Whispering Pines Nature Trail at Tyler State Park – Photo by the author
I’ve been wondering, lately, what I’ll leave behind. What mark will I make on the world? Not that I’m planning to kick off anytime soon, but recent events have certainly brought that to mind. When you have to gear up for a Target run like you’re preparing for the apocalypse, it brings home the certainty of your own mortality.
Mushroom Along the Trail – Photo by Andrew Shaw
Andrew and I have determined the safest space for us is outdoors. We might encounter a snake, have to brush off a tick, or bring home a rash from poison ivy, but there’s little risk of inhaling a deadly virus, as long as we keep our distance from our fellow hikers. There’s plenty of room for all outside.
Loblolly Pines at Tyler State Park – Photo by the author
We traveled down Interstate 20, to Tyler State Park. As we grew closer to our destination, the earth beside the highway changed from the blackland prairie soil to the red clay dirt of East Texas.
Hiking Trail at Tyler State Park – Photo by the author
Like many of our beautiful national and state parks, Tyler State Park was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) during the Great Depression. Andrew and I hiked along a trail and climbed steps laid into the ground over eighty years ago.
Steps and Waterfall Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1938 – Photo by the author
Outdoor etiquette instructs us to be careful, to leave no trace when we hike. Our footprints on the trail, stamped into the dust, will be swept aside by the next traveler. We take nothing but peace from the space. As we trekked along, under a canopy of green, I thought what a wonderful trace the young men of the CCC had left behind.
Whispering Pines Nature Trail at Tyler State Park – Photo by the author
How fortunate our land had Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president during that trying time. When FDR established the Civilian Conservation Corps, he created hope and opportunity, not just for the men who would lend their labor to creating a legacy that would live on past their lifetimes, but for all who would visit the parks in decades to come. The challenge then, for each of us, will be to examine our steps and determine what trace our actions will leave for future generations.
Tyler State Park, Tyler, Texas – Photo by the author
On a sunny Sunday afternoon Andrew and I drove to Ladonia, Texas to look for fossils. They’d been waiting for discovery some eighty million years, so we were in no particular hurry to arrive. Small towns with quaint names peppered the map along the path we traveled – White Shed, Honey Grove, Allens Chapel, Pecan Gap, Wolfe City, Birthright, Ben Franklin, and Flat Prairie. I ignored the blacktop road beneath our tires and focused on the fields flashing past. I imagined we were retracing the route of an Old West stagecoach.
The North Sulphur River
We turned off Highway 34 and into the gravel parking lot at the entrance to the park. There were no facilities – no restrooms, no ranger station, and most important – no ticket booth and no admission charge.
To reach the riverbed we clambered down a steep concrete staircase, more suited to goats than late-middle-aged women.
“I can hold your hand,” Andrew offered.
“I’m afraid I’d just pull you down with me, and we’d tumble off together,” I said.
The “Stairs”
Erosion had carried away the bottom portion of the staircase. We were able to sidle along the side of the embankment and reach the riverbed. The buzz of passing cars and trucks sounded beside us, on the bridge spanning the river. Once we reached the bottom the noise filtered away.
The View from the Bottom of the Stairs – North Sulphur River
We brought a garden trowel and a plastic grocery bag to carry away any treasure we unearthed. Visitors are allowed to collect anything they find along the banks or in the riverbed. While Andrew sifted through the loose shale that lined the bank, I strolled along beside the shallow water.
Shale Banks of the North Sulphur River
The clear water carried the boiled-egg stink of sulphur, so I resisted the urge to wade in the river. We found fossilized oyster shells and imprints of pre-historic plants, immortalized in the soft, grey rock. The shale crumbled, like cake too soon from the oven.
“We’ll have to come back, and bring more tools,” Andrew said.
I imagined the trek down those stairs, while weighted with shovels, trowels, buckets and brushes. “Maybe,” I said.
Right before we left, a group of people – three adults and a dizzying clutch of children – stopped to chat. One of the men told us he’d heard the park would soon be closed. “They’re going to open the dam upriver,” he said, “and this place will be underwater.”
Pausing at the top of the staircase, I gazed back the way I’d climbed and imagined, instead of the thin stream of water below, a vast spread of sea.
Photo by the author – Ammonite fossil on the hiking trail at Cleburne State Park, Texas
There are times when you just have to go somewhere. I imagine every unmasked stranger carries not just Covid-19, but some alien spore that will launch from their chest like a special effect in a John Carpenter movie. We are living in a badly plotted horror flick. When I heard the Texas state parks were open again with limited capacity, I signed up for a day pass to Cleburne State Park.
