A Story Worth Telling

“Anyone can buy a good house, but a good neighbor is priceless.”

— Old saying that is true now more than ever.

– – – – – – –

My neighbors are good folks.

In fact, my neighbors are better neighbors to me than I have been to them lately. I have neglected my neighboring initiatives in recent years. For reasons that aren’t even really good excuses, now that I think about it.

But I did think about it during last Sunday morning’s sermon when the preacher talked about neighbors. Paraphrasing his statements because I don’t remember exactly how he said it, it was something like, “We are living in probably the most connected society in the history of humanity. We can call someone in any country around the globe on a cell phone. Often instantly.

“However, cell phones have also contributed to us becoming the least personally connected society in the history of humanity. They have nurtured a culture that hides behind them, considering face-to-face communication uncomfortable. Often impossible.

“They are likely at least one reason that we do less of what the Bible says we are supposed to do more of. Love our neighbor.”

Research supports that decline in neighboring practices. Studies reports fewer than 25 to 30-percent of us know our neighbors today. Really know our neighbors. Communicate with them and know anything about them.

Unlike times back when we moved to Mount Pleasant. Way before cell phones. When phones were still connected to the wall with a cord. They had rotary dials. And like Henry Ford’s Model T, you could have any color you wantede. So long as it was black. I was in grade school. But I had a transistor radio shaped like a rocket ship which was way cooler than a cell phone. I showed it all my friends at recess.

One of the first people to show up at our Redbud Lane door was the “Welcome Wagon Lady” from the chamber of commerce. She came bearing a warm personal welcome from the chamber and a basket of gifts from local merchants.

The second, third, and subsequent knocks at the door were neighbors. The Wilhites, the Rusts, the Clays. The Halls. And the rest of the neighbors on Redbud. Both sides of the street for a half dozen houses in both directions.

Neighbors that became friends. Visiting face to face. Kid’s playing outdoors, face to face. Participating in real games requiring only imagination and physical exercise. No internet connection needed. Gasp! How did ever survive?

We did. Many of us still friends today.

Living in Abilene as a young adult, the concept had changed very little. We knew our neighbors on both sides, one across the street and one across the alley. Our neighbor on one side was a retired couple from Longview, so we had East Texas connections to talk about. And talk often, we did. More often than not, on the back porch.

Little did we know those evenings of conversations about East Texas and West Texas were not the only connection we were to have. After we left the west Texas city and moved back to East Texas, the couple’s grandson, who lived in another town, married one of my cousins.

Back in East Texas, my first neighbors in Center included the Sanders, Mrs. Walker, and the Clarks across the street. Friends for many years, and I know some of their family members today because we were friends back then. Friends who talked face to face across fences, across yards, or on back porches. Years ago.

Then there was that day more than 30 years ago when I stopped to get a phone number off a “For Sale” sign nailed to a tall pine tree at Lake Murvaul. This tall, gray-haired fellow sauntered over my way from his house next door. “Good fishin’ on this lake,” the old fellow said. “You’ll like it.”

Mr. Bill made working on my newly acquired lake property that summer tolerable. “How ’bout a glass of tea,” he often offered as summer’s sun baked the roof I was repairing. “Come on down,” he’d laugh. “I got a new joke for you.” And no one laughed louder or longer at his jokes than he did.

“Come over for supper later,” he sometimes said as he headed back across the easement that separated our properties. “Katherine’s fixin’ pork chops. I might save you one,” he’d chuckle.

In 2007, when I got the call that my father had passed away from a sudden heart attack on his front porch, I needed someone to sit with Mom. Her memory had been slipping away for several years, and Dad was her caretaker. I called Mrs. Rust, a neighbor and Mom’s good friend from the Redbud Street days. She went to the house and sat with Mom until I could make the two-hour trip to get there.

Earlier this month, I saw one of my current neighbors, Margaret. Not on the street where we live, but attending a parade on the square in downtown Center. She had been on my mind. I was remorseful that she lives next door to me, but I had to see her at a parade to be reminded I had not talked to her in way too long.

We had a short but nice visit at the parade. “I’ll call you,” I told her.

“Do that,” she replied. “We’ll sit on the back porch and visit.”

Note to self … “Get back to being a neighbor. Call Margaret one day this week. Meet her on the back porch. Face to face. No internet connection or cell phone needed. Or wanted.”

—Leon Aldridge

– – – – – – –

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, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

“Oh, well, a-bless my soul, what’s wrong with me?
I’m itchin’ like a man on a fuzzy tree.
My friends say I’m actin’ wild as a bug,
I’m in love … I’m all shook up.”

— 1956 Song lyrics by Otis Blackwell

– – – – – – –

Someday, I want to be a famous column writer. When I grow up.

Wouldn’t it be amazing? To be like those gifted writers who create something out of nothing. Individuals who can write about anything at the drop of a hat. Any subject. Any time. Just crack my knuckles like a concert pianist and start creating magic with the keys. 

Someone like songwriter Otis Blackwell who wrote hits for many of the 1950s recording artists. Songs like “All Shook Up,” which he reportedly penned after a Shalimar Studio exec opened a bottled soft drink, shook it up to make it bubble over, and challenged Blackwell to write a song using the line, “All Shook Up.”

He did. In two days. The song was pitched to Elvis Presley and was his second-biggest hit after “Don’t Be Cruel,” also written by Blackwell. 

“Are you one of those writers who can create a column about anything,” a friend up in Mount Pleasant asked me last week. While I was thinking about writers who possessed that exact ability.

“Just sit down and write something?”

“No,” I said. Then I shared with him how I had been thinking about that very thing. And how I would like to write like that. Someday.

