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I was moping around feeling sorry for myself because I was 85 years old (going on 86) and had been somewhat sick for several months so I made a lisat of good things that was happening and it ran like so----------
1. I have no real fear, of robbery.
2. Kidnappers have never tried to get money for me or from me.
3. I do not smoke or even miss the time I was a daily two packer---30 or so years .
4. My secrets are, with my friends----they don't remember thwem either.
5. The clothing that I buy now won't ever wear out.
6. There is no need to get 30 year warranty on the roof now.
7. There is no need to see my future by a psychic.
8. In a hostage situation I would be ,the first released.
9. In a hostage situation I would be first released.
10. There is nohing left to learn the "hard way".
11. The clothes that I have now will outlast me.
12. My joints are more accurate than the U.S. national weather service.
So see there---things are really not so bad.
Actually I must confess that I did not make all this up----I found it in my notebook and have no idea who gave it to paper.
But after typing that I feel much better. I even went in and emptied the rifles and shotguns in the gun cabinet.
"s ever
Charles T.
----things are really not so bad.
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Next weekend Frank is coming out to rip the badly soiled and soaked dining room and kitchen carpet and I am preparing the way for this to occur all week. I have emptied the hutch of all the glassware and when he gets here he will slide it into the "living room" and I am now in the process of carrying all of the books in the dining area back into the back bedroom and have definitely hit a snag. Because of my feeble old body I am making hundreds of trips from the dining area to the back bedroom with only two or three books at a time and as I stack them in the bedroom I cannot resist a peek or two into a forgotten book or one that I haven't read in a long time. So this phase of emptying the dining area and kitchen is going rather slow. Below are a few excerpt from just a few books that caught my eye and slowed the process:
From a book published in 1953 and on which I have not cast an eye in years and years:
In applying for a parole, T--- B---- an inmate of Jackson prison and a former member of the "Baby Face" Nelson gang wrote to the state parole board as follows..."In Luke 11:10, Christ says, 'everyone that asketh receiveth and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened'. By virtue of the preceeding, how about a parole?"
The Board replied promptly:
"See Luke 11:17 'Trouble me not; the door is now shut' "
There were several other things in that particular book like:
"Some of us would do well to emulate the woman who realized that her fears were ruining her life, so she made herself a "worry table". In tabulating her worries she learned that:
40% of her list will never happen, anxiety is the result of a tired mind.
30% of the items are about old decisions long made that she can now do nothing about.
12% of the items were lies and untruths that were made about her by people that felt inferior to her.
10% were items of gossip about her health which got worse when people gossiped about her.
8% of the items were real and legitimate complaints that she should correct anyway.
And lastly there was this old man in Ireland--sixty or more--with whom I climbed the famous Croagh Patrick, the titular mountain of Ireland's famous religious figure. As we stood on the summit looking east, west, north, south to take in the truly ineffably beautiful view of the sea, bog, sky and the clouds which all tear at the heartstrings at once the old man murmured as to himself, "Here is the wherewithal to gather memories to support our souls for ever more". And I realized that he was right.
My house is 59 feet long and I am carrying these books for the whole length of house--two or three or a few more at a time and because I read little bits of the books like the above it usually takes me fifteen or twenty minutes to make a trip. But that is OK. I have four days to get the books out of the dining area before Frank gets here.
love
dad, granpa, ami
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I try to maintain the thought in mind that all days are good days—especially for us who are over eighty and not sure where we are when we wake up in the morning. But it is hard to find much credit for last Friday in my mind—but I am coming around to it. Bear in mind as I tell this story that I built this house with my own hands and did the plumbing and electrical work and virtually everything except the fireplace . Mother helped quite a bit—she thought it was a great event and a lot of fun. I am reminded that during the time I was building this house Mother was an eighty year old (I am now eighty one) and considered the house building to be a lark.
