okay. Who's next? Charles Anderson. All right. Doing the files. Great. Mana Crosby. Okay. I don't know if my uncle can get himself on off mute, but that is Mr. Tom Anderson right there. He's driving. So can you say that? All right, there you go. Got it?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I'm I'm home, but I'm but I'm still driving. I'm in the driving.

SPEAKER_07:

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay, guys. So my first question is going to be for my granddad. So last year, this time, we did a podcast for your 97th birthday. So what has changed between 97 to 98? Do you feel any different, granddad?

SPEAKER_01:

No, ain't too much different.

SPEAKER_07:

Ain't too much?

SPEAKER_01:

That's different.

SPEAKER_07:

So, my question to you. So, you've been in this pandemic or whatever that we've been in, and you've done it before, and we discussed a little bit of this last year. Is everything about the same, you think? Or do you what do you think about the whole thing that's going on?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's mostly everything is about the same reward last year. Mostly.

SPEAKER_07:

Okay, so do you think that so with your experience and ex, you know, you've been around for almost a hundred years, which is an awesome thing. I am sorry to say that I can have I have a grandfather who's been here 98 years. And I'm gonna get off the COVID thing with everything going on in the world now. Yeah, thanks now.

SPEAKER_02:

It ain't too much of love now as it was when you know back in the old days. Yeah. He was cared for one another, and they would help one another. You know, it wasn't it wasn't no uh no stripes and all of that, like it was today. People had more love for each other. I'm sure they would uh we find everything they had, they would divide with one another.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, we don't do that as much now. There's so much animosity and hate in the world today that's being shown, and we see it every day. So I have something for your children. Any one of them can ask, it doesn't matter which order. What is the one question that you would like to ask your father, or something that you want to know about that you've never asked? Because sometimes we don't ask things, or something about your history. What is something that you want to know that you may not know? Y'all have anything? Nothing.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I want to know about where his grandfather came from.

SPEAKER_02:

So where your grandfather, well, one of my grandfather on my on my daddy's side, he came from uh South Carolina, but he they sold him to Alabama, and he walked from Alabama to Mississippi, and that's where he met my grandmother in Mississippi, and she had been a slow mother had been a slave. And she met, and he walked from Alabama to Mississippi and met her, and she told her that she would marry him, she never would have to work in the field. So she married him by my grandmother. So she made him stick to what he was, and she never did go to the field or what pick no carton and do nothing like that.

SPEAKER_07:

All right. So great story.

SPEAKER_02:

So my grandmother died on my mother's side. On my mother's side, he came from uh Alabama too. And uh he came down and he set up a San Ridge set up back in the while. He set up San Ridge Church back there. And that's where we started our church at back there. My granddad did, and he stayed in church till he passed away. So San Ridge is still up to date, on today. In a little time, we moved it, moved it to Goodman all night and on 51 highway, so that we still had a little choice today from back in our. I think it was it's somewhere in the here within the what it was in the 18, huh? 18, 18 to 18 something, 18 something because wow.

SPEAKER_07:

That is anybody else have a question?

SPEAKER_02:

I'm sorry. My mother was too.

SPEAKER_08:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

So I was born in 1923. So my half brothers, they was some of them was 20 years old.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

It was it was eight or eight boys and five girls.

SPEAKER_07:

Anyone else have a question? My question is, I want to know where did my dad meet our mother at. How did they meet?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, we met at church. We didn't have no uh what you call it. Come on. No, we had to walk church when we go, but we met at church. So that's where we got dated at the church, and that's where we stayed together till we got married. Got married at church. So we stayed together 73 years. 73 years, never had any problem, anything.

SPEAKER_07:

So, granddaddy, what was it about grandma that made you approach her? What was it about her?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, she was both us. We was well, we see at the time we were both Christian. We okay, okay, and we well, we just met and got to talking it, so we just fell in both with one thing all right.

SPEAKER_07:

All right, all right, anybody else? Thank you, Grandin. Anybody else have a question?

SPEAKER_02:

Them 73 years never had no problem or anything.

SPEAKER_07:

That is so good, yeah. So, okay, before somebody asks a question, what is the secret to a long marriage at 73 years?

