A Story Worth Telling

Be the best you that you can be

“Opportunity knocking usually sounds like hard work, so most people don’t answer the door.”
– I heard it from friend and mentor Jim Chionsini as one of his “Old Italian Sayings.” He likely borrowed it, but he was, among other things, a master at repackaging good advice.

– – – – – – –

An imaginary light from above formed a halo around the camera in the display case. I was in Howard Petty’s Camera Shop in downtown Mount Pleasant. Many years ago.

It was a Holy Grail moment in my college-kid eyes. I never saw a used camera with its nicks and bumps. I saw only a Minolta SR-7 35 mm single-lens reflex camera at that moment. A real camera. As opposed to my mother’s borrowed Kodak Brownie I was using when I first felt the magic of photography.

I thought about my first real camera last week while reading about 2023’s generation of high school graduates. I’m sure many clearly envision what they want to do in life. And some will complete that journey with success.

Others may be more like me the night I walked the Mount Pleasant High School stage.

During those dark ages, graduating seniors wrapped up the school year with an obligatory counseling session with Mrs. Sanders, the sweetest and most caring teacher ever to walk the halls of MPHS. I don’t remember whether she actually taught classes or was a full-time counselor. But I remember that she was always smiling, and conversations with her could make the worst day better.

“So, what are your plans after graduation, Leon,” Mrs. Sanders asked. With a smile, of course.

“I’ve enjoyed Mr. Murray’s mechanical drawing classes. I think I want to be an architect,” I told her.

“Excellent choice,” she replied. “Where do you plan on going to college?”

“I think I’m going to Kilgore Junior College for two years; then a four-year university after that.”

“Good decision. I’m sure you will do well,” Mrs. Sanders said with a pat on my hand.

High school counseling 50-plus years ago was a little more informal than it is today.

Real-world reality ruled out portions of the plan I shared with Mrs. Sanders. Minor mishaps like a couple of failed math classes. No one told me math was not my strong suit. Or that my brain may have been better wired for creative thinking, right brain stuff. I’m not sure if left brain; right brain was even a thing then. I wasn’t sure I had a brain at that point in life.

I left Kilgore after a year; knowing things like psychology, writing, music, and art felt good as opposed to anything involving calculating numbers.

Five years to get a four-year degree in psychology and art at East Texas State University, a few jobs failing to hold my interest, and a year of laboring to figure out where I belonged followed.

Enter a long-time friend who would become a mentor for my future, Morris Craig, who offered me a job. “While you’re deciding what you want to do, come work for me,” Craig said. “I know you’re a photographer. I can use you at The Monitor.”

Thus began the path that has provided great gratification, a prosperous livelihood, and unforgettable memories for 50-plus years. All because I asked, “How much for that one, Mr. Petty, pointing to the used camera at which I had been gazing.

“That’s a good camera,” he said. “I’ll let you have it for $50.”

I stared a moment longer. Where would I ever find $50? Working every hour possible between classes to pay for school? Before I could respond, he added, “And you can pay it out for $10 a week, if that helps.”

After another short silence, I looked up and said, “I’ll take it. If you will teach me how to use it.”

“Deal,” he smiled and placed the camera in my hands.

I can’t tell you who spoke at my high school graduation. Or my college graduations. Maybe a school official or a former graduate. Maybe someone well-known or super successful in life.

No one has ever asked me to speak at a commencement. A record I’m confident will remain unbroken. But if anyone ever did, it might go something like this.

Always have a dream. A vision. An idea of what you want to do and how you want to do it. Make it your own. Do all you can do to achieve it.

But don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t work out immediately. Don’t give up. No one is limited to just one dream. Or just one chance in life.

What may become the future is not love at first sight for everyone. But you are not just everyone; you are you. So be the best you that you can be.

And when doors open for you in life, always remember those who oiled the hinges for you along the way. Someone who sells you your first camera. On a payment plan. Someone who offers you a job at a newspaper. At a time when you have no idea what you want to do.

And don’t miss those imaginary lights; signs right under your nose.

—Leon Aldridge

(Photo at top of the page: First page of seniors 1966 in the MPHS yearbook, the Arrowhead. Classmate Patty Allen gets to share top billing on the column with me because this blog format page requires a horizontal photo. And everything back then, from assigned seating in classes to yearbook photos, was in alphabetical order. Meaning Patty sat right behind me in every class we had together for four years. And I was first … unless I had a class with Jack Abbott or Sue Abner. It also doesn’t hurt that Patty’s picture makes the page look a lot better than mine does!)

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Aldridge columns are published in these Texas newspapers: The Center Light and Champion, the Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, The Fort Stockton Pioneer, and The Monitor in Naples.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2023. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Knowing when it’s time for a trim

“Mowing the lawn, because man is the only animal on the planet that plants, fertilizes, and waters a weed that he has to spend his weekend cutting.”
— Internet humor

“You got a haircut,” one of the ladies at church complimented me Sunday.

“Sure did,” I acknowledged. “Just so happens Boyd’s Barber Shop had one left Saturday. Almost ran out before I got there, though.”

Her thoughts were very nice and much appreciated. The statement also started me thinking about how I use the same criteria to know when I need a haircut that I do to know when It’s time to mow the grass. Whether looking in the mirror or out the window at the yard, it always starts out, “That’s gonna need trimming before long.” And it usually ends with, “Mmm, I shoulda done that a couple of weeks ago.”

Both situations approached that pinnacle last Saturday morning when I finally headed to the barbershop before it was back home to drag out the dreaded lawnmower.

I’ve always wondered who said it first. “Hey, I think I’ll cut that green stuff growing out there in the yard instead of just letting it grow.” Whatever the logic, manicured lawns have remained a curse to people like me. Those who would be happy to have our yards declared a natural wilderness area.