My husband Andrew and I arrived at the park just before noon. Texas in June is more suited to early morning or late-night hikes, but we had packed plenty of water in our CamelBak hydration packs. Andrew chose the trail. Although it was marked on the map as “Challenging” it also appeared to be the one with the most shade. Equipped with boots, hat, and hiking staff – I felt I could handle the route.
At the start of our hike, as we trod smartly along the tree-lined path, I hummed the tune to The Happy Wanderer.
Photo by the author
If you went to school in the 1960s or early 1970s, I bet you know this song. We sang it at every choir practice or music class. It was written by Florenz Friedrich Sigismund (1791–1877) and since I’m sure the copyright has long since passed, here are the lyrics:
“I love to go a-wandering, Along the mountain track, And as I go, I love to sing, My knapsack on my back.
Chorus: Val-deri,Val-dera, Val-deri, Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha Val-deri,Val-dera. My knapsack on my back.”
We passed a little stream as I reached the second verse.
Photo by the author
“I love to wander by the stream That dances in the sun So joyously it calls to me Come join my happy song”
The trail Andrew and I climbed, while not exactly mountainous, did have enough elevation change that I felt compelled to stop every few feet and rest. Panting might help dogs to cool off, but it did not work for me. I would have collapsed on the juniper needles blanketing the path, but for the green poison ivy poking up in every level spot.
“How much farther?” I asked Andrew.
He pulled out the map and considered it. “I think we are a little less than halfway to the scenic overlook.”
“I hope there’s a bench there,” I said.
We continued along, Andrew in the lead and me following. I stared at the trail, carefully avoiding anything resembling a stick that might turn out to be a snake in disguise. We spotted a lovely ammonite fossil and I stopped to take a picture.
The fossil reminded me the area we hiked was, in prehistoric times, the floor of an ocean. The limestone we walked on was made up of the skeletal remains of marine life that inhabited that sea. If only we were wading through that cooling water now.
“Do you still have plenty of water?” Andrew asked as we paused and I soaked a towel with cool water from my pack.
“I’m good.”
“We don’t want to get heat-stroke,” Andrew said, “but I’ve heard that’s a pleasant way to die. You just pass out and go.”
“I’ve never thought of any sort of dying as pleasant.”
“Well, yes, but of all the ways to go,” Andrew continued, “I think if you kick off first, I’ll just head to the desert and walk until I’m gone.”
The trail leveled out along a stretch of wildflower filled, sunlit fields. I sipped my water and mentally checked off the symptoms of heat-stroke. I occurred to me that worrying over heat exhaustion had so consumed my thoughts that afternoon that I hadn’t thought once about dying in the pandemic. Not even when we passed other, unmasked hikers on the trail.
At one point we scrambled down an incline of loose scree, our feet sliding almost from under us. I grabbed at the cedar tree branches bent over the trail, in order to slow my descent. Andrew waited for me at the bottom, then held my hand and helped me climb up the other side. I studied Andrew’s back as he pushed on upwards. His hiking boots kicked up tufts of dried leaves and gravel.
“If I die first and you decide to go off hiking in the desert,” I said, “box up my ashes and take them with you. That way you won’t be alone.”
“All right, I suppose that could work.”
Right after, we discovered we’d been on the wrong trail. We ended up at the point where we’d begun the loop, not a bad thing as we were near the trail sign that pointed to the exit.
I’ll be back inside next week, waiting out the pandemic. I’ve never liked crowds, or crowded places where large groups congregate, so I don’t miss those types of gatherings. I do like my solitary pursuits – reading and writing, but I’m always glad of Andrew’s company. When you’re on a journey, I think it’s nice to have someone by your side. Or leading the way, watching for snakes.
My husband Andrew and I have both been working from home the past few weeks. There have been some adjustments related to space. We’ve agreed all pooping is to take place in the bathroom farthest from where our desks are set up.
It’s funny the things you notice when you spend 24 hours a day with another person. Andrew discovered I have a “work voice.” It’s like a secret identity where my superpower is cursing.
I binge watched Tiger King last week. I’ve decided Carole Baskin did kill her husband, but it probably didn’t have anything to do with them working together. Maybe. There are no tigers at our apartment complex.
We do have squirrels. They’ve grown used to the both of us being home everyday and they march right up to the glass door on the patio. Like they’re ordering food at Jack in the Box. We’re giving them names. I call the one that knocks over my plants You Bastard.