SPEAKER_02:

Get along with one another and do the right thing. You know, we have some people now we did marry, but it's like the little song I used used to sing all the time. From stay at home with your wife and cheer and take your children. That's always good. I used to live with stay home with my wife, and never was off at night at midnight and all like that. Never stayed up all night. I think I never stayed off from home all night, but but uh one night I think I got caught off in a in a rainy time. I had to stay in this in the stone wall one night. So it's time I was off from home all night. So when you when you marry, you got to live right and do right. And we never had no problem in this in the 73 years.

SPEAKER_07:

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Appreciate it. Any more questions from the kids? What y'all got for your daddy?

SPEAKER_03:

I want to know why he left the military.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I don't know. I after we got our base of base of training, I had it. Well, when I first moved on, they only gave me a shot. I don't know that that shot made me have the marks of what it was. My hips woke, my lips, my swirled up, and they pulled the teeth and my jaw swole up. And I never did have no more problem. I took the basic training, come back, come back training and all of that. And at the end of the training, they want to give me a discharge and I take. Wasn't there anything wrong with me or anything like that?

SPEAKER_07:

Okay, thank you. Anybody else? I know y'all got something. No questions for your daddy.

SPEAKER_04:

I got one. Okay. All right, Daddy. Who's your favorite kids?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, all of y'all are my favorite kids. All right, y'all, all y'all are my favorite, but you gotta have some good and the bad. Uh well. Well, we know who the bad I ain't talking about that hosy. Boy, he mostly helped me more than any of you know the rest of the kids.

SPEAKER_08:

Who do you say, Hosey?

SPEAKER_02:

My favorite kids. You know, he well, he just was he was just special about helping me.

SPEAKER_07:

So y'all hear that? He said hosy.

SPEAKER_02:

I said he was special about helping me now.

SPEAKER_07:

Right. So that's just in the garden. So what about the rest of us?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, well, all of y'all did this way, but I'm talking about he when he would go out his way, he would leap cargo and came down, just help me to plan a garden and stuff. But you know, I said I appreciate anything all of y'all have did for me. Well, Jane came down and and say what that wouldn't make him no special than nobody else, but he just messaged it.

SPEAKER_07:

I'm just messing with little dog, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't think I mistreated nobody. Uh none of them.

SPEAKER_07:

Oh no. No, we ain't done about it. Oh, yeah, definitely. Never none of that. Uh Timmy got another question. I got another question.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, all of them favorite. My daughter, as a daughter, very favorite daughter.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, which of which of your kids gave you the most trouble then? I should ask it that way.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh well, well, I don't know.

SPEAKER_05:

Got in car wrecks and so ripped that too, so uh he said Rick did that too. He had an accident.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, he did. I didn't remember.

SPEAKER_07:

He don't remember.

SPEAKER_02:

I remember oh, he don't remember that one.

SPEAKER_07:

When he first got that car, he went right down the hill and hit something.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep, yeah. Well Dr. Biden, you had accident too.

SPEAKER_07:

No, I was in the ditch with my car, but I didn't have no accident. I ain't never had no accident. So guys, anybody else got something for granddaddy? Well, when Jana was playing ball, did you didn't you get to go to all games?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, Janet was playing. I went to a whole game with Salis. She was the best ball player, like from the family. They win the championship one year. I forgot what year that was.

SPEAKER_07:

All right, okay, mama. So, guys, you all are here, sisters and brothers. My question for you guys what is like the craziest story that you guys have of each other? One of the craziest. Crazy crazy kind of something that happened. Something that happened. So I didn't somebody get kicked with a mule or something, or something like that happened. Uh tell about you, y'all. They hang it. A horse.

SPEAKER_06:

A horse. I remember once when uh I went to my mama, she had some glass to throw in there. Uh it was a creek over there by our house, and she always believed in uh throwing glass. When you break a glass, they always said seven years trouble. So uh she was uh gonna take the glass and throw it in the ditch, and and it had rained and the uh water was just roaring, just going down, just roaring down there. So I was gonna uh take my kick my feet out there and in that water, and it was just going so fast, and my mama grabbed me back. Other than that, it would just took me on down the street. And then one time I was out there. And I pulled the mule's tail and he kicked me.

SPEAKER_07:

Wait a minute, what a minute. That was with who that was me, y'all let eat garden dust, or was that Ricky? I remember y'all telling me that story, yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

Y'all let me fell off the porch.

