Transcript

Location: 313 Caledonia Street

Jeffery Hotson: My paternal grandparents that lived 313 Caledonia Street. It was a small white house. There was a little bank on the front. A lot of hackberry trees out front. Screened in front porch. A little back porch with a large yard that went all the way back to the alley with a bunch of bridle-leaf bushes, mostly in the yard, and bordering the other lots North and South. And then some blackthorn bushes that a screened the alley. And uh, my grandmother had passed away right after the flood, in 65, so later, he was alone, and I would go down and, you know, help take care of the yard, and help him out in whatever way he needed. And afterwards, I would go in and just talk to him and ask him questions about his life and stuff like that. He had been in World War I with an artillery unit a over in Europe. And so I would ask him about that, and I said, you know, my dad is a thinking that I might join the service, and at that point, we hadn’t decided that it was going to be Navy and just talking about it in general. And my granddad, chomping on a cigar, looked at me and says so, “What’s your name?” And I was like, but you know what my name is, I was thinking that, and I just looked at him and said, “Wha?” And he said, “Whats you name?” and I said, ” Well, its Jeffery Hotson.” And he looked at me, and he says, “Well you know if you join the army your name it going to be shit.” (Laughs), And I said, “Well oh-okay.” (Laughs)