Mother's Day journey--a reunion

Mother’s Day is a reunion. And though Mom’s been dead a long time, it still is for me, in memories and more.

The fading color photograph on my shelf must be almost 40 years old.

Six sets of smiling eyes focus on the camera. All but one set are young, very young. Grandchildren’s eyes gathered around Granny’s eyes.

Mom, our four kids and my brother’s and his wife’s baby daughter are sitting on the floor. Mom’s holding the baby in the cradle of her arm, but everybody is smiling.

Having a good time, soaking up the attention—a moment of happiness frozen in time.

      The kids are grown now, and Mom’s been dead for almost 37 years. I look around my room and see a couple of other snapshots…one of Mom and Dad back when I was a kid; one with my brother on a fence, me standing by Mom on a windy day when I was a college student in Oklahoma; one of Mom’s retirement party.

Happy moments. Happy memories.

This Mothers’ Day will bring more happy moments in many homes. There will be flowers, and meals, and well-wishes, and smiles.

At OCC

 I know Mothers’ Day is to honor mothers, but I think we get most of the benefit.

We move so fast these days that it’ll be an effort to slow down for a few hours, and enjoy those around us. We need to stop and say, “I love you, ” while we can. To laugh, to hug, to tell stories, to just do nothing but enjoy time together.

 Those are other reasons to celebrate Mothers’ Day.

My reunion will be an annual pilgrimage to the Waurika, Oklahoma cemetery to plant flowers and talk. 

My brother and I met there for one of those reunions a few years back. “I wonder if anyone will plant flowers at our graves,” he asked. That went unanswered, but we had our reunion, full of memories and laughs and tears. Then we went our separate ways. This week, when this photo was found, he said, "You had the pooch and I was trim. Now I've got the pooch." We have our mother's humor.

      If you follow custom and have a white flower corsage on your lapel because your mother is gone, make sure those who have red flowers and their mothers still here take full advantage of the day. Make sure children and grandchildren and spouses tell their mothers how much they love them.

This is one day when we can control time for a little, with what is important, before time takes over again.

And by the way, make sure you take lots of pictures Sunday. Because when time does take over, and the red flowers change to white, those snapshots of smiling eyes focused on the camera, which you took this Mothers’ Day, will be more important than you can ever imagine. They're part of a reunion.

Tell your mother you love her.

     

Mother's Day Prelude

 

Family reunions are both enjoyable and somber, especially the recent one of the Culp cousins. That occasioned me going through old photos, and those can also be wonderful and sad as well. I found a lot of them of my Mom over the years, which I'll post tomorrow in chronological order, as I get ready to head to her grave in Waurika, Oklahoma, to plant flowers.
But first, here's a copy of an 8" by 10"  portrait of my Mom's Mom, Sophie Elizabeth Beard Culp, (1879-1961) done by my Dad in 1942 in Texas.

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.

Clark Boys Reunion at Heaven's Bar

"Where the hell have you been, Mike?"
"Not hell, not Oklahoma--earth. You ought to know, Terrence you left me there, long time ago."
"Time slips away from us up here. Don't know what you mean. Seems like we've been waiting for you for eternity."

"All four of you left. You could be a little more welcoming...it got lonely down there, especially the last year.... What are you drinking Champ?"
"Everything...no drink limit up here, infinite mixes. Margaritas are better than in Juarez. Matter of fact, everything is better than Juarez."
"That's hard to believe...what about the shaves and food and you know, the girls...."
"Still the bachelor, aren't you, Mike? No girls, but, let me tell you about this bar...."

"Rex, it sure it sure is to see that smile again. Last time I saw you in that hospital, you weren't smiling, but I remember you told me to live every day...."
""No, I wasn't but I got well just like that. Amazing. Now we sit around this bar all day telling stories."

"What are you drinking, Louis?"
"White Russian, naturally, with all that raw cow's milk I milk every day. This is heaven for health food folks. "
"Some things don't change, do they?"

"Not up here, Mike. Say, how's Santa Fe?"
"Too much traffic, just like Taos. You wouldn't recognize it, Terrence, except those leather chairs are still there in the lobby at La Fonda."
"How's the leg, Terrence?"
"Fine. Never have to change stump socks, no itching. All I have to do is sit around and drink and draw portraits. Don't even have to sharpen my pencils. Just can't get the Big Guy to sit still for one."

"What drink do you recommend, Rex?"
"Isn't your favorite Cuba Libre? Ain't ever tasted one like this, not even when you were in the Navy in the Caribbean. Let's get you several."

"Last time I had a rum and coke was with Terry, Terrence. He's still too up tight, but he's trying. Said he missed not ever getting to drink with you."
"He'll get his chance...just not yet."

"Ok, guys, I 've been waiting  to hear the old stories all over again--Comanche, family, New Mexico, the war, it all. This is  one hell of a reunion."
"No, Mike. It's a heaven of a reunion."

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).