Revisiting My Roots Part 2

 After visiting by Grandma Love's house in Pine Mills, I wanted to see if we could find the park in Quitman where we used to have family reunions in the 1970s and 1980s. We found it, Governor Jim Hogg City Park. They were having a festival with crowds of people, no place to park, food trucks, and other food stands. A round of bingo was happening in the pavilion. 

We left after a couple of minutes and went to the grocery store before heading back to the Sassy Sasquatch Airbnb. Daphne and I played card games until we were so tired we had to get some sleep. The next morning we had planned on having biscuits with breakfast. Neither one of us had noticed that there was not an oven/stove. So we improvised with a waffle iron. It worked. The biscuits tasted delicious with the jam and fresh peaches we had bought at Graham's Market the day before.

We were ready to get up to some shenanigans in our Thelma and Louise shirts so we headed to the Armed Texans Training Facility and gun range.

We were having fun from the moment we walked in the door. One of the guys working, Alan, started laughing the minute he saw our shirts. He asked if he could take a picture to show his wife. He was super friendly and jokey. Daphne and I were being EXTRA that day. We told them we wanted to shoot handguns and moving steel targets. (The day before, Daphne had told me about a call her husband had with a customer. Her husband is a city inspector and often writes citations. The customer called to say he wanted the city to stop giving him citations. It was his wife who was breaking the watering rules and he wanted her to have the citations. D's husband said they would have to change the water bill into her name for the wife to get the citations. When he hollered this to his wife, she yelled, "F#@* your citations and f#@* your water bill. Daphne was saying that about everything. It really made us laugh.) Daphne told Alan the citations story when we were waiting for the training/safety video to start. He was a little shocked but laughed. After the video, Daphne bought a hat and shirt. We were chatting with Alan and the range manager quite a bit. They gave us a bucket and said we'd need to pick up our casings. Daphne asked Alan if she could keep her casing for a craft project. He shook his head and said he had never heard that before. Then he went and got us a paper Dixie bowl so Daphne could keep her casings. We were causing a little bit of a stir in the building by cutting up and laughing so much.

Then Alan told us to follow him to drive down to bay 5. We did. We got out and Alan told us the rules about where to stand and where to load. Then he started to leave. We asked where the "pew pews" were. He laughed because he thought we were joking. He could not believe that we did not have our own equipment. We followed him back to the building. When we were getting out of our cars, Daphne smiled and yelled, "F your assumptions." Alan looked like he was going to fall over laughing. We went back inside and got the guns and ammo we needed then the range manager had us follow him back to bay 5.  He said he would come back for a safety check in about 15 minutes. 

My husband always loads my clip because I have arthritis in my thumbs. Daphne's husband usually loads her gun. We started loading and realized that neither one of us had the thumb strength to get it done. We were laughing so hard. We did not want to still be standing their trying to load when the range manager came back for the safety check. We eventually loaded about 11 bullets each and decided that was good enough. Of course we had to take a selfie before shooting.

We each hit some of the targets. Daphne knocked down one of the targets and then the whole target started swinging.

About 30 minutes later, Alan came by for a safety check. We talked him into doing a mini photo shoot. 😁

After he left, we finished the rest of our ammo and picked up our casings. Daphne wanted to have all those shells loose in my car with just a Dixie bowl to hold them? Nope! I got a pair of rubber gloves out of my car's first aid kit and we put them in there so we could tie the end to keep them contained. Daphne arranged both gloves to be shooting the bird and took a picture of them. When we got back to the building, Daphne showed Alan the picture and said, "F your paper Dixie bowl!" It was hilarious. We had so much fun that morning.

We spent part of the afternoon in Quitman so I could take pictures at Governor Jim Hogg Park in the daylight. We would get to the park early to grab a few picnic tables under the pavillion for our family reunion on Labor Day weekend. 

Sign in the bathroom

Hogg House, it used to be open for tours, now it is closed.

The water out of the old water fountains always tasted a little bit off.

The playground has all new "safe" plastic equipment.

Off to one side there were a few old metal burn your backside slides. None of them are as tall as I remember the deathtrap one we used to slide on when I was a kid. They now have these slides in the shade.

Old and new picnic tables.

We always set up the volleyball net on the side of the pavilion and played Nuke 'Em. I was like volleyball but you could catch the ball before you hit it back over the net. It made it easier for all ages to join in and play.

We left Quitman and went to Tyler for Daphne to walk down memory lane. She lived there for a few years when she was young. We went by her grandmother's house, her uncle's house, other relative's houses, her old elementary school and the parking lot where she broke a couple of ribs when she was 4. Her great aunt was living in one of the places we visited so we stopped and talked for about 30 minutes with her. 

Daphne's oldest son is in the army. We saw this tank sitting outside of a VFW and had to stop and take a pic.

