Letter to Clancy from Fred 1997

4146 county Rd.51
Fayette,Al. 35555
November 8,1997
Dear Clancy and Tom,
I got your nice letter today. I wish I could write one that good. As far as I
can tell you do a perfect job of writing letters. We were glad to have all of
you here, and enjoyed every minute of it. Thanks for all your nice comments.
You will be welcome to come here for another reunion next year if I am alive
and welcome to come visiting any time you wish.
I am trying to take Lucille’s advice and not talk of being old and disabled
but find it sort of hard to do. The general trend of my thinking has been to
assume that tomorrow will be just the same kind of day as today, but that is
somewhat false thinking. Tomorrow can bring most anything to one, good or bad.
I try not to worry much about the future and find absolutely no reason to worry
about the past. We have only today, and have to do the best we can with it.
We went to the genealogy society meeting in Winfield Monday night and to
Tuscaloosa Thursday morning. We ate lunch with some of the old ladies at
Tuscaloosa. I told one I hoped to make it to 2000. She said she didn’t know
if she wanted to make it that long or not. Said they would have the world in
such a mess by then that she didn’t know if she would want to be around. So
some people have my kind of young outlook or worse. Poor things. Ha!
I have been searching the other CD rom disks I have for our genealogy and have
found a few pages more.
I am about fed up with genealogy. Need to get my mind on something else. About
as far or further than anybody has ever got anyway, and its very hard to find
the ancestors of wives of husbands where their only last name is their
husband’s. I will just have to pat myself on the back and admit I have done
the best I could. Some of it may not be exactly right, but I will let others
prove the mistakes. I have put? marks in most all places where unsure.
Momma told me I might find something I didn’t want to know if I went too far
with the ancestors. She was right on that. I guess none of them have measured
up to being perfect as I might have expected, but one has to take them as they
were. There is no changing of the past. Momma might have meant I might find
something about daddy we didn’t want to know. Best I can find out he was at
least a better man after he got momma but not perfect. I haven’t found faults
with momma except she did some extra worrying that was probably unnecessary.
Their combination produced good children. We are proud to be who we are.
Dad’s favorite song was “Love Lifted Me.” He used to try to sing that
sometimes when we were plowing. He may have been lifted by momma’s love and
Christianity. Lets hope so.
Guess I had better quit rambling around in my thoughts and quit for this time.
With Love,
Fred McCaleb