I’ve been on a break from blogging (and real work) the past few days on account of my family moving into a new house last weekend and the imminent arrival of this guy:

9 lbs 4 oz and 22 inches long, born yesterday, August 6, at 8:35 in the morning. My wife is doing great (she said he was going to be big, and she was right!), as is the big brother, who doesn’t know much what to think except that the new kid has apparently shown up with all kinds of gifts like new footballs and soccer balls in tow, so he can’t be all that bad.

Probably will get back to the regular postings sometime next week.

My grandmother, who on more than one occasion called home the farmhouse in the photo at the top of the page, got some nice Mothers Day press this past weekend on page 24A of the Snyder Daily  News. There’s no direct link to the article, so the text here is from a scan of a clipping that my dad sent me in the mail today. 

Me and Meemaw, Christmas 2002

SDN Column

by Roy McQueen

The feller on Deep Creek says, “A tourist who hesitates is not only lost, but finds himself miles from the next freeway exit.”

——————-

Gaye Nelle Greene attributes many of her life’s lessons to being raised in a big family, and by parents who taught them the importance of honesty and hard work. She was always frugal, but emphasized that those who gave 10 percent to the Lord and saved 10 percent would never have to worry about money.

She turned 92 last February, but Mrs. Greene’s mind is sharp – and if she had her druthers – she’d be digging in the garden and potting flowers – her second love.

Her first love is her family, and she still enjoys doing some human cultivating.

Family is important to Mrs. Greene and she comes from an era when brothers and sisters and cousins lived close by and enjoyed each other’s company.

Gaye Nell Greene was the 13th of 17 children born to A.A. and Mary Alice Powers McMillan who made their home on a dryland cotton farm about three miles north of Hermleigh.

“We had a musical family,” Mrs. Greene recalls. “I was the only one who couldn’t sing or play an instrument. But we would all gather around the upright piano and sing all afternoon and into the night… mostly gospel songs.”

Mrs. Greene said she often has been asked about why her parents had such a large family. Her answer reveals her quick wit. “Well, we had no electricity and no TV, so everybody just went to bed early.”

Gaye Nelle was born in Desdemona, Texas and moved with her large family to Fisher County at age five. In 1925, at age 6, the family settled in Hermleigh.

Two siblings died in infancy, but 15 of the 17 surviving brothers and sisters all graduated from Hermleigh High School. The two exceptions were the oldest girls – one born deaf.  “The oldest, Sissie, went through about the third grade and then stayed home to help take care of the younger kids,” she recalled. “Inez, who was deaf, found ways to communicate with all of us.”

The McMillan family lived just across the road from the Williams family. “They had 14 kids, so there were always people around and something happening,” she recalled.

Mrs. Greene says her late husband, Geral, was a brilliant man. “ He graduated from high school at 15 and entered Texas Tech. After two years of trying to decide what he wanted to do with no success, his father felt it best if he returned to Snyder and get a job.”

It was 1934 and Gaye Nelle went on a double date, but liked her friend’s date (Geral) better. In 1935, she and Geral married, and in 1936 Mackey was born.

In a couple of years, Geral decided he needed to return to Tech to complete his education. He finished in 1941 with a degree in journalism.

While living in Lubbock, Mrs. Greene was busy playing mom to Mackey and running a boarding house across the street from where Tech’s football stadium now stands. She remembers the “dust bowl” days and having to hang laundry inside to dry on many occasions. On holidays she would work part time in a Lubbock flower shop to earn a little extra money. One of the highlights of their college years was going to Dallas to watch Tech complete for the first time in the Cotton Bowl.

After college, the Greene family returned to Scurry County where Geral worked at various jobs, including helping his dad with the farm. He then took a job with the customs division of the Border Patrol and moved to Rio Grande City.

By then Mackey was ready to start school and baby Judy was six months old. After about a year, they were transferred to Sanderson. “We had to live in a hotel room with two kids. After three months of that, I told him we needed to get out of this hotel room and go back to Scurry County.”

It was timely as John L. Greene, Geral’s dad, has been diagnosed with terminal leukemia. Geral took over his father’s job as rural mail carrier, and he and his brother Jake farmed the land. Geral also taught school at Hermleigh.

Two more boys were added to the Greene family – John and Pete. They along with Judy, graduated from Snyder High School while Mackey is a Hermleigh grad.

One time when Geral was delivering mail on his late father’s rural route on the Camp Springs Road, there had been a bad snowstorm and it was difficult to maneuver in the deep ruts on an unpaved road. A resident asked if he could bring some groceries the next day when he delivered the mail. The man was told to make a list and he would get it to him the next day. “The only thing on his list was onions and snuff,” she laughed. “But they got onions and snuff.”

Mrs. Greene said her husband was the slow, thoughtful and deliberate type. “I was always busy and on the go, so I guess we complimented each other.” After serving as a deputy tax collector in Scurry County, Mr. Green was elected to the office in 1964, retiring 12 years later. During that time he trained two people who later became the county tax assessor-collector, Eloise Morgan and Rona Sikes.

“Neither of us liked the politics,” Mrs. Greene said. “We both thought if you did a good job, worked hard and was fair, that was enough. I guess it was,” she mused of his subsequent re-elections.

 “I have always been proud of my children,” Mrs. Greene said. Mackey and Judy Moss are retired Snyder schoolteachers and John Greene is a retired president of West Texas State Bank and continues to serve as a director.

The youngest, Pete, attended Texas Tech and earned his law degree from Baylor University. He served as district attorney and county attorney and now has a private practice.

