Loose Ends at the Battle of San Jacinto--A Series--The Texian Flag

                

Col. Sidney Sherman, Soldier and Statesman of early Texas.  The first steam locomotive in Texas was named "General Sherman," after this man, not after the yankee general, as many assumed.

      One of the company commanders at San Jacinto, Colonel Sidney Sherman, was born in Massachusetts in 1805, orphaned at age twelve, worked his way to New York City, then on to Cincinnati, and finally across the Ohio River to Newport, Kentucky.  He built a prosperous business there and married a twenty-year-old Southern Belle, Catherine Isabel Cox, in April, 1835.  

      Sherman, along with other Cincinnati friends and acquaintenances, suffered from "Texas Fever."  Cincinnati was a hotbed of Texas sympathisers, filled with men who saw possibilities for untold wealth in the Mexican territory.

      A rally for the Texas Revolution was held there in November, 1835.  Sherman attended and pledged his support for the young, would-be republic.  The citizens of Cincinnati, at the urging of Mayor Isaac Burnet, voted to donate the “Twin Sisters,” two small cannon, to the Texians.  Sidney Sherman asked for volunteers to join him for an expedition to help the Texas patriots secure their freedom.

     Such volunteer groups sprang up all over the South, stirred by the letters of William Barret Travis, Sam Houston, and others commissioned by the Texas government to enlist volunteers.   The Texas rebellion became “the” war for this generation of young Southerners.  Too young for the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812, these young men longed for the romance of a conflict to prove their merit.  The Texas Revolution, viewed as a righteous fight of American patriots against Mexican despots, was made to order for their needs.     

      Sherman's new bride must have approved of his marching off to Texas, for he sold his business and used the money to arm and outfit fifty-two young adventurers, known variously as the “Newport Volunteers,” “ Kentucky Riflemen,” or “Sherman’s Newport Volunteers.” 

     In late December, 1835, at a going-away party for his troops, Sherman’s new bride presented him with a battle flag made by the “Ladies of Newport” for the Volunteers.  This flag depicted Miss Liberty, with her perfectly shaped left breast exposed, holding a sword with the banner, “Liberty or Death.”  Private James A. Sylvester added a lady’s long glove to the flagstaff as a talisman.  The glove had been presented to him by a lovely Southern Belle at the off-to-war dance in Cincinnati.  The flag, with the lady’s glove, was proudly carried to Texas by the Newport Volunteers.

     The Alabama Red Rovers, the Mobile Grays, and several groups from New Orleans were already on the road to Texas. Sherman’s group hurried to get there while there were still enough Mexicans to go around.

      Sherman's Newport Volunteers went directly to San Felipe, planning to move on to San Antonio and join Travis at the Alamo.  The acting governor, Henry Smith, saved their lives when he directed them instead to Gonzales to report to General Houston for orders.  Though disappointed and spoiling for a fight, they obeyed the governor.

      Sherman and his troops joined the Texian army at Gonzales in late February, 1836,  to await the arrival of General Houston.  Houston merged them with the First Volunteer Regiment, under the command of Col. Edward Burleson, and placed Lt. Col. Sherman second in Command.  By the time they reached San Jacinto, the army had grown so large that a Second Volunteer Regiment was formed.  Despite his lack of military experience, Sherman was made a full colonel and put in charge of the new regiment.

     Sam Houston knew the importance of symbolism to the morale of an army, and especially to his ragged little group.   As he prepared for the most important battle of his life, he searched desperately for any symbol to rally his troops.  TheTexian army had no flag, no marching band, nothing to signify and maintain unity. 

     Sherman’s original fifty-two troops had the only real uniforms, so Houston put them near the center of his skirmish line, along with the rest of Burleson’s First Volunteer Regiment.  He noticed the Newport Volunteer's flag and insisted it be moved to the center.  Lady Liberty, with her perky breast displayed prominently, and the lovely Cincinnati Belle’s long glove hanging from the shaft, took front and center, between the Twin Sisters. 

Miss Liberty as carried by the Heros of San Jacinto and sewn by the Ladies of Newport, Kentucky.  This is the reverse side of the flag as it is displayed behind the Speaker's platform in the Texas House of Representatives.




