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An angel of Despair has descended upon Benpensa Farm and we here have been beset with technical difficulties that have tested our allegiance to the advance of technology. First of all you should know that being eager to communicate
with our scattered (in more ways than one) friends and relatives that we have installed here three (count them – one, two, three) telephone lines altogether and during this last week these lines have become so noisy and infiltrated with random communication by others (technically referred to as cross talk in the trade) that the privacy and integrity of our electronic transmissions and vocal offerings of brilliance to the world of literature and technology has been sorely prejudiced. Three days ago we insisted that ATT abandon the defense of (you have squirrels in your attic) and immediately install a new telephone service cable which they did day before yesterday. They sent a man and a rather comely blonde out who made quick work of installing what they referred to as a "quad five" (seems like a contradiction in terms to me) service line out to the pavement edge where they have a junction box. The blonde lady was so overcome by my bearing and the general nature of my personality as well as my story of travail that she promised me (on the sly) to connect my service line to the cream of the crop lines into the exchange---which no doubt she did. So two days ago was taken up with these tricky negotiations with ATT personnel and testing of their response to my demands.
Then yesterday I discovered that someone has been siphoning colored ink out of my Dell 720 printer and that I no longer was capable of sending color pictures to my dear aunt who lives in Albuquerque and to three other of my relatives who have not yet entered the computer age and so I hastily ordered three colored ink cartridges from Dell---I should note that Dell is the only source for ink cartridges for Dell printers---which is indeed a restriction of trade if not a conspiracy to monopolize the market on Dell ink. In the past Dell has been very expeditious in sending their ink out and it should arrive here by Fed-Ex no later than tomorrow. So until then my plans to keep my relatives and friends advised of the appearance of their progenitors and distant cousins that they would not recognize if they met on the street are at a standstill.
Then yesterday was the acme travail---Frank noted that there was water in his room coming from under the partition to the principal bathroom in the house. Investigation in that room which has a tiled floor indicated that water was about an inch deep and skillful investigation showed this water to be bubbling up through the floor of the bathroom around the water service to the commode. So we called a plumber who came out and said that the copper line to the commode was broken under the concrete floor and that the only way to fix it was to Jackhammer a hole in the bathroom floor and reconnect it, which he did. And lo and behold the wellspring of water was quenched and the sun once again shone upon Benpensa Farm and all was well until I asked him what his charges for this service were. A gentleman does not discuss his personal financial matters with the world at large so I shall not do so here. Suffice it to say that if FPT and I eat gruel and bitter herbs for two decades we may repair the damage to my bank account, but the bathroom floor was dry.
All was well. Frank took a shower and I retired to the other bathroom and spent some time in quiet contemplation of the world and lo and behold water began to flow all over the bathroom floor. My anger at the plumber was intense – he had already departed – and I did discover that it was not a fault of his workmanship but rather a filled up septic tank and backed up sewer line that was the problem. They ought to put a gauge on all septic tanks so that one could go out there and look every so often and determine in this was going to happen and take steps to prevent it. So a septic tank maintenance service is coming out at one PM today to empty the tank and unplug the line.
So that is the story of what I have been doing for three days and why there are going to be no more pictures in the mail or over the aether until the ink gets here and why I hate plumbing. In my childhood there was a small dual chic sale at the end of a forty or fifty foot path from the back door and when that became over used one could call the WPA office in town and the government would send out a crew of ten men who would move it to your spot of choice and cover carefully the evidence that it ever was at the old spot. What was wrong with that system---gave employment to ten men, provided a free service toi the citizenry of the nation and all was well. I conclude that indoor plumbing is not necessarily a sign of progress.
I will keep you advised if the telephone lines hold up. The comely blonde said the replaced telephone service line was badly attacked by fire ants and that the new "quad five" line was more resistant. Must go make coffee and contemplate this technical breakthrough.
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Alfred W. Arrington was my great great grandfather. He was the father of Mary Eugenia Arrington who was the mother of John Alfred Arrington Turrentine, who was my father's father. Got all that straight? Anyway he was an unusual person and you will be hearing more about him from me as time goes on. He wrote several books including one called simply "Poems by Alfred W. Arrington" which was actually published after his death. I have a copy of that book. I don't care too much for his poetry but after all he was an ancestor so I will be sending you some of that from time to time also. The preface of that book gives a bit of a sketch of his life and that is what I am transmitting at this time. it follows:
Alfred W Arrington Memoir
Alfred W. Arrington was born in Iredell County, North Carolina, September 17th, 1810. His father also a North Carolinian, was a Methodist minister of fervent piety and much eloquence. His grandfather, born upon the same soil, was distinguished in that religion for his scholarship as well as for his patriotism; he served in the war of 1812. The great grandfather of Judge Arrington, and the head of the family in America, was an English soldier who held a commission as Major in the British army. He came to America with troops, during our Revolution, to fight for King George, and did not return again to England, but purchased a large estate in North Carolina upon which he afterwards resided.
His mother was a native of the same state but of Highland Scotch origin. The family name was Moore. They were Covenanters; and doubtless left Scotland the victims of religious persecution. Like most Highlanders, the family was originally Catholic; for an ancestor was beheaded for his ancient faith under one of Cromwell’s military governors.
The mixture of the Saxon and the Celt in Judge Arrington’s progenitors, will account, physiologically, for his various and marked personal traits; as he possessed the double genius of both races.
His childhood was passed in Iredell County, amid the lovely and picturesque scenery of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The impression that it made upon his mind was never effaced. He had always a passionate yearning for mountain scenery, and often dwelt upon his delight, when as a child, to run away alone down the side of the mountain, and listen to the sighing of the wind among the pines. and feel his hair lifted up and blown about by it. The unseen force of nature filled his mind with awe, and was his first conception of an invisible power.
The Bible was his only reading up to his twelfth year; and his imagination thus kindled and cultivated at this perennial fount of poetry and inspiration. About this period a family moved into the neighborhood bringing a small library of books, which they placed at the eager boy’s disposal. He committed Lindley Murray to memory in about ten days; it was the first work on grammar that he had ever seen. A treatise on arithmetic was mastered in less than a month and all of its problems performed. The little library was soon exhausted.; for his joy was so great over the possession of a new book that he could hardly sleep with a new book in the house...
Soon after these events, his father moved to Arkansas, then almost a wilderness. His thirst for knowledge however continued unappeased; every spare dollar was invested in books. So the years passed away in mingled study and labor, filled with poetic dreams, for, like Pope he "lisped in verse". At the early age of eighteen years he commenced to preach; and at that time exhibited an oratoric power that resembled the inspiration of an Italian improvisation. He drew large audiences and excited great enthusiasm. He continued to preach for several years at intervals, until he lost his childhood faith; and after fruitless attempts to find peace in other communions, ultimately abandoned revealed religion. He afterwards sought in philosophy, a solution of his intellectual difficulties; but of course, with only partial success. He however never abandoned his search for truth. The different systems of metaphysics from the Indian philosophers down to the latest school of English positivism were as familiar to him as the alphabet. The principles of the physical sciences were fully mastered and their relations to each other and to human life. He sought in every quarter for the knowledge that would enable him to create a sound philosophy of life and morals.
He was admitted to the Bar, in Missouri, in 1835, and practised there, and in Arkansas and in Texas and for the next twelve years with brilliant success. He was at one time a member of the Arkansas legislature, but he was of too abstract a turn of mind to take much interest in politics.
In 1847 he visited the north and spent some time in Boston and New York, in order to enjoy the society of its literary men and gain access mto their large libraries. He wrote at this period "Sketches Of The South And Southwest" which had a large circulation through the papers of the day. They were exquisite gems of word painting, and in one of them occurs the celebrated "Apostrophe To Water". He also published an essay entitled "The Mathematical Harmonies of the Universe" which was greatly admired and which was later translated into French and German.
On his return to Texas in 1849 he was elected Judge of the Twelfth Judicial District, which office he held for five years when his health failing he was obliged to seek a more bracing climate. He returned to New York and while seeking to regain his physical powers occupied his leisure with literary pursuits. At this time he completed a work on Logic which had long occupied his thoughts and he wrote a novel entitled "Rangers and Regulators of the Tanaha". The former work was never published but the latter is still in print and is usually classed with Lieutenant Mayne Reid’s novels of adventure.
Finding that a prolonged stay in the north would be necessary for his health he resolved to find a home in the Northwest and resume the practice of law. He started for St. Paul but was diverted and settled in Chicago. He at once divined the future greatness of hius adopted home, and felt that he had a sphere suited to his legal talents. He gave himself up entirely to his profession and until within a few years of his death wrote nothing of any consequence except what was connected to his practice.
Though a master of prose composition, still poetry was his native element and his favorite mode of expression. It was only through his poems that he was able to express the burning thoughts that oppressed him for utterance. Poetry was not the business of his life but simply a necessary recreation after severe labors in another field. The poems contained in this volume were nearly all written after his fiftieth year. This will account for their grave philosophic character, for their ceaseless questioning of futurity; for their sadness and melancholy. A few of his later poems reveal a brighter and more hopeful spirit brought about by a gradual change in his philosophic views. The recent works of Harry Spencer had a most happy effect upon his mind. He studied them with the greatest delight and professed to find in them the poissible union of science and religion.
