Looking back over my post, which began in early May, I have mentioned, No. 3 son and No. 2 son. I have not talked about No. 1 son. But I recieved an e-mail from him the other day and he has a new toy. A 4 wheeler. I can remember him asking me, “Hey, Dad, can I drive?” Now I am wondering what his reply will be when I ask him, “Hey, Son, can I drive?” I am going to remind him that most of the time I did let him drive,…. when there was little traffic or when we were in isolated locations or if I was not in a hurry or cranky or my wife was not in a hurry. Golleeee, I may never get to drive that thing, ….. maybe he will just remember the times he did get to drive…

I have two daughters, also. Precious girls who live in Tucson, AZ and Silver City, NM. And I have five grand children and one great grand child. I am very proud of everyone of them and love them all dearly. I will be writting about the others as incidents arise. I am not ignoring them, but I don’t think any of them especially like me writing about them…. We will see, dear ones, we will see……..

Oh, my son, the web master. ….You know what he did?….Please note on the right side of the web site we have a new category called downloads. You can click on it and …..presto…you have my downloads available to you. You no longer have to scroll down though all my old posts to find the, er, good stuff, just click right on it. We, I use the term, we, very loosely in this regard,  will be loading new stories from Cousins from time to time…stay tuned….

As promised, here is a chapter from my book, Cousins, Chapter Seven, Mrs. Old Lady Thornton, an old ghost chasing teenage boys in Alabama in the 1950’s.  I hope you enjoy it.  Mrs. Old Lady Thornton

Write, write, you writing man, turn out the words, you know you can, write about riding and rustling and stuff, about gunmen and flozzies, spittoons a’float: about shoot outs on main street, and jail breaks and hanging, horses a bucking; write something, oh wordsmith, just don’t leave us dangling.

There are some words in there somewhere, I just got to put them together. Let me see, horses, rye whiskey, corrals, damn sheep herders and farmers, barb wire fences,  tumblesweeds, by golly, I think I”m getting it…….

On Sunday I said to the wife, “Tomorrow is a holiday and we get another day off”. She either missed that statement or ignored that statement. Some bosses have no sense of humor, huh? I’m kidding, we had a wonderful weekend, had some of the family over (number two son did the grilling and number two son’s wife helped with the dishes allowing me to visit. (which is probably one of my best assests.)  The grandsons and I talked Atlanta Braves baseball and touring the southland. A very good weekend. Having family close is great, huh…….I wish the others were closer…..

Per Wikpedia, the free encyclopedia, comeS the following excerpt. General John A. Logan issued an proclamation on May 5, 1868 that a Decoration Day be observed nationwide:

General Orders number 11, Grand Army of the Republic Headquarters !. The 30th day of May, 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country……

…If other eyes grow dull and other hinds slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain in us.

   Let us, then, at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains, and garland the passionless mounds above them with choicest flowers of springtime; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledge to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon the Nation’s gratitude—the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.

You might like to go to Wikipedia.org and read all of the proclamation. Many wars and many soldiers, sailors and airmen have given their life for our freedom. I hope all of you will join me this weekend in honoring those who paid the supreme sacrifice for our freedom. Let us pray for those who today, fight in foriegn lands and guard our country’s border and shores, and allow us to sleep peacefully at night as they stand their watch. GOD BLESS AMERICA…..

Ok, so let us jump from the big city of Claunch, NM to the bigger city of Coal Fire, AL. Right on highway US 82, between Columbus, MS and Tuscaloosa, AL lies this quiet community. It has been quiet since most of us cousins left there a few years ago. There may have been a few others in between. For me, a few years in this context could be fifty years or so, longer for a few,  shorter for others. One or two cousins are still close to home, others at some distance. At 1212 miles, I might be the one furtherest (is that a word) from Coal Fire.  All of the cousins plan a get together in July, 2009. A little history on Coal Fire. At one time, according to my Dad, there were 3 steam sawmills operating in Coal Fire and at that time the population was around 800. Dad operated a barber shop for several of those years in down town Coal Fire. Between our house and the small store, at the time I first remember, there was a built up area that Dad said was where the railroad tracks that ran from the main line to the mills located north of US 82 and slightly west. Anyway, in the next few days I will make other post on Coal Fire, including comments on the creek that all of us cousins remember so well, the coldest dad-gum creek that I know of. I doubt that it has warmed up any. You folks write me if it is over 65 degrees now-a-days. With global warming, maybe it is warmer now. You remember how our lips would turn blue in just a short time?…. Let me know……..

