Blog 3306 – 11.20.2024

Day Five of a Wonderful Week of a Wonderful Life

As I write this I am on day five of my birthday week and just starting the last day of my seventy-fourth year of this particular adventure in space and time. Tomorrow morning shortly after 6 am I will begin my seventy-fifth year, three quarters of the way through my one hundred years, but that is the subject of my birthday blog tomorrow.

Today, I would like to review the last forty years of this incarnation. It began as the line from the Southern anthem, Dixie, goes, “In Dixieland where I was born in, early on a frosty morning. Look away, look away, Dixieland.” I have often said that I must have been a Yankee boy or girl in another life because I love snow so much. A dear friend that I met while working for a couple of years in Wisconsin a few years back always texts me “Happy Birthday” when it snows there because she know that snow is always my birthday wish.

On that fateful frosty morning in Chattanooga, Tennessee a nineteen year old woman and her almost twenty-six year old Teamster husband happily greeted their first son, little ole me. My dad wrote some biographical sketches from his early life that I put together into a little book I titled , “More Than My Share” which was from one of his oft repeated lines about how glad and grateful he was for his many a varied adventures. I attach a link to the book here for your reading pleasure:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16c3z7F_vL6uN-bt9Yi_3VNrRX2l_zCEC/view?usp=drivesdk

More Than My Share

One of dad’s early favorite TV shows was a spy drama named for the book that inspired it, “I Led Three Lives.” I believe we all have lived and will live many lives. In this one I have already had more than my share of happiness and good fortune, just like my dad. I started out to share some of the past seventy-four year adventure with you my friends, but I realize that I have been doing just that these last almost ten years through this blog.

One of the reasons that I hope to set up a trust to insure that theencouragingword.co lives on even after I have gone on to play another role in this, I believe, continuing story, is that I want my son and granddaughter and even her children to be able to read about her Papa White, what he thought, what he said, and what he did this go round.

I have so many questions that I wish I could ask my parents, but they have both moved on leaving precious little evidence behind. Little Emma Grace will one day if she wishes be able to read all about her Grandpa David White and even be able to hear my voice reading her over two hundred and fifty children books and singing to her over one hundred different songs.

She and her children and grandchildren will even be able to hear her Auntie Em, Emily Elaine White, who was a far better singer that I am, singing her song to anyone who came along.

This has been a wonderful life and it is not over yet.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YA0WtFXxH6OJLwfJ9lovDSRn19dFnS6p/view?usp=drivesdk

The Highwayman