Davy Crockett--Crockett Circle
There is a street in Paris, Texas named Crockett Circle. It was named after Davy Crockett, who was visiting relatives there in that area, slept under a tree located on what is now Clarksville Street. In a letter he had told his wife that he had "found paradise" and intended to relocate his family there in the area. Sadly, he was then en route to the Alamo where he lost his life fighting for Texas' independence. So he never had the chance to return to his paradise.
We lived very near, a matter of maybe two or three blocks from the very area where he slept under that tree. However, in the Google entry it said that no historical marker is placed anywhere near the site. I went to a school about two or three blocks from Crockett Circle and have been on the street many times. Crockett Circle intersected with Clarksville Street and it is a circular street, hence the name, Crockett Circle.
My aunt and uncle lived near an old city cemetery under the water tower at Graham Street and 5th SW. It is said there are a number of historically noteworthy grave sites in that cemetery. My children and their cousins played many times in that cemetery when we visited Paris back in the fifties and sixties. I don't know who the noteworthy grave sites hold but the cemetery was mentioned in the Davy Crockett article on Google. So maybe some of his relatives or friends are the noteworthy people.
So I feel as if I am in some small way connected to Davy Crockett since I lived very near where he once slept under a tree. HUH?
YUK!
Pictured above is a worm like the ones on a tree we used to have in our yard years and years ago. I don't remember what kind of a tree it was or what the worms were but in my memory they were very similar to the one in the picture. At a certain time of the year the tree would be literally loaded with the worms and they would also be all over the ground.A little boy lived right next door to us and he was something else! He loved to entertain us by picking up a worm and holding it on each end and then pulling and stretching it until it would break apart. YUK. I can still see the green juice pouring out of the body of the worm after it had been pulled apart. The little boy would then laugh and have a ball watching our amazement at his act of terror for the worm. I wonder if he grew up to be a terrorist?
Chocolate Cake from Scratch
Did you know, or maybe you have forgotten, that you can make a cake without using a cake mix? I have not made a cake from scratch for years .
This past weekend I had the kids here for lunch. We ordered pizza but I made the cake as a dessert. I looked and I had no cake mix on hand. Since I did not want to get out in the icy, snowy weather and go to the store I decided to look up an old recipe that I used years ago to make a chocolate cake. It is called a Watkins cocoa cake. It was put out by the Watkins Company which was a big deal at one time but I don't know if they even exist any more. Watkins sold quite a line of flavorings and spices. I think vanilla flavoring was their main thing. I remembered that the cake was a very good one and we used to eat quite a few of them.
Anyway, I dug out my sifter, mixing bowl, flour, sugar, cocoa, butter, milk and eggs and I began doing my thing. It has been so long since I sifted flour that I had almost forgotten how. After all that I remember why I use bought cake mixes now.
My cake turned out as good as it used to be and about half of it was eaten. I am now working on the other half by myself!
I cannot calculate the price of my made from scratch cake but I am sure it was cheaper than a bought cake mix. But I think I will pay the extra next time and save myself some work!
I Still Love Her!
Mary Ruth & Me --1932
Back in 1932 when Mary Ruth was about six months old, or maybe a little less--Mama took us to a studio to get our picture made; hence the above picture.
Along that time my mother had been noticing some little blue spots on Mary Ruth's neck and cheeks. She was puzzled as to what made the marks. She could not imagine what was causing them.
So one day she happened to be near when I was cuddling and nuzzling Mary Ruth. Suddenly, she heard Mary Ruth cry out as if something had hurt her. She investigated and found that I had put a hickey on Mary Ruth's neck. So that was the end of her puzzlement. She now knew that I had been doing that for some time. Of course I got a lecture!
I really loved Mary Ruth and the hickeys were the proof of that! I still love her now but I don't put hickeys on her any more!
My New Great Grandson, Braylon Allen Miller
Braylon Allen MillerThis is my new great Grandson. This picture was made in January. They said he was not very happy when they went to get this picture made. He doesn't look very happy.He was born November 30th so he is now about two and a half months old. He was about six weeks in the picture. He is my fifth great grandchild. I love everyone of them to death but I sure hope I don't have any more--soon. I am sure that Josh and Jake may have children but I hope not for a while yet.
The Box Factory
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You may wonder how a box factory has anything to do with the pictures above.
The girl in the picture with me is my friend from high school. Her name is Billy Jean White--her maiden name. I don't know her married name. I do have the picture of her husband but his name isn't on it.
