Page 5
By: Jerry Blackerby
Mom and Dad moved to Cleveland, Texas about the time we also moved to the Washington, D.C. area, in Maryland. The company I worked for, RCA, had lost the contract I was on in Florida and transferred me to Goddard Space Flight Center at Greenbelt, Maryland.
We spent one year on that job. Neither of us liked the area and wanted to get back to Texas or Oklahoma to be near our families. Dad was having health problems and left Cleveland. One of my wife’s uncles also died. Dad ended up moving to Lonesome Dove Baptist Church near Grapevine.
We came in on vacation, planning to find a job. We intended to leave our children with Mom and Dad while we went back to get our belongings. We loaded our car with everything we needed, our kids and our Paper-Trained Rabbit. We arrived at Mom and Dad’s house, next door to the church, just as the Sunday morning service was over. Mom saw us parked in front of their house and came running.
After all the hugs and kisses were over, we went in and had lunch. Mom did not know what to think about a paper-trained rabbit. She did agree after watching him a little that he was paper-trained, although he did drop an occasional pill.
I had job interviews in the Dallas area the following week. I took Billie to her family reunion in Oklahoma and let her and the kids go home with her parents. I returned to Mom and Dad’s to go to another job interview, after which I joined my family in Oklahoma.
Dad called us in Oklahoma to tell us that a cousin, Steve, had died. Steve had been an invalid since about a year old and was now just barely 15. We met them at Anson for the funeral. Dad did not feel like driving home, so I drove his car and Mom rode with Billie and the kids.
Dad talked about Steve’s life and death most of the way home. He said he thought that Steve’s health situation had helped pull his family together. Now that their daughter was reaching her teens, God had taken Steve home because the daughter would need all of the concentration of the parents, which sounded logical to me.
I was sure that I would have at least two offers when we went back to Maryland. We left Bill, Terry, Jay and Sam the rabbit at Mom and Dad's, since I knew we would be coming back permanently one way or another. I had an offer from LTV in the mail when I returned to Maryland and called them to accept. I gave my notice to RCA and we moved to Texas on the first of August.
We were staying with Mom and Dad for a few days while looking for a place of our own. We learned a couple of days after getting back that the moving van had burned and totaled us. That created changes in everything we did, but we still found a rent house and moved in with borrowed furniture and our clothes. When the insurance settled, we began buying furniture and appliances.
We went to church with Mom and Dad every week. The church did not pay much, so sometimes we had to help. Dad took a notion to try to sell Bibles and I paid for the samples he ordered.
One Sunday while we were visiting them, Dad asked me if I had ever considered owning a shotgun. I told him that if he wanted to go bird hunting I would buy us shotguns. Dad then said that bird hunting would be fun, also. I wondered why he wanted a gun, so I asked him.
Dad told me that late one night while watching the news on TV, someone had walked up to the door. He had car troubles down the dirt road. Dad’s house was the closest house and the man asked to use the telephone. Dad let him in and he called someone to come get him. It was totally legitimate and he thanked Dad and left. Dad then began to worry about what could have happened and wondered about getting a shotgun.
If I had told Dad no, he would have been stubborn and wanted one anyway. So, I told him that I would be glad to buy him a shotgun for protection, if he would promise me one thing. He would have to keep it loaded and sitting in the corner next to his chair.
I suggested that if someone showed up late at night, he should have the gun in his arms aimed at the door with his finger on the trigger when he invited them in. Dad said he could not do that because it might be one of his church members at the door. He said he would probably keep the gun in the back room, unloaded. He did not like the idea of a loaded gun in the house.
I explained that it would not do him any good for protection if it was unloaded in the bedroom and would probably be taken away and used on him. He finally began to agree with me and made his own decision that he did not need a shotgun for protection.
Dad always wanted to get the family together for a family reunion. Dad’s father, Papa, had made the statement in 1961 that there would not be any more family reunions after he died because no body would get one together. Dad always wanted to prove Papa wrong. He was able to get most of his siblings and some of the others to his home at Lonesome Dove for one get together. He was never able to get another one going.
When Dad left Lonesome Dove, he bought a house in Bedford. He began working as a guard at Amon Carter Museum, which he really enjoyed. During this time we had to make trips to Anson for a couple of funerals, Uncle John and Granny. When Granddad died, I could not go because I was out of town on a business trip, again.
During this time, I made some homemade wine using Welch’s Grape Juice. It was my only experiment in wine making. Mom and Dad were at our house one evening and Dad asked about my wine-making experiment. Dad took a small sip of my homemade wine and said it was a little too dry. A few weeks later, we were in Weatherford at Uncle Clarence’s, Dad’s oldest brother. Dad asked Clarence if he still made wine. Clarence said that he still made wine and did Dad want some. Dad said no and pointed at me. He said, “This boy tried to make some wine. Would you show him what good wine is like?”
