Cotton Picking Story

When I was 15 years old I moved to Texas from Indiana. I wanted to make some spending money so I decided those stories of people picking cotton sounded easy enough. NOT!!!!!

I talked my cousin Joyce into trying it too so we went to her aunt and uncles house for a job. They hired us on. We hoed Johnson Grass from the cotton field. There were machines that now did the cotton picking. I had visions of wearing a pair of short shorts and a halter top so I could grab some rays while working. My cousin's uncle came in and said put on jeans, socks, shoes, a long white shirt and wear a straw hat or a bonnet. I couldn't believe my ears.

We got up before sun up and I was bound and determined to prove I was no city slicker and could keep up with the best of them. I started out fast and went to slow, then begged for rain on the 3rd day. I had blisters on my hands as big as my fingers and wasn't getting the tan I wanted either. At night we had a big old farm hand meal on the table and uncle Randell and Aunt Ruby were some of the best and most honest people I had ever met. The meals were to die for - - food picked from the garden.

They made us go to church revival every night at Friendship Baptist Church. There I sat with very little religion on my mind. We flirted with the boys there at the church and dug the skin off the blisters on our hands. On the 3rd night though, God did answer my prayers and the rains came. Hurrah!!! No more Johnson grass hoeing for us. That was the hardest work I have ever been introduced to, and some of the best memories of a little farm house near McKinney and the good people I met during that time. Aunt Ruby and Uncle Randell are now in their mansions in heaven. Uncle Randell loved those dominos and I can still hear his laughter.

If Cars Had Elbows...

IF CARS HAD ELBOWS WE'D ALL BE BRUISED!!!!

I was pondering yesterday while navigating the traffic and being cut off from "rude" drivers. I hate to call them drivers they don't drive they just put the car in gear and push the gas pedal to the floor. People are no longer humans, they become a part of their cars - - the car and the personage merge into huautos, and the brain does on auto-pilot.

My personal observations are as follows: people see a possible car length in front of you and they elbow their way around you to get one car length ahead. Then, if you need to make a turn (hold on to your hats, lock in your neck, and pull in your butt) because your vehicle (and you) may get whammed in the rear while making that turn. Tempers flare if you slow down unless a traffic cop is hiding in the shadows of the overpass, then they are thankful to the driver who follows the speed zones.

Does anyone ever stop to think that the space between them and a car or truck out of control is less than 5 inches on the sides, 2 foot on the back and about the same on the front of the car and it will not stop until you are dead or injured? That's not much protection and we are not Batman and our vehicles are not the Batmobile!

I can tell I'm getting old when I think about the days of horses and buggy's, and the klippety klopping along at a snail's pace. A little water and a little hay is all you had to provide plus a new wagon wheel now and then.

Also, you must be afraid, very, very afraid, to make eye contact with the driver who is sitting beside you or they might shoot you for looking at them. You must never, never, never, give them the high sign or for sure they will terminate you for being angry. Listen to "Road Rage" music that calms the spirits and makes you feel sleepy, very, very sleepy...

My goal is to get home in one piece every evening. But I feel bruised from all the elbows on those OTHER cars.

The Funeral

Sunday afternoon, October 24, 2004, found us seeking a place to park at the little Valdasta Baptist Church on a delightfully warm, yet breezy day. We were attending the celebration of William Leeper Templin’s life. We knew him simply as "Jake". The small crowd of family and friends were gathering even though the funeral was not published in the local papers yet due to Jake passing from this earth before the papers came out. Jake passed on Friday, October 22, at 10:30 a.m. Word of mouth has a way of traveling throughout a small town and Anna, Texas is no exception. Jake resided there for so many, many years with his wife and children.

We filed into the small, cramped church until the church pews were filled and then the metal folding chairs came out for the overflow of people who just kept coming. The funeral director came over and collected all of Jake’s family together and asked us to meet in the little building by the church to walk in with the new widow, Joyce Templin and hers and Jake’s daughter, Cynthia and Jake and Joyce's grandchildren. I asked Janelle Florence to hold a place for my parents when they arrived, knowing they couldn’t stand throughout the funeral. My mom had known Joyce and her mom and dad and sister since she was a small child and they all lived at Val Dasta in the 30‘s. We sat on the same pew with my parents and Janelle Florence and some of the other family members.

