A Story Worth Telling

“God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.”

― J.M. Barrie (1860-1937), Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan.

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While I’m hoping my life’s calendar is closer to the October or early November pages, matching memories with memorabilia best describes how I’ve spent fleeting flurries of what little spare time I have had lately.

That exercise of tending roses in the memory garden is a resoundingly rewarding exercise. Fuzzy recollections focused by photos, newspaper clippings, and notes, stored for decades in albums and boxes. Fading pieces of family history.

That exercise last weekend refreshed fond memories renewing the bond between today and my grandfather whose life journey ended in 1967; a life spent working for the railroads. He is probably the reason why train tracks still allure me. Even today, I will stop to gaze at the distant vanishing point where two rails converge, fantasizing about where the steel ribbons go. I even smile at the peculiar odor of the creosoted cross ties that support the rails.

Creosote is the black tar-looking stuff used to preserve the wood ties that hold the rails upright and keep them spaced to the correct gauge—the distance between the rails. In the hot summertime, it’s a black, messy residue, impossible to remove from shoes or clothing. Its pungent odor is not quickly forgotten, especially for the grandson of a “railroad man.”

My father’s father, born in 1888, began a lifelong career with his first full-time job working for the railroad at the age of 13. He retired in 1954. I got to spend 19 years of my journey with him.

Even in retirement, my grandfather was still a railroad man. He delighted in taking me to the depot when I was a youngster to watch the telegraph operator sending and receiving messages in Morse code. The “rat-a-tat” rhythm hammered out on used Prince Albert tobacco cans commonly used as a sounding board on the communication devices was “magic” in a kid’s mind.

A special treat was the rare ride on a motorcar, a small open-air vehicle designed for short trips on the tracks by railroad workers. I used to think it was something he did to entertain me, but I still remember the smile on his face.

My grandparents lived across the street from the railroad, just a few blocks from the Pittsburg, Texas, depot. Of course, we’ll never know, but I suspect now that buying a house in sight of passing trains might not have been a coincidence. For as long as he could sit on the front porch in his rocking chair, my grandfather checked the on-time status of each one, glancing at his pocket watch as they rolled by.

They moved into the house in the northeast Texas community Halloween night of 1930 shortly after my father’s seventh birthday. My grandmother lived in the same house when she died in October of 1993, almost 63 years later to the day, and 26 years after my grandfather’s death.

The smell of creosote still stirs memories of S.V. Aldridge, the tall, broad-shouldered railroad man looking at his pocket watch to keep track of the time and the trains.

I inherited the watch when he died. I used it briefly as my timepiece, just for the memories, before retiring it to a display case for safekeeping. Unfortunately, the glass in the display was broken some years ago, and his watch was retired again, this time to a jewelry box.

A couple of years ago, daughter Robin gifted me with a piece of her artwork, a painting of three generations of Aldridge men: my grandfather, my father, and me. Lacking a spot in my house for the large canvas representing four generations when considering the artist, I temporarily placed it in my home office where it sat on the floor leaning against the wall for frequent viewing.

With a recent redo of my house in progress, I now have wall space to exhibit Robin’s artwork properly. With it, his watch has been brought out of retirement once more and will be mounted in a new display with photos of my grandfather.

The two will hang together, one of my December roses that bloomed when tangible pieces of history met with memories. Memories real enough that the smell of creosote still lingers when I pass by and glance at them.

—Leon Aldridge

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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 Naples Monitor.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. 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 old man used to say that the best part of hunting and fishing was the thinking about going and the talking about it after you got back.”

— Robert Ruark, author of The Old Man and the Boy.

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Magic fills the fall air as hunting season is almost here. Working on the upcoming ‘Outdoor Guide’ at the Light and Champion in my day job reminded me of the best part, the hunting stories. Every year, new experiences are enjoyed and new stories are told. Except for mine.

By admission, I am not versed in the epics of hunting. Went with my father as a kid and with a friend in college. But the only episodes I had to cherish were little more than humorous material for a column.  

My all time favorite hunting story was told by the most avid outdoor sportsmen I ever called a friend and with whom I also worked, Bobby Pinkston. And he always swore it was true.

Bobby began his stories with a smile. The first day of the season starts, he always told this one, about 1:00 a.m. when your alarm clock goes off. Funny how an alarm clock at that time of the morning is louder than usual.

Around 2, your huntin’ partner arrives and drags you out of bed.

At 2:23, you throw everything in the pickup truck. By 3, you’re on your way to the woods. About 20 minutes down the road, you remember leaving your rifle at home. So, you go back, get it, then start drivin’ like crazy to get to your stand by daylight.