At any rate last Friday as I watched some football game on TV I heard a loud POP followed by a strange flushing sound and then after a minute or so a loud noise as a panel of sheetrock fell off the ceiling of the utility room and water gushed all over the place. A pipe had burst in the attic and water was everywhere (actually a compression fitting had given up the ghost in the attic). At any rate water was going everywhere. I hastily turned off all of the 220 volt circuits in the house
with the exception of the heater. The thing to do I decided was to turn off the water and I began searching for the valve key which I found in the chicken house after about a 30 minute search and then began a search for the car keys to drive around to the valve on the meter box about a quarter mile away. After searching another 30 minutes for the car keys I decided to just walk the quarter mile to the meter valve and turn it off. While putting on my jacket against the cold I heard a strange jingle and felt the car keys in the jacket pocket. The water continued to rise on the kitchen floor now and proceed down the hall to the bedrooms.
As I tell this story please remember that I built this house including all electrical- and plumbing all by myself without any help from any one except my eighty year old mother who thought it was a great lark to "work " on the "farmhouse". I am now eighty-one and I don’t see how she did the things she did.
When I got to the meter I found that the cut-off valve was covered by a heavy layer of fine dirt where the fire ants had decided to build a new home but never-the-less decided to tackle them head on so I got on my hands and knees and uncovered the valve top and found that I could not rise because my legs are now so week that I cannot stand up without pulling up on something and there was no "something" to pull up on. I finally crawled over to the car and reached over to the
door handle and managed to pull myself up to my feet. My legs were shaking so that I could have played a good snare drum roll with them if I had one.
Back to the house and water was still coming out of the faucet at the sink and from the broken pipe in the attic and I totally misinterpreted that. I thought that I had not turned the water off at the street but the water that was still running out on the floors was actually coming from rapidly thawing ice in the pipes. At any rate I didn’t want to go back to the meter but decided to do what I should have done in the first place and cut it off at the house valve just outside the kitchen window. How one’s mind will wander in moments of crisis—so I turned off the water at the house valve—then drove back to the street and turned the water back on at the street valve.
The house was a total mess (not in itself unusual–but this was really bad). Filthy water all over ALL of the rooms in the house with tufts of insulation floating gaily around and collecting in the corners at the baseboards. I decided I had to find an honest plumber. On the telephone Frank contacted an acquaintance (Eddie Lindley the farrier) who knew an honest plumber and gave us his name and number and who came right out and repaired the damage in short order and charged me less than $100.
There is a terrific clean up job to be done but I can do it piece by piece as I feel like it. I prefer that to hiring someone to clean it up. We probably will remove the carpet from the kitchen and
dining room and go back to linoleum there.[ I say "we" because Frank is a willing recruit to get it cleaned up).
In the true belief that confession is good for the soul I have outlined a whole day of stupid decisions on my part and cataloged a whole book of errors made and I shall long remember Friday last. This too shall pass.
Love
dad, granpa ami
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One of the kindest and most gentle men I ever knew was my paternal grandfather, Elven Brown. Actually Elven Brown was my father’s stepfather and thus not truly a blood relative of mine at all. My real paternal grandfather, John Alfred Arrington Turrentine, had disappeared on his way to the Panama Canal to accept a job there in 1912. He had taken passage aboard a ship at New Orleans and sent my grandmother a telegram to that effect. The ship burned and sank at sea and Jack Turrentine was never heard from again----yet, strangely enough Jack Turrentine’s name was not to be found on the passenger list and the life insurance policy which he had made out to his wife Dora was not paid until seven years had passed with no sign of Jack Turrentine. So Grandma Brown farmed her five children out to various relatives and went to live herself with her brother Rufus Roark. After collecting the insurance in 1919 (I think that it was $10,000) Dora married Elven Brown. To me he was "Dad Brown" and I came to love him dearly.
Elven Brown was a man of small stature. He was wizened and wrinkled by a farmer’s lifetime in the sun and his hands were callused and worn. At sometime in the past he had been thrown from a horse when a teenager and had broken his left leg. It did not heal well and for the rest of his life he walked with a slight roll to his gait. His eyebrows were bushy and long and overhung a pair of crystal clear blue eyes which seemed always to be smiling and alert.. He was broad shouldered for his stature and stocky despite his small size and he possessed enormous strength in his arms and shoulders and in his hands..
