Sunday, February 7
We decided that we’d have a Super Bowl party of our own tonight, so before we left for church this morning, Barbara seasoned a large pork shoulder and set it in the crock pot to cook all day.
With the meat underway, we got Mother ready to be picked up by T.J. and then we headed on out to Yantis for Sunday school and church. Our Sunday school class is an interesting mix of couples who were raised in denominations other that Baptist, much like our class in Liberal…that’s bound to be one reason why we like the class so much.
The church service was wonderful as usual, but the structure of the service was certainly different this morning. They might as well have not printed the bulletin, as everything in it was changed, even the sermon that Brother Kent Pate had prepared.
The standard elements of the service were all shortened so that the Pastor Search Committee could address the church body and, for the first time since the previous pastor left in September, announce their recommendation for a new pastor.
We were delighted to hear that our former pastor from Liberal, David Bagwell, was the unanimous choice of the committee to recommend as the man to fill the pulpit and serve as pastor for First Baptist Church of Yantis.
Each member of the committee gave his or her reasons for their choice of David and our excitement must have been very evident as several members of the congregation who were sitting around us commented that we were vigorously nodding our heads in agreement with everything that was said.
I think that when most people move away from a community, they never see their former pastor again except for short visits back to that church. We wonder what the odds are that three and a half years after our retirement and move from Liberal, our pastor or more than 12 years there would move to East Texas and become the pastor of a church that we had already decided to join.
We were going to go eat lunch at the clubhouse and then spend a few hours at Big V, but it was so cold, grey and windy when we got out of church that we decided we’d just swing by Big V, adjust the thermostat, close her back up and go back to Mother’s house for the rest of the day.
Back in Mineola we made a snack lunch and then had our Sunday nap before getting up and starting the preparations for tonight. Gene and Michelle called while we were eating lunch to say that they were in Oklahoma City on their return to the lake. Barbara told them we had some food going at the house and invited them to come over for the evening for the Super Bowl if they weren’t too tired from their journey back from Kansas. Gene said he’d have Michelle call us and she did right after we awoke from our nap. We were delighted to hear that they were “game” for the evening.
Shortly after 5:30 they arrived and we spent the next several hours eating pulled pork (Barbara’s contribution), sausage balls that I made, and various chips and dips, fresh Hawaiian pineapple (Michelle laughingly told us they traded Finley back to her parents for 3 pineapples) and some of Michelle and Gene’s homemade venison jerky.
Luckily, none of us really cared that much about the game of its outcome, and we had a great time visiting, talking about kids and grandkids, and sharing our teaching experiences, even to the point of coming up with more names of teachers, administrators, and even some students that we knew from our Liberal and their Dodge City days.
Monday, February 8
About all we can say about today is that it was very cold, very windy, and very, very rainy all day long!
We did make it out early this morning to pick up a rental car and get the Vibe to the body shop. Doug, the owner of the body shop, told us it will probably take five days to do all the repairs, so we likely won’t see it again until Friday afternoon.
Our rental car is a green (gaudy green) Saturn Ion. The girl who rented it to us said it was all they had left and that people seemed to love it or hate it. My comment was that we probably wouldn’t be asking for it, but since it was all they had, we’d take it.
We spent most of the day inside taking care of minor chores; nothing serious, but things that we’d been putting off, probably just for a day like today.
We did venture out around dark for a shopping trip to Walmart and spent about an hour gathering up the many diverse items on our shopping lists (one for us and one for Mother).
This evening I watched a little of the Kansas/Texas basketball game on TV, but just couldn’t get into it, so I gave up, turned the set off, and we called it a fairly early night.
Tuesday, February 9
One of the things we bought at Walmart last night was a plug-in timer for a coffee pot. Mother has two nice pots, but the automatic timers are broken on both of them. She told us when we first moved in that rule one was to have the coffee ready by 6:00 each morning (although we found out after a couple of days that her waking time was considerately more flexible than it used to be).
Lately, we’ve been sleeping later than usual, so the coffee hasn’t been ready when Mother was ready for it. This morning, with the new timer plugged in, the coffee started brewing right on schedule at 6:00. However, I slept until 7:00, and Mother slept until 8:00…go figure. Barbara, who doesn’t drink coffee, said she thought we were just weird!