He died on the 31st day of December 1867 leaving three children—Flora, Genevieve, and Alfred. His son Adrian had preceded him to the eternal world. His remains were buried with the highest honors by the Chicago Bench and Bar who published an elegant memorial, commemorative of his legal fame....
For some time previous to his last illness his aggressive skepticism had entirely disappeared and in various ways he manifested not only a respect for Christianity, but a strong desire for the gift of faith. This solace was denied him until he lay upon his death bed when to use his own words "Like a flash of light every cloud disappeared, and the vision of Jesus Christ was vouchsafed me" He received baptism in the Catholic Church and was buried according to her rites, leaving his dying testimony to the divine origin of Christianity and its claims upon mankind.
Signed—Leora L. Arrington
Note:–I do not know at this time who Leora Arrington was or what her relationship to Alfred W Arrington was. The writing above serves as a preface to a book I have in my collection titled "Poems" by Alfred W. Arrington which were collected and published after his death. I also have in my collection a copy of the novel "Rangers and Regulators Of The Tanaha" by Alfred W. Arrington which is mentioned in the preface above. I will from time to time be sending you copies of the poems in Arrington’s book even though as a generality I don’t care for many of them—but he was an ancestor soooooo--------
I have one of his poems from that book copied into my computer file so I will send it along now. It follows:
AVE MARIA
All hail to the woman,
Who exalteth the human,
With her lustre to shine
In beauty supernal,
Till it meet the Eternal
In a union divine.
Oh, ye saints! Chant the story,
How she reigneth in glory,
A splendor serene:
With the Seraphim ‘round her,
For the Bridegroom hath crowned her,
Of angels the queen.
Christ hath wrought a tiara
Of twelve stars for Mary,
The glorified one;
‘Neath her feet, delitescent,
Gleams the moon’s silver crescent
She is clothed with the sun.
Hail! The sweet star Elysian,
Ever fixed to the vision
That faith hath made free;
The "Star of the Morning"
All the heavens adorning,
And "Star of the Sea"
Rainbow radiance encloses
This "Queen of the Roses"
In the meadows above;
This fair "Lily" enhances
The mystical trances
Of canonized love!
The hope of our planet,
All hail"the Pomegranate"
With its bright seeds of balm!
Let the universe heed her
Proud "Lebanon’s Cedar"
And victory’s Palm!
All the beautiful graces
That fond fancy traces
She calleth her own
Hail the Soul without error!
The marvelous mirror—
Divinity’s throne!
Hail the great gate of pardon!
The trellis closed garden
Where Jesse’s stem blowed,
When the Dove hovered o’er her
And the angels adored her
As the "Mother of God"
Oh "Well Full of Water"
Immaculate daughter,
Of the first fallen Eve;
Oh "Sealed Book of Learning"
Oh bush always burning
In thee I believe.
O Virgin, yet mother,
Whom the dragon doth smother
Under footfalls of light;
Pray thy son to deliver
My spirit forever
From the demons of night!
From passion and madness,
From doubt, sin and sadness
Implore Him to screen:
That my guilt all forgiven
I may hail thee in Heaven
Of Heaven the Queen!
Make me of thy cdhoir,
That tunes the harps of fire,
And sing as they soar;
"All hail to the woman
Who exalteth the human"
Into light evermore.
By Alfred W. Arrington
A poetry critic wrote about this poem that it was an attempt by Arrington to incorporate into the poem all of the symbolic references and titles with which artists have addressed the Virgin Mary in art. Arrington's poetry is pretty far out! More of his poetry later.
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Here is a story about a few of our Hamilton ancestors that I have run across in my geneological research.;
Incidentally I have previously proven to my satisfaction that we are in no way related to Alexander Hamilton of political fame.
A Story About Thomas Hamilton and Hamilton’s Fort
The original Hamilton immigrant to the United States from Ireland came to Guiliford County , North Carolina. Thomas was born in 1725 in either Ireland or Scotland and died in 1803 in Sumner County Tennessee. Thomas married Jane McCracken in Ireland about 1750 and immediately immigrated to the US and established a home in Guiliford County North Carolina.
Jane and Thomas had four children, all born in North Carolina.
These were:
James Hamilton, born 5-1-1757 died 4-27-1801 in Sumner county Tennessee
Thomas Hamilton II, born 2-24-1762 died 2-14-1841 in Illinois
Robert Hamilton, born 2-8- 1766 died 11-15-1846 in Cass County TX. Married Sarah Agnew
Elizabeth Hamilton, born 1775 died 12-15-1856 in Sumner County TN
Of those four children the direct ancestor of myself and those addressed is Robert Hamilton
Sometime in the very early 1780s Thomas and all of his children migrated westward through the Cumberland Gap and took up land near Mansker’s Fort. The settlers believed at that time that the Indian troubles with the Cherokee Nation had subsided and would not be renewed. They were mistaken. An Indian raid resulted in the death of three Montgomery brothers living nearby. Thomas Hamilton immediately started construction of a substantial fort on his land at the head of Drake’s Creek on the highland rim about five or six miles north of Shackle Island. John Carr had adjoining land and assisted Thomas in construction of the fort. Walter T. Durham author of "The Great Leap Westward" says of Thomas Hamilton "Hamilton had fought throughout the American Revolution and was as brave a man as ever took a gun or sword in hand." Hamilton’s Fort as it came to be called was completed in 1788. Sumner county was organized and named in a meeting held at the home of John Hamilton five miles west of Gallatin Tennessee on the second Monday of April in 1787. I have no evidence that John Hamilton was a relative of Thomas Hamilton or is related in any way to us.
George Hamilton, is also mentioned in the history of Sumner County as being an attractive young man with an especially melodious voice. On the night of July 20, 1787 George who was Sumner County’s first and only school teacher was asked to entertain a number of men meeting in the quarters of Colonel Anthony Bledsoe. Unknown to the group of men meeting there was a party of hostile Indians just outside the walls of the fort awaiting the signal to attack. The fireplace in the colonel’s quarters was incomplete and there was a hole in the masonry. One over-anxious Indian poked a gun through this hole, fired a shot which struck George Hamilton in the jaw and broke his jawbone. This naturally ended his contribution to entertainment for the evening and broke up the meeting. I can find no connection between our Hamilton’s and this unlucky singer but I am still looking.
In 1789 Thomas Hamilton attended a religious service held by Benjamin Tucker in the home of John Carr a close friend of Thomas Hamilton’s. It seems that Rev Tucker desired to form some sort of religious society in addition to preaching a sermon that night. His sermon was very long and detailed and after it was concluded Rev. Tucker had the only door to the room closed and locked and a bench placed across the door and seated three ladies on the bench—all of these precautions taken to assure that no one left the meeting until Tucker had completed his appeal for new members to his society. Tucker then began to examine each person present asking detailed and probing questions about their state of salvation and the religious health of their souls. This process did not sit too well with Thomas Hamilton, tough old frontiersman that he was, and he looked anxiously around the room as Tucker approached his seat. Durham in his book "The Great Leap Westward" then reports "When the preacher began to examine those sitting next to him , Hamilton sprang to his feet. Leaving his rifle behind, he bolted up the stick chimney, went out the top , and mounted his horse. Only minutes later he rode bare headed into the fort to be greeted by his wife who seeing him ride so hard with neither hat not gun, ran out to meet him and exclaimed, ‘Tommy, have the Indians been after you?’ ‘Worse than Indians’ he replied as he dropped wearily from his sweating mount."
Thomas Hamilton is also mentioned in "A History Of Sumner County Tennessee" by Walter Durham as having established the fort on Drake’s Creek.
All of us can trace our lineage back to Thomas Hamilton the original immigrant but so far I have not been able to find any Irish or Scotch references to go further back. The trail from me back to Thomas is as follows:
Charles Turrentine son of Ouida Ethel Hamilton daughter of Walter Thomas Hamilton son of Malberry Adalbert Hamilton son of Malberry Thomas Hamilton son of Henry Harry Hamilton son of Robert Hamilton son of Thomas Hamilton I. That is seven generations and gets us back to the original immigrant for our passle of Hamiltons. It is interesting when one is doing geneological research to come upon a real character and I think that Thomas Hamilton may have been one.
I will have some similar reports on others from time to time.
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There are several things in the world about me that I have observed to be bad and out of order and require change. Since I have only about 35 or 40 more years of active political life ahead of me and all of you are young and chipper I decided to tell you wherein I find problems and trust that you will fix them right away. These things are:
The Corruption and Stupidity Of Academia
This above all needs fixin’. Since the eleventh Day of September in the year 2001 I have been more and more convinced that Academia is unamerican and doesn’t even like America. I am not sure why they are of that persuasion but it is obvious from their actions and from what I observe.