I remember a Spring not so long ago. Wondering who would break the winter silence. Be the first one on the block to fire up a lawnmower and set an example for the rest of the neighborhood.

For the record, it was never me.

However, I did earn “Yard of the Month” once from the local garden club. Caught me off guard. Tried my best to convince the ladies they had the wrong address. Neighbors accused me of creating a hoax.

It was true, though. I have pictures to prove it.

The fun began to fade, however, about the time social security checks started coming. I still do my own yard, however, and still have everything it takes to make it through another lawn care season. Mowers, edgers, rakes, trimmers, fertilizer, Bengay, aspirin, band-aids, and a good chiropractor.

“Hire a lawn service,” they said. Tried that. While doing it myself may take more effort than it used to, I sometimes still enjoy that feeling of satisfaction from backing off and seeing how nice it looks when it’s finished.

Almost makes me forget how much effort it often takes to start the lawnmower, wondering what sort of punishment-oriented society invented and approved pulling on a rope to start something that is used for work.

Historians and “ologists” digging around eons from now, searching for clues of ancient society from the 21st century, will no doubt unearth many mysteries. One will most certainly be homo sapiens who evolved to have one arm longer than the other.

Perhaps these scientific searchers will surmise it resulted from countless hours of jerking the starter cord on hard-to-start lawnmowers. Or maybe they will accidentally stumble across an account of the kid who put his old mower in the front yard bearing a sign that read “Will trade for bicycle.”

As the story goes, before long, a preacher walked by and stopped to look.

“Run all right,” he asked?

“Yes sir,” the boy assured him.

“Well son, it just so happens I have a bicycle I don’t ride anymore,” the preacher told him. “I’ll be back with it in ten minutes, so don’t let anyone else have it.”

Sure enough, he returned with the bike, they made a trade, and the parson pushed his new acquisition home.

The lad was out riding his newly acquired bicycle later when he passed the parsonage where the preacher was yanking on the mower’s starter. “Hey sonny,” he called out. “This mower won’t start.”

“Sure it will,” the youngster responded, coasting over to the curb to stop.

“I’ve pulled on that rope for an hour, and it never offered to start.”

“You have to cuss it,” the boy explained.

“Son,” the preacher said. “I’ve been a minister for 30 years. So, I wouldn’t know how to cuss.”

“Just keep pulling on that rope preacher,” the kid told him. “It’ll come to you.”

When Springtime came this year, it looked like mowing wouldn’t be an issue following Mother Nature’s hissy fits. Alternating droughts and Arctic blasts wiped out half of what I once called grass and most of the shrubbery in my yard. What I have left is a crop of weeds, dust, and landscaping that more closely resembles the aftermath of an atomic bombing than a yard of the month.

And that was before the rains came. In torrents. And continued coming. In torrents. So, here I am again this week, struggling to get rid of shrub stubs that will never see any shade of green again, cranking on my cantankerous lawnmower, and thinking.

Wonder if that nice lady at church will notice I mowed my weeds.

—Leon Aldridge

– – – – – – –

I might want to try one more time

“Oh, them golden slippers,
Oh, them golden slippers.
Golden slippers I’m a gonna wear,
To walk the golden street.”

— ‘Golden Slippers’ song lyrics by James Bland (1854 – 1911)

– – – – – – –

Bluegrass music drifted across the way in downtown Nacogdoches Saturday when we walked out of Dolli’s Diner.

Omaha, Nebraska and New York City have a hundred-year dispute going as to which one is the home of the Reuben sandwich. Dolli’s gets my vote as the best place in East Texas to get one.

Focusing again on the music, I recognized the well-known spiritual popularized by bluegrass musicians in the early half of the last century.

James Bland, the song’s credited writer, is also said to be the first man to put the 5th string on a banjo.

Which reminded me. My banjo needs new strings.

The tunes on the afternoon Spring breezes were emanating from the front porch of the General Mercantile and Old Time String Shop. Instrumental harmony blended in bluegrass style is a Saturday staple on the corner sidewalk outside Steve Hartz’s place of business.

A seat on the narrow concrete ledge along the front of the building was a great spot to kick back and soak up the ambiance and the weather on a great day outside in East Texas.

Hartz personifies laidback. It’s the signature mood of his business. Like his obligatory blue overalls. He even talks refreshingly slower than the frantic rush of most people in today’s digitally dumbing race-to-right-now society. And always with a smile.

The crowd varies. Saturday’s circle of pickers included Hartz playing mandolin. Other unidentified members of the group included another mandolin player, a guitar player, a banjo picker, a fiddle player, and a dog napping at their feet. Norman Rockwell would have been envious.

Speaking of fiddle players, who knows the difference between a violin and a fiddle? The correct answer would be that a violin has strings … as opposed to a fiddle that has ‘strangs.’ That’s not been confirmed by the Old Time String Shop crowd. Just knowledge I acquired by hanging out with musicians. Better than me. Which is just about everybody who plays.

Steve has been the owner and proprietor of the String Shop and Mercantile Store for 43 years that I know of. He describes it as “maybe not be the only place left in America where a fiddle tune played by a pot-bellied stove is a regular occurrence and phone calls are still answered on an old wooden crank-box phone. However, we can’t help but wonder if there is another old general store that makes and sells banjos, flutes, and wooden spoons and offers stringed instruments for sale along with things like washboards, hand-made brooms, oil lamps, mayhaw jelly, and tin toys.

“At the General Mercantile and Old Time String Shop, we don’t use a computer because our 1890s cash register works fine, and we don’t have air conditioning because there is usually a good breeze whipping through the windows. Come in and rediscover that life can still be simple if you want it to be.

