"Earldina" ☕🥫

'"Earldina aka " "Nanny" my Great Grandmother, she took me in at the age of 12, my Mom had passed four years earlier, Nanny, lived alone in Salisbury NC, on a street named Cemetery 🪦, also know as Jersey City 🌆 Community, she lived in a Duplex, she was 84 years old with crippling Arthritis in her back and hands, both her hands were deformed and she was hunchbacked, she needed me and I needed her, she was too old 🗝️ to continue hauling wood and coal from a small shed in the back of her unit, especially in the winter months of extreme weather, that was my job, and if you ever tried opening a frozen lock 🔒 with a skeleton 🗝️ you can relate to this moment, it's treacherous, wind blowing ❄️🥶 cold frigid air, 25 degrees, it was part of our life, wood potbelly stove heated the three room unit, this duplex is old, wind cut through the walls 🧱 and the windows 🪟 winter was rough but we made it through the two and a half years I was there, enrolled into Monroe Junior high School 🏫🎒, walked to school and home everyday, passing White Packing Company where they slaughter cows 🐮 and package them, the Cheerwine Bottling Company was also located in Salisbury, my favorite soda for many years, my cousin Butch worked there for years, we were close, he lived right down the street from me and Nanny, I also had other cousins nearby, life was plain and simple, I worried about Nanny well being, she struggles and never complains, and even with her deformed hands she cooked 🍚 🍗🍗🥚🍳🥗 and baked regularly, I loved her famous peanut 🥜 butter cookies, they were gigantic, she loved her instant Sanka coffee ☕ and her snuff 🥫, Tuberose was her choice of dip, she loved her soap operas, General Hospital and The Edge of Night 🌃, she knew all the characters and would talk back to the TV 📺...which I found hilarious, I loved me some Nanny, she sprinkled salt 🧂 in her bed, and it drove me crazy, because I had to sleep in the bed 🛏️ also, yep she played a vital role in my upbringing, she was getting older and my Granddad, found a Senior Living Community and we moved her in, it was much better, she still had her independency, she loved her some, Chuckie and Chuckie loved some Earldina....Take Your Rest, Nanny, ❤️❤️❤️