While we’re in quarantine I’m trying new things. I’ve got a sourdough starter going. Everything I’d read made the process sound pretty easy, but I’ve found it’s like raising a third child. I have to feed it twice a day and keep it warm. I’m knitting it a scarf.
Breathing in, I calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment I know this is the only moment.– Thich Nhat Hanh
Photo by the author – image enhanced with the Waterlogue App
We got our produce delivery today and the box included four bananas. I still have two bananas left from the previous week. Bananas, it seems, are not in short supply. I haven’t been able to find flour anywhere, and I’ve gone so far as to put a 50 lb bag in my online cart at a restaurant supply store. I would have ordered it too, despite the $20 delivery fee. But it was sold out.
I see folks selling flour on Ebay, for twice the price at the grocery store – if the grocery stores actually had flour in stock. I’m not a charitable person. I’m wishing weevils on all those Ebay capitalists.
Andrew suggested we plant wheat, but our balcony is too shady for large scale farming. I’m trusting my 5 lb bag of flour will last until the current crisis is over.
I have, however, started a crop of a different sort.
Sprouts!
Andrew and I are fortunate. We both have jobs and we’ve been working from home, our only inconvenience the inability to just run out and purchase things. This would be tolerable and healthy for our budget, if it weren’t for the stress the loss of control brings.
This morning as I unpacked our produce box and considered the two sad bananas left sitting on the counter from the previous week, I decided I wanted banana pudding.
“Do you want to go to the store and buy ‘Nilla wafers?” Andrew asked.
I considered the logistics of grocery shopping. Gloves, mask, hand sanitizer, dodging crowds of shoppers who can’t seem to grasp the concept of social distancing – “No thanks,” I said.
I decided instead to make the entire dish from scratch. It turned out pretty well, plus I had the satisfaction of creating something I wanted. Who knew cooking could bring back some sense of control to my life? (I guess the people buying up all the flour already knew about the power of baking.)
I found the recipe for my made-from-scratch banana pudding here: I Am Baker
I’m trying my own sourdough starter next, acting on faith that flour will be back in stock soon.
I hope everyone is safe and snug at home. I’ve given up the search for toilet paper. Instead I hear my mother’s ghost warning me each time I approach the bathroom. Toilet paper must have cost more in the 70s.
“Don’t use so much! Stop spinning that roll!”
Mom grew up in the Great Depression. She told me they used the Sears Roebuck catalog, but not the slick pages. Also they’d save corn cobs after they ate the corn, then stock the outhouse with the dried cobs. She claimed they burned them later, for fuel.
We aren’t quite there yet, my husband Andrew and I are well provisioned with most things, except eggs and bananas. I’ve found a local 7-11 that stocks bananas so all that is left is for me to adopt a chicken and we will be ready for any apocalypse.
So what do you do all day when you shouldn’t go out?
Books
Better World Books – Purchase a used book here to help support worldwide literacy programs.
Thrift Books – Another cool site for used books. Free shipping on orders of $10 or more. They also support a prison literacy program.
Nowhere Bookshop – If you’re a fan of author Jenny Lawson you’ll be excited to shop her store before it officially opens. Order a book online and support a great independent bookseller.
Any independent bookstore in your area. Amazon will survive the pandemic but small, local stores will struggle. These places also employ staff and contribute to your local economy. Consider shopping local online before you send your money to Amazon.
Food
Farmbox – If you’re in the Dallas Fort Worth Area they deliver a selection of local organic produce. I was able to order a good variety of fruits and vegetables. If you’re outside DFW, search for local produce delivery. Chances are they will have a decent selection available and can restock faster because they are buying from area producers. There’s always 7-11 for bananas.
Imperfect Foods – I’ve just started with this service. Their first box had a very limited amount of produce available, but I was able to add yogurt, ground beef, and ground turkey at a reasonable price. Higher than my local grocery store, but I won’t have to go fight infected crowds. If you’re interested in checking them out, here’s a link for $10 off your first box – http://imprfct.us/v/terrye_3
Minimus.biz – They sell tiny travel size products. They’re out of hand sanitizer, but take a look at all the other products. I love ordering the individually packaged salad dressings for when I take my lunch to work. These will come in handy when we are allowed back in the office.
Future Learn – Take a class for free. You can purchase unlimited access or view the courses for free for their duration plus 14 days.
The Great Courses – They have a 14 Day Free Trial. Or check out your public library. Mine offers access to the Great Courses for free, through the Rb Digitial app.