Then we started driving back to the Sassy Sasquatch in Mineola. We stopped at Richie's Grill and Cafe in Hawkins for dinner. We happened to be their on the night "The C" was entertaining the old folks. Apparently he has a big following and some of the people were wearing "The C" t-shirts. 

We played a few rounds of card games before going to sleep. The next morning we cleaned and packed up. On the way home, we stopped for lunch in Corsicana. We had lunch at a place we'd never noticed before, Corsicana Steakhouse at the Opry. It was in an old warehouse built in 1905. We started talking to the owner, Carolyn, and she ended up giving us a tour of the building and telling us the history of the place. The building has at least three ghosts that she (and others) have seen.

The dining area is off to the side.

There were several old cars on display. Carolyn said they were loaned to her for a year but she has had them for eight years.

Carolyn told us it took her hours and hours to glue 7000 tiny mirrors onto the saddle to make the disco "ball" above the dance floor.

Carolyn used some of the old loading dock doors, from when this was a warehouse in the early 1900s, to make the barn on the back of the stage.

Carolyn told her builder she wanted an oil derrick in the design.

Carolyn took us to the old vault/safe room and showed us how creaky the door sounds. She said there has been lots of paranormal activity near this door. I love the sound of the creak!

The safe inside the vault had seven steel plates.

Many of the doors had their original hardware.

One of the old elevators is still in use with the original hardware. Carolyn asked if we wanted to go on the elevator and we both declined When she was talking, she accidentally dropped her reading classes down the edge of the elevator side to the basement below. Carolyn said she would send one of her staff down to get it because the basement has too much paranormal activity for her to want to go down there.

Pulley system on the elevator.

The other old elevator does not work so Carolyn used it as a showcase for art.

View of the dance floor from the balcony.

I am glad we stopped there. It was really neat to hear about the history of this old building and see how it is now being used. I can't imagine having the vision to turn it into a dance hall. She bought the building in 2013.

We headed back to Waco and stopped at Daphne's mom's house to visit. Then I went home to get ready for my first teacher workday for this school year. It was a fantastic trip! we laughed so much. It was amazing to revisit some of the places where I grew up. I did get a few comments from my mom, sister, and cousins about being jealous they did not go. It was kind of a spur of the moment decision that took almost 30 years to make.

Revisiting My Roots Part 1

For a long time, I have thought about taking a couple of days to drive to East Texas to revisit the places my family used to go to. We spent every Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter at my Grandma Love's house. It was a wonderful place for all of the cousins to roam free on the tar roads between the tall swaying pine trees. We had so many adventures there when I was growing up. Grandma Love was a wonderful lady. She was kind and a bit sassy. She loved growing things and canning things from her garden. She made the best biscuits and gravy I have ever tasted. My parents, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, and cousins used to squeeze around the table to eat or play card games for hours. Her house was always filled with laughter and love. It has been almost thirty years since she died. I wanted to spend a weekend going back to Pine Mills to see if I could find her old property.  Daphne said she would come with me, so of course, that turned a simple drive into an adventure.

First stop was at the new Bucees in Hillsboro. We found Thelma and Louise shirts in the store and knew we had to buy them.

Let the shenanigans begin!

I found an Airbnb tiny house to rent in Mineola, TX. On the way we stopped at Graham's Market in Edgewood and bought some fresh fruit. 

The peaches had amazing flavor.

We could not check into our Airbnb until 4 pm so we wandered around Mineola for a while. Mineola was the "big town" near Grandma Love's house. Pine Mills was too small to have a post office so they had to use the one in Mineola. We stopped in at Ye olde Curiosity Shoppe in downtown Mineola. It was a little shop with vintage items, old toys/games, magic items, spell books, old records, vintage handbags, and lots of odd and unique things.

The Airbnb was called the Sassy Sasquatch. It was really cute. It had a bedroom and a fold out couch in the living room area.

It was very comfortable and had all the amenities we needed. 

While looking through the rules binder, we noticed a note that invites guests to free range time at a nearby gun range. Daphne and I knew we were going to have to wear our Thelma & Louise shirts and go shooting. Since it was too late in the day to shoot, we decided to drive around and see if we could find my Grandma's house. My dad's memory is failing, my mom only knew the way by landmarks, I never drove their on my own, my aunt was unsure of the county road number. The best directions we had were "somewhere between Mineola and Hawkins off highway 14 or 49 with the church marking where the road that goes to the road to Grandma's house ends. Daphne was a trooper. While driving around, we passed the church my grandparent's went to. I remember sitting in those small wooden pews when we would visit. Our family would take up an entire pew.

There is a cemetery next to and across from the church. The church used to hide Easter eggs for us to hunt in the cemetery. Daphne and I walked around for quite awhile looking at the grave markers. The oldest one we saw was from 1879.

