Happy Birthday, Uncle Cecil! It's hard to believe that he is into his 80's (no, I won't add 'well' into his 80's.) I remember his birthday (sorry, Aunt Wanda) because it is two days after mine. I remember back when I was a child, my grandmother would go to Tennessee during November. Partly to celebrate Uncle Cecil's birthday, I imagine, and sometimes to stay for Thanksgiving. My grandmother's birthday was in October so perhaps they celebrated her birthday, too. I do remember many Thanksgiving dinners at my grandmother's house so she must not have stayed through Thanksgiving every year. There's nothing like being at G'ma's house on Thanksgiving. I do remember a few times when the Nelsons were able to join us in Princeton (IL).

Uncle Cecil is one of those great southern gentlemen. I haven't met too many who really qualify for that but he has always been that way as long as I can remember. I don't remember him getting "out of sorts" or maybe he just hid it from all of us! Who knows! I know that I was always in awe of his education and knew that at least two weeks each week were spent in Clinton TN in a high security job related to the government. (Hope I got that right!)

I do remember visiting their home and of course, that mean I would be with Cynthia (Cindy) who is just a few months younger than I am. We had so much fun together. One of my favorite memories is when I wished I had her curly hair and she hated the curls. So, one afternoon, we decide to brush those curls right out of her hair! As you can imagine, we brushed for a long time and absolutely nothing happened. I would have given anything for her curls -- my hair was as straight as a stick!!

Uncle Cecil is the oldest of three children. My mother was just 2 years younger and Aunt Wanda is MUCH younger! (Aren't you proud of me, Aunt Wanda?) It was always fun to get all of us together. There are 12 grandchildren -- I am happy to announce I am the oldest! Not that it makes a difference except that Grandma Nelson did remind me of that over the years. "You're the oldest!" Not sure if that was a good thing or not but I tended to believe it was a good thing. We sometimes talked about my Grandpa Nelson who passed away when I was just 3 years old. From what I understand and with all the photos and video tapes to confirm that, we had a very close relationship. When he was too ill to get out of bed, he hid a tricycle under the sheet! I can remember that -- and remember riding it down the hallway!

Okay, so I have sort of ventured away from my original post which was to wish my Uncle Cecil a "happy birthday". Family is so important and I am so glad we made memories that will last a lifetime! Oh, I could get carried away from the 'happy birthday' message to include other memories like visiting the farm where Aunt Wanda and her family lived. Or I could include Grandma's enclosed back porch which, in the wintertime was cold enough to serve as a storage area for all the homemade cookies and candies she would prepare for the holidays. Or I could mention the basement at her house we all loved. At the bottom of the steps to the left was her deep freeze and in it we would find the best lemon ice cream ever -- and to this day, I haven't found lemon ice cream like that. Of course, that basement was an awesome place for the 'boys' to roller skate and make lots of noise which usually brought Grandma to the top of the stairs with a stern warning! It really got noisy if they got to playing those table hockey games!!

I could mention learning to can tomatoes in her basement or wondering how Uncle Chuck could get those rows of corn so straight out at the farm. And all I was going to do in this post was wish my Uncle Cecil a 'happy birthday'. Wow .. got carried away, huh?

By the way, he is married to one of the sweetest ladies in the world and she can truly be defined has having southern hospitality at its best! (In the photo: Aunt Wanda, Aunt Roberta & Uncle Cecil, taken at my mother's funeral.)

And then there are all of us ... in the photo below, we are all there except Rachel who hadn't arrived quite yet. Front row: Bobby (U. Cecil's), Gary (A. Wanda's), my brothers, Joel, Thad & Mark, Scott (A. Wanda's). Back row: My brother, Tim, Grandma Nelson holding Valerie (A. Wanda's), me, Cynthia (U. Cecil's) and Carol Lee (A. Wanda's).

So, Happy Birthday, Uncle Cecil!