“OK, so right now,” he said. “Let’s see what you can do. Without thinking about it. Tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.”

“Mixers,” I fired back. Without thinking about it.

Silence. He looked at me. “Mixers? What kind of mixers? Where did that come from?”

“The kind my mother used in the kitchen to make cakes and other good things to eat. The kind your mother probably used, too. The kind for which I watched every move Mom made when she baked. Waiting. Hoping. That I would get to lick one of those beaters covered with cake icing. I had to be fast, though. With two sisters and mixers with only two beaters, last one in the kitchen was the loser.”

“But a column about a kitchen mixer?” My friend was a little mixed up.

“I won one,” I told him. “I bought a $20 raffle ticket for Rene Kay’s quilt raffle at the Poultry Festival in Center a couple of weeks ago. The one she does to support her autistic son at college to learn life skills and an occupation. He wants to be a chef. Last year, she raffled just the quilt she made. This year, she made another beautiful quilt, but she added more prizes. Soft-sided coolers, a shotgun, original oil paintings.

“But I won a mixer.”

“A mixer,” my friend said flatly. Obviously still not understanding.

“Not just any mixer,” I replied. “It’s one of those professional commercial over-the-top kind that costs a gazillion dollars. More than all the kitchen appliances in the world put together. And it’s bright red.”

“What are you going to do with a mixer,” he chuckled. “You don’t even cook.”

“See,” I said. “That’s the funny part. I used to cook and enjoyed it. But I quit after the kids grew up and moved out. Left all my cooking to the restaurants. But my kids still remember my secret recipe chicken we grilled. Saturday nights on the back porch.

“Then just recently, I started a remodeling project on my kitchen. New appliances, new counter tops, new sink, new cookware. New mop and broom. New junk drawer. New everything before it’s all done. So, I decided with a new kitchen in the works, I might as well start cooking again. What could have been a better prize than a new mixer?

My friend shook his head.

“The other funny part is that Rene came by the office a few days after the drawing,” I continued. “I could tell she had something on her mind. Then she said she was fearful a mixer might not have been such a good prize for me. That she didn’t know if I even cooked since I was a single man. She was right in the middle of apologetically suggesting how she might be able to arrange for an alternative prize when I interjected, ‘I like my mixer.'”

“You’re happy with it, then,” Rene asked?

“You can’t have my mixer,” I laughed. “I love it.”

“We laughed. She left with a smile. I still have my mixer.”

“Guess that was a lucky ticket,’ my friend commented.

“Not my first one this year,” I replied. “I won a big prize drawing at the chamber banquet in January. I also won some cool door prizes at the North and East Texas Press Association convention in April.”

“Maybe you should write about being lucky in drawings,” he said. “But a column about kitchen mixers? Is that really something you could get all shook up about writing?”

Pondering his point for a minute, I admitted I wasn’t sure whether that would work or not.

I don’t know,” I said slowly. “You’re probably right. That would be hard to pull off.

“Maybe I’ll just go home, bake a cake, and think about it.”

—Leon Aldridge

– – – – – – –

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.

“Say•ing” noun — a short pithy expression that generally contains advice, insight or wisdom. Often provoking questions from young minds.

— Oxford dictionary. And the voice of personal experience.

– – – – – – –

“What does that mean, what you said about the sun, the moon, and the stars lining up,” daughter, Robin, asked? One time back when she and I were both much younger. A long time ago.

“It’s just an old saying,” I explained. “Sage old sayings spice up conversations a little and can be a memorable method of illustrating a point.”

“But how can the sun and the moon line up,” was her next question. “The sun is only here in the day and the moon is here only at night.” My daughter’s questions kept me on my toes. Day and night. From the time she learned to talk.

“Well …,” I began. Which was the way I usually started any time I didn’t have a ready answer. “I took this astronomy class in college,” I said. “I was looking for an easy elective …”

“You don’t know, do you,” she interrupted.

“Sort of; it’s a really rare occurrence when things happen like they are supposed to,” I said in a humorous tone. After a pause, I added, “Like when you clean your room, make your bed, and complete all of your homework in one day.”

“So, you mean stuff that never happens,” she laughed. “Then why did you tell someone on the phone that the sun, the moon, and the stars aligned for you last week?”

The adventure behind that statement started with a business trip to Fort Payne, Alabama on Tuesday with a return flight on Thursday. The same day as the Center Noon Lions Club meeting. I’ve been a member of Lions Clubs in several cities over the years, more in Center than anywhere else. Through those years, perfect attendance was never my strong suit. But it was one I set as a goal for that year. The year I served as the Center civic club’s president.

Many suns and moons ago.

“It was just the luck of the draw that my meeting was set for a Wednesday,” I told Robin.

“What’s luck of the draw,” she asked? “Good luck or bad luck?”

“It could go either way,” I said. “In this case, “I hated to miss a Lions Club meeting. I had a flight planned that should work, but it would be close. So, I told the club vice president I should be back, but don’t bet the farm on it.

“Dad, we don’t have a farm,” Robin laughed.

 “Well … yeah,” I admitted. The business meeting ended late Wednesday with dinner, and my dash back to Shelby County began early the following day. Although I was not optimistic about getting back in time for the meeting, I had a plan. A long shot that started with a 7 a.m. flight from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

“Up at 4 a.m. in Alabama and on the road in 30 minutes got me to Chattanooga by 5:30. Where I discovered that the check-in desk for the airline I booked did not open until 6:30.

“So, they can open at 6:30 a.m. and get me on a 7 a.m. flight,” I chatted with a security guard.”