Kanopy – If you run out of things to binge on Netflix, check out Kanopy. If your public library or university is a member (most are) you can stream free movies.
Audible – They’re offering free stories for children for as long as schools are closed.
Drive-in theaters – If you’re not under a stay-at-home order, you can visit an old-fashioned drive-in theater. Many are open now, but they might not be able to offer a snack bar and probably will have limited restrooms open. If you’re willing to travel and stay put in your car, you can bring your own snacks and have an adventure.
Social
Zoom – Hang out with your bookclub, writer’s group, study partners, friends and family for free video conferencing.
Postcrossing – Connect with the world the old-fashioned way, through the mail. Join here for free and they’ll give you addresses around the world. Send a postcard and you’ll be added to the list to receive one. Don’t have postcards at home? Make your own. Use up those fancy notecards, index cards, or stacks of Christmas cards you never used. Make sure anything you send meets the postal regulations for size. Order stamps here without leaving your house – USPS.com
Good luck friends in isolation, drop me a comment below and share your favorite way to spend time during the pandemic.
I wandered into the dark room at the museum and stepped through into another dimension. Sound surrounded me – soft voices lifting in song and sweet notes issuing from musical instruments. The experience of viewing The Visitors, a video art installation by Ragnar Kjartansson, haunted me long after I’d left the Dallas Museum of Art.
The piece features nine screens, eight of them showing individual musicians in separate rooms of the same house, performing the same song. They shot the ninth screen on the front porch of that house, the Rokeby mansion in New York, a historic site once owned by the Astor family.
I wandered up and down the room housing the exhibit, pausing at each projection to marvel at the beauty of the setting. The rooms in the video, with their gently fading wallpaper and antique furniture, reflected a vision of loss and regret that echoed in the lyrics of the song. Later I discovered the words were based on the poem Feminine Ways, written by Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir, Kjartansson’s ex-wife.
The music built and swelled, rising in a crescendo then falling to whisper quiet. Standing in front of each of the life-sized screens, I felt like a voyeur, viewing ghosts instead of recordings. In one scene, a man sits on the edge of a bed, electric guitar in his lap. Behind him on the bed we see a woman’s bare back, the curve of her shoulder lifted into the lamplight. As I paused at each screen—the cello, the accordion, the pianos, the guitars—I felt as though I were the ghost, wandering through an afterlife of such intimate moments.
Art touches our soul, reminding us we are fragile and alone. At the end of the video the musicians gather in one room. They sing around the piano, the words this time joyful. One artist pops a bottle of champagne in celebration, another lights a cigar. The troupe strolls out across a broad green lawn, singing. I am left with that last image – of individual lives come together to create something beautiful.
It’s Christmas Eve, and I’m looking for Santa. Not the jolly elf in red pajamas, my Santa is a six-inch tall ceramic bank. He’s just like the one my mom had, the one she saved quarters in all year to have money for Christmas. Mine doesn’t have quarters. It came without the rubber stopper at the bottom, and any money I stashed there would fall out like it does from my wallet when Bath and Body Works has their 2-for-1 sale.
Birthday presents were purchased with S&H Green Stamps. We did all our grocery shopping on Wednesdays, double stamp day at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store. The cashier would hand out a strip of the little green trading stamps, the number of stamps calculated based on the dollar amount of groceries purchased. I got to keep and redeem at the Green Stamp store any books where I had licked and stuck the stamps on the pages. I remember them tasting like spearmint, this may or may not be true.
I bought my Santa bank at an antique store in Jefferson, Texas, spurred on by a desire to replace each iconic artifact from my childhood. You know you’ve reached a certain age when every toy you ever owned is now “vintage” and “collectible.”
Every year in December my mom would bring out the bank, and I’d help her drop the coins into dusty paper wrappers. She’d pull out the stopper and pour out the quarters, a pile of clinking silver on the tabletop. Always quarters, and never dimes, nickels, or those useless bitter pennies.
I knew my parents bought my presents, but I also believed in Santa – the one with the flying reindeer. How can you believe in something and yet know it isn’t true? Have you ever looked at a triple chocolate cake and said to yourself, “I’ll just have one bite?”
I had a stocking every Christmas, and Santa always left one orange, one apple, several peppermint canes, and a handful of nuts. I’d have presents too, bought with those carefully wrapped quarters. The years went by, the name “Santa” on the gift tag replaced by “Mom” or “Dad”. We still stayed up late to watch the television newscasters predict the path of the jolly elf’s journey.
