HAPPY HEAVENLY 108TH TO LOTTIE BELLE, the one about her & Broadway Joe:

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty & well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, & loudly proclaiming,  “Wow! What a ride!”.
~~ Hunter S. Thompson ~~

My grandmother, given name Lottie Belle but I knew her as Granny, that’s her in a motorcycle sidecar at 81 not long after me & Miss Julie presented her with great grandchild number nine of 15, was born this day, December 11, 1916. She & Hunter S. Thompson were polar opposites except both skidded into eternity broadside. You can read her exploits over on my web page, she wouldn’t stand for me bragging, me boring you with the same stories nor would she want me to turn this into a pity party. She met, in the terminology of The Dude, every strike & gutter,  every peak & trough, every smile & tear, with dignity. She greeted each sign, whether rusted or flashing neon, on her daily road from the same starting point every morning, a conversation with God, as noted in some of her devotionals & journals that I’m privileged to possess. One story to sum her up. Once upon a time, the local & my first, football hero departed from our hometown & found himself playing down the road in Tuscaloosa with a couple of pretty fair quarterbacks named Joe Namath & Kenny Stabler. Sitting in a little Italian restaurant called Carnaggio’s, Lottie saw pro football’s famous & yet to be Super Bowl champion Broadway Joe walk in with some of his New York Jet teammates that were in town for a preseason game at Birmingham’s Legion Field & since they had a mutual friend in our hometown star & she had a sports crazed grandson, she should walk over & introduce herself. I still have & cherish the napkin signed to me after that meeting. When older, I asked if she was nervous walking over to meet him, she said “yes, but I couldn’t meet him from my table”. That was Lottie Belle, she didn’t wait for life to spontaneously combust, her Maker provided the matches & she lit her candle…