Baby Blue

By my eleventh birthday we were expecting a new sibling in the Shaw family. Now, don't misunderstand, I loved my five sisters, but five seemed enough to me. I wanted a brother. So Daddy and I took all the baby furniture out in the yard and repainted it baby blue. It worked! On May 9, 1958 Daddy drove us out Ninth Street in Griffin to the big Spalding County Hospital where Mother held a scrawny little boy baby up to a window so we could see him. I was thrilled.

When Sheila and I married in 1971, David Baird Shaw was only 13, but I figured he'd still be my brother when he grew up, so I asked him to be my Best Man -- perhaps the youngest "Best Man" in history. Then when he was married eight years later I stood at his side.

Now we are both granddaddies.

I'm still very glad that I finally got a brother.

Happy birthday David!

David Baird Shaw born March 9, 1958, Griffin, GA

At Mama Shaw's house in Milstead, GA, 1958. L-R: David Baird Shaw, Mary Carol Shaw, Hercules Shaw, Charles Terrell Shaw, Sharlyn Beth Shaw, Deborah Ruth Shaw. 

Christmas at Mama Shaw's about 1959 .

One Christmas Mother, while we were in school, took bolts of cloth to the fellowship hall at Watkins Memorial Methodist Church in Ellijay and cut out houserobes, red for the girls and blue for the guys, for Christmas. I'd guess this is 1960.

David and me at the parsonage on Timothy Avenue in Rome, GA, in about 1962.

August 8, 1971, Tallahassee, FL.

With all five of our sisters and Mother at Mexico Beach in the eighties.

With four of our sisters and Mother. L-R: Charles Terrell Shaw, Mary Carol Shaw (Johnston),Sarah Ruth Baird (Shaw), Lynda Joan Shaw (Turrentine), Deborah Ruth Shaw (Lewis), Sharlyn Beth Shaw, David Baird Shaw 

At David's house at the lake near Cheaha Mountain in Alabama.