 

      Houston’s call for music was answered by a free black man with a drum and a German boy who played a fife.  Two others joined them with unknown instruments, perhaps a fiddle or something homemade, and to Houston's delight, they played the only song all four of them knew—a ribald saloon ditty considered risqué at the time—Come to the Bower. 

     With nine hundred men lined up in a skirmish line 1,000 yards long, a flag in the center and a makeshift band to keep time, Houston's troops were ready for battle.  At three-thirty in the afternoon, Houston mounted his great white horse Saracen, drew his sword and started his troops across a mile of pastureland for an eighteen-minute battle that would change the history of the world.

To Be Continued….

Big Mike Brown at the World Championship Barbeque Cookoff

One of Jim Goode's Barbeque Pits on the way to the Houston Cookoff, back in the day.

                          

     I passed another milestone yesterday.  On September 15, 2013, I became seventy-seven years old.  I don’t really celebrate birthdays anymore, but I do notice them.  One of the good things about having a lot of birthdays is that a long life gives you time enough to meet and get to know a lot of interesting people.  I have many friends because I have lived a long time and I like people and I like to hear what they have to say and laugh with them about this funny world we live in.  My only rule about friends is “Please don’t bore me.”

     “Stormin’ Norman” Hanks, “Big Mike” Brown, and Bob “Booger” Poland were among the friends I used to work the Barbeque circuits with.  We talked and we laughed and we cooked Barbeque together.  None of these guys could ever get near being boring.  When you’re seventy-seven, you think back and remember.  This is one of my memories:

      The Houston Livestock Show committeeman came by to enforce the rule prohibiting private vehicles at the team locations for the World Championship Barbeque Cookoff.   Mike Brown explained what appeared to be a pickup parked next to our area, was actually not a pickup, but a UFO.

     “Well now, I admit, in this light, it does sort of look like a white GMC pick-up.  But when it came down and landed, it was shaped like one of them discuses they throw in the Olympics.  Silver colored.  You shoulda seen it.  We watched them three olive drab fellas get out of it without opening the door.  Just stepped right out on the pavement through the side of the machine, like they wasn’t nothing even there.  Then one turned around and pointed at it and it quit being a silver discus-looking thing and started looking like a white pickup truck.”

     “Tell him what them green varmits did to ole Smokey Rawlings, Mike.  Tell him what happened to ole Smokey.”  Stormin’ Norman enjoyed adding reinforcement to Mike’s tales, even though Mike didn’t need any help.

     “You know Smokey, don’t you?  He was our committeeman.”  Mike drawled.  “Well, ole Smokey come up on them guys and told them to move that truck.  Like you, he thought it was a pickup, parked in the pedestrian zone.  One of them green dudes pointed at Smokey and lighting flashed out the end of his finger and ole Smokey went ‘pop’ and disappeared.  All is left is that oily spot on the pavement over there.  See the light shining off it, right there next to our front gate?”

     “Now wait a minute, Mike. He didn’t go ‘pop’.  It was more of a ‘poof.’  Smokey went ‘poof’ ‘fore he disappeared.”  Norman corrected.

      “You trying to tell me a little green man went ‘poof’ and Smokey disappeared?  What you all been drinking?  Smokey must weight two-eighty-five.  He’da left a bigger spot.  Which finger that fella use to do all that pointin’ with, anyway?” The committeeman was getting into Mike’s story.  He didn’t believe it, but was curious.  He wondered where it might go.  Mike was playing him like a trophy bass on a light-weight fly rod.

     “Why, he used his long finger.  Only had two on each hand, and one was a foot long.  His thumbs were short, though.  All of Smokey didn’t settle down on the street in that one spot, neither.  Most of him went up in smoke and drifted over there towards the supper tent.  People smelled it.  You could tell.  They’d get a whiff and look over here.  Pretty soon everybody was looking over here. I really liked Smokey—gonna miss him.” Mike’s story was taking on a life of its own. 

      Mike Brown prided himself on his ability to create Prime B.S. out of thin air.  He had decided that he was not going to move his truck.  The truck came in handy in a lot of ways, and all he had to do to keep it was B. S. a couple of committeemen into overlooking a silly rule.  That was no step for a stepper.  Mike was a salesman—he made a good living passing out Grade A B.S. 