“The best things in life are free,” he concludes, “but we can sell you a banjo and a cane pole.”

I know Steve has been in business at least since 1980 because I still own a banjo he sold me that year. And I know that date not because I have a good memory, but because I bought lessons with the instrument. I knew nothing about playing the banjo.

While driving back to Center from Nacogdoches after a class the night of December 8, 1980, I heard a news bulletin on the car radio. Like it was yesterday. “English musician John Lennon, formerly of the Beatles, was shot and fatally wounded in the archway of the Dakota apartment building, his residence in New York City.”

That’s how I know.

I also know attempting to learn the banjo was a significant leap for me. My ability to play music included 8-track tape players and the bass horn in high school and college bands. But what I lacked in skill, I made up for in desire. Back then, I rode a motorcycle to far-reaching parts of East Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas many weekends to bluegrass festivals because I loved the music made with stringed instruments. And the banjo was my favorite.

I persevered painfully to produce somewhat recognizable resemblances of Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Cumberland Gap before kids and moves relegated the instrument to a closet. Three decades would fly by with me still fantasizing about making music on stringed instruments. Then one day, good friend, working colleague, and singer-songwriter Thomas Morrison walked into my office and tempted me, laying a Taylor guitar on my desk. “If you really want to play, I will help you learn,” he challenged me.

There was a catch, he wanted to sell me that guitar. Which he did. But between him, master musician and long-time friend Dickie Gilchrist, and a well-worn copy of “Guitar for Dummies,” I marked progress as the day the dogs didn’t get up and leave the room when I started to play.

Today, I can navigate some simple chord rhythms to accompany a good lead player, or just entertain myself relaxing at home — with or without dogs. But I haven’t touched the five-string first object of my desire since the Regan era. I think about it whenever I stop in the Old Time String Shop on a lazy spring afternoon. Listening to bluegrass music, relaxing, and watching people passing by Steve’s place and waving. Enjoying life at the slower pace God intended for it to be lived. After I’ve eaten a Reuben at Dolli’s.

Did you know they have a picture of Steve on the wall at Dolli’s?

I told him one more time last Saturday. “I need to bring my banjo over; it needs new strangs. And I might want to try it one more time.”

Before I “walk that golden street.”

—Leon Aldridge

– – – – – – –

A sensory trip for those who grew up back then

“Grandpa, everything is changing fast
We call it progress, but I just don’t know.”
— Grandpa Tell Me ‘Bout The Good Old Days, song lyrics by Jamie O’Hara, recorded by The Judds.

– – – – – – –

I glance that way every time I walk by. Reminds me of the good old days.

I’m talking about the vacant building on the north side of the Center square with the letters P.B. in the mosaic tile entrances. I know it’s there, but I still look. I also know the letters represent Perry Brothers, a long-gone chain of general merchandise stores, once a staple in small towns.

What I didn’t know until last week was the first Perry Brothers store was established in Center, Texas, in 1918. That’s according to a National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form filed in 1988.

The Lufkin structure described on the form was the home of C.W. Perry, one of the Perry brothers founding family members. The document also notes that after its beginning in Center, the Perry Brothers company was incorporated in 1924 with headquarters in Lufkin.

The company’s Lufkin history I know only too well. My father worked for Perry’s while in high school at the Pittsburg store. He returned to work for Perry’s after his discharge from the Army in 1945 and remained with them for 20 years.

The multistory building in downtown Lufkin on the corner of E. Lufkin Avenue and South First Street housed the Perry Brothers retail store Dad referred to as “Number One.” The upper stories of the building were corporate offices for the five-and-dime store chain. The basement level, now home to the Manhattan Fine Dining restaurant, was a company cafeteria.

The term “five-and-dime store” faded from conversation when the stores vanished from Main Street America, unable to compete with big discount stores and malls.

The terms five-and-dime, five-and-ten-cent store, or dime store identified a retail establishment offering a wide variety of merchandise, inexpensive for the most part with many items priced at 5¢ or 10¢ — hence the name.

The popular retail stores that sold everything from comic books to cosmetics and bicycles to baby dolls were found under the name of Perry’s Duke and Ayres and Ben Franklin in smaller towns. Big city versions were Woolworths, Kress, and TG&Y.

Memories of growing up during the era, for me, are triggered by smells. Aromatic experiences like fresh bulk candy strategically displayed just inside the front door in long glass cases next to a popcorn machine. Popular confections like circus peanuts, orange slices, Boston baked beans, and candy corn—each with unique olfactory delights.

Forget prepackaged bags hanging on hooks. Instead, the sugary treats were sold by the ounce, weighed on scales, and served up in paper bags. Ten cents would buy enough to last for the bicycle ride home.

The variety store’s heyday was before air conditioning was standard fare. Front doors of businesses were open, and ceiling fans swirled smells out to the sidewalk. Identifying a dime store, a clothing store, a bakery, or a drug store from the sidewalk was easy.

Walking into Perry’s, the nose was still a navigation tool. Past the candy to the smell of sizing in fabric sold by the yard. To the fragrances and distinctive scents like “Blue Waltz” perfume. To the toy department’s metallic odor of bicycles, tricycles, and wagons.

For this dime-store brat, however, the most potent memory remains wood floors that required weekly maintenance, an undertaking accomplished with a big push mop and floor oil.

Of course, sweeping floors and pushing the mop was just one of my jobs as the offspring of a Perry Brothers store manager. Others included assembling bicycles and wagons, taking out the trash, washing windows, or unpacking freight. All good after-school and Saturday jobs for a junior high kid.

