One hundred and one years ago today . . . on the 5th day of May . . . in the year 1910 . . . a baby boy is born in Rockdale, Milam County, Texas . . . he would later write of his own birth as follows . . .
Then, in the third year of this tripartite union of Andrew Perry and Laura Van de Venter and Maie Van de Venter, an event occurred which the local press, with its usual carelessness, probably described as "blessed." At eleven o'clock on the morning of May 5, 1910, a son was born, red and squalling. The parents, wishing to commemorate Granny's late husband and also to honor an old friend, Dr. Sessions, named this strident, wriggling little creature, who would henceforth participate in the already adequate pandemonium of the household, George Sessions Perry.
As in the case of all other family offices that appeared to Granny either important or interesting, she immediately took over the management of this new member. She washed it, fed it lukewarm malted milk, and talked to it so constantly that the tiny brain, unable to effect other means of escape, simply succumbed to merciful sleep. At other times, fed and wanting diversion, the baby clutched its empty nursing bottle and sent it sailing at its Granny's head.
By 1912, after interminable sieges of colic and a few spasms induced by eating banana skins, the baby began to have a little smudge of personality of its own. And as this personality took shape, so did the struggle between it and its Granny Van for the control and direction of its existence.
From My Granny Van, The Running Battle of Rockdale, Texas by George Sessions Perry . . .
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