What I Remember
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Grandmother’s house, Whiteflat, Texas
The old photo in an oval frame with convex glass
of the Tilson farm in Virginia
hung above the coat rack on the side wall
next to the front door with its full length of retangualr glass panes
in the house my mother moved to
when she returned to Motley County, Texas
where she was born in 1927.
In the late 1880s her grandfather
had left that farm for Fort Worth
to become a cowboy,
then headed further into the wild west
a barren land of rattlesnakes,
endless sky and a flat, rocky, cactus filled terrain.
As kids in the ‘50s, Daddy driving west from Illinois for summer visits
we fantasized as soon as the terrain changed.
The entire journey entered slow motion.
We were no longer in a station wagon.
We were in a covered wagon.
We knew we were.
We could feel it.
We were on horseback.
Our eyes squinted, searching for our destination,
wanting to hurry and yet,
wanting to savor the heat,
each town exactly 30 miles apart.
the distance the stage coach could ride in a day
evidence, we were indeed part of history.
The further west we drove,
the closer we got to Grandmother's house,
the farther apart the gas stations were
with their very dirty bathrooms.
Sometimes we drove on past.
Pulled over on the side of the road
and carefully stepped out
watching for rattlesnakes
before we squatted down.
West Texas Road Trip, 1949
We had heard the story many times
our mother, three years old,
stepping out of the house
her daddy yelling,
“Grace Laverne, you stop right now.”
He grabbed a gun
shot a rattlesnake
right in front of her.
The rattles remained on top the buffet
to be revered every summer we went to visit
the house that was nothing like
the old Virginia farm house.
Not two story and stately.
a small, four room house,
added onto several times.
First, the indoor bathroom
then, a large, bunkhouse type bedroom
filled with bunkbeds and twin beds we could lay on
next to the open, screened windows
and listen to summer sounds
during the day,
cicadas and cows mooing
during the night,
the sounds of wild animals
far off in the distance.
Visiting the old homeplace
