Blog 3994 – 11.01.2026
Happy Birthday, Mama!
On this day in 1931, Willie Morris Davidson, his wife Jessie Steele Davidson, and their two young daughters, Katherine, and Lucille welcomed a new baby girl into the Davidson clan. Her name was Alene Florence and she would grow up to be my mama.
Of all the theories about when life begins and ends and whether there was a time our individual souls existed before birth or will after death, the one that sounds most plausible to me is that we are eternal beings and that we actually get to choose these adventures in time and space, and who our parents will be, and indeed all the cast of characters and even the plot of these passion plays we call lives.
My mama was the perfect person to have taken on the role and she must have consented as well even knowing ahead of time all the heartaches, trials and worries that role would involve. Being a mother is a fierce, a demanding, and often a disappointing part to play. I was just sharing with two beloved family members yesterday the story of my joining the Army on my birthday, November 22, 1968. It was a Friday when I drove to the recruiting office in downtown Chattanooga and signed a contract for a three year enlistment. I was given a Greyhound Bus ticket to Knoxville and told to be at the bus station the following Monday at a certain time for the bus to Knoxville and my pre-induction physical and a battery of test to qualify for military service. My mother and dad accompanied me to the bus station on Monday morning. I figured my mom would be an emotional wreck as she loved both of hers sons dearly.
It amazed me that she was so calm and even smiling as she waved to me when the bus left the terminal, But, then she knew something or thought she did that I did not. I was a puny little boy and our pediatrician, Doctor Long told my mom that I had a heart murmur, but not to tell me, to just allow me do anything that I thought that I could do. He said there was a chance that I might out grow the heart murmur, but she had forgotten that part on this particular morning. She was convinced that I would take a short trip to Knoxville, fail the physical, and be home in a few days. Was she ever surprised when three days later I called her from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, as a Private E-1 in the United States Army. Then she became emotional.
I do not believe I would every have been allowed to grow up if I had not joined the Army spending three months in Kentucky, nine months at Fort Gordon, Georgia, eleven months in the Republic of South Vietnam, and my last ten months of active duty at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Those days were a greater hardship for my mother than they ever were for me.
I remember the little boy in the Bayer Aspirin commercial when the school nurse told him that mothers worry when their little boy are not feeling well. He said, “Mothers are like that, yeah they are.”
Thank you, Mama, for agreeing to be my mom. You’ve been gone twenty-six years and I miss you every day.
Your friend, fellow traveler, and Alene’s boy,
David James White
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l98jv2FSNK1n-4snSvsLXYbI5KLUnD39/view?usp=drivesdk
Another Side Of Mama
