NOW AND THEN 6-9-9

NOW - Great week last week! Getting settled into the life of leisure. Suddenly realized the other day that I have been without gainful employment for 2 whole months. Ryan and I have a new game. I shake my arms and head like an idiot (easily done) and Ryan roars with laughter. Some people are so easy to please. Ryan is on the verge of walking but just hasn't decided the risk is worth it yet. He took one step from granma's hand to mama's hand the other day. It was a great and fearsome adventure.

Saturday we went to the Village Inn pancake house across from LaFortune Park for breakfast. I had bacon, eggs, pancakes and hashbrowns. Ellen had strawberry crapes. Then we went to the Cherry Street Farmers' Market. Very yuppy don't you know. We got some cranberry bread and some fresh salad greens. After that we walked up Antique Row on Cherry Street (East 15th Street) and bought a couple of books at the "Aquarian Age Message and Spiritworks." My book is on the Bible as history and Ellen's is about the guns of the Civil War. Then we went to the Tulsa Rose Garden. Lots of beautiful roses. The were having a show of cactus plants. We saw some really weird cacti.

Sunday we went to worship at the Park Plaza congregation, of which we are now members, and got our picture taken for the church directory. After Bible class (worship first at 8:30 then Bible class at 9:45 or Bible class at 9:45 and worship at 11:00.) Since Ryan likes to get up early, David & Nichole go to early worship and since we want to see that at every possible occasion, so do we. I'm not sure it's scriptural but the Lord will understand too. He also had kids.) we went to lunch at Applebys with about 5 other young couples. (LOL).

Today Ellen went shopping with Nichole and I played PC Mahjongg and napped.


THEN-

Siblings: I have a total of 3 siblings. 2 older and one younger. I could tell a lot about them but it would be from my view and you need to hear it from theirs. Any way, this is my story. My brother, James Allen Broyles is 5 years my senior and died of cancer in 1990. My Sister, Sherrill Elaine Giddens is 3 years my senior and lives near her daughter in Trenton, Texas. My sister, Susan Elizabeth Gembler is 10 years my junior and lives with her husband Bill in Fort Worth, Texas.

In January 1933 Franklin Roosevelt became President of the United States. The country was deep in a depression. In March 1933 FDR closed all the banks to reorganize them, fend off a run on the banks and establish the Federal Depositors Insurance Commission.

THIS PART IS BROUGHT FORWARD FROM A PREVIOUS POST FOR CONTINUITY

My brother Jimmy was born March 3, 1933 and FDR closed the banks the next day. My brother was born at home and my parents could’t get to their money in the bank to pay the doctor. Mother said the doctor was drunk when he delivered Jimmy and was supposed to come back later and finish the job. He never came back, Jimmy never became Jewish and I don’t know if the doctor ever got his delivery fee or not.

Many people were out of work. My father had lost his job (probably delivering beer) and jobs were hard to come by. He got up one morning and went out to find a job. It got later and later in the day and my mother got worried about what might have happened to him. Many men in that day were robbed and left for dead, walked away from their families out of frustration and hopelessness or even committed suicide not being able to face their failure and inability to provide even the basic needs of their families.

Mother was distraught and called her father, my grandfather “Gaga” asking if he could help find my dad. Gaga checked around to see where they were hiring and found my father at the bottom of a hole deeper than he was tall digging footings for the buildings at the state fair grounds. My father said you can always find a job if you are willing to work.

Daddy was always willing and rarely went more than a day or two without work.

By this time the economy had improved and the family was financially stable. In another three years I came along and by the time I was two three years old we had settled in to our life on Mentor Street.

The Second World War was raging and Daddy was a Neighborhood Air Raid Warden. He had a white metal helmet with an emblem on it designating him as an o-fishul Air Raid Warden. When there was an air raid, Daddy and his fellow wardens would patrol the neighborhood at night to see that everyone’s shades were pulled tight so that no light could be seen and that no subversives were signaling the Axis powers to drop bombs on Mentor Street.

Around 1942 my parents, the son of a sharecropper and daughter of a small businessman, decided that they should go “back to the land”. After an undetermined time of searching, they found a farm in eastern Denton County about 40 miles north of Dallas and 6 miles east of Denton. Two miles north of State Highway 76 (Now US 35E) and near the small community of Corinth.

I remember the cold winter day when we drove to the farm from our home in Dallas to show Gaga and Momma Wright the farm. It was a gray dreary and we came to the farm from the east. My first sight of the house was from a break in the trees that lined the sandy road .

