©2021, Olan L. Smith

This is a photo essay of me, Olan Leroy Smith, and perhaps it is the beginning of my memoir that I've been encouraged to write. At first I thought why write it, when I'm not finished living, but then I can't finish anything after I'm dead. I'm a procrastinator about dying, but it seems like something most of us prefer to put off until the very last moment. The photo banner is of me in my early years and I don't know how old I am in the photo, perhaps eight months. I was born June 30th 1953 in the small town of Huntsville, Missouri in the United States, to Louise Lowry Smith, nee Wescott and Walter William Smith, Sr. I'm the youngest of four boys, Paul, Walt, Curtis, and me. Mom wanted a girl, and if I was born a girl my name would have been Sharon. The first boy name selected for me was Stephen, but their former neighbor, also with the surname Smith, had a boy a month prior to me, and they named him Stephen, so Mom named me after one of her aunts.

Olan is a derivation of Olaf, in Norse it means great ancestor, in Old English means holly tree, and I've heard it is also a name in Chinese but am not certain of that fact. I pronounce my name O-lun, sorry for those of other tongues who don't have the shwa sound. Most call me O-lin, O-len, or o-LAN, but it all works out for me. My pen name is Cotton Jones, a name I first started using in 2003, and some do refer to me as Cotton on writing sites, and that is fine too, as long as you know my real name is Olan. When I was very young, pre-school age, my neighbors would call me Cotton Top, because of my cotton colored hair. They would be out in their garden tending to the plants and when I came walking down the block they would announce, there comes that cotton top. Later in life I would read a letter from my father to my mother from North Africa during WWII, talking about my second oldest brother, Walt. He was born while Dad was overseas, and he wrote, "I hope he is a cotton top." Walt was brown haired and Curtis was light brown, but when I was born I had white hair. In fact my hair has no color, it is clear and wavy, something I hated as a child, as "girls" had curly hair, and all the old ladies would say, "Look at his curly hair, isn't he the cutest thing. I knew what came next, the pinch on the cheek. I didn't want to be the cutest thing, or have curly hair, but it's still white and it's still curly so I long ago decided to embrace it.

The stories in this memoir reflect my recollection of my past and I guarantee you they aren't totally accurate, or perhaps didn't happen at all, as I say, they're memories in this old man's brain. According to a meme floating around the internet I hear sixty-five is the new fifty, and I guarantee you I'm over sixty-five, at this point in time. Some names, locations, and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of those depicted. Dialogue has been re-created from memory, and is fictional. 

Now, on with the photo essay:

This is me with my older brother, Walt, on my first Christmas, 1953, age 5 months 25 days; the arty touch was added by me.

This above photo is the black and white version of the cover photo taken the spring of 1954 by my great cousin Nadine Wiley Wolford. 

Letter from Dad, during WWII from North Africa to Mom.

A few other photos exist of me as an infant, but this is enough for now. This photo essay will contain a hodgepodge of aspects of my life, from infant to artist, from artist to poet and beyond, and most likely in no particular order. There is a reason for this. I have a brain injury to my right frontal lobe and it affects my organizational skills, but that is part of me and so should be part of the photo essay; it should prove interesting.