What is it about Chapter Four that bogs me down on my writing? I have my main man down in El Paso now, ready to go to work on a ranch and then just, blank, nothing, nil….. Maybe I need one of those real cowboys to give me some work information on ranching since that is a very foreign to me. I mentioned round-ups to some folks down in Claunch the other day. He said yeah, we (his wife and himself) go out in what ever pasture they are working and blow an air horn and here come the cows. He routinely does that when he is feeding them and the cows associate the air horn with food. So he blows the air horn and bingo, round-up done. Maybe thats over stating it somewhat, but that is what he does. Did they have air horns in 1881? I could have my main man jump in his chevy pick-up and get after them thar cows!!! Tooting that air horn as he went…… well, maybe not…

Well, some of you might be ready for a new subject matter. You can just forget it for a while. The memories are just too fresh and vivid for me to move on now. I want to tell you about some folks I met and visited with. First, I want to tell you about two cowboys, real cowboys, not your city slicker, clothes buying type. I mean horse riding, steer roping, stepping in the cow shi….I mean stepping in the manure type cowboys. First, two young men that are something else, they have your cowboy boots, blue jeans, cowboy hats, and all that, but they walk the walk and talk the talk and both of them are four years old, Tye and Ernie, butTye let me know he was the oldest. Ten years down the road they will be molded into some fine young men. That’s the only two I will name is this post but, of the others,  the first one I met was there with a pickup load of stuff for the new baby. I know you think I’m lying, but as the old saying goes, no sir-ree-bob, I ain’t. Four of us went to unloading that dang pickup. And other that my host, of course, I met a couple of cowboys who had been branding all day and came over to visit. Both of them were your gen-u-wine type cowboys as well. Later, a family came over, a couple and their three sons, all student down at Carrizozo and all real cowboys, and they had been branding all day. There were some of my family members there, better said, some of my wife’s family members and they are all musican singers. The music went on way past my bedtime and I stayed up later than normal. It was such a good time. It will be etched into my memory for a while….. ok, I’ll try to move on to other subject matter, but I reserve the right to bring up Claunch again if another serious story hits me……..

The cyclone that I mentioned in reference to my Claunch visit was a very strange phenomenon. My host had some trash that needed burning, in a safe area, cleared of any  grass and brush, with several 55 gallon barrels for burning, with a large screen to cover them. He asked me to just sit in the pickup until he did the deed and then we would check some other things around the ranch. He was just behind my line of vision. The day was clear, no wind to speak of and very still. Suddenly, I heard a loud bang, then a 55 gallon barrel goes sailing though the air (we checked later and determined it was thrown 45 feet.) I only saw the barrel after the bang go sailing though the air. My host said, it was picked  up, slammed back down into the ground, then tossed through the air. The brush around us gave no indication of wind and the dust did not kick up. I stuck my head out of the window and called, “what the hell did you do” thinking that maybe a propane torch or something exploded. It was a very narrow strip of wind apparently that did this. Had that barrel hit either of us with the force that it had, could have inflicted serious injury. All this made me wonder why that happened, it was just so strange. Anyway, I read this morning in the Good Book, in Psalm 34:11, COME, MY CHILDREN, LISTEN TO ME; I WILL TEACH YOU THE FEAR OF THE LORD. Sometimes we forget the power of God and the control he has over the wind and all of natures forces. Well, He certainly got my attention again…….