{"id":426,"date":"2016-06-01T23:51:49","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T03:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=426"},"modified":"2016-06-01T23:51:49","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T03:51:49","slug":"mama-and-jimmy-swaggart-in-new-orleans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=426","title":{"rendered":"MAMA AND JIMMY SWAGGART IN NEW ORLEANS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_0096\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My mother was not one to go strollicking too often.\u00a0 It was way too much trouble.\u00a0 \u201cI druther stay home,\u201d she\u2019d say even as us young\u2019uns were piling into the car for whatever trip had been forced on her.\u00a0 If you ignored her complaints, sometimes she would go on, especially if the trip didn\u2019t cost anything except the gas to and from.\u00a0 But on occasion she herself would take a hankering to \u201cgo somewhere.\u201d\u00a0 These times seemed to coincide with the times she was provoked at Daddy or someone else who seemed to be having more than their share of fun.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m tired of just setting here at the house,\u201d she would declare when one of those moods struck, \u201cI\u2019d like to go somewhere myself every now and then.\u201d\u00a0 But no matter how long the trip, Mama never stayed more than one night if she could help it.\u00a0 In the late 1980s, my brother, John,\u00a0 must have called when she was in one of those adventuring moods.<\/p>\n

\u201cMama, I want you to come visit us in Texas,\u201d he told her in one of his weekly phone calls. By this time Daddy had died and Mama was living in a better neighborhood in a house John had bought for her.\u00a0 Our sister, Jean lived with her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t drive to Texas,\u201d Mama said, her false teeth clicking, \u201cand I sure ain\u2019t going to fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow about coming by train?\u201d he suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t afford tickets,\u201d Mama said.\u00a0 She had $75,000 in the bank of hard-earned savings for her \u201cold age\u201d and she never spent a penny of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m paying,\u201d John said.<\/p>\n

That was a different story.\u00a0 \u201cWait\u2019ll I get my teeth fixed,\u201d she replied. John knew that would be never.\u00a0 Her children had given her money several times for new teeth, but, instead of going to a dentist, Mama would find a fly-by-night garage operation and buy a cheap set, adding the remaining money to her savings. The first set teeth soon broke into several pieces, the second set soon had teeth falling out, and this latest set was so big that they rattled and clicked as she talked.<\/p>\n

A few weeks after the original invitation John called Mama to tell her the travel plans.\u00a0 Jean had agreed to accompany Mama.\u00a0 They would get on the train in Dalton and stop over in New Orleans before continuing on to College Station, Texas.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll put you up in a big hotel in the French Quarter during your layover,\u201d he went on.\u00a0 \u201cYou might like to take a tour of New Orleans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mama rejected that immediately.\u00a0 \u201cI can see everything I want to see without going on no tour. I ain\u2019t lost nothing down there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d John teased, \u201cYou\u2019re going to be right in the part of town where all the partying goes on.\u00a0 You know, Jimmy Swaggart hangs out there a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJimmy Swaggart? Is he that preacher that was hiring them strippers to pull off their clothes for him, and then when he got caught claimed he was mentally ill?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the one,\u201d said John, \u201cso if a big Cadilac pulls up and a man in a shiny suit and slicked back hair leans out and offers you a ride, don\u2019t go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, let me tell you one thing,\u201d Mama said, \u201cIf I was to strip off my clothes for him, he\u2019d be cured.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mama made it to College Station unmolested by Jimmy Swaggart or anyone else and stayed all of two nights before she declared herself ready to go home.\u00a0 For Mama, that was a whole lot of strollicking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My mother was not one to go strollicking too often.\u00a0 It was way too much trouble.\u00a0 \u201cI druther stay home,\u201d she\u2019d say even as us young\u2019uns were piling into the car for whatever trip had been forced on her.\u00a0 If … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions\/427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}