One helpful action would be to eliminate academic tenure. For the one or two of you addressed who may not know what tenure is I shall explain. When a faculty member of a university reaches a certain stage in his/her career they may be submitted to a "tenure committee" or in some cases a vote of the tenured faculty and be accepted into the botherhood/sisterhood of the tenured. Thereafter unless they can be proven to have violated some list of sacred acts like raping the provost’s daughter/son in the university cafeteria at high noon they cannot be fired or otherwise disciplined. Children, all of us need the goad of accountability in order to make us proper servants of our employer I know of no other profession on earth that has such a protective cloak thrown about them. Usually tenured professors can elect their own class schedule and believe me it is possible to get a BA from a university today and never have a class under a tenured professor. They will scramble around looking for a grant from some government agency to write a book or do research and their vaunted intellect is not to be wasted upon students who are usually taught by instructors or assistant professors at the undergraduate level. If the tenured are so great that they should be considered un-firable then why in heavens name do we shield them from the hordes of students who come to get an education—and many of whom will not stay in college until they reach graduate level where a few of the courses are taught by tenured professors. No wonder the cost of a college education is rising. The colleges and universities have about a thirty percent personnel deadwood from whom neither the college nor the student gets any use.
Secondly is the concept of "academic freedom" which holds that a college professor can teach or say anything he/she wishes without fear of retribution or job loss. In other words once hired a professor is not accountable for what he/she teaches your sons and daughters.; There is a professor (two of them in fact) in my alma mater that openly advocates the return of the Southwest portion of the US (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California) to the Republic of Mexico by either peaceful or warlike means. There is a professor at the University of Michigan who openly advocates that all laws forbidding the sexual abuse of children be struck down by the Supreme Court and that children need sexual activity to "learn and develop". The rampant and ridiculous assertions of our learned professors abound these days and most of you would be surprised at what they teach in their classes—but they can’t be touched—that would be a violation of "academic freedom". They have just about removed any reference or deference to religion from the centers of higher learning and are introducing political philosophies that would curdle your brain–and there is no one to make them stop.
Federal Control Of Education
Most of you might not even know that there was a time within my memory when there was no —absolutely NONE control of public education by the federal government nor did the federal government contribute ANY money to the support of public schools in any state. We had no federal department of Education, no Secretary of Education on the President’s cabinet. All public schools were controlled by their local school boards who hired, fired, managed and monitored all public school employees and faculty and determined what would be taught. In my humble opinion (I am noted for the humility of my opinions) our public schools (at least the 26 I attended) were far superior both in personnel and what they taught than they are now and much more rigorous. I have been much embarrassed on several occasions recently by several high school graduates who couldn’t make change after a purchase. There were 640 students in my graduating high school class and I will venture without fear of being wrong that there was not one–NOT ONE who couldn’t make change after a purchase. How did I know the cashiers were high school graduates? I asked them if they were not taught how to make change in school and they said that they were not. I’ll bet they do not know the capitol of South Carolina either. Our public school system has gone to pot. I am ashamed to admit that we rank far far down the scale of school systems when compared to European and even Asian school systems. I don’t like that.
I think that part of the reason for that lies in the existence of public school teacher’s unions which assures that unqualified and unmotivated teachers remain on the faculty of our public schools whether they are capable of teaching or not. When I taught high school I refused to join a teacher’s union and received a lot of pressure from some of the worst teachers because I did not..
Go fix our schools—they have gone to pot. Throw out the courses in basket weaving and folklore of the Central African Uplift and teach those kids how to make change and what the capitol of South Carolina is.
The Doctrine Of Eminent Domain
There is a legal doctrine in the United States adopted from English Common Law that holds that the government (city , state or federal) can exercise its right of eminent domain and take any land in the nation if it is "for the common good" The government which takes the privately owned land must pay a fair market value for it to the owner but can take it. If the government needs to build an army training facility out here on my farm and I don’t want to sell my farm I am just out of luck because the government has the right of eminent domain. This right by the government has been exercised many times in the history of our nation by cities, counties, states and by the federal government itself BUT only if the government condemning the land was going to use it for a public purpose. Lately there has been a condemnation and taking of land by a city in Connecticut which was not for a public purpose and the Supreme Court of the US has held the condemnation to be valid. The land was condemned and sold to a private developer to build a shopping mall and condos which the city wanted so that they could charge more property taxes.
This action attacks the very core of democratic theory and the sanctity of private ownership of property. If allowed to stand this action very simply means that any private ownership of land is not final and if anyone can convince a regional or federal government that another owner can support a higher tax base on the land it can be condemned under the doctrine of eminent domain. This is for the birds! Fix it!
The Tenth Amendment
The tenth amendment to the constitution of the US says (and I quote) "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.". English was the native tongue of the writers of the constitution and they used it well in the document in my opinion. What that says to me is that the federal government gets ONLY the specific powers the constitution grants to it and NO MORE. But this amendment to the constitution has been roundly ignored. And every day the Federal Government takes a little more power away from the states and becomes more and more absolute and omnipotent In my childhood murder was not a federal offense–it was adjudicated by state law and every state had a law against murder. But Timothy McVeigh was not convicted of murder under state law but rather under the federal law against killing a federal officer–of which there were several in the building. Why this accretion of power and new law at the federal level?
McVeigh would be just as dead if sentenced under state law. There are thousands , literally thousands of ways in which the federal government grabs more power each year at the expense of the states. It worries me.
The Ills Of Free Trade
In the last few days there has been a violent reaction in the country when it found out that the operational control of six major ports in the US had been placed in the hands of a United Arab Emirates based company. Sounds sorta like sending the fox to guard the henhouse, doesn’t it?
But that is not the only ill of free trade. Consider the fact that the US is rapidly losing its ability to be a major producing country. We are losing our manufacturing base . If ten years from now we are attacked by a foreign power of considerable strength—and we will be eventually—we will not have the engineers, scientists, mechanics, welders, chemical processors , tool makers, die makers, molders, metallurgists, painters, riveters, shipwrights, gear cutters, machine tool manufacturers and many other skills that we would need to sustain a long war to protect our way of life. The best machine tools are now being made in Japan. Put on your glasses sometime and walk down an aisle in WalMart and pick up every item and read where it was made—that is why you need the glasses–it is in small print but it is there. The US was the greatest industrial power in the world when WWII ended. Our soldiers, sailors and airmen were capable, valiant and well led but a significant contribution to winning that war was the vast "arsenal for Democracy" that the US came to be in a miraculously short period of time. I am not sure that we could do it again and in ten years more of present trends I feel sure that we could not. Our ability to be an "arsenal for democracy" has been sacrificed on the altar of "Free trade" and "educate the foreigner". There is another troubling aspect of free trade that bothers me. The US has always been a producing country of "robust design". That term is difficult to define but it expresses that the engineer who designed the consumer item did not skimpo on materials or dimensions. I bought some clothes pins at WalMart tother day because I like the smell of clothes dried out in the sun. They were cheap–I bought about a hundred of them. They were the old style wooden pins where two halves are held together by a galvanized wire spring. I hung out my clothes and in a sprightly Texas breeze about half of them blew off the line which was a new experience to me. I noticed that in every case where the clothes blew off the line there was a failure of the little spring to hold the two halves clamped on the clothes. By careful measurement I found that if the wire that made the spring was 1/16th inch longer on each end it wouldn’t blow off Of course 1/16th inch of wire times a million pins runs into money—but if it had been an American engineer that designed it
there would have beren another 1/’8 inch of pin spring so that there was a little leeway or allowance for side thrust on the pin. The clothes pins were made and designed in China. They look good.
Now there are a few things for you to fix up . When you get them done report back to me and I will assign you a few more.
Love
dad,granpa,et al
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Since Frank has returned to Minneapolis I find myself with no one to talk to except my dog, Sara.
I was feeling sorry for myself about this but I found that Sara was not only an excellent conversationalist but was a vast improvement over Frank in terms of an opponent in debate. Now you may think that since Sara cannot talk that she would be worthless as a conversationist and completely out of her field as a debate opponent. You just don’t know Sara.
I stumbled on this appreciation of Sara myself. Since I was here alone I began talking to myself and it was two or three days before I noticed that Sara was listening closely to what I was saying.
I remember sitting down and discussing at great length the qualities which John Roberts would bring to the bench of the Supreme Court and a careful study of Sara told me that she agreed with my analysis completely. She was sitting there with her ears perked up , her mouth open and lips pulled back in a smile and occasionally nodding her head as I made a salient point. She agreed!
When I recounted Senator Joe Biden’s scurrilous questioning of Judge Robert’s 1982 appraisal of some civil rights legislation she dropped to the floor in a sulky pout and put her head down between her paws. After I had continued for a few minutes it was obvious by her body language and the fact that she ran to the door and scratched on it to be let out that she considered the matter closed and that no further conversation was warranted.
