Home...eight days 'til Christmas

"Sanctuary," 5 x 7 watercolor Christmas card

"I'll be home for Christmas...if only in my dreams." 

That 1943 song recorded by Bing Crosby, written by lyricist Kim Gannon and composer Walter Kent, captured the emotion and hopes of all those American servicemen in the anger and violence of remote WWII, so far away from the warmth and safety of loved ones.

It still does for so many people, perhaps even more, scattered  around the world though the years, or threatened by danger and violence of war and homelessness.

Last week on a cold day, I saw a homeless person huddled in a sleeping bag at the corner of Penn and Memorial. Near downtown recently, we saw a homeless camp of tents not far from the sparkling lights of OKC's "Renaissance." In Ukrainians, their homes are being bombed. I wonder what their Christmas dreams are like, what kind of "Holy-day" they are having.

For me, with my children and grandchildren so far away, at least I can see and talk to them through modern technology, and enjoy the love of in-laws. Long ago, returning from a Culp cousin reunion in East Texas, I wrote a poem of my thoughts during this season that  includes these lines:

 "Driving in East Texas is like going back into the womb.

It's warm, and wet, and ... green.

Where families are born, and grow, and spread out like runners 

from the ivy growing up the trunks of the hardwoods, 

across miles and years."

So as we approach Christmas eight days from now, with our "decorations so bright," let us savor the sanctuary of "home," and be thankful and enjoy every second and loved ones, remembering those who can't. 

This card captures those emotions for me, the warmth and joy of adobe, red chilis and a Christmas wreath on a white Christmas.

It's a happy cornbread-in-cast-iron-skillet kind of day

The smell of happy, 4 by 5 1/2 watercolor, 300 lb. d'Arches cold press paper

Cornbread makes me happy, especially when it's cooked in a cast iron skillet or other relic of the past.
None of this namby-pamby tin or aluminum fakeries. Real cornbread.
When was the first time you tasted cornbread made that way? The delicious smell still gets you doesn't it? 
Today's one of those days. Cooped up in the house because of the cold, I was stuck on what to paint that makes me happy, part of the daily challenge this month. In fact, kinda blue.  And then in the cabinet, I see cornbread mix.
I know, I know, not made from scratch, but it'll still be different by the time I add my ingredients--including, but no all, red child powder from Chimayo, New Mexico.
I know, I know, it'd be better  with a big pot of pinto beans, or chili, or stew, in which you can crumble the cornbread up. But that will take more time. Still, I can dream about being cooped up in a cabin with a wood burning stove and cornbread rising to a golden brown.
The first time I remember that kind of cornbread was in deep East Texas long ago, walking as a kid down to my grandmother's house with cousins. My mother's mother, Grandmother Culp, would make corn bread in cast iron molds resembling half corn ears. Add some butter and mmmm.
So while you're reading this, or even before you do, I'm making some real cornbread in a cast iron pot I expect belonged to my other Grandmother, Cuba Reasor, and handed down to me by my late Uncle Mike. 
It makes excellent, happy cornbread. My mood has already improved, just writing about it.

Daily watercolor for the  #worldwatercolorgroup January Paint happy things challenge.

Cast iron happiness

Tomorrow's pilgrimage toward a reunion

They're all gone now--Sissie, ET, Mom, Ima, Addy, Gladys

Francis Faye Culp Clark

June 15, 1909-

July 5, 1980

It's more than two hours southwest and 35 years back in time for me tomorrow. I go to plant real flowers at her grave, and think, remember, talk, and touch mortality. 
Tell your mother you love her.
Brother Jerry and I have mementos and photographs, and more. We have questions and wondering we'll never find out. We have cousins.

Mom with grandchildren Travis, Dallas, Becky, Derrick and Vance

We and our children and our grandchildren carry her genes, her grace and goodness--and her sense of humor.
Mom, you'd delight in our your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  
I know it's a long way from humble East Texas, but we've all traveled miles and years, and can never thank you enough for your unselfishness, how you cared for and reared us. 

Retirement at MD Anderson

We wish we were as good as you, but any goodness we have we inherited and learned from being around you.   
We look forward to a big reunion. In the meantime, I'll see you tomorrow.

Front row, right corner, on a Ma Bell basketball team

Dad's portrait of his bride, 1943

Memories of a favorite cousin

Carolyn thanking me for a Christmas present.