“Most of the time, he drawled. Them leaving by 7:00? Now that’s a horse of a different color.”

“Dad,” Robin interjected, “What’s a horse of a …?”

“Well … that means we got off the ground not too long after 7. Headed for Memphis. Where we landed. Not too far off schedule. I found the gate to board the connecting flight to Shreveport and learned that the last leg of the flight was delayed.

“Weather problems, according to the nice lady at the terminal gate. The flight is coming from St. Louis and was delayed leaving, she said. The good news was that it had departed and the delay into Shreveport was probably not be more than an hour.

“I tried to display an appreciative smile with my ‘thank you.’”

“The flight from St. Louis to Shreveport, with a stop in Memphis, finally arrived. Late. After unloading and reloading, we were in the air. A short time later, I looked down to see Cross Lake and Interstate 20 pass below. We were landing at Shreveport.

“In my car at precisely 11:00 a.m., I decided to go with an old pig trail cutting through the countryside from the airport to Bethany, where Louisiana transforms back into Texas.”

“A pig trail,” Robin quizzed me?

“Well … just another old saying,” I said. “At the exact time the meeting was supposed to start, I walked in, gave the vice president a thumbs up, picked up the gavel, and began the meeting.

“Guys, I announced, you’ll never believe how far I’ve traveled this morning to be here at this exact moment.”

Concluding the story, I told Robin, “So, you see how everything happening in just the right order and right time is a reference to the sun and moon and the stars aligning and how it happened just in the nick of time to keep my perfect attendance record going.”

“OK, but what does in the nick of time mean,” she asked?

“Well …. I think that one means, Robin, have you cleaned your room?”

“If you think you’ve seen it all, Stick around.”

— Song lyrics by Jason Mraz, American singer-songwriter, and guitarist.

– – – – – –

Friday night football is the best. The kids. The high school rivalries. The fans. Under the lights on Friday night.

But this is not a sports column. I’m just an old newspaper guy who walks the equivalent of a half mile or more of sidelines on fall Friday nights. Hoping to catch one more eye-popping shot of a high school athlete’s performance to publish for loyal readers and parents.

Been doing it off and on for 50 years, come next year. Since my days as a rookie reporter at The Naples Monitor. Covering the Paul Pewitt Brahmas.

Which sometimes fools me to think I’ve seen it all and heard it all.  

Friday nights hold a personal attraction for me for reasons other than football. Athletic prowess was never my game. Scholastic gridiron time for me meant halftime with the band. The Mount Pleasant High School Tiger band and the Kilgore College Ranger band.

I played a bass horn. The biggest horn in the band. On the back row with the big round bell extending above the rest of the band. And it was bass horns last Friday night that reminded me again, if you think you’ve seen it all, stick around and watch this.  

For the record, bass horn is the name by which the big instruments were known when I played them. A dozen presidents ago. These days however, I notice they are commonly called a tuba.

Research reveals instrument maker J. W. Pepper reinvented the concert tuba in the late 1800s creating an instrument easier to carry with the bell projecting the music forward instead of up like a traditional tuba. He named it the Sousaphone honoring John Phillip Sousa, American composer who reportedly pitched the concept to Pepper. Sousa was a conductor known primarily for American military marches.

Think “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

Most often played in marching bands, the Sousaphone became known as a “bass horn.'” It wraps around the body and is typically played standing or marching. The true tuba is commonly heard in orchestras, brass ensembles, and concert bands.

All semantics, I’m thinking. Depending on how one learned to play a tuba … bass horn. For me, that was from band directors who politely corrected students calling a bass horn a tuba.

Whatever you call it, last Friday’s game was a high school football game like any other. For me, however, tubas … ah, bass horns, stole the show where the Center Roughriders delivered a 76-48 defeat to the visiting Rusk Eagles. The Roughrider homecoming crowd was delighted.

Midway of the event, while enjoying halftime shows, I witnessed the bell fall off a tuba … ah, bass horn. Yes, the big brass oval piece that’s a target for pea shooters at Christmas parades. It parted company with the rest of the instrument and landed about mid-field. And the band marched on.

Rusk concluded its performance by coming my direction to the sideline. As the band director walked past, we made eye contact. I smiled, gave him a thumbs up, and said, “Good looking band. Great performance.”

He paused to say, ‘thank you’ and laughed. “Did you see the tuba lose its bell.”

I grimaced. Then said, “Yes sir,” I played a tuba … ah, bass horn, in high school and college, and that was a first for me to witness.”

“We sent it back to the manufacturer,” he added. “Thought it was fixed. Guess not.”

I’ve seen marching band students lose lots of things on the field in front of God and everybody. Music, mouthpieces, shoes, hats, their place in the routine. But never half of the largest instrument in the band.

The Center Roughrider band followed, displaying their precision military marching routine for the upcoming UIL contest. I couldn’t help but notice a young lady in a band uniform standing alone near me on the sideline. Holding a tuba … ah, bass horn. I wondered why she was not marching.

My question was answered when the drum major stopped at the sideline. The young lady with the tuba … ah, bass horn, met him. She took his baton, and he took the horn, and the music Center senior coaxed from his horn was nothing short of amazing.

I had never witnessed a tuba … ah, bass horn player perform a stand-alone solo at a football game. Or anywhere else. In fact, I had never heard anyone extort a solo tune from one of the big instruments like he did. Trumpets, woodwinds, drum solos … many times. But a lead part solo for a tuba … ah, bass horn. Nope. Never.

Richard Alexander performed the closest facsimile I can recall. His impromptu bluesy chromatic scale “riff” one spring afternoon during band practice at Mount Pleasant High School in about 1965 was cool. But it wasn’t written in the music.