SPEAKER_08:

Which one was it? It was Rick.

SPEAKER_06:

Oh, you got a one to tell about it. You put the crap trap in the stove. So the one that go in there to get the biscuit. Tell that one, Holy.

SPEAKER_00:

No, I just uh they can wait till wait till everything was done, so they want to go in there. So I set it up for the if they go in there, they'll get caught. You know, that's before I did it.

SPEAKER_08:

He is God that makes this God.

SPEAKER_06:

So then anybody go in there and get him.

SPEAKER_00:

No, I don't think nobody did.

SPEAKER_04:

Any other stories? I heard the one story that y'all told about the snake fell out the ceiling in the bed when y'all was in the bed. Somebody could tell that story.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, yeah, yeah, have to tell that one. No, I was in that bed. Oh, they fell out in the was the only one seen it because I left him. I got one that was one night we were coming from the field back up in the wood, and it said he seen uh we call it a panor, but it's called a panthers, and I was behind them. Man, I screamed I passed both of them. They couldn't even catch it.

SPEAKER_07:

So guys, my question is because you guys, every night, you no fail, you are on the phone every single night during prayer time with each other and you're singing songs and you're praying. What can you say about the importance of family? Because you all are so close. What can you tell people about that? Why is family so important? The important family, I think that's what the biggest problem today is, you know, is the family's not as close as they should be, you know, it's a lack of father and mother in the household. When you gotta get the father and mother at all times, you know, it's a lot different, you know. Because like dad, when we when I used to go to the game, he used to go, he dealt, he took to every game. But you know, that one thing he would do, you didn't have to be, he would take you to them games because he would want to go itself. But then that's cute for him to get to go to all the games too. But he would go to all our basketball games, but Mama would come to the school this night. You did something wrong, and she came to the school to get you. Okay, thank you. I think that we lack a lot of that today. Anybody else?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, because he always came to every one of my games, too. He won't tell it, but he knew I was the best basketball player in the family.

SPEAKER_07:

Any anybody else about the importance of family? Yeah, my wife.

SPEAKER_06:

Wait, wait, Daddy, wait, do it. No, go ahead. Let that go.

SPEAKER_02:

No, I just said when she knew when his kids were all was coming home, she gonna fix, she's gonna have them got children something to eat too. They wasn't gonna be home ready anytime. Anybody fix or eat something to eat for if she had to steal half of the night.

SPEAKER_08:

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, yeah, my kids.

SPEAKER_03:

She loves her children, so all of them must have been her children because she fed everybody came through the door.

SPEAKER_08:

Yeah, well, little one, everybody's children. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And we was she before me and her marriage, she said she we go to church, and the priest standing on the church ground, she told me, said, I said, if I ever married and had a home, I'm gonna, I ain't gonna leave no preacher at no church, I'm gonna come home and give it down, I feed it down. So that's what we did for 73 years. We fed all the preachers with preached at the at both churches. She ever Sunday.

SPEAKER_07:

I know that's for sure. Yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And the hobos too. Yeah, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_07:

Right, the hoboes too. Anybody else about? The importance of family?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, they don't.

SPEAKER_07:

What you want to teach her kids about the importance of, you know, I mean, most of the kids aren't grown now, but what is it that you try to instill?

SPEAKER_02:

She never didn't want her children to be home. Nobody else to be home with Steve around, but she gave them her legs.

SPEAKER_07:

That's for sure.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, uh, to answer that question, we was always told to be respectful to everybody. That's right. And uh be kind.

SPEAKER_06:

That's right.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, you took the words out of my mouth. That's what I was going to say. You got always respect your elder, no matter who they are.

SPEAKER_06:

Yep, and we was always they brought up and we we as kids, we had a lot of love for one another. I think that's like in today, uh, we didn't have much, but we had a lot of love and we had uh good times together because she always, the dad and mama always taught us to be respectable, like you say, and we didn't have much, but mama always stayed there and she always uh fixed food for us that we didn't have to go out to nobody else's house and eat. And she just taught us how to be there for one another. And uh she was always there for us. And like you said, when we uh any of us came or whatever, she always made sure that she had food fixed when we got there. And I remember that Ricky and Dad used when they worked in the store, she never would go to the bed till they left her at the store. She just like she was an angel just watching over us. She just would never go to sleep or anything. She just watched out for all of her kids. She just had so much love. And I think that's today we lacking from having a lot of love for one another and trying to be there for one another. I think we pretty much do that, but I just think you know, it's more that to be with other families and things in the world today than to be there and care for one another and do what you can for somebody else if you can. You like and love in the world.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yes, I know. My mother and daddy, they always taught us if anybody older than you, you know, you grown people say if you're grown, you're supposed to say yes and no to them. But you know, it ain't like it is today. Don't care. I don't care how old you are and how young your children, but they're gonna say yep. They ain't gonna say yes, they're gonna say yeah, no, they ain't gonna say yes, ma'am, and no, ma'am, too. They don't honor nobody, nobody wants to honor nobody to be in this time of day. So that's me. Nobody. They won't want to honor this school teacher at school and know who else because they ain't been taught the right thing.

SPEAKER_07:

So, what do y'all think changed from your generation to the next one to the next one? Because even my generation is different than the younger. So, what do you guys think changed? I think they wiser, but they're a little weaker than when we came along. We uh never sit around in the house. We walk most everywhere. We went now, everybody got they just go around, they go jump in the car and drive. They don't walk, we walk everywhere. We walk to the store, we had to walk a mile to get the owner to school, but just to go to school and break, sleep, whatever, we had to walk. But now, you know, if you go to the store, they're gonna probably get the closest part. Nobody's gonna walk. Everybody wants in the motion, and they sit in there, play games, sit all day long still going outside, getting that air like we did. Do you think that we just started progressing in life when they got to the 70s, 80s, and 90s, that we started getting too much? Because you all learned how to live without too much. So my generation was beginning to. We didn't have cars. We had to buy our own car, and we got it when we got our first car, we had to buy it ourselves. But now they be 15, 16, they're getting a new car, just getting out there trying to grab, but we had to get a job and buy, you know, buy for ourselves. And when we was at home, we had to, you know, not that we were starting, we had to cook and do our shares. We had to chair our chores, we had to uh we had somebody had to do the woods, somebody had to wash the dishes, somebody had to carry the water. Everybody did their part. But now it's not like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, when I was when I was born, it's been about 90 years ago, it wasn't no cars. We had wasn't using wagon and mule, we used to have to run. If we went anywhere, we had to hook up the cook, hook the mule to the wagon, go to ride the wagon, ride the town. Wasn't no cars at that time. And that's it. And the biggest folks had buggers and they read and read horses after go up pretty good. The doctor that they had to come to you, they'd be riding a horse and he'd have his little suitcase on his hook to the saddle on his horse. They'd go around to see people's houses. The doctors would visit people's houses because they didn't have no cars at the time. It wasn't no trucks or nothing like that. It wasn't nothing but wagons. We had to go like 10 or 15 miles, we had to go in a wagon with the meals.

unknown:

Wow.

SPEAKER_07:

So that is a big difference from now.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, even with that, yeah, trillion cars. It might have been trillion hosting me back in the anybody else want to comment about that?

SPEAKER_07:

About, you know, what's the difference? What happened?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, then it looks like the more people get, the further the way they get from God.

SPEAKER_07:

Yes, I agree. Amen.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07:

No foundation that they don't have a foundation where growing up, we had a foundation of church and God. And that's basically how I grew up. I remember when I was at Jackson State and grandma made me go to church every Sunday. I had to call home and say, tell her I came down here to go to school, not church, but grandma made me go to church every single Sunday. But I appreciate that because that's where my foundation. And a lot of kids now they don't have anything anywhere to go to. They're looking at TV and they're thinking that, oh my God, these people have it because they have money and fame. So they worship that more, I think, than they worship having a foundation.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, he was eight of us more than five of us were deacons of the church, five brother, brother. We were brought up in church, but people now brought up in the saloons and place.

SPEAKER_03:

In the streets.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, say in the streets.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah. All right. Anyone got any more comments about that?

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07:

So what was it like being growing up in a big film?