The pay was 25¢ an hour, not much today. But in the late 1950s, a quarter would buy a bag of the above candy or a comic book with change. Or a Saturday afternoon matinee at the Martin Theater. With popcorn.

When we moved to Mount Pleasant in 1959, Perrys was on North Jefferson in the same block as Duke & Aryes. Today, Glyn’s Western Wear occupies space where portions of both businesses once stood. In the early 60s, a newer store opened a few blocks up Jefferson in the strip shopping center with Piggly Wiggly.

But soon after, discount centers spelled the beginning of the end for variety stores. Perry Brothers lingered into the early 80s in a few places before closing. By then, Dad had moved over to McKellar’s Department store before joining Gibson’s Discount Center in 1968, his last job before retirement.

Passing the old Perry’s Center location again last week, I paused to peer through dust-covered doors. The warped wood flooring was pushing up vinyl tile, obviously applied over it in later years.

With little imagination, I smelled oiled floors. Candy. And popcorn. But that’s a sensory trip likely reserved for someone who grew up in that era. The good old days. When the five-and-dime was the center of downtown business.

“Paint me a picture of long ago.
Grandpa, tell me ’bout the good old days.”

—Leon Aldridge

– – – – – – –

Maybe I have been around a long time

“I ain’t old, but I’ve been around a long time.
Long enough to know that age is just a state of mind.”

— Song lyrics by Delbert McClinton

– – – – – – –

“Ask Leon, he probably knew him.”

That insinuation by Texas Press Association Executive Director, Mike Hodges was a humorous jab suggesting that I had been around the newspaper industry for a long time. It was offered in response to a serious question posed at the North and East Texas Press Association’s convention in Nacogdoches last weekend. Was anyone still living who may have known Texas newspaper publisher Sam C. Holloway who worked in the trade during the early part of the 19th century?

The Holloway Award is presented annually in his memory by the state’s regional press association to an “outstanding NETPA member and journalist who has gone above and beyond the call of duty in support of the association while upholding high standards of journalistic integrity and service to the community.”

Holloway was born in 1888 and bought his first newspaper, the Deport Times, in 1912. Shortly after, during the 1930s oil boom in northern Titus County, he established newspapers in Talco and Bogata. Holloway was one of the founding members of the NETPA in 1926 and served as its second president in 1927. The first Holloway Award was presented to its namesake at the 1958 convention in Tyler.

In keeping with the spirit of the conversation at last weekend’s gathering, I countered Mike’s question with, “I remember him, but I was just a cub reporter.”

The exchange was fun, but it evoked a weighty reflection on my time in the business. Also made me wonder how many conventions I have attended since I was, well … a cub reporter.

I entered journalism in a back-door fashion through the front door of The Monitor in Naples when Morris Craig, aka “Craig,” offered me a job as a photographer. It was supposed to be temporary “until I found something else.” Journalism wasn’t my first career path choice.

We all know now how that worked out.

I had been a newspaper employee just long enough to learn how to spell journalism when Craig sent me up to Sherman to accept NETPA awards for his newspaper at the association’s 1976 convention.

The Monitor had earned a wall of plaques and awards dating before Craig’s time which started in 1956. But while Craig produced a newspaper worthy of accolades, attending the conventions to collect acclaim was not his cup of printer’s coffee.

So, I showed up at my first newspaper convention 47 years ago sporting a new light blue leisure suit and a tie wide enough to lease out for billboard space. It was also my first time meeting seasoned newspaper veterans that I would not only come to consider mentors for journalism “done the right way,” but also as longtime friends.

People like Roy Eaton at Decatur, Bob Hamilton at Iowa Park, John Crawford at Dennison, Jerry Tidwell at Granbury, Harlan Bridwell at Bridgeport, Dick White from Pittsburg, and others whose names will come to me. Right after this piece goes to press.

That first stint at the Monitor was followed by doing time at the Many, La., Sabine News for Lloyd Grissom, who, at the time, owned the East Texas Light. Purely by fate, I wound up in Center a couple of years later when Jim Chionsini was the new owner of that Shelby County publication. He took me down a new path of publishing where, along the way, we merged the Light with the Center Champion in 1983. And that was the beginning of today’s Light and Champion, and the office from where I am penning this piece in 2023.

But connecting those dots was not a straight line. Far from it.

In the late 90s, teaching journalism at Stephen F. Austin State University beckoned before I returned to ink and newsprint as editor and publisher in Hill Country burg of Boerne and later in Marlin. Working the second time with Jim C. Then it was back to The Monitor as owner, editor, publisher, window washer and janitor.

I was grateful the Monitor building had only one small window,

During those years, I served as president of NETPA twice, one of only two people to do so; my friend Jim Bardwell being the other. My first time was in 1986 while at the Light and Champion and again in 2002 at The Monitor.

After that, the road detoured to the other side of the communication desk in marketing positions before circling back to newspapers a few years ago splitting time between Center and at the Tribune in Mount Pleasant. My third time partnering with Jim Chionsini.

Two years ago, I returned to the Light and Champion in Center for “one more time.” This appearance, carrying the banner of Moser Community Media.

Whew! I think the Aldridge “Lifetime Newspaper Tour” needs a tee shirt.

Still smiling last weekend at Mike’s suggestion that I had been around a long time, I glanced around the room. There was Jim Bardwell from Gladewater. Phil Major from Mineola, Candice Velvin, now serving with the Texas Press Association in Austin. And Mike Hodges, the one who got me to thinking about all this history with his suggestion of my having been around a long time. He’s been around for much of that time himself.

That’s when the sobering realization soaked in. We were now the “seasoned ones.” We were filling the shadows of those I remembered from Sherman almost 50 years ago, trying to “do journalism the right way.”