At 4:35 a.m., you’re settin’ up the deer camp and discover that you also forgot the tent. Around 5, you’ve given up on camp and headed into the woods.

Just as the sun is comin’ up, you see five deer grazing close to you. You take careful aim and squeeze the trigger.

“Click.”

The deer disappear over the hill while you’re loadin’ your rifle and mumbling under your breath.

Somewhere around 8, you climb out of the stand thinking, “Back to camp for breakfast.” It’s 8:34 when you’re wondering if you’re headed in the right direction. By 10, you realize you don’t have a clue where camp is.

At noon, you fire your gun to signal for help. Then, at 12:10, you eat a handful of wild berries because you’re starving. At 12:13, you see six deer just a few feet away. But you’re out of ammunition because you used it all signaling for help.

At around 12:21 p.m., you get a strange feeling in your stomach. Two minutes later, you realize you must have eaten poison berries. Cold sweats, cramps, and fear of dying alone in the woods overcomes you.

Around 3:15, you finally find your way back to camp; tired, hungry, and sick. Ten minutes later, your huntin’ buddy says, “Well, let’s hit the woods again and see if we can find that big one.

It’s 4:04 p.m. when you return to camp after realizing you failed to get more ammunition.

At 4:07, you’re leaving camp again, with ammo. At 5:10, you haven’t seen anything except pesky squirrels irritating you. So, you empty your rifle at them. The squirrels escape unharmed. 

Back in camp by 6, you see seven deer grazing nearby. You quietly reload your rifle and fire, missing the deer but hitting the pickup.

At 6:07, your huntin’ partner returns to camp draggin’ a trophy-size deer with a huge rack. You control the urge to shoot your huntin’ partner but instead throw your gun down in frustration, stumbling and falling into the campfire in the process.

By 6:12, you’re changin’ clothes and throwin’ the burned ones in the campfire. Still mad at 6:15, you take the pickup and leave your huntin’ partner with his trophy deer in the woods. 

At 6:34, you’re sittin’ on the side of the road. The pickup got hot and boiled over. You discover a bullet hole in the radiator.

Walkin’ toward town at 6:39, you stumble and fall, droppin’ your gun in the mud. At 6:42, you see eight deer close to the road. You take careful aim and pull the trigger. Your gun blows up because it’s plugged with mud. You wrap what’s left of the rifle barrel around a tree and keep walking.

Somewhere around midnight, you stumble into your house.

You spend Sunday afternoon watchin’ a football game while tearin’ your huntin’ license into tiny pieces, which you stuff in an envelope to mail your huntin’ partner with detailed instructions on what he can do with the unwanted license.

This was Bobby’s story and he stuck to it. Always swore it was true … somewhere, on the first day of the season.

The primary reason it was my favorite story was not just the way he told it. It was also because it was uncomfortably close to my own attempts at hunting.

—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, and the Fort Stockton Pioneer.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. 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 that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“Dreams and memories live mere moments apart, waiting for life to introduce them.”

— Never heard that before. Since I just said it, I will take credit for it.

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Another afternoon of archival research last weekend for that book that may or may not become reality rendered evidence of one such dream that became a memory.

The dream began in the heart of a kid who loved airplanes and spent grade school afternoons daydreaming of flying them. That first dream took flight to become a memory at the old Mount Pleasant airport that was located where the Priefert Manufacturing complex is today. That was the spring afternoon in 1974 when I made my first solo flight piloting an airplane.

The memory I was reunited with last weekend was described in a yellowed newspaper clipping found among countless files filled with my life’s work as a writer and photographer. Some 60 years’ worth, give or take. It was the story of another dream come true at the same airport a few years later: flying in an old open cockpit airplane. The story bore no date but was found in a file of 1984-1985 Center newspaper clips. Titled “How time does fly …” it was about a chance ride in a Stearman PT-17 aircraft, the type in which many military pilots earned their wings in the late 30s and early 40s.

According to the piece, the plane was owned by Jack Hurst of McKinney. It was only a little out of its usual realm of operation when it passed through the East Texas area almost 40 years ago. “Though no spring chicken,” I wrote, “This machine is far from through as it is used regularly for banner towing and instruction at the McKinney airport, and is a regular airshow attendee.”

More like yesterday than half a lifetime ago, I remember climbing into the cockpit that Sunday afternoon when offered a ride. Also like yesterday was the unmistakable aroma of an old airplane, aviation fuel and exhaust fumes blended by the exhilaration of flying in an open cockpit airplane.

The old aircraft began rolling slowly toward the runway as the pilot nudged the controls. Looking up at the wing above me reminded that this bird was built utilizing wood wing framework and the entire airplane’s outer covering was fabric, standard construction for the time.