My mother loved stories, she’d act out the tales of Br’er Rabbit and recite what she remembered of Tom Sawyer’s adventures. She loved Santa and the Tooth Fairy equally. I believe she got as much of a thrill placing the gifts under the tree and the quarters under my pillow as I got joy in receiving them.
I finally located my Santa bank on top of the book shelf in our dining room. His face is familiar, and when I pick him up, I can imagine the heft he’d have filled with coins. My parents filled my childhood with the wonder of a magic elf who’d visit the good boys and girls on Christmas Eve. I wasn’t disappointed to learn the truth, because the best gift they gave me was the gift of imagination.
When I was seven years old, my parents lost me at the State Fair of Texas. Their last sight of me, I’d slipped into a crowd of folks shuffling into a garish tent on the midway. I imagine them watching as I stood in line, my hair done up in twin pony-tails in the style we called “dog ears” and my sweaty little fist clutching the ticket to the freak show.
You’d be hard pressed to find a decent freak show now. This was 1967, when no one thought it unusual or awkward to put people on display. We have the internet for that now, but in the 60s you had to show up in person. I didn’t know what to expect from the sideshow. A bright splash of colored posters flapped against the outside of the tent and promised many miracles. An alligator boy, a sword swallower, the pincushion man, the world’s ugliest woman—they all waited inside.
The last one on this list drew me in. I’d started wearing glasses, a homely set in thick tan plastic that magnified my eyes to the size of saucers. Coupled with the elastic waisted pants and polyester tops mom dressed me in, from a distance I resembled a short, middle-aged housewife. Add in my under-bite, square jaw, and the nose I grew into, and you’ll get the picture. I couldn’t wait to spot the world’s ugliest woman.
Once inside the tent I fidgeted through the first part of the show. The only audience member shorter than five feet, I faced a solid fence of adult backsides. I hopped up and down, afraid I’d miss the one act I’d wanted to see. I caught the flash of metal as the sword swallower flourished his props, and from the collective sighs and gasps as the other performers took the stage, I understood they had displayed wonderful things.
At last the slick sideshow barker announced we could all move into a curtained off area to the side of the stage. “Only one additional dollar, folks,” he said, “and you will witness a site certain to frighten children!” The barkers gaze skimmed the crowd, measuring the size of our wallets. “Any patrons with weak hearts might want to skip the act.” I dug the last of my allowance from my pocket.
Half the crowd jostled through the curtains to arrive in a roped off space the size of my living room at home. I pushed my way to the front, determined not to miss a bit of the show. We faced a wooden platform, taller than I was, and barely large enough to support the plain kitchen chair placed in the center. Another set of curtains covered the back of this makeshift stage.
“Presenting the world famous…”
I don’t remember the woman’s name, the color or length of her hair, I couldn’t guess her age. The curtains at the back of the platform parted to allow her passage onto the platform where she settled on the little chair and dropped the robe that covered her body.
There must be some mistake, I remember thinking. This was not the World’s Ugliest Woman. Extraordinary designs—red dragons, blue and yellow birds, circles and flowers and bright flourishes covered every inch of her. I supposed the parts hidden behind her bikini top and shorts were also inked. When she smiled the tattoos moved along her face, as though they held a separate life from hers. She perched on the chair, smiling down at us, her supplicants. I wondered what she thought of me, so plain, so ordinary, without a single story drawn upon my skin.
I didn’t notice the others slipping out from the tent as I stood there, entranced until the sideshow barker, with a gentle nudge, told us, “Thanks for visiting folks.”
Released onto the fairgrounds, I wandered out into the sunlight to find my mother and father standing on either side of a uniformed policeman.
“Where were you?” My mother snatched my arm, dragging me away from the dark shadow of the sideshow tent as though it might suck me back in.
For answer I waved behind us, as a new stream of fair goers exited from the front of the tent. This was where most of the group I’d been a part of had left the show, strolling out past my waiting parents. I’d appeared almost twenty minutes later, from the back of the tent.
“Never again!” My mother vowed.
That was my first, last, and only visit to the freak show. Years passed and they replaced the freak show with exhibits of bizarre animals. The two-headed turtle, the world’s largest snake, the sheep with six legs—none of them had the alluring charm of the World’s Ugliest Woman. There was a brief time when the midway claimed to have a girl without a body, but we all knew that floating head trick was done with mirrors.
