Bling, bling, bling! Oops!

Wallace Malone, Plus Parvin and John Templin, my husband, were about 13 years old when they hitch hiked into town on a Saturday afternoon. Each one of them had a job "chopping cotton", "pulling boles" or working at the Cotton Gin in Prosper. The boys worked only 1/2 a day on Saturday. Then...Saturday night at the movies! It was a long way to town by foot, but they even did that when they couldn't find a ride, but most of the time they found a willing party to hitch to town.

They were on their way to the movie on the square in McKinney. As my husband tells me, "We just wanted to be where the girls were.". He said they would arrive in town about 1:30 or so and walk around the square stopping in the little shops on the square. This particular Saturday they all bought a money clip for about a dime. My husband said they stayed at the movie theatre until it closed at midnight, watching the movie over and over and smoking cigarettes in the balcony. They got their money's worth for sure!

Back to the Cotton Gin on Monday with the money clip in his pocket and $5 attached to the money clip. He felt "big" and important with $5 in his pocket, John Harvey was ahead of the game for next Saturday night on the square!
Well, it seems his job was to suction the cotton up out of the trailer and send it up a tube. He said the suction was on a ball swivel and you could move it around and make the cotton blow upwards to the stands to separate the lint from the cotton. (I'm now interested in knowing more, and I'm driving him crazy trying to figure out how the seed went one way and the cotton another, but that is another time). Let me get back to this story.

This little 13 year old boy was busy doing his job and he suddenly heard bling, bling, bling, clatter, clang and he knew. He KNEW! His heart sank! Five hours of labor just hit the fan! Yes, he knew his fortune and new money clip was no longer his.

Happy Birthday Boys!

Here you are reading your cards and enjoying life. Happy Birthday Boys! Micah is now a double digit 10 years old and Logan has become a 7 year old. Life has been changing fast for you and it's so fast and so remote that I don't get to see you as much as I did. I knew the time would come when we would not be "the most important people" in your lives and that is the way it is supposed to be. I know you both had special birthdays!

Loving you always!

Memaw and Paw Paw

An unexpected gift...

Smells! How mysterious is it that certain smells can conjure up a memory from the past.

After a long day of not too pleasant things happening in my life, I dropped my sister off at her apartment and noticed the gas gauge on my vehicle was on empty. It was getting late, my knee hurt, I wanted to get home to my refuge. I was thinking about my family situations and one problem after another which drove me to crave a pecan, cherry ice cream in a waffle cone for comfort. I was close to Braum’s and no matter how I wrestled my steering wheel to go left, it turned right towards Braum’s, taking this already overweight body to get some comfort.

As I was licking my ice cream cone and feeling, by the way, much better, I looked at the stinking gas gauge again and it was hovering right above EMPTY. I ate the ice cream faster than I wanted to so I could get out in the 90 degree heat and pump some gas into my whining vehicle that would refuse to run without it.

I ate the last bite of this delicious morsel, and hauled my self out of the van. I put my charge card in the slot, and the nozzle into my gas tank and waited while it ticked away my money.

While standing there waiting I drew in a deep breath of the night air. I closed my eyes. I could smell a mix of gasoline and dirt. I was back at my grandparents’ store, 7 years old, lightening bugs all around me. Listening to the crickets sing, my whole life was in front of me. This gas and dirt smell was a delicious smell to a child who was so loved by her grandparents, who always felt so safe and restful while being there for 2 weeks every summer.

All my gut wrenching troubles lifted and I didn’t want to stop this beautiful feeling, but suddenly the gas pump came to a halt. The precious restful haven moment in time was gone.