Tag: writing

I don’t even like writing about it

The late afternoon storm intensified with every word I drafted. It was dry and cozy inside where I was writing, but rain, wind, thunder and lightning filled the skies outside.

“It’s lightning! Get out of that tub now,” my grandmother was quick to announce when storm clouds rolled into East Texas. Baths at her house in Pittsburg were fun as a youngster. Mainly because there was no waiting in line for the old-fashioned tub. Unlike bath time at home where having two sisters meant waiting in line for the only bathtub in the house.

“Aren’t you done yet,” was a common cry through the bathroom door Saturday nights. Except for that night in Seymour, when just about the time I settled in to soak in the bubbles, my mother burst through the door in a panic.

“Get dressed now.”

Gillette commercials on the television touting smooth shaves meant the Friday night fights were coming on. But the constant siren blaring from the fire station downtown signaled something more sinister.

“There’s a tornado coming,” Mom shouted.

“I’m wet,” I pleaded.

“No time,” she said. “Get dressed wet. We have to get to the cellar.”

The first flash of celestial electricity sent my parents and my grandparents into national disaster mode. Mom just made sure everyone was inside, but Granny dashed through her house, issuing orders and unplugging her electrical appliances. Both of them. The Kelvinator refrigerator that stood in the corner of her dining room for more than 50 years, and the small, black, 1940s radio in the living room.

“Don’t touch the faucets,’ she always warned. “Get away from those windows, you’ll get struck.”

I ‘ve known only two people struck by lightning. I attended the small country church service for the first. The second person still laughs today when he relates his encounter with the phenomenon of nature.

Research reveals a 1 in 1,222,000 chance of getting hit by lightning. That computes to 0.0000008%. Your odds of winning a Las Vegas jackpot are better.

The odds of striking a photo of a lightning bolt are good, however, with a flash of knowledge. Back in the ancient days of film photography, I read that lightning storms follow a regular pattern of building in intensity, peaking, then decreasing, all in a measurable cycle between discharges. One summer night, I tested that theory from an upper-story balcony of the Palacio Del Rio Hotel in San Antonio. Timing the flashes and shooting long exposures on that cycle netted a half dozen frames with decent images on a 36-exposure roll of Kodachrome. Still hanging on my wall is a framed photo of a cloud-to-ground lightning bolt heating the night air with the Tower of the Americas in the foreground.

One lightning bolt can scorch anything in its path with 50,000-degree Fahrenheit temperatures and reach more than ten miles to do so. I’ve never experienced it, and don’t won’t to, but intenisfying electrical charges reportedly fill the air in the seconds right before lightning strikes. Metal objects as small as jewelry will sometimes buzz. Hair will stand on end.

If you experience these signs, it goes without warning, don’t wait to seek shelter. Lightning can travel from the clouds, through a human body, and into the ground in about three milliseconds.

Which is what happened to the one person I know who was struck by lightning and lived to tell about it. Motivational speaker and my friend and colleague from Stephen F. Austin State University teaching days, Miles McCall, can put a humorous spin on just about any experience.

I’ve been struck by lightning,” Miles mentioned casually one day. He said it with a smile.

“Some friends and I were sailing on Lake Sam Rayburn that summer day. One of them had brought his dog. And we were having fun when a storm blew up,” he begins. “One of those quick ones.” For Miles, sailboats and Jimmy Buffet songs make for a perfect outing.

“Wisely, we headed for shore arriving just as the storm hit. But unwisely,” he laughs about it now, “We found shelter under a huge tree. Smart, huh? All I remember after that was a brilliant flash and a deafening clap of thunder.”

“Moments later, I looked around, and all of my friends and the dog were lying sprawled on the ground,” Miles said. “I thought, ‘Oh no’ they’re dead. Then one of the guys gets up and takes off running. Then I thought, ‘Oh no, they’re alive and I’m dead!'”

“We were all OK,” Miles concludes with a laugh, “Except the poor dog, he didn’t make it. The soles of our shoes were burned off and our feet were blistered. The earth and the asphalt under the tree spreading from the base outward in all directions was cracked and split open.”

According to Miles, the group surmised their saving grace was the charge hitting the tree and traveling out in the root system before connecting with them through their feet.

As I finished writing this missive, the rain, lightning, and thunder was moving out of Center. And that was my saving grace. Because I don’t like lightning.

Not even writing about it.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. 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.

Choose friends wisely, they will shape your life

“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”
— John Lennon (1940 – 1980) English singer, songwriter and musician.

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When traveling alone, something I’ve done far too much of in my lifetime,  I’ve spent unknown hours just thinking. My brain’s hard drive revs up with the open road, shifting a myriad of memories into overdrive.

With the touch of a button, I have satellite radio, Bluetooth, and even antique CDs for entertainment. All waiting to be turned on as I sit thinking, listening to the hum of the highway that is still my preferred pastime for making miles fly by.

Driving last Saturday, alone, I reflected on knowing most of my life is in the rearview mirror, anticipating that whatever time is left will fly by all too quickly. That’s a thought that becomes increasingly poignant every time I’m headed home dressed in my Sunday best with a folded funeral home program in my pocket.

Loving parents instilled many good things in me. One being to “choose your friends wisely; those you call friend will shape your life.” Many good friendships were forged with members of my Mount Pleasant, Texas, high school graduating class. Friendships that have lasted a lifetime.

Ronnie Lilly and I graduated in that generation of students that remembers hearing the news at school that President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas.

A couple of years following that memory, in the fall following high school graduation, Ronnie and I were roommates at Kilgore College along with a third “partner in adventure.” Our mutual friend and high school classmate, Mike Williams. Memories of said adventures include sharpening our skills at at the pool hall, late night card games, the night clerk at the corner 7-11 we affectionately nicknamed “Hostile,” overflowing the washing machine with soap at the laundromat across the street from the girl’s dorm, and one memorable night that we drove to downtown Dallas. Seeking verification of rumors regarding the fun of experiencing a Texas O.U. weekend in “Big D.”

Then traveling back to Kilgore that same night.

Ronnie was driving, I was riding shotgun, and Mike fell asleep in the back seat. Arriving at our Kilgore apartment just before dawn, Ronnie and I went in and hit the hay while Mike continued snoozing in the car. He awoke sometime after sunup, initially miffed at us thinking we had stopped to rent a motel room and left him in the car.

Through these memorable moments of fun and more, we miraculously still found time to attend a few classes.

Following spring finals, Ronnie and I flipped a coin to determine whose old Chevrolet, his ’57 or my ’58, was more likely to make a trip to Southern California. Memorial Day weekend, we were headed west in his car. The first night, we bunked with my aunt and uncle in the Texas Panhandle, then continued on to the second night in Las Vegas where we stayed at The Thunderbird on the old Vegas strip. Before the days of high-rise hotels and sprawling casinos.

After learning that the bellman knew where Mount Pleasant, Texas was and had family living there, we were just walking and gawking when we heard Dean Martin singing. Following the voice to the hotel’s nightclub entrance, we caught a glimpse of the crooner performing through an open door. No one was there at the moment to tell us we couldn’t, so we walked in and quietly disappeared into the shadows at the back of the room. After enjoying most of a couple of songs, this tall gentleman in a black suit walked up beside us and graciously offered two 19-year-old underage kids from Texas some options to consider. We heeded what we agreed was his best one. To leave … immediately.

Staying with my Uncle Bill in the Los Angeles San Fernando Valley suburb of Canoga Park that summer, Ronnie and I packed a lot into the experience. Working days to make money for school in the fall. Cruising popular hangouts Saturday nights listening to the Beach Boys on jukeboxes, and drooling over California cool cars and hot rods. Occasional weekend trips up the coast to Pismo Beach roaming the dunes in sand buggies with Uncle Bill and his friends.

Pismo Beach sand dunes, summer of 1967. Ronnie Lillly (left) and Leon Aldridge (right).

And those Sunday afternoons. Watching surfers at Malibu Beach and conducting memorable observational research on the still somewhat new beachwear fad of the mid 1960s. Bikinis.

Loaded with memories by Labor Day, we headed east back to Texas. Crossing the desert in the middle of the night to avoid excruciating daytime temps put us in Southern Arizona well before dawn. Sleep was beckoning, but a motel was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t the Hilton. It wasn’t even Motel 6. But we found a couple hours of shut-eye stretched out on picnic table in a middle-of-nowhere roadside park. Nestled near a rock bluff that, by dawn’s early light, was one of the most spectacular views of the trip.

Ronnie’s faithful ’57 made the journey without a hiccup in spite of one minor inconvenience. The gas gauge didn’t work. That proved to be a problem just once, however. Not far over the state line from New Mexico into Texas. In the middle of another nowhere between Carlsbad and Pecos. Ronnie flagged down a guy in a pickup for a ride into town for gas while I stayed to safeguard the car. About the time I reclined across the car’s front seat for a quick nap, some helpful motorists stopped to offer assistance. A host of hippies in a VW van covered with flowers and love symbols. I assured them everything was all right and gas was on the way back. So they rolled on, waving peace signs as they departed.