I’ll admit that Sara’s score in the field of research and data retrieval is weak. She keeps no notes and her contribution to the debate is very much related to response to something I say. There is not much that Sara puts forth as independent thesis for her side of the argument. She can however exhibit scathing disdain for my theses. She some times even laughs and rolls over on the floor in glee over some inappropriate thing I say and is not beyond getting indignant and walking off if I get too far out of line.Sara is a very acute observer and that stands her in good stead in these debates. If I say something that I have no backing for it is not beyond Sara to frown (Oh, yes dogs can frown) and adopt a haughty mein for several minutes.
It is crushing to be beaten by a dog in a debate but Sara is very kind when it happens. She comes and lays her chin on my leg and looks up at me with those soulful brown eyes and lets me know that winning debates is not everything in life.
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Many years ago when I had small children I used to rock them and sing them to sleep with a series of folk songs that they never tired of. Other than my Grandad’s horses and my dogs they were the only sentient beings that ever approved of my singing voice. I have tried below to set down the words to the songs that I used to sing. In writing down these words I did not consult books nor others but rather put down what is in my memory of the words. Printed versions of the songs may vary widely from what I sang and what I remember that I sang may vary widely from what I actually sang. So be it. Below are the words I remember: Several of these songs are in German and they like the others are just as I remember them. None oif the kids spoke German of course but they liked to hear the songs in German---and one or two in French.
The Fox
The fox went out one stormy night.
He prayed to the moon for to give him light
For he had many a mile to go that night
Before he reached the town-oh.
The town-oh the town-oh,
He had many a mile to go that night
Before he reached the town-0h
He ran till he came to a great big pen.
The ducks and the geese were put therein
"A couple of you will grease my chin
Before I leave this town-0h."
The town oh, the town-oh,
A couple of you will grease my chin
Before I leave this town-oh.
So he grabbed the gray goose by the neck,
Threw the ducks across his back,
And he didn t mind their "Quack, quack quack"
Or their legs all danglin' down-oh.
Down-oh, down-oh
He didn t mind their "quack, quack, quack"
Or their legs all danglin down-oh
Old Mother Hibble-hobble jumped out of bed
Ran to the window and poked out her head.
She cried "John, John the gray goose is gone
And the fox is on the town-oh."
The town-oh, the town-oh,
The gray goose is gone
And the fox is on the town-oh.
John he ran to the top of the hill,
He blew on his horn both loud and shrill,
The fox he said "I better flee with my kill
For they'll soon be on my trail-oh"
Trail-oh, trail-oh
The fox he said " I better flee with my kill
For they will soon be on my trail-oh"
The fox he ran to his cozy den,
There were his little ones eightnineten.
They said, "Daddy better go back again
For it must be a mighty fine town-oh"
Town-oh, town-oh
They said "Daddy , better go back again
For it must be a mighty fine town-oh."
Now the fox and his wife without any strife
Cut up the goose with a fork and a knife,
And they never had such a supper in their life
And the little ones chewed on the bones-oh.
Bones-oh, Bones-oh.
They never had such a supper in their life
And the little ones chewed on the bones-oh.
The Sloop John B.
Oh, I came on the Sloop John B.
My Granpappy and me
All around Nassau town I did roam.
Drinking all night, Got into a fight.
I am so break-up, I wanna go home
So hoist up the John B. sail,
See how the mainsail sets
Call for the Captain ashore
And let me go home, I wanna go home,
Why won't they let me go home?
I am so break-up I wanna go home.
Now the First Mate he got drunk,
And tore up the peoples's trunk,
The Constable came and had to take him away.
Oh, Sheriff John Stone, please leave me alone,
I am so break-up, I wanna go home!
The First Cook he caught fits,
He took away all of our grits,
And then he ate up all of our corn.
I wanna go home, Why don't youi let me go home?
This is the worst trip since I been born.
The Erie Canal Song
We were forty miles from Albany, forget it I never shall,
What a terrible storm we had that night on the Er-I-E Canal.
Oh the Er-I-E was a-risin' and the gin was a-gettin' low
And I scarcely think we'll get a drink till we get to Buffalo-o-o
Till we get to Buffalo-o-o-o
Now the Captain he came up on deck with a spy glass in his hand,
And the fog it was so tarnal thick, that he couldn't spy the land.
Yes, the Er-I-E was a-risin', and the gin was a-gettin low
And I scarcely think we'll get a drink till we get to Buffalo-o-o
Till we get to Buffalo-0-0-0
Now the cook she was a grand ol' gal and she wore a tattered dress,
So we heisted her upon a pole as a symbol of distress
Yes, The Er-I-E was a risin' and the gin was a gettin' low
And I scarcely think we'll get a drink till we get to Buffalo-o-o-o
Till we get to Buffalo-o-o-o
Nicodemus, the Slave
Nicdemus the slave was of African birth, and was bought for a bag full of gold.
He was reckoned as part of the salt of the earth and he died long ago very old.
Twas his last sad request as they laid him to rest in the trunk of an old hollow tree,
"Wake me up!" was his charge, "At the first break of day. Wake me up for the great Jubilee".
Nicodemus was never the sport of the lash though the bullwhips had oft crossed his path
There were none of his masters so bold or so rash as to cross such a man in his wrath.
But his great heart with kindness was filled to the brim, he obeyed who was born to command.
But his longed for the day which then was so dim, tis the day which now is at hand.
There is a great time a'comin and its not far off, its been long long long on the way,
So go tell Elijah to hurry on home and meet us by the gumtree down in the swamp
For to wake Nicodemus today.
Abdul Abulbul Amir
The sons of the prophet are brave men and bold
And quite unaccustomed to fear,
But the bravest by far in the ranks of the Shah
Was Abdul Abulbul Amir.
If you wanted a man to encourage the van,
Or harass the foe from the rear,
Storm fort or redoubt, you had only to shout
For Abdul Abulbul Amir.
But the heroes were plenty and well known to fame,
In the troops that were led by the Czar,
And the bravest of these was a man by the name
Of Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.
One day this bold Russian did shoulder his gun,
And put on his most insolent sneer,
Downtown he did go and he trod on the toe
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.
"Young man ", said the Bulbul "Has life grown so dull
That you wish to end your career?
For infidel know that you have trod on the toe
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir."
Said Ivan, "My friend, your remarks in the end
Will avail you but little I fear
For you never will survive to repeat them alive
Mr. Abdul Abulbul Amir".
"So take your last look at sea, sky and brook,
And send your regrets to the Czar;
For by this I imply, you are going to die
Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar."
They fought all the night neath the pale yellow moon,
The din was heard from afar,
And multitudes came so great was the fame
Of Abdul and Ivan Skavar.
The Sultan drove by in his red breasted fly
Expecting the victor to cheer,
But he only drew nigh to hear the last sigh of
Abdul Abulbul Amir.
Czar Petrovich too, in his spectacles blue
Rode up in his new-crested car.
He arrived just in time to exchange a last line
With Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.
Oh a tomb rises up where the blue Danube rolls,
Engraved there in characters clear,
Are , stranger when passing pray for the soul
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.
A Muscovite maiden her lone vigil keeps
Neath the light of the pale polar star
And the name that she murmurs so oft as she weeps
Is Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.
When I was very young I have been told that I frequently requested this lullaby before I was old enough to pronounce the words in the title clearly.
Old Dan Tucker
I went to town the oither night'
I heard a noise and I saw a fight,
All the folks was runnin' round'
Cause Old Dan Tucker was comin' to town.
Hey . Get outa the way for Old Dan Tucker
Come too late to get his supper,
Supper's over and dinner's cookin'
Old Dan Tucker just stood there lookin'.
Well Old Dan Tucker he come to town
Ridin" a Billy Goat and leadin' a hound,
The hound dog barked and the billy goat jumped
They threw Old Dan Tucker a-straddle of a stump
Well Old Dan Tucker come home drunk
He jumped in the fire and kicked out a chunk,
Got a live coal down in his shoe
And you just look at how the ashes flew.
Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man.
He washed his face in a frying pan.
He combed his hair with a wagon wheel'
And died wuith a tooth ache in his heel.
Hey get outa the way for Old Dan Tucker
Come too late to get his supper..
Supper's over and dinner's cookin',
Old Dan Tucker just stood there lookin.
As a child I felt very sorry for Old Man Tucker. He was deprived of his supper, got hot ashes in his shoe and no body seemed to want to help him.
Frankie and Johnnie
Frankie and Johnnie were lovers
Lordy how they could love
They swore to be true to each other
Just as true as the stars above.
He was her man, but he done her wrong.!
Frankie she was a good woman
Just like everbody knows
She gave her man a hundred dollars
Just to buy a suit of clothes
He was her man, but he done her wrong!
Johnnie went down to the corner
And asked for a bottle of beer.
Frankie went down in an hour or so
And asked "Has my lovinest man been here?"
He is my man but he is doin' me wrong
Now I ain't gonna tell you no stories
And I ain't gonna tell you no lies.
Your lovinest man was here about an hour ago
Makin' love to Nellie Bligh,
And if he is your man, then he is doin you wrong.
Frankie went home in a hurry
And she didn't go for fun.
She hurried there to get her
Great big forty-four gun.
