From the sands of Sweetwater to the piney woods of Woodlawn

 

THE FOURTH OF JULY IN WOODLAWN

 

 

   We couldn’t wait for the fourth of July to arrive every year, because that meant we were going to Woodlawn. The trip from Sweetwater is over 400 miles to Woodlawn and even though you were still in Texas, it was like going to another world. From the hot, dry, mesquite-covered plateaus of the West Texas plains to the fertile grassy-green pastures, and heavily wooded forests of East Texas was indeed a trip worth taking. In the 50’s, you drove straight down Highway 80 through Ft Worth and Dallas to get from one to the other.

   Dad would usually work on July 3^rd and we wouldn’t leave until after 5:00pm. Mother would pack all day and we would all be ready to go by the time Dad came home. It was a seven to eight-hour drive back then, and the Fourth of July was one holiday that was sure to crowd the highways. There were no Interstate four lane divided roads until you got to Ft Worth and then they ended on the east side of Dallas. Cars would sometimes queue up for a mile or more on the narrow two-lane roads of that era, during a major holiday. My dad was like everyone else, he had a long way to go and he wanted to get there as soon as possible. In order to advance within the line, you waited for a favorable yellow stripe on the highway and then you accelerated to the floorboard to quickly advance up to the next gap in the line.  The trick was to make it before you smashed head on into an approaching vehicle. Cars would take frequent, unnecessary chances in passing their way up the long line of cars. I can never remember making the trip without seeing multiple, major car accidents. Often times the trip would take longer than eight hours, as you were slowed down by numerous car wrecks.

   It was a special honor to be the one who saw the first pine tree on the side of the road. It was the symbol that you had truly left behind the “old” country and you were near your journey’s end. My older brothers usually spotted it before me, but I didn’t care, because it meant that we were almost there. We would drive into Marshall and then, as the trees crowded in closer to the road and the cooler air yielded the sweet pungent smell of those wonderful pines, we would start up the highway to Woodlawn. The final leg of the journey carried you over the railroad tracks onto an oil-topped road that smelled of petroleum, and then a quick turn between two huge oaks took you into Uncle Don’s yard. Having traveled further than anyone else, we were usually last to arrive, and it was always between midnight and 3:00am. But Oh! was it great to be there and settle onto our pallet or bed. It was hard to sleep, because we knew that we had an exciting day ahead.

     We gathered in Woodlawn to attend the annual Warbritton family reunion. All the in-laws and outlaws were there. The local family members would join us in the morning for the get-together and the big barbeque lunch down in the copse of trees below Uncle Don’s house. He had built a permanent brick barbeque grill there, and had set up several large tables that nestled in the cool shade of the pines and the sweet gum trees. The fifties were an age when folks who had survived the Second World War bonded and celebrated family. It seemed terribly important that we all get to know and enjoy each other’s company. It was the only time of the year that we would see many of them, so we used every minute to become better acquainted. We didn’t have a television but we didn’t need it; we actually did things together.

   Dominoes and cards would be played in earnest. The grown-ups participated in challenges of their pride and skills. The serious matches would begin after the big meal, but games were played all day. The principle matches were dominos and ‘Shoot the Moon’ and the awe-inspiring game of ‘42’. Most of my relatives smoked cigarettes and drank a beer or sweet tea while they played. It was the Fourth of July and we were there to celebrate family and country. Uncle Don and his wife, Aunt Cecil (honest), were the undisputed champions in most of the games and I think they seldom lost. The kids and non-playing adults would watch and learn from the masters. Uncle Don had an intimidating, deep southern drawl that would frighten little children a mile away when he spoke. I know it frightened me; I always thought that his voice was probably what God sounded like when he spoke. (I guess we’d have to ask Moses about that one.) Aunt Cecil was the quieter type, but she was a genius at anything involving little black tiles with spots on them. With their opposite personalities, they were probably a perfect match.

