Air conditioner

Thel walks down the hall and turns it off, or the continual fan, on.

I finally figured out that it wasn't cooling.

We spent the night under the small cooler in the little bedroom.

I called our Glen Rose air conditioner repair man.

He was working near Wall Mart and would be here in an hour and a half.

Gordon and Judy come to take us to Stanley and Jackies.

I got Thel to go on with them. 106 degrees, outside.

I set waiting with fans going and a wet washcloth.

He knocked in 30 minutes, I said, “Well, Bless your heart.”

He come in, “Get these doors open!, it's cooler outside!” And it was.

Nothing wrong with our unit, it just 'stuck' like it did twice last year.

He checked the freon and stayed an hour until the house cooled some.

He made sure that I had a place to go, if I had to.

He left, I was waving money and he wouldn't take it.

“You might need it for something else.” Now that's a good air conditioning man !!!

(He replaced it in 2013. Thel and I installed it when we built the house in 1980.)

Richard and Rickey work on it, or fix something important, every time that they come

Benny checks all my 'paper work', throws most of it away.

Tommy knocks down the wasp nests and 'blows out' the garage and back porch.

Benny is comming Tuesday. I have a list of 14 little things for him to look at or do.

Stainer is very a well known old fiddle brand. 'Uncle Charlies Fiddle'

'Mamas Uncle Charley Hess started playing it before 1900.'

Sometimes with neighbors 'south of Progress', I never could locate them.

No one else in the family ever played it, or any other instrument, they all liked to listen.

Uncle George and Uncle Dave especially. They liked to set on a bench and 'rhymathicaly loudy clap their hands and thighs and stomp their feet.' Southern blacks called that "pattin Juba'. Someone would come with a guitar, and they 'had music'. That fiddle top was beat 'paper thin', it was coming unglued, it wasn't pretty enough to hang on the wall.

No one wanted it, could play it, it wasn't pretty. It was real dark color. Ludie took it and put it under her bed, fifteen years of dust, on that old wooden 'casket' case.

Thel come into the family and she gave it to him. He had the top took off and made solid and playable. It has a good tone, it still looks old, never any writing or dates in it.

It has STAINER stamped deep in the wood, at the factory, on the back, under the neck.

It is a very old, well known brand. Many of Thel's friends wanted to buy it.

Thel could play it, and sing at the same time. Many people will tell you that is not possible. But when his Mommy told him to sing, that's what he did.

He had a rotator cuff problem, and it hurts him to hold his arm at that angle.

It will stay in the family. Ryan is proud of it and can play it.

Hesses had 'Texas Fever' and came to Texas on the train from Ilinois in 1875.

Her Mama cried for three weeks before that they come. "That wild untamed country.' They bought furniture here, Weatherford was the closest, it was a two day trip, then Fort Worth was 4 days. They waited until someone else was going, for safety.There were Indians, robbers and still a few bears.

Granma's bed was heavy metal, pretty scrolls. It got took down and set back out of the way for dances. Granmama, Anne Gill remembers that when grandaughters visited, they always slept with Granma. That was her feather bed. “And we jumped on it too!”

After she died it was 'shakey' and set out out behind the house and then later,the barn.

'Theodore, Black, T', he retired and was bored, He got interested in looking for old bottles, poking around old houses and their trash piles. The square brown snuff bottles, they had one to four, little dots, on their bottoms, as to the strength of the snuff inside. There was a 'half bottle' and a 'Sunday bottle' that was a 'quarter size'. (I never saw one of them.)They were used before snuff was sold in the clear glass, 'snuff glasses.' They were sealed with flat tin caps. We all knew someone who dipped snuff and would give them to us to use for drinking milk.

Granma Hess'es house had rocks around the edges. He found lots of snuff bottles

stuck in the cracks. She was hiding them, Granpa didn't know that she used snuff. (Her daughter Julia dipped snuff. My Mama, Anne Knight, she never knew that her Mama dipped snuff. Untill she watched her brother, J M gave her some when she was in the nursing home, at 96.) He went on out back, to their trash pile, to look for bottles. There down under tree limbs and trash, was Granma's old bed! He took it and scraped and painted it and put it up in his house. But it had never been solid, it wiggled.

Feather beds were a real luxury. There were no bed springs. Ropes were tied across under the bed and quilts were laid on them. Feathers come from the back end of the domestic goose. “Mama gave each one of us kids a pair of feather pillows, when we married. She ought not have, we all had such a fit when she made us pick their feathers.”

When a goose is chased or held, it protects its' self, by pinching with it's bill. It feels like course sand paper. The goose pinches and then it twists, sometimes it brings the blood, sometimes it's just a big blood blister. You hold them tight and put their head to your back. There are lots of small soft feathers, up under their stiff tail feathers. You pull them out and put them in a sack, the feathers are so soft. They try to fly away.

It does not hurt the goose to pull it's feathers, they soon grow back. The goose does not want to be held. The worst thing was that the goose would always 'squirt' on you, every time! Just ruin your clothes, and stink!

It took years to get enough feathers for a 'feather bed'. It was just a big bag of fine feathers. It took special close woven 'ticking' to keep the tiny feathers from coming out. And it was hard to 'make up' a feather bed. It had to be turned, pummeled and beat flat, then it was pretty. If anyone 'set on the bed' after it was made up, it made a big ugly dent

Papa Gill slept alone, he didn't want anybody 'messing' with his bed. He wanted the same place where he slept; for the next night. It did not look flat and pretty, Ludie would beat and flatten it. “Somebody's been messin' with my bed.” A broom handle beat on it, was pretty good to flatten it all the way across.

A feather bed was warm to sleep in, in the winter, it hugged up around you.

And it was hot in the summer, with that same hugging.

In Mineral Wells we had a big wide, south porch. We all took a quilt and made us a pallet, to get out of the hot house. Mama made a 'bucket of smoke', a cloth smoldering, that kept the mosquitoes away. It didn't smell good but it was better than getting bit.

Grandad was at our house a lot. When it was real hot he would say,"That's commin' right out of Old Mexico.”

At Breckenridge, we didn't have a porch. Mama kept two old metal beds and springs, that set in the back of the yard. Sometimes we would take a quilt and lay out,

a while until it cooled off a little.She made us a bucket of smoke, it smelled bad too.

But it was better than mosquitos.

Daddy had a feather bed from his family and Mama had feather pillows. I still have the pillows, no body wants to sleep on them on account of alergies. We left the feather mattress in the attic of their house in Azle.

Thel said that when they killed a turkey or chicken, they always plucked the soft feathers from their bottom rear. Enough of them would make a good pillow, or mattress.

Fifteen years ago, Faye and Herb gave us a feather bed. It seemed wonderful but then you would feel little pricks from the feathers. The beautiful white feathers, they were a bit to big and they had prickly points on them. They wiggled up, at night and stuck your body. They should have got their money back, on that feather mattress.

You check that before you buy a feather matress, the size of the feathers.

Kathi had her back hurting every morning. She slept on a foam matress some place, and her back didn't hurt. They bought a foam topper and her back ache it is gone. The same matress that they have slept on for years.

Mama whispered to Ida, a good gift for our three boys to get me and Thel.

It was a ceiling fan to be installed over our bed in Azle.

It seemed rediculous. We already had central air conditioning, but the fan is still better.

It was wonderful and is now over us in Granbury. I think of all the hot beds that Mama and Daddy have slept in. Bless her heart.

Black and Leona moved and Ludie and Jerry wanted 'Granma's old bed'. They painted it and set it in their bedroom. It bowed in, toward the middle and they set it out behind their little barn. An antique dealer wanted to buy it, Black wanted to keep it in the family. It set there until I saw it and asked Black if I could have it.

He hesitated a long time,”Tommy gets everything. If it leaves your house, before you die, I'll come back and 'haint' you."

Tommy took it to Mt Belview, had it sand blasted and Ryan welded a new frame under it. It still wiggles a little. He painted it turquoise, and set it in our back bedroom. Theodore come,saw it and liked it, Mama did too. It will set here, as long as I do.

Granpa Hess was known for giving community dances at their home. After dinner, the neighbors would start appearing. As the men come in, they would hand GranMa Hess, their guns, holsters and whiskey flasks and she would put them in the 'meal drawer' of her kitchen cabinet. There was a big bow-front flour bin too.

The men all drank but not at dances.

When they were leaving, they would come and tell her and she would give them back.

They took down Granpa's bed in the living room. It was real heavy, three inch, plain round, head and foot. The grown ups, square danced there, in the living room.

Uncle Charlie played his Steiner fiddle and someone the guitar. They all clapped in time and slapped their thighs. and stomped their feet. In the Carolinas, the blacks called that 'pattin Juba'.