      As the evening progressed, the team-members started to place bets on the action.  Odds were running eight to five Mike would succeed and leave his truck parked there for the duration of the cookoff.  Only ones that bet against Big Mike didn’t know him.

     “Ah’ll tell you what Ah’m gonna do.  Ah’ll take a turn around the grounds and be back here in about a hour.  Ah hope that truck is gone when Ah gets back.  Ah’d hate to have it towed.”  The official walked through our entry and out onto the street.  He carefully stepped around the oily spot.

      Mike fired a parting shot as the committeeman left. “O.K., sir, but I’m afraid to touch that UFO.  Ain’t no telling what might happen if them green dudes rigged it someway.  They can do anything—they made it look just like a pickup.  I wouldn’t get too close if I was you.” 

     The official passed near the truck and lifted his hand to pat the hood, hesitated, then stuffed his hand in his pocket and hurriedly strolled away.  No sense tempting fate.

      About two hours and several beers later, the committeeman strolled triumphantly back into our assigned space, with Smokey Rawlings in tow.  “Looka here who Ah found.  Now, let’s hear that bunch of crap again.  Start over at the part where Smokey went “poof.”

     “Oh My God, it’s a miracle!  A miracle!  Are you OK, Smokey?  You look good, considering.  Where’d them alien bastards send you?  Did separating all your molecules hurt?”  Mike was genuinely concerned.

     “They ain’t nobody done nothing with me.  I ain’t been nowhere, ‘cept here and over yonder, doing my job.”  Smokey’s porch light was on, but it was pretty dim.

     “Norman, get over here—it’s worse than we thought.  They hit him with a Amnesia Ray.  He don’t remember nothing.”  Brown was talking fast, constantly ad-libbing, letting his instincts guide.

      Norm, wide-eyed, said,  ”You don’t remember telling that chartreuse fellow to move that truck and him giggling and zapping you with that long finger?”

     “Nothing like that never happened—I’d remember getting zapped by a green dude.”  Smokey’s porch light flickered.

     Brown moved in for the kill.  “Not if they hit you with a Amnesia Ray.  I bet you don’t even remember how you turned on Miss Lake Jackson so much, she French-kissed you in the ear?  Do you remember that?  If you don’t, it was the A-Ray for sure.”

     “Miss Lake Jackson sure is purty, but she didn’t kiss me in the ear.  I know I’d remember that.  You sure that happened?” Smokey was glowing, remembering Miss Lake Jackson and hoping she had kissed him.  He rubbed his ear.

     “She told me she was just overcome with emotion while you was looking down the front of her dress, and she couldn’t help herself.  She just hauled off and planted her tongue in your left ear.  Who knows what it takes to turn on a woman like that?  Smokey dang sure found the way to her heart.  Look at that lipstick on his ear.  He needs a memory jolt.”  Big Mike was rolling.

     “Miss Lake Jackson says for you to go hang around the committee tent and she’ll be over later, when she can control herself.  She don’t know why, but when you stare at her with those little close-together eyes, she just has all these chemical reactions happening inside.  She said she’ll be by around midnight, if that’s all right with you?”

     The next morning, Mike Brown drove the truck into Houston, picked up 300 pounds of crushed ice and four dozen Shipley’s donuts, and waved at the security guard as he drove back in.  He parked in the same spot, right next to our space.  A truck comes in real handy at a barbeque cookoff.

Lubbock Has a History----Part Two

Springtime moves across the Tech Campus in Lubbock.

     Lubbock County was formed as an unorganized county on August 21, 1876.  Forty-seven other Panhandle and South Plains counties were formed by the state legislature that day and Lubbock was attached, for administrative purposes, to Young, then Baylor, and finally to Crosby Counties.

     By 1880, the census of Lubbock County showed twenty-five residents, most of them sheep-herders in Yellow House Canyon.  Ten years later, in 1890, the population had grown to thirty-three full time residents, but a boom was coming later that year. Texas was offering very liberal terms to homesteaders and many had discovered that farming was possible and profitable in Lubbock County.  By late in that year, a heated race was developing for County Seat.

