Growing up, we polished silverware with sand

Today is Monday March 5, 2012. Birthdays for the week are: Mar. 5: Vicki Warr, Yondi Watson and Bobby Joe Childs. It was the birthdays of Kate Gryder Kimbro who would have been 100. Also, the birthdays of Nim Kirk Graves, Billy Bob Thomason, Nancy Blackstock Berry, Sue McLendon, James and Gene Nix (twins) and Linda Stephenson.

Mar. 6: Kathy Kimbro (Kate’s granddaughter), Lynda Dawson, twins Jeremy and Justin Biggers, Lynda Scurlock, Barbara Menefee, Willie Bunting and Elizabeth Harris Pate. It was the birthday of Asa Richardson.

Mar. 7: Bertis Wells, Sue Kimbro. It was the birthday of Mrs. Gordon Rogers, Mitchell Jetton and Plue Jackson born 1907 who was Center’s early garbage collector for the town.

Mar. 8: Willis Blackwell, Eleanor Ginn. It was the birthdays of Betty Pigg, Polly Hughes, Dera Mae Whittaker, Iva Dell Eddins and Doris Ruth Ramsey.

Mar. 9: Sharon Pinkston Roberts, Patsy Fairchild, Lola Houston Wilson and Lynn Mena. It was the birthdays of Martin Weaver and Billy Joe Jackson.

Mar. 10: Edna Ruth Shofner Birdwell, Kimberly Liem. It was the birthday of Exa Doggett Clark and Lola Ballard.

Mar. 11: Rheta Yarborough and Center former band director Carrol Calvert. It was the birthday of Brooksie Nall and Bernice Oliver O’Neil.

Mar. 12: Burton Brown, Glenn Ellon Bussey and Alice Faye Brooks Oates. It was the birthday of Judge Paul Carlisle, Shine Fleming, Johnny Watson, J.C. Truitt and Lefty Faulk.

••••••• Let’s don’t forget that the late Lefty Faulk put the spot light on Center years ago with his outstanding baseball game winnings while a student at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. A graduate of CHS, he also scored big on the Center Lion’s Club baseball team in the 1950s. His birthday is March 12. He was a faithful member of Dr. Joe Hooker’s Bible Class and led on Sunday’s singing the hymn “Victory in Jesus” in the ensemble which they still sing every Sunday.

••••••• When we were growing up, we kids polished the eating silverware with sand. We kept a sand bed to play in. The sand came from Mill Creek, as there seemed to be an abundance of sand there. It was a popular place to go fish, swim or dump your garbage. Mill Creek on Neuville Road was a city dumping ground. Another city dumping place was the coal mines on the Zed Bridges estate and John C. Rogers Drive. The mine cavities were so large that an entire body of a junked car could be thrown in.

During World War II when auto parts were not available, people searched through the abandoned coal mines for the old cars to retrieve the parts.

••••••• We not only polished silverware with sand, but we sharpened knives on a brick. Try it, it works.

If you will cover a snail with salt, it will melt before your eyes. It just disappears.

••••••• The kitchen broom was handy to pull out a straw for a toothpick. We kids pulled out a straw apiece from the broom to fish for doodle bugs in the back yard. I wonder if those bugs are still around!

••••••• What became of Harmie Smith Jr. and his brother Artie? Harmie Smith Sr. was a popular D.J. and singer on KWKH radio in the 1920s. He, his wife and two boys Harmie Jr. and Artie moved to Center in the 1950s and Harmie Sr. worked at KDET radio for a long time.

The family lived in one of Horace Weaver’s rent houses where Tyson’s is now. They traded with us in our grocery store, and we got to know them. Then they moved away and after the deaths of their parents, the two boys returned to Center and found employment. Harmie Jr. worked in the D.A. office for a while.

Now, I’ve missed them, where are they?

••••••• I’ve asked this often as things change, but is the big flying red horse still atop a Dallas sky scraper?

••••••• I may have some green crocheted caps for St. Patrick’s Day March 17. Crocheting gives my fingers exercise.

••••••• Neal Murphy, who writes a weekly column for the San Augustine newspaper, has also written and published a number of articles for magazines and books.

He mailed me a copy of his latest book titled “Those were the Days.” It’s his account of growing up in this area and I can identify with so much of the things he writes about.

His short stories have been published in “Good Old Days” magazine, “Reminiscence” and “Town Square” magazines.

I like the size of this new book as it is just right to hold while in bed or a comfortable chair. The stories are real, but some of the names were changed.

He has an interesting story about the Boles Field fox hound cemetery that is said to be the only one of its kind in the United States. There are nearly 30 dogs buried there and the dog had to have been famous to be buried there. Hinkle Shillings said the cemetery was started in the early 1900s. He had several of his Dawson’s Stride fox hounds buried there with markers. If you would like to have a copy of Neal Murphey’s book “Those were the Days,” you may write him at P.O. Box 511, San Augustine, TX 75972.

There are many interesting stories in this book including the mailbox at the gate of Wimberly Cemetery. Neal was an extra in the San Augustine movie “The Passage” that so many local folks were in. It’s hard to put the book down and I am enjoying every page.

I’ll have to tell about my experience with the San Augustine movie sometime. It was a big conversational subject while it was being made and a number of Center people were extras in it. It had its first showing in Nacogdoches and my cousin Jack McLendon (Jack Mac) and I attended. Jack was an extra in it too.

••••••• Susie Nelson has been writing me almost daily since Dan’s death. She tells me how concerned she and her dad are for me. Susie wants to visit me again as soon as I feel able to receive company. She sent me several guitar picks with Willie Nelson written on them for Dixie to sell in her shop.

••••••• A KDET brief history of Shelby County announcement tells that tobacco was grown near the Center square. I’m sure he refers to my telling of grandpa McLendon’s growing tobacco. His home place was on part of the Tyson Food plant. There were probably others who grew tobacco at that time, but I’ve never read or heard of them. I’ve read in the minutes of the Commissioner’s Court of their paying grandpa for tobacco to be given to residents of the county’s Poor Farm on Arcadia Road.

As a child before 1920, grandpa let me, Lucy and our cousin Sarah Carriker help him with the matured tobacco leaves. They were large and the plants looked like the big collard greens that Bill Holt grows at J.W. Braden’s. We crushed the dried leaves after separating them from the stems. In those days there were no chemicals used on plants, flowers or fruit trees.

Grandpa kept the harvested tobacco leaves in a big box on his back porch. He made pipe and cigarette tobacco and curled some into a figure eight.

I’m sure grandpa smoked, but actually, I can’t recall ever seeing him smoke or chew tobacco.

I remember quite a bit about my paternal grandfather McLendon as they lived just a few yards from us. He was a Confederate soldier, a Mason, Southern Baptist leader and a school teacher in Alabama before moving to Center in the late 1880’s.

He was also a carpenter, made furniture, enjoyed music and groups of singers often gathered in his home to sing sacred harp songs. We have letters and articles as well as pictures of grandpa being one of the leaders of the famous religion debates between the Baptist, Methodist and Christian leaders in 1890s. Grandpa died in 1923 at age 88. His wife, my grandmother lived on another 10 years and drew his Confederate pension check of $25 a month. She died in 1938 at age 97.

••••••• I never have known for sure what became of Hinkle Shillings famous fox hunting cow horn. I’ve heard that it was buried with him, and another source said it was put in a museum somewhere.

••••••• When I was a teenager, we did crazy things like twisting the stem out of an apple and repeating the alphabet. The ABC’s that the stem came out would be the initial of the one you would marry.

The stems that I twisted always relented and came out on the fourth letter. So, that must be a true omen or superstition.

– Mattie

••••••• P.S. Don’t forget to go by Fairview Cemetery anytime this week and lay a flower or 2 or more on Kate’s grave in memory of her 100th birthday March 5. She had planned on a big party on that day. In this way we can honor her memory with flowers.