With Mother’s 87th birthday celebration looming on the horizon, we decided we’d better tackle a thorough house cleaning. Maria, T.J.’s housekeeper, was scheduled to come and work on Mother’s room and bathroom around 11:00, so we got busy and started cleaning the rest of the house. By the time Maria got here, our bathroom and the kitchen were scrubbed from top to bottom and all the floors were mopped. Barbara even found time to whip up a key lime pie for dessert.
While Maria was working in Mother’s part of the house (Edith's Christmas gift from Barbara and I as well as Leah and Ryan), Barbara and I drove downtown to take care of business for both Mother and us. Shortly after we returned, T.J. came by with a load of Dairy Queen hamburgers, fries, and onion rings for lunch. The timing was perfect and we all enjoyed a nice time of eating and visiting.
The rest of the day was dedicated to not much of anything as we just vegged out until time to go to bed.
Wednesday, February 10
After getting Mother fed and prepared for the day we left the house for a couple of hours. Barbara dropped me off at the lot so I could do some more brush clearing while she went to the women’s Bible Study. She was going to go read to a couple of first-graders at the school, but things seemed to be a little hectic there and she wasn’t feeling all that great anyway, so she came back by the lot, picked me up, and we prepared to return to Mineola.
When we got ready to leave, the rental car wouldn’t start…the battery was dead as a brick. Luckily, I had the battery charger and plenty of extension cord handy, so I got enough charge on the battery to start the car and we returned it to the rental place to exchange it for another, less gaudy Saturn.
The afternoon was just the normal stuff…a Walmart trip, a nap, and just hanging around Mother’s house.
Tonight we had a new culinary experience. When we first met Bob and Mary Royar last summer, they told us about going to East Fork for wonderful hamburgers. East Fork is an old dance hall/restaurant about halfway between our place and Yantis. We’ve seen it probably a hundred times as we went past it, but have never stopped to check it out.
When we were visiting with Gene and Michelle the other night, they said that Wednesday night was “Burger Night” at East Fork and invited us to go out and eat with them. So, after getting Mother and the puppies fed and ready for the night, we drove to Holiday Village, picked up Gene and Michelle at their place, and drove to the restaurant.
We’re not sure what we expected to find, but we did find it to be a very nice restaurant, nicely decorated and quiet, even with a number of the tables already full. We looked over the menu and decided we’d just go with the special, a large hamburger with all the trimmings and a large plate of fries, curly fries, or onion rings, for just $3.95. Wow, it all tasted wonderful and we were able to eat only half a burger apiece because they were so large.
As we were leaving the restaurant, we got a phone call from Bob Brewer telling us that they were planning to get away from the worksite in Marksville, Louisiana (where we had planned to be until we moved in to take care of Mother). They and Rod and Ruth Kunkel will make the 4-hour drive to Mineola and spend Saturday night and Sunday morning with us. We were, of course, thrilled to hear from them and immediately started plans for the weekend.
Gene and Michelle invited us in to their place for a short visit, but the hour was getting late and we needed to get back to the house to take care of the evening routine for Mother and the puppies before getting ourselves ready for bed.
Thursday, February 11
Happy 87th Birthday to Edith Marie Faulk Little Borsberry!!!
The big day arrived, not with bells and whistles, but with cold, grey skies and snow showers. Undaunted, we spent the morning straightening the house and doing last minute dusting and sweeping. We had no idea how many folks might show up for the come-and-go party for Mother this afternoon (the truth is, we didn’t even know how many people we had invited), but we wanted to be prepared, just in case the weather held off long enough for friends and neighbors to get out for a while.
While Barbara fixed lunch, I went to Walmart to pick up the cake that T.J. contributed to the cause and then returned to eat and make the final preparations. We didn’t get our naps this afternoon, but we did get the dining room turned into a beautiful serving area and the living room turned into a reception hall. Mother was delighted during this time to receive a phone call from Whitney and Little Jimmy in Olathe, KS. She was even more surprised when Little Jimmy sang, "Happy Birthday, Granny" to her! This special gift gave her bragging rights all afternoon!
We wondered all morning what to do about a centerpiece for the serving table, but right at noon a florist van pulled into the driveway and the girl delivered a beautiful flower arrangement, a birthday gift from brother Jerry and his wife, Jane in Roswell.
By 5:00, heavy, wet snow was falling and the guests began leaving. Soon, we had the house to ourselves (and all straightened up).