Those four counts were supposed to be silent going into the trio, just like we had rehearsed it many times. But Richard surprised everyone. Most of all, band director Blanton McDonald. Several, especially the bass section, silently applauded. Even the usually very serious Mr. McDonald smiled and shook his head. And the band played on.

I still say football sidelines are one of my favorite parts of doing time at the hometown weekly. Where on any given night, the game is always the story. But where you just might also see or hear something. Just when you think you’ve seen it all.

And where you might be reminded that a bass horn by any other name might be called …  a tuba.

—Leon Aldridge

(Photo at the top of the page: The 1965 Mount Pleasant Tiger Band. The tubas … ah, bass horns, are on the back row. Yours truly is the one on the far right.)

– – – – – – –

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.

“Everything exists to end in a photograph.”

– Susan Sontag (1933 – 2004) American writer, philosopher, and political activist.

– – – – – –

“Going to get your picture struck,” my grandmother asked me once. Granny used a variety of unique and witty sayings I never questioned when I was younger. She was obviously asking me that day about having my photo taken. But I had no clue where her different was way of asking originated.

I’ve heard the saying used a time or two since, but apparently no one in the vast wasteland of internet misinformation today has any idea where it originated. My online searches struck out.

Maybe it had something to do with striking a pose. Or with old flash systems employing powder ignited by a spark or strike. Granny was born in 1905, and my grandfather in 1888. Before cell phone cameras, so who knows?

– – – – – –

“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”– Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) American documentary photographer, and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration.

– – – – – –

Mom took pictures. Pictures of my sisters and me. Dressed up. Eating. Laughing. Crying. Playing. Sleeping. You’ve seen old black-and-white photos like them. White bordered snapshots with serrated edges. Bound in small paper albums with the names of photo labs on the cover, or in the case of Mom’s photos, drug store names from Pampa to Childress to Ballinger. We moved a lot then.

Photographs became an integral part of my life. Personally, and professionally. I’ve taken buku bunches of pictures since the time I first packed a Kodak Brownie camera for Boy Scout camp in Oklahoma. In 1960.

Today, I share a house with a lifelong accumulation of images struck one second at a time. They reside in multiple boxes, plastic containers, photo albums, dresser drawers, shoe boxes, file cabinets, closets in three rooms, one old cedar chest. And some in places I don’t even know about.

Black and white. Color photos fading, their original hues slipping into shades of red and orange. Slides. Stacks and stacks of Kodak carousel trays. From that “Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away” time in the 70s. Thank you, Paul Simon.

And since the early 2000s, countless digital files hidden on hard drives, CDs flash drives, Zip drives, and a few old cameras cards. Keeping the slides company in one of those closets.

– – – – – –

“Your first 1,000 photographs are your worst.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) French artist and photographer considered a master of candid photography and an early user of 35mm film.

– – – – – –

For all my images, good and bad, I have an organizational plan. If my calculations are correct, I can have everything digitized, edited, and cataloged in say, 50 years? Maybe. Not counting the pictures I would have struck between now and then.

Although I never asked Granny what “getting your picture struck” implied, she shared another facet of photos I’ve come to believe in recent years to be a fact. “When you get your picture struck; it captures part of your soul,” she said.

See, I thought for a long time that she meant literally. Some religions, who I guess do mean it literally, refuse to have their picture taken.

Once what she said sunk in on me, however, it changed how I looked at pictures. Only then, I could see what she was talking about. Gazing at images of people can give the viewer a glimpse into the soul of the subject on the day the photo was taken.

I mean struck.

The eyes. The facial expressions. The body language. It’s all there.

– – – – – –

When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!” – Ted Grant (1913-2006) Canadian photographer remembered for his ability to capture life regardless of subject or location in as straightforward and truthful a manner as possible.

– – – – – –

One photo that still intrigues me is a black-and-white picture, a family portrait. Made, I’m guessing about 1969. It was possibly one of the best family portraits we had made. Which doesn’t say a lot. We didn’t take many family photos.

I was in college, and my sisters were still in high school. Howard Petty, a Mount Pleasant photographer who I’ve always credited with helping develop my photography career, took the photo one night in the living room of our house on Delafield Street. That was about the same time he sold me a used Minolta SR7 35 mm camera and included instructions on how to use it.

Mom is smiling in the photo, as is Dad. But Dad smiled as long as everything was quiet and peaceful. He avoided confrontation. Usually ignored it. But when you look into Mom’s eyes, it’s obvious something was on her mind besides the photo.

I looked at the image many times before noticing it. Since then, I’ve wondered what was on her mind that night.

My sister, Leslie, was planning to marry that summer after graduation, and move. That would weigh on a mother’s mind. Plus, she was the first to marry and leave home. And so was my mom, the first of her siblings to marry, leave home, and move away.

Or was it something else? Was it joy or sadness that made her smile look different? Health? Finances? Her job? The supper she cooked; was that the time she made banana pudding and forgot to include the bananas? She was devastated, but we loved it and ate it anyway.

So many unspoken things occupy our minds. And a family photo that is potentially the last one taken with all of the children at home could weigh heavily on a parent’s heart and soul.

I do believe photographs reveal soul captured in moments of time, gone forever once the picture becomes a heartbeat in history. Often leaving generations to wonder. What was on someone’s mind that day? What was in their heart and in their soul the exact moment that picture was taken.

I mean struck.

Sadly, however, those same photographs seldom strike many answers.

—Leon Aldridge

– – – – – – –

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.

“All to Jesus I surrender;
Humbly at His feet, I bow,
Worldly pleasures, all forsaken;
Take me, Jesus, take me now.”