A glance around the open cockpit where I sat spoke volumes about the plane’s age. Instead of the usual array of instruments and radios I was used to monitoring as a licensed pilot, even back then, everything to fly the airplane included only three basic instruments. An airspeed indicator (how fast you are going) and a tachometer (how fast the motor is going) were joined by a turn and bank indicator. That last one closely resembles a carpenter’s bubble level and is a reference for ensuring the airplane’s controls are coordinated for turns and perhaps most important, that you’re flying right side up and level.

Keeping them company was a U. S. Army Air Corp placard. That dated the airplane if you knew the United States Army Air Corps was the aerial warfare component of the Army until 1941. That’s when it became the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) before the U.S. Air Force eventually became its own branch of the armed services in 1947.

My mind was still processing the thrill this ride was about to be when the old radial engine hanging on the front of the aircraft churned up to full speed. The pilot sitting behind me aimed the nose down the runway, and the World War II primary trainer was quickly airborne. Back in the environment for which it was designed and engineered to perform; she was at home one more time.

Responding without flaw to the slightest command, the aging lady climbed, turned, and leveled out with ease. Watching the pine trees and lakes of East Texas slip under the bright yellow wings, I wondered how many fledgling cadets had filled the same seat where I sat, looking around the same small wind­screen and feeling the 100-mile-per-hour slipstream.

But I was up simply for an afternoon joyride. The cadets (the majority of them still teenagers) were engaging in the solemn and serious business of preparing for flying combat missions to defend their country that would soon be fighting a war on two continents.

Reality returned and as with all good things, this moment had to end. I saw the runway below turning to line up with the airplane. I felt the airspeed bleed off as we descended, and I heard tires touching the runway with a chirp. Just like that, the soaring aircraft was transformed from flight back to a piece of static history as 1939 returned to the 1980s.

Walking away from the airplane, I stopped, turned, and looked over my shoulder for one more glance. Dreams and memories are indeed fleeting moments apart until life brings them together.

But a kid’s daydreams coming true are the best.

At any age.

—Leon Aldridge

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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, and The Fort Stockton Pioneer.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. 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.

“Technology makes it possible for people to gain control over everything, except over technology.”

—John Tudor, Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Hampshire, England.

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Saw an ad on TV last week about a vehicle offering a panoramic one-piece electronic display for the entire dash. Everything to control the car in one big wide electronic screen.

Once again, I heard my father’s voice when I remarked, “Why?” Dad never owned a car with power seats, windows, or much of power anything. Always said those were unnecessary luxuries that cost too much money to fix when they needed repairing.

I used to laugh at him. I laugh these days at knowing my kids are laughing at me. And just like every generation before, my kid’s children will one day laugh at them, too. It’s that point in maturity we all go through. It comes just before the one called, “Wow, I sound just like my parents.”

I’ve had my “wow moments” with the introduction of technological advancements in my lifetime. Fax machines, wireless telephones, the VCR: they were all heralded as “futuristic technology.” And they were huge. But while they were sold as conveniences or time savers, history has proven that when we buy high tech, we’re often just buying higher frustration.

Like my VCR. After all these years, it still flashes “12:00A,” harassing me about not knowing how to set the time. And I don’t even have a youngster at home anymore to set it for me.

When my son, Lee, was still at home, he and I were cruising through town one day in the used red 1984 Chevy pickup that was to be his first vehicle when he got his license. On that day in the mid-1990s, the high-tech, multi-button, seek and scan, digital time, AM-FM, cassette, auto­-rewind, nuclear powered, double-knit radio was tuned to an oldies station. The radio in that vehicle was high-tech compared to the on, off, volume, and tuning knobs common on car radios when I was learning to drive. Therefore, once I tuned it to a station I liked, it stayed there because I wasn’t about to change It.

“Dad, can we listen to something else,” Lee interjected.

“Well,” I hesitated. “I kind of like that Chuck Berry tune that’s playing right now.”

“You can’t work the radio, can you,” he retorted.

“Sure, I can. I just want to listen to oldies right now.”

“This Is how you change stations,” he said, reaching for the radio. With the touch of a button, the volume leaped to a nine on the Richter scale. Widows vibrated. Leaves fell off trees as we drove by. Windshields cracked in cars. Dogs howled.

“Turn that thing down,” I shouted. I knew Lee couldn’t hear me. I just hoped he could read my lips.

Instead, he tried another button. The entire face of the radio fell off. Supposedly some sort of anti-theft deterrent feature. It landed on the floor. He looked at me, the piece on the floor, and said, “That’s the wrong button, too, huh.”

