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3doustort ©atlg Tjourttal Dust and memories It wasn’t how I planned to spend my day off, but my son and my mother didn’t exactly give me much choice. For years Momma has been after me to clean out from under my bed at her house. This is where I stashed away just as many childhood mem ories as I could fit under the queen sized frame. My mother and I are on totally opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to saving keepsakes. At least that’s what I call them - keepsakes. She calls them junk. Now you know who is on which end of the spec trum. , So where does my older son figure in on this? Well, we were at Momma’s enjoy ing one last day of play with my niece and neph ew before they were to go back to school. He and his cousin started getting curious about all of those odd boxes collecting M JpmL Sherri Martin The Front Porch arMi@tyniWTppri.Mi dust under the bed. So what did they do? Started pull ing them out and opening them. My mother jumped at the opportunity. “This would be the perfect time to clean out under there!” she said with glee. So I dove into the job, armed with a trash bag and the resolve that unless it was absolutely something I could not bear to part with, it was going out. What happened next was sort of a walk down memory lane, sort of a “this is your life,” and sort of a mind boggling jumping back and forth in time. The first box held my ear liest childhood keepsakes. The crocheted doll bassinet, complete with miniature baby dolls. A bag of rocks. The tiny porcelain dolls and other figurines. The next box was from my preteen years, and was mainly filled with horse fig urines, some old letters, a Grizzly Adams poster and two Dukes of Hazzard post ers. My niece sat beside me for a while and laid claim to several items, especial ly the horses, much to the chagrin of my sister. “We just cleaned out her room and she brought more stuff home!” she lamented. Can I help it if my niece takes after me? I moved on to high school, and found all of the cards I received for graduation, including a list of the gifts I received. I glanced with interest at who had thought of me some 18 years ago, and was amazed at how many of those people are long gone now. By this time, my head was swimming in memories. My sons and their cousins came in and out at random to see what I was doing. Their appearances would bring me back to reality for just a minute - away from school girl crushes and daydreams to the real world of being a wife and mother. But I couldn’t fully join them in the present until my work with the past was done. I eventually made it through every box and only kept enough to fill one plas tic container and two wood en boxes my sister and I once decorated in Vacation Bible School. I enjoyed my trip, but I realized that while I love the memories I have of child hood, I would much rather be enjoying the childhood of my own children now. My mother, on the other hand, is hoping that I enjoyed my trip enough to tackle my old desk and closet. I only hope my son doesn’t get any bright ideas to look in them any time soon. SATURDAY, AUGUST 5, 2006 ffiemem/fev w/ten submitted Houston Drugs On Carroll Street ib Perry was the family busi ***•«*»*;.; ness where Boler i speffiß time off the basketball court - 4)31 Hlf|ll jsjifj i({ff Sri?*t i ywr—mmii- m* 11 slill |![]| SI jiff I 1 IBr-' mh If ■mHHL Hal inn By BILLY POWELL Special to the Journal During the decades of the 19205, ‘3os, ‘4os and ‘sos, the Perry High Panthers were never without a star basketball player represent ing the Gray family. During the 19205, it was Wordna, Glea, ahd Hilt Gray. Leading the Gray fam ily intd the 1930 s was the fourth son, Bowie Gray. The first four broth ers played for Coach Jim Gooden and led Perry High School to a nafttber of dis trict championships. Upholding the family tra dition during the 1940 s was Walter Jr., an all-state play er, whose 1943 PHS team, under kail of Fame Coach Eric Staples, captured sec ond place in the state tour nament. During the late 1940 s and early 19505, also under two sons of Glea. Gray stopped forward: Billy, an all-state player, helped lead Perry High to the state championship in 1949; and David, another all-state caliber player, was a star perfornier on Perry’s 1953 state championship team. A basketball player on the distaff side of the Gray family Who achieved equal status on, the hardwood with het redoubtable broth ers waO Annie Ruth Gray Boler. She Was trained on the finer points of the game by brothers Wordna, Glea, Hilt and Bowie on a basketball Aunt Belle makes up her mind Years ago, when my friend’s Aunt Belie qiiit her husband, the neWs spread through their small Alabama town like kudzu growing on a hot summer day. “Why who ever heard of any such?” gossiped the ladies in Belle’s every other Wednesday study club. “She just up and quit a perfect ly good husband. Got into her braiid new Cadillac and drove a\Vay without a fare thee-well.” Belle \Vas quick to tell any of the curious masses who didn’t hesitate to inquire that she had not suffered one dew drop at the hands of a cheating, drinking or wife beating husband. “Good as gold,” she said and contin ued to sdy until the day that life left her body. She had deserted him for what the town’s Authorities in such matters deemed the most inexcusable excuse of all. Belle had up and quit her Lifestyle _ ....v.: ' . - •• - • ----- ■ ■ < \ \ l * Y'■.v s^ • vv.'