When we were in school I used to go to her house sometimes after school. She lived near where I lived on North Main Street.
Her house was always cold in the winter because no one was home during the day and they never had a fire in their wood heater. She would load up the wood stove with kindling that they always got from the local box factory. They never had regular fire wood, just the pieces of kindling they got from the box factory. It was fine and it did warm up the house pretty quickly but it only lasted for a short time since they never had logs to put on the fire. They didn't have much money so I guess they couldn't afford to buy regular firewood. They could get the kindling from the box factory for free. I always went to my home with a warm fire in the stove.
I know they had very little money because she never had lunch money for school. A few of our friends and Billy Jean and I went to the drug store lunch counter at noon and bought our lunch. She always went with us but she never had any lunch because she didn't have money. Some of the time I would share my lunch with her. I always felt sorry for her because I knew she was as hungry as the rest of us. I gave her some of my chips and the olive off my sandwich a lot of the time.
Sadly, I lost complete track of her after her family moved to Fort Worth in about 1940 or 1941. I often wonder about her but I have no way of knowing how to get in touch with her now.
I hope she doesn't have to go to the box factory anymore for firewood. I think of her sometimes when I turn up my thermostat and then I am thankful for all of my conveniences in my life.
Pants on The Ground!
Isn't this awful?
Since I wrote about teenagers wearing raggedy jeans I have to write about something even worse: Pants on the Ground!
I can't imagine what has happened to this world or rather its teenagers. The new song, "Pants on the Ground," by Larry Platt surely hit the nail on the head.
When I rode the bus from here to Texas back last September I had my camera with me. I was so tempted to make some pictures of some of the grungy, horrible looking sights. But I found that I felt so conspicuous aiming my camera at them I failed to get one picture. However, I found plenty of pictures on Google.
Young men nowadays have no pride or decency at all. I wonder how they ever attract a girl --except maybe one of the girls with the raggedy jeans!
You can bet these boys will never be a US president or CEO of any company.
By the way, Happy Valentine's Day to all of you! I wanted to send everyone a box of chocolates but I don't want you to get fat!
Poor Teenagers!
How do your like these girls in their ragged blue jeans--especially the one on the left? I hate them--the jeans, not the girls!
I can't believe the prices they have on jeans just like these. My grand daughter was here to visit one day and she had on a pair just like them. She was so proud of them. I said , "How much were they?" She replied, "$65." I nearly fainted. I said, " You could go over to Goodwill and get them for maybe $5." I will never be able to figure why anyone would pay the price for those old worn out jeans instead of going to Goodwill or Salvation Army for them. No one could ever know where you bought your jeans anyway. Actually, she couldn't find any at Goodwill that bad!
I guess I just am an old fogy. But one with some money that I have saved from not buying stylish clothes! Even more foolish than the teenagers are their parents. They give their kids the money to waste on these worn out jeans. I may be an old fogy but I would never give money to a child of mine to use for such silly things!
One of these days I think these teenagers will come to their senses and be a little more thrifty with their money--at least I hope they do!
TOMATO PIE
Back in 1945 when Ford was stationed in Trenton, New Jersey, we rented an apartment there. The people we rented from were Italian. The lady introduced us to tomato pie--really sort of like our pizzas now. She made tomato pie and also another kind of pie which was just the bread dough sprinkled with Rosemary and some other herbs and baked that way. I fell in love with it.
I made it often after I came back to Indiana to live. Of course, Ford never touched it with a ten foot pole and still never did for the rest of his life. He hated pizza with a passion.
Actually, tomato pie was about the same as our pizzas are now. They didn't put pepperoni and all that stuff on it but it did have cheese and tomatoes on it. That lady used a lot of garlic in her cooking. I can't remember for sure but I think she did use some garlic on her tomato pies.
I had never heard of Pizza back in those days but after we had pizzas here I knew that it was the same as the tomato pie I had eaten in New Jersey back in 1945, only with more toppings.
Trenton was the birthplace of tomato pie and is known for its tomato pie.
Tomato pie was sold there as early as 1914 and maybe earlier.
So I can say I have been there and done that before all the rest of America even had a taste of Pizza!
More about Uncle Bernice
Uncle Bernice & his family
Uncle Gola & Uncle Bernice
While I am writing about Uncle Bernice I will write another story about him.
Uncle Bernice and his family were visiting with us one time and they spent a night at our house. We really got a good laugh out of this event!
