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His obit:
Ernest Harvey, Jr. of Macclenny, FL, expired Jan. 8, 1999. He was born August 15, 1923, the son of Ernest and Sarah Davis Harvey, Sr. He served in U.S. Army in WWII 1943 to Dec. 1945 having engaged in four battles in Italy, France and Germany with BATTERY A 133rd. Field Artillery Battalion of the 36th. Infantry Division. He was awarded 13 medals in the European Operation Campaign, among them were two silver and 5 bronze stars.
He was commended by educators for having graduated from the twelfth grade at Sanderson High School, Baker Co., FL in...
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His obit:
Ernest Harvey, Jr. of Macclenny, FL, expired Jan. 8, 1999. He was born August 15, 1923, the son of Ernest and Sarah Davis Harvey, Sr. He served in U.S. Army in WWII 1943 to Dec. 1945 having engaged in four battles in Italy, France and Germany with BATTERY A 133rd. Field Artillery Battalion of the 36th. Infantry Division. He was awarded 13 medals in the European Operation Campaign, among them were two silver and 5 bronze stars.
He was commended by educators for having graduated from the twelfth grade at Sanderson High School, Baker Co., FL in 1946 with high honors after having attended school only 5 1/2 years. He received a Master of Agriculture Degree from University of Florida in 1952 and later received Teacher Certification in Elementary Education and School Administration-Supervision. In 1952-53, he taught Voc. Agriculture at Sopchoppy High School, Wakulla Co., FL. He was a charter member of the Sopchoppy Lions Club and instrumental in establishing Boy Scouts of America Troop #127.
In 1953, he began a 32 year career with the Baker County School System teaching grades five thru eight for 8 years. He was principal of Sanderson Elementary School 1961-64, and principal of Macclenny Elementary School in 1964 until retirement Aug. 1985. Was a lifetime member of FL Congress of Parents and Teachers Assn.; recipient of Most Accomplished Teacher Award in Macclenny Elementary School for two successive years and tied for the third year; received a Certificate of Achievement from FL Academy for School Leaders and he presented the Resolution to the Baker Co. School Board that gave classroom teachers planning days. He was currently treasurer for Baker Co. Retired Educators Assn. and was co-recipient of Teacher of the Year Award in the BCREA.
He was a charter member of the Baker County-Wide Homecoming Committee; charter member of the executive committee for Powell Bluff Crime Watch and member of Baker Co. Historical Society. He was a member of the Manntown Congregational Holiness Church, served in Brotherhood Ministries and was a Sunday School Teacher for the Adult Class for many years.
He is survived by his wife of 50 yrs., Frankie Thomas Harvey of Macclenny, FL and one daughter, Faith Miracle Harvey-Fly and son-in-law, David Thomas Fly; Lettie V. Thomas, mother-in-law. Brothers, the late Paul Harvey (Jewel) of Sanderson, Beatrice Harrington and Gladys Harrington both of Lake City, FL., and Helen Scarbrough, Hesperia, CA.
Funeral services will be held on Sunday, January 10, 1999 at 2:00 P.M. in Manntown Congressional Holiness Church, Glen St. Mary, FL with Rev. Steve Blackmon, Ph.D, assisted by Rev. Willard Lee and Rev. Gene Lyons officiating. Interment will follow in Manntown Cemetery. GUERRY FUNERAL HOME U.S. 90 East, Macclenny, Florida are in charge of arrangements. Active Pallbearers are Michael Thomas, Jerry D. Thomas, John Staples, C.Y. Combs, Cecil Raulerson and Charles Rowe. Honorary Pallbearers are The Baker County Retired Teachers Assn., Baker County School Board, Josie Davis, Michael Long, Ellen Sackett, M.D. and Gene Harvey. Florida Times Unions,10 Jan 1999
ADDITION 6 March 2015:
When Ernest Harvey, Jr. was born August 15, 1923, in Seven Mile
Camp in Columbia County, it was in the most humble of circumstances,
yet his father, Ernest Senior, an employee of the East Coast Lumber
Company made good money for the times. The family of eight was
painfully poor. When Ernest Sr. got paid on Friday, he drank moonshine
until his salary was gone, and then he went home empty-handed to his
family.
"Our bellies were always hungry", expressed Ernest, who climbed
the mountain of success yet has remained modest like his beginnings.
The children learned to survived on palmetto roots and berries from
the woods when they grew hungry. In spite of the difficult times,
Ernest said with undaunted conviction "I loved my parents, they were
good people."
