“Becoming less reactive is a huge part of growth and decreasing stress. If you let everything get you worked up, you’re damaging your mind, body, and spirit.” ~ Slimarella
throwback
Shero continues to mine her way through the totes, and every day brings more memories to the surface. In 1951, my Mamaw Adams, Eva Blair, and a small handful of mighty hill folk founded the Church of God in West Liberty, then called the Glenn Avenue Church of God. Before the church was erected, Mamaw, with little Shero and Aunt Janet in hand, walked to a home up on Spaws Creek to worship. The tiny congregation, which included Betina, Hope, and Charlie Conley’s grandmother, Marjorie, got the idea to build a proper space in West Liberty, and they began worshipping there when only the basement was built. Through more hard work by the local men, and funded by many a bake sale by the women, the small group completed the church the following year, which remains much unchanged today (if you ignore the TV, sound system, and chairs instead of pews). The only damage the building suffered during the tornado was a broken window pane and a few shingles off the roof. Every other church in town was destroyed, although I think the Church of Christ down the street survived mostly intact. Inside the Bank of the Mountains envelope, Mamaw had placed a handwritten list of 15 preachers who had shepherded the Glenn Avenue Church of God, and a Valentine portrait of Hero and Shero from the early 2000s. Then it was back to January 1986, when Mark Kidd was the most popular portrait photographer in Lexington, and I became legal, and a portrait was made to mark the occasion. Ah, the 1980s. The picture hung on Mamaw’s wall from then until the house was destroyed. Still, these artifacts conjure nothing but good memories.
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[…] Shero was going through her stuff last year, she found one of the photos he did when I was 21, and I talked briefly about it here. The junior Mark Kidd is an incredibly kind man with a deep interest in, among other things, the […]