— Traditional hymn lyrics by Judson W. Van DeVenter, 1896

– – – – – – – –

Despite the old joke about getting to church “early to get a good seat — one in the back,” the front seat is my preferred pew. The very front row. Every Sunday.

It’s something I’ve grown accustomed to over the years. Mainly the years I’ve volunteered to lead congregational singing. Which is better than half my life, give or take a year or two. I enjoy leading singing, and I also enjoy sitting at the front.

And who knows. Someday, I might even learn how to sing.

Not only is the front row convenient for song leading, but it’s also an incentive for me to … let’s call it “look alert” during the sermon. Despite how it may appear, my eyelids closing for a few seconds is not a reflection on the preacher or the message. It’s because any time I get still and comfortable, anywhere, my eyelids get heavy. Therefore, I’ve become adept at listening even when my eyes appear to be briefly closing. When I’m not preparing to lead the next song.

Song-leading, however, was not my first experience in front row sitting at church. That happened long before then.

My earliest memories include going to church every Sunday morning. Perhaps you’ve seen the typical childhood photos of a kid sitting on a pony or straddling a new bicycle? My childhood photos are of me dressed and ready for church. Dress shirt, clip-on bow tie, jacket, and all. At five years of age. Because that’s how my loving mother raised me. She attended services regularly, and my accompanying her was never an option.

As a youngster, I always sat with her at Southside Church of Christ in Mount Pleasant. About midway toward the front on the left side with her friend and neighbor, Betty Rust. Proper church etiquette was expected early. Listen to the sermon. No naps. No talking. No fidgeting. No burping or any other surprises. And any infraction was met with a hard pinch. It might be my leg, my arm, or my ear. But whenever Momma was unhappy with my conduct in church, my thoughts were, “Jesus, just take me now. Better you than my Momma.”

As I got older, Mom never questioned me about where I went or when I got home. The car races Saturday night at Tyler. With friends, to a concert, or a movie. Never a question. But regardless of whether I got home at 8 p.m. Saturday night or 3 a.m. Sunday morning, I was going to church with Mom. And I had better be ready when she reached the front door with her white gloves, hat, and shiny patent leather Sunday purse.

My first introduction to front-row seating for the Sunday sermon happened in high school. Before any attempt to direct a song service. That was when guys about my age at Southside, Ronald Rust, Randy Brogoitti, Rusty Clark, Ronny Melton, Rod McCasland, and probably others whose names I will remember as soon as I send this to print, began branching off from sitting with our parents. Opting for the back row. Directly behind our parents. Hoping it put us out of sight and out of mind. 

It was one Sunday morning, sometime in the mid-1960s. Some of the above may or may not have been included. I don’t remember and certainly don’t want to incriminate the innocent at this point in life.

About mid-point in the sermon, the preacher stopped. Just quit preaching. The silence was cause to look up. Did he lose a page in his notes? Was he done preaching? Was it time to stand up and sing?

Then he said, “You boys on the back seat.” We looked around as if to confirm he was talking to us. “Your whispering and laughing is distracting from the service.”

Every mother in the building turned in unison and looked our direction.

“I want you boys … yes, all of you … to come down here and sit on the front seat facing me. Now.” Anticipating that we might not be clear about his request, he leaned over the podium. Then pointed directly at the pew before him.

We got up and walked single file to the front, right where he pointed. Not a single one of us so much as cast a glance toward our parents. We also didn’t speak for the rest of the service. We didn’t even risk breathing.

But those words came to me again. “Jesus, just take me now. Better you than to face my Momma. And Jesus, I’m serious this time.”

Fortunately, Jesus spared me, and so did Mom. She was unhappy. Really unhappy. But thankfully, she postponed any plans she may have harbored about sending me back to Jesus. Offering me another chance at salvation. The following week, however, I was sitting with her again. Fearing the pinch.

Every now and then, that long-ago Sunday crosses my mind. Like it did last Sunday. Sitting on the front pew. Fighting the temptation to close my eyes. Just for a moment, so maybe the preacher won’t notice.

Because unlike that Sunday so many years ago, it was still and comfortable on the front row last Sunday.

—Leon Aldridge

(Editors note: It’s with heavy heart that I add this note. Columns you read on this blog are written earlier in the week for newspaper publication. As I was preparing this column Friday for uploading here, I learned one of those friends and back seat sitters at Southside I wrote about, Ronald Rust, had passed away earlier in the week. Ronald and I grew up as neighbors on Redbud Street, went to grade school together at South Ward, rode bicycles together and helped keep each other’s old hot rod cars running in high school. My thoughts and prayers are with Ronald’s family.)

– – – – – – –

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.

“If these walls could talk, I wonder what secrets they’d tell.”

— Gayle Forman, writer

– – – – – –

That question was evidently on my mind many years ago. April 3, 1975, to be exact. It was the first sentence in the first published news story bearing my byline. The first week of my first newspaper job.

That story and my writing career began, “If buildings could talk, there is one in Naples that could render volumes of Morris County history.”

That same long-gone edifice crossed my mind a couple of weeks ago as I turned off Main Street onto Cedar Avenue in “downtown” Naples, Texas. Remembering the structure and the story was a momentary respite from my reason to be where I was on August 26. A memorial service at the First United Methodist Church for long-time Monitor newspaper publisher and friend, Morris Craig.

Writing that story about the time-ravaged structure flashing through my memory coincided with my going to work for Craig. The building sat on a hillside between the Methodist Church and Main Street. Locals also remembered it as the place where previous generations conducted the essential business of justice. While the 1975 tenants of the one-time JP’s office referred to it as the “Naples courthouse,” they would argue that current ‘dealings’ were the more important proceedings.

