Today I drove down to Brownwood and back, to take my uncle home. I knew this trip was coming up, and that's one reason I really wanted to finish the book I was working on. I don't like having to stop for a day and then go back and write the last five or ten pages of the book. Along the way we drove past a kangaroo ranch (I didn't know there were any kangaroo ranches in Texas) and a bunch of fields where my mother and uncle picked cotton seventy-some-odd years ago. We also took the grand tour of Blanket, Texas, where my mother's family lived in several different houses and where all the kids went to school. I enjoyed the day; I always like hearing about the past and seeing old buildings and such. I just have a good connection with history, I guess, enough so that for years when I was in school I planned on being a history teacher. Now I just write about the stuff.
The doctor's office called while I was gone, with the news that the growth the doctor removed from my face last week was precancerous. One never likes to hear any form of the word "cancer", but this isn't really threatening news. I just have to go back in three months and make sure it hasn't come back. My father had several growths removed from his ear over the years, and they never affected his general health.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
James, very glad to hear you got that thing off you before it could start big trouble.
Kangaroos in Texas? Very cool. I'd like to see that. You should get us some pictures.
And finally, if you're not a history teacher, who is? You've certainly written enough textbooks cleverly disguised as entertainment. That's the way the best teachers teach.
TL
Always good to hear about Brownwood and Blanket! And good to hear you don't have to worry too much about that little growth.
Unfortunately, you can't see the kangaroos from the road. My uncle said they used to be in the pasture next to the highway, but they've been moved to another pasture. I didn't get the name of the place off the gate, either, so I couldn't look them up and see if they have a website. I'll be more prepared the next time I go through there.
The little town of Blanket looks like it's about to dry up and blow away, as we say down here in Texas. The business district is only a block long, and all the buildings are empty except for one or two. When I visited there a lot as a kid, there were two grocery stores (one of them run by one of my uncles), a drugstore, a bank, a cafe (run by another of my uncles), and a five-and-dime store (run by one of my cousins). Oh, and the domino parlor. Can't forget the domino parlor. One of my aunts was the postmaster, by the way. But then the president of the bank ran off with all the money, and the town never quite recovered.
Post a Comment