Our Neighbor on the Other Side of the Gray Cabin



My Dad, Raymond Frederick Sparks



My Aunt Rita F. Sparks Farnham





My Paternal Grandparents
Verna and Fred Sparks

My dad passed away in 1967. Thirteen years later with two young daughters keeping me busy, my mother passed away.  It seemed unfair at the time, but God had a plan.  My dad's sister, retired from school teaching early and took care of the girls so I could spend as much time as I could with my mom.  Over the years after mom died, Aunt Rita became like a mother to me.  After several years of taking care of my Grandmother, Grandpa and Uncle Floyd both had long since passed, my Aunt was free to do as she wanted.  She decided to become my neighbor again and move to the lake!  We had been neighbors back at the time my mom was sick. So, she purchased the house next door when it came up for sale.  She told us how she wanted it to look and we remodeled it.  Six weeks after she moved in, she passed away from colon cancer.  I was devastated, my second mom had been taken away, Bill was still reeling from his parents murders and the trials - still going on yet today!  We slowly came out of a fog and began to think about renting the two little cabins on each side to pay the taxes, insurance and upkeep.  Thus, we slowly began to refer to them by color -   Green Cabin and Yellow Cabin!

The Sun is Shining and I'm Remembering Dark Clouds

James and Zelma Long around 1947



Blame it on former Mississippi Gov. Barbour, these dark thoughts I try to push out of my mind on this sunny day ever since our lives changed in a matter of minutes in July of 1996.  Have you ever given thought to how you feel about the death penalty in this great country we live in?  A lot of people have an opinion, although the fickled finger of fate has never reached out and touched them. It's never struck them so hard they're scared to walk out of their home. It's never touched them so hard they fall to the floor and sob.  It's never touched them so hard they pull the covers up over their head and refuse to move. It's never made them afraid to walk in a store.  So, how do they know what they'd really feel?  I'm here to fill you in - they may think they know, but they don't and please, God, don't let them ever find out.  It's the worst kind of nightmare one can ever not awake from. Bill and I had this debate alot for awhile.  He felt it was terrible for his parents who were murdered, execution style in the bedroom of the home they shared. I thought it was worse for my parents who both suffered the slow death of cancer eating away at their bodies until they were gone - both at an age much too young, since I am older now than either of them.  But then it slowly seeps back in, my inlaws, they had to have been terrified, the kind of terrified where you wet yourself and you can't hardly draw a breath, you can't think to make sense of anything.  The murderer admitted that in court.  My father-n-law could not remember the numbers to open the safe.  How would you feel if someone took away your loved one before their time, just because they wanted to?  Years later, I  have come to think it was harder on Jim and Zelma's children, the loved ones left behind.  Once supposedly a close knit family, with the nucleus gone, their DNA scattered like particles of dust after a windstorm.  Where before they got together and there was no hesitation to pick up the phone and call, now if a phone rings on a birthday from everyone once a year, it's a miracle, easier yet, text two words, Happy Birthday, and move on, relieved no voices communicated.   That's the story of what happened to my next door neighbor's in 1996, six weeks after we moved back to the lake.

Jim studying for the horse track











Jim and Zelma being chauffeured by grandson, Jimmie.