   As we learned through the years, the meat was cooked in the true East Texas barbeque style. The heavy beef, pork, and ribs were slowly cooked over-night on hickory and oak coals that were tended by an old black gentleman named Toy whom we learned to love. The smaller meats like chicken were added early in the morning. One year Uncle Don had Toy cook a goat, like they do in Mexico; and it was quite tasty. Toy lived nearby and worked as a bricklayers’ helper for Uncle Don, but his real skill was in slow-cooking barbeque. He built a fire close to the pit and then cultivated choice coals that he individually inserted under the grill at just the right time and place. I’ve never been able to emulate the skills he demonstrated so masterfully over the years.

   He was a gentle spirit who exercised the patience of Job with his cooking and little children like me. He told us stories of his past and when I asked questions, he patiently responded to anything I asked. As I grew older I talked with him about his family and I felt a special bond with him, though our worlds were as different as day and night. He gave me my first cup of coffee I ever drank, early one morning, as I stayed up to talk with him. Loading it up with milk and sugar, he poured it from his personal pot that he brewed to keep himself awake. I’ve often wondered what happened to him and his family; he was truly a good man.

   There were always a lot of children there and we had a lot of time to play. I remember climbing onto a huge sweet gum limb that hung out over the picnic area with six or seven other kids. We would listen to the adults talk and watch them as they intently played their table games. The limb was only about six or seven feet off the ground but it was probably 15-20 inches in diameter, so it was very safe. We used the dried gumballs as missiles to fire at each other. Later we would climb to the top of 30-foot pine trees to get a better view of things. I don’t know if you have ever tried climbing a pine tree while wearing shorts in the summertime, but you can be a sticky mess by the time you climb down. The dead limbs scratch and the greens ones smear their sticky pine tar all over your hands and shoes.

   Donna Kay is my second cousin, but she was more like the only sister I ever had. They had lived near us in Sweetwater, but later moved to Marshall. When she was in west Texas, I was only five or six years old and she, being a few years older, protected me from the older boys. If one of the older neighbor boys would intimidate me, she would put her fist in his face and run him off; she was redheaded and proud of her family. We always enjoyed seeing her again and renewing our friendship. A regular ‘tom boy’, she played all the same games we did; we truly loved her for it.

   “Little Buddy” was my first hero. Uncle Don had adopted him when Aunt Cecil’s sister had died at an early age. He was about seven years older than me and I thought that he was exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up. Little Buddy had a great sense of humor and loved to tell jokes to all the younger kids. I could sit and listen to him for hours; his face was expressive and his voice inflection would perfectly match the story he spun. He taught us how to play card games and he was a first rate amateur magician. He told us that magicians never tell, so he would never disclose the secrets to his amazing feats. He showed great patience with the younger folks and we loved him for it. He was tall and handsome, with an easy smile and a laid back perspective on life. I really thought he ‘hung the moon’; he was truly my idol.

   Uncle Don had a pear tree next to the house that was always loaded with green pears in July. When no one was looking, I would pick one and then eat it out of view of everyone else. I still love green pears better than ripe ones and they never have made me sick. Aunt Cecil would sometimes give us canned pear preserves from that same tree to put on our breakfast biscuits. I can’t find pear preserves like that anymore. The only thing better was her fig preserves that came from the old farm house where they used to live. We took buckets one summer and picked several bucket loads from the tree adjacent to the front porch of the old place.

   When someone said, “Let’s go to the Old Place”, I was first in line. This meant going to their old farmhouse and roaming in their pasture or going down to the pond. We loaded up in the back of a pickup truck and rambled down the oil-topped lanes, past the pine forest and the peanut fields till we arrived at the picturesque farmhouse. I really cannot adequately describe how special this old farmhouse and pond were to me. Imagine a rambled down un-painted old farm house with the typical full length covered porch and tin roof, surrounded by old pines and oaks that looked a hundred years old, and the sweet scent of lilac and honeysuckle planted in the front yard. Then imagine a spring-fed pond surrounded by towering pine trees, with green grass growing all around, and the trees blending with blue sky and clouds that reflect in crystal-clear water as smooth as a mirror’s surface. And remember that we were kids from the dry dusty plains of west Texas, where the stock tanks were surrounded by scrubby mesquite trees, and the water was either murky or as reddish brown as the dirt itself. This was a metamorphic experience for us; it was an unbelievable transformation for our young minds.