I went to the fair this year with my husband, Andrew, on a Sunday, a day when the crowds shuffled shoulder to shoulder past booths selling sheets, candles, cookware, and beef jerky. The air smelled of cotton candy, stale beer, and manure from the livestock barn. We left the carnival music of the midway fading and ducked behind a row of food stalls. With Andrew’s help I perched atop a concrete retaining wall, above the crowd as they streamed past. I wore a t-shirt with the smiling face of Big-Tex, the 55-foot statue greeting the crowd at the fairgrounds. His cheeks stuffed with fair food matched mine as I enjoyed my meal. I nodded to those passersby who met my gaze, and waved to the onlookers, the audience at the show.
My mother, grandmother, and aunt in Farmersville in the 1950s
The places we visit are never as perfect as they are in our memory. My grandmother’s house in Farmersville, Texas no longer exists. A remodeled version of the Dairy Queen I visited as a barefoot child sits beside the highway and still serves up chocolate dipped cones and cheeseburgers. You can see the Dairy Queen from the overpass where I used to stand with my cousin and spit on the cars passing below.
Dairy Queen – Photo by the author
My husband and I drove up to Farmersville on the weekend, a short day trip from our home. Over bridges spanning the lake, past trailer parks and fireworks stands to the little town that was once the Onion Capitol of North Texas.
The Onion Shed in Farmersville, Texas – Photo by the author
The Onion Shed sits near the town square. In the 1960s I helped my mother and grandmother fill burlap sacks with discarded onions, the rejects spilled and tossed onto the grass from the railway cars where the Collin County Sweets were loaded for shipment. No longer filled with the round yellow bulbs, you can find a flea market there on the first Saturday of each month.
The plaque at the Onion Shed
A portrait of Audie Murphy among the items for sale at the Clay Potter Auction House
We wandered through antique stores on the town square. I am always surprised to find the toys like those from my own childhood, stacked on dusty shelves and labeled “vintage.”
There were no toys in my grandmother Mattie’s wood frame house. A print of Jesus knocking at the door and a framed copy of the TV Guide with Johnny Carson on the cover decorated her living room wall. If I slipped from my mother’s view I would have just enough time to explore Mattie’s bedroom. I could hide under the fuzzy chenille bedspread and peak out through the fringe skirting the bottom where it brushed the floor. Visiting children were turned out into the yard, chased from the house by apron-wearing women too busy with cooking and serving to put up with our foolishness.
Window display – Photo by the author
Small towns often have treasures tucked away, to be uncovered by those with time and patience to wander. The post office sports a mural painted in 1941 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
WPA mural in the Farmersville Post Office – Photo by the author
A short walk to downtown from Mattie’s house, over the railroad tracks and to the pecan tree shaded park, and I could find the snow cone stand there in summer. Crushed ice in a paper cone that dissolved as the treat itself melted to slush in the heat. But I could drink the last of it, my hands, lips, clothes stained red, purple, blue, green.
Old Electricity Generator in the city park – Photo by the author
There were no snow cones for sale on the day we visited, but I bought a Dr. Pepper from one of the stores. Andrew and I sat and shared the drink on a bench near the old movie theater downtown.
The movie theater in downtown Farmersville, Texas – Photo by the author
Closed for years, posters from films starring the hometown hero, Audie Murphy, hang on the front. I imagine my mother there on a Saturday night, palms slick with butter from the popcorn.
We ended our visit with a stop at the Odd Fellows Cemetery. My grandparents, Grover Cleveland Cullum and Mattie Elizabeth Watson Cullum, are buried there, as are their parents. We searched for their graves but couldn’t locate them. I hadn’t been there in years and the day was too hot for much effort. The one place in town that hadn’t changed but I couldn’t rely on my memory to find the family plot.
We did see some interesting gravestones.
Farmersville 100F Cemetery/Odd Fellows Cemetary
“Some of these people were alive during the Civil War,” Andrew commented.
“Yes,” I said.
Tired and sweaty, we climbed into our air conditioned Honda and headed home. Past the shops downtown, the onion shed, the park, the railroad crossing, stopping at last near the overpass so I could hop out and snap a photo of the Dairy Queen. Then onto the highway and home, leaving behind the layers of memory. My mouth, dust dry as I lean over a metal guardrail, the low mournful train whistle in the dusk, the sharp scrape of sidewalk on bare feet, the candy syrup from a grape snow cone, icy cold contrast to a dog summer day. The scent of sweet onions, yellow and round as baseballs, hidden like Easter Eggs in the soft green grass.
Let's Get Out of Here 