We took a little family getaway out west this weekend. Our son is visiting a friend in Ozona, TX so we decided to tag along and make an adventure out of it and stay in nearby Sonora, TX. We looked at the few hotels that this small town has to offer, but the pickings were slim, as they say, and they left very little to be desired, at least by a family that seeks the story and the adventure in almost everything they do and everywhere they go. Michelle decided to see what AirBnB had to offer, and what she found turned out to be an absolute gem. It’s an old house, built sometime in the early twentieth century, and it sits just two blocks down from the county courthouse. If you know us, then you know it sounds like a perfect fit.
Upon arrival, we were mesmerized before we even walked through the front door. The house sits on a large corner lot alongside Dry Devil’s River. Its large front porch welcomes all who pass by, as it is big enough to host a large social gathering. Just beyond the corner of the porch, right there in the flowerbed below, a giant tree trunk lives, and its canopy covers nearly the entire house. Once inside, it was clear that we’d stepped back in time to the early 1920s.
Aside from the kitchen appliances and the mini split air conditioning system, there isn’t one modern piece of anything throughout the entire house. From the old church pew that sits in the foyer, to the countless antique artifacts, maps, and pictures that adorn the walls, we spent the better part of an hour just walking through the house, a new discovery at every step.
It’s now day three and I am still discovering little treasures in this place. It’s been such an enriching experience to occupy this space; It’s almost as if we were granted shelter in a museum. I’ll be posting in my Travel Blog about the house and the entire trip soon, so stay tuned for updates on its release!
As I write this, I am sitting in the main room of this old house. I’ve “set up shop” in a really comfortable old chair in the corner of the room, an antique rug at my feet, and surrounded by all things historic. I spent a bit of time this morning just wondering around the house again, but this time, I was taking in something other than the amazing antiques… I was studying the house itself. I was looking at the ceilings made of bead board, the old plaster walls and the wainscoting below, and the floors… oh my gosh, the floors! They’re the original floors and are most certainly made of long leaf pine, a wood species that hasn’t existed for many, many years. They’ve been restored, and it was a job done well, but they still hold all of the character that came with every step, every dropped utensil or toy, all by the collective families that have called this place home over the past century.
“If only they could talk.” I said to myself as I wandered through the place. It’s an old cliche, but it’s all I could mutter as the presence of this place leaves me speechless otherwise. I wanted the walls, the floors, the furniture to tell me the stories of yesteryear. I wanted to know the joy, the pain, the triumph and the failures that only this house could tell so well. I wanted them to tell me who built the beautiful stone wall that lines the riverfront, and how much things around here have changed. As I sat in this chair to begin to write, I was swept back to a time in my own life that served as a stern reminder that there are indeed ways to hear these stories from a time so long ago.
The exact year escapes me, but it was sometime around 1998 or 99. I was living in Austin, and I’d driven down to Corpus Christi for the weekend to help my Grandma Boots load her things into a moving truck, as she was packing up and moving to Oklahoma City. There were a bunch of us there to help… my folks, my sister and brothers, we’d all come to make it a team effort. It was a work-filled weekend, but it was also a great excuse to be together as a family.
The move to Oklahoma City came from a place of pain for my Grandma. I won’t go into any details, but after over fifty years together, the marriage between my Grandma and Granddad had ended. My Grandma was an incredibly strong woman, at least on the exterior, and she seemed to be handling things well, but I caught a glimpse of her that I’d never seen before one evening as we sat at the table in her kitchen.
We’d come across some old photo albums of hers and we were gathered around the table as we looked through them. The photos were almost all of black and white, and were from the early days of their young life and marriage. Some of them were from before even my dear mother and uncle were born. We sat around in awe of it all… the old cars that were brand new in the picture, the picture perfect sidewalks in the neighborhoods of brand new houses that now sit weathered and worn from time.
As we flipped through page after page of these albums, my Grandma started to tell the stories of those days, most of them with my Granddad as the central figure. She spoke of the early years of their marriage, the towns they lived in, and the people they knew. She never spoke one harsh word about my Granddad, and there was a sweetness within her that night, something that she didn’t typically offer. Don’t get me wrong, she clearly loved her family, and she was in no way considered “mean”, she just had a hardness about her that rarely gave way to emotion.
As she talked of those days with great vulnerability, I was in awe of what I was hearing. Not only was I getting to know a different side of her, I was hearing stories from a simpler time, something that I have always enjoyed. I remember my drive home that weekend… the stories were still swimming through my mind, and I was still captured by the fact that I’d ben so fortunate to see my Grandma come out of her shell a bit. I looked forward to seeing her again in hopes that we’d get to continue those conversations as she relived some memories that she most obviously cherished.
Little did I know, that was the last time I’d ever see her again. Gosh, twenty-five years later and it still hurts to say or write that. Sadly, she passed away shortly after she moved to Oklahoma. It was unexpected, and it devastated us all, especially my dear mother. Frankly, I don’t know what hurt worse… losing my Grandma or seeing my mother in so much pain.
Although her time here was cut short, I am grateful for that evening with her at her kitchen table. It’s a memory that has stuck with me through the years, and it was such a fitting reminder this morning.
No, walls can’t actually talk… but our elders can. The gouges and scratches on these old floors can give us an idea of what happened in that moment, but our elders can recall the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the emotion of the exact moment in time that something happened.
My old man used to constantly talk about the past. Although he had a bit of a storied childhood, he recalled those days fondly, and it played a huge role in my love for the simpler things in life. My mom has always enjoyed telling me the story behind certain things like how she came up with my name and how proud my sister was to finally have a baby brother the day I was brought home. Being out here in Sonora this weekend, the landscape has triggered many memories of the stories my pops has told me through the years about growing up in the Devine, TX area. All of these are things that I absolutely cherish, and there isn’t one material possession that will ever top that feeling.
We’ve all had the occasions where we might not be quite so interested in hearing a story from an old timer. Sadly, many of their wisdom falls on deaf ears as we are either too wrapped up in our own selfish world or we mistake it for “just another old timer complaining about kids these days”. I’ve been guilty of this time and time again, especially in my younger days, but what I wouldn’t give to sit at that table again.
Why do we wait until it’s too late? Why do we long for things that we didn’t have the time for or interest in when it sat right in front of us? Why do we think we know better than someone who has lived to see and experience the traps that we’re about to walk into face first? If y’all ever take any advice at all from me, let it be this…
Don’t wait.
Don’t wait to wish you could have one more day with someone, go have that day with them now. Don’t wait to hug someone, hug them now and hug them tight. Don’t wait to apologize to someone, tell them you’re sorry and grab that hug we were just talking about.
Of course, this goes beyond just our elders, but I don’t want to lose the emphasis on being with them and being present with them while they’re here. I’ve heard from a couple of different elders in my lifetime that they often feel forgotten as they age. They feel that their words aren’t appreciated much anymore, and they think that they’re now a burden on those that they love the most. After all, their starting to see time shrink before their very eyes, and this brings with it a profound, almost sacred appreciation for every moment that they are able to spend with their cherished friends and family. We owe it to them to be there and be with them. We owe them the time and the love and the joy that they deserve in however many years they may have left. The clock stops for us all at some point, and I know that I hope to experience my sunset with those that I love most. In the end, nothing else even comes close to mattering.
So, go on… get in your car, pick up the phone, however you’re able to… go see them. Tell them that you love them and then… just listen. Do what they want to do. You have no idea how much you’ll miss it when you no longer have the chance.
That’s an order, people! Move ‘em on out and get to marching! ;)
Last, and this is silly and obviously unnecessary to do on a public platform, but I want to write and say the names of those that I miss so much. There are so many, so I doubt I’ll get to all of them, but I want them to know that they are remembered. This week’s newsletter is dedicated to them.
Virginia “Boots” Durrett
George Durrett
John Durrett
Wayne Clawson
Mary Clawson
Josephine Carmichael
Dick Carmichael
Stephen Martin
Ruby Lee
Gone, but never forgotten.