I was nine years old when I first met Dad Brown. He was totally illiterate then and could not sign even his name. Two years later however he had learned to write at least his name and could and did sign checks and letters written by someone else for him to sign. Never at any time I knew him did I see Dad Brown read a magazine, a book or a newspaper.
Dad Brown was a farmer, and he was very skilled in those arts that made for a good crop and were necessary for a farmer in the first half of the twentieth century. He was an expert tree nurseryman and he grafted a number of pecan and walnut trees every year. He was a tolerable blacksmith and was about as skilled at keeping livestock alive as the local veterinarian. But his real forte was the curing of meat. Dad Brown killed from six to twenty hogs a year and cured the hams and made the sausage from them. The first really cold snap of the winter triggered the activity of "hog-killin’ day", which nearly always was twenty-four hours long with Dad Brown working all night long to get the first steps of curing accomplished and smoking certain cuts. His hams, sausage, and smoked meats were famous throughout the county, and he supplied Mom Brown’s brothers with all of their cured meat also.
It was Dad Brown’s contention that every meal of every day for the whole year must have at least two different types of meat—and it must be cured by him. Usually these two types of meat were pork and beef but occasionally he would be satisfied with chicken and pork. Dad Brown considered each meal of every day to be a social event. Normally there were ten people at table for every meal and many times there would be visiting cousins, aunts and uncles. At each meal in addition to the two meats we would have at least two usually three garden vegetables, cornbread at lunch and biscuits at breakfast and probably both at supper. Three or four types of jams jellies and preserves were included and fresh fruit in season came from the orchard in the back yard which never in my time ever had a failure. Lightbread was rare—store bought bread was too expensive at ten cents a loaf. Home churned butter was always on the table and it was one of my tasks at nine years old to do the churning . Coffee was always available both at and between meals..At breakfasts we always had oatmeal with heavy cream. "Red eye" gravy as well as as "whitenen" flour gravy at every breakfast. Ribbon cane syrup, sorghum molasses and honey were there at every meal.
We ate well despite the poverty of the family but nearly everything we ate was produced right there on the farm or gathered from the banks of Ten-Mile creek just on the other side of the corn field. We almost never went to the grocery store. In the six months that I lived in Dad Brown’s house I saw no "store bought" fruit or vegetables. Elven Brown was a "subsistence farmer". He wasn’t sure that any one could produce food as clean and healthy to eat as he did and was always a little suspicious of anything that came from the store. Coffee, tea , salt, sugar, flour and exotic spices he allowed as store bought, but he didn’t like to do so.. We never missed the dewberries, blackberries, pecans, walnuts, "poke" salad and wild honey available in the woods along side Ten-Mile Creek.
Deserts were served at every meal. Pies, puddings, custards, cakes, muffins, were available almost every day and fudge, taffy, divinity or caramel candy served in the evening while we played checkers or monopoly.
Pecans, walnuts and black walnuts were a major crop at the farm in addition to those trees in the woods by the creek and there was always a 100 pounds or so in a burlap bag beside the fireplace, and it was fun to eat nuts and throw the shells in the fire. Most evening in the winter we also had pans of peanuts roasting in the wood stove to eat during the winter evenings and farm raised popcorn laced with home churned butter to eat in the evening while we played games or just watched the fire burn in the fireplace.
So I started to tell about Elven Brown and ended up by telling about life on his farm. That was no mistake. The farm WAS Elven Brown. He lived and breathed that farm and the cows and hogs and chickens and horses that made it all he had to have to make him and his family comfortable even though he didn’t have a dime in his pocket or couldn’t read. He loved the farm.
