A "Traditional" Christmas Eve?

Christmas Eve... Traditions that we never thought would change...  People we expected to always be there... A naivety of how good the times really were...  And a complete ignorance of the burdens of life our parents and grandparents were under...

We never thought that Christmas Eve could or would be spent at any other place other than at Momo and Popo Riggs'.  To think otherwise was sacrilege. Momo would always have fudge, divinity candy, mincemeat pie, turkey and dressing, homemade gifts for the grand kids, yards of cloth for the daughters and daughter-in-laws...  Popo would always be sitting in the midst of the chaos but not quite as unperturbed as Momo.  Playing Monopoly in the den or just sitting around talking and listening...Surely this would never change...but it did.  I figure eighty-three would have been the last year.  Momo passed in eighty-four and I don't remember any Christmas' on West Main Street after that.

Judging from Kimberly's age in picture below, I think this was Christmas Eve 1979

Christmas Eve 1979

Christmas Eve 1980 (Again...Judging Kimberly's age)

Christmas Eve 1980

A couple of years after Mom moved to town, from the Homeplace in eighty-seven, Tami and I started a new tradition.  On Christmas Eve, we packed up and went to spend the night at Mom's house on 6th Street.  This must have started after Tabitha was old enough to sleep with Mom.  We would drive around on Christmas Eve night and look at all the lights.  Mom would get up early on Christmas Day and fix a light breakfast and prepare for the Riggs' Christmas later in the day.  This tradition continued until O-five, the last Christmas Mom was with us.

This year, we have a new focus...No traditions yet but they will come.  Our first Grandchild, Lucas Rey Miller, was born yesterday so he is the center of attention.

However, in all of the traditions, the gifts, the food and families...Let us not forget that Christmas is about a child sent to "Save Us"...The Christ Child...

In the words of the old carol "Angels From The Realms Of Glory"....

"Sages! Leave your contemplations...Brighter visions beam afar!"

"Seek the great Desire of Nations!...ye have seen His natal star"

"Come and Worship! Come and Worship!"
"Worship Christ the newborn king!"

Bone of My Bone

When God made another human being out of Adam's rib, it wasn't a grandson, but would you let me borrow Adam's proclamation as a Christmas present?  It is one of the first things that went through my mind today when I held my Grandson, Lucas Rey Miller, for the first time...this is bone of my bone...

Tami and I began the process of Lucas' arrival at around 8:30 on Monday morning.  We arrived at Ozarks Medical Center (OMC) in West Plains and basically staked out our claim in the (appropriately named) "Waiting" room.  We held our ground until around 9:00 PM, and since "Lucas the Evangelist" was being stubborn, I went on home to rest awhile...An hour and a half to be exact!  Tami sent a text that things were happening so I beat it back to OMC.  Things were happening...but not as fast as I anticipated.

There has to be a study somewhere on all the ways you can contort your body to sleep in a hospital "Waiting" room.  I do know that hospitals are prejudiced against people who are 6' 5" tall! I slept with the left leg folded on the couch and the other off...until I woke up and everything else was still asleep.  I turned the other way with the right leg folded and the left leg off...with the same result.  I sat in a chair with my elbows on my knees and my head hung over until I got a crick in my neck...This continued until around seven this morning when things started really clicking...
Wait Wait Wait!!!...the thermostat...in the "Waiting" room...was...demon possessed.  We journeyed from the Equator to Antarctica and back, all night long!  The rip was...no way to just shut it off!

So, beginning at around seven, we pretty well filled up the "Waiting" room with Riggs' and Beans.  I just wish Anson's family could have been here to join in the festivities!  Mr. Lucas Rey Miller arrived around 8:15 AM and there was "Joy in the Camp!"  Oh the privileges of being a Grandparent!  We were the first allowed in, followed by Great Grandma Bean and then the rest had arm wrestling contests to see who was next...

We relinquished our claim on the "Waiting" room around eleven, got a bite to eat, went home and Crashed!  Here are a few more pictures and I'm sure there are more posts and pictures to follow!!

Christmas at the Riggs'

Christmas is all about Christ and Christ is all about "Peace on earth and good will toward men" AND being at peace with God and being with family is as near heaven as we'll get on this earth.  I am so thankful for my brother Ralph, his wife Lisa and their family.  We get together quite regular during the months but the holiday season is always special.  Last night we were all together and had a wonderful time.  We polished off quite a bit of food and after the kids opened presents, there was coffee and dessert and games.  And...since it WAS my birthday...there was a cake with candles!  Next year, Lord willing, there will be another high chair pulled up to the table and we'll we celebrating Lucas' Birthday!

My Favorite Christmas Memory...

Christmas Eve at the Shop

There are certain smells that I associate with Christmas.  I like the smells of ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, hot cider, pumpkin pie (the real kind...with chunks), cedar trees...these all have a niche in my "Christmas Olfactory Databank."  One smell though, above the rest, takes me back to a certain Christmas Eve...

Dad built the shop at the Homeplace before we even built the house.  Foster Drilling had drilled us a well and in the summer of 1976, Dad, Popo and his crew and us boys built a twenty-four by forty, wood frame, metal sided, concrete floored building, forever after known as "The Shop".

The only picture I could find of "The Shop" was of the back or south side (with the lean-to we added in later years.)  If you look closely, you can see a stove-pipe sticking out of the roof (this was also added in later years!)