How can you measure what people mean to you, when they've been a part of you since before you can remember?
I don't know, and this morning's phone call from my cousin Sarah Beth Foote about the death of my cousin Carolyn Gee Wilson just made me more aware.
There are old black and white photos of us together when we were babies. As young kids on our vacations,  I can remember playing mud-pies and stuff in her backyard. There are some faded color photos and slides when we were pre-teens and perhaps teens. I can remember walking  down to the corner store for candy, or driving to a drive-in for Dr. Pepper on hot summer days in Silsbee.  

1945 cousins--Charlotte and Carolyn Gee, Sarah and Charles Lutrick, and me. Grandad Ezra.T. Culp in background.

Years later

I went to her wedding, and have visited her husband's grave with her.  She was always slight, almost frail, but strong and good inside. When I attended her mother's funeral (my Mom's sister) several years ago, another cousin showed up drunk, and Carolyn threw him out. A few years ago during a dark time in my life, I visited and she and I drove around looking for old Culp homesteads. We went out one night in Beaumont to eat and dance. How far back does this cousin family go? I'll always be "Terry Mike" to them. 

The Gee sisters, 3 years ago, the way I'll always remember Carolyn and Sandy.

The last time I saw her was three years ago at a family reunion in East Texas, and an evening meal at a Mexican restaurant. Since then she dwindled to about 70 pounds and lived in a nursing home.
She was five months old when I was born, and had what most folks would call not an easy life. She and Larry were never rich--in fact had very little, but they were happy together and raised three good children. She's the second Gee sister to die this year. Her younger sister Sandy was murdered in April, and that was traumatic, even with a cousin reunion in Austin a week later, that Carolyn couldn't attend. We knew Carolyn was fading, and her death is not traumatic, because she's in a much better place now. But it is still, well...just deep. She is special.
I wanted to go to the funeral, but because of an discomforting illness can't make it. But I will be there in spirit, and I will somehow visit your grave, my cousin.

Three of us are now gone since this reunion three years ago at cousin Sarah Foote's. Carolyn, second from left, Charles, third from right, and Sandy, kneeling at right.

Memories of Mom in photos

Francis Faye Culp Clark, 1949, Fort Worth

I have more photos, of course, but these span the years.  With my somber Mothers' Day trip coming up tomorrow to her grave in Waurika, they hint at her, better than the sparse letters on her gravestone--a life is so much more than a name and dates. With memories of a recent family reunion, and old photographs, I wonder at the years and stories untold. We know so little, don't we, but we love more than words can tell.

Oldest photo of Mom--1909?

East Texas girls, from left, Ima, Faye, Gladys, Vera

The Culp kids,  early 1930s? (Old car in background). From left, Vera, ET, Faye, Ima, J.C., Gladys

Faye, I don't know the year

Southwest Bell basket ball team, 1929--Faye at right, front row

Ima, Vera, Faye, dated 1931

Easter Sunday, Albuquerque, 1950s, Dad, Jerry, Me, Mom

1950s in Dallas...Mom, Sissie, Grandmother, Gladys, ET

Mom, Houston, late 60s

Mom's retirement at MD Anderson

Grandkids, late 70s, Waurika...Travis, Dallas, Mom, Becky, Derrick, Vance

Waurika, Oklahoma

Kissin' cousin

Sandra Gail Gee Russell's funeral was today in Lake Charles. We Culps mourn.
She was as close as I've ever had to a kissing cousin. She arrived with her sister Charlotte and husband at our home in Albuquerque in the late 195os on a road trip, them driving a 1959 white Chevy convertible. 
Sandi and I went out on a date in it, full of teenage hopes and hormones. I was always "Terry Mike" and she was "Sandra Gail," because we all called people by their first and middle names back then. That was mainly because that's what our folks yelled at us when we were in trouble, but it stuck, forever.
This photo was taken by my Dad at one of our summer vacation trips to Silsbee in deep East Texas. There are so many memories. I couldn't make the funeral, but I will toast her royally at our cousin reunion next week, and remember the cute girl with the reddish hair, arched eyebrows, and captivating  laugh, forever.

Tragedy brings out the memories

The Gee girls, three years ago, Brenda, Charlotte, Carolyn, and Sandi, whose laugh we will always remember. There might be better photos, but this so captures her personality.