SPEAKER_02:

Smoke right there when we had to smoke rabbit the back and and um and sunflower leaves, and we slipping smoke film. Had some bath at you in the back of the old people used to tell them bully the wood and day wick and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_07:

Okay. Thank you, granddaddy. So, yeah, what was it like growing up in a big family? I can't even imagine. I'm an only child, so what was it like?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, well, you were in the 20s and 30s back there. Yeah, we had we didn't have no, couldn't get where it was. They wouldn't get no books for no children in school. We had to buy the books, and so it was eight of us in the family going to school. So my daddy couldn't, me, me and L D was the youngest two. He couldn't buy books for us around this time because we five more of them had to have books. And so we I went to school about two or three years, didn't have a book to read. So I was in the 30s, so you know we had uh Congress, he was from uh Louisiana down there, he told us he would sell the people in Mississippi if he they keep the education out the people's black people's head, he would keep the money out the pocket. That's what they taught back in them days.

SPEAKER_07:

Well, anybody, what was it like growing up? It was eight of y'all in the house to fight over stuff all the time.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we didn't have no money buying us.

SPEAKER_03:

We didn't have nothing to fight over, but work when it left when it was like what was it like being in a big family?

SPEAKER_04:

For me, for me being for me being the youngest, it was it was nice that every summer I could go to Chicago or Iraq to get to do something different. So so that was that was a lot of fun. Good to leave Mississippi and then go go out of state, so that was that was good. Okay, that's why that's where I learned how to drill and everything by watching Charles and Ed and all of them. So that was a good thing for me. Nice.

SPEAKER_03:

Anybody? Yeah, Tami, we had each every day that we didn't get through with our chores or working in the field. We just had old basketball hoop with a bicycle rim on it, and we played basketball. We made up stuff to do. We would go in up across the ditch back there in the hills and just play. There wasn't nothing else to do. You didn't you didn't have things to argue about and who had this and who had that because then nobody had anything. But we had to make up things to do, and we used to go up to Grandmama, and it was a little hill about I guess about 15 to 20 feet tall, and we dare each other to jump off of so we had to make up things, and then we would make a wagon. Uh uh, we would cut wheels up and soak them in water. Next day put holes in them and get that little old wagon and come down that hill. Sometimes the wheels fall off, sometimes they did. We probably shouldn't have been doing it because probably we didn't ever get hurt though.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, I know we used to play jacks. I don't even know anybody kids know what uh jack is right now. A ball and some little jacks, and you pick up the jacks with the ball. I don't I don't even think kids know what that is now. Well we know we had fun, though. Yeah, marbles.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, I used to love that.

SPEAKER_07:

That was some of my best childhood memories uh coming to Mississippi because one of my cousins. Oh, yes, sir. Oh yeah, I didn't know. What did granddaddy say? I see marbles.

SPEAKER_02:

I like the homie had he was shut in the shooting the marble. I don't know one of my thumb now got a place on now where I shut that white shoot so many marbles.

SPEAKER_07:

That's probably why I got arthritis in my thumb now.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh no, you didn't shoot no more.

SPEAKER_07:

Yes, I do. We used to do it all the time, then we talk.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, we didn't have nothing there. Exactly. We didn't have no bias. Number dirt, that's all we have.

SPEAKER_07:

Yep, that's it.

SPEAKER_06:

Dirt.

SPEAKER_07:

All right, family. So what this last thing is this what is it that you want to say to your father? You know, what the what he taught you and the lessons that you learned? What do you want to say directly to him? Glad he was always there for us. And and when when we was wrong, he he told us we was wrong, and and he gave us whoopings and what we needed to keep us straight, and and none of us has ever been in jail or anything because of it. So, I mean, that's the most important thing. You you you whooped us when we needed it, you just loved us like you was supposed to, and and we turned out fine. But these days they don't you want you to touch a kid.

SPEAKER_08:

I think that's the problem.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, thank you, ma'am. For keeping me straight. Yep.

SPEAKER_01:

And I like but daddy.

SPEAKER_07:

Anybody else want to say something to granddaddy? I I what granddaddy taught us that hard work pays off, you know. You work hard and do it the right way, and it pays off. And uh legal credit cards alone if you can.

SPEAKER_02:

I never had a credit card.

SPEAKER_06:

I like to say to him, I thank him for all he's done for me. And I like he's he said now, wish I had a I know what I know today, like he said he never had a credit card, and he never had a job paying any money, but what he did. He he always uh what he had, he always used it wisely. So um thank him, you know, for all he'd done and my mama gone on, and I, you know, but I just gotta say this, I thank her too because uh I thought she used to be so mean and everything. She would whoop us, daddy would just talk to her, but mama would whoop us. And I I thank her because she taught me what things that when you do something, do it right. Don't rush and do it because she would make you go back and do it over. And I just thank both of them. But today it paid off.

