The apple doesn't fall very far...

Sometimes I don’t doubt the cliché. Other times I pray it’s not true. Most of the time, I just wonder. How far does the apple fall far from the tree?

It’s a question I have to ask myself more often than I’d like. It seems to happen with more frequency lately. I have a great family. We are all fairly educated. We’re clean. Combined we have at least 95% of our teeth (those that don’t have dentures). This includes my immediate family. If you get much beyond that, you never know what you might run into.

A few weeks ago two of my Dad’s cousins came to work for us. It has been an eye opening experience. It’s a humbling reminder of where I could have ended up.

Ronnie and Jimmy are brothers. They are the sons of my grandmother’s sister. They each live in houses they built themselves. I mean that literally. They built them with their own hands, little by little, for however long it took. They both live within sight of the house where they grew up.

Jimmy is the oldest, I think. He is about 5’5”. He is probably 55 years old, but looks 70. He cannot read or write. He has failed his driver’s license test 7 times (the 7^th just last month). Ronnie is the younger of the two. He is a little taller, and a little more educated.

I hope you don’t read their descriptions as a judgment against them. In fact they are a couple of the nicest people you’d ever hope to meet. I have no doubt that if I asked them to help me move tomorrow they would do it. (Helping someone move was the absolute worst job I could think of. Now you know whom not to ask.)

I was only the second person in several generations of my family (on both sides) to graduate from college. (A few others have graduated since I did. Including my 55-year-old uncle.) Ronnie and Jimmy’s mother was the first.

Aunt Ruby graduated from college 50 years ago at a time when most women didn’t even go to college. Especially those from North Alabama. She graduated from college, and then decided to live a simple life in the country.

Her husband (like their sons would later) built their house by hand, a little at a time. They didn’t have indoor plumbing until the mid 60s. Not because it wasn’t available. They just didn’t see the need. They had boys and girls, though I’m not sure how many of each. They all slept in the same room in two beds: One for the boys, one for the girls. They moved to the city in the late 50s. They didn’t like it, it was too loud, too much light, too much activity. They moved back after a year or two.

Aunt Ruby spent most of her days sitting on the front porch shelling peas or shucking corn and dipping snuff. She was perfectly living in a simple house. Content being a wife and a mother.

Jimmy and Ronnie seem to be the same way. I started writing this with an attitude of condescension. I’ve talked myself out of it. They are happy with where they are in life. I’m happy with where I am in life. I guess maybe we’re not all that different after all. Maybe our apples are a little closer than I thought.