“He was a good student and a good athlete,” Mrs. Greene recalls, but she still remembers the time in Andrews where Pete was ejected from the game for getting into a fight. “I told him if he couldn’t learn to play nice, then he couldn’t play anymore.”

She also recalls the time that John, Pete and cousin Joe Jackson were playing. “Joe’s mother told me they were picking on Pete, but I said he could take care of himself. And it wasn’t long before Pete had both of ‘em down.” .

After the children were reared, Mrs. Greene spent 15 years as a nurses’ aide at Cogdell Hospital. In the years following the oil boom, she worked in the emergency room where she said she saw more than her share of injuries from fights, shootings and stabbings. “It was rough around here back then.”

Mrs. Greene eventually moved to the OB department where her time in the nursery earned her the name of “Granny Greene.”

“Back then all the nurses wore starched white uniforms and white stockings. The worst thing was having a dingy uniform, so I always made sure my was nice and white – and starched.”

Mrs. Greene has lived in two-story house on 31st Street since 1980, the year before Mr. Greene died. For years, it was her garden and flowers that she cared for in the same manner that she had reared her family.

In her younger days, she worked with the United Way. “We called it something else back then, but it was designed to help people.”

While not a charter member of Colonial Hill Baptist Church, the Greene family started attending while the fledgling congregation was still meeting at West Elementary.

“Sandra Robinson said I practically raised her two boys. And we used to live across the street from Joann McCormick and she always said I had a big part in raising those three girls.” Mrs. Greene grinned.

Of the 17 siblings only three remain. In addition to Mrs. Greene, brother Ted McMillan lives in Snyder and sister Wilowdeen Voss lives in Odessa. Wilowdeen is 90 and Ted is the baby of the family.

She says life has been good to her. “My sister, Oleta Jackson, had a saying about life. ‘Always keep your dress pressed.’ I have no regrets and I have my dress pressed.”

Happy Mother’s Day to Mrs. Greene and all the terrific mothers in Scurry County. 

You can probably guess from the URL of this website which of her sons is my dad, and you can also get a pretty good idea from the article where he got his inspiration for my own name when I was born. (and I have another son on the way in a couple of months – hmmmm….)

Meemaw has had some health problems the past few years so her body is starting to give her some resistance, but as you can tell from this article, her mind – and her memory – is still as sharp as it ever was. 

So Citimortgage just called me to say that they finally got the results of the inspection report and were releasing the funds today. 

“Which funds?” I ask. 

“I show $26,518 that we’re holding. Now that we’ve received the completed inspection report we can release the funds.”

“Well, I mailed you the second check last week for the accumulated depreciation portion.” 

“I’m sorry sir, we haven’t received that. I’m calling today to let you know that we’re going to release the money we have now that we’ve finally received the inspection report and you can go ahead and pay your contractor.”

“I thought you had already mailed a check to my contractor and that’s why I hadn’t heard from you. I think you’re going to need to end this call soon, before I get really angry.”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“What does the inspection have to do with the FIRST CHECK that I sent you? You got that check 6 weeks ago, waited three weeks to tell me that I didn’t send you enough documentation, that, by the way, you did not tell me you needed at first, and now you’re telling me that you’ve still waited 3 more weeks and are now blaming that on a non-essential inspection from a subcontractor?”

“I’m sorry sir. Your money is on the way and I will put a note in your file that the second check has been sent. Have a nice day.”

AAARRRGGGHHH

One funny part of our life these days is just how much my son loves to watch Wheel of Fortune on television. We watch almost every nigh because I figure it’s most harmless and wholesome (would Pat Sajak have it any other way?) and he gets to learn letters and numbers all at once.

But is it just me or are contestants less polite than they used to be? Specifically, I tend to remember, and that doesn’t have much credibility these days, that players used to say, “Is there a ___________, please?” And Pat would dutifully tell them whether or not there was:

(about 1:10 in)

 

Nowadays people just shout out letters.

Maybe they changed it to cut down on time and squeeze more gameplay into an episode? I don’t know, but at the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, it just seems a little bit more crude and less polite.

Today is my son’s 2 year old birthday. The household blogging terms with Mrs Johnnymac prohibit me from saying his name, but I’d like to share the transformation.

In the past two years, we’ve gone from this:

To this:

No telling how amazed I’ll be in 16 years.

Not that today’s column could make me like him even more. This is good stuff.

Writer Daniel Akst has noticed and has had a constructive conniption. He should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has earned it by identifying an obnoxious misuse of freedom. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he has denounced denim, summoning Americans to soul-searching and repentance about the plague of that ubiquitous fabric, which is symptomatic of deep disorders in the national psyche.

It is, he says, a manifestation of “the modern trend toward undifferentiated dressing, in which we all strive to look equally shabby.” Denim reflects “our most nostalgic and destructive agrarian longings — the ones that prompted all those exurban McMansions now sliding off their manicured lawns and into foreclosure.” Jeans come prewashed and acid-treated to make them look like what they are not — authentic work clothes for horny-handed sons of toil and the soil. Denim on the bourgeoisie is, Akst says, the wardrobe equivalent of driving a Hummer to a Whole Foods store — discordant…

To do so would be to commit the sin of lookism — of believing that appearance matters. That heresy leads to denying the universal appropriateness of everything, and then to the elitist assertion that there is good and bad taste.

Denim is the carefully calculated costume of people eager to communicate indifference to appearances. But the appearances that people choose to present in public are cues from which we make inferences about their maturity and respect for those to whom they are presenting themselves.

I really need to get that new blog started.