After the farm work and while waiting for supper Elven Brown and I used to sit out on the front porch and pet old Carlo (the collie dog) and talk about my future. Everyday Dad Brown would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I’d tell him something or other different nearly everyday, and he would mull this a bit and then agree with me that that was the best thing to do.
It was sort of a little game between us.
When I was eighteen and in the Navy, stationed at Corpus Christi Elven Brown died. He and my grandmother had moved into town and bought a house on the outskirts of Lancaster and the entire land about the house was only a city lot —about 60 by 90 feet. They left that 240 acres of prime black land that under Elvens care would grow anything and had maybe fifty prime nut trees and plenty of room for a cow herd and maybe twenty or so hogs and moved those two into Lancaster across the street from the cotton gin - Elven Brown died in six months. I am convinced that Elven died because he had no purpose in living any more. He had no weeds to fight or land to plow or trees to graft — so he died. He was a good man.
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This is to advise you that yours truly is now a licensed driver on the
highways of the State Of Texas for another five years until the date
of May 4 2015. My new driver's license came in the mail today. It has
restrictions such as:
1. no driving on freeways
2. no driving at speeds in excess of 45 mph
3. No driving without my prescription spectacles
4. No driving in the dark
(all of which restriction I shall punctilliously observe)
But those are the same restrictions I have had for five years. I
could be resentful about the restrictions but I am not. I have never
had a wreck, have driven in all fifty states of the union and two
territories, have driven in five provinces of Canada, five states of
Mexico and in 41 foreign countries. I have never had a citation in
the last forty years (although I did have a few before that). Now
anyone who can drive in Paris and Rome and from Barcelona to Lisbon
and in the left hand traffic of Ireland from Dublin to Waterford and
back need make no apologies for a license to drive. The two wildest
cities in the world of my experience are Teheran and Boston. Anyway
this little piece of plastic is indeed a license for five more years
of independence.
So all you people keep a sharp eye out for me on the highways and
byways---jno tellin where I will go.[
love
dad, granpa Ami
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I recently ordered a book from a catalog and in due time received it.The book was titled "Spanish Recognitions" and told the events of the author's recent trip to Spain. The author was Mary Lee Settle and at the time she wrote the book, which was 2004, she was the wonderful age of 82---a much older person than I am since I won't be 82 until May of this year. I have not read Mrs Settle's book as yet but I think I am going to enjoy it. While entering it into my horde of books I read the first page of the book and was startled by the opening sentence of the book, which was:
"TO BE ALONE BY CHOICE IS ONE OF THE GREAT LUXURIES OF THE WORLD.'
Mrs Settle , at 82, had gone to Spain alone because she "wanted to discover it". She did not want to have any of Spain "pointed out" to her. She preferred to absorb Spain into herself by nher own view of it. A desire that many people might register as selfish on Mrs Settle's part.
I have not yet read the book but I have been mulling that first sentence over in my mind for several days. Was Mrs Settle a misanthrope because she wanted to come to her own peculiar recognition of what Spain was without mental adulteration of
the opinion of others? Mrs Settle claims--and she may be pulling our literary leg--that there is a Scotch Gaelic word "snerge" which implies a deep understanding of a situation or milieu by "snerging around" which I take to be similar to what we West Texans called "snooping" and she further expounds that one cannot "snerge" in company with others. I did read the first three pages of the book. I also wonder where she picked up her knowledge of Scotch Gaelic, and "snerge" just doesn't sound Gaelic to me. She claims to speak "just enough Spanish to order meals and find the bathroom".
