Category: Reflections

Boxes

IMG_0698A friend of mine who is moving recently put out an appeal for boxes. I was able to help. There are always spare boxes kicking around my house. Yeah, my pantry is a hot mess, but I do hate to throw out a good box.

Hi, my name is Tracy and I’m a box-o-phile. I think it’s genetic. I got it from my grandmother. She was always on the lookout for boxes. No evening trip through town with Mama Dear was complete without a stop at the bin behind M.E. Moses. I’m still not sure why she needed all those boxes. Now that I know how grandmothers work, I suspect she that wanted to please me more than she needed to replenish her supply. I certainly always got a bang out of those treasure hunts in that alley.

There’s just something magical about an empty box.  Boats, forts, spaceships, and hiding places when you’re In Trouble are all possible with a good box. It’s been years since I’ve drawn headlights and grill with a magic marker and zoomed away the afternoon, but I remember. I remember.

THE BOX that we are encouraged to think outside of has become a symbol of all things restrictive and reactionary. Maybe that’s a decently helpful image, but the boy in me knows that really creative thinking happens while surrounded by corrugated cardboard.

Nightmaring

Come spring in the 60s, an often-heard trope in the teacher talk at Central Elementary began “IF I pass you to the next grade…” Knowing what I now know about kids (and teachers, for that matter) and spring fever, I doubt that the implied threat, however dire, had a lasting impact on classroom deportment. I do remember, though, that the prospect of having to repeat the year was troublesome. I used to worry about it.

I was relieved when I got my final report card at the end of first grade. It clearly showed that I’d been promoted:

1stGrade

The next year was brutal for a number of reasons; in fact, I didn’t encounter anything quite as harrowing school-wise until my last year of grad school. It’s no surprise that my second grade report card was less than stellar:

ReportCard

(For what it’s worth, I STILL can’t do math and my handwriting is STILL atrocious).

Even more upsetting was the promotion/retention blurb on the back:

2ndGrade

What did that mean? My first grade teacher had clearly underlined the happy news about my promotion. But now what? Was the dreaded “continue work in the level he is doing this year” marked out or was it sloppily underlined? I puzzled over those two sentences and that ambiguous mark for weeks. Being me, I internalized my fear and spent the summer in a quiet dither filled with wide-awake nightmares. I absolutely convinced myself that when school started in September (yes, school actually started in September then) we wouldn’t find my name posted outside a third grade classroom. My mother and I would be forced to make a walk of shame back to the second floor of that old, old building where the second grade classes met.

(For the record, I did pass to the third grade and entered the classroom of Mrs. Tate, who is one of my top-five all-time favorite teachers. Things were much better that year).

I now know that my summer of nightmaring was silly. I’m quite sure that even in the 60s retention of a student came only after extensive parent conferences and whatever passed for remedial intervention in those days. That dreaded PLACEMENT NEXT YEAR section of the report card was only a surprise for me. Despite all of those “IF you pass” threats, there was never a potential walk of shame to the second grade hall on the table.

What was earth-shattering in the second grade is fodder for chuckling today. Back then, I certainly never anticipated  that I would one day air the embarrassment of unsatisfactory math and handwriting grades in front of FaceBook and probably all of Google. I never thought that I would openly discuss my secret fear of second-grade failure on the WWW. (I did, however, think that I might one day vacation on the moon; in 1966 we had a different view of the direction that technology would one day take us).

Surely herein is a lesson: I wonder how many of my current daytime nightmares spring from incomplete knowledge, vague marks, and silent suffering? And how many will I laugh about in 50 years?

Commencement

IMG_0571 I’ve been thinking lately about everyday sights that we see without noticing. For me, a fairly obscure building tucked under the water tower by the courthouse usually escapes my attention, but it has the power to be downright ahhh-inducing when it catches me in one of those oh-yeah-that’s-where-I moments. My one trip through those doors was to pick up graduation announcements from a now-defunct printshop that once occupied the building. That box of still-damp ink touched off a string of heady days in the spring of 1977 that signaled the beginning of the end of high school. And presents. Ahhh-inducing indeed.

I realize now, though, that the HHS graduation exercise of 77 wasn’t the beginning of the end for me. It was the beginning of the beginning: a commencement in the truest sense of the word. In a few hours, I’ll yet again enter Lion Stadium to the strains of “Henderson Festival March.” Commencing one more time.

Even if I can’t say that donning coat and tie for an outdoor June event tops my “Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens” list, I always get a vicarious sense of satisfaction and accomplishment as I follow the bobbing mortarboards around the track. Oh, I can step far enough away from my inherent narcissism to know that eyes will focus on the current graduates rather than the huddle of faculty members skulking behind, but the experience is still valuable. At a time when my middle-aged conservatism wars against Change, Upset, and All Things New, I’ve come to look forward to an annual reminder that our walk along the longer track is nothing more than a series of commencements, of beginnings-again. Just without the presents.

Sufficient disquiet

IMG_0436My bedroom window overlooks a cemetery. Half a century ago, when I was troubled by Monsters Under The Bed and other assorted nighttime horrors, that thought might have disturbed me. Now, I find the view pretty serene except for those early summer mornings when city workers roll out lawn mowers and weed eaters at first light.

General James Smith and family rest in pace in perhaps the most-seen and least-noticed cemetery in town. Surrounding streets hustle us daily to town and to Lowe’s and to Kroger, but the little park in the crook of one of Henderson’s truly monumental intersections is generally unheeded and forgotten, much, I’m afraid, like those who rest there.

That’s rather sad. Even a shallow surf of the www brings waves of info about General Smith. He cut something of a figure in early Texas. He was a veteran of both the War of 1812 and the Texas Revolution, the donor of land for the city of Henderson, and a Rusk County delegate to the Texas House. His Fellow Founders thought enough of him to name our neighboring county in his honor, and it’s possible that a design on his coat button inspired the Lone Star itself. That’s quite a resume.

Urban legend once held that grateful Hendersonites buried Smith standing up, facing the downtown square a mile away. As far as I know, snopes.com has never investigated, but I think I can debunk that rumor on my own. Up close, the tomb is only about chest high. If the general is upright, he was a short man indeed.  It’s a cool story, but discountable. That’s a good thing; poor ol Gen’l Smith deserves a comfortable repose after all that soldiering and representing and namesaking and logo designing and all.

So General Smith and I sleep snoring distance apart. His rest is horizontal (hopefully) and eternal; mine, not so much. I haven’t worried about Monsters Under The Bed in a very long time, but different thoughts sometimes bump my nights and disturb my slumber. The general’s world is not mine. I doubt he ever spent a night wondering if his online bank account would be hacked, or if his central air unit would hang on through one more summer, or if his students would survive the latest high-stakes, state-mandated standardized assessment. Surely those nineteenth century Texians had it easy. On the other hand, though, I can’t say that I’ve ever lost much sleep over uprooted and hostile Native Americans, or a marauding Santa Ana, or wondering whether or not I could make a midnight run to the privy without stepping on a rattlesnake. Sufficient unto each generation is the evil thereof, I guess.

Silence

vigilThere’s always something off-kilter about being in a familiar place at an unexpected time. Nights and weekends, I avoid the schoolhouse. Nevermind that my presence there at odd hours signals that I’m trying to get caught up on something I didn’t want to do in the first place (darn those ungraded essays); an empty school has way too many groans and echoes. It’s creepy.

Tonight I make an odd-hour visit to a place that’s at least as familiar as my classroom. Holy Week is here, and I’m pulling my annual late-night vigil shift. It’s an hour of watch in a darkened church before a laid-bare altar.  It’s a duty I never miss.

All is quiet.  Oh, there’s the hum of the AC and the protest of the aging pew as I shift my ponderous corpus, but the silence is a special kind of thick that I meet only once a year—always on this night. Tomblike, perhaps.

No one can accuse me of being especially spiritual. I sometimes envy those who speak the language of faith with easy familiarity. I can’t. I squirm. Certainty comes hard, and grasp of the Things Beyond usually flits just beyond my reach.

In this place, though, I can understand the uncertainty of Thursday as it rolls into the desolation of Friday.  The church is dark and bare. And silent.

Even so, even in this dim light, even I can rouse enough hope to whisper into the silence: Easter Comes.

Screen doors on grocery stores and the uncertainty of hmmm and hmmm

A Faithful Reader (verily, there are no more reassuring words to a beginning blogger than faithful reader. Thanks, George) asked if I remember a silver dollar that was embedded in the sidewalk in front of a grocery store on this block:
MainStreet
I remember. The other day I did a little slow, head-down walking and discovered a coinish circle near the door of B. J. Taylor & Co. coinI’m pretty sure that the silver dollar once nested there, but, like the grocery store that once occupied the building, the coin is gone.

I’m not surprised. Collectible coins can’t be expected to stay in one spot on a public sidewalk forever. Neither can grocery stores. The thought that leaves this Modern—though somewhat unenthusiastic—WalMart Shopper breathless is the suggestion that folk once procured the weekly provender from small stores in the middle of main street blocks. The notion of buying groceries from Mom-and-Pop on the square is almost as foreign to me as the idea of hiring a hack from the local livery stable.

But not quite. I can easily remember another downtown market—Mrs. Jack Moore’s store—around the corner on South Main. It was a cool store. Mrs. Moore presided over the cash register and occasionally slung slabs of beef behind the meat counter. I stopped there many times. Even now, when I stroll past the bank parking lot that absorbed her building, I get a mild craving for an ice cream sandwich from her freezer case.

Truth be told, my knowledge of downtown grocery stores should be much more complete. My great-grandfather owned one. I’m not sure where it was, but I have an unverified impression that it was in the same block as Citizens Bank. Armed with that uncertain fact, this photo intrigues me:
paradem 1

Could that be my great-grandfather’s store tucked between Citizens Bank and Reeds Department Store? Could that be my great-grandfather lounging in white in the doorway?

I wish I knew. I recall only one other thing about the store. My grandmother was fond of telling that “Papa’s Store” was the first modern grocery in Henderson because it had (or didn’t have–I can’t remember which)  screen doors. For the life of me, I can’t decide if screen doors on a grocery store represent technological progress or regress. I can argue the case both ways.

Dennard’s Grocery (if that’s what it was called) was gone long before I was a gleam in anyone’s eye. It’s not too surprising that I can’t wax eloquent about the modernity (or lack thereof) of screen doors on grocery stores or about watching parades while lounging at a screen door (or not) in white. I could have known more, though, if I’d listened when I had the chance. My memory could have been full, flowing deep and wide like the fountain in the old Sunday School song. Instead, I can only sing the second verse, replacing certainty with hmmm and hmmm as I go. My lot is to peer through the glass darkly. I wish I had paid more attention to my grandmother.

Six drops of the essence of terror

HHS Band prepares to take the field, October 19, 2013
HHS Band prepares to take the field

I suppose that I learned the phrase essence of terror while watching Milton the Monster on Saturday mornings in the 60s. (Remember the theme song? “Six drops of the essence of terror, five drops of sinister sauce…”) I felt the essence of terror a few years later. We called it UIL Marching Contest.

I well and fully admit that I was a pretty inept band member—especially during marching season. March and play? Not hardly (I can now confess), unless it was during a straight march toward the pressbox for the finale. The rest of the time, I was too worried about my feet to think about my fingers. Friday nights during football season—at least until the magic third quarter—were fraught with fear. I was sure that I was going to be That Guy who countermarched in the wrong place and took out my whole end of the company front. And it may have happened, sort of, a time or two. Blessed memory has a way of blocking full recollection of some rather unpleasant missteps.

If Friday nights were fearsome, marching contest was truly the very essence of terror. I knew that I was going to be That Guy who countermarched in the wrong place and took out my whole end of the company front. In front of judges. On film. That never happened (unless blessed memory is truly working overtime and I’ve done some powerful forgetting), but I was mighty afraid that it would. I’ve lived through some shaky moments in my half-century-plus, but few have been as essentially terrifying as those hour-long minutes, standing on the sideline, waiting to hear “Drum major, you may take the field when ready.”

I went to marching contest a few days ago. I’ve gone many times in the last three decades. I say I go because I enjoy watching bands march. And I do. I say I go because it’s a good way to support my students. And I firmly believe that it is. Noble and orthodox reasons, both, but I really go for that final maneuver when the band on the field flanks stand-ward and opens up, striding home with confidence and playing, well, to beat the band. I can always sense the moment when That Guy who, for the last ten minutes, has been blind with the fear of countermarching in the wrong place and taking out his end of the company front breathes again. When the audience stands to applaud, That Guy is the one I’m cheering. He’s swallowed all six drops of the essence of terror and survived. I know the feeling.

Surviving

Old Post Office, Henderson, Texas
Old Post Office, Henderson, Texas

I always wait until the very end of the designated month to renew my vehicle registration. “Always wait until the end of the month,” my grandfather said, “in case you total your car during the month.” I follow his advice. That means my annual trek to the former post office building is usually rushed and occasionally a little late.

When I enter, I always glance up to left and right, hoping that the old WPA murals that once hugged the ceiling have magically reappeared. I see the whitewash. I sigh. I return to my truck for my forgotten proof of insurance, mumbling something slightly unedifying under my breath. I write my check for dozens of dollars and get the little plastic sticker in return. I sigh.

No matter how hurried, I always exit that building with care. The steps to the sidewalk are steep and treacherous. I know. I’ve been skittish of them for years. I hold fast to the rail, remembering the unplanned roll I took from top to bottom when I was a lad.

I don’t know what caused me to stumble.  I suspect it was running or jumping or doing something I shouldn’t have been doing. I was bruised and bloody when I hit bottom, but I survived. Nothing broke. My only broken bone (yet; knocking firmly on my wood-composition desktop) came a few years later as a result of my Absolute Last–I vowed a vow–attempt to climb a tree.

Family lore was once chock-full of stories of my mishaps. There was the time I wiggled out of the highchair at Wyatt’s Cafeteria in Longview (no memory), and the time I dove headfirst-diaper-and-all into one of those old-fashioned deep bathtubs (no memory) and the time I busted my lip by falling against a glass display case at Fedway in, yet again, Longview (vague memory, but just what did now-defunct Longview establishments have against me?). I never hear those stories any more. The grown-ups who used to embarrass me by hashing and rehashing the stories of my childhood indiscretions–the list is much more extensive than I’ve confessed here–are no longer around to tell the tales. What would I give to blush one more time?

If nothing else, evidence indicates that my head is indeed hard. Or maybe a little cracked. Or perhaps both at the same time.