Music was special by a female friend who sang soprano, and a male friend with a deep baritone voice. I can’t even remember what they sang, but keeping in line with a little familiar country church, there was no embarrassment when the piano player was on a different key than the lady who was singing could hit. She stopped after one stanza (maybe not that long) of the song and held her hand up for the pianist to stop. She said play in the key of C, then the pianist started out just like she did before and the lady began to belt out her song, but still in the wrong key not in tune with the pianist, so again, once more, she held up her hand for the pianist to go no further. The pianist looked up at Jim Jake, who was preaching his father’s funeral that day, and asked him to come down and play. Jim Jake, wiped his forehead with a big, big, handkerchief and stepped down and began to play. The lady sung and the funeral went on.

Apparently the 1st singer, the lady, knocked the music of the second singer on the floor. The male singer, asked someone from the audience to come forward and pick it up for him because he needed it to sing. He was an older gent with a large middle (like most of us older folks) and he was up on the stage with the podium in front of him minus his music. A child stepped forward from below the podium, bent down and picked up the music and handed it up to the gentleman who then sung a beautiful song, and the funeral and remembrances went forward.

Jim Jake preached his father’s funeral. He kept saying, "This is a hard job", but he was terrific at it. He told how his father was a loving, kind, strict father, and told some of the stories from his and his sister, Cynthia’s past with their parents. He brought us from when Jake was born, growing up in Prosper, the Korean war, marriage, births of the children up to the present and how Jake would always be singing "Precious Memories" whenever he had heard of one of his siblings becoming ill. The family would come in and say "Who’s sick dad?" because they knew he had heard bad news that day. Jake had asked his family to sing that song for him before he went to surgery, but they poo pooed the idea and just knew this was a typical by-pass surgery. He said to his family as they wheeled him away, "If I don’t see you after the surgery, I’ll see you on the other side." How true that statement would become.

According to Jim Jake, his father Jake, still liked to mow the yard but they said he could tear up a mower faster than they could keep it repaired. He would insist on mowing in the heat on the hottest day and they tried to remedy that by attaching a tarp on the mower, but said he didn’t even notice the tarp had torn into pieces when he hit a low hanging branch with the top of the tarpaulin. He went on to describe how his mom longed for a house for many years after living in the old home places so finally they were going to move into a new double wide on their property, but Jake never got to move in. Instead he moved into a mansion leaving behind his loving family and joining his family who had gone on to heaven before him.

Jim Jake concluded the funeral by challenging his sister, Cindy, to come forward and sing "Precious Memories" in honor of their father. She stood up and went to the podium and began to sing. Jim Jake accompanied her on the piano, and we all began to sing with them. The tears flowed as we all had our own remembrances of a beloved brother, brother-in-law, friend, grandpa, uncle, husband, and just a good human being. What a day of remembrance for William Leeper Templin whom we will always love and miss until we meet again. Keep the tractor purring for us Jake, because we all want to mow heaven’s green, green, grass of home.

Introduction

Hi Family,

Larry Brown was nice enough to set up a blog for our family to keep in touch and write - - it's a new day folks! Now we can spend some family time on the web.

You know I miss family. We once were the family who got together for special occasions and then it all fell apart. Let's all try to recapture or begin again. How about it? I think we should all attend every celebration because time is fleeting for us and especially our parents. God gave us to one another for a reason. It's our mission to make it fun while it lasts.

We will look back as we do now with fond memories of days gone by. The kids still remember when we had our gatherings Christmas eve at our house or mom and dads house and how special it was with everyone streaming in one at a time. The Christmas nog in the middle of the table. The ham steaming fresh from the oven, the crock pot beans, the pink stuff, scalloped potatoes, mashed potatoes, fudge, rolls, special coffee after dinner, the salads, the conversations, the joy of opening presents.

Write your memories of those days on this blog and let's get going again.

Sunny Day

Today was a good day.