Somehow I think that I am going to like Mrs. Settle even if "snerge" is not a Scotch Gaelic word --and I don't find it in my Scotch Gaelic dictionary. You are also aware that I live alone and enjoy it. There are many that will interpret that fact as an expression of selfishness. Ann Morrow Lindbergh once wrote a book on the need of selfishness in everyone's personality. I don't really go that far but I agree with just a touch of selfishness as being a contributor to personality. I think that I prefer, with apologies to Ms Lindbergh to call it "independence" or "self reliance"n rather than selfishness---it sounds bertter that way. And then too there is an ameliorating circumstance nin my situation---I do not feel alone out here on Benpensa Farm. I have about 5000 friends in the form of books to whom I devote a lot of time and learn a lot about people. I have two dogs with whom I communicate and who are dependent upon me for friendship, communication, and care. There is a bird feeder just outside my bedroom window that even as I type this has more or less twenty birds eating up the grain I put out there for them and with whom I feel a certain bond of friendship or proprietorship, there is all of you addressed with whom I am in almost daily social intercourse by computer, there are 96 trees planted out front (Frank planted them) which I just inspected minutely this morning to assess the damage done by deer who love to eat the bark off the tree trunks, there is a garden out back that Frank has brought into existence agqain this year, I have about 200 old classical and country records dating from as far back as my high school days and with whom I spent all day yesterday enjoying. I was told as a child that being "lonesome" or "bored" was not allowed to children---and that lesson stuck with me.
Do I fear being alone--not often. Occasionally when I fall down and have to crawl- a hundred yardss on my knees to find something to pull up on I think of the comfort of having another here to help. I fear blindness which would mean the end of a solitary independence. I fear loss of my ability to drive. Eventually something will sooner or later curtail my independence--until then let me enjoy it and when that time coimes I will go quietly.
So I was impressed with Mrs Settles opening sentence . I am 82 now for all intents and purposes and very fortunate to still be able to manage my own affairs and life---that may not last much longer. So please be tolerant of me right now for a little bit longer. Those of you who are a generation or two younger should try to put a trip to Spain into your life sometime before you are 82---it is a wonderful place.
I am going to read that book just as soon as I can get around to it.
*Addendum*
In the 70's, 80's and 90's when I was doing most of my world travelling it was not customary in Spain for an unescorted woman to be alone at a restaurant and if a woman was seated alone at a bar or restaurant it was assumed that she was engaged in one of the world's oldest professions. It was during this same period that Mary Lee Settle made her trip to Spain alone and at every restaurant or bar that she entered alone the proprietor set a small American flag on her table as an indicator to the solo men in the establishment that she was not a whore but was one of those crazy Americans. I have combed my memory but do not find any indication there that I ever saw Mary Lee in any eating or drinking establishment nor do I remember ever seeing ANY single woman sitting at a table with an American flag to indicate her status. I guess that I am just not as observant as I should be. Don't you think that is a pleasant custom? Perhaps I did see her and just can't remember seeing her.
Love
dad, granpa, ami
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My dogs insisted that I arise and face the world at 3:00AM this morning which is about two hours earlier than they usually call me forth from the arms of Morpheus. I staggered into the kitchen and began to prepare what the dogs and I refer to as "beef on a plate" which constitutes their morning breakfast and consists of slices of beef stew meat or pork or chicken on a paper plate. As I prepared this treat for the dogs I was listening to my little portable Grundig radio tuned to a station unknown and consisted of two or three radio journalists discussing politics. I was sleepy and grumpy but I am sure that I heard the fragments below which I offer with very little comment—never thought that I'd live to see the day.
1. That Sarah Palin had admitted openly that until. about six months ago she had been a member of the Assembly of God Church and that now she and her family attended a "Pentecostal" church that was not associated with the Assembly of God. and that this change came about at about the time that she became Governor of Alaska..
2. That the Assembly of God church was "way out of the midstream" of American thinking and that they believed some odd things like the second coming of Jesus Christ, they believed in the efficacy of prayer, and they even believed that God created the world and the universe. That members of that church regularly engaged in "speaking in tongues" and other arcane beliefs like "born again conversions" They advised that Sarah had said that she had never "spoken in tongues" but "admitted" that she had seen it.
3. The reporting group stated that an awesome group of thirty or forty "investigators" had been sent by the Obama campaign to Alaska to dig up details of religious oddities on Sara Palin and that they were finding many startling things such as an open admission by Sara Palin that she prayed frequently and regularly and believed that prayer helped her make major decisions in her life and that certainly no one would want a person "dependant" upon prayer just a heartbeat away from the presidency.