Cousin Ladd came over for about an hour or so this evening to give his birthday wishes to Mother. Angela was on call at the hospital in Tyler today, so she had to work all day and then head back to Mineola on the snowy highway. Ladd stuck around and had a light supper with us before going back to the house to wait for Angela to get home.
While Ladd was here we experienced a series of brownouts as ice started weighing down the power lines. After Ladd left, we started having full scale blackouts and, after resetting the clocks three times, decided to just go to bed and forget about it.
Friday, February 12
Today we celebrate the birthday of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.
When we were kids and the times were simpler (and before Congress decided to mess with the historical calendar), February was best known for celebrating the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington (a couple of pretty darn good presidents), and for sharing valentines and candy on Valentine’s Day. Now we have, in the words of Stephen King’s Gunslinger, “forgotten the faces of our fathers,” and have lumped two celebration days into a Federal employee day off.
Okay, enough editorializing…on with the story.With our agenda quickly taking shape, I took Spike to see Dr. Bradford and then returned to the house to get Barbara so we could go get the Vibe and then turn in our rental car…all the while negotiating the very wet and slushy streets and highways.
Meanwhile, we found out that Jimmy Clint was put back in the hospital yesterday after having another dizzy spell. The doctors are still trying to get his meds straightened out so the vascular system will work the way it is supposed to.
When we finally got the Vibe, we decided we’d better make a run to Holiday Village to see how Big V handled the snow.
As we left our lot and drove down Geronimo, we saw a sight that is every homeowner’s nightmare. Late last night an unoccupied travel trailer caught fire…no one knows why at this point…and was completely gutted by the flames and heat. All that is left is the hollowed out shell. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the family is already facing a medical crisis as the wife has been diagnosed with cancer.
After returning to Big V to make sure she was safe from the elements, we returned to Mineola and did mostly nothing for the rest of the day…just too cold, wet, and windy to get out except for a quick trip to the bank and to Walmart for a few things.
Saturday, February 13
Today was no day of rest for us as we got up early to start cooking meals for today and tomorrow. Mother’s church has a lunch tomorrow and Mother asked Barbara to prepare the Johnny Mosetti recipe that we had a couple of weeks ago.
When the Johnny Mosetti was in the oven, we began preparations for our noon meal today. Our friends Rod and Ruth from Virginia, and Bob and Nell from Georgia were on their way to spend the weekend with us and get away from the church-building site in Marksville, Louisiana, for a couple of days.
I put together all the ingredients for Brown-in-Bag chicken and Barbara went to work on a new dessert, Apple Dumpling Dew, a recipe she got from her women’s study group at the church. With two sticks of butter, a cup and a half of sugar, a can of apple pie filling, and a bottle of Mountain Dew included in the ingredients, it was a cardiologist’s nightmare, but it sure was delicious.
By the time our guests arrived, we had the table beautifully set with some of Mother’s fine china and heavily laden with tasty food. Of course, we missed a great photo-op as neither of us thought about getting the camera out until the dining room and kitchen were cleaned afterward the meal…what were we thinking?!
T.J. also came over and joined us for lunch and we had conversations running all over the place as we introduced our friends to our family and talked of our adventures together.
Once the meal was over and the dishes were in the washer, we all adjourned to the living room for about an hour and threads of conversation continued winding around the room.
Around 2:00 we got some things together and led our friends out to Holiday Village, where they would spend the night in Big V. Our first stop was at the sales office to pick up additional tickets for tonight’s POA dinner at the clubhouse. In addition to Bob, Nell, Rod, and Ruth, David Bagwell, our preacher from Liberal, and his family would also join us for the evening meal.
A little after 3:00 we took our friends up to the church in Yantis for the meet-and-greet reception for David and his family. David will preach tomorrow morning and then the church will go into a business meeting to vote on whether to call him to be the new pastor at First Baptist Church Yantis. The reception was lots of fun and we got to meet and visit with some of the church members we had previously known only by face.
When Gene, Michelle, and David and his family arrived, we joined the serving line, got our food, and retired to the main room to eat and visit. The meal, as usual, was bountiful and delicious, and the time of sharing together was wonderful.
After a short time of visiting and showing our guests the ways and means of Big V, we said our good-byes and returned to Mineola for the night, realizing that we have been truly blest in having such wonderful friends.
“Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing." – Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President
From Wood County, Texas,
Jim/Dad/Gramps & Barbara/Mom/Grams