The farm was described legally as “80 acres, more or less” no matter what Gene Brown says. It had a 60 year old farm house (6 rooms and a path) with a hand dug 20 foot deep well at the edge of the back porch that had never gone dry in over 60 years. About 10 yards from the back of the house was an outhouse with a honeysuckle trellis in front. Helped kill the odor in the summer. The privy drew flies and the honeysuckle drew wasps and yellow jackets.

Mother couldn't resist swatting at the wasps and yellow jackets and once when she went to use the facilities a wasp got in to the privy and Mother began to swat at it. The wasp got mad and Mother decided to retreat. As she pulled up her slacks the wasp dropped into the opening and stung her on the hip. The result was a football sized swelling, very painful and lingered for many days.

West of the privy and just east of the lane that went from the driveway to the barn was a semi-submerged, sand stone root cellar. The cellar stood at the base of a large mulberry tree. I once built a tree house in the arms of the mulberry and lived many an exciting adventure in my mind.

At the entry to the driveway stood an ancient oak tree. Sherrill says she saw it recently and it is not as large as we remember it. I know it was to big for me to get my arms around and once Daddy hung a block and tackle from one of it’s lower branches and pulled the engine out of a ‘30 something Pontiac to work on it.

The farm also had a barn with hay loft, corn crib and milk shed. There were 2 small ponds and about 1/3 to ½ of the acreage was in black jack and post oak.

When we moved to the farm there was a crop of peanuts in the field which belonged to the previous owner. That was probably the last successful crop ever planted on the land. My dad, at various times tried to raise peanuts, corn and chickens with little success.

After two or three years Daddy went back to work in Dallas selling beer. He would get up early in the morning, drive to Corinth and catch a Continental Trailways bus to get to Dallas and bus back to home after dark and a full day of humping cases of beer.

I think we lived on the farm from the time I was 4 to my freshman year in college.

Being the third and youngest child for ten years, I learned to avoid the wrath of my older siblings and entertain my self at and early age. Living on an 80 acre farm during a time when perverts didn't come out to the country to bother people, I was free to roam and play afield as long as I was in earshot of my mothers beck and call.

Now and Then 6-4-9

NOW - Great week this week. Got to babysit Stone last Saturday and Irish (Ryan) M-T-W of this week. Getting settled into the congregation at Park Plaza. I said today that I guess the 80/20 rule (20% of any group does 80% of the work) still applies. It seems like Park Plaza church has so much talent and activity but I guess the reality is that there is more to draw from in 20% of 1000 than in an average size congregation. Our work here is certainly blessed by God but so is the work in a 50 member or a 150 member congregation. Here we find such a thrilling number of knowledgeable older members who have not retired from the Lord's word and so many young families who are willing and enthusiastic about serving the Lord that it almost takes your breath away. Ellen and I are getting ready to jump in and find our niche in the work here.
Had lunch today with the Neals, Garrisons, K. Frick and Ron Falcon and Rachael and Jake. It was great to see our old friends and catch up on life in Oklahoma's biggest "town". Oh well, everyone needs something to brag about.

It just dawned on me how much I use forms of the word "enthusiastic" in talking about the Lord's work. Looked it up and found that the root comes from en-Theo, Greek for in God. Hop we can all stay enthusiastic (in God.)

I HAVE MADE SOME ADDITIONS TO THE "THEN" SECTION OF THE MAY 30 BLOG AND INVITE YOU TO GO THERE TO SEE THE ADDITIONS

THEN - My mother, born Elsie Maude Wright, unlike my father, on of two children of an independent business man and his wife, the daughter of the Chief of Police of Natchez, Mississippi before the turn of the century. While my father, as a child, was learning humility and labor without complaining, my mother was learning that she had aristocratic roots and that any obstacle could be overcome if you talked loud enough and long enough. My mother always believed that she was really the daughter of a 19th century aristocrat born out or time, kidnapped and sold to commoners and condemned to suffer the drudgery and humiliation of being the wife of a noncommittal, spineless, underachieving blue-collar worker. My mother learned as a child to play the piano, participate in dramatic plays and recitations and take pride in her history and nation. As a child she was influenced by her hot tempered jealous father who was, in the 1930's and 40's a Grand-Master Mason and active member of the Klu Klux Klan. The Klan at that time was not only actively against afro-Americans but also against Catholics, Jews and other minorities that might threaten their (the Klan's) scion-economic status and power.

Bigotry and prejudice were a way of life in my upbringing and that of my parents. It was so ingrained in my life that I was either not aware of it or thought it was "the way things were." It was not until I got away from home that I realized how unrealistic and hurtful my beliefs and attitudes had been. While I have struggled to not pass on these errors, the first 20 years made a great impression on my mental processes and I still catch my self acting out my early teachings.