Ok. I've made it to 60.

August 9, 1951 was another day that you could cut the humidity in Miami with a machete. A Tallapoosa native Mary Frances Meunier Jones gave birth to your humble columnist. I don't have too many memories from living in Miami where my father was a mechanic for Easter Airlines. Virgil Jones was an Atlanta boy who attended to Georgia Tech and served in the U. S. Army in New Guinea as an M. P. My parents split before I celebrated my 4th birthday. Mother brought me to the place that would forever dwell in my heart. Getting off the bus at Smith's Cafe and being met by the greatest influence in my life. My grandmother opened the door to her Victorian home on Stone Street. It was a large wooden house built in the late 1880's by an African-American dentist named Dr. Watson. The house had a wrap around porch that in later years I got to paint battleship gray about every July. It had Aderondack chairs and a porch swing that were occupied about every night weather permitting for conversations with neighbors and friends. Who got locked up, who was sick in the hospital and occasionally you'd hear "it must be pretty bad because Dr. Allen sent him to Rome." Front porch talk went on about who had passed away and was at Miller Funeral Home, who "drank up their check every Saturday up at Essie Mae's", and who was sent off to Milledgeville were examples of the topics in the whispered gossip. The hushed conversations usually got me sent out in the yard to collect fireflies in a Mason jar on those hot summer evenings so my tender ears wouldn't pick up on it. The house had broad gables and it was the kind of house you saw in movies. The house could have fit the landscape on about any street in America. Not a day goes by that I don't think about that house. My grandmother also known as Mamanier and was a contraction of Mama Meunier had a home that always smelled of Red Diamond Coffee, Olde English Furniture Polish, and Vick's Vap-O-Rub vernacularly called Vick's salve. The house always was drafty and could get quite cold in the winter time but had a warmth that can't be described. The house was built before Owens-Corning insulation had been invented. Air conditioning? Not really. We had box fans that ran 24/7 that made the house sound like a test hanger at Lockheed. It was heated by space heaters that were bought at Bailey and Barnes Furniture. Many days of coming home from school there would be that iron pot that had either pinto beans or black-eyed peas slowly cooking. Crockpots hadn't been invented. Those suppers of beans, greens, cornbread, and peach cobbler were banquets now that I think back on them. My grandmother was 67 when she brought us into her home. I remember getting ready for Sunday school and church and always wearing a clip-on tie. My grandmother would have me sitting with her in what was called by some as "The Women's Brotherhood" of the widow women of the church. Everybody loved Reverend S. T. Skaggs preaching and quoting the scriptures from memory. Mamanier loved the choir, especially when Bud Jones would do a solo of "The Old Rugged Cross." Bud sang it at her funeral in March of 1983. It seemed that we sang all 59 verses of "Just As I Am" at 11:55 a.m. every Sunday. Reflections on the years of growing up here and the set of standards she set for me have had me thinking of just how wonderful how my life has been the past six decades. As I approach next Tuesday, I am not dreading it. I used to wonder if I will be facinated by Rascal scooters and if I'd start having dinner at 4:30 in the afternoon. Would I be watching boxed DVD sets of Murder She Wrote and Matlock instead of American Idol and Big Brother? I can say this that CBS has a new version of Hawaii 5 0 that isn't as good as the one from the 1970's. I do have the box sets of those great programs with Jack Lord and James McArthur. Turning 60 seems to be kind of like an achievement. I have a lot more living to do. I have two daughters to raise and I have to try my best to give them the opportunities that came to me. I see the final chapters of life as the best ones. I am optimistic that a true sustaining happiness will stay with me. In 60 years life has had its ups and downs. Fortunately more good times than bad ones. I have been blessed far beyond my wildest dreams time and time again. I've met some legends that I loved and admired since childhood. One night I sat between Hank Aaron and Mickey Mantle at a fundraiser in Atlanta. I've emceed concerts and brought the likes of Johnny Cash, George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Kenny Rogers, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Reba McEntire,Dolly Parton, Conway Twitty, The Oak Ridge Boys , Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Rascal Flatts and Alabama on stage. I have been friends with both of Georgia's United States Senators for 25 years. My radio career blessed me with more national awards than I have mantle and wall space. It was an honor to be the youngest inductee in the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame and the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame. Being an inductee in the inaugural class of the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame. Meeting Sam Phillips who owned Sun Studio in Memphis and R & B broadcast giant John R. were thrills beyond description. The friends I have been blessed with are more valuable than anything you can buy on 5th Avenue or Rodeo Drive. Most folks I know would rather shop at Hart's Jewelry than Tiffany's. Lipham's is a more fun shopping experience than Neiman Marcus. I have a debt of gratitude to people like Pauline Rambo, Jess Newman, Carleen Littlefield, Janice Boatwright, Ray and Sue Allen, Ray and Virginia Hitchcock, Gary Gray, G. B. Evans, Jr., Johnny Holcombe, S. T. Skaggs, Webster Smith, Bobby T. Welch, Lee Roy Brooks, Howard Brooks, Judge Harold Murphy, and Thomas B. Murphy. I appreciate the knowledge you shared and setting the bar high. Thank you for never allowing me to accept defeat and teaching me to never, never, never give up. I also am grateful to the Lord for the blessing of Presley Frances and Callie Reeves Jones. They carried on the concept of unconditional love that was first taught by Mamanier and by mother.

Rhubarb Jones is a Tallapoosa native and a member of the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame in Nashville, the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame, the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame. Previous columns are available at www.tallapoosa-journal.com and commentaries can be heard weekdays at 11:05 a.m. on WKNG, 1060. Comments are welcome at rhubarbjones@aol.com or P.O. Box 1001, Tallapoosa, GA 30176