All of the family was getting ready for bed. While Uncle Bernice was out of the bedroom My Mother slipped into the room and got Uncle Bernice's pajamas. She quickly sewed the legs together at the bottom. She neatly folded them and laid them back right where they had been.
When Uncle Bernice came back in and was putting on his pajamas we could hear him mumbling and saying all sorts of words, just short of cussing. As he was fumbling around trying to get into his pajamas Mama could not hold out any longer and starting to giggle and laugh. Of course as soon as he heard her laughing he knew what was up and he knew who did it. By this time the whole family was splitting their sides laughing. Mama laughed for years after that whenever Uncle Bernice
was mentioned.
Uncle Bernice and Mama have long been gone but I am sure they are in Heaven with Mama still doing jokes on him!
Have a Balot/Balut!
Above are pictures of a balot/balut and Uncle Bernice.
Uncle Bernice was one of my favorite uncles. He was the best educated, and sort of the smartest one of my mother's brothers. He was a career army man. I always thought of him as above all the rest of the family
Whatever he said really rated with me!
He was visiting with us once and he talked a lot when he visited. He was telling us about this kind of food he had learned of--I don't think he ate it he just knew about it--from the Philippines. It was called a balot and sometimes a balut.
A balot/balut was an egg, some said a duck, others a chicken, that was a few days from hatching. It was cooked and cracked open and eaten right from the shell, embryo and all.
My mother almost fainted from the thought. She thought that was terrible. Uncle Bernice was pleased that he shocked her so!
All through the years, many of them, I have had that memory on my mind. I knew the name for years but when I dug up that memory for a post on my blog, somehow, the name had escaped me. I kept thinking it was galoot, which was close, but then when I looked up the definition for galoot it didn't match. So I have searched for a few days trying to come up with the name Uncle Bernice called it. I know now why it was so hard to find. The word is not in my dictionary and it was barely listed on Google.
However, it is a balot or balut. It is spelled both ways.
All that being said, I never want to eat a balut!
My Wedding Day!
Sixty seven years ago this day I said my marriage vows. Ford and I would be celebrating our 67th wedding anniversary if he were living.
I miss him still. He has been gone for 10 years and it seems like 100 years ago.The picture above was made about four months after we married so I consider it our wedding picture. I was sixteen and Ford was twenty three--just kids!This date is also the birthday of President Ronald Reagan. I am not sure of how old he would be but I know for years I have noted that his birthday is on our anniversary or, actually, that our anniversary is on his birthday. It was not planned that way, it just happened.So I am quietly celebrating my anniversary today by doing nothing but I am surely remembering a lot!
Our Old House Making History!
We lived in our house at 5226 Reed Street for 25 years. We moved away in May of 1976 to this house I now live in. Nothing exciting ever happened there for us. Of course we were happy that nothing bad ever happened. And we did have a lot of very happy times there.It sounds like maybe something bad has happened there now. This article was in our paper a few days ago. I have been waiting to see what developed in the story but there has been nothing else in the paper about it. So I don't know if the man lived there or if he just went there to get help. Anyway, he died. I apologize for the small print of the article. I am not smart enough to be able to get it bigger. Anyway, down near the bottom of the article it says the man ran to the house at 5226 and police were taking pictures of that house. Since it never gave any names of the participants in the fracas I could not check out in the obituaries for the death of the man.I still feel an attachment to that house even though I have not lived there for 33 years. I would love to go in it again and see how different it looks now. The house is now 58 years old. It still looks as good as it did--at least on the outside-- when we moved away. We had red shutters on the windows on the front of the house and the shutters are still red.
My Brush with Fame!
I wrote a post back at the beginning of my blog that was titled "My Brush With Fame." I think it was about the second or third post I did.
I now need to change that title to "My brush with the infamous" after seeing this article in today's newspaper.
In the earlier post I said that I had rented an apartment at Rip Torn's grandmother's house in Taylor, Texas during WWII while Ford was stationed at an Army Camp near there. I never saw Rip Torn at all while I lived there for about 8 months. But I heard a lot about him from his grandmother.
His grandmother and grandfather were very nice people. They belonged to a Lutheran church and attended it regularly. We even went with them a few times. His Grandparents are probably turning over in their graves at this time over the way their grandson is living!
I guess when a person reaches the level of fame that Rip Torn has reached it changes them.
So, Grandma and Grandpa Torn, I hope your grandson changes his ways before it is too late. He is 78 years old now so he probably hasn't got that much time left to change!
I hope the article print is big enough to read.
