"BUT AS FOR MAN....HIS DAYS ARE AS THE GRASS....."

    The old sun has gone around 

        (so to speak)...the earth

and Pop's Place many times,

      since

it was built that long ago spring

     of 1938...and I, a small 

   boy of four, standing in 

an unfinished kitchen, with a sink

     still full of sawdust...

         asked for a drink of water...

O it was a grand home in those

    times... the boys hadn't 

marched off to war yet...and

    one was even at Texas and M.

And it was a marvelous country,

             then, with Americans

all acting like Americans...and

    there was work galore 

and long hours, and babies 

     to birth and raise, and

heal when they were sick...

There were fields to plow

     walking behind mules which

had ruined the shins of the

    plowers...with kicks...

Cotton to plant and hoe...

     and then pick...and hope

the weather or the weevils didn't

            mean:  "no income"

that year...

There were hogs to kill, for hams,

     pork chops, and sausage---

There were gardens to grow

     and veggies to can...

and cows to milk and butter to 

         be churned...

There were happy times like

     plucking sweet purple grapes

from the arbor or making a

     hand-cranked freezer of 

ice cream at big family dinners...

There were amazing breakfasts 

    of ham, sausage, grits, biscuits

and gravy, pancakes, Ribbon Cane

     syrup and homemade jellies...

preserves from the fruit trees...

Suppers after a long day might

     be simple like black-eye peas

and corn bread and "sweet milk"

    or "crumble in..." corn bread

in buttermilk, with onions..

For the long cold winter nights

    in houses with no fancy 

heating---the women got 

     together and quilted...and...

traded recipes...and news..

Saturday afternoons meant 

    heading for town where the

farm ladies sold their chicken

    eggs and "got groceries,"

            and the men

got haircuts, shaves, shines

     and then gathered on 

the "west side" of the town

     square, in the shade,

packing the sidewalks...

With their extremely hard

    and sometimes dreary and

demanding lives, I never

     heard of farm women ever

going to D.C. to march 

               and protest.

   Christmases there in Dawson Co.

      were never to be forgotten

  under the darkest sky and 

      brightest stars...with fireworks

   out in front of the house...and 

 eggnog and opening presents in 

         "the front room..."

  After being hit by lightning when

      a young man, and losing sight in

  one eye...and living in a half-dozen

      uninsulated gray-wood houses---

  my granddaddy Pop finally 

      saved up enough to have...

....a fine two bedroom, one bath, 

 kitchen, dining room, living room

       home with a big three-car

 garage which he called:

           "The Car House."

 (It had a boys' room on the back

     plus a separator room for milk)

 Someone failed to keep the Car 

    House properly roofed, and today

 it is no more. Alas.

 Pop's Place was surrounded on

     four sides  by a rare thing for that

day---a ROCK FENCE varying in 

       height  from three to five feet...

There was a poetic windmill on a

    wooden tower...where now there

stands only a pump house,

       with a motor...

He had a cow barn, with a hay loft

     and stalls for milking two 

or three cows, at five a.m. each

    morning

There was a chicken house, a pig

     sty, a brooder house for baby 

chicks---a tractor shed with a meat

     room on the right end, where

he made the sausage and hung the 

   meat to cure...

There was a smoke shack, a grape

    arbor,  a garden, a windbreak of

trees to the west---

      and elm trees everywhere

around...

The years, now about eighty of them

    have sped by since The Old 

            Family Farmhouse was brand

new and you could smell the varnish

    and plaster...it was white outside

with tight wooden clapboard siding,

    and had a black wood shingle 

        roof...as did the car house...

The nature of that marvelous land 

     of sand was---constant and forever

sandstorms blasting everything...

     with sand drifting to fence tops,

           almost... it was

perhaps symbolic of the vicissitudes

    of life and the determination of

those farm folks to "be" and to live,

    all the while, developing from

blanks into beings with spunk and

    grit and character, and wanting 

to become

         Children of the Heavenly

Father, fit beings to dwell with Him.

Time has taken its toll,  at Pop's 

            as the years

     are wont to do...the barn 

needs a coat of red paint, the chicken

    house is no longer pristine white---

Two-thirds of the elms have died, 

     and the rest are not trimmed

or shaped...

I haven't been there since '71 but

   photos show--it seems---

Every year a tree or an outbuilding

             disappears.

But it is the people who are missing,

    my grandparents, the uncles, aunts,

bothers, sisters, cousins---just about

                   ALL

are gone to their rewards...but

    the old "Home Place"

stands there on the slight hill like

     "some banquet hall, deserted,"

but a trove of great memories..

   of past times, good and bad...

a tribute to those who lived to 

     the fullest---the best

 they knew how.

------------

BY MIL

3 FEBRUARY 2018

Photo Billy Gilbreath