And..."The Shop" had a distinctive smell.  In recent years, I have walked into a welding shop, a machine shop or even an old auto parts store and caught a vague whiff of "The Shop."  It's a mixture of gasoline, used oil, paint thinner, paint, welding slag, old tractors, brush killer, oil dry and hundreds of other unidentified odors. Our shop had a large "garage" type door and a smaller entrance door that faced the north.  There was a large concrete "apron" that sloped out from the big door and a concrete stoop at the small door with a little sidewalk that connected the two.  When you stepped into the little door, on your left was shelves with all kinds of paint, hand tools, power tools, chains, big wrenches and sundry other items.  On your right was about the same and farther in was a large workbench with a pegboard back holding more tools.  When you walked farther in and around the shelves to the left, this was the work area with the trash barrel, welder, cutting torch and other larger tools.

On this particular Christmas Eve, we were working inside the shop, on goodness knows what, with the doors closed to keep the cold out (you will notice the description above does not include a heating stove).  Working on Christmas Eve??  Yes...When his two boys were off work or out of school, Leamon Riggs saw this as an opportunity to work out some room and board!  Looking back, it was very astute of him; it kept us close to home where he could keep an eye on us and we learned invaluable lessons to boot!  As we worked through the morning, every now and again, Mom would show up at the door in her old chore coat and head scarf with a fresh pot of coffee to warm us up a bit.  And...about lunch time she called down to us through our little intercom system that lunch was ready.  We worked through the rest of the day, with a few more coffee breaks and finally Dad said "Well...that's enough for today."  We put away what tools we could, swept up the work area, shut off the lights and went to the house.

So...What made this day my favorite Christmas memory?  I didn't mention everything that was on the shelf to the right, as you walked in the smaller door into the shop.  On the next to the top shelf, beside the workbench, was the radio.  What is a shop without a radio?  Ours was an old plastic, box type radio of the Motorola or Zenith brand.  It didn't have the FM band (or at least we didn't use it) so it was permanently set to KWPM-AM, West Plains, Missouri!  Now the antenna had long since been broken off so what to use for a replacement?...That staple of every well supplied Ozark toolbox...baling wire! (or to use the more correct term...balin' waar!)  The on/off switch was the plug-in...plug-in-on and unplug-off.  The volume could be adjusted but it took a screwdriver to do it.

A radio something like this one....

All day long on this beat up old radio, KWPM played Christmas music...all of the old classics by Frank, Dean, Gene, Brenda, Bing, Mel, Perry, The Andrews Sisters, Elvis and of course...the Chipmunks!  There were brief interruptions for the seven-thirty news (and the Semper Fidelis march) and the Noon News (and the Washington Post march).  I don't remember any of our conversations or even what we were working on...But I do remember the music.  I don't think our day of Pandora, XM Radio and ipods could produce the memories that I have of that cold Christmas Eve day.  And there is just something about spending time with family, even if you're working, that is a comfort all in itself...

His First Knife...

I had posted on my Facebook page that I was contemplating what kind of present to get my (soon-to-be born) Grandson for Christmas.  And...I asked the question "What kind of pocket knife do newborns prefer?"  Well...Today in the mail I received a small package from my good friend and fellow surveyor, Jerry Anderson.  This is what I discovered inside, much to my surprise and delight!

Thanks! Old Friend! for the gift. You certainly made my day with your kindness and when he gets old enough, Lucas will have a knife with a story!

  I'll try to repay a little by posting your business card!!!

A Good Ole Uncle

I do not remember a time when there wasn't an "Uncle Elvin"...until today.  My Uncle, Elvin Vester "Foxey" Fox, went to his eternal reward, early this morning, in Arapahoe, Colorado.  He was ninety-one years old.  Uncle Elvin was my Mom's only brother and the only son of Joel and Parzettie Fox.  Uncle Elvin and Aunt Betty celebrated sixty-seven years of marriage in September and I know life will never be quite the same for her.

My first recollection of Uncle Elvin was his size.  I know he was well over six foot tall, broad in the shoulders and he was loud!  Not in an obnoxious way but in a "scare the pants off of little kids" way.  As a matter of fact, that is what my daughter Tabitha, remembers most about him.  I remember one phrase he almost always used when he first saw us on his many visits to the Ozarks..."Well! By Golly!  Look Here!"  And...most of the time when he said this, he would clap his big ole hands!

Uncle Elvin was all about work and working hard. He referenced his life by where he lived while working on certain jobs in the Kansas oilfields.  In later years when they would come to visit, he would question Ralph and I about our jobs and was always interested in what we were doing.

He always had a one-liner or a joke.  Sometimes he would call me up just to tell me the latest joke he had heard!  If I thought long enough, I might remember some of the jokes but I do remember a one-liner he would always tell.  "I had to wear hand-me-downs when I was a kid.  All I had was older sisters and I just hated wearing them dresses!"  He would laugh real big and usually slap his leg and then tell another big one!

I also remember after his bout with cancer and the chemo he took.  The chemo almost took him down.  Somewhere in all of that ordeal, he had a life-changing encounter with the Lord.  I don't recall the details and he never talked a lot about it but I could see the change in his life.  It wasn't big radical changes but subtle things that you would miss if you weren't paying real close attention.

I won't get to attend the funeral due to "Grandfatherly" concerns here but my thoughts and prayers are with Aunt Betty, Dean, Lana, Vicki, Troy, their spouses and all of the grandkids, great grand kids and (great great GK's?) May God give them comfort as they pass through this valley.

Uncle Elvin and Aunt Betty Fox

The Eminence Christmas Parade - 2014

On Saturday, Tami and I made our annual pilgrimage to Eminence, Missouri for their Christmas parade.  Eminence is a scrappy little mountain town that serves as the county seat of Shannon County.  I guess the reason we enjoy their parade so much, is the stark simplicity and hill country ingenuity that is on full display.  Hope you enjoy the pictