Tammie Pickard
GROWING UP WITH DAVID
This is to honor the life of my brother, David Joe Nelson.
It was not easy growing up with my brother David. My sister Belva and I were usually at the mercy of his teasing and figuring out how else he could make our lives miserable. Maybe we deserved the teasing, maybe not but this was our life.
When we were kids he spent hours and hours putting together model cars with tiny tires, steering wheels, and lots of parts. When he left for work we would sneak into his room and we would drive the cars around on the floor crashing them into each other and deny that we were ever in his room. He wanted to kill us but we told Dad(Vern) and he saved us. I remember one day we were in his room and he left Mt. Dew bottles around his room all the time. One day he left some Mt. Dew in it and we thought we had found the mother load until I took a drink and realized it was not Mt. Dew.(eww) Or about the time we followed him to one of his friends houses and we had walked a long way to get there. He had his friends little brothers come out and beat us up.(Who does that) Once we got home we told Dad and he was in trouble again. The scariest memory of my brothers terrorizing us was when he was suppose to be watching us and he brought a wild raccoon home from Zellwood Farms and turned it loose on us. We ran from that thing for hours until Mom got home. (Maybe he really was trying to kill us.) I remember when we were down at the lake behind the school swimming one day which was a no no. Richard , Tommy, Darryl, Petty's were all there. All of a sudden the trees started parting and it was Vern driving his station wagon through the trees and everyone scattered. Everyone was yelling it's Vern. He didn't take a switch to us he took a friggen tree limb to our behinds. We ran all the was home through the orange trees crying. When we got home there was David laughing because he told Vern where to find us.
As we got older though I saw a different side of David I had not seen when we were little. We always said he was a mama's boy. We were very poor growing up and with five kids it was hard. I saw my mom(Clara) and dad struggling to make ends meet. David would always bring us a Christmas tree when we could not afford one. He would drop by and bring groceries after he had moved out of the house. He was always there for my mom when she needed something. All she had to say was David I need this and he would get it for her.
When David married Debbie,(the only one that could keep him the least bit grounded) we were jealeous because we needed him. He was a really good provider as a husband and father. His two daughters(Kim and Mandy) never lacked for anything when they were growing up.
David is considered one of the good old boys and was right in there with everything going on. If you wanted to know anything ask David. He has always been there for all of his friends no matter what, even when it got him into trouble. It was during one of these times that I am the most proud of my brother for. He asked me to come to him and lead him in the Lord's prayer because he wanted to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour. We both cried as he accepted our Lord and Saviour.
It is with great joy that I know my brother is in Heaven today for making that decision. He is up there right now saying "Wow" this is real. I know his momma met him at the gate. He is probably up there teasing Belva now and Vern getting on to him to stop that.