He managed to get the radio back together, but the volume remained unchanged. Even worse, the errant device mysteriously moved to a rap station.

“How do you turn this thing off?” Lee shouted. I couldn’t hear him, but I could read his lips. It’s a skill parents learn from teenagers.

That was almost 30 years ago, but some things never change. For example, I went shopping a while back with a friend needing a new clothes washer. I was still trying to understand why clothes washers need wi-fi when I spotted a “smart” dishwasher. It supposedly sensed the amount of food on dirty dishes, calculated the detergent needed to clean them, tracked the amount of lapsed time between loads, and noted the number of times the door was opened.

A dishwasher with more ambition in the kitchen than the average teenager cannot be a good thing.

Humorous columnist and author Lewis Grizzard once wrote about what life was like for someone raised in the 50s and trying to cope in the 80s. I’m thinking nowadays that we need eyesight from our 20s and more education than we could acquire by our 30s to navigate simple devices that once responded beautifully to a simple on/off switch.

Count me out of the unending rush to more technology and the resulting higher frustration levels. The most complex technology I need to cope with is one button on my phone that relieves my frustration.

It’s the one I push to call my son and ask him how to reset the time on my VCR.

And you thought I was joking about still having a VCR.

—Leon Aldridge

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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, and The Fort Stockton Pioneer.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. 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 only constant may be change, but the more some things change, the more they often remain the same.”

— The best of two old sayings.

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It’s a routine repeated countless times almost everywhere, every day. A pittance in coins is dropped in a slot, and the best source of local news and information that is available anywhere is in the hands of another community newspaper reader.

As I completed that exercise Sunday and glanced at the front page of The Star, the local newspaper in Boerne, Texas, I heard someone say, “You know it’s crazy, isn’t it?” I looked up to see a young man smiling at me.

I had no idea who he was and I was pretty sure he didn’t know me. After all, I was in Boerne for the first time in at least 15 years. I also didn’t know what he was going to say next. So, I just returned his cordial smile allowing him the opportunity to continue.

“My young son asked me recently what that was,” he said, nodding toward the Boerne Star newspaper rack from which I had just purchased a copy. “Something as common as a newspaper box,” as he called it. “Everyone used to know what it was.”

His words were more ironic than he would ever know. Primarily because it would take more time than I had to explain. For starters, he had no idea the random stranger he had just singled out with which to share his comments about a “newspaper box” had spent most of his life in the newspaper business.

He also had no idea that a part of that career was publishing the very same newspaper in Boerne over whose “newspaper box” we had just met. Nor did he know I was 350 miles from home and about to begin the journey back to fulfill my Monday morning duty as editor and publisher of the newspaper in Center.

An irony that didn’t occur to me until sometime later was how my mother had been circulation manager for a community newspaper for 17 years, The Mount Pleasant Tribune. Her duties included making sure the “newspaper boxes” like those on which he was commenting were stocked with papers.

He also had no idea I had just attended a three-day conference in San Marcos, the summer convention for the Texas Press Association, where more than one session addressed how the role of newspapers had been overshadowed in recent years by the social media phenomenon. And how through it all, the relevance of community newspapers has really never changed.

Had the time been available and the information been crucial to our chance meeting, I could have told him newspapers were just as important as ever in the role of dispensing information. That energetic partnerships are making headway toward re-educating and refueling a resurgence of newspapers in North America. About how newspapers representing millions of readers across North America remain the predominant source of local news, safeguarding freedom and providing credible advertising information. About how recent Neilson studies on the “top trusted adverting channels among U.S. consumers” revealed “68.7 percent said they trusted “editorial content such as newspaper articles,” and 68.5 percent said they trusted “ads in newspapers” over other sources of information. About how one of the nation’s largest newspaper groups publicizing plans earlier this year to reduce print dates just announced a postponement of those plans after recording recent spikes in subscription sales. And about one recent readership study reporting an increase in what I guessed was his age group: 30-45 years of age.

I could have shared with him the thought that should the coffee shop where we met by chance at the “newspaper box” were to ever go out of business, the community will simply have one less coffee shop. But everywhere a community newspaper goes out of business, that entire community will be adversely impacted in many ways for decades to come.

But in addition to not knowing who he had innocently engaged with his casual comment, the young man at the coffee shop in the Hill Country community last weekend also wasn’t seeking information on the state of newspapers. He was simply making conversation based on popular misconceptions perpetuated by self-proclaimed social media experts for far too long.

