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 The View From Here
By Katherine Veno
It is a cooler day...
Well, here comes the fall. First it is Labor Day and we should not wear white shoes
anymore until Easter, and it is cooler outside.
This has been a brutal summer for man and beast. It is good to have a cooldown. I have
lived in Texas all my life, but have loved snow, and experienced little of it. It seems we
always long for what is not available.
Soon the leaves will turn to red and gold and be floating through the air. This is the
best time of year to ride a horse or a motorcycle or put the windows down in the car. Fall
is a festival of crisp morning air and cool nights. The trees put on a show that no artist
can resist.
Allergies do not seem to drag me down like they do in the spring, so fall is a favorite
time for me. I like to be outside, so it is a time to relish the texture and sights,
sounds and feelings that autumn brings.
Back to school may have been hot, but it gives way to Friday night football games with
jackets and football mums. The excitement of the youngsters is absolutely tangible. The
relief to the oldsters that summer’s heat is relenting is also a good feeling.
Fall brings us a chance to get outdoors again and not sweat. We can take along a nice
shawl or sweater, just in case we need it. The animals and people alike have more energy
and look better.
Flip-flops give way to cuddly socks and fuzzy lined boots. Shorts give up to long pants
and hats come out of the closet on a blustery fall morning.
But it is all part of the beauty of life’s cycle. For as sweltering as summer was
here in Texas, the land always gives forth the golden time of autumn for us to enjoy and
savor.
There is a path lined with trees swathed in gold and red that awaits my step. A rabbit
runs across my way and stops to look me over. I stop and look back. We both move again and
the rabbit disappears into the colored foliage, just as I turn by the water and see the
old crane fishing.
It is nearly fall, and winter will not be far behind, so I will walk the path every chance
I get, for neither or any of us ever knows when the winter of the lion will sweep us all
away.
 Escapades of Emily
By Emily Gail Lundy
School days...
Saturday morning seemed like a good time for my husband and me to go somewhere. We headed
west, stopped in a town of size and did our school shopping. Hubby now has two new pairs
of jeans; I have two unworn blouses. Then we ate “out” and came home to escape
the heat.
Having two to outfit for autumn and not six has to be an advantage with uncountable worth.
My children grew slowly; the girls reached five feet and slightly over in junior high, and
the boys grew more after graduating. I learned to buy ahead with confidence. One size up
each year about accomplished it. Of course, they wore out clothing and shoes, which had to
be replaced. But a mall could be reached on the outside of the metroplex in less than an
hour.
My boys had every color made in Sears’ toughskin jeans, double-strength knees, even
magenta. When younger, the male species would wear about anything Mama laid out on their
bed. With girls, I couldn’t dictate but one or two years. Some mothers have clothing
selection fights from the beginning.
The older daughter had few complaints, but the younger quit wearing dresses, stayed in
about the same four outfits a year (making me look partial to the other), and would not
wear decorated jeans or cutsie clothing.
Boys and girls in a family are too different to form a list. Most say boys are easier but
in the big picture, more expensive. We worry and stress out more about girls. Probably the
rearing of either gender is about the same.
We started dressing children out west with Montgomery Ward and one fancy children’s
store for special occasions. Then came N.E. Texas, and Sears, then Gibsons, were the
meccas. My children rely on Target, Walmart, any store with a sale for their children.
I had a generous neighbor with two daughters. After they married and had children, this
friend liked to outfit the family for no reason. She would say, “What I do for one, I
do for all.”
I could do that, but not at the same time.
I think going back-to-school buying has a new routine today. I bought in quantity, not
knowing when or how I’d have time to do much later, except for emergencies.We know
new styles can’t be worn until around November because of our hot weather. Or a new
style in something can slip in early December, and everyone has to have it, like a hoodie.
In late spring, the cry goes out for new clothing again. All I really remember with
younger students was washing, keeping socks straight, and then ruining one article for
each to tell me, “Mama, don’t wash any more of my clothes. Some are meant to be
wrinkled. Others can’t be dried. You’re ruining my clothes.”
Mission accomplished, purposely or accidentally. I don’t remember. For Dad, I felt
responsible.
My husband, raised in a rural community, with a one-room school, had a work outfit and a
school set.
As soon as he returned home for the day, the school wardrobe went up on a nail, and the
old clothes were put on for chores. He received one pair of shoes a year, ordered from a
catalogue. The nearest town might be visited once a week for meal, flour and sugar. He
repeatedly says his childhood was happy – maybe not high school, when all kids like
him had to go into the town’s school and reap the “humiliation” from the
“city” kids. The superintendent vowed no one from his community would graduate
from this high school.
Well, some did. Some moved. One family moved to ranch for work in my hometown. The middle
son of the family I met caught my eye, and the rest is history.
Of course, we hear much about TP&L bosses being mean in the 1930s about not wanting
country kids above us come into our school in Trinidad. My brother and I had already been
on the path to school here, as our parents would marry in 1937, and their children would
attend Trinidad school. We were country. The family next door was, too.
All over the community, we went to school with the TP&L transplants and made friends.
These students found country didn’t mean dumb, as anyone with an ounce of sense
should know. Our neighbor’s son became president of a college and deputy chancelor at
Texas A & M, College Station. Many of us “country”earned college degrees and
tried to be successful in life. But those “country” boys quit wearing overalls.
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