   In later years, I went with some of the adults to see if Uncle Don had caught any catfish on his trotline that he put out the day before. He was pulling up the line in a flat-bottomed aluminum boat on a moonless night that was as dark as a coal miner’s shaft while Uncle Buddy was paddling the boat for him. I stood on the shore in the pitch-blackness and suddenly heard a loud string of expletives from Uncle Don that young ears are not wont to hear, followed by a series of loud metallic banging and clanging noises. We then heard more expletives and metallic banging, a loud splash and finally complete silence. Five minutes later, the boat nudged back to the shore and Uncle Buddy stepped out of the boat with Uncle Don following. We asked what in the world was going on, and discovered that a terrapin had eaten the catfish off the line and had been hooked when Uncle Don pulled it up. Infuriated that the turtle had taken his fish, he unleashed the string of expletives, brandished a hatchet and proceeded to whack away at the turtle. In the process, he had missed numerous times in the moonless night and had whacked the boat also. I laughed, but not in front of Uncle Don; it was much later, when we were alone.

   Privies were not a problem at the picnic area. Although there was only one bathroom in the house, Uncle Don would have outhouses built between the house and the picnic spot. One year, when he was expecting a large crowd, he built a ‘three-holer’ outhouse and all rooms were frequently occupied. I was never a fan of outhouses, so I used the facilities at the big house as often as possible. I have always tried to maintain a modicum of decorum in these matters.

    As the kids grew older, we became more involved in the card games and the domino matches. My brother Ted became quite proficient in ‘Shoot the Moon’ and ‘42’ and I learned enough to have fun playing. The years that we arrived on the second or third of July, we would go down and visit with Toy until the wee hours of the morning. He welcomed us most years, but I’m sure that there was one year that he didn’t. My Uncle Jack acquired a large bag of fireworks that had been in a fireworks warehouse which had burned to the ground in Fort Worth. Unfortunately most of the fireworks in the bag had been hosed down by the firemen and wouldn’t light properly. We resorted to throwing the fireworks into the fire that Toy used for making his coals. After an hour of frustration, we retired back to the big house and went to bed. Around 4 o’clock in the morning, I was awakened to shouts of, “The woods are on fire”. Toy had dropped off to sleep, but some of the fireworks had blown coals into a nearby wood pile and caught them on fire. Fortunately, the fire was snuffed out quickly with no serious damage. Uncle Don strongly suggested that we not bring any more fireworks near the woods. We thought that was a good idea and I’m sure that Toy agreed.

   If you slept in the big house you were in for a surprise at night. Uncle Don’s deep booming voice transferred to an earth shattering, window rattling, ear-splitting snore at night. His deep resonating vibrations would permeate every room in the house; it was inescapable. He would actually sleep on his side with his head propped up by his bended elbow and this somehow produced his sonorous soliloquy. If Aunt Cecil wasn’t deaf before she married, she probably was soon after, but truthfully she would sometimes join in with him and they would entertain us with a duet. Needless to say, we seldom drifted off to sleep until the snoring eased up. In later years we discovered that his booming authoritative voice masked the fact that he was really a deeply caring person. He showed great charity and character, and family devotion throughout his life. We all looked up to Uncle Don as the patriarch of the Warbritton clan.

   Time changed things over the years; folks passed on; kids grew up. Finally, we just stopped having those reunions; the younger generation scattered all over the country and the older ones passed out of this life.

How much of your childhood memory is real, and how much is imagined, is hard to measure. To the best of my memory, these were some of the best times in my life. The Fourth of July was a happy time, it was a fun time, it was exciting, and it was a time of regeneration for my family. My Dad went home to his roots, his beloved East Texas. His soul was never at peace anywhere else he wandered. For Mother, it was a time to visit with all of her relations and reminisce about the past. I think that my brothers would agree that our lives would have been significantly altered without those wonderful, glorious Fourth of Julys in Woodlawn. I smile deep down in my soul whenever those thoughts cross my mind.