I was the lastborn child in the Cook family of Winder, GA, the baby in a series of four: three girls and one little blue-eyed boy. My mother declared I was planned as long as she was on this earth and I let her think I believed her. Somehow though, with my oldest sister being 20 years old when I made my debut, my next sister 16 and my brother, 14, I doubted the story. In fact, I teased Mother that she and Daddy were surely rusty at best, that being the reason for my red hair!
The absolute shining star in our family though wasn’t this little redheaded surprise child. It was that precious only son, his daddy’s namesake, the apple of his mother’s eye and the third born, Jimmy. From parents to grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and, of course, his sisters, we all felt the same way. Brother, as I always called him, was my hero.