4. That Sarah believed that conception marked the beginning of life and that abortion was simply a matter of terminating another human being. There was then a discussion of the fact that Sarah had no objection to contraceptives despite her other "Pentecostal" beliefs. I think this was a confusion of Pentecostal beliefs with Roman Catholic beliefs on the part of the commentators.
5. There was one little snippet about "serves the Republicans right for jumping on Reverend Wright" but searching through my memory (such as it is) I don't remember any criticism of Reverend Wright's "religious" pronouncements but rather his political statements such as
"Not God Bless America but Goddam America"
About this time I finished preparation of "beef on a plate" for the dogs and decided to listen to a C & W record of Johnny Cash while I ate my breakfast but the whole tone of the radio discussion left me feeling that my feelings and those of millions of other oldsters in this fair land had just been assaulted.
Love
Dad, granpa, ami
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While Googling on another matter I chanced upon a short biographical sketch of Girolama Cardano a person I had never heard of before and found his life so interesting and eventful that I thought that I would give you a few items from his life . Cardano was a very unusual man. He was born in Padua Italy on 24 September 1501,. He was the illegitimate child of Fazio Cardano and Chiara Micheria.. He had three siblings all of whom died of the plague in childhood. Girolama grew up and attended the University of Padua where he eventually was awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He was during his lifetime a physician, a mathematician, an inventor, a gambler and an astrologer. Of all those skills he seems to have spent the greatest part of his time honing his skills as a gambler.
Cardano was married and had two sons and one daughter. His eldest son married badly and ended up poisoning his adulterous wife. He was convicted of this act and beheaded in Padua. His daughter sank into prostitution and was not heard from. His youngest son denounced Girolama to the Inquisitionn for publication of what was purported to be the astrological horoscope of Jesus Christ. The son requested to be appointed public executioner and that his father be subject to execution for this heresy. He was sentenced only to a short prison term which he served and was then released so the son did not get to officiate at his death.. So it appears that Girolama did not have a pleasant and tranquil life.
Cardano published a number of important and famous mathematical treatises. He also invented what we currently call "the universal joint" and invented the combination lock. By some means he returned to the good graces of the Church because he was rewarded by Pope Gregory XIII with an annuity for life. Cardanno died on 21 September 1576 which was the exact day he had predicted for his death in a publication issued thirty years prior. That he had committed suicide was suggested by many.
Since I had never heard of Girolama Cardano I felt that he had likewise escaped your notice and that you might want to know who it was that invented the universal joint and the combination lock. He was not a particularly enviable as a man but he did have an active life. One meets all kinds of people on Google.
Love
dad, granpa, ami
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Just to let you know what fills my days---important stuff.