Clarence brought a glass of wine that he had made for me and one for himself. It was good. Of course, Dad knew that Clarence had always made wine and when Dad was younger, he drank some of that wine with Clarence. That was one of the few times I ever drank an alcoholic beverage in front of Dad.
I told Dad that I kept beer and wine in my refrigerator. I respected him enough that I would not normally drink in front of him. But, I told him, that if he came in unexpectedly and I had a beer in front of me, I would finish it. I would not let it set and go stale and I would not waste it by pouring it out. When Dad went with us to a Texas Rangers game, I never had a drink.
One time, he drove up when I was not expecting him. Sure enough, I was drinking a beer and continued until I finished it. After that, he always called before he came over.
Dad decided to accept a church at Trinidad, Texas and rent the house in Bedford. It was while at Trinidad that the incident happened where he found Mom lying on the floor, unconscious with a puddle of blood around her head. I have written about this incident in the story, In His Hands.
Dad left Trinidad and moved back to his house in Bedford and working as a guard at one of the museums in Fort Worth. He also pastored a small church in Fort Worth part of the time.
Dad had me run wiring for a 220-volt window A/C unit in the front room. Dad showed me a breaker panel on the covered back patio, just outside the kitchen. I ran the wiring and they could have some comfort in the living room. They had a 110-volt window unit in the converted garage, den.
Dad called me once to say that he needed a light switch changed in their bedroom and he couldn’t find a breaker, so he couldn’t change it. I checked the breaker box on the covered patio and could not find a breaker for that part of the house either. I carefully changed the switch live. A few weeks later, we spent the night there and when we shut the bedroom door to the bedroom we were going to sleep in, I found the missing breaker box, directly through the wall from the breaker box on the covered patio. That door normally stood open and we had never seen the breaker box.
One year around Christmas, we were going to Mom and Dad’s for Sunday dinner after they got home from church. On Saturday evening, Billie and I had gone to a company Christmas party. Normally, I control how much I drink. That night, I realized that I was becoming drunk and didn’t understand why. I had been pacing my drinks to one an hour. What I did not know until a few days later was that the man mixing the drinks was making my drinks heavier each time. I had Billie drive home.
The next day we had dinner with Mom and Dad. They knew I didn’t feel good. After lunch, Billie and Mom were in the kitchen and Dad and I were watching TV. Dad suggested that maybe I was coming down with a bug. I told him, “NO, it is commonly called a hangover.” Dad said he knew we went to the party, but he also knew I normally paced my drinks. I told him that although I had paced my drinks, I had become drunk and let Billie drive.
After a few years, Dad sold the house in Bedford and they moved to Clarendon, where Beth and Jo Ann lived. We began making trips up there frequently to visit.
I don’t remember the exact time frame, but when Jeff Jacks passed away, Dad was asked to help at the funeral in Snyder, Oklahoma. We also attended. I remember very well that Dad made a statement about some of Jeff’s grandchildren being his grandchildren and he began to break up. He said later, he never wanted to assist in a funeral with a family member or someone as close to family as Jeff was. It affected him emotionally very much.
Mom and Dad visited with Jackie and Mom was going to stay a few days when C.T. was born. We took Dad to DFW airport so he could fly back to Amarillo. Dad only flew a few times in his life. He made the statement several times that if God had meant man to fly, He would have given man wings.
We saw Dad off at the airport and went home. We found out later that the plane had sat on the runway for a long time because of storms in the Amarillo area. It finally took off and began the flight to Amarillo. It was diverted because of the storms at Amarillo. After having to land and refuel in New Mexico, because the short flight from Dallas to Amarillo did not carry a lot of fuel, it returned to Amarillo. They had flown through the bad storms quite a bit of the time.
I called Dad and asked him about the flight. I was worried about how scared he had been. Dad said that when the rough weather began, people all around him got really scared and he began talking to them about how God would take care of them and began offering a prayer. He was able to calm most of them down. Dad said that he just did his job as a preacher.
I have gone through similar incidents many times while flying. I have always been able to talk to others on the flights and calm them. Of course, I have never been afraid of flying and Dad apparently was.
Northside Baptist Church in Anson had a new building and a special celebration. Northside Baptist Church was originally Corinth Missionary Baptist Church, which I have written about in Do You Remember. We met Mom and Dad there for that celebration.
After the lunch, Dad and I went across to check on Aunt Laura in the Nursing home. During a previous visit a year or so before, when we went in, Dad asked Aunt Laura if she knew who he was. She said she thought he was her brother. He asked her which one and she replied, her favorite. She really did not know.
This particular visit, we entered her room and she did not know him at all. She curled up in a fetal position and pulled the covers over her head. Dad tried talking to her and reached to pull the cover down so he could see her head. She fought to pull the covers back over her head. That visit really hurt Dad because his oldest sister, who had raised him, did not know him. I left the room with tears in my eyes.
Copyright © Jerry Blackerby 2011