Sixty Years in This Wicked World for Nuthin
by
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The curtain was closed. There was noisy confusion with last minute preparations for the opening of the High School Junior Play. A few more minutes remained until the character introductions would begin.
All the play cast members were in costume and scripts in order for the prompters. The couch was slid a little more to the middle of the stage and all looked to be in order. After many hours of rehearsals and locating the stage props, the moment finally arrived. The show was ready. The junior class members sold tickets to relatives and neighbors for about a month before and there were tickets at the door. The chairs on the gym floor and the bleachers were crowded with students, moms and dads, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins, grandmas and grandpas, teachers and people from the little community of
The heavy velvet red curtain was opened about six feet and the class sponsor took her place at one side of the stage in front of the curtain. The muffled conversations of the audience quieted as she made the usual greeting to the crowd to thank everyone for coming and being supportive of the juniors and their class play.
The moment had arrived for the introduction of the play characters. The last to be introduced was the girl who portrayed the role of an elderly woman with white powdered, high-piled hair in a knot and wearing big horn-rimmed glasses sternly pulled down on the nose. She was dressed in a neat austere gray with white pin-striped skirt and jacket and frumpy old-woman’s black flat shoes. She was really out of style for the typical high school junior in 1945. That character caught the attention of the audience when she stepped forward in the curtain opening. With one hand on a hip and a finger pointed, she loudly belted her line, “And I ain’t lived sixty years in this wicked world for nuthin!” Her brother, who was ten years older, was sitting in the fourth row on a chair next to the aisle. He couldn’t believe what he saw. He laughed so hard he nearly rolled to the floor. Roars of applause was the immediate reaction of the audience. The pace was set for the curtain to open wide for the class play to begin!
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About the Book
The idea for this book was conceived many years ago and would still be in the procrastination stage had it not been for encouragement of several and one person specifically. A long newsy letter was written to enclose to a second cousin with each Christmas Greeting for many years. Responses would always be, “O, your letter was so good, so funny, and we read it over and over. We laughed and wondered how you find the words to describe everything the way you do. You are a born writer and you need to write a book.” Each year Jean would be more insistent until finally the author started her first book.
In late August 2002, the writer stopped to visit with this special person. News that the book was well on its way was exciting to share. Mental notes were made as the reminiscing went back and forth from things that happened many years before. A few days later, the author sent some sample pages which included descriptive sentences they talked about.
Within a few weeks the author received shocking sad news that this vivacious cousin had suddenly passed away. The visitation and funeral reflected her talents and her life with displays of her own original oil paintings, the framed photo of the airplane she owned and flew, and the journal notes of her weekly Bible study. A truly remarkable tribute to Norma Jean Smith Sweet who did not “live sixty years in this world for nuthin!”
About the Author
She was born in the house her parents built on a forty acre farm. It was located four miles north of