After leaving Mt. Pisgah church, we decided to stop somewhere for dinner. We ate brisket tacos at Red Rooster Icehouse in Hawkins. I messaged my mom to see if she could think of any more details that could help us find Grandma's house, like the name or type of church at the end of the road. She wrote back, "I think it was a holy roller church, maybe Pentecostal." So, of course, I asked our waitress if she knew of any holy roller Pentecostal churches on 14 or 49. She laughed and told us where to find the Pentecostal churches near there. While driving, I called my sister. She generally does not have a great memory but has an excellent sense of direction. Within 10 minutes, she sent me the latitude and longitude coordinates. Yay, we were able to use that to find the property. The church my mom was talking about was no longer a church and had been converted into a private residence.

I had so many memories hit me while we were driving down the once familiar country roads near my Grandmother's property. It was so pretty. We used to spend HOURS wandering these county roads on our own as kids.

We finally made it to Grandma's road. 

We drove past the house and up the hill to the Ship's property. Mr. Ship used to be a very grumpy man and I warned Daphne that we should not go on his property. The road dead ends there so we had to use his driveway to turn around. Then we drove by Grandma's house slowly so I could take pictures out the passenger window. 

As we drove off, I was kind of sad. I really wanted to see it again and get better pictures. Daphne talked me into going back and knocking on the door. Daphne walked up the porch step to ring the door bell. It was the same doorbell that was installed when the house was built in 1960. I had never known that doorbell to work, besides, no one ever opened that door. We always used the door by the carport. 

The new owners used the carport door too. Judith, who has lived there for 23 years, was very welcoming and chatted with us for almost an hour and a half. She let me wander around and take pictures of the property. She even sprayed us with mosquito spray so we could keep talking without getting bit to death by mosquitos. 

Judith said she liked the look of the old pump house, so she has left it as is. The spot where Grandpa's workshop/barn used to be is now where a house has been built for her son. There is a boat/lawnmower shed where the cornfield used to be.

Judith's husband asked me about these cinder blocks. They have left them alone because they thought maybe it was a pet cemetery. It was actually the trash pit. Grandma Love did not have city trash service, so they would burn their trash in this pit (it used to be dug down into the ground). The cinderblocks were much higher back then to block the wind when burning trash.

This all used to be different types of gardens. Grandma grew corn, melons, strawberries, beans, potatoes, okra, different types of squash, peas, and many other things. She had fig and pear trees. She canned EVERYTHING. Their little outdoor storage closet was always fulled of canned food. 

It was weird to see all of that manicured grass. Judith said she never had a green thumb and does not grow anything. 

The old magnolia tree is huge. After Grandma passed, the house was sold to a young couple. Judith told us the couple was unable to pay the mortgage and the bank foreclosed on the property. The bank sold it to a guy who buys lots of titles. Judith said the property sat for about 4 years, the owner never visited or checked on it. When she saw it, it was overgrown and the house was in need of some repair after being abandoned for those years. The magnolia tree is what convinced Judith that she needed to own this property. She said she feels like God led her to it. She and her family have been very happy here. In addition to Grandma's 5 acres, they also bought the 13 acre property next to it so no one could build anything too close to them.

We loved the circular drive. It was great fun to ride our bikes round and round for races. Lots of Easter eggs were hidden amongst the flower beds that used to cover the area within the circular drive. 

I was surprised to see that the old lamp post is still there. 

While talking to Judith, I told her how when we came to visit at Thanksgiving, we used to rake all the leaves and pine needles for Grandma. We would use wheelbarrows to throw them into the ditch by the road and then burn them. I noticed that the ditch was not as deep as I remembered and asked Judith about it. She said they enlarged the culvert pipes and did not need to dig out the ditch as often. It had never occurred to me that the ditch needed to be maintained.

Judith invited me inside to see to get out of the heat. We talked about how the house looked back then and how it has changed. The kitchen pretty much looks the same except for paint on the wooden cabinets and new counter tops. 

What Judith is now using as the dining room, used to be the main living area. Grandma had the big round table pushed off to one side next to her china cabinet. Then there were two couches and the tv in the room. We used to have to put our hand out the far window to grab a pole that grandpa had placed the antenna on. You turned the pipe to change the direction of the antenna so you could pick up Longview and Tyler television stations. We watched a lot of Lawerence Welk in that room.

This used to be the front parlor. Judith uses it as their living room. We were not allowed to sit in the front parlor, it had the fancy couches and special objects in it. We did throw all of our sleeping bags on the floor at bedtime so all the cousins would have a place to sleep.

I am so glad I was able to visit, to be welcomed by Judith, and get to see the property and house. It was really neat. I miss those old country roads and the joys of a childhood wandering around with cousins and getting our feet covered in red dirt.