No, I wasn’t around when Sam Holloway printed the news in Northeast Texas. He passed away in 1960. But I was honored by NETPA in 1999 with the award that bears his name. Still not sure I deserved it, but I was humbled that my colleagues in the profession thought so.

Maybe that’s why I’m still doing it and trying to do it the right way. And maybe that’s what Delbert McClinton meant in his song.

“If there’s a secret to life that I’ve ever found,
It’s all about staying in the here and now.
I ain’t old, but I’ve been around a long time.”

— Leon Aldridge

(Photo at top of page — 1976 Monitor newspaper clipping picturing the plaque awarded the Naples newspaper that year for feature stories and the much younger version of the “cub reporter” who traveled to Sherman to accept it. The clipping overlays the actual 47-year-old award. When Morris Craig closed the newspaper office on Main Street in town that had been home to the The Monitor since the mid-70s and moved the operation to his house, he gifted me with with the plaque that had hung on the wall of the newspaper entry foyer since 1976. Morris and Melba Craig, still publish the newspaper that started the Craig family’s newspaper career in 1956, then owned by Lee Narramore. Still a family operation, they are today aided by family members Dylan, Andrea , Denise, Jeremy, Sam, and Mike.)

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Before Mother’s Day, it’s Derby Day

“Weep no more my lady,
Oh, weep no more today.
We will sing one song,
For My Old Kentucky Home,
For My Old Kentucky Home, far away.”

— “My Old Kentucky Home” by Stephen Collins Foster, known as “the father of American music.”

– – – – – –

May 6 is Derby Day.

That’s when jockeys dressed in brightly colored silks will parade thoroughbred horses before fans at Churchill Downs. The University of Louisville marching band will play “My Old Kentucky Home.”

Ladies will sport their finest in large, lavish hats. Men and women alike will wash away all cares enjoying the time-honored ritual of sipping mint juleps from frosted cups.

Week-long activities will peak late Saturday afternoon with the starting bell for “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports.” Time will stand still for the “Run for the Roses.” The 149th running of the Kentucky Derby will be underway in Louisville.

If you’re new to the Derby and by chance find yourself engaged in lively conversation about it, make sure to pronounce the city’s name correctly. That’s ‘Lu-ah-vull’ or even ‘Lu-vull.’ Pronounce it ‘Louis – ville’ with an ‘s’ and you’ll become a social outcast, ignored as someone who knows nothing about the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

The event that made Lu-ah-vull famous, the first leg of horse racing’s legendary Triple Crown for three-year-olds, has long served as my reminder that Mother’s Day is just a few days away. The two events are one to me. My Mom, Indianola Johnson, was born in Winchester, Kentucky, in 1923 and graduated from Clark County High School in 1941.

A couple years of college and working defense-related jobs later, she met a soldier from East Texas. He was a young recruit with the U.S. Army 276th combat engineers on maneuvers in Tennessee preparing for action in the European Theater as World War II raged.

On leave following training in August of 1944, the young soldier took her to his hometown of Pittsburg, Texas, where they were married at the Methodist parsonage. Days later when the 276th sailed for Belgium, she lived with his parents until he returned home after V.E. Day. They spent 63 years of married life together in Texas before Dad died in 2007. Throughout those years, Mom never forgot her roots in the Bluegrass State.

Mom was the oldest of six siblings and was the first to marry. As she was planning a wedding and a move to Texas, her father wrote her a letter that she kept in her cedar chest. It remains with me today. In the letter, Arthur Johnson advised his oldest daughter to be true to God, herself, and her family, emphasizing the importance of staying close to her siblings as each of them began their own families.

Remain close they did. Annual family reunions spread between Texas and Kentucky, and Christmas season gatherings rotating between homes for decades clearly defined the meaning of ‘family’ for me.

That heritage led me not only to an appreciation for the Kentucky Derby, but it also strongly influenced my fondness for food found in the region. Namely snappy cheese dip, and Ale-8s.

Originating in Clark County more than 85 years ago, the tangy cheese snack debuted at a well-known Kentucky River eatery at Fort Boonesborough called Allman’s Fisherman’s Inn. The dip and its heritage are alive and well today thanks to Hall’s on the River, a restaurant near the location where Allman’s once stood.

Snappy cheese is best enjoyed with a ginger flavored Ale-8 soft drink bottled only in Winchester since 1926. A favorite snapshot of Mom captured her standing under an Ale 8 sign with her sisters. They appear to be teenagers, dating the photo in the late 1930s.

Mom often talked about introducing my father to snappy cheese and Ale-8 at Hall’s before they married.

For many years, my watching the Derby included a phone call to Mom regardless of where my wanderings took me. It gave her an excuse to talk about Kentucky, sharing often repeated stories of her memories of growing up in the horse racing region of Kentucky.

It also gave me a chance to wish her a happy Mother’s Day.

Mom died in 2010, but Derby day still reminds me of her. And it still reminds me that Mother’s Day is coming up.

I miss you, Mom. Thought about calling you with the Derby approaching. Saw some odds in the paper yesterday that Forte out of South Gate Farms is the 5-2 favorite to win. Tapit Trice is the 6-1 second choice, and Angel of Empire at 9-1 is third.

And by the way, Mom, Happy Mother’s Day. Once the Derby’s run, it’s just a few days away, you know.

—Leon Aldridge

– – – – – – –

The infamous one-word sentence

“I tried to raise my children with patience, respect and good manners, but they still ended up being like me.”

— Author unknown, but the concept understood.

– – – – – – –

Raising children is not for the faint of heart. It’s typically entered into with very little understanding of what’s ahead. And while many good books are found that touch on the topic, there is little hope the perfect owner’s manual will ever be completed.

Therefore, it’s my opinion that sharing child-rearing experience is largely a generational responsibility. We who have survived parenting owe the next generation fair warning about a few things.

First, sharing with those who carry on the family tradition is not only about what we learned to do, but more often about what we learned we shouldn’t have done.

That concept came to mind at a family gathering not long ago when a young soon-to-be father approached me seeking some pointers. “You’ve raised children, and you have grandchildren,” the expectant parent noted as we sat down to eat, “So at your age, what do you consider the most important part of child rearing.”

My knee-jerk reaction was teach kids never to seek advice prefaced with “at your age.” It’s bad enough at this age, that medical conversations come with those words. You’d think family would be more respectful to their elders.

But I was nice. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I replied. “Mom always said a parent is never through raising their children. Could be, however, she was just talking about me though.”

Chit-chat with the younger set was usually more manageable. Questions more like what was it like way back there when Elvis was alive? Did they have airplanes when you were a kid? Uncle what’s-his-name, sitting over there alone. Does he always drink coffee from his saucer and mumble to himself like that?

Parenting. That one, however, caught me off guard. Definitely, cause for reflection. I pondered my parenting style to that of my parents in the 50s and 60s. And my children’s style in their current generation’s efforts to bring up children. Three different philosophies, for sure. Four, when I remembered my grandmother’s words.

“Your father didn’t have those bad habits until he went in the Army,” Granny always said with a shake of her head. Usually when referring to his smoking or drinking an occasional beer when he was younger. “I trained him better than that,” she always added.

“Training,” I blurted out. “Raising a child requires dedication. But your training methods can make the difference.”

“That sounded good,” I thought to myself. Then, feeling like I had fulfilled my obligation, I reached for the fried chicken.

“What sort of training do you consider most important,” my interviewer responded.

Stopping the chicken short of my open mouth, I offered, “Maintaining that elusive balance of teaching life skills without being counterproductive. For instance, we devote the first two years to teaching children how to walk and talk. Then the next four, five, or fifteen, to teaching them to sit still and be quiet.

“There is no greater joy,” I continued, “than coaxing your offspring into uttering infantile noises that only a parent would recognize, things like ‘ma-ma’ or ‘da-da.’ On the other hand, nothing equals the agony, a couple of years later, when your sweet little one announces at the top of his or her lungs immediately following the dismissal prayer at church, “’Boy, I thought he was never gonna quit preaching. Can we finally go eat!’

“Inquisitive little faces will reflect deep wonder as you explain the mysteries of life. But,” I said, dropping my tone of voice, “the day will come when they ask things like, ‘Daddy, where does the fire go when the log is burned up?'”

“Hopefully,” I added, “you will be better versed in science than I was.”

Then I hit him with my best advice. “Just remember the one word that should never be taught to children under the age of 37.”

“And that is …,” he asked, tilting his head like a puppy trying to comprehend “sit” or “rollover.”

“The infamous one-word sentence. ‘Why?’ Once a child unlocks the power of what can be accomplished with that one word, life is never the same for you.”

“It’s a 15-minute delay for going to bed, taking a bath, or eating green vegetables,” I added, “Sadly, weary parents are sometimes slow to learn that explaining why is not the answer to young minds. It’s simply fodder for follow-ups.

“Try telling a four-year-old he needs to let go of the cat’s tail.”

“Why, daddy?”

“So he doesn’t shred the curtains.”

“Why?”

“So there is something left to mend and cover the windows.”

“Why?”

“So the neighbors can’t see frustrated parents trying to explain their way out of endless ‘why’ questions from preschoolers. That’s why.”

“Then the tyke will ask, ‘Why is Kitty hiding from me?’”

“Kitty is tired of playing. Maybe he will be back.”

“When?”

“In a year or two.'”

My dumbfounded student sat silently. A blank stare fixed on his years ahead.

“In fact,” I concluded, reaching for the chicken one more time before pausing for a moment of silence.

“Uncle what’s-his-name over there? Sipping coffee out of the saucer alone and mumbling to himself? And my dad’s smoking and drinking when he was younger?

“Both conditions caused by kids learning the power of one little word … why.”

—Leon Aldridge

– – – – – – –

Learning to drive in a real car

“You put your left foot in, you put your right foot in, you let your left foot out, and you jerk the car about.”
— The Hokey Pokey stick shift driving school song

– – – – – – –

Renewed my driver’s license a few weeks ago. Quite a few changes since I got a license to drive. Sixty years ago.

There’s been changes just since my last renewal. If your license comes back with a picture looking slightly better than that orange suit jail log photo in the newspaper, you now have to wait eight years for a chance at a better one. Plus, an appointment is required for renewal; no more walk-ins. And the appointment must be made online.

But there is a workaround for that … if you didn’t read the instructions. I saw it when I was there waiting for my appointed time.

A guy walks in and is asked if he has an appointment. “No,” he replies.

“You’ll need an appointment,” the lady behind the desk says with a smile, motioning toward the computer he had just passed up. “See if a time slot is open. We’ll try to work you in.”

I smiled because I had an appointment. Made it online. Yes, I read the instructions that came in the mail. I also read the TXDLP blog site. The part where it suggests one should learn to drive in a car equipped with an automatic transmission because it is easier.

“Once only popular with elderly drivers and those unable to drive a manual car, automatic cars are now commonplace,” the blog site said. As an “elderly driver,” I rolled my eyes and groaned.

I was driving before I turned 14, the legal age in Texas then with driver’s ed. The next Saturday morning, I was sitting in Lee Gray’s driver’s ed class at the Mount Pleasant High School choir building. Mr. Gray’s “day job” was the MPHS choir director.

Dad’s driver’s ed classes started when I was 11. Sunday afternoons on west Texas dirt roads near Seymour. That’s where he instructed me in the fine art of shifting a manual transmission while keeping his ’55 Chevy between the ditches.

My grandfather supplemented that with trips to DeWoody’s Western Auto or the barber shop in Pittsburg. Once out of sight of the house, he would pull into the A&P parking lot and let me drive his manual transmission ’57 Ford with overdrive to what the locals called “back street.” Off the main drag.

“Don’t tell your grandmother,” he warned. “Or me and you both will be in trouble.”

Back then, automatic transmissions were limited to Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles, expensive cars. The Aldridge family’s first car with an automatic was a ’58 Ford station wagon. It fared well until the day Mom left my grandparent’s house with three young kids aboard and other things on her mind. She accelerated to the point that familiarity felt it was time to shift into second gear. So, she threw the shift lever up in “three-on-the-tree” fashion where second gear would be. In a standard shift car.

Unfortunately for Mom and the car, that spot with an automatic is called ‘park.’

After recovering from the sudden screeching stop and the awful noises from under the car, she called my father in tears. He consoled her without ceremony or criticism. Soon after, our first automatic transmission car was replaced with another used car. One like we had always had, driven by synchronizing three forward speeds with the clutch pedal. The incident was never mentioned again.

Lacking the knowledge and experience of manual transmissions is a shifty concept to grasp growing up in a generation of kids who considered learning to drive a rite of passage. Learning how to shift gears by listening to the motor, downshifting to reduce speed, running through the gears in a four-speed high-performance car, popping the clutch to burn rubber, or the art of heel-and-toe braking and accelerating a sports car while maneuvering through a road course. What joy is there in driving without those memorable moments?

Besides the fun, learning to drive in manual transmission cars also had advantages. Enamored with cars long before the formality of a license, by the time high school graduation rolled around I had owned three old used car ‘hot rods’ of my own, bought with money earned working after-school and Saturday jobs. That experience opened doors to summer jobs like driving tractors, trucks, wreckers—anything that rolled on wheels and required gear shifting.

I know times change, however. Sometimes for good causes and other times not so much, in my book. But I’m prepared. With a couple of manually shifted ’57 Fords in my garage, I’ll do my part to help educate future generations of young drivers.

“Look at this automobile child. Let me show you what driving a real car is like—one with three pedals on the floor.”

—Leon Aldridge

Photo at top: My grandparents 1957 Ford Custom 300 with a manual three-speed column-shifted transmission and overdrive. The same one referenced above in which my grandfather helped with my driver’s education in Pittsburg, Texas in about 1959 or ’60. It has traveled a total 46,322 miles since the day they bought it new. It’s one of the two manual transmission 1957 Fords in my garage.

– – – – – – –

I’ll just add, ‘Amen, Mom”

“Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.”
— Wayne Dyer (1940 – 2015), American self-help author and motivational speaker.

– – – – – – –

“So, your mom was in the newspaper business and earned the nickname, Inky,” someone who knew my mother remarked last week. “I guess you just followed your mother’s path. Doing something both of you obviously enjoyed?”

“Nothing could be farther from the truth,” I laughed. “I spent five years getting a four-year degree to do something I soon learned was not what I wanted to do the rest of my life. But at that time, working for a newspaper was the farthest thing from my mind.

“But you’re right about one thing,” I told them. “I can honestly say that despite taking a diverse path to get there, there’s nothing I might have done that I can imagine having enjoyed more.”

My mother’s newspaper years at the Mount Pleasant Tribune were best chronicled by another Tribune employee and one of her good friends, Ida Burnett.

In the August 12, 1984, Mount Pleasant (Texas) Tribune story bearing her byline, Miss Ida wrote, “Since 1967 when Inky Aldridge started working for the Tribune, she has seen the paper distribution increase from five carriers to 29 routes in 1984 and grow into the computer age.”

“When I came to work,” the story of her retiring began, “it was to help out because Hazel Palmer (first of three generations of Palmer family Tribune ownership) was out of the office so much with her husband who was sick at the at time. The office was in a building at the present location of the new jail.”

As a side note, the “new jail” obviously built sometime after 1967, is at 304 S. Van Buren. The Tribune, after 50 years and four locations, is currently located at 202 S. Van Buren, just a block north of where it was in 1967.

“I was one of about eight or ten employees,” the Tribune story continues, “and I did just whatever they asked me to do,” she said. “I gathered information for the Police Record from police, sheriff, etc. worked classifieds, took news, hospital notes, obituaries, weddings, club news as well as worked in the circulation department,” she recalled.

OK, let me add another side note here … a job at the local community newspaper today has not changed one iota in 50 years. Still the same.

Mom recounted people she worked with. “, “Mozelle Rhea worked in classifieds and was a reporter, Amy Flowers was in production, and Joyce Lane was a typist. “Her husband, Leon, moon-lighted,” Burnett’s story continued, “and came in to do the mail at night, tie bundles and some of the time, carried the paper to the printer in Gladewater.

“In 1968, The Tribune was moved to its present location, 111 East Second Street, and I remember helping with that move,” Mom said. “The whole setup was in what is now the front office. The building was the former Dr. Pepper Bottling Plant the Palmers bought from Otis McMinn. There was also a barber shop where R.B. Palmer (second generation of Palmer family ownership) now has a private office.

“The (building) space included the upstairs where the Odd Fellows met years ago before they built their place on the Texarkana Highway. The business grew, and Nortex Press was formed in 1973. The newspaper operation eventually filled the entire building which was remodeled several times in the process,” she said.

“I have been in the circulation department and have seen the addition of a circulation manager and finally going to a computer several years ago,” Mom continued. “There is also a route manager now. It’s a big business … circulation is over 6.000 on Sundays now.”

“I have enjoyed my work, and working with (everyone), but it is time now to quit and retire from the newspaper work,” Mom concluded.

“Mrs. Aldridge is leaving in the middle of a larger expansion to better facilities,” said R. B. Palmer. “(We) appreciate her loyal work through the years. Employees such as Inky made possible, our growth.

“We wish her and Leon the very best,” he added.

“After 17-years with The Tribune, Inky is retiring from one kind of employment to another,” the story continued. “She and husband, Leon, will be working together for Parker Craft and Evonne Originals. This job will be an entirely different pace for them. Leon was assistant manager for many years at Gibson’s that was later Howard’s.”

“Inky’s name is really Indianola,” Burnett’s story concluded. “And she has had the nickname ‘Inky’ since childhood. However, the nickname has proven fitting for one in the newspaper profession.”

Near the end of the story, Miss Ida quoted me. “I have often credited my newspaper career to Morris Craig at The Monitor in Naples for hiring me and showing me the rewards of small-town newspapering. But to my mother, I owe credit for sharing the sense of accomplishment and reward she felt (working) for a community newspaper a long time before I ever considered working a newspaper job.”

Thoughts and smiles raced as I re-read that story last week. In June of this year, Mom would have been 100. Nearing 40 years after that story about her was written and a little more than 12 years since she’s been gone, I can think of little to add about doing the same thing that brought her joy.”

Maybe just, “Amen, Mom.”

—Leon Aldridge

– – – – – – –

I also hoped someone was listening

“Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.”
– Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature

– – – – – – –

Energizing! That’s the best way to describe being outside this time of year. East Texas Spring at Mother Nature’s best.

Venturing out into the back yard one afternoon last week came with one slight distraction. A dog barking somewhere in the neighborhood.

Dogs bark because they’re dogs. They bark at cars. People. Bugs. Leaves. Sometimes they bark for reasons known only to dogs. But here’s the deal. A dog’s bark is understood only by those who have known the unconditional love of man’s best friend.

Forty was in my rear-view mirror when daughter Robin wanted a puppy. My excuses as to why she shouldn’t have one were creative, but futile. The terrier mix puppy we adopted, she called, “Bug.” A happy little creature someone had thrown away. In the trash. Literally.

Together, those two taught me that anyone who says, “it’s just a dog,” is missing one of God’s greatest gifts. Watching them got me in the game, but the hound that touched my heart was a basset needing a new home. “Max.”

Max lived with Bob and his wife in Lufkin. But then, they moved from the country farm to a city condo that just wasn’t big enough for two people and a big dog. That’s where we met.

Again, I made excuses to my kids, but …

Heading back to our new home in the Hill Country that afternoon, Max had no idea what was in store. Neither did I.

Bob had taken great care to tell me about Max. He gave me baby pictures and a letter of apology. One of Bob’s friends wrote it to Max after she casually referred to Max as “just a dog.”

“He’s a fine dog,” Bob said. We usually go for Saturday morning rides and burgers. You can cut the veggies on Max’s. Then, after that, we just ride around and smoke a cigar.”

In addition to his culinary and recreation history, Bob added, “If he ever barks at night, check on him. He’s hungry, lonely or hurting.”

Home late that night in Bandera County, it was quick to bed for everyone. We tried to make the old boy comfy on the big back porch with a bed, water, and a midnight snack. I had no more than turned out the lights when I heard it. “Oof.” First, one bark, then two deep bass notes, “Oof, oof.”

As I stepped out onto the porch in the dark, I heard a rhythmic “Thump, thump, thump.” The big dog’s tail pounding the porch.

I stroked Max’s head, scratched his long floppy ears, and assured him he had been adopted by a good family. Then, with another “g’night,” I headed back to bed. I was scarcely settled when I heard it again. “Oof.”

I’d known Max less than 24 hours when I sat down beside him again. The rising moon down toward the Medina River suggested it was past midnight. “Max,” I said. “We both need some sleep.” He rested his head on my leg, and I began to understand what Bob had said.

“I get it, Max,” I said aloud. “You’ve lost your home and your cigar-smoking, burger-eating best friend. And now you’re a day’s journey from East Texas alone on a dark porch that smells like nothing familiar.”

A couple of minutes later, I was pounding my pillow into just the right shape and making sure my feet were covered. “Got enough room there, Max,” I asked?

The adopted dog that would teach me many life lessons and I settled in for the night on the back porch. Watching the moon and counting Hill Country stars while we drifted off to sleep.

Many moons raced by. Max and I traveled Texas, raised two kids, and shared a few burgers. I never developed an appreciation for cigars, though.

Kids grown and gone and me back in Center, I was awakened one night by another, “Oof!” I knew the tone too well. Max was long in the tooth; arthritis was taking over his joints.

“You’ll know,” Center vet, Dr. Hughes had told me when I asked how I would know when it was time.

I went to the living room and stretched out by the fireplace next to the old dog that had schooled me in devotion, friendship, and loyalty. I stroked his head and rubbed his long floppy ears as I had for several years. He rested his head on my leg and drifted off to sleep long before I did. We both knew.

I looked out the window at the East Texas moon rising, knowing the phone call I would make in the morning. Knowing that the old dog and I were spending our last night together, just as we had spent our first.

Last Saturday, I hoped the dog speaking his or her heart somewhere in the neighborhood was barking for some reason known only to the dog.

Even more, I hoped someone who understood was listening.

—Leon Aldridge

– – – – – – –

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