Newspapers are turning to alternate forms of delivery. That’s the change. But the constant is that by whatever method they are delivered or whatever they are called, community “newspapers” produced by professional journalists will still be delivering the most trusted form of communication and fulfilling their role in maintaining a free country.

And they will be doing it long after this young man’s son is telling his children stories about how many years ago when he was just a kid, he asked his father about a “newspaper box” in Boerne.

—Leon Aldridge

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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, and The Fort Stockton Pioneer.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. 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 that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“Man, after all my grandma put into me learning the piano, that was a hard day telling her I was telling jokes for a living.”

—Jamie Foxx, American actor, comedian, and singer.

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The call for “words of wisdom” at any Thursday Center Noon Lions Club meeting is an invitation to share a joke. However, it also closes the door on any appropriateness of behavior or conduct the group may have followed to that point.

The moments of fun are a break from the long hours and hard work by the local civic club raising money. Money that goes back into the community aiding charities, schools, children’s eyeglasses, and children with health problems, as well as assisting with building baseball, softball, and soccer fields in recent years.

It usually starts with something like, “My IQ test results came back. Good news—they were negative.” Or maybe, “What’s the difference between an outlaw and an in-law? Outlaws are wanted.” Longer jokes are also endured with anticipation of a good laugh.

Telling a joke at Lions Club is a “you’re on your own” proposition. Humor is graded by a system of laughter, boos, or a barrage of flying objects—primarily wadded-up napkins. The ultimate penalty for a bad joke is a fine from the club’s “tail twister,” Danny Paul Windham, who often offers the first words of wisdom himself. But it’s all fun and considered a less-than-clinical medicine for stress relief.

Comedian Milton Berle is credited with coining the line about laughter being the best medicine. There must have been something to that. The iconic funny guy died in 2002 just short of his 94th birthday with a career spanning more than 80 years.

I’ve always believed humor was medicinal. It’s certainly added a healthy element to the Center Lion’s Club since I first joined in 1980. With one-liners being the more popular form of funnies offered, the organization’s words of wisdom sessions are not unlike a popular form of humor during Berle’s early days, burlesque shows.

“Thrilling” was the term I once heard long-time Texas humorist, musician, and motivational speaker Doc Blakely use to describe burlesque. His reference, of course, was more to the risque element of the traveling shows typically found at carnivals back in the day. Blakely’s view was that of a youngster trying to sneak in to see the show. He likened burlesque to a combination of comics in baggy pants and girls in skintight outfits. “I never saw skin that tight,” he recalled, “or at that age, knew that girls had so much of it.”

Although 16 was the legal age to buy a ticket, he recalled that it wasn’t difficult to sneak in. Blakely’s story centered on the time he managed to sneak into one of the shows visiting town only to be discovered by his father. While he was being reprimanded for passing himself off as 16 when he had, in fact, just turned 14, his dad warned him of the evils of the burlesque show. “You might see something you shouldn’t,” he told his son.

“You’re right dad,” he told his father. “I did see something I shouldn’t have. I saw you in there.”

With his story, Blakely also offered a few modern burlesque-style one-liners that have almost certainly been heard at a local Lions Club meeting.

“They say football is our national pastime. And what the Dallas Cowboys play is pretty popular too.”

“What did one DNA say to the other DNA? Do these genes make me look fat?”

“I never knew what happiness was until I got married—and by then, it was too late.”

For all its glory as a venue of humor and tough audiences, however, the Lions Club may have been outdone last week by guest speaker Shelby County Judge Allison Harbison. After enduring the organization’s weekly dose of words of wisdom, she began with some of her own.

“I see now why this is an all-man group,” the judge began. “I’ve been a blonde all my life,” she said with a smile. “So, I tend to like blonde jokes. Do you know why so many blonde jokes are one-liners?”

Getting no response after a few seconds, she said, “So men can understand them.”

The semi-official Lions Club rating system gave the judge much laughter and applause, sparing her any boos or tossed napkins. Not even a fine.

“I remember every one of your jokes … and I’ll use them later,” is also credited to Milton Berle. However, we’ll wait to see if that one ever resurfaces at Lions Club.

—Leon Aldridge

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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, and The Fort Stockton Pioneer.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. 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 that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“A good writer is always a people watcher and eavesdropper.”

— I overheard that somewhere.

– – – – – –

It was simply awful.

How could such a terrible thing have occurred right here in our town?

Last week, I was hardly settled at my table in a local eatery when I overheard a conversation nearby. Now I wasn’t eavesdropping, you understand, I just couldn’t help but hear what the two were talking about.

In my defense, they were talking loudly, and well … I’m a trained journalist. Supposed to “keep my ear to the ground.” Right?