Ernest's parents were members of colossal pioneering families in
Baker County. His paternal grandfather, Andrew Harvey, was a tax
assessor of Baker County and fathered 19 children. (An uncle, Roy
Harvey) served as a Baker County Commissioner for 28 and a half years.
His story is a saga, following one dramatic situation after
another. The fact that he survived is astonishing. And the certainty
of his accomplishments under the most difficult obstacles is nothing
short of miraculous.
Ernest began his life in a small, crude two-room section home
available to employees of the East Coast Lumber Company.
"It was so small that when the company relocated, a crane just
picked up the house with the family in it, placed us on a flat bed
train car and settled us on the next site," he recalled. "I remember
those days with great excitement," he said, remembering how he and the
other boys would jump from car to car as the train rumbled down the
steel tracks. "And I was just a little squirt of a fellow."
When East Coast Lumber Company went bankrupt, Ernest Sr. took a
job share-cropping for a large landowner, T.J. Knabb. But he was a
restless man and moved from place to place regularly.
"If we acquired anything, we'd just sell it and move on,"
explained Ernest. He remembered too that his father was a man of
drastic temperament. Often he would destroy the family's furniture and
belongings in rages of temper.
"If mother got any money on pay day she'd cook a big meal and we
seven children would eat until we got the belly-ache," mused Ernest.
"We knew we'd starve the rest of the week. When daddy did bring home a
pay-check the family would gladly walk the five miles to Lake City to
buy groceries and tote them home."
Ernest Sr. was cutting railroad cross-ties for a living and
drinking up his pay in whiskey when his wife, Sarah (Davis), died on
January 19, 1935. She was buried on January 21, her 38th birthday.
Up to this time, Ernest's brothers Paul and J.D. had helped their
father cut cross ties, their hard labor uncompensated.
"I don't know how our family would have made it without their
help," said Ernest. Their sacrifice had seen the family through meager
survival. With the mother now gone, Ernest's sister, Roxie, left to
find work in Jacksonville, Beatrice married, and Paul struck out on
his own, enlisting in the CCCs. Sister Gladys had previously gone to
live with her paternal grandmother and had never returned to the
family. J.D., Beatrice, baby Helen and 11 -year-old Ernest were left
at home with their alcoholic father. (A child named Ralph had died
earlier.)
"Coping with everything was hard on daddy," said Ernest. "He gave
J.D. up for adoption to a man named Owen Cobb, but J.D. ran away to
Grandma the next day, and for a while just lived from place to place
mostly with relatives." In the fall of that year, little Helen
contracted polio and was placed in Hope Haven hospital in
Jacksonville.
Until this time, Ernest said his life wasn't too much different
than many of those he knew. But all that changed on a cool crisp
November morning when Ernest Sr. came to the Sanderson school house
and summoned his son out of his fourth grade class. With him was
German Crews, a local bootlegger. To satisfy a whiskey debt, Ernest
Sr. gave his son up for adoption.
"You might just say my father traded me to someone for a pint of
moonshine," said the mild-mannered Ernest. "And believe it or not, I
had mixed emotions about it. After all, German Crews had a store in
Margaretta and food on his table so I thought I'd be better off. I
never blamed my father for what happened to me." The adoption had cost
German Crews and his wife Evelyn $30. Ernest was transferred to school
in Glen St. Mary where his teacher was Baker County native Arlie
Rewis.
Life was to be better, and it was for three months. As quickly as
it began it was over. Crews had purchased a 20 acre farm four miles
from his business. Ernest was taken to the farm and introduced to his
new home and surroundings. As German Crews drove away, he left a small
parcel of food for Ernest and some musty stale corn for the hogs. It
was to be the last food the 12-year-old would receive from his
adoptive father in the almost three years he tilled the man's land.
Walking into the sparsely furnished rickety old farm shack, he
noticed a large gaping hole where a fireplace should have been.
Decrepit wooden shutters on the windows hung loosely and the cold
November wind easily blew in. A lone slim cot could be seen in the
dark comer of the room where he inspected a dingy mattress stuffed
with Spanish moss filling and held together with feed sack ticking. A
thin dank blanket lay across the cot, intended to be his cover against
the winter chill. There was no pillow to lay his head. And his humble
dwelling place had no back door, exposing him to intruders.
That night and many to follow were sleepless.
