Afterthoughts

     The first time I stopped at Buds in Longview, Texas, to see what the store was like, a large crowd had gathered, waiting for the doors to open. I joined them and heard a young lady make a strange comment.      “When I reached for it, a man bit my thumb.”      No sooner had she made the commented than the doors were unlocked, and everyone began to run toward the back of the store, where returned items from Walmart were marked down to very low prices. Merchandise began to fly off the shelves and into shopping buggies. No one took the time to inspect the items.      That day I learned how to shop in a store where the prices were so low that I felt like a rich person who could buy whatever I wanted. I continued going for two years until Bud died and the store closed.      During those two years, I began to understand the strange comment I had heard that first day.      A man stepped on a girl’s fo...

JT Westbrook      There was a quieter time in life when people trusted each other.  They didn't worry about locking their doors whether they were at home or away. Many times, when they went to town, they would park their car and leave the keys in the ignition.      One day my husband went to Cameron, Texas, to shop.  When he finished, he walked to his 1937 Ford, got in, and drove away. Not long afterward he looked in the back and saw that the seat was missing.   That's when he realized he had driven off in the wrong car.  As quickly as he could, he drove back to where he had started.       When he pulled up beside his car, an older man stood leaning on it. The man smiled and said, "I knew you would be back."       Today we do everything we can to keep our belongings from thieves. We not only use locks, but we also secure our homes with alarms and cameras.  Sometimes, even our neighbors ar...

   Hearing aids are a blessing, especially as you get older.  Sometimes, if you say "huh?" often enough,  people will suggest that you might need them.       When my friend gave me a pair he no longer used, I was grateful. They worked perfectly for about a year until one night, I forgot to take them out of my ears before I got into the shower.       Not knowing how to dry them, I asked Google and several people what I should do.      My sister suggested that I put them in the microwave. I thought, " That doesn't make sense to me, but I'll give it a try."      The second I turned it on, a loud popping sound startled me. In a flash I turned the microwave off.  It was no surprise that I had ruined my hearing aids.      Later, I found out that I had misunderstood the advice my sister gave. Apparently, I was supposed to put them in a container I have that would dry them.   ...

                                           Robert Westbrook      Children are a blessing.  They fill the house with laughter, sadness, and anticipation.  My four children did that for me.      You may wonder why I included anticipation.  You never knew from one day to the next what might happen. Would I need to put a bandage on a cut or soothe hurt feelings. My greatest anticipation came when my youngest started school.       In 1971, that day came. Excited, he rushed out the door, climbed onto the bus and headed to school in Hallsville, Texas. Not wanting to sit alone in a quiet house, I walked to the restaurant in front of our house. While I was drinking coffee, a neighbor sat across from me with a frown. In a sad voice she said, "Your heart will break now that he's gone. You will miss him so much."     ...

     Most hospital workers are kind, but I have never forgotten the kindness of the nuns at the hospital in Cameron.      In 1965, the only hospital in Cameron, Texas, was run by Catholic nuns. When I went there to have my fourth child, they doted on me as though I were a child.      One night, just as I got into bed, a nun walked into the room carrying a bowl of water with a washcloth in it. In a soft voice, she said, “Put your legs over the side of the bed so I can wash your feet.”      Embarrassed, I stammered, “That’s okay. I’ll go down the hall in the morning to take a shower.”      After I protested for a while, I finally gave in and let her wash my feet.      One day, as I walked down the hall past the business office, I overheard two nuns talking about me. One said, “I don’t think she is married. I’ve never seen her husband.”      Maybe the nuns thought I was a poor young mot...

  JT and Pat Westbrook      For months, I had not worn my wedding ring. Since several of the small diamonds had fallen out, I stopped wearing it.      I don't know if my husband knew why I no longer had it on. One afternoon he looked at me and said in a stern voice, "You put a ring back on your finger."      A few days later I attended a wedding shower.  When we sat down at the table, I reached for my napkin. Wrapped around it was a plastic wedding ring. Making sure no one noticed, I slipped it into my purse. When I got home, I put it on my ring finger. To my surprise, it fit. I wore that little plastic ring until I could replace it with a real one.      In reality, the ring was only a symbol for the world to know that I was married. I didn't need one to feel committed to my husband. Committed Beyond the Ring A Sunday school teacher studied her lesson on a Saturday night.  Normally she felt confident because she ...

Alan Dale Westbrook       A loud bang against my son's bedroom window sent him running down the hall.  It startled all of us. The moment I heard him, my heart pounded as I rushed to see what happened. We almost collided as he ran past me to the living room. I couldn't find anything that could cause such a fright.      The next day we learned that one of his friends had tapped on the window with a piece of Hot Wheels track just to scare him.  After hearing the commotion inside the trailer, he ran away.       That night, my son ran to us because he was afraid.  When fear comes knocking on our own hearts, there's an even better place to run.  Where To Run There are a lot of things in life one can fear. Stormy weather makes us wonder when it will be clear. Whatever it is, there is One a person can turn to for help. Taking it to God in prayer is the very first step. God wants to hear your concerns no matter how small. As y...