        County Seat was big stuff back then and two factions in Lubbock County worked toward getting their town selected.   The competition was fierce and the rewards were great.  Lots in the County Seat enjoyed large appreciation in value and small fortunes were made overnight, with the potential for more speculative profits for years to come.  One of the towns, “Old” Lubbock, rested north of the Yellow House Canyon in the vicinity of the current Lubbock Country Club.  That town contained about thirty seven buildings and around fifty people.  The other contender, Monterey, was platted south of the canyon and contained about thirty two buildings and about forty people.  A third settlement, Estacado, was located near the eastern edge of the proposed county, where Paris Cox had settled.  It was a small, not very aggressive community, and had no ambition to be the County Seat, but its citizens could vote to help select the winner.

      As the competition heated up, the developers got “high behind” and gave away lots to any settlers willing to build.  Construction continued in both towns, with lumber and other materials brought in by railroad to Amarillo or Colorado City, then shipped by wagon to Lubbock County.  Neither of the warring factions could afford to lose and the odds were too close to call.  They took a tack unheard of in that time. 

     The developers sat down together and worked out a deal.  They would pool their resources, select a third site, acquire it, and move all the buildings to the new township.  After the site was selected, acquired and surveyed, the lots would be parceled out fairly, in a checkerboard fashion, to each party who participated in the agreement.  The existing buildings in each town would be moved to the new location within thirty days, and an election to formally organize the county and name the County Seat would be scheduled as soon as practical after that.  As to travelers and other visitors not being able to find the new town, that was no problem.  It was less than ten miles from either location.  On the High Plains, you could look over there and see it.

     These folks came up with an agreement in December of 1890, and a site very near the center of the county, south of the canyon, was chosen.  The site was acquired for less than $2000.00, surveyed, parceled out, and the buildings were moved.  On March 10^th, 1891, barely three months later, the election was held and the “new” Lubbock was named County Seat.

      This incident speaks volumes about the competence and energy of those pioneers.  It also may speak a page or two about the size and complexity of their early buildings.  If my math is right, they moved sixty eight buildings and about a hundred people in just a few weeks.  They made special provisions for the only two story building—the Nicolette Hotel—to be moved within two months.  All the rest of the buildings were moved within thirty days. 

      The enlightened self-interest and the willingness to compromise as demonstrated in this early agreement permeated the actions of Lubbock’s civic leaders from that day forward.  The ability to act intelligently and decisively has defined the character of the Texan in literature and folklore for as long as there has been a Texas.  These High Plains Texans possess all the characteristic traits of the legendary Texan of folklore in a more concentrated form.  They are truly “Super Texans”.

      By the 1900 census, 293 people resided in Lubbock County.  The City of Lubbock was incorporated in 1909.  Cotton began to replace grain sorghum as the principal crop, railroads came and Lubbock County started to out-grow the neighboring counties.   Texas Technological College opened in 1925.  Meat and dairy processing plants opened.   Hospitals and hotels built high-rise buildings.   Lubbock became “The Hub of the Plains.”   

The Lubbock High School building was built for $650,000.00.  The contractoe ran out of money and finished the project out of his own pocket, in time to open for classes in the fall of 1931.

   

      The unlikely combination of city government, banking institutions and local churches all cooperated for “the good of the city”.  This spirit was established early on in the city and was passed down through the years as the best way to maintain order and insure stability.  The churches wielded a tremendous influence on the affairs of the city, perhaps more so than any other like-sized city in the country.   

       From the very first, the city of Lubbock was bone dry—no liquor stores, no beer joints, no honky-tonks, no saloons, no cocktail lounges.  If you wanted a drink, you dealt with a bootlegger or you drove about a hundred miles in any direction to a “wet” town.  Lubbock’s churches were full every Sunday and most Wednesday nights.  The churches were strong, both morally and financially. Pastors of the larger congregations were as well known and influential as any city politician, and better known than most bankers.  Every protestant belief was represented, along with Catholic and a congregation of Jews.  There was not a lot of animosity or competition between the various congregations; there were plenty of sinners to go around.  They worked together with each other and the city for what was considered the greater good.

       When I came of age, in the mid fifties, the city of Lubbock was only about sixty years old, and was already approaching a population of one hundred thousand people.  It had been among the fastest growing cities in the nation for at least thirty years.  Lubbock had been voted “Cleanest City in Texas” so often that it dropped out of the contest.  Some few failures were offset by one success after another.  The agrarian mindset; hard work, frugality, “make do with what you’ve got” mentality, combined with self reliance and optimism made anything possible.  Progressive attitudes, willingness to take risks and “outside the box” thinking all combined to make progress not only possible but inevitable. 

Modern-day Lubbock at night.  Lake in foreground most likly photoshopped.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lubbock has a History----Part One

       

Blanco Canyon, east of Lubbock.  In 1871, Quannah Parker held plains warfare classes for Ranald Mackenzie here.

       The country around Lubbock is not exactly what would be called a scenic wonderland, but it has been prized as a place to live for many centuries.    In fact, the Lubbock Lakes Monument, just off the old Clovis Road and Loop 289 shows evidence of continuous human habitation for over twelve thousand years, the only place in North America with such evidence.  Early Amerinds killed and butchered wooly mammoths and giant prehistoric bison in the valley next to the lake.  During the reign of the Comanche, Yellow House Canyon was a favorite campsite.  The only route to New Mexico across the Llano Estacado with frequent and reliable water passes through the canyon.  The Comanche used this route for centuries before white men discovered it.   The Comanche kept settlers off the High Plains for four hundred years.  San Antonio and Santa Fe were bustling cities, but the Comanche owned everything in between. 

      From the mid 1850’s until late in the 1870’s,  Comanche took hostages—usually young children captured during a raid—to the mouth of Yellow House Canyon in southeast Lubbock County, where they traded the hostages for ransom.  Some were traded to other tribes, some to Comancheros, a few went to brokers hired to find children and some actually were ransomed by relatives.  The area became known as Ransom Canyon and is still called that today.

     During the 1870’s, the area around Lubbock saw bloodshed and violence as the Comanche fought to keep their hunting ground and the white man moved in to take it.  The decade beginning in 1870 spelled doom for the Indians and their way of life.  Before that, no white man lived on the Llano Estacado, and after that, buffalo hunters, with the encouragement of the government, set about to exterminate the buffalo.  After 1880, the Indian “problem” was solved.  Those left were systematically starved on reservations set up by the white man in areas deemed unfit for other uses.

      Texas was a state for over thirty years when the first settlers came to Lubbock County.  To put this in perspective, the golden spike completing the transcontinental railroad was driven in May, 1869, outside Ogden, Utah, and the Comanche still ruled the high plains of Texas.  The U.S. Army built forts across Texas, but no self-respecting Comanche ever attacked a fort.  If the army sent out two hundred troops, they saw nothing.   If the army sent out ten men, they found them roasted over an open fire.  Any settler within a hundred miles of the frontier was in danger.  “Frontier” in this case is defined as the line between safe, settled homestead land and unsafe Indian Territory.  The frontier in Texas actually moved back to the east during the Civil War.

     In the fall of 1871, thirty-one year-old Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie was ordered by General William T. Sherman to attack the Comanche in their foreboding homeland, the Llano Estacado.  No one had ever done that, but Mackenzie was well-suited for the job.  First in his class at West Point, almost brutal in the discipline of his troops, efficient and tenacious, he was called by U.S. Grant, “One of the most promising young officers in the army.”  Mackenzie set about to find and eliminate the Comanche.  In so doing, he became the greatest Indian fighter in American history.  Custer gained fame by getting killed.  Mackenzie remained anonymous by effectively killing Indians.

     Tonkawa scouts led the soldiers to a canyon east of present day Lubbock, where the young war chief, Quanah Parker, was camped with his band of Quahadi Comanche.  The twenty-three year old Comanche out-maneuvered the soldiers at every turn.  When the dust cleared,  one soldier was dead, seventy army horses, including Mackenzie’s favorite mount, were stolen, and the Indians disappeared in the vast and open plains.  Mackenzie tenaciously tracked the band across the plains, but eventually discontinued the search when a vicious “blue norther” struck.  Mackenzie felt this was a failed mission, but it was the first incursion, by anyone, into the heart of Comancheria, and it marked the beginning of the end for the Comanche.

     Three years later, in 1874, a better-educated Mackenzie followed a band of Comanche from the vicinity of Lubbock to Palo Duro Canyon.  Most of the warriors were away hunting, but the soldiers attacked the camp and killed all who resisted, mainly women and old men.  A large portion of the Indians escaped, but left behind all their possessions; teepees, blankets, food for the winter, everything.  Mackenzie’s troops also captured over fourteen hundred Indian ponies.  All the provisions, tents, and supplies were stacked and burned and the horses were driven to Tule Canyon.  The soldiers and scouts picked out the best horses for themselves, then Mackenzie had the remainder, over one thousand, shot.   In that one battle “Bad Hand,” as Mackenzie was called by the Indians, robbed the Indians of all their food, clothing and shelter for the winter, and put them afoot.  All during the winter, small bands of Quahadis walked, starving, into the reservation in Oklahoma.  Many others chose to simply starve or freeze to death on their beloved Llano Estacado, where they had lived and hunted their whole lives.

     The bones of a thousand horses were left to bleach in the sun, just below the caprock in Tule canyon.  Curious visitors drove out to see them well into the 1900’s, and an entrepreneur sold the remains for fertilizer.

     The last battle with Indians in Lubbock County took place in March of 1877, and was fought by a group of buffalo hunters and Comanche from the reservation in Oklahoma.  Black Horse, a Comanche Chief, had permission from the Indian Agent at Fort Sill to hunt Buffalo on the Llano Estacado.  He took over two hundred braves, mostly Comanche with some Apache, but instead of killing buffalo, the Indians killed and mutilated a buffalo hunter near present-day Post.  The hunter, Marshall Sewell, was double scalped, mutilated, and left skewered on his rifle tripod.  Friends found and buried the body, and forty-six hunters, bent on revenge, went in search of the Indians.

      The Indians were camped in Yellow House Canyon, near Buffalo Springs Lake.   The battle took place over a two day period and was fought along the length of Yellow House Canyon, from Buffalo Springs Lake, through what became Mackenzie State Park (named after Col.  Mackenzie) to the Lubbock Lake site, northwest of town.  Twelve of the hunters were killed and they killed 21 Indians.  The Indians escaped to the north and were eventually escorted back to the reservation by U.S. Army soldiers from Ft. Griffin.

     Barely two years later, the first white settlers in Lubbock County came in wagons from Indiana.  In 1879, four Quaker families, led by a fellow named Paris Cox, settled in what is now northeastern Lubbock County, near the Crosby County line.  Cox and his sons built a “half dugout” for his family and the other three families chose to live in tents.  After the group suffered through the bitter winter, in March a violent sandstorm leveled the tents.  That was the last straw-- three families loaded up and went back to Indiana.  Cox and his wife stayed and their daughter, Bertha, became the first white child born in Lubbock County. 

      George Singer established a store in Yellow House Canyon sometime before 1884.  His store was located at the end of a spring-fed lake near the Lubbock Lakes archaeological site.  That is significant to me because I was born across the Clovis Highway from that site at a place then called Broadview Gin.  My parents left Henrietta, Texas, headed for California in 1934, and ran out of money in Lubbock.  That says something about their optimism and their financial condition, but not so much about their foresight.  They decided to work in Lubbock County until they saved up enough to continue their journey.  I have always been grateful that they didn’t go on.  I would have missed one of the great blessings of my life-- growing up in Lubbock.  What kind of guy would I have been if I’d grown up in California—Los Angeles or Pasadena or maybe Bakersfield?



 Ransom Canyon, at the mouth of Yellow House Canyon, southeast or Lubbock.  Look at that sky!  Always the same, always different, always magnificient!

To be continued.....

Coffee Cups

The Vanessa Mug, surrounded by other memories.

                                                   

     When Charlotte and I were wealthy and travelled a lot, we always bought some piece of art as a memento of each trip.  On our first trip to Maui we picked up a large piece of scrimshaw, with the image of a clipper ship etched into an antique ivory walrus tusk.  Once, in New York City, we bought a framed watercolor in a little gallery off the lobby of the Plaza Hotel.  We have ceramic “Day of the Dead” bride and groom statuettes from San Miguel de Allende, and a wedding cup signed by Maria Many-Goats from the Jemez Pueblo.  All this stuff is nice and we keep it together in a bookshelf and dust it.  Sometimes.

     I involuntarily quit being wealthy some time ago, but I haven’t ceased to travel.  Now, instead of art, I collect coffee mugs.   They are much less expensive, offer infinite variety, and are colorful and useful.  Two entire shelves in my kitchen cabinet are devoted to assorted coffee mugs. I drink out of a different one each day, and it rewards me with pleasant memories.

     Every morning I reach into the cabinet and blindly pick a mug for my coffee.  Sometimes I reach way back on the top shelf and sometimes I pick one in front on the bottom shelf.  It is important that I not repeat yesterday’s mug, because I don’t want to repeat that memory.  Memories are like old friends—they’re better when you stumble onto them and they come back into your life, fresh, vivid, and unrehearsed.

     Here is a mug from the gift shop at Crater Lake.  A little blond cutie with dimples and tight britches sold it to me when Wayne and I visited there.   Did you know that it snows over forty-four feet per year up there?  Not inches, feet.  Snow plows run year round.
    
     Mike Brown took his family up there once and it snowed--whiteout blizzard conditions--the entire time they were there.  Three days and they never caught a glimpse of the lake.  His son, the lawyer, stills calls it the "alleged" Crater Lake. 
    
     The white mug over here is from Scarlett O’Hardy’s Gone with the Wind Museum in Jefferson, Texas.  In back there is a black mug with gold lettering from the restored Georgian Hotel, on the beach in Santa Monica.  We got that at Rachel’s wedding—what a great week.

     My grandsons picked out the Route Sixty-Six mug in Clines Corners when my friends Collins and McMullen invited us up to Gunnison for fly fishing.  The boys will never forget that trip, nor will I.  Ben still gets a faraway look when he remembers all the bacon Mullens stir-fried one morning, and none of us will ever forget the fresh-caught, pan-fried trout James cooked over the campfire.

     This morning, I’m having my Columbian coffee in a “Vanessa” mug with the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame logo on one side.  The regular Ranger logo mugs were priced at $12.95, plus tax, but they had three leftover “named” mugs--Jonathon, Vanessa, and Susanna--on clearance at $1.95 each.  When I was single, a sweet girl in Houston named Vanessa used to do nice things for me, so I saved eleven dollars and got two sets of fine memories for the price of one.

     Involuntarily getting un-wealthy is not the end of the world.   I have a lifetime of memories…..and a cabinet full of reminders.

58th Reunion--Another Take--Tell it to the Marines

  

Dr. Davis Ford, moving quickly past the front porch of his Swankyenda at Lonesome.

 

   I should have known something was amiss when I tried to check into the Lubbock Holiday Inn at 1:30 PM on Friday, the opening day of our fifty-eighth High School Reunion.  I had been up to Davis Ford’s place, “Lonesome” in the far reaches of the panhandle, west of Hereford.  The setting there is magnificent—miles to the nearest town and four miles from New Mexico—but it is, as advertised, lonesome.  It is thirty-eight miles from the nearest restroom, and at least two miles farther from the nearest shower.  I stood there at the reception counter, tired, dirty, hungry, and smelling like an ancient goat.

     “You need to come back at four.  We are not allowing any check-ins until four.  Sorry about that.”  The smug, twenty-something, preppy desk clerk turned to attend to more pressing matters.

     “Now, you wait just a minute, young man! I need a room—surely there are some clean ones.  You don’t know who you’re dealing with here.  Peck around on that electric machine and find me a room.  I need a bath.”

     “You certainly do, that is not in question.  Our policies do not allow for early check-in.  The proper time is 4:00PM.”

     “I’d like to see your supervisor, right now.”

     “So would I, but she left with a wallpaper salesman last Tuesday and no one’s seen her since.  By the way, it is so much fun dealing with all you old people.  I love the way you sputter and stomp around and turn red about something you can’t do anything about.  It just makes my day.”

     I can do something about it.  I can karate chop the little snip in the Adam’s apple, and he won’t be able to talk for a week.  That’s what I’ll do.  I prepare to strike the devastating blow, and  realize I have not used that maneuver since 1958, in Marine Corps boot camp.  And there is that other thing—last week, I strained myself putting up the dishes; I can’t lift my arm above my shoulder.

     “You be sure and come back after four now, you hear.  I just love dealing with you older fellows.  You’re so funny.  This morning an old fart tried to karate chop me in the throat—his name was Merriman—said he’d been in the Marine Corps.  Musta been World War One.   It was hilarious.”

A Drill Instructor, calmly discussing the recruit's lineage.

     In spite of that cocky jerk, we had a great reunion.  As I looked over the crowd, I remembered when we were young, we foolishly wanted everything to be stylish.  We wanted the most desirable automobile, the best looking girl, the latest designer clothing, Italian shoes, British leather, the works.  Now, as we age, comfort has become more important.  The most popular footwear at our reunion, by far, was Nike running shoes.  I know all those people didn’t just get in from the track.  They wore the most comfortable shoes they own.

     Most of the ladies opted to wear something loose.  Some of the girls were slim, but even so, form-fitting clothing went out of style for them about thirty years ago.  Jogging suits were popular.  Of course, the men wore form-fitting clothing—they had no choice.  Wal-Mart shirts only come in triple-extra-large and those are pretty tight on some of us.  They stretch open to expose little swatches of pallid skin between the over-stressed buttons.  My shirt would not stay tucked in—I let it hang out. 

     As the meeting broke up and we started to drift away, Wayne Ratisseau came up to me.  “You hear about ole Frank Williamson.  Eileen took him to the emergency room—he threw his back out.  Tried to karate chop that smart-alec desk clerk.   Was Frank in the Marine Corps?” 

     As a baseball coach told me, long ago, “As long as you’re swinging, you’re dangerous.”  We’re still swinging—see you at the Sixtieth.  

Sunrise at Lonesone. I still get a thrill when I see the country out there.  It is plainly beautiful.

                                       

An Open Letter to my Classmates from Lubbock High School, Class of 1955

Lubbock High School after 19th street was widened.  Somebody watered the trees.  Five hundred twenty-six of us graduated from high school in this lovely building and went out to face the world in the spring of 1955.

      I wanted to write something meaningful and appropriate about our recent 58^th High School Reunion.  What is appropriate when so many are gone and so many others are ill and infirm?  What is meaningful, when close friends are hospitalized, clinging to life?  I think it’s appropriate to look for the positives in our situation.  I think it is meaningful to remember all the good things the members of this class accomplished.  I think it is time to look forward, feel good, laugh, talk, and visit with old friends.  I think we need to remember good things.

      While looking through some old papers last week, I discovered a small, thick envelope addressed to my parents.  Inside was another envelope, and inside that, a greeting card-sized leather-bound booklet.  Across the lower front, the words “Lubbock High” were embossed into the black leather and outlined in gold leaf.  An etching of the magnificent building we attended, and took for granted, filled the bulk of the space on the front of the announcement.

     On the first page, held in place by an embossed western saddle, an engraved card said simply, “Jimmy McLaughlin,” the young man I once was.  The overleaf displayed a brown-ink sketch of a cowboy, resting on a mesa, with his horse grazing nearby.    Beyond, gigantic thunderheads framed the overpowering West Texas sky.

     The next page revealed one single sentence, engraved in Olde English Script.  It read, “The Senior Class of Lubbock Senior High School announces its Commencement Exercises Friday, May the twenty-seventh Nineteen hundred fifty-five at eight o’clock in the Fair Park Coliseum”

     I was overwhelmed by the quality of the whole thing.  Unlike similar items today, no imitation leather, no production compromises, no skimpy shortcuts were taken.  I realized that is as it should be.  I remember the quality of the education we received in that memorable building.  I remember the teachers, the coaches, the administrators.  It is only fitting that all that quality should be reflected in our graduation announcement.

     Now, all these years later, we can look back on the lessons we learned, the attitudes we developed, the alliances we made.  We can be proud of our accomplishments and thankful for the influence this school had on our lives.  We can be grateful—for the High Plains, for Lubbock High School, and for each other.

     I know this is meaningful.  I hope it is appropriate. I enjoyed every visit, every story, every chuckle, and every guffaw over the entire weekend.  My only regret is that I didn’t get to visit with everyone.  I love you all.

                                                                                          Jim McLaughlin

The Lubbock High School Building as we knew it, during the early days of aerial photography.