And those tenants were important. Important enough that the property’s owner, the local bank, ensured the occupants had a place to go before the scheduled demolition of the old building of justice ever started.

The sound of gavels hammering out justice had been replaced by dominoes drumming on tabletops by the time I was there. Where “guilty” or “not guilty” was once the plea, different questions were asked now. Like, “Who dealt this mess? Didn’t get but one five out of the whole hand.”

Domino games like those in the old Naples courthouse used to be important business in every community. When I moved to Center from Mount Pleasant, domino players gathered upstairs in the bandstand building on the downtown Center square. I’m guessing Mount Pleasant had one somewhere as well, but if that memory remains, it’s temporarily being shuffled.

The floor at the old Naples domino hall was littered with half-burned matches, cigarette butts and spit cans. Every wall had given up its last remnant of flaking paint. Electrical wires ran up the wall and across the ceiling, ending in a single-bulb light fixture that glowed just enough to distinguish a double-five from a trey-deuce.

Occupants sat on an array of cast-off chairs of all descriptions. My entrance drew only a few raised eyebrows from those not profoundly buried in the game.

“An average afternoon,” I wrote, “Might find the likes of Jack Vissering, Hub Buchman, C.V. Ward and Luther Morris around one table. And maybe Orb Gibbs, Hoyt Nash, Hugh Ashford, and Hugh Whitecotton. Onlookers included Weldon Ballard, Jimmy Endlsey and Dan Foster.”

The exact age of the building appeared to be one of its better-guarded secrets. Local legends pointed to the 1920s as being the last time legal justice was carried out there. Facts were lost to time, and no one seemed to recall a date. Or care. Except that one time someone remembered when it was almost recalled to duty. “J. Bun Hall was the Naples J.P.,” said one of the players, adding,” Gimme ten on that play” before continuing. “About 10-12 years before the domino players took over.”

Seems a flatland tourister from way out west, somewhere near Greenville, was cited for speeding through Naples. The accused insisted on contesting the ticket for his day in court.

A little grooming was in order, and Bunn reportedly asked the fire department to hose down the building and wash out the dust and cobwebs. The business of hand-picking a jury from Main Street businesses commenced. But discretion evidently became the better part of valor. Before a jury could be seated, the offender reportedly decided his best option just might be to pay the fine and be on his way.

I saw a list of names hanging on a wall that day 48 years ago. “The Final Roster.” A list of players who have gone on to “boot hill,” explained Gibbs. Said his daughter, Margaret Roberts, in Omaha, did the scribe work.

Dates on the roster went back into the 50s, begging the obvious question of how long the games had been going on. “I was road commissioner in 1951 and they were here then,” said Gibbs.

“Whenever someone dies,” Gibbs continued, “We make up for flowers and send ’em to the family. We put on ’em ‘From the Domino Boys.'”       

“We also pay our own electric and gas bills. Ain’t no arguments. We divide whatever it is and put in our share. Two bits or whatever it comes to.”

“Who’s usually the big winner,” I asked.

“No one,” laughed Gibbs. “We all swap up and just play for fun. We play from ’bout 1:30 to suppertime. We don’t play much at night anymore. But we play ever’ day.”

The spellbinding sound of shuffling dominoes on a Spring afternoon rendered my mind indifferent to the outside world. A spell broken only occasionally by comments. “It’s about time,” someone says. “Look at all these fives. I didn’t get ere’ one in the last hand.”

“Got rid of that one,” is heard from another table where a double-six is played dangerously close to dominoing.

“Remembering that another world does exist made it necessary to leave and close the door behind me,” I wrote in conclusion.

“Transforming a leisurely time from the past back into the hustle and bustle of today. And wondering what secrets the old place would take with it in a few days.”

When the walls came down at the Naples domino hall.

—Leon Aldridge

– – – – – – –

(Excerpts from the original story written by Leon Aldridge published in the Naples, Texas Monitor, April 3, 1975. Photo above and other photos accompanying the original Monitor story were taken by Tim Tenbrook. Pictured in the photo above are 1975 Naples domino players, left to right, Hugh Whitecotton, Weldon Ballard, Hugh Ashford, and Hoyt Nash.)

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.

“The most disastrous crisis we face in the next two decades will be the food shortage crisis.”

— Jack “Spot” Baird, Professor of Possumolgy

– – – – – –

Fifty some-odd years is a long time to chronicle people, places, and events. Maybe that’s why, ever so often, one of the well-known or illustrious individuals I’ve been privileged to interview comes to mind.

Like the guys at the Possum Works up in Rhonesboro, Texas. That’s where “Possumologists” Jack “Spot” Baird and the director of research at the Possum Works, Dr. Richard “Dick” Potter were on a mission at the time I met them in the Spring of 1985. To solve a looming disastrous food crisis.

Maybe you’ve heard of them? For that matter, perhaps maybe you’ve met other possumologists, but I never had. I had also never heard of downtown Rhonesboro. The unincorporated city was founded in 1902 in Upshur County and named for W. M. Rhone, the only sawmill operator in the area until 1901. That’s when the Marhsall & East Texas Railroad came along and created a town with 15 sawmills, 10 stores, two churches, a school, a hotel, a bank, a gin, and a cotton yard.

According to online information, little remains of Rhonesboro today other than about 40 people. An historical marker. And a unique zip code. Unique because despite being assigned the 75755 postal code, according to the USPS, Rhonesboro is listed as “not acceptable” recognizing Big Sandy or Holly Lake Ranch for that postal code.

It was, however, on its way to being accepted and put on the map at one time by the Possum Works and its wholly owned subsidiary, the “Low Tech International Possum Fertilizer Factory.” When I talked to them 38 years ago, Baird and Potter felt strongly that their work was leading to a solution for looming food shortages, just one of the many perils facing mankind in the mid 80s.

According to Professor Baird in my interview at that time, “We live in a world where one crisis follows another, what with the energy crisis, the housing crisis, and the economic crisis. By far,” Baird emphasized, “the most disastrous crisis we face in the next two decades will be the food shortage crisis.”

“Professor Baird and Dr. Potter, being men with keen minds and strong convictions for a remedy will lead us through this valley of hunger,” I wrote after talking with them.

During the interview, the duo detailed how to prepare one of their prized recipes, Possum Treat. Not to be confused with the Shelby County community of Possum Trot, located down in the south end of the county near Goober Hill.

Preparation called for one dressed opossum, five-to-six-pounds. The ‘possum can be cooked whole or carved into specific cuts as diagrammed by Baird and Potter. “As you can see here on this chart,” Baird pointed out, “the best cuts include the possham, then the possbelly. Back here you’ll find the short ribs and possabaloney. Over here is the strip possaloin, and moving back you have your Rhoseboro rump, and the tasty tail portion is called the curloin.

“Once you’ve decided whether you want to prepare your ‘possum whole or in cuts,” Baird continued, “you will also need six number one East Texas yams, preferably the variety grown near Gilmer, home of the East Texas Yamboree. Plus, half a cup of ribbon cane syrup and a long white oak board. Place the ‘possum on the board, surround it with the yams and cook in a 350-degree oven until done, basting often with the syrup.”

“So, how does it taste,” I quizzed them.

“We’re still researching and experimenting with it,” Baird replied. “The best we’ve achieved so far is to dump the ‘possum and potatoes in the trash and eat the board.”

They must have achieved a certain degree of success with their research. They were called on to present their possumology findings not only at the East Texas Yamboree Festival in Gilmer for many years, but also at the San Antonio Folklife Festival.

Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to follow up with them to determine if they had perfected ‘possum pot roast. Or if they solved the pending world food crisis. Baird passed away not long after my interview.

I’ve always said, however, it was an honor to meet these two scientific men on a mission. I don’t know that two scientists ever had as much fun or were as entertaining as the Professors of Possumology from Rhonesboro, Texas.

—Leon Aldridge

(Photo at top of the page: [Richard “Dick” Potter and Jack F. “Spot” Baird Examining Cooked Possum], photograph, [1979-08-02..1979-08-05]; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth300194/: accessed September 3, 2023), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UT San Antonio Libraries Special Collections.)

– – – – – – –

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.

“You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.”

— Franklin P. Adams (1881 – 1960) New York Times columnist known for his wit and his newspaper column, “The Conning Tower.”

– – – – – – –

My recent rummaging through a lifetime of photographs, negatives, and slides seeking some sort of organizational semblance for conversion to digital has been educational.

First, it’s taught me that making fun of my mother, who always wrote notes on the back of her photos, isn’t nearly as funny now as it seemed back then. I wish I had been that funny with some of my photos. Trivial things, like names, dates, and places would be nice about now.

Second, gazing at a gazillion images of my children’s parties, vacations, school events, and more, has reminded me of how much I’ve learned. While thinking I was imparting wisdom to them.

Like the time my son, Lee, wanted to go with me to the Museum of Automobiles’ annual antique car show and swap meet on Petit Jean Mountain near Morrilton, Arkansas. Sometime in the 1980s. There were no dates on the photos. And it wasn’t funny. Lee must have been about five or six.

Nightfall came quickly for a day that had started many hours and miles earlier. My mission was to find as many things as I could on a wish list of old car parts needed to keep my steed of oldies but goodies roadworthy.

Arriving around lunch, we walked the swap meet until dusk. Sifting through vent windows and valve covers, carburetors and chrome trim. All offered for sale by hundreds of vendors across acres of Arkansas mountainside.

My parents, who tagged along just for the trip, had called it a day earlier and retired to the room next to the one my son and I shared at the small motel near the mountain. Lee swam while I visited with friends from Shreveport, comparing notes on our most prized finds for the day.

It wasn’t long until Lee announced he was tired and ready for bed. “Two things,” I told him. “One, Grandmother and Grandaddy are asleep in the room next door. Be quiet so that you don’t wake them. The other is watch TV for a few minutes until I come up. Don’t go to sleep and leave me locked out.”

“OK,” Lee assured me. I gave him the room key and watched him drip pool water all the way up to the room and close the door. All in sight of the pool.

Arriving at the same door shortly after, I knocked lightly. No response. “Surely, he’s not already asleep,” I thought. I knocked on the door again and called out, “Open that door right now. I know you’re in there.”

Motel guests moving in next door cast a glance my direction while maneuvering luggage. I smiled. “Trying to get my son’s attention,” I laughed. They smiled cordially and disappeared into their room. I had the feeling they were watching from behind closed curtains to see just what sort of nut they were staying next to.

One more knock and one more request. A little louder. “Come on, open this door.” It had been a day long on travel and walking. And I was growing short on patience.

As I wondered why my son was not responding to my requests, I thought about our sharing the day together. He was patient while watching me dig through boxes of parts and pieces. Probably curious about someone’s fascination with old rusty car junk. 

I tried to exercise patience on my part as we waited in line every half hour at the rows of “Port-O-Johns.” Trying to remember what it was like to have a first-grader’s endurance.

Still trying to exercise patience, I knocked on the door again. “Open this door … right now.”