       As a sophomore in Killeen, Texas, I had high hopes for my future. When I started homemaking class, I imagined that someday, far in the distant future, I would get married and raise a family.      When it came time to learn how to sew, that was a different story for me. I did fine when just using the sewing machines at school. Our sewing project was to make an apron, complete with gathered ruffles, long ties, and apple appliqués across the front. It was the kind of apron every homemaking teacher expected a girl to make in the 1950s. When our teacher announced that we could take our projects home and finish them with help from our parents. Everyone seemed excited except me.      The problem was simple. We didn't own a sewing machine, and my mother worked full-time. Because I was in the DECA program, I attended school only half a day and spent my afternoons working at a variety store. The only time I could work on my sewing project w...

  Grandmother Appling     When I was little, Grandmother Appling would go to the chicken coop and pick out a chicken to kill for our meal. As usual, I followed her without any shoes on. Once inside the chicken yard, I regretted not wearing them because almost instantly I felt a soft substance oozing between my toes. Not wanting to miss what I knew was coming, I ignored it.      Once Grandmother found the chicken she wanted, she grabbed it. Instantly, it began to squawk, causing all the other chickens to do the same. Feathers flew everywhere as she took it by the neck and began swinging it in circles above her head. In horror and fascination, I watched as she snapped its neck.      Normally, the neck is broken, and the head doesn't come off. Only this time, it was a small chicken, and she used so much force that it detached from its body. When the headless chicken landed on the ground, it began to run around in circles. Seconds later, it stopp...

                                                                       Rommon Loy Lawson      Texas A&M produces men and women with an education for life. That's where my father began his career as a research scientist. He became a pioneer in livestock gender selection, helping farmers and ranchers improve their breeding programs.  He was especially known for his work with Arabian horses.      Over the years, he also developed a cream that could be used for all sorts of things. He even sold it in a local beauty shop.        I found out how well it worked one afternoon.  I was out taking pictures of wildflowers and not paying attention to where I stepped. Before I knew it, I was standing in a mound of fire ants being stung.  The sting was...

       In the early fifties, my dad and my stepmother were deeply involved in raising chinchillas. So much so that, Dad became the president of the chinchilla association. One summer while visiting them in College Station, Texas, I asked if I could have a collar made from the fur to wear with my cardigan sweater. To me it would have been something different, and something I could enjoy and maybe brag about.      My stepmother answered in a stern voice, "No, it would devalue it." Her response hurt my feelings and left me wondering why something that seemed so special wasn't allowed.      Even though I didn't get what I asked for that summer, I walked away with something far better.  While I was there, we visited a fellow chinchilla enthusiast. He lived in a rundown shotgun house. Its walls were covered with all kinds of pictures and handwritten sayings. As we sat in the living room, one in particular caught my attention. Even though ...

   Grandmother and I walked down the isle of a small country church tucked between Post and Tahoka, Texas.  Just past the piano we stepped up two narrow steps and took our places beside six other choir members, who had sad faces. As we sang, my eyes drifted beyond the casket to the hand full of people scattered across the pews. I remember wondering why so few had come. At the age of fourteen, the whole thing made quiet an impression on me.  I had never seen a dead body before, and I made sure I didn't that day. Not once did I look into the casket.  I was visiting my grandmother for the summer. Not being a member of the church, I never really understood why she insisted I go. I listened and did what I was told because I didn't want to disappoint her. Are You Listening Like a child who doesn't understand, adults often don't listen to God. Perhaps, they don't care as they go about living life their way. Some are too busy traveling down the many avenues they trod, ...

A movie theater might seem like an odd babysitter, but in the forties that is exactly what my parents used it for. Every Saturday and Sunday my sister and I paid our seven cents and walked into the theater in Tahoka, Texas, where the smell of popcorn drifted past our noses and made our mouths water. To save money, Mom popped our popcorn at home and sent us off to the theater with a bag of it in tow. It wasn’t unusual for a double feature to be playing, and back then you could stay as long as you wanted. We usually did. We watched the movie twice, along with cartoons, newsreels, and action features like Flash Gordon and Superman. That’s when my love for cowboy movies began, and it continues today. Childhood experiences often stay with us long after we grow up. Some are simple memories, like Saturday afternoons at the movie theater, while others are the lessons our parents teach us along the way. Childhood Experiences Childhood experiences always flow into adulthood. If only this tr...

Cousins Pat Westbrook and Ronald Westbrook      A bar of soap isn't an item many men would think to carry on a fishing trip. That was not true for my husband's cousin, Ronald. We were fishing at Lake of the Pines with Ronald's family and our family just for the day when, out of the blue, he jumped into the lake, clothes and all. With a bar of soap, he proceeded to bathe. In the past, when he dropped the soap and it sank, it made him angry. He found out if he used Ivory soap, he wouldn't have that problem because it would float.       From our experience with him, we learned to take Ivory soap with us on camping trips. While the children stayed back at camp, lingering around the fire and talking, my husband and I would slip into our bathing suits, ease the boat into the lake, and dive into the cool water. Just like Ronald we had our bar of soap in hand to wash off the dust of the day.  The scent of pine and the soft echo of the children's laughter ...