I lost a first cousin this week, a spirit of laughter and humor and East Texas charm, shot by her husband, who then committed suicide. Sandra Gail Gee Russell was just 69, and I was counting on seeing her at a Culp first cousin reunion in two weeks.
When something like that happens, I start rummaging through old photos, photos from childhood and before, up through the last reunion three years ago. I don't know what I'm looking for, perhaps just trying to cope, or to understand, but also to remember the good times. Tonight there are family photos from albums and boxes scattered across the floor as I search through those memories.
It's hard to write about it, but I need to, because in spite of the years and miles, she's been a part of my life as long as I can remember, and before.
We were not close, geographically or otherwise, because it had been years  since we really knew each other well. But we were close, as families used to be growing up after WWII from common grandparents and parents in East Texas. 
My brother and I lived farthest away when my Dad and Mom moved to Albuquerque, but we stayed in touch, and most summer vacations were spent visiting our aunts and uncles and cousins. 

Sandi and I as teenagers. Just found this slide after writing the post.

The old black and white photos taken when some of us were babies show that connection, sitting on pallets in the yard or gathered with grandparents and parents.
Visits  through the teenage years strengthened it, until we started having our own families and time slipped away. 
Our first cousin reunion was about 20 years ago, down on the Texas Gulf coast, and then a few years ago in Livingston, Texas, and three years ago in Cleveland, Texas. Those were times to get reacquainted, to share old photos and memories, to see their children and grandchildren living their own lives.

We will miss her, because we are cousins.

Sandra was always the life of the party with her laugh and smile and good natured humor. She'd worked hard all her life, as that family of four girls had to to survive, with their Daddy dying when they were young. 

Sandi's 7th grade yearbook photo

There was not much money, but there was love and family, and they could laugh and enjoy life. Charlotte, Carolyn, Sandra and Brenda Gee, daughters of Ervin and Ima Culp Gee. She deserved so much better than the way she died, and we'll miss her, because we are cousins.
These photos and memories make me realize how important cousins are as time goes by, and it's evident on this blog with many articles and photos from the last reunion or other posts. Just click on these links: The delicious taste of memories. East Texas Cousins. When a Cousin Dies. Cousins part 2. Redheads and Cousins. East Texas Cousins Chapter 3.
I wrote this poem a few years ago when attending the funeral of their mother, my mother's baby sister, and changed it a little for my cousin Sandi. 

"East Texas family"

Swamps and steeples.

Pines and pickups.

Barbecue, beer, bayous and Baptists.

Holiness and honky-tonks.

Wildflowers and wandering roads.

In East Texas, springtime feels like it just rained, or is about to.

There's no horizon, and humid skies are  Confederate gray 

as the warm Gulf air sticks  to you.

More than the air sticks to you.

 Driving in East Texas is like going back into the womb.

It's warm, and wet, and ... green.

Where families are born, and grow, and spread out like runners 

from the ivy growing up the trunks of the hardwoods, 

across miles and years.

Go back for a reunion, or the funeral of an aunt,

your mother's youngest sister and her friend.

You sit around in lawn chairs 

visiting with cousins you hadn't seen for years.

The memories of earlier years come flooding back,

drenching you like the soft Texas rain 

Beginning as a mist and then saturates 

every green plant before moving on.

Without horizons you can't see the rain coming or going,

Pools of standing water and wet pavement and water-dappled leaves

Mark its passing, like the memories, like the years.

Memories of playing mud pies as a child with cousins,

aunts and uncles doing magic tricks, 

playing the guitar, or playing 42.

Memories of a nearby Mom and Pop store 

Of 5-cent Cokes and 3-cent candy bars. 

Memories of  grandma's house

cornbread in old cast iron forms. 

teen-agers going to the corner drug store.

Sitting on a porch with a summer girlfriend, 

watching the rain come down and the moments sweep by. 

Memories of aunts and uncles and parents and cousins now gone.

The delicious taste of memories

The package fit snugly in the mailbox when I opened it the other day. The Texas postmark gave away the sender.
Inside the box that I hurriedly opened in the house were two small Ball canning jars, with a colorful label on the side and the firm, handwritten word, "Figs."
How long it has been... . Fig preserves from deep east Texas, but more than just east Texas. I opened one can, took a fork and put two of the figs and sauce in my mouth, awakening flavors I'd forgotten, and memories of times long past. And these figs are especially sweet to my taste and past.
Yes, in the past few years I'd managed to find fig spread in some stores here, and a few restaurants carry limited fig appetizers. I'd forgotten when I liked them so much.
Years ago when I was a kid, we'd make the long pre-Interstate drive from arid New Mexico to humid East Texas to visit my aunts and uncles and cousins. My mother came from a large family, three sisters and two brothers and more than a dozen children. We were the only ones who lived so far away, and thus our summer vacations were family reunions.
Thus the taste of figs. My mother's sister Gladys, her husband Clark Lutrick, and my cousins Charles and Sarah Beth lived in Houston where Clark worked for "Ma Bell." I was always fascinated by their neat brick house, surrounded by that thick-bladed and always green St. Augustine grass, which wouldn't grow where we lived.. And in the back yard was a fig tree. Barefoot I'd try to climb the tree and taste them if I couldn't reach one on the limbs, or if I couldn't reach them, uncle Clark would pick one for me. And inside the air-conditioned house (another novelty to us desert dwellers), there would be home-canned jars of fig preserves.
"Larrupin good," as my Dad would say. Cousin Charles was the first of the clan of cousins, and grown by the time we visited, but my cousin Sara Beth, her sassiness matching her red hair, was there and she'd find ways to tease my brother and I.  Those who know me today now know where my attraction for redheads comes from.
Over the years, we lost touch, as families spread out, like creepers on ivy, jobs and children and marriages and funerals leading in all different directions. But several  years ago, some of cousins suggested a cousin reunion, down on the Gulf Coast. As the only cousin living outside The Republic--following the genes of the other side of the family--I traveled the farthest. As we aged, the idea caught on, and we've had two or three more reunions now, and that has reawakened friendships and memories.
The most recent was just over a year ago at the home of my cousin Sarah Beth and her husband Bob Foote, near Plum Grove, Texas. All but one living cousin were there, and we had barbecue and photos and laughs and memories and more. I've started sending watercolor cards and gifts to some of the cousins, including Sarah Beth.
More than 20 years ago, her father brought a sprout in a gallon bucket  from that long ago Houston fig tree  and planted it on their place in rural East Texas, amid the St. Augustine grass. It has flourished, reaching more than eight feet in height. This year Bob pulled down those branches to stuff more than four gallons of figs into bags. Sarah has put up nine of the jars from one of the gallon bags so far and expects many more.
Since that reunion a year ago, Charles Lutrick has died. I'm so glad we made him get out of the car before leaving to take a group photo. I was thinking about that, among many more memories, when I ate some canned Lutrick-tree fig preserves on toast this morning.

Culp family cousins, 2011. Charles Lutrick and Sarah Beth Lutrick Foote third and second from the right, back row.

A year of journeys

I'm trying to plan a trip to Alaska for us in May, and it's not easy, unless you go to a travel agent and get stuck on one of those gargantuan cattle trucks called cruise ships, and I don't want that.

So planning the trip will be an adventure too, and as I pour over brochures, scan books, contact friends and scour the Internet, I'm aware of the journeys, planned and unplanned, to places know and unknown, that have made this year memorable.

First was a trip to Chennai, India, in February to SRM University for a conference. It was a trip of utterly new sensations, experiences and people.

Then in March, I spent a week aboard the nuclear carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, in the Pacific, thanks to a former student, the Public Affairs officer aboard one of the largest ships in the world, Lt. Cdr. Steve Curry. Much more first time living.

In April I drove to the third Culp cousin reunion at my cousin Sarah Beth Foote's house in East Texas. Ten of us were there--only one barely known was missing--the children of my Mom and her three sisters and two brothers. A journey of mixed emotions of laughter and stories and good times, mixed with the awareness of passing time, and wondering if we'd ever do it again.

May was packed. On Mother's Day, I met my brother Jerry of Lubbock, to spend a boring evening in Wichita Falls before visiting our Mom's grave in Waurika, for an emotional trip into memories. In mid-May, Susan and I went to Florida and Savannah and soaked up southern food and comfort and history.

On Memorial Day, I visited grandkids Erin, Abby and Max and daughter Dallas and son-in-law Todd  in Amarillo and then on to Walsenburg to  my last uncle, Mike, in the veterans home. A happy,  and sobering trip, where the adventures are mental and emotional.

On the Fourth of July, I flew to California to spend time with my son Vance, his wife Kerin, and granddaughters Katherine, Sarah, and to see the new baby, Neysa, for the first time. Emotional for sure, but also the adventures of touring Vandenburg AFB where they launch satellites.

There were summer  trips on Oklahoma's back roads, including US 66, taking photos, exploring, and visiting friends at newspapers, and to Guthrie to show artwork there. There was a whirlwind trip to Vales Grande in New Mexico on roads I hadn't driven  before in early August--not much, but it helped satisfy a New Mexico attack.

In October, we celebrated anniversary in Kansas City, and spent full days in Columbia, Mo., with son Derrick, daughter-in-law Naomi, and granddaughter Liberty Faye.

Then in late October, a different journey began, when I received a phone call at night about the death of my uncle Mike. That journey isn't over yet for me, even though a resulting journey was burying him in the National Cemetery at Santa Fe, across from where he lived for-30 plus years. It was only my second trip to beloved New Mexico since a year ago when I had to move him out of that apartment that had become a second home to me in the last 10 years. I've traveled many places and miles in my mind as a result.

Those are the out-of-town trips, not counting getting artwork in Adelante Gallery in Paseo and multiple trips to the frame shop and studio. Nor around town to visit in-laws, go out to eat, visit many museums, attend the press convention, go "boothing" with friends and colleagues,  attend parties, travel over chess boards,  move brushes over blank paper and words on blank computer screens, and at Thanksgiving, tour the city with myAmarillo grandkids.

Then two days ago, my oldest cousin, Charles Rogers Lutrick, died in Beaumont, beginning a new journey for him and for those who love him. His funeral is tomorrow, and while Jerry and I are too far away to make it, his passing sets us off on another mental and somber journey contemplating passing life, a passing year and passing time.

It's been a good year--I've seen all my children and grandchildren, spent time with cousins and friends and colleagues, and faced mortality.

Although I'm trying to plan the Alaska trip, and also renewed my passport last month, I'm very aware that I really have no idea what the journeys will be this coming year, nor what kind of journeys they might be. I do know that Charles and Mike make me focus on my own journey, every day.

Charles Rogers Lutrick

Aug. 29, 1930

Dec. 10, 2011

Terry M. Clark

Jan. 5, 1944

When a cousin dies

Charles Rogers Lutrick, third from right, in April

My cousin Sarah Beth  Lutrick told me tonight, via email, that her brother, Charles Rogers Lutrick, 80, died today. He was the first of the Culp family cousins, the son of Gladys Culp Lutrick, married to Clark Lutrick, my mother's oldest sister.

We fortunately had a reunion in east Texas this April, of all but one of the Culp cousins, and he was there, not in good health, but there, along with the rest of us.

Mortality...thy sting is personal, and though I didn't know him well, all my kin folks --the aunts and uncles--always thought of him as the golden boy, and I'm sure he was. He was pleased when we named my youngest son Derrick Rogers Clark--and we didn't know the connection.

I have another picture as a baby, of Charles with me on his shoulders. Granddad Ezra Thomas Clark is in the background, and cute redhead Sarah Bath is just to my right.

I think the two cuties in front are Charlotte and Carolyn Gee.

Thanks, Charles, and God Bless.

"Look, an artist."

The Alamo, 12 by 9, watercolor

Several years ago, when I painted this, "en plein aire," sitting on the ground on a warm day in San Antonio, a group of school kids came up and one said, "Oh look, an artist."

That was a defining moment in art for me, that I've written about this week for another arts blog, information to come soon.

I never framed the painting, but just tossed it in pile file in my closet where the not-so-good and failures and rejects  and I don't know what else go. I throw very little away and you never see the real failures...it's all part of my continuing art education.

I go through it every once in a while, for ideas, for inspiration, for a self-critique on my work and progress. Every once in a while, I see one that should be rescued and framed, that looks better "after all these years." It paid off during the Paseo Arts Festival. An experiment I painted of Taos Pueblo I hauled out and framed, and it sold for more than $500 from Adelante Gallery. Lesson--paint more, experiment more, let paintings sit and, like writing, maybe they'll  grow on you, as you grow.