I understood that there were things he surely would rather be doing than following me around. I also noticed he was taking two steps just to keep up with my leisurely walking pace.

One more time, I asked. Nicely. “Please open the door.” Just as I was contemplating my next move, the door opened. “Mom,” what are you ….?” My sleepy-eyed mother had come from the connecting room next door to let me in.

“See,” I scolded my son. “You woke up Grandmother and Granddaddy.”

“No,” Lee corrected me. “You woke them up knocking on the door.”

“Why didn’t you let me in,” I asked?

“Dad, you told me to never open the door unless I was sure it was you,” he replied. Then added, “You didn’t tell me that was you wanting in.”

Patience. Understanding. Lessons learned. I smiled looking at the pictures last week. Hoping my children had learned half as much as they taught me.

I also smiled knowing digital photos have dates.

—Leon Aldridge

– – – – – – –

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.

Co·in·ci·dence – noun: a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.

— Oxford Language Dictionary

– – – – –

“So, what are you gonna do now,” asked Craig as we sat at the tall work table stools just inside The Monitor newspaper office.

“I don’t know,” I told the editor and publisher of the Naples newspaper who was always known only by his last name. Said the only two people who called him Morris were his mother and his first-grade teacher.

That was late 1974 or early 1975. A long time ago in newspaper years, but not that long after Morris Craig had purchased the northeast Texas publication.

“I went to school to learn how to teach,” I told him. “Discovered I wasn’t cut out to be a schoolteacher and went to work for Dan down the street at Hampton’s Building Supply because I could draw house plans. Now Dan is going out of business. At this moment, I don’t really know,” I said. “My mother always says the third time is the charm, so we’ll see.”

My mother was how I came to know Craig. He, like many other weekly publications in the area, printed his paper at the Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune office on Second Street where my mother worked in the circulation department. And Craig, being the outgoing and friendly guy he always was, made the rounds at the Tribune office every week to say, “Hello.”

I used to think it was just a coincidence I went to The Monitor the day I found out my job at Hampton’s was ending. Seeking a job was the last thing on my mind. I just needed a friendly voice that day, and there was no one friendlier or more uplifting to visit with than Morris Craig.

The next words out of his mouth, however, answered the question of the hour and opened the door to a life-long career path for a twenty-something-year-old with no idea where he was going.

“I know you can take pictures,” Craig said. “Come work for me a while until you find something else.”

“A while” turned into two years. Long enough to discover that community newspapering answered the callings of how I would ultimately spend my life. During that time, Morris Craig instilled in me what I still call “the basics of newspapering.” How to produce a respected community newspaper that everyone looked forward to reading.

What followed The Monitor was no coincidence. Time spent in a couple of other newspapers, classes at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches to earn a master’s degree in communication journalism, and then what I call “almost a PhD” in journalism from The University of North Texas in Denton taught me something else.

I was knee deep and dollars into having learned about “textbook journalism,” but none of it taught me as much about good community newspapers as Craig did at The Monitor.

So, when I took my cumulative knowledge and experience into the classroom at SFA to teach aspiring young journalists, I added Morris Craig Monitor education to the curriculum. Knowledge gleaned from a community journalist who never took the first college course in journalism or anything else. Skills Craig acquired from previous Monitor owner, Lee Narramore, an old Army veteran journalist, that he applied with his unique understanding of people and appreciation for enjoying life.

Craig often recounted how Narramore approached him one night during his senior year. “I was working nights running the projector at the Inez Theater in Naples,” he said. “I was sitting on the curb, drinking a Coke and waiting for time to change movie reels when Lee walked out of the newspaper office across the street.”

Just as Craig asked me almost 20 years later, he said Narramore asked him that night what he was going to do after graduation. Craig said, “I told him I didn’t know, and he offered me a job.”

Craig accepted the offer, embarking on a career journey lasting almost seven decades at one newspaper.

Press association awards for editorial excellence filled the walls of The Monitor office in the beginning. However, Craig had said in recent years, he had nothing else to prove except delivering the best community newspaper produced to readers in North Morris County every week. And that’s all he ever did. 

Criag’s journey ended Saturday, August 19. Morris Craig passed away at the age of 85 after 67 years of setting the standard for community newspapers.

Maybe it was just a coincidence that I wrote about another Naples resident and friend in this space last week, Dorothy Beggs. Monday, I sent the column to newspapers around the state that are kind enough to print it each week, including The Monitor.

Craig responded Tuesday with memories of Dorothy and her favorite song, and recalling “the good times.” When I uploaded the weekly piece to my blog Saturday morning, as I do every week, I added Craig’s comments. And as I did, memories of Naples, the Monitor, and my professional and friendship journey with Morris Craig made me smile.

There was no way for me to have known that would be the very morning that Craig’s journey had reached its -30- The traditional symbol once used by journalists that means “end of the story.”

You don’t meet people like Craig by coincidence. But for the “remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection” that allowed my path to cross with that of Morris Craig’s … I was beyond blessed.

—Leon Aldridge

(Photo at the top of the page — Morris Craig (left) and Leon Aldridge (right) photographed by Monitor staffer Melissa Lynn Goforth in July of 1998. The photo was published in the July 29, 1998 edition of The Monitor. The headline that week stated, “Change of ownership for Monitor —Tenth change in publishers since 1886.” Health concerns caused Craig to seek a buyer for his newspaper. Saying he didn’t want to sell it to just anyone, he convinced me to purchase the publication. Thankfully, his health returned to good standing, and in an ironic role reversal he worked for me a short time before I sold it back to him. In my mind, it was always his newspaper … even when he entrusted ownerhship to me for a short time.)

– – – – – – –

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.