"Huge rats crawled on the rafters above me," remembered Ernest.
"I couldn't help but wondered what would happen if one fell on me. And
I almost froze to death. There was this cow that tried to push against
the hole in the wall where feed sacks hung to cut the wind out and the
noise she made would scare me throughout the night. The china berries
that fell from the tree and hit the house's tin roof were just as
frightening."
Within three days he had pneumonia. His chest pounded with pain.
The winter wind raged and the cold air circulated throughout the
house. Sick as he was, he took some lard, put it in a saucer, tied a
rag around a chip of wood and made a light until it burned out.
Needing to relieve himself, he managed to get to the edge of the
porch. He remembers falling off. He could see beneath the house to the
other side. Clearly visible, he said, were the strong legs of a bull
and he was scared.
Speaking with conviction he continued, "I know I saw the bull,
but suddenly he ran, and I saw a pair of human legs. That is the last
I remember for awhile, but when I became conscious someone had put me
on the porch. My head lay on a burlap bag that wasn't there before.
The sun was coming up in the east and it warmed my body. I fell asleep
and when I awoke again the sun was settling down in the west. I was
able to get up and hand grind some corn and cook some grits on the
wood burning stove. I ate heartily. From that day on I was never
scared again. I never felt alone again. After that experience, I'd lie
in bed at night, and the rats roaming the ceiling rafters even looked
beautiful to me. The cows would be bellowing outside, and my body
freezing cold, but I'd feel safe, as if someone was in the bed with
me."
Then reflecting he said, "To this day I've never figured out who
picked me up and put me on the porch, but I've always considered this
to be the first memorable encounter I had with the Lord. And I can
honestly say that I've never met a man I didn't like."
Six weeks later, German Crews visited the farm. This time he
brought some chickens for Ernest to tend along with the cows and hogs.
They were put in an existing coop. in a few days, Ernest discovered
dead chickens "all over the place." Ernest ran the four miles to
Margaretta to notify German Crews. The two drove in Crews's Model T
Ford truck to the farm. Together they buried the dead chickens.
Then, to Ernest's horror, he was forced to lie on a large mound
of dirt while Crews beat him with a heavy flat shovel. Crews,
seriously into witchcraft, accused Ernest of casting a spell on his
chickens so he wouldn't have to feed them.
"I don't know why he said that when the hogs and cows survived,"
he said as if still bothered by the fact he was so faultily accused.
"But," he explained, "his wife was into voodoo too and even if they
got a headache, or stumped their toe I was accused of casting a spell
or causing their problems. When they beat me they called themselves
beating 'the spirits' out of me. I suppose that is how the saying
'beat the devil out of em' originated."
"Actually," Ernest explained, "the chickens had coccidiosis, an
existing condition in the old coop".
The beating put Ernest in bed unable to move. In a few days,
Crews's mother-in-law passed the farm and found the 60-pound,
12-year-old boy in a poor condition. She managed to load him onto her
wagon pulled by a mule, and take him for medical help. A salve was
prescribed and applied to his wounds, and for six weeks Ernest was
unable to get out of bed. However, when he did, Crews returned him
immediately to the farm where he lived a recluse life for the next two
and a half years.
Once a week, Ernest regularly walked the four miles to Crew's
store where he would spend the night and "tote" back two pails of slop
for the hogs before daylight the following morning. Barefooted, the
spindly, undernourished, youth made his way in the summer's heat or
winter's cold. With no food, he quickly learned to fend for himself.
He added salt to the hog's corn to keep the weevils out. He would use
a hand grinder to make grits, and the salt off the corn husks to
season his grits. He used a straight pin with an attached string to
catch (mostly) catfish from the nearby Cedar Creek. He found berries
and roots from the surrounding woods to eat. He drew water from a
polluted muggy well that filled his bucket with wiggle tails from
mosquito larvae. "I'd quickly hit the bucket and they'd go to the
bottom so I could drink from the top," he said matter of factly as he
explained his survival techniques.
Summer months meant fighting mosquitoes that swarmed into the
windowless and doorless shack. He burned cow dung to smoke them out.
To fight the "bed bugs" he put the four corners of his bed in saucers
of kerosene. "If you didn't fight them, they'd suck all your blood he
said. "Every night I'd try to pick the bugs off my moss mattress where
they'd be visibly crawling all over. In the morning the bed would
always be covered with my fresh blood where I'd rolled over and
squashed them."