“You just don’t know,” one said to the other. “He may very well be hospitalized for months.”

“In the wrong place at the wrong time,” said the second conversationalist. “And he paid the price for it.”

Who had fallen victim to this terrible tragedy, and what was it? I had to find out but keeping up with the conversation was challenging. Especially while I was trying to decide between chicken salad or a hamburger for lunch.

“Well,” I overheard, “I guess you know his wife is seeing her attorney. And I don’t mean professionally … if you get my drift.”

A scandal as well. What a juicy story. Curiosity was killing me. How could someone be in the news business in this community and not have a clue who these two were talking about?

I had to find out.

Maybe I could hear better if I went back to the salad bar one more time. I just wasn’t sure how many plates of lettuce, tomatoes and honey Dijon might look suspiciously frequent. And if the waitress decided to tack on an extra charge for multiple salad bar trips, this could be expensive information.

The lunch hour chatter made details difficult to understand, even as I stood next to the pair and filled my plate with more bean salad. “I realize,” one of them continued, “There was some question as to who his secretary married after she left town following the accident, but I don’t believe the two incidents were related at all. Do you?”

“Then there’s that thing about Jamie confronting Marley about her scheme to adopt Olivia’s baby. Not to mention, Jake trying to enlist Hannah in his plan to win back Paulina.”

To get closer, I thought about searching the floor pretending to look for a lost contact lens before I remembered. I’m wearing glasses today.

“You know who his first wife is, don’t you?”

“Who? Who,” I thought, leaning over so far I nearly fell out of my chair?

“She works for the CIA and lives in the same town. She’s married to the stepson of the doctor that’s treating him at the hospital, and no one suspects a thing. Can you believe it?”

“Wow,” I thought. I never realized anything like this was going on. All this time, I thought the buzz about getting ready for the Poultry Festival and the new traffic light at Walmart were the hot topics.

The waitress asked softly, “Sir,” are you all right? You have three plates of salad, and you haven’t taken the first bite. You seem to be in another world.”

“Another World,” I repeated aloud?

“Yes,” one of the conversationalists turned toward me and exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to catch up on old soap opera reruns on one of those new streaming channels. So … do you happen to know anything about what’s happening on ‘As the World Turns?'”

“No,” I replied politely. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“I’m fine,” I whispered to the waitress as I shook my napkin, placed it in my lap, and continued. “Have you ever noticed how some folks get caught up in those silly soap operas,” I asked her? “My grandmother used to watch them. Always called it ‘watching her stories.’ I think she believed they were real people,” I added with a chuckle.

“Isn’t that the craziest thing you’ve ever heard?”

—Leon Aldridge

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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, and The Fort Stockton Pioneer.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. 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 that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”

— Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher.

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Fishing. I just never got hooked on it.

My uncle, Freddie Scott, loved it. My mother’s brother-in-law from Hazard, Kentucky lived his life in West Texas as a teacher and a coach honored by halls of fame for his tennis coaching. He was also at times a comedian and a philosopher. He was always a guy I was proud to call my uncle.

That said, I’m pretty sure there was little he liked better than fishing. He spent most of his life in classrooms, gyms, and on tennis courts in Texas communities like Happy, Hart, Nazareth, and Sweetwater. But when it was time to wet a hook, he was often headed for places like the Carolinas, Kentucky, or even Mexico.

Therefore, it seemed odd that day in the late 70s living in Abilene when I told him I was headed home to East Texas for the weekend, and he said he had wanted to fish that new lake over in East Texas. Toledo Bend.

“What,” I responded. “You’ve fished half the states in the union and a few in Mexico, but you’ve never fished Toledo Bend?”

“So, how ’bout we make the trip together,” he said. “We’ll take my truck, pull my boat, and I’ll fish while you visit. Unless you want to fish with me.”

“I don’t do fishing,” I replied.

“You just haven’t fished with the right person,” he offered. “I’ll teach you how to enjoy it.” So, with plans to squeeze a road trip halfway across the state into a weekend, he picked me up at my office in downtown Abilene Friday at 5. Around midnight, the pickup’s headlights were casting shadows on our destination down between Possum Trot and Goober Hill in southern Shelby County. The porch light came on, and after exchanging hellos, how was the trip, and glad you’re here, it was time to grab some sleep.

Falling into deep slumber was easy. But the bed in which I was curled up was not even warm yet when I heard this voice. “You ready to go find those fish?”

“What a vivid dream,” I thought as I fluffed the pillow and rolled over.

“The fish are already up,” the voice in the darkness added.

“Are you serious,” I replied. “The clock says 4 a.m. I just got in bed.”