Granpa took us kids in the back bedroom and we took Granmas bed down and we danced there. Oh we had a big time! Granpa Hess would hold hands with us little kids and we would dance around. He was to heavy to do much dancing.

Some laughed that they might 'stomp the floors out.'

“You go ahead, I'll put another floor on top of it.”

Mama would come and help Granma cook.

There was always egg nog. Me and Cam would be given a little bit in a cup, we wanted more. We planned. We would walk around with our empty cup and some one would notice and give us a little more egg nog and a little more. Cam 'throwed up' and Mama smelled it. She told her Mama that she was not coming to help her at any more parties.

Mama had 'joined the church' and wouldn't dance any more. Uncle George, her brother grabbed her and tried to make her dance.We didn't go to any more parties there.

I, Annie Louise was a little girl at Mama Gills, on Christmas. There were crouds of us relatives, lots of food and always a big crystal bowl of egg nog. It did not have whiskey in it. Some of the men poured whiskey into their cup of egg nog, out of a bottle that they had in their pocket. I saw their bottle and kept asking them where they got it.

It was during probition and I knew that it was illegal. They couldn't get me to shut up.

(I loved that rich creamy egg nog, still do. I buy it as soon as it comes into the stores, every Chrismas. 2012, at Christmas time, my loving helpful grandaughter, Alecia, turned and told everyone that she had poured out my egg nog, that it was 'outdated'.

I told her that as far as I was concerned, buttermilk and eggnog did not get old and her Mother and I had just drank a little glass of it.)

I was about 10 and I wanted an onion. I could see some on the top shelf of the old cabinet that set in Mama Gills kitchen. So I climbed up to get me an onion.

I didn't know that the top of the cabinet was not fastened to the base. I pulled the cabinet top, down to the floor on top of me. It just rocked over. The lid come off of a nearly full, half gallon can of syrup. They wasn't to mad at me, 'I just wanted an onion.'

50 years later,Tommy saw this same cabinet setting on the open back porch at Aunt Ettas. Hinges were off, glass in the doors broken, many coats of paint, the work top was so battered. It was about at the 'end of it's line.' Tommy asked her if he could have it, she was glad that somebody wanted it. He took it to Mont Belview, amid our snickers.

“I will never undertake anything that hard again, unless it is a real family antique”

He solved the problem of the cabinet top, he turned the old one over. Aunt Etta, Mama and all of us are amazed that he could make it look so pretty and new again. He has put new etched glass and antique hinges.

When anyone moved, in their wagon. That cabinet was the only piece of furniture for the kitchen.The woman had it all right there.And it moved easier, being in two pieces

Antique dealers call this two piece cabinet, a 'kitchen'.

Setting on the open shelf of this cabinet is a set of six thin pretty cups and saucers.

“Granmama Gill, Dad's mother sent off coupons to Maxwell House Coffee and got them

"I lived with her and saw her always drank her morning coffee out of them.” She was 96

This was told by Gramama Knight, all her life, 102 years.

Aunt Etta always remembers the time that she and her friend, Lois Jakes were at Granmama Gills. Aunt Anne was her youngest daughter, her husband, Uncle Jim Coleman had gradually went almost blind. He made a good living selling insurance out of his office. Aunt Anne had driven them to see Granmama.

“Me and Lois got tickled at something that he did, because he could not see.

After they left, Granmama really got onto us for laughing. Since then; I always remember and stop; before I laugh at any handicapped person, that does something odd.

Many years later Aunt Anne was a widow. She was driving with a nice man friend. She made a left turn, on the main drag and had an accident. Her friend was killed, she wasn't hurt real bad. We expected them to sue. Aunt Etta said that she guessed they thought, "If he didn't have any better sense than to ride with her- it was his decision."

Nathaniel was setting in the edge of the water, on our launch ramp.

He come in and asked me,”Grama, what does a minnow taste like?”

He had three cleaned, in his hand, gutted,and their heads and tails cut off.

“I don't know. We'll cook them and see what they taste like.

Thaniel, you shouldn't have cut their tails off.”

“Why Grama?” “Well the crispy fried tails, they kinda taste like Fritos.”

We cleaned several little perch and fried them, minnnows and all.

Granmama Knight was here helping, and she helped eat them too.

(Now 25 years later he says that he didn't like the taste of fish. He thought that minnows might taste different. He decided that with enough ketchup, they didn't taste much different than a crispy French fry.) Just like Tommy had cleaned some little perch that they caught from the little tank in his Mama Gills yard in Mineral Wells, 30 years before. She had helped him eat them. They caught some craw dads there and fried their tails too. Mama Gill liked for me to bring the boys to visit and prowl around in the pasture.One time we brought Stanley Don

he thought it was to booring.

Cam talked with the boys more than he did the older folks. Usually he would leave the house when a bunch of family come. Christmas week, he always spent on a week long checkup at the VA hospital in Dallas. That way he wasn't home when the whole croud was there for Christmas. Cam had hardening of the arteries. His knees and legs hurt. The Doctors warned him that if he had a bad spell of hurting, it ment the blood circulation had stopped and he would loose his legs. He liked to go to Oaks Crossing and set on the sand bar and cool his legs in the running water. He would take a gun and set and shoot snakes.

He was watching them load sand from the crossing, They were scooping it up; hauling it off and selling it. It had piled there over the years, by the water current. He was there when they found a buffalo skull, a big one. He got it and wired it onto the front bumper of his jeep. Mama Gill, She called it a 'Jip'. It looked impressive.

Mama Gill always had a French accent, even though she was not fluint in it.

Oaks Crossing got it's name from Old Man Oaks who built an impressive two story house on the high bluff. He had a ferry there. That place on the river was wide and shallow. The only place for miles where a buffalo herd could cross. It was a main trail across the country.The Indians used it and the stagecoaches, when they come into use.

Several years later Cam's pains got worse and he drove his jeep to the river. There was always someone there.They just skipped rocks or waded. Aunt Etta heard that he went and she followed him. Just as she went down the bank, a shotgun blast! She started faster and a young man grabbed her. She said,"I want to go help him." He said, "No one can help him now."

The Justice of Peace rulled it, suicide. J M told him the whole story and he said that he would change it to accidental. JM told him that it was already in the papers and no one would believe that now.-- to just forget it.

Now; did he stumble on the gun? Or did he use it to shoot snakes? J M disposed of the gun. I think it was the old shotgun that Grandad used in the Civil War.

Tommy wishes that he had it. There are no 'Gill guns'. Doyle said that he wishes that he had his Father, Hanners, little 22. No one knows where it is either.

Richard remembers that he asked Mama Gill about Billy the Kid. Mama Gill told him that if Billy the kid was as bad as they said--the people themself would have killed him. He couldn't have run from the law that long.

That might have been the time that my boys took their fishing rods and fished in the big tank, over in the pasture. They hadn't caught anything. Cam come walking up,”You need to wake them up.” He throwed some rocks in the water. Tommy knew that they couldn't catch anything then and started back to the house.

Richard had his line tangled up, he wanted to fish some more.

Tommy left Richard his fishing pole.

Richard soon come in carrying the biggest black bass that we ever saw! We guessed that it weighed ten pounds! We didn't have a camera, we admired it and took it home and ate it. Richard says that “It's still the biggest fish I ever caught”.

The next week, Cam and J M seined that tank and didn't get any fish.

Winter time, here in Granbury, Nathaniel fell off our dock, onto the launch ramp. The water was just over his head. Ryan was close, up on the dock and he reached out his hand to help him. He couldn't reach it. Ryan turned around and stuck his leg out. Nathaniel couldn't get hold. Ryan jumped into the water beside his brother and they both walked up the launch ramp, out of the water. Their clothes were dried in the dryer.

20 years later, Thaniel squatted on our patio, feeding four big Canadian Geese. They were eating bread crumbs out of his hand. They had walked up out of Lake Granbury. “Gee Grama, the only time I have seen these geese before-- was in the sights of my gun. While I was shooting at them over the rice fields in south Texas.”

Rickey was playing on the dock. He fell in, right at the front of the boat. Jason, from next door, reached down and caught him by the collar, and lifted him back up.

Boyous around Houston were mostly narrow. The aligators didn't go under, they just moved to the other side, as a boat come by. But certain boys being pulled on water skis by the boats--They liked to swing to the other side and ski over the backs of the aligators. I am glad that I wasn't there.

They all learned to swim, 'knee board' and ski, right here.

Ryan had Lynzi Grace, playing here in the shallow water.

“Grama, you and Granpa couldn't have lived in a better place.”