My new dog Sally (SO NAMED BECAUSE SHE WAS THE FIRST TO "SALLY-FORTH" FROM THE LITTER) is 51/2 months old and of indeterminant geneology. She is possessed with boundless energy and appetite and has not learned that everything doesn't need to be chewed by her--and she has a good start on chewing everything in the house. For over a week she has managed not to mess up the house and to save that sort of thing for outside activities and I had come to the conclusion that we had crossed a major hurdle
in her training but last night I had a guilty conscious I guess and did not get to sleep until about 3 AM and thus missed the usual 4 AM invitation for her to cruise the back yard and I awoke at 5:30 AM and instantly knew that I was late on putting her out. So I had that to clean up just before breakfast and then asked both dogs if they wanted to go to the vast postal hub of Dennis TX to mail some articles and they acted very excited about that . We went outside and I arranged the sheet which covers the back seat of the SUV and the German Shepherd (Sara) jumped into the car and lay down across the full back seat which left no place for Sally except the floor of the car. Sally considered this a social snub and even though she has been following my commands to the letter for several weeks now she decided that she would NOT go in the SUV nor would she go in the house nor would she come within several feet of me. Sara and I started off for The trip to Dennis and she decided that she would follow a pied. So I turned around and drove back home and coaxed her into the house and into the back yard which is securely fenced (I hope). Sara and I went on to Dennis and did our mailing and returned to find Sally a chastened and responsible dog who after drinking vast amounts of water went into my study/bedroom and lay down on a battered and chewed old blanket which is her normal sleeping place and I went about my business of washing dishes and clothes and watching TV but after about an hour or so felt that I should check on Sally and compliment her on her status as a "good dog". When I went into the bedroom it was instantly obvious that no compliments were necessary. The room reeked of all manner of canine excrement which was hidden from view by the tattered remains of two boxes (large boxes) of band aids which I had purchased the day before to cover up the scratches on my arms from where Sally had jumped up and called something to my attention wiuth her razor sharp claws. Sally crawled under the bed and refused to discuss the matter.I got the mop and a mop bucket and spent the rest of the morning cleaning up my bedroom and used up two bottles of air freshener trying to make the bedroom smell a little different. By this time it was lunch and for some reason I just wasn't very hungry and I lay down in another bedroom and read on a mystery story. About this time it started to rain and both dogs were afraid of the thunder and did their best to convince me that they should get ON the bed--but discipline prevailed and so they both got under the bed.
So see my life is not all roses and pink lemonade. I am still determined to make responsible citizens of Sally. Sara helps and usually comes to tell me when Sally is doing something wroing. I am considering cleaning my shotgun tonight
Love
dad, granpa, ami
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My grandfather, Walter Thomas Hamilton, was a man of settled habit and ritual. He did the same things every day. Coming into the farmhouse from the field or cow lot he would always stop on the backdoor step and stomp the dirt and cow manure off his shoes before coming on the back porch where he hung his hat on a nail there for that purpose.. Then he would put a bucket full of water into a wash pan on a small stand and meticulously wash his hands, arms, face and his head including the back of his neck in water directly out of the windmill at 55 degrees F and usually using Lava soap.. This ritual he always observed whether he had been out of the house all morning or for just a few minutes. I am sure that Grandad used the front door of the house on some occasions but I cannot ever recall him doing so except to meet guests arriving there.
Saturday morning was his time to go to town and he rarely went at any other time. After all it was 12 miles to Plainview and Grandad did not believe in wasting gasoline unless it was really necessary. It would take one gallon of gasoline selling at the outrageous price of thirteen cents per gallon for him to make the round trip . If he absolutely had to go to town in the week he would usually hitch the team to a wagon and go to Lockney which was only five miles away. Thirteen cents was not to be sneezed at and I have known times when Grandad stopped at the Aiken service station and got his one gallon of gas and promised to pay for it on the way back after he had sold his cream and eggs in Plainview.
Grandad had a flock of about 150 laying hens and had from four to eight Jersey cows. The cream and eggs he got from these were about the only source of money that Walter ever saw except for a small share of the cotton harvest in the fall which had to be used for major expenses. There was therefore a lively debate between my grandmother and Walter about what the money should be spent for. This debate was usually held just before his departure for town on Saturday morning and I remember that there was one item that frequently came up that I did not recognize. My grandmother would frequently say with a resigned tone in her voice "and if you can afford it I need a couple of yards of unbleached domestic". I finally asked my grandad what "unbleached diomestic" was and he said that it was an inexpensive type of cotton cloth that was not shiny white because it had not been bleached after machine weaving. I asked Grandad why she wanted it and he said "For many things. She makes quilt backings, cup towels, underwear , baby clothes, handkerchiefs, nightgowns, pillow slips and table cloths as well as many things that I don't even know about."
I don't know what unbleached domestic cost then or even if it still exists as an item but I do remember that Grandad crossed something off the grocery list that day and bought my grandmother two yards of unbleached domestic which made my grandmother very happy. It has been a very long time since I have heard of unbleached domestic and I wonder if it still exists as something that would make a woman's day brighter.
Love
Dad, granpa, ami
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