“Gotta go early to get the big ones,” Uncle Freddie said.

“I just got out of this truck, and I’m right back in it,” I thought as this time, the headlights were bouncing off the dirt county roads and tall pines deep in the Sabine National Forest.

Shades of rosy pink and warm orange on the horizon were diluting the darkness as the boat’s wake painted a pattern of rhythmic ripples across the early morning smooth water. Finally, Freddie brought the boat to a stop in a spot he liked. The fishing games were about to begin.

Providing me with what he deemed the best rod and reel complemented by a box of baits, Uncle Freddie shared some basics of casting with me. “It’s in the wrist,” he said, slicing the air with a pop in the fishing rod that put the bait right where he intended for it to go.

Positioned at opposite ends of the boat with coffee from the thermos in hand, the newbie and the pro were finally doing it together. Fishing the waters of Toledo Bend for the first time.

While working on casting skills, I began to notice little things. Fish popped the top of the water. Several birds sang morning melodies from the lifeless limbs of partially submerged trees while others swooped low over the water, looking for breakfast. Turtle heads bobbed up for a moment here and there, then disappeared.

A couple of hours into daylight, Uncle Freddie asked, “How’s it going? Any bites?”

 “Oh, a couple,” I responded. Then, just as I let go with another reel ringing cast, Freddie exclaimed, “You don’t have a lure on your line.”

“Yeah, I know,” I drawled. “Just a weight. But I’ve been practicing, and I can hit that big stump over there just about every time, now.”

“You won’t catch any fish like that,” he chuckled.

“That’ll come later,” I said, cranking on the reel. “Right now, I’m just enjoying casting practice. And taking in the early morning sounds of nature while marveling at the serenity of it all.”

“See,” he said, letting go with another long cast. “I told you I’d teach you how to enjoy fishing.”

—Leon Aldridge

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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 Naples Monitor.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. 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 that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“Move to the country and build you a home. Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches, try and find Jesus on your own.”

— John Prine. American singer-songwriter of country-folk music. (1946-2020)

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“So, what do you know about peaches from Pittsburg, Texas?”

The question popped in my text from someone who got word that Johnson’s Produce in Center had Pittsburg peaches. Someone who knew where I was from.

“Sit down; this is going to take a while,” I thought, recalling the summer after graduation from Mount Pleasant High School.

Many regions of Texas produce great peaches. So, who has the best is often a fuzzy decision rooted in personal choice. Or sometimes, it’s just about where you grew up.

For my tastes, good peaches can be procured at any roadside vendor along US Hwy 271 from Gilmer and up through Pittsburg to Mount Pleasant in Northeast Texas. Plus some hidden just off that path.

When I said goodbye to Mount Pleasant High School in 1966, one of those off the path was Jerry Benton’s orchard on the Monticello highway southwest of Mount Pleasant. Mr. Benton offered me gainful employment that summer where I not only made money for college but also acquired a lifelong taste for East Texas peaches.

The first day reporting for work was Monday after Friday night graduation. It was spent with the picking crew plucking peaches from the trees. A couple of days after that, I was promoted to tractor driver pulling trailer loads of peaches from the orchard to the shed.

Mr. Benton called it orientation. It also likely had something to do with getting me down to the courthouse for a commercial driver’s license. A trip the DPS office where Trooper Gene Campbell approved almost every kid’s driver’s license back then for one quick exam made an 18-year-old legal to drive commercial vehicles in the mid 1960s.

With that license, I went from tractor driver to truck driver herding a refrigerated truck of peaches to Dallas. By 5 a.m. Five mornings a week. All summer long.

My first week, I was rising, but definitely not shining, at 2 a.m. so I could leave the orchard by 3 a.m. and be at the Safeway warehouse dock in Garland by 5. After dropping the warehouse shipment, delivering to a list of Safeway stores scattered around the Dallas and Fort Worth metro area was next on my delivery list. It’s still crazy when I think about learning to navigate the Dallas and Forth Worth at 18 in a big truck. Using a paper map from the Texaco station up at the north end of town by the Gaddis Motor Hotel. Way before GPS.

It was at that same station I stopped one of my first “up at 2 a.m.” mornings needing a dollar’s worth of gas to make it through the week in my ’58 Chevy. As best I remember, it was the only 24-hour gas station in town.

“Just now heading home, huh,” remarked the station attendant pumping the gas?

Gotta love growing up in a town where everyone knew your parents. In a time when everybody knew everyone else in town, too.

“Truth be known,” I responded with a responsible tone of voice, “I headed home about 8 p.m. last night. I’m headed to work now.”

