Chapter One - 1958 The Beginning

This is my new  "book beginning"

My brother-in-law introduced me to Odis and this is the story behind the story.....

Book Clip 

AGAINST ALL ODDS(We Found The Perfect Love)

Chapter One - 

1958 - The Beginning

Copyright ©2016 Suzie Tyler

My sister lived next door to my mom and dad and I was helping her take care of my nephew, Dwayne who was about 8 months old. I started changing his diaper and yelled: “Racine, he just peed in my face!” This appeared to be his ‘talent’ and was a regular occurrence and my sister had forgotten to tell me to put an extra diaper over him when I was changing him. She had just gotten off the phone with my brother-in-law and said, “Sue, James is bringing two single guys home for supper and you need to stay and check them out! They just moved here from Hot Springs and are living in the Hussmann’s boarding house.” We have a large family and Racine was accustomed to cooking for an army! James was afraid the guys would starve without a ‘home-cooked’ meal and invited them to have her specialty Frito Chili Pie! It was a cool day in March on the 13th, which was my lucky day.

They rode home with James and when they came in; they introduced themselves. “Hi, I’m Danny Johnson”. He was a tall, handsome guy with blonde wavy hair. “Hi, I’m Odis Tyler”. He was shorter, handsome, and had coal-black wavy hair. I helped my sister set the table and get the food ready while all the time watching the one with the black wavy hair.

He was so handsome and polite and had the most beautiful eyes that sparkled when he smiled! He would answer “yes mam” and no mam” to my sister. After they finished eating, I helped her get the dishes to the kitchen while they listened to some records. When I walked in, they were playing the song, ‘Oh, Lonesome Me’ by Don Gibson and Odis said it was one of his favorites. He also liked Elvis and that resonated with me because I had seen his first movie “Love Me Tender” 32 times. They released it on Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day in 1956 and my girlfriend and I stayed all day for 4 days, watching it over and over! I knew his lines better than he did!

My brother-in-law wanted to play his favorite song, “Hey, Hey, Good Looking.” He took out his Gibson guitar from the end of the couch and strummed along with the music. He said, “Ya’ll know that Carl Smith is my Uncle”. I think they believed him since his name was James Smith! He had an uncle named Carl Smith, but it wasn’t the singer! As the night progressed I had a strong attraction for Odis and when the evening ended, I was glad I had checked ‘these guys out’!

As they left that night, they gave me a wallet size picture of each of them.

They came several times for supper over the next 2 or 3 weeks and we would play records, talk and have fun. I enjoyed being there with them, especially the black wavy haired guy! 

Good Friday was on April 4th and Odis knew I would be out of school. He asked James if he thought it would be okay to ask me to a movie. James said, “I’m sure it is okay. I’ll ask Racine.” She approved and we went to the matinee to see ‘Run Silent Run Deep with Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster.