My Brush with Fame

Many years ago when I first married I lived in an apartment in Taylor, Texas. My husband was in the military and was stationed at an army camp near Taylor. The apartment was in a house that was owned and lived in by the grandmother of Rip Torn, the movie actor. I never actually saw Rip Torn but I heard so much about him from his grandmother. He was a child then. She was such a nice lady and she invited us to go to church with her and her husband. They were members of a Lutheran church there in Taylor.

I did my washing out in her backyard with water heated in a big wash pot over an open fire. I am sure they had enough money to have running hot water to a washing machine in their house but for some reason they did not. She did her washing in big tubs using a washboard(some of you may have never seen nor heard of a washboard). A washboard is what they used to scrub their clothes on to get them clean. I am sure it was very hard on the cloth but that is what they did. Whenever I see Rip Torn in a movie it brings back all of the memories of his grandmother and grandfather so long ago in Taylor, Texas. That was my brush with fame, however light it was.