Taos Dreaming, 22" x 30"

Anyway, my favorite cousin, Sarah Beth Lutrick Foote, is a member of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas (I told you I was a genetic Texan), and I gave  her the Alamo painting for her birthday. She framed it and it hangs in her East Texas home next to her DRT certificate and what not.

Looks pretty good...but then it was done by "an artist."

The what do I do with these watercolor file in my closet.

Weekly newspaper novel--Chapter one?

Greg Caldwell had scandalized the town when he starting running ads from Stumpy's Spur.  

Stumpy Clark wore wide-striped suspenders,  had a wooden leg and walked with a limp. But he was the fanciest  two-stepper in the Texas Panhandle. His dance hall at the north edge of Darling, Stumpy’s Spur, reeked of beer and urine and cigarette smoke. Attracting bands and dancers from the entire Panhandle,  the Spur was Darling’s biggest attraction, although the  chamber of commerce wasn’t too proud of it. The gravel parking lot covered two acres, and would be packed with pickups and cars every weekend.

The Darling Index needed the money. Even the Ministerial Alliance had called to protest what they saw as a newcomer changing the paper. Greg ignored them, reminding them they all wanted 20 percent discounts for their church ads, and were often late paying.

Stumpy always paid cash, pulling out a thick roll of bills and flipping out  twenties until the half page a week ad was paid for.

He and Greg would have coffee once a week at the Fat Lion, and Greg always got an earful about what was really going on in town—not the official view—but the gossip and behind the scene politics of the town’s leading citizens.

“What you hear at the Spur is usually reliable—once you clean the bullshit off the boots,” Stumpy would say, tearing off a wad of Beechnut tobacco and putting it in his cheek as they left the Lion.

He’d asked Stumpy about the brick thrown through the newspaper door.

Stumpy winked. “You ever dance, Greg?”

“Yeah, but not much…you know those Baptists.”

“Bet you step on toes when you do, then, right?”

“Yep,” Greg’s face flushed, thinking of the last person he’d held close to him and hurt her feet.

“What happened?”

Stumpy smiled. “Any more questions about the brick?”

Greg stopped, then laughed and waved at Myrt for more coffee.

East Texas cousins

Families spread out over the years and miles from relatively simple beginnings. In the early years of the 20th Century, in East Texas, Thomas Ezra Culp, whose daddy had been a Texas Ranger, married Sophie Elizabeth Beard, and they had six children, four girls and two boys.

The four Culp girls.

They're all gone now, except for one surviving widow of the baby in the family. But they were a prolific bunch, with 14 children born to them, beginning in 1931. Three of the cousins have died tragically, all children of one of the boys, the first of the children to die. His name was J.C, but he was know as "Addy"  because he had his adenoids out I think, or "Son."

Most of the cousins still live near their deep East Texas  roots, from across the line in Louisiana and to near Austin. One of the girls, the third to be born, was my mother, and my brother's, Francis Faye Culp, born in 1909. She died in 1980. Our family of four moved from Fort Worth west to Albuquerque in 1951, so we didn't get to see as much of our cousins, except in summer vacation trips, though we have lots of black and white photos of many of us as babies from the earlier years. I migrated to Oklahoma and my brother to Lubbock, so we still don't get to see much of them.

But we just completed our third first cousin reunion. The first was held 21 years ago at a cousin's beach house near Galveston, and another was about eight years ago at Livingston. This time, we went to a cousin's beautiful ranch style home at Plum Grove, 20 miles east of Conroe and about the same from rapidly expanding Houston. Many brought kids and grandkids and great-grandkids--45 in all, feasting on bar-b-cue, stories, old photos and more photos.

I think it's remarkable because it shows how much life has changed. Who has that many cousins any more? And that stay in touch?

That's enough details. Here's the group shot.

From left: Charles (Lindy) Culp, son of E.T. Culp the baby of the Culp clan--his mother Lamerle is still alive); Carole Gee Wilson (second daughter of Ima), David Culp (on of E.T.); Charlotte Faye Gee Guidry (oldest daughter of Ima); Brenda Gee Reed (kneeling, youngest daughter of Ima); Jerry B. Clark (youngest son of Faye); Charles Lutrick (oldest son of Gladys); Sandi Gee Russell (kneeling, third daughter of Ima); Sara Beth Lutrick Foote (daughter of Gladys--the reunion was at her and her husband Bob's house)); and me (Faye's son).

Leadership and Gettysburg

Today I showed to my media leadership a U-Tube clip of the Battle of Gettysburg movie, where Col. Joshua Chamberlain of Maine, on Little Round top, saved the Union. It wasn't Grant or Lincoln. The Army of The Potomac had never beaten the Army of Northern Virginia under Lee. It had invaded Pennsylvania, looking for shoes, victory, and taking the war on the offensive. Next stop--Washington D.C.

I asked my students--what do you do if your army is losing? If you've always been beaten  by this other army? If they have the better leaders? If you're out of ammunition? If the enemy wins, and therefore defeats your entire army? If two days from now they enter Washington, and win the war? What do you need, other than a miracle?

Answers? A leader with a sixpack( from an Army sergeant (female). A leader who can inspire. A leader with courage.

Watch the clip on UTube, in HD. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjceQjmlzwI

Watch it and cry.

My students, independent thinkers all,  think "leadership" at UCO has become a buzzword, but they grabbed this. My guys, the ones in gray, with the star-crossed flag, came up against this rock-hard Mainer who decided to charge, not retreat, and saved the Union on the second day of Gettysburg. The next day, my general, Lee, made the mistake that cost us our cause--ordering Picket's Charge.

Leadership isn't a buzzword--it is written with blood.

Today, Bowdoin College in Maine has a statue on its grounds to a famous ex-president--Col. Joshua Chamberlain. Been there, seen it.

I met one of his descendants 10 years ago...but that is a different story.

I'm a Confederate, a Texan, and--you'll think I'm crazy but I don't care--I marched with Bobby Lee in a former life--but here's to Col. Joshua Chamberlain, who saved the Union.

That's leadership. Thank you Col., from a Confederate.

East texas cousins, chapter 3

One more photo, to go with my thoughts on East Texas

Notice the trio of trouble at right on the back row...David Culp, Terry, Charles (Lindy) bottom row from right, Tommy Culp, Jerry Clark, Brenda Gee. I think the other girls are all Son''s. I'm sure my mouth cousin Sarah Beth will correct me..

Corrected again, thanks Cuz

I had some wrong.  Here's Sarah beth's reply:

Ervin Gee is far left back row, between Daddy & Son is Charles, Faye is holding Flo Ann, Tommy is the boy in very front looking back, Pat Culp (Son's wife) is sitting next to the right of Charlotte, to the right of Pat is Lois Fay, next is Carolyn & Brenda in front of her, the little girl in front of Lois Fay is Sandra. So this is absolutely everyone except Terrence.

East Texas, thoughts

Swamps and steeples.

Pines and pickups.

Barbecue, beer, bayous and Baptists.

Holiness and honky-tonks.

Wildflowers and wandering roads.

In East Texas, springtime feels like it just rained, or is about to.

There's no horizon, and the humid skies are usually Confederate gray as the warm Gulf air sticks  to you.

More than the air sticks to you.

 Driving in East Texas is like going back into the womb almost. It's warm, and wet, and ... green.

This is one of the places families are born, and grow, and spread out like runners from the ivy growing up the trunks of the hardwoods, across miles and years.

You realize that when you go back for the funeral of an aunt, your mother's youngest sister and her friend.

You realize that as you sit around in lawn chairs visiting with cousins you hadn't seen for years.

The memories of earlier years come flooding back, drenching you like the soft Texas rain which begins as a mist and then just seems to saturate every green plant before moving on elsewhere. And without horizons you can't see the rain coming or going, but it leaves pools of standing water and wet pavement and water-dappled leaves to mark its passing, like the memories.

Memories of playing as a child with cousins, or aunts and uncles doing magic tricks, or playing the guitar, or playing 42. Memories of walking to a nearby Mom and Pop store to buy 5-cent Cokes and 3-cent candy bars. Memories of going to grandma's house where she made cornbread in old cast iron forms. Memories of teen-agers going to the corner drug store to escape the heat. Memories of sitting on a porch with a summer girlfriend, watching the rain come down and the moments sweep by.

Memories of aunts and uncles and parents long gone.