He was her man but he he was doing her wrong
Frankie went down to the hotel
Right up to Room 329.
Then she could hear her lovinest man
Makin' love to Nellie Bligh
He was her man but he was doin' her wrong.
Frankie pulled out the revolver,
Aimed it right down at the floor
Rooty toot toot three times she shoot
Right through that hardwood door.
He was her man but he was doin' her wrong.
Bring on your rubber tired hearses
Bring on your rubber tired hack
Johnnie is gone to the graveyard
And he ain't comin' back.
He was her man, but he was doin' her wrong.
Lollie Tu Dum
As I went out one morning
For to get a breath of air.
Lollie tu Dum, tu dum, Lollie tu dum day.
I overheard a mother a-talkin to her daughter fair
Lollie tu dum tu dum Lollie tu dum day.
Oh, you better go wash them dishes
And hush that prattlin' tongue
Lollie tu dum, tu dum, lollie tu dum day
For I know that you want to get married
And that you are too young
Lollie tu dum tu dum lollie tu fdum day.
S'posin' I was willin' where would you find a man?
Lollie tu dum tu dum lollie tu dum day
S'posin' I was willin' here would you find a man
Why lawdy mercy mammy, I'd marry that handsome Sam
Lollie tu dum tu dum Lollie tu dum day
S'posin' he should spite you, like you done him before?
Lollie tu dum tu dum lollie tu dum day
S'posin' he should spite you, like you done him before?
Lawdy Massey Mammy, I could marry a hundred more
Lollie tu dum tu dum lollie tu dum day
Well now my daughter's married and well fer to do,
Lollie tu dum tu dum lollie tu dum day
Now my daughter's married and well fer to do,
Gather round young fellers, I'm on the market too
Lollie tu dum, tu dum lollie tu dum day.
The Eddystone Light
Oh me father was the keeper of the Eddystone Light
And he slept with a mermaid one fine night
And from this union there came three
A porgy and a porpoise and the other was me.
Yo Ho Ho The wind blows free
Oh for a lif e on the rolling sea
One night as I was a-trimmin' of the glim
Singing a verse from the evening hymn
A voice from the starboard shouted "Ahoy!"
And there was my mother a-sittin' on a buoy.
Yo Ho Ho The wind blows free
Oh for a life on the rolling sea.
"Oh say my son can you tell me,
What has become of my children three?"
"One was exhibited as a talking fish,
And the other was served in a chafing dish"
Yo Ho HO The wind blows free
Oh for a life on the rolling sea.
Now the phosphorous flashed in her seaweed hair,
I looked again and my mother wasn't there.
But a voice came echoing from out of the night
"To Hell with the Keeper of the Eddystone Light".
Marianka
Narianka, Komm lasz dich kussen
Was willst du wissen?
Das ich dich von herzen Liebe?
Wie die Sterne, aus den weiten Ferne' Strahlen die Beiden fur uns Eine
Marianka wenn willst du mein.
Freut Euch Das Lebens
Freut Euch das Lebens
Weil noch das Lampchen gluht.
Pfluchet die Rose, eh' Sie verblueht.
Mann schaeft Sich gern
Mit Sorg und Mueh
Sucht Dornen aus und findet Sie
Und laesst das Veilchen unbemerkt
Das auf dem Wege bluht
Freut Euch das Lebens
Weil noch das Lampghen gluht
Pfluchet die Rose, eh' sie verblueht..
In Der Nacht
In der Nacht ist der Mensch nicht gern aleine
Denn die Liebe beim hellen Mondesheine
Ist die shoenste---Sie wissen was ich meine
La te da te da la la te da??????
Bell Bottom Trousers
Singin' of bell bottom trousers
And coats of navy blue
Swing into the riggin'
As your father used to do.
A simple little country girl
Thinking it no harm
Climbed into the sailor's bed
Just to keep him iwarm.
Countless verses more---Then there is a take off on this called
Zoot suits and parachutes
And wings of silver too......,,.
Lili Marlene
Vor der Kaserne, vor dem grossen Tor
Stand eine Laterne und steht sie noch davor.
Und alle Leute sollen uns sehen wenn wir vor der Kaserne stehn
Wie einst Lili Marlena, wie einst Lili Marlen
Schon rief die Posten, sie blieszen Zapfenstreich
Es kann drei Tag gekosten, Kamerad Ich komm ja gleich
Und alle Leute sollen uns sehen, wenn wir vor der Kaserne stehen
Wie einst Lili Marlena, Wie einst Lili Marlen
I've Got Sixpence
I've got sixpence, jolly jolly sixpence
I've got sixpence to last me all my life.
I've got tuppence to spend,
And tuppence to lend
And tuppence to send home to my wife--poor wife.
I've got four pence, jolly jolly fourpence
Ive got four pence to last me all my life
I've got tuppence to spend
And tuppenjce to lend
and no pence to send home to my wife-poor wife.
I've got tuppence, jolly jolly tuppence
I've got tuppence to last me all my life.
I have tuppence to spend
And no pence to lend
And no pence to send hoome to my wife---poor wife
No cares have I to grieve me
No pretty little girls to deceive me
I'm happy as a lark believe me
As we go rolling rolling home.
Roilling home! Rolling home!
By the light of the silvery mooooooiiooin.
Happy is the day when the Navy gets its pay
And we go rolling rolling home.
Crawdad Song
You get a line and I'll get a pole, honey.
You get a line and I'll get a pole, babe
And we'll go down to that crawdad hole, honey. baby mine.
Yonder come a man with a sack on his back, honey
Yonder come a man with a sack on his back babe
Yonder come a man with a sack on his back
Giot more crawdads than he can pack honey, baby mine.
Man fell down and broke that sack, honey
Man fell down and broke that sack, babe
Man fell down and broke that sck
Look at them crawdads backin back, honey baby mine
What you gonna do when the creek goes dry honey?
What you gonna do when the creek goes dry babe?
What you gonna do when the creek goes dry?
Sit on the bank and watrch the crawdads die, honey baby mine.
Three Little Fishes
Down in the Meadow
In an itty bitty pool
Swam three little fishies
And a mama fishy too.
"Swim", said the Mama fishy
"Swim if you can"
And the three little fishies
Swam right up to the dam.
Boop, Boop Dittum Dattum Wattum SSHSHSHSH
And the three little fishes swam right up to the dam.
"Come back", said the Mama fishy,
"Come bacl or you'll be lost"
But the three little fishies
Didn't want to be bossed
So they swam and they swam
Right over the dam
Boop Boop Dittum Dattum Wattum SHSHSHSH
So they swam and they swam right over the dam
I have forgotten the rest of the elegant words to this song but I remember that the three little fishies swam
"right down to the sea" where they metr a shark who scared hell out of them and they swam back and jumped oveer the dam
and were happily re-united with Mama Fishy---the moral to this story is "Don't Be Out and About too Much"
Blue Tail Fly
When I was young I used to wait
On Master and give him his plate
And ass the bottle when he got dry
And brushw away the blue tail fly
Jimmy Crack Cornj, and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care
My masters gone away.
When he would ride in the afternoon
I'd follow him with a hicklory broom
The pony being rather shy
When bitten by the blue tail fly
Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care
Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care
My master's gone away
One day he rode around the farm
The flies so numerous that they did swarm,
One chanced to bite him on the thigjh
The Devil take the blue tail fly.
CHORUS
The pony jump, he start, he pitch,
He throw my master in the ditch.
He died and the jury wondered why
The verdict was the blue tail fly
CHORUS
Now he lies buried 'neath the 'simmon tree
His epitaph is -plain to see.
Beneath this stone I'm forced to lie,
The victim of the Blue tail fly.
Wreck Of The Old 97
Now they gave him his orders in Monroe Virginia
And they told him he was way behind time
"This is not 38, This is ol' 97
You gotta put her into Spencer on time
Then he turned around and said to his black greasy fireman,
"Shovel in a little more coal,
And when we cross that White Oak Mountain,
You just watch ol' 97 roll.
And then a telegram come from Washington station
This is how it read,
"Oh that brave engineer that run ol' 97
Is a-lyin' in Danville dead."
"Cause he was going down a grade making 90 miles per hour
When his whistle broke into a scream.
He was found dead in the wreckage with his hand on the throttle
A-scalded to death by the steam.
Oh now all you ladies you'd better take warning
From this time on and learn
Never speak hard to you lovin' husband
He may leave you and never return.
Little Brown Jug
My wife and I live all alone
In a little log hut we call our own,
She loves gin and I love rum
And don't we have a lot of fun.
Chorus:
Ha, Ha, Ha, you and me
Little brown jug don't I love thee
\Ha Ha Ha, you and me
Little brown jug don't I love thee.
When I go toilin' on the farm
I put the little jug under my arm
Then I put it under a shady tree,
Little brown jug its you and me.
CHORUS
'Tis you who makes me friends and foes,
Its you who makes me wear old clothes
But seein' your so near my nose
Tip her up and down she goes
CHOIRUS
If I had a cow that gave such milk
I'd dress her in the finest silk
Make her fat on oats and hay
And milk her twenty times a day
CHORUS
Now when I die don't bury me
Just pickle my bones in alcohol.
Put a bottle of booze at my head and feet
And then I know that I will keep.
CHORUS
The rose is red, my nose is too
The violets blue and so are you
And yet I guess before I stop
I'd better have another drop.,
I've Got Spurs That Jingle, Jangle, Jingle
I've got spurs that jingle, jangle , jingle
As I go ridin' merrily along.
And they sing "Oh ain't you glad your single?"
And that song ain't so very far from wrong
Oh,Lilly Bell, Oh Lilly Bell
Though I may have done some foolin that's why I never fell
I've got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle. As I go ridin' merrily along,
And they sing, "oh ain't you glad you're single?"
And that song ain't so very far from wrong.
Oh, Sally Jane, Oh Sally Jane
Though I'd love to stay forever this is why I can't remain,
I've got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle. As I go ridin merrily along,
And they sing "Oh ain't you glad you';re single?"
And that song ain't so very far from wrong
Oh Betsy Lou, Oh Betsy Lou,
Though we did a heap o' dreamin this is why it won't come true,
I've got spurs that jingle, jangle , jingle As I go ridin' merrily along,
And they sing "Oh ain't you glad you're single?"
And that song ain't so very far from wrong.
I'm Going Back
I'm going back to whur I come from
Where the hoineysuckle smells so sweet it durn near makes you sick
I used to think my life was humdrum
But I sure have learned a lesson that is bound to stick.
I used to go downj to the statrion
Just to see the Pullman train come rollin in
And then one day, that great tempotation
Got the best of me and led me to a life of sin.
I took my hat and fourteen dollars
And started on the life of trouble that always follers
When your rich and huintin' romance
But my huntin days are over I can tell you that
I met a man in Kansas City
And he winked at me and asked me if I'd like toi step around
And I said "YUP, thats what I'm here fur"
And he took my fourteen dollars and there must have bveen a mixup.
He's been gone since Thursday evening
And I got a hunch I'll never see that guy no more.
I'm going back to whur I come from
Where the honeysuckle smells so sweet it durn near makes you sick.
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To me she was “Mama” and now some thirty years after her death I still think of her by that name. Of all the people I came into contact with in my life Mama probably did more to shape my character and personality, my sense of what is right and wrong and my feelings toward others than any other person. It was when she was in her early forties that I spent much time at the farm and came to know her best. From the time that I was four in 1931 until I was 13 in 1940 I spent three months oif every nsummer and all long holidays at the farm near Plainview Texas where she and my granddad tried to scratch out a meager living by sharecropping. Those were the depression years in the U.S. and in the panhandle of Texas the height of the Dust Bowl years.My grandparents were dirt-poor. The only time there was any money from crops was in October when the cotton was picked and the rest of the year a trickle of money from the sale of eggs, cream and occasional sales of alfalfa hay.
But to see my grandmother you would never have thought that she was poor and didn’t know where her next nickle was coming from. She was a remarkably cheerful woman. She loved life and above all she loved children. She was never happier than when her house was filled with me and my cousins. She had one good dress which she wore to church every Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening and to town where she rarely went. It was always a difficult choice for me whether to go to town with my Grandad on Saturday or stay at the farm and “play” with Mama. Saturday was her baking day and she made cakes, cookies, pies and mountains of homemade bread on Saturday so as to have them on hand for Sunday lunch without breaking the Biblical sanction against labor on the Sabbath. I was her chief pot licker when she made cakes and pies.
Mary Ellen was a deeply devout Christian woman. The church we all attended was a small rural church in Aiken, Texas some four miles west of the farm by unpaved road. Mama was a Sunday School teacher there and my grandfather was Superintendent of the Sunday School and served as a lay preacher when The regular preacher, Brother Apple, could not make it through the mud or snow. Mama once told me in all sincerity, “Charles, it is a good thing that I am a Christian woman because I so love alcohol, tobacco and sex that I would be a fearful sinner if I wasn’t.”The church at Aiken was officially non-denominational but its doctrine and dogma were essentially Baptist or country Methodist which in those days were indistinguishable almost.The pastor was normally invited to eat at my Grandfather's house one Sunday of every month.
Despite the poverty at my grandparent's farm life was not grim. There was always plenty of food. Mama always had a large garden and she possessed the proverbial green thumb. The growing season on the high plains was not long but Mama always managed to make super vegetable crops which she canned with her pressure cooker so that there were vegetables for the table all year round. There was always chicken to eat and the first norther in the winter time brought about hog killing and much pork to cure and eat fresh. And Mama was an outstanding cook. Three meals a day were a social function as well as a means of sustenence. We all ate at the same time and it simply was not permitted to miss a meal. By common accord unpleasant subjects were not discussed at table.
Children were taught table manners and ritual and they atayed at table until all were finished unless they asked permission of Grandad to leave the table for some particular reason. Mama made cottage cheese at home, churned butter, made homemade ice cream, baked all the bread the family ate and cooked three sit-down meals a day for anywhere from five to fifteen people.And our clothing while patched and mended was always clean every day thanks to Mama's efforts with the gasoline powered washing machine in the back yard. All clothing must be starched and ironed also according to Mama's dictum including overalls and work clothing for the field.
She was a great game creator. Mama did not believe in boredom and the statement “I am bored” from one of us children received a stern lecture. She believed that every person had a duty to make the best of whatever circumstances surrounded them and to change those circumstances if we did not like them. Mama did not believe in being a victim, of anything. She taught us to make vases for flowers by coating Mason fruit jars with papier mache made from old newspapers soaked overnight in water. After sculpting the jars with this product we would let them dry and then paint them with watercolors or crayons as decoration. She taught us to lie on the top of the barn and study the clouds to see what figures could be made from them. She bought our warts for a penny apiece and bound them up with some kitchen concoction and on the third day we could remove the binding and the wart would . She taught us how to make kites and fly them. She knew dozens of kid's games to keep children occupied on rainy days and she frequently in the summer would go outside in the rain with us just to get wet and have fun. She taught us tio make "whizzers" of a length of string and a large button that made a delightful noise and was excellent for getting tangled in girls hair. And we were always Mama's advisor at the kerosene cooking stove getting tastes of things as they were cooked and offering our judicious opinion of whart was needed. When she cooked a chiken it was anatomy lesson time and she pointed out every internal organ in the chicken and explained its function. The anatomy that I learned there was every bit as accurate as Comparative Zoology later at the University. She was a great hoirticulturist and would explain how to graft or bud trees or select scion wood from a tree or how deep to plant seeds and why to do so.. Mama was our teacher.
It has been said that West Texas is hard on women and horses. The summers were hot and dry, the winters were windy and bitter cold. There was no carpeting, drapery or central heat or cooling in the farmhouse It was the height of the Dust Bowl and when a "duster" hit it filtered into the house. Mama was an immaculate house keeper and I have seen her shovel sand from her kitchen and living room floor with a grain scoop and then mop the floor with a rag mop maybe five or six times until it was clean again. There was no electricity. Lighting was by kerosene lamps. Refrigeration was in the "milk trough" on the back porch or by means of a thirty pound block of ice brought from Plainview on Saturday and kept covered in a quilt in a wash tub until it dwindled away on Tuesday or Wednesday. Cooking was done on a kerosene range with oven and there was a pot bellied stove in the living room that burned coal when we could afford it or corn cobs or scrap lumber when we couldn't. There was no heating at all in other rooms of the house. There was a privy about thirty yards from the back door that sufficed for personal needs twelve months of the year. Despite all of these difficulties there was almost no sickness in the family. Mama had five children under these conditions with the local physician arriving after every birth to look at the tying of the cord and to check expulsion of the afterbirth. Mama had three sisters living in the area, that is within fifteen miles, that were passable midwives as she was herself.
Sickness was almost non-existent on the farm. We all got plenty of exercise and a good healthy diet. Mama kept an eagle eye on everyone in the household and definitely believed in the efficacy of the old country doctor's dictum to "Rest a fever and keep the bowels open". She always had a box of "Black Draught" laxative handy and was not hesitant to poke it down your gullet at a moments notice. Minor farm injuries, splinters, blisters, cuts, abrasions and insect bites were Mama's specialty and she had a standard cure for each. She was quick to recognise the standard childhood diseases and we never consulted mna doctor on those.
Mama spent many long hours telling me stories of her childhood, of her days in school at High Mound in east Texas. She told of her brothers, her grim and stern father and her gentle caring mother who I remembered from my earliest memories. Mama laughed a lot. She remembered the funny things that people said. She would quote poetry that she had memorized in school and her take off on some of these poems was entertaining to a child.
She could make us all laugh with her rendition of:
Mabel little Mabel
Face against the pane,
Looked out across the night
And saw the beacon light
A'tremblin' in the rain.
This poem was rendered with maximum drama and accompanying gestures and many more verses about Little Mabel whose father never came back. We never tired of hearing Little Mabel's troubles. I have no idea who wrote the poem or any of the other verses.
Mama talked to us kids as equals. She solicited our opinion about political, religious and social matters. She would describe the marital disputes in the community and ask us what we thought went wrong that caused them. There was no subject off limits ar area of discussion too delicate for Mama to discuss with us---and she listened more than she talked. She loved us and she told us so. I miss her and do not think I shall see her equal again.
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The Texas Transportation Corridor
Conventional wisdom holds that the elderly, especially the very elderly, are reactionary in their contemplation of new developments and projects and opposed to them because they are not like the memories of their youth which they cherish. Perhaps this is so but with respect to the proposed Texas Transportation Corridor I cannot believe that it is just sentimental hogwash. Might there not be a bit of reason and considered judgment involved in my opposition to the proposed Texas Transportation Corridor?
The current thinking envisions a multi-lane toll road from south to north, from Mexico to Oklahoma across Texas which will provide for increased speed limits (perhaps the elimination of speed limits) and the segregation of commercial truck traffic and automobile passenger traffic. It is further proposed that this be a toll road and current thinking is that a Spanish Company be awarded a contract to build the TTC and in payment therefore that this Spanish company be allowed to collect and keep the tolls for a period of sixty years in order to recoup their expense and make a profit I once made my living negotiating with Spanish companies on construction contracts, and I would be willing to bet that if this agreement comes to pass that there will be many safeguards in the way of tax rebates, right to re-negotiate term of contract if revenue estimates were not met, favorable laws to be passed by the Texas Legislature, etc ad infinitum.
When I go to the Big Bend National Park or drive down to Austin to see my daughter do you think that I take Interstate I30 west or I35 south to these destinations. Never! Not even when I am in a hurry. In the spirit of William Least Heat Moon I drive the blue highways through the Cross Timbers and Edwards Plateau country if going south or through the rolling plains and West Texas semi-desert if heading west. Life is too short to limit the scenery to the ads on the back of eighteen-wheelers or to wonder if the Porsche coming up behind you really knows you are there. I travel through Texas for the scenery. I like to see the wild turkeys, the raptors sitting on fence posts, and if it is the right time of day the many deer and antelope that this state has as a treasure. I like to drive through the small towns that still have architecture dating back to the 19th century and courthouses that look like gothic castles. Don’t look for sights like that along the Interstate highways or along the proposed TTC either.
State and local taxes in my state have skyrocketed in the last four years as a result of un-funded Federal mandates and the necessity of health care for a throng of illegal immigrants as well as increased police and court costs related to this immigration. If we now take over 2 million acres of Texas land out of the tax base the remaining land will per force be more heavily taxed.
Let’s take a look at the "benefits" that will be provided by the building and operation of the TTC:
1. It will require the purchase or condemnation under provisions of eminent domain of more than 2 million acres of mostly rural Texas farm and ranch land. There is a factor involved here that I am almost sure that the planners of the TTC do not take into consideration. There will be a cultural shift for thousands of people involved. One of the greatest assets of my little farm is that it is peaceful and quiet and restful and removed from the strident call of the city and its throngs. People out here wave at you when they meet you on the country road, and they do so whether they know you or not. In one grass fire several years ago my neighbors prevented my house from being consumed (I was away at the time) and took care of my livestock until I got back. The Lazy Bend of the Brazos is a sleepy, friendly, bucolic area, and that is just what I wanted after forty years of nerve-jangling, elbow-rubbing, commercial negotiation. Those who are displaced by the TTC or forced to live alongside it will lose most of the benefits that they moved to the country to gain. Then too my next door neighbor=s great grandparents moved into the Bend in 1851 and fought the Comanche here. Think how they must feel after that history. The right of eminent domain does not take those cultural benefits of the property into consideration. And even if it did there is no way you could compensate my neighbor, or even me, for moving us off this land.
2. It will destroy wildlife habitat and migration patterns wholesale. That area south of San Antonio toward Laredo is prime deer, javelina and turkey and quail and dove country. All along the proposed route of the TTC there will be deadly harm done to the habitat of wildlife, no matter how careful the constructors are. The TTC will cross the Rio Grande (three times), the Nueces, the Frio, the Leona, the San Antonio, The Colorado, the Guadalupe, the Brazos and the Trinity and the Red Rivers as a minimum, probably more depending on final route. The wildlife habitat and historic site destruction that will be caused by the massive right of way envisioned for the TTC will be almost indeterminate.
3. Quarrying of concrete aggregate and road base and the manufacturing of asphalt for paving will cause further heavy stress on the environment in an area already tearing up many pristine wildlife habitats. It will take acres of gravel pits and quarries to build a mile of roadway and all of the bridges and service roads. I have often said that I keep house like this was a gravel pit but I hate to see the State of Texas or the Federal Government embark upon any program that will increase the number of eyesores which this amount of gravel, sand and limestone will call for. Asphalt manufacture is already a contributor to air pollution in the state, and this will increase that problem.
4. The hauling of aggregate, asphalt and road construction materials is notoriously dangerous and a contributor to many accidents as well as undue wear and tear on the existing transportation infrastructure. Transportation death rates and repair costs of existing roadways and bridges will experience an increase when this program is in process.
5. There will be major delays in traffic for years due to interference of TTC construction at intersection points with the existing interstate and state highway system. Many farm-to-market roads and county roads will be closed off altogether because of the expense of permitting safe intersection by overpasses or underpasses to the TTC.
6. The smuggling of illegal contraband and illegal immigrants from Mexico will be assisted and aided by this project. Under the guise of “Americans don’t want these jobs” thousands of immigrants will actually be recruited to work on this major construction project, and they won’t go home.
7. Current planning envisions the letting of a contract to a Spanish company to build and operate the toll road. This in effect is bolstering the technology base and managerial acumen of the Spanish company and creating a sure competitor for US companies in future international business. It is ironic that the U.S. assures the success of its overseas competitors. After World War II there was a “Japanese Marshall Plan” in which we rebuilt Japanese industry to some extent. When I was seeking a source for very large waveguide for the Very Large Array antenna farm in Socorro New Mexico I found that equipment to manufacture 28 miles of this large precision waveguide were available in only one place C Japan. And we gave it to them under the “Japanese Marshall Plan”. Why do we want to make a Spanish company the number one road building company in the world?
8. It is almost a surety that the Texas Legislature will be asked to pass a law to the effect that all commercial truck traffic on the current I35 be forced to use the TTC and thus pay the resultant toll. Another case where the government messes in private business and determines their profit and loss by regulation or law. This action will almost surely result in increased freight rates because the trucking companies are already burdened with very heavy fuel costs and license fees and taxes. The truckers will have to be forced to use the toll road and I can envision several deceptive practices they may adopt to avoid doing so. And if a north south toll road built by a Spanish company is a good deal what about an east-west Texarkana to El Paso TTC for the convenience of the two coasts? Surely we can find a Japanese or Chinese company to build and operate that.
9. Our judicial system is now stretched to its very limit by vacant judgeships and frivolous tort suits. How can it support hundreds if not thousands of eminent domain suits and appeals? I would also expect some of the more active environmental organizations to file a number of suits even though I notice that
proponents of the TTC have already issued an environmental study showing that no harm will be done.
10. The program will create jobs and boost local economy. It is true that it will take a lot of jobs to build this toll road both on the road construction itself and on the supporting industries such as bridge beams and girders, sign fabrication, asphalt fabrication and aggregate quarrying and hauling I think this is a viable advantage that the proponents of the program have. There is no denying that the project will increase jobs and that some of them such as heavy machine earth moving equipment operators will be top notch jobs. I don=t believe that the temporary increase in jobs during the construction phase will be worth the nine negative factors which precede it.
Theoretically the TTC will make it faster to get from the northern Texas terminus of the toll road to Brownsville, Laredo and Del Rio more quickly than use of I-35 or other existing roads. I haven’t seen an estimate of how much quicker but the question that comes to me is, "Who cares?" The people who will be hurt by this project are the thousands of people displaced to acquire the right-of-way and the many more thousands of people forced to live by the side of a bustling, honking, dusty, unsightly TTC. And of those people who will be hurt how many of them will go to Laredo three times in their lifetime or give a hoot that it took them an extra hour or less to get there. Must we become like another California with government regulation concerning every possible act and taxes on every conceivable thing to pay for it? There are many things that money could be better spent for. It hurts me to see it spent even if I am wrong about the items above. We just don't need it. And since it is a government project it will most likely exceed estimate in its cost by a factor of three C just look at the minor project in Boston. And all we are really providing is three more routes for the drug smugglers, the immigrant "coyotes", and al Qaeda to come join us.
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Doc
His real name was John Alfred Arrington Turrentine but almost no one called him by any one of those name. He was my father’s younger brother. His mother even called him “Doc” except for the times she was scolding him. The origin of the nickname goes back to the time that he was about 12 years old and a gypsy carnival came to the small town of Lancaster near where he lived. Both John Alfred and his brother Frank managed to scrape together the few cents necessary to attend that carnival and the additional few cents necessary to have their fortunes told by an old gypsy woman. She predicted a great career for John Alfred as a noted physician and an equally notable life as a minister of the gospel for his brother who was my father. The prediction was not accurate but from that day on John Alfred was known in Lancaster as “Doc” and my dad was called “Preach.”. The name stuck on into adulthood with Doc but didn’t follow my father that long.
As I have explained in other correspondence the father of Doc and Frank disappeared without trace in 1912 while enroute to the Panama Canal to work there as an engineer. The ship that he was ticketed on from New Orleans burned and sank at sea but his name was not on the passenger list. This loss of their father caused Doc and Frank to become very close and they remained very close all of their lives.
Doc was a confirmed bachelor during the years that I was a child. He didn’t marry until he was in his late forties. He lived with his mother and stepfather on a rented farm near Lancaster and was a well known figure in the small north Texas town. He served at one time on the school board. He was an active Freemason and attained the 32 Degree by both the York and the Scottish Rites. Mostly he worked on the farm operated by his stepfather but also took other jobs in the winter when farm work was not so pressing. He worked at a lumber yard, He was a conductor for several years on the inter-urban train between Dallas and Waco. His formal education was limited to high school graduation but he read voraciously and expressed himself almost eloquently.
He had a very lively sense of humor and was not above practical jokes. But he liked board games such as checkers and Monopoly and we used to play many boisterous games before the fireplace on cold winter evenings. He was the typical Nietzsche image of “der blonde bestie” and yet he was very stern with himself in his moral code. He was almost without fear. He once told me apropos of nothing “When you go into a rough bar and begin to wonder if you are going to get out alive just keep your mouth shut, no one but you knows that you are not the toughest one in the bar.”
It would be inaccurate to say that Doc was gregarious but he was very sociable. He was polite and conmsiderate in his language and he was usually abreast of local, national and world news as well as all of the local gossip. But Doc had a tendancy to draw people out in conversation and succeed in getting them, into an intolerable and inaccurate position.; He did this so adroitly that few people recognized that he was doing it or even that he had done it when they found themselves in that position. He was also one of the lucky people who could laugh at themselves and if he did something stupid he would tell it about as readily as though someone else had been at fault.
Doc was a master dog trainer and yet he never seemed to devote any time or effort to training. He had one German shepherd named Carlo that seemed to understand every word he said. Doc would be reading the newspaper on the front porch and without looking at Carlo would say in a conversational tone "Carlo, I wish you would go get the cows". Carlo woul;d bound off toward the pasture and soon return with the family's cattle for milking
Doc was very fond of me yet he kidded me unmercifully about being overweight and referred to me as "Tubbles". He was always ready to sit and devote his complete attention to me and any problem I had. He talked to me as equal to equal and never pulled any punches about what was right or wrong. I once discovered that a boy named Jack Lemon had stolen a pocket knife of mine. He was considerably bigger than I and I was a bit scared about confronting him with the crime. I asked Doc if I should tell the school principal about it. Doc told me that unless I confronted Jack with the theft and demanded that he return the knife that I would always wonder why I did not. It was good advice. I did confront him and he did admit the theft and returned the knife and my crisis was over. There were many crises like that which Doc helped me solve and from which I learned to respect his advice.
He had a tremendous respect for work as a developer of character and cared little for those people that did not work and earned their living by guile. Doc said that the pleasure of making things with their hands was a God given gift to men. In his later years he left the farm and moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and was a turret lathe operator for Ling Temco Vought Corp at the same time that I was employed by that company.
Doc was a teetotaler. I never knew him to drink anything alcoholic. Although Doc never said it I got the impression that his avoidance of alcohol was because my father was alcoholic. He smoked cigarettes and died of lung cancer in his early seventies.
He was a good man and I miss him.
Preach (L) and Doc (R)
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Notable Relatives
For some time I have intended to write a series of biographical sketches about relatives of us all or close family friends that I knew perhaps better then you did because you are so much younger than these relatives. I will frankly admit that none of these people are famous nor are they so unusual that they would stand out in a crowd. They were rather plain people but in them I found a wealth of love and care and concern that made me happy that they were there and I want to perpetuate if I can their lives so that you may see a glimpse of the people that they were. All of the people that I write about here are now dead. Many of them you will never have heard of or had any desire to know; skip those if you like.
Very few of us have the originality and creative thought of a Galileo or a Descartes. Instead of thinking out our view of the world we mostly develop it cafeteria style from those with whom we associate. We become products of all the people around us and especially those for whom we have a great respect. I think that those people that I have outlined are in large measure the source of my world view. I learned a little in emulation of all the people I have listed below.
Weldon Hamilton
Weldon was my mother’s younger brother. He was the only son in a family of four daughters. His parents were Walter Thomas Hamilton and Mary Ellen Dennis Hamilton who I called “Mama” and “Grandad” all my life. As I have explained in other writings I used to spend the summers of my childhood at my Grandad’s farm so that family came to be my second family as I grew up. ,During the summers that I spent there both Weldon and his younger sister Rowena were still living at home and had not yet married. Weldon was born in 1914 on May 14 so he was only thirteen when I was born and by the time I was old enough to have memories of him he was in his last teen years and was approaching young adulthood.. He was one of my heroes and all of my life I longed to be like him in many ways.
He was an unusually talented , gifted and gentle man. He was a master craftsman and I have often said of him that given the tools and the time he could build a Swiss watch and if necessary he could make his own tools. In later life he became a general supervisor of aircraft assemblers at North American Aviation during World War II and after the war he was a Superintendent of Manufacturing for successively Temco Aircraft Corp, , Ling-Temco-Vought Corp, and finally for Chance Vought Aircraft Corp. In addition to being an artisan he was a skilled and effective leader and manager and won significant recognition in the industry as a manager. Since I worked in the same companies that he did I knew many of the people who worked under his direction. Since our names were different very few people at that company knew that we were related and I received many candid and honest appraisals of Weldon’s character as boss; they were all favorable and laudatory.
I came to know Weldon best though as a helper to his father in running the 160 acre tenant farm in Hale County Texas near Plainview. It was an irrigated farm supplied with water from the wonderful Ogallala aquifer which underlies a great part of the high plains of the Texas Panhandle. The water was lifted to field level at the rate of twelve hundred gallons per minute by a huge single cylinder diesel engine of British Manufacture that had a most unusual method of starting up. On top of the single cylinder was a round knob about the size of a softball which was heated red hot with a blow torch. When this had been accomplished Weldon would run to the side of the engine which had a huge six foot diameter flywheel with five spokes and would walk the spokes of the wheel turning it backward to compress the fuel mixture in the cylinder until it would explode and suddenly kick forward with enough force to carry it into the next combustion cycle. When Weldon would feel the compression tightening up his walk on the spokes he would jump off the flywheel just before the ignition of the first cycle of the engine. He was only thrown through the tin top of the pumphouse once that I knew about.
My Grandfather was a very traditional man and for many years did not want a tractor. He used as a justification of this position the theory that a tractor tended to pack the ground in the field.. He preferred to continue to operate the farm with a four horse team. Weldon finally prevailed on him however and they bought a tractor which was his pride and joy. He loved all things mechanical. Weldon had a an unusual trait which a few master craftsmen have. He could disassemble that tractor or an automobile down to the bare frame and put it together again wearing a white shirt and never get a mark on his clothes. He was the cleanest worker I have ever known and the tools in his tool chest were immaculate and orderly.
Weldon also had the capability of assuming, in jest, a facial expression that scared small children almost beyond measure. When tried on my cousins and I who were about nine years old by this time it did not work and merely amused us but the smaller children would be petrified. Weldon had a good sense of humor. He played the harmonica well and the Jew’s Harp and frequently entertained we younger children with concerts. He was aware of some of our major sins and never betrayed us to the adult world.
He was not without health problems. He had frequent tonsilitis and had his tonsils removed when a young adult and the operation was not without complications. He had severe indigestion as a teen-ager which my grandfather blamed on his eating bakery bread and prepared cereals rather than biscuits and oatmeal.
Weldon married in 1938 to Leona MacElroy that I thought was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. Weldon came to Dallas and went through a training program to become an Aircraft Assembler on the P51 Fighter line at Grand Prairie. In an incredibly short time he was a supervisor and remained in management with that company and its corporate successors for thirty years or so until he retired.
All of his life Weldon loved cars. When he would get a car new to him he would park it in his driveway on a white sheet to check for drips of hydraulic oil or lubricatiuon grease or engine oiul from a loose fitting. He would systemetically torque all oif the frame bolts and every threaded device he could reach from benjeath the car to assure that there was no loose hardware under there. As a general rule the interior of his car was always neat and clean no matter what its age
There is no doubt that smoking was a contributor to Weldon’s ultimate death. He was a heavy smoker for many years and he died of respiratory complications.
He was my mentor in more ways than most people knew. His advice was quietly and kindly given and I never knew it to be in error. He died in 1998 and I have since sorely missed him.
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