SPEAKER_07:

Thank you, appreciate it. Well, I just like to talk to you. They tell me how they didn't get you.

SPEAKER_03:

Anybody else? Oh, yeah, I got something, Tim. I wanted to read to him. Okay, and it's proverbs, the third chapter, and I'm gonna read a few verses, and uh my son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my command for the length of your days and the long life are peace, and they will add to you. Let not mercy and truth forsake you, bind them around your neck, write them on a tablet on your heart, and so find favor and high exchange in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding, in all the ways, acknowledge him, and he shall direct your path. Do not be wise in your own eye. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be healthy to your flesh and strength to your bones. Honor the Lord with your possession and with the first fruit of all your increase. And so your burns will be filled with plenty, for your back will overflow with new wine. My son, do not despise the chasten of the Lord, nor detest his correction. For when the Lord loves, he corrects, just as the father, the son, whom he delight. Happy is a man who finds wisdom. So he just wanted to tell him that by being in the house, and they always talk about God and the things that they just said about wisdom. And he showed us how to get wisdom, and the only way we can get wisdom is through the Lord.

SPEAKER_07:

Thank you, amen. Anybody else?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I just like to say thank you to Dad because uh whenever I needed anything, he always was there, and uh that's why when I when I have a chance to come down to see him and help him, I'll be right there. Because you can never uh do enough to appreciate what your parents do for you. So I thank you so much for helping me over the years.

SPEAKER_07:

Thank you, Hosey. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay, anybody I want to tell dad thank you for everything you've done. Breaking up. One of the best decisions. Oh, am I breaking up? One of the best decisions he ever made was telling me not to go to Mississippi Valley. And so I went to Jackson State and uh Jackson State helped me uh get the job that I have to take care of my family, and and it taught me a lot about family and trying to get everybody to do right, and and we stayed together and and things are way way things are right now. I'm able to come getting ready to move back close to family. So so everything is we talked about God and Jesus while we was growing up, and so it's still it's still going on right now. So I wouldn't I wouldn't be I wouldn't be here without everything they've done for me. So so uh as soon as I get back, I'm gonna do something for you. And because I appreciate everything you've done. So thank you for everything.

SPEAKER_08:

Amen.

SPEAKER_07:

Bonnie, did you say anything? Oh, yeah, I was the first one to speak. You want the first one? All right, thank you guys. So, granddaddy, with all that being said, what do you want to leave behind? What do you want to say to all your kids? So, what legacy your although the grands, all the grands are not on here? Well, all of them did possible.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, I said, yes, do right, live right, careful one another, yeah. Because that's what my family did when I was coming up with these eight of us boys, never ever wanted us been in prison, been in jail or anything. So love one another. That's what I tell them. Love one another and care for one another.

SPEAKER_03:

And Tammy, I got one other thing I want to say. I just want to tell everybody. Uh last year in March, we started the prayer and the and the singing. And I just appreciate everybody because most families wouldn't last this long. Eight o'clock every night. I look forward to it. You can't take get me to go nowhere at seven, after seven o'clock, because I'm waiting on the family call. And I and I thank all of y'all. And I wish we had a few more brothers that would have been here, but that's what happens sometimes. Family, somebody get left behind, but keep on doing it. And I hope we keep on doing it because I done talked to most of y'all more this this year, last year I have in a lifetime. So thank y'all.

SPEAKER_07:

I guess that whole COVID thing did change some things for the better then with family. You start to appreciate each other more because you can't get out and see each other like you used to. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Second year now.

SPEAKER_07:

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07:

Yes, it is. Well, guys, I want to thank you all so much for being on my podcast again. I appreciate it. I had a blast being with family. So I thank you guys for taking out your time because you could have done something else. Uh with the family.

SPEAKER_08:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_07:

I love it. I love I love being able to create memories with you because that's something that we because we're not together, at least we can create memories some other kind of way to remember us by and as a family. So thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you so much. And we wanna we wanna hear you sing tonight on the prayer night. Oh, for real?

SPEAKER_07:

Oh my gosh, thank you so much.