“Mmm,” he replied. I never knew whether that response was disbelief or simply an appropriate conversational response for a gas station attendant between 2 and 3 a.m.

Still considering a response to the “what do you know about Pittsburg peaches” question last week, more memories from that summer many road trips ago came to mind. Like the one when the GMC cabover rental truck motor decided to throw all its belts. Halfway between Mount Pleasant and Dallas. On the interstate, somewhere around 4 a.m. Guiding the truck off the highway and turning on the flashers caught a state trooper’s attention. Phones without a cord were still sci-fi then, but the officer’s two-way car radio got a Hertz repair truck coming my way.

Then there was the early morning escape from a roadside diner near Greenville. And I’m not talking about the quality of the food. My craving for caffeine put me on the parking lot at the exact moment it was being robbed. At gunpoint.

I’ve always considered myself a dedicated employee, no matter what the job was. So it was that morning that I saved not only myself but also a truck full of fresh peaches. I had no idea a loaded truck would move that fast.

Oh, and there’s that peachy piece of advice Mr. Benton offered me as we shook hands at the end of the summer. “Work on your second million first, son,” he said with a smile. “It’s a lot easier to make than the first one.”

So, what do I know about peaches from Pittsburg, Texas? East Texas peaches are my favorite. Just the mention of them brings back memories.

And if you buy some, you better invite me over for cobbler.

—Leon Aldridge

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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, and The Fort Stockton Pioneer.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. 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 that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“Change? I’m all for it as long everything stays the same.” — Yep, I’ve probably been accused of saying that.

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Looking out the exam room window at the dentist’s office last week, I started to think. Nothing complicated or even philosophical. Just a simple observation. “The view out that window hasn’t changed in 40 years.”

Truthfully, it was a comforting thought that made me smile. When you’ve been walking through the front door of the same dentist’s office for most of those 40 years, little things do not go unnoticed.

Change comes slower for me than it once did. Probably related to age … because some things never change. It’s always been the younger generation that seeks change more while it’s the, what I prefer to designate as “wiser through experience,” generation that tends to question it.

My father, typically a man of few words for advice, put it best many years ago. Two times he offered tidbits of wisdom that have remained with me. One was about decisions, and one was about love. We’ll save the one about love for another time and a much longer column.

On making decisions, I shared details with him one night about a major purchase I was contemplating. Probably an old hot rod or race car, I don’t remember what it was, just what he told me. Still in college at the time, in my mind, I knew it all anyway.

As I laid it out to him, he listened quietly. Then I paused, anticipating his praise for making such a smart move. But his response startled me. “I don’t think that is such a good decision.”

“Why not,” I asked him in disbelief. After telling me why he felt the way he did, he added, “But I know you will do what you want to regardless of what I say. And I know that only because I was the same way at your age. I had to learn the hard way, from experience.”

He said, “I wish there was some way to benefit you from the knowledge I’ve gained from my experience, good and bad. But I know that’s not possible. Some things in life have to be learned just like I did. By experience.”

On any other day, it might seem odd those thoughts were going through my mind sitting at Dr. Clayton Windham’s office in Center while waiting for a “clean and check.”

The smile about noticing the same old view out the window was still there when another aspect of change hit me. And I’m not talking about the fact that the “new” Dr. Windham to whom I entrusted my dental care 40 years ago is not the same “new” Dr. Windham in whom I place that same trust today.

When Clayton became the new dentist at the old dentist’s office a few years ago, I admit to having apprehensions about breaking in a new dentist at my age.

But they were short-lived apprehensions. Dr. Clayton Windham has proven to be every bit as good a dentist as Dr. Danny Paul Windham. The change I’m addressing here goes much deeper than dental care.

Gazing out the window reminded me of the office music softly soothing anxious dental patients for all those years.

A professional musician and appreciator of good music, Danny Paul, featured a mixture of what many call singer/songwriter country music. I spent decades getting dental care while relaxing to the likes of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker, David Allan Coe, and others of the same genre.

But as I gazed out the window last week, taking in the same view I’d seen for four decades, I noticed I was now listening to … classical music. Instead of steel guitars and fiddles with “strangs,” I was listening to woodwinds and violins with “strings.” The music had changed.

Exam done, I mentioned jokingly to Clayton that I noticed the “new” music playing softly throughout the office. In response, he offered that his wife, Jackie, was in charge of the music and that a variety of tunes were being played that would still include country collections on some days.

“No, problem,” I thought. I can deal with change.

When asked about a convenient date for my next checkup, all I have to do is ask, “What country music days do you have available.”

—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, and The Fort Stockton Pioneer.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2022. 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 that full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.