"I feel like I'm going back in time when I come here," I tell two of my cousins mourning the death of their mother..

One cousin replies: "In this town time stands still."

One of my favorite cousins, who works in a nursing home, says in her soft East Texas drawl, "I work with time every day."

Cousins, part 2

More photos from long ago on visiting Houston, thanks to  my young, mouthy redheaded cousin,who corrects me that it was her father's camera, and ...oh well, she's bossy too.

Culps, et.al.

I don't know all these folks, but we're East Texas-related. Back row, second from left, is Aunt Gladys Lutrick.  third from left is my mouthy redheaded cousin Sarah Beth. Next to her is the baby of the family, uncle E.T. Culp, and in front of him is Louise, wife of Charles Rogers Lutrick, the oldest cousin, who must have taken this photo. Next is Aunt Ima Gee. Then there is Clark Lutrick, father of Sarah Beth and Charles. Next = is Sophie Elizabeth Beard Culp, our grandmother.Next is Tommy Culp, LaMerle Culp, wife of E, T., and mother to cousins David and Lindy. At right is a rare photo of J.C. "Son," or "Addy" (because he had his adenoids taken out). He was the tragic member of the family, dying young. His son Tommy follows in his father's footsteps. I think he was my Mom's favorite, other than Sissie. Mom is at right, holding somebody's baby.

Second row, from left, is me, with arms around Jerry. Then we get to Son's girls, one of whom died young, and the Gee girls, sitting. Carolyn on the right, in front of Brenda. At left with hands on his hips is David Culp and Charles, Lindy" is messing with a camera--they're children of E.T. and LaMerle. Aunt Sissie is in the middle, sitting down.  I think this is one of the very few photos where the four sisters and two brothers are together.

Dad, grandmother, Mom, sissie (adoring me), Me. in front, Gladys, Jerry.

Jerry and I on the galveston beach with Aunt Gladys. Look at that spiffy new Ford in the background, when you could drive on the beach.

Jerry practicing his violin. He always got special treatment. My folks "couldn't afford" to buy me a musical instrument. ;)

The Clarks

Moving to New Mexico from Fort Worth separated us from our kinfolk, so we got to see them in the summers, on vacations, but not every year. Early childhood bonding with some last to this day. We have photos of some of us as babies sitting on a blanket in the yards from long ago. But we didn't really get to know them well. I was particularly close to Carolyn and Jerry to Brenda, and Sarah Beth intimidated us. But we had good times, playing mud patties in the back yards and  going to drive in-s for soft drinks as we got older in those long hot and humid Southern summers that Harper Lee describes so well in To Kill a Mockingbird.   In later years with reunions and email we've reconnected some, marveling how the years have passed. Jerry and I remain in  self-imposed exile from East Texas. I'm the only cousin who lives outside the borders of The Republic, except maybe for a couple in nearby Louisiana. and Jerry is in Lubbock, which is a far cry from East Texas. As he says, Lubbock is an old Indian word for "flat, brown and ugly." But we're all Texans.

Redheads and cousins, part 1

Sarah Beth sent me some color photos, many taken by my Dad, on our visits to East Texas, and some of which I'd never seen.

Understand now why I have this thing for redheads?  Can't you just see that mouthy attitude?

Mother, standing at left, and her sister Gladys, sometime in Houston. Notice the redhead peeking over the heads of all the boys she's flirting with. No, I don't know who they are.

Cousins and Grandmother ...Culps  were a prolific family.

 Sophie Elizabeth beard Culp sitting. Behind her, mouthy redhead. Others standing, David Culp, Me, Charles Lutrick (the first cousin and Sarah's brother, Charles Rogers Lutrick who was the  the "good" boy), and Lindy. David and Lindy are children of the baby of the family, E.T. Culp and Lamerle of Nacodoches(that's his name, though they are the initials of our grandfather Ezra Thomas Culp). In front of me are some I recognize and some I don't. Jerry is right below David. In front of me is redheaded Charlotte Gee, and in from of her is  Carolyn Gee and then in front of her is Brenda Gee. I think Sanda Gee is at right sitting. They're the children of Mom's sister Ima, all of Silsbee.

Three of the sisters, from left, Gladys Lutrick, Faye Clark, Grandmother, and Vera Pollock Culp, known to all as Sissie, my favorite aunt.