\. \ \ Jrk K ”\ ' \ R I \ \ % jHRg I fife, \ iJr 's§?; k- ’ £ ■ \ Kg'- - - j jL, \ \ If: I JUSC*' IS , \ i w-W*' 1 • i Jm I- Y foL j{' * v ‘i 1 V ' X '- i J submitted Annie Ruth Gray Boler, left, and her daughter Nancy Sherrod goal nailed to the side of a barn. She grew up a tomboy and had to scrap like a boy to hold her own in backyard games. Annie Ruth was the first of four daughters and the 10-year childless marriage because she simply did not love him. “Anna Belle Katherine, how could you?” gasped her sister, Claire. “You’re Mrs. :9k ’ mr HE? ■ Ronda Rich Columnist in two counties! You could never do better. Never! What could be more impor tant than that?” “Myself,” Belle replied firmly, picking up her purse and white gloves then tak ing immediate leave of her sister’s company. A few years ago, before Belle passed from this world, she had smoothed fifth of nine children born to William Walter Gray, Sr. and Harriet Roberts Gray, who in their later years resided on Swift Street. The other three daugh ters were Hilda, Lessie and Hazel, all cheerleaders for the lace-trimmed sheets of her sick bed with withered, age-spotted hands, straight ened the collar on her pale blue satin peignoir set and told her niece the story. “One morning, I was pre paring Robert’s breakfast - two eggs slightly over easy and very crisp bacon - when it suddenly occurred to me: I didn’t love him. Not one iota. Not for all the beauti ful clothes, big houses and fine cars he could buy me. Two days later, I packed up lock, stock and barrel and left. -Never looked back either.” My friend leaned in closer, resting her elbows on the edge of the bed. “Was it a hard decision?” she asked, her tone one of desperate searching. Belle shook her silvered but still elegant head. “I decided that I didn’t want to live for the love of a man I didn’t love. I wanted to live for the love of life.” Robert Edwards IV, scion of the town’s most promi nent and prosper ous fam ily. They own banks — ; | 1 ,•.: ■> ft. ...' ....--T.... ..af Perry High School. Annie Ruth played four years at old Perry High School in the old gym erect ed in 1926 that burned to the ground in 1969. She was the star player and leading scorer on the Perry High girls’ team from 1928 through 1931. During that era Jim Gooden doubled as superin tendent of Perry schools and coached boys’ basketball. Gooden, being ultra modest, was never too comfortable with girls’ basketball com mented Annie Ruth. “He was afraid we would show too much with our playing uniforms of knee length bloomers and blous es. t Consequently, Gooden des ignated a teacher to coach the girls. Annie Ruth’s first coach was Lucille Beckham Pritchett, a teacher fresh out of college. Annie Ruth’s team mates were such players as Katherine Lawson, Martha Ruth Tharpe, Milledge Anderson, and Ramey Bond. The team wore the maroon and gold colors and played surrounding towns such as Hawkinsville, Fort Valley, Byron, Montezuma, Cochran, Eastman and Gordon. In those days, three guards played on one end of the court, never cross ing the center line, and the three forwards on the other. Annie Ruth, a forward, And that she did. With great zeal. Over the next few decades, Belle’s fam ily regularly received letters and cards posted from exot ic places like Rome, Paris and Tangiers. She found romance but shunned com mitment on a cruise along the Amalfi coast, on an African safari and once dur ing a three-day weekend in Sausalito, California. Belle proved to be a woman of independence and spirited determination long before the invention of The Pill or the creation of the Equal Rights Amendment. While her town contempo raries had been shocked that Belle didn’t want to be Mrs. Anybody, especially Mrs. Somebody, Belle was quite happy to give her love and devotion to nobody but her self. The week after Belle’s casket was covered with six feet of her native Alabama soil, my friend took her aunt’s lessons to heart. One SECTION c was virtually unstoppable around the basket. After local games, the team often spent the night at Beckham’s father’s home, which once was part of the original Perry school com plex on Main Street. When the new school was built in 1925, it was later moved to Beckham Circle (Ed Beckham’s present home), The two story house and former school sits direct ly across the street from the family homes of Sam Nunn and Allen Pritchett, Lucille’s son. When Perry played out of town, the team was feted by Nick Cabero at his down town case on Carroll Street. When the team arrived back in town, Cabero, an ardent supporter of Perry basketball, served the girl players delicious pies, cakes, cold drinks, and coffee. Annie Ruth vividly recalls playing in the district tour nament in Hawkinsville. Her Perry team won third place that season, but the most cherished honor, said Annie Ruth, was the Perry girls team “being voted the best looking team in the tournament.” Close school friends of Annie Ruth are Virginia (Ginny) Mason-PHS class of 1934 and Ginny’s younger sister, Hilda Walker-PHS class of 1936. Both Ginny and Hilda were cheerleaders. See HOOPS, page 4C morning, her husband came downstairs for breakfast to find a note leaning against a silver cream pitcher that his mother had given them on the occasion of their last anniversary. “I’m not leaving you for anything you did wrong,” she had written in that beautiful, cursive script of hers. “I’m leaving you because I find I must make a choice in love and I have decided to choose my love of life over a loveless marriage. Your eggs and bacon are in the warming oven.” And with that, she had gotten into her brand new SUV and driven away. This time, no one in town even flickered an eyelash. Funny what a difference fifty years can make. Ronda Rich is the best selling author of What Southern Women Know (That Every Woman Should) and The Town That Came A-Courtin ’.