May 14, 2020 - My wife, Clara, is a typical type “A” personality. She is impulsive and compulsive. One of her compulsions is making up our beds. Sometimes I feel that she thinks that God should have added an eleventh commandment – “Thou shalt not have any unmade beds in Thine household.”
Over the years, and on a few occasions, she has made up our bed with me still in it, trying to get a few more winks of sleep. Still other times she has made up her side of the bed only, then promptly tidies up the covers when I get up for the day.
May 8, 2020 - In 1937 my father, Cecil, decided to get into county politics. For reasons known only to him, he filed for the position of County Clerk of San Augustine County, Texas. He had no experience in politics, nor any other office work. He had been a painter and paperhanger contractor, working with his father, Felix, and younger brother, Marvin.
My father ran on the motto, “Give a Young Man a Chance." The current county clerk had been in office for several terms and was much older than my father who was 32 years old at this time.
April 24, 2020 - It is a real loss to our country that drive-in movies have died and gone to cinema heaven. They were killed off by the television set, a slow and agonizing death. But I have noticed in the news that a few new ones are sprouting up around the country. I wish them success and a long life. I suppose that I have a fondness for the outside movie due to the fact that my uncle, Ed Buckalew, owned the first (and only) drive-in movie in San Augustine, Texas, history.
April 16, 2020 - There is nothing quite as upsetting to a young lad as being falsely accused of a crime. Now understand, I was not an angel around nine or ten years of age but being accused of a heinous crime was a shock to my total being.
April 2, 2020 - Most Texans are proud of their state. Texas has a lot to offer its residents, and bragging rights are included. I realize that we Texans have a reputation for being outwardly proud. In fact, I read where a father instructed his son, “Son, don’t ask a man where’s he’s from. If he’s from Texas, he’ll tell you. If not, there ain’t no need to embarrass him.”
March 27, 2020 - I was bit by the fishing bug at an early age. Growing up in East Texas in the 1940s and the 1950s gave me ample ponds, lakes, and rivers in which to practice my new avocation.
My uncle Ben Woods was an avid fisherman and he taught me the fine art of bait casting, river fishing, set hooks, and trot lines. Each summer he would take me over into Louisiana where we would fish on Black Lake for an entire week. If the fish were not biting in Black Lake, we would drive a few miles to the Cane River and set out trot lines to catch catfish.
March 19,2020 - Back in 1955 I was a college freshman with no automobile. I was attending Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas, living on campus. On Friday afternoons occasionally I would want to go back home for the weekend, which was a 35 mile trip to San Augustine. The only way for me to make the trip was to hitch-hike, or “ride my thumb” as the saying was.
March 12, 2020 - I was a “latchkey kid” in 1942 and did not know it. My sister, Evelyn, at around the age of fifteen, was involved in being one as well. I was in the first grade school, which was located in the high school gymnasium, becausethe new elementary school was not quite completed. My first grade teacher, Mrs. Saunders, liked to line the class students in a straight line for some activity, and then say “Kneel." The first time she did this I was confused. My name was Neal, so I thought she was calling out to me for something I had done.
March 5, 2020 - My six year old son, Doug, came running up to me and said, “Dad, Dad, Mom is under water!” Knowing how my wife hated water, I knew this was not good news. In fact, the headlines in the next Houston Chronicle might read, “Mother of Two drowns in Kiddie Pool while on Vacation” popped into my brain.
February 25, 2020 - Back in the “good old days” buses were the main mode of travel from city A to city B by the general populace. We are fortunate that San Augustine had a nice bus station with service to several large cities in Texas.
