Auntie Mae

A few miles outside Montgomery, Alabama on the road to Selma is a old gas station with a small brick house next to it. Grabber, Pixie and I stopped for gas and to rest our okole's (that's butt for the non-Hawaiian) anyway once I finished fueling I noticed an old black women sitting in a rocker on the porch of the small brick house. I waved and said hello, she replied with hello I felt compelled to walk over and talk to her, so Grabber, Pixie and I walked over.

I introduced all of us and she said her name was Maybelle Preston, but everyone just called her Auntie Mae. She said she was eighty five years old, as she put it: The good Lord has blessed me with eighty five years on this old earth”, but looked a lot older.

As we sat there she talked about her life, she had six children two of which had died at an early age.

The four remaining children lived up north one daughter and three boys. As she spoke of her kids you could see her face light up, she spoke of the good life that her children were living. She was very proud of each of them completing college and marrying and having a family. She had worked all of her life as a housekeeper to put her children through school. She talked of her grand kids and how they came to visit every summer. I ask her why she wasn't living with one of them, and she said her place was here. “I've done what my life is suppose to be, and now I'm just waiting here for the good lord to come take me home”.

Grabber, Pixie and I spent the rest of the hour just listening to Auntie Mae, I could have spent the day. She told us she marched along side Dr. Martin Luther King when he made that famous walk from Montgomery to Selma Alabama. She was a living bit of history just sitting right there with us.

Our time was just too short, we had to get riding, we said our goodbyes and rode away thinking we were just a little more blessed then before.

The next time you come across a Kupuna (Elder) stop and talk to them, you might be surprised what they have to say... we were.


Aloha... kaha (two stop)

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