“A good friend knows all your stories. A best friend helped you write them.”
May 15, 2017 - When Pam and I attended The Peavy Family Reunion Saturday in Chireno, Texas, we saw friends we hadn’t seen for many years. I met Gordon Peavy’s family when I was a student at ETBU and pastor of Liberty Hill Baptist Church in San Augustine, Texas. Gordon was one of the last truck farmers in our area and was one of the best. I always enjoyed spending Saturdays with him on his farm in the Patroon Creek bottom and to ride with him to the Farmers Market in Houston. He taught me how to tie greens with “bear grass”, how to drive a tractor and to know when a watermelon was ripe.
Gordon’s son Hollis and I squirrel hunted in the woods near Bland Lake and fished often in Patroon Creek, Huxley’s Bayou Seipe and on the Sabine River. On a camp-out on the Sabine River one night, we gave up on fishing and started gigging frogs along the river banks. Those frogs that we cooked on that sand bar would have tasted better had we been able to wash the frog smell off our hands before we ate.
The Reunion at Betty Jean’s last week brought back memories of the ‘50s as if they happened yesterday. She and Ruby Carolyn are the only remaining members of Gordon and Emma’s family. Willis, Herbert and Hollis crossed the Jordan several years ago.
Pam and I (and the 50 others present) had a great time Saturday… and God willing we’ll be present at their Reunion next year to meet with friends and celebrate Betty Jean’s birthday anniversary again.