Ronnie returned with a can of gas, and we were back on the road. I was never sure, however, if he really believed me about the bus load of hippies. “We’re back in Texas,” he laughed. “We left all that behind in California two days ago. You sure you weren’t dreaming while you napped?”

It really happened.

Someone once said, “Life is an adventure best shared with good friends.” I’ve been blessed with many good friends like Ronnie Lilly, sharing adventures and making memories that have lasted a lifetime.

Friends and family gathered in East Texas last Saturday to remember Ronnie and celebrate his life. Afterward, I drove home. Alone. Dressed in my Sunday best. A funeral home program folded up in my pocket.

Thankful for memories and for friends like Ronnie.

Friends who have definitely shaped my life.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2024. 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.

Slowing the pace of life

“Uninvited, he sat down and opened up his mind,
On old dogs and children, and watermelon wine.
— song lyrics by Tom T. Hall

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Those finer things in life celebrated in song by the American singer-songwriter nicknamed “The Storyteller” admittedly possess powers soothing to the soul. But my most trusted tool for slowing the pace of life was, for many years, something a little different.

My grandfather’s rocking chair.

I never knew where the piece of furniture came from. It was relegated to the front porch before I was born. It’s origin was one of many things I’ve wished I’d quizzed my grandmother about. I had a long list of questions for her, but many remained forever unanswered that October day in 1993 when she closed her eyes for the last time.

The plain wooden rocker with arms and a homemade red oil cloth seat cushion resided on their front porch along with the high-back cane rocker Granny called hers.

The chairs appeared to beckon them to the front porch every evening after supper with some sort of magical power. When John Kennedy occupied the White House, he taunted the value of rocking chairs as therapeutic for back problems. But for my grandparents, I think it was more than that.

My father’s parents settled in northeast Texas long before Kennedy was president. In fact, when they moved into their Cypress Street residence in Pittsburg on Halloween night, 1930, Herbert Hoover was in his second year as president. The railroad brought them to Camp County. Granddaddy worked for the Cotton Belt. He retired in the early 1950s when steam locomotives were still an occasional sight.

So, it’s probably not just coincidence that the small white frame house where they lived most of their life was across the street from the railroad tracks. Or the fact that his chair was perfectly positioned to spot approaching locomotives.

Rocking, talking, and occasionally singing hymns like “Blessed Assurance” were regular activities every evening. And waiting for a passing train when Granddaddy would glance at his pocket watch to see if it was on time. If not, he might declare something like, “The 6:15 is running a little behind this evening.”

My grandfather died in 1967, and with his death, regular after-supper porch sitting also ended. My grandmother lived in the house for another 26 years before joining him, but I don’t recall her ever using the rockers again.

Infrequent use and dirt daubers started were taking their toll on them by the time Granny moved the chairs inside to the living room.

After she died, my sisters and I out picked a few things for memories. Both rocking chairs went to my Hill Country back porch, where they once again waited for evening company.

My occasional “rocking and thinking spells” were mostly monitoring Hill Country sunsets. But when north winds caused Granddaddy’s old rocker to sway gently on some days, I saw him occupying his chosen chair. I was certain more than once that I caught a glimpse of a curl of pipe smoke rising above the brim of his hat.

The first night they spent at my house, I settled into his chair and began to rock. I relaxed and wondered. Did the old chairs really possess magical powers? Maybe, but my grandparents’ life seemed much more manageable at “front porch time.” My rocking was more intense when I consulted the chair to work out details of earning a living, rearing children, and other mindful matters.

Things like, “Dad, I need a new dress for the banquet,” or “Dad, the pickup’s making a funny noise and steam’s coming out from under the hood,” were always met with the same answer. “Give me a half hour and meet me at the rocking chair.”

Over time, the rocker became tattered and a little worse for wear, but I couldn’t bring myself to replace it. Changing anything about the chair would change its appearance, and most likely its powers as well I feared. For that reason, both retained their “as is” condition while I continued rocking and pondering.

During a move back to Shelby County a couple of decades ago, the relic rockers suffered crippling injuries. Consequently, they were confined to storage intended to last only “a few weeks.” But I never located that rare “round tuit” to b ring the back to life. Sadly, they still rest in storage, waiting for their resurrection.

With a little spare time on my hands, the rocking chairs crossed my mind last week. Maybe it was strains of “Blessed Assurance” reminding of their wait for attention. Or perhaps it was catching “old dogs, children, and watermelon wine” on the radio.

Really, I’m thinking it was just the same song my grandparents heard when they rocked in the evenings. The one calling them from the complexities of a hectic society. Wishing for that simpler time in life they remembered.

—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 Monitor in Naples.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2024. 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.