Pre-mid-life Crisis

     Recently, I packed up the kids and trekked down to Wakulla county to the Mt. Elon Baptist Church of Smith Creek to photograph tombstones of my maternal relatives for my family tree.  The day was hot and muggy and the cemetery was covered in grasshoppers and it took right at 10 minutes for the first child to ask, "Are you done yet?"  Using the uber-fabulous Billion Graves iphone application which uploads my headstone photos right to a website, I was done in about 45 minutes.  Had the kids not been with me I might have stayed all day since I was having flashbacks of the family events my mom used to drag us kids to down there. All the Langston relatives were from Smith Creek and I remember playing in some of their yards and sneaking into their kitchens for second helpings of desserts.  But now here they all were together again in this one big churchyard.

     This is Jacob Jonathan Richard Langston who was married to my great grand aunt Laura Langston.  (That also happened to be her maiden name. Shhhhhh.) These are their two oldest daughters, Annie and Elma.  I have no recollection of him, but can remember Grandpa Major mentioning JR frequently.  I sure wish I had paid closer attention to those stories.  I absolutely adore this photo which was taken in 1906 and is in superb condition.  The young family is all dressed up and proud.  Uncle JR is looking away, but gently holding Annie's little hand.  She has huge bows in her hair and both girls have on really nice dresses, however neither has shoes. I have noticed that a lot in these old photos.  The families could borrow fine clothes from the photographer's wagon or wear their own made special for the occasion, but I rarely see anyone with shiny shoes.  Aunt Laura is almost smiling, another rarity in photos of that time.
     I vividly recall attending Aunt Laura's 100th birthday celebration in  1982.  I was in the ninth grade and the day before I had managed to borrow a jacket from a junior that I had an enormous crush on and wandered around sniffing the Polo cologne on it.  I imagine this is the only reason I remember Aunt Laura's birthday!  She died the following winter, just twelve days shy of one hundred and one years old.
     Wow.  Imagine living a century.  That would mean I am not yet middle-aged and looking at spending more years elderly than young.  Yikes.  What in the world would I do with all that time?  I'd have a good thirty-five years of retirement, but they would be arthritic years in which my doctors would constantly harp at me about my weight.  Retirement and Social Security probably wouldn't be worth what they are now, which isn't much, so I'd have to do some kind of other job like baby-sitting or even take in sewing.  That means I need to get my mother to teach me a few things about that now.  Maybe in 20 years I will have finished my family tree and really understand Ancestry.com and people will pay me to do theirs.  Jinkies.  I never really think about planning for the future, but with folks in my family living this long I might better start paying attention in those fringe benefit meetings at school.  And I need to steer my children toward really profitable career paths since one of them will probably have to take me in at some point.  Oh goodness, I forgot about my impending Alzheimer's.  Scratch that odd job plan...I will be lost inside my own house.  Maybe I need to go lie down before all this gives me a heart attack and I don't make it to fifty!