April 3, 2023 - In 1946 Daddy moved our family to a rent house on Arcadia Road in Center, Texas. Behind the house was an old chicken house where our “Banty” chickens roosted every night. My brother John and I often crawled on top of it to swing on one of the two high line wires that ran to the house.    

March 20, 2023 - I awoke this morning at 2:00 and began thinking about the house we lived in when I was six years old (1939). It was located down the hill from the old Center, Texas Grammar school on Arcadia Road. It was big, old and just high enough off the ground for our dog Nellie to go under it in bad weather.

February 27, 2023 - Considering the fact that our family was large (10 children) John was the only one of us that ever broke a bone. And not only did he break his leg while walking through a planer mill, he was the only one of us that was shot….. twice.

February 13, 2023 - I was six years old when I drank my first “sodie water”.  As I walked past Jess and Bob’s Café in Center, my Uncle Travis Watson (part-owner of the Café) stopped me and asked, “Henry, do you want a sodie water?”  It was my first one ever and my reach into the icy water produced a powerful, eye-watering bottle of 7-Up.  After a short coughing spell, I thanked my Uncle  and ran home to tell Mother.

January 30, 2023 - I woke up at 2:00 this morning and recalled something that happened to me years ago…. in Center, Texas. My earliest life memories began when I was three years old and I ate my first ice cream on June 19th of that year. My parents made home-made ice cream on that day every year to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Mother was 15 years old and Daddy was 20 when Daddy eloped with her, drove to Mansfield, La. and got married by lying about her age. And every year…without fail… on June 19th, they got us kids together to make ice cream.