Mom was going to town to buy something. We didn’t have any idea what it was as Wayne and I were typical kids-only interested in ourselves and what we wanted.

We were living in the bank building in Markham, Texas, and mowed lawns to make some money. We used Dad’s mower, broke it often, and didn’t contribute a dime to fixing it. I think we did buy gas for it.

We had some money to spare and asked Mom to get a certain model airplane kit for us. I am sure our description sounded Greek to her. I don’t know why we didn’t go with her.

When she got back and gave us the kit, it was the wrong one! We were mad and I am sure said some degrading things to her. We didn’t cuss at her cause in those days you didn’t do that kind of thing unless you wanted your ass tore up.

After we finished giving her a hard time and were alone, we mentioned how much we loathed her and her inabilities.

Time has shown us how stupid we were for our actions. Mom was probably trying to keep us in food or clothes with a very limited budget. There was Wayne, Beverly, and me at the time. I suspect Mom was pregnant with Terry at the time but can’t remember.

Mom, as usual, took our abuse and didn’t strike back. Time has also shown us what a saint she really was.

Martha, Renee, Phillip, and I had come down from Beaumont to see her as Dad and we knew time was short. While we were there we tried talking to Mom with no real response.

As we were getting ready to go back home, we went in and told Mom ‘goodbye, we are going home’. Lo and behold, Mom said ‘y’all be careful going home’. We were floored as she hadn’t spoken at any other time that weekend.

We left and the next time we saw Mom was the following weekend when she passed away.

She was always concerned about all her kids as most parents are. And even at the end that care overcame her physical limitations and made her speak her concern.

She has been gone 31 years but we still miss her.

One day when we were visiting her at Markham, she told me that she was worried that her kids were ‘not strong’ enough to handle her cancer. I told her we were and would.

Well I wished she hadn’t worried about that because time has shown that we are ‘strong’ enough.

Beverly has been through the roughest things that can happen to a parent and has maintained her life and most of her sanity. I love her strength.

Terry has survived a divorce and again has maintained most of her sanity.

I am not sure which of those girls is the most sane or should I say insane.

Wayne has survived some real health problems with him and his wife Carolyn. He is making it through his kids trials also. Sanity will not be discussed.

Raymond, that’s me, has had no real problems and has been blessed with a great wife and kids. He is the only really sane person left.

Mom would be proud of our ‘strength’ I know.

When Wayne and I got old enough to have some sense, Dad finally started discussing the world and other stuff with us. Wayne and I were married so I am not sure how much sense we really had. In fact Dad would have begun such discussions with us earlier but we didn’t want to be that involved with an old fart like him. That is our loss.

Well when the discussions began, they were loud, often, and went all over the map.

The thing Wayne and I began to notice was that Dad didn’t really care what side of the discussion he was on. In fact we saw that he sometimes changed sides in the middle of a discussion.

I can just imagine Dad’s discussions with Mom later about how his boys really didn’t know anything and surely wouldn’t live past a young age with our opinions.

As I have aged, I cherish those discussions even more. I don’t remember their topics but do remember how much I enjoyed Dad letting me have my opinions even though they were obviously wrong.

Dad has been gone 27 years and I still miss him. I just hope my kids will miss me that much when I am gone.

I swear we were expected to mow every day. But that was real work, hot work, and hard work so we were always looking for ways to shirk that job.

Well one day the wooden handle in the mower broke; it was a very old mower that Dad got second or some hand in Markham.

When Dad saw what had happened, he accused us of breaking it on purpose. That wasn’t true, but we were glad it broke as that meant the job didn’t have to be done anymore.

Well were we wrong! Dad replaced the wooden handle with a piece of drill stem pipe; 2" diameter I think. That modified mower weighed a ton. Mowing was a lot harder. It sometimes took both of us to just raise the handle let alone push the mower.

I don’t remember how long we had to mow with that heavy machine but it seems a short time later to me that Dad bought a gasoline powered mower. Perhaps Dad mowed with the manual mower with the 16 ton handle once or twice and then decided a lighter mower was appropriate.