Equipped with a hoe, Ernest was expected to keep prickly briers
from growing on the farm. "I had 20 acres to clear and those brier
bushes could grow as tall as ten feet high," he said. "I cleared land
and planted corn and peanuts for the mass amount of hogs kept on the
farm." And he did it alone. His father, siblings or relatives never
visited as long as he was there. There was one person, however, who he
says probably saved his life. She was a respected county midwife. "And
I loved her as dear as I could love anyone," he said.
Walter and Mary Woolbright, a negro couple, happened to be
Ernest's nearest neighbors. Often times Mary would send one of her
grand children (usually "Punk Blue") for Ernest and invite him to eat
with them. He vividly remembers those special times. "Mary would have
my own little table set up with a starched white cloth, and while she
and her family ate at their dining table, I ate from my own table
because I was white." In those days, he explained, that was proper
among blacks and whites. "She was no doubt aware of my predicament and
this was her way of helping me," he said, explaining that many times
he'd also find fresh vegetables from the Woolbright's garden on his
porch.
Two and a half years passed while the devil beatings and cruel
punishments continued. Survival was a daily task, along with the long
hard hours of work it required to run the 20 acre farm. Ernest finally
decided to run away. In the small town of Sanderson, about six miles
from the farm, Ernest took refuge for the night in a railroad boxcar.
Much to his surprise, he was awakened by a tremendous bang and jolt
and the boxcar moved along so fast Ernest ended up 30 miles east in
Jacksonville before it stopped.
"I was in a city, and all alone," he said. "I just began to walk
and ended up on a bench in Hemming Park. A one-legged man sat down by
me on the bench and introduced himself. He invited me to come live
with him and his wife on Church Street and I did. They were basically
kind and honest people, but I decided to move on and went down to the
railroad yard and jumped a freight train. I rode on that train and
several other trains. I would get off in one town, steal something to
eat and move on. I was arrested in one small town. I was starving to
death and hiding under a depot in a town in North Carolina when I
apparently passed out," he said. "When I awoke I was in a hospital,
the first one I'd ever seen. I had to tell them my name and where I
was from, so they called German Crews to come for me."
German Crews arrived on a train to take his adopted boy back to
Baker County, to Margaretta, and to the farm.
The rain had poured down for a week when German Crews arrived one
day at the farm and instructed Ernest to set tobacco plants out in the
down pour. When Ernest protested, the unscrupulous Crews threatened to
beat him with a rugged cow whip. Scared of the beating Ernest grabbed
a plow heel and hit his master over the head. He then quickly ran six
miles to his Grandma's house, told her of his situation, and never
returned to the Crews's farm. As far as he remembers, there was never
an attempt to have him returned, or any mention of his attack on
Crews.
About this time his little sister Helen was released from Hope
Haven Hospital and returned to the care of Ernest Sr., living in
Watertown (near Lake City), sawing logs for a living. Ernest, his
brothers, Paul and J.D., moved there and lived in the meager
facilities. "We boys slept on the hard floor while Helen (about 5
years old) slept on the bed with daddy," he said. "Helen couldn't walk
so daddy and my older brothers worked while I stayed home to care for
Helen, cook and tend house. Ernest taught Helen to walk again while he
tended her.
"We soon moved back to Sanderson," said Ernest. "Helen went to
live with a married sister and daddy and I lived with my Mama's sister
for a few months until there was no work left, or food."
Homeless, Ernest roamed the woods and occasionally found shelter
with friends or relatives. His desire for an education lingered and he
began going to school, where he was placed in the seventh grade. He
hollowed him a haven between two large palmettos near the Sanderson
school house. When not in school, much of his time was spent reading a
Sears Roebuck catalog he found in a privy, (of times called an
outhouse or outdoor toilet). At night he crawled through a broken
window pane in the boy's bathroom and slept on the first aid cot,
leaving before the caretaker arrived and returning to his palmetto
hide-a-way until school started. He'd search for breakfast eating food
where he could find it. Many times it came from garbage cans. He
carried his one pair of pants wrapped in a newspaper beneath his arm,
never letting go. The school children were cruel, especially the
girls. Holding their noses they'd walk behind him and shout
"phew-you." "I probably did smell, but I washed my pants in the creek
and would dry them on a rock or in a tree trying to keep clean," he
said.
"Most likely the principal, Thomas Sweat, knew my difficulty
because he eventually arranged for me to eat a meal free at the school
and he never had the window fixed," he reflected.
