Mama often told stories about traditional ways of having a good time that are no longer practiced. One of these was called, "Going Seranading." I can`t remember if this was done on Halloween or New Year`s Eve, but, basically, it consisted of a group of teens and young adults walking or driving from house to house of people they knew and marching around and around their houses singing loud, silly songs while blowing horns or playing other loud instruments. Today they would be shot!  A similar practice, but one that doesn`t seem quite so annoying, was called, "Dumb Sitting." I believe this was done on New Year`s Eve. People would dress in crazy clothes, paint their faces or wear masks, and do whatever they could to conceal their identities. Then they would go in small groups to neighbors` houses and knock on the doors. When they were let inside, they would sit without talking while the neighbors asked questions and tried to guess their identities. They could only nod "yes" or "no."  If the correct identities were not guessed, they would leave after a short time. Revealing their identities was optional if they were not guessed correctly. Usually, they were offered refreshments.  After weddings, there was often a party with food and music. Near the end of the party, part of the men would pick up the groom and set him astride a pole. Then they would pick up the pole and carry him away, down the road or into the woods.  About the same time, another group of men and women would steal the bride by putting her into a washtub and carrying her off to an unknown place to hide her from the groom. It was up to the groom to find her and reclaim his bride. After the party ended and the newly-married couple had gone to the house where they would spend their wedding night, their "friends" would sometimes congregate outside and sing loudly, yell, and do anything they could to bother them and keep them awake. Sounds lovely and romantic, doesn`t it?
  

    When my mother was a child, there was hardly a family that did not lose at least one child before it had reached adulthood. Birth itself was treacherous, both for babies and mothers. Casearian sections were almost never performed, and there were no modern antibiotics to combat infection. A widespread and severe flu epidemic killed many people in the early 1900`s, and there were various fevers, as well as outbreaks of cholera. Grandpa Stricklin`s son, Littleton Dervin, and his daughters, Lonie and Dovie, all died at a young age. Dovie was only about four years old and died of desentary. The other two were almost grown when they died. I am not sure of the causes. All are buried near Grandpa Stricklin and his first wife, Sarah Sandlin Stricklin, at Addington Chapel Cemetary. Mama herself had a high fever when she was about a year and a half old, and was delerious for a time. They told her that she kept going to the closed door and trying to crawl out through the crack under it. She recovered, but no one ever really knew what was wrong with her. Many years later, when she was going to Dr, George Graham, a diagnostician in B`ham, he did xrays of her back and legs and told her that he saw evidence that she had a mild case of polio sometime in her life, so perhaps that was the cause of the fever. She was unaware of any other illness that might have been polio. 

     My mother, Mildred Stricklin Bowers, grew up in a time of dirt roads and horse-drawn vehicles, mostly farm wagons pulled by mules. Women who were very brave sometimes drove these wagons themselves, but mostly they were driven by men. Occasionally, a woman might be fortunate enough to have her own buggy or surrey. My grandmother, it seems, was one of these fiesty and fortunate women because she had a surrey that she often drove to visit her parents, who lived at the bottom of Ben Self Mountain.  For future reference, in case the name or road changes, Ben Self Mountain is the steep mountain on County Road 109, near Kinney Grove Church. It winds like a snake and has plunging precipices on the side that doesn`t hug the mountain banks. When I was small, it scared me when Daddy drove our car up or down it. At that time, there weren`t even guard rails! Mama loved to tell how Grandmother Stricklin would load Onnie Belle and her into the surrey and, it seemed to her, put their lives in God`s hands as she urged the spirited horse along the narrow mountain road. He must have been watching over them, for they always made it down and back up again safely.       Eventually, automobiles came in to general use, and Grandpa Stricklin bought a car. Buying it was one thing, but knowing how to drive it was another! For some unknown reason, he had Mama and Onnie Belle in the car with him one day before he had completely refined his driving skills. Somewhere on what is now County Road 62, not far past Grant and Pearlie Sandlin`s house, Grandpa lost control and the car went into the ditch, throwing Mama, and perhaps Onnie Belle, out of the car. They thought that no one was seriously hurt, but Mama had a big knot on the top right side of her skull for the rest of her life.