Sometime during the 8th grade Ernest moved back with his father
to care for little Helen after their sister found the chore too
difficult. For the next year Ernest tended a 40-acre farm for C.L.
Williams for $ 10 a month while Helen was in school. When his daddy
remarried, he left to live with his paternal grandmother, Lula Harvey,
and returned to school, where he was placed in the 10th grade. In
addition to school, he cared for the eight people living in the house.
Before daylight he was milking the cows. Then he prepared breakfast
single-handedly and did the dishes before leaving for school. After
school he did chores before cooking dinner for the family.
Ernest was in the 11 th grade in 1943 when he was drafted into
the army to serve in World War II. The following day his grandmother
died and his aunt, Ruby Dopson, moved in to take over Ernests chores.
His army stint was a primitive experience too. Placed in the
field artillery in Fort Bragg, N.C., he spent 13 weeks in basic
training before finding himself three weeks later fighting in Africa.
Most of the men in the National Guard Division that had been activated
for the emergency were much older than Ernest, serving in the Guard
for years. Ernest found himself rendering service on "the Hill," a
no-man's land between the American front lines and the enemy's front
lines. His duties were carrying a radio pack and relaying messages
back to the "howitzers" so the cannoneers could zero in on their
targets. He spent two years serving on the front lines, (except for
some occasional R&R), without a serious injury. (The only mishaps he
experienced, he said, happened when a shell exploded in the field
piece tube and burst his eardrum and when he fell from a truck and was
run over.)
Upon honorable discharge in December 1945, Cpl. Harvey had earned
a number of medals with stars and various combat ribbons.
After his army stint, Ernest returned to his grandmother' house,
"because I didn't have anywhere else to go," he said. His Aunt Ruby,
and her husband, Leon Dopson, became his second "parents" until both
of them died. "I could never repay them for the love and security they
gave me," he said.
He returned to Sanderson High School and finished the 12th grade
in four months, although his total schooling had only amounted to a
grand total of five and a half years. After graduation, he enrolled in
the University of Florida in Gainesville on the $81 a month furnished
by the GI Bill.
College life was a new experience he had not expected. Insecure,
and wondering why he was even there, he marveled at the vast amount of
students enrolling. He said he felt he was just an "ignorant farm boy
with very little knowledge" as he sat through the entrance
examinations. His grades were a minus score on all except English, and
on that he made a zero.
"I simply can't explain how low I felt nor how insignificant a
person I felt I was," he lamented.
One college experience will stand out in his mind forever, he
said. His first English course was under the Dean of the University,
Dr. Little. At the end of Ernest's first semester, Dr. Little sent for
him to come to his office. Ernest wasn't even invited to sit down. The
professor took a paper from his filing cabinet and asked Ernest to
identify it - Ernest did. It was his last weeks assignment paper he
had written in response to an inquiry about his life and expectations
for the future.
Dean Little told him his assignment was the most pitiful excuse
for written communication that he had ever tried to read.
"He told me I was not a thief, or a robber, but my kind just
never finished college," Ernest said.
But, much to Dean Little's surprise, his student did pass his
English course and received a master's degree in agriculture. Ernest
was the only student in the group that Dr. Little hugged.
"I immediately realized that his gruffness on my behalf woke me
up and provided my inspiration to finish college. Dean Little was a
wise man." And some would say Ernest was a determined man.
While in college Ernest learned to exist on one meal a day for
the three years he attended before taking a break to work in a
Jacksonville restaurant. During this time he met Frankie Marie Thomas
while attending a church meeting at Dinkins Methodist Church south of
Sanderson. They married in June of 1949. He returned to college and
received a master's degree in education, beginning his career in 1952
as a teacher of vocational agriculture in Sopchoppy, Florida. The rest
of his educational career has been in Baker County, teaching sixth
grade for six years in Macclenny Elementary, teaching principal in the
Sanderson junior High School (and at one time in the same room where
he started the first grade in 1929. Ernest taught fifth grade one year
at Macclenny Elementary before being appointed principal, where he
remained for 24 years until his retirement in August 1985. In all he
served more than 30 years of service in education.
Today, in 1993, Ernest piddles around his backyard garden of
Eden, putting his agriculture wisdom to good use. Flowers adorn his
Fifth Street resident year round and fruits and vegetables grow there
annually as well. Two 20-foot deep freezers are kept full by wife
Frankie who retired in 1983 after 30 years with the Baker County
Health Department. The couple spends much of their time devoted to the
Manntown Congregational Holiness church where they have served in
various callings since 1946. (Ernest helped build portions of it,
remodel parts of it, teaches Adult Sunday School Class (for 8 years)
and sings in the church choir. He writes and directs inspirational
plays using his own personal experiences from his teaching profession.
His greatest joy? His and Frankie's only child, a daughter, born
after 16 years of marriage. Faith Miracle Harvey is now Mrs. David T.
Fly and resides in Marietta, Ga., but visits her parents often.
It was at an Adult Sunday School Class Christmas Supper held at
Western Sizzlin' restaurant on Lane's Ave. in Jacksonville December
19,1987, that Ernest Harvey shared this poem with his friends and
pastor the Rev. Tim Cheshire. On this special night a group of 37
people had gathered to surprise and honor him for all the work he had
done through the 40 years of service he had rendered at Manntown
Congregational Holiness Church. He had prepared this poem to read to
his friends that night. It is a true account of his Christmas in 1933.
His poem touched me deeply and it has been touching to others as I've
shared it with them during the holiday season.
THE WAY IT WAS AT MY HOUSE: Christmas 1933
TWas fifty and four years ago
The great Depression raged,
TWas the year of '33
When this plot was staged.
We lived on the old Dick Harvey Place
My family and I,
Six children and mom and dad stayed
In a house much like a sty.
TWas a week before the Christmas day
That grandmother came our way,
She gave my daddy a new dollar bill
And said she could not stay.
But,"Earn" she said, "buy something nice,
For these children come next week,
They are not animals as some might think
Attention and love they seek."
She left us standing on the porch
My daddy with the dollar in his hand,
With us thinking in our souls,
"We can get something now we know we can."
I was 10, a brother 12 another 15,
A sister 10 plus 7 was, and one sister 19.
One month was our baby sister
Too young yes, to young to know,
That she was not included.
In our fortune that was bestowed.
All next week we thought and dreamed
just what Christmas Day would bring,
just what would daddy buy for us
We'd never before gotten a thing.
I asked my sister of 17
What she thought would be enough
She said, "Maybe a little jar of Pond's cold cream
Maybe even a powder puff."
My oldest sister, bless her heart,
was never neat but rough,
"Give me a whole plug of Brown mule's tobacco
A whole box of Navy Snuff."
My brother older than I by two
Seemed satisfied enough,
He said, "I'll steal the Brown Mule
And dip my sister's Snuff."
So I thought and thought what would I get
I'd walk around and babble,
Whatever else would come my way,
I wanted a big red apple.
You see, I'd never had an apple before,
Nor ice cream nor mashed potatoes,
nor bananas, grapes nor lemon pies,
But lots of stewed tomatoes.
Do you think on Christmas Eve,
We would hang our socks on the mantel?
Wrong, we never had shoes to put on our feet,
So what good would socks be to handle?
So on Christmas Eve, daddy went away,
We knew he had gone to Sanderson
Because he rode the mule that day
To give Raulerson's store a gander
I knew daddy wouldn't know what to buy
As mama did as a rule,
But she had a baby just a month before,
So she couldn't ride the mule.
And on the mantel on that night
We set our bowls and pots,
my sisters and brothers giggled and jibed
But for me I expected a lot.
In our containers on Christmas morn
Were things most people got,
Walnuts, Brazil nuts and a coconut
Which almost filled my pot.
There were two oranges, one chewing gum
And hard candy galore
But may I remind you here and now
I expected a whole lot more.
My big red apple could not be seen
Nor my sisters box of Navy Snuff.
Nor the Pond's cold cream
Nor a lot of the other stuff.
I sneaked out of the house and stood alone
To sort of hide my dismay,
But then I thought one person must be happy
On this glorious Christmas day.
It was my mother for she had got
The two things which filled her with glee,
A pot cleaner to clean the pots
A tea strainer to strain the tea.
Now she could discard the dirty rag
Through which she strained the tea,
From it she made a pair of drawers
And gave the things to me.
I said it before and I'll say it again
'The good ole days' were bad,
But even with my ardent disdain,
It was the best Christmas we'd ever had.
My daddy had bought well for 65 cents
But he had 35 cents more
With which he could have bought a big red apple
And made me smile all o'er
But he didn't do that, no, no
So what do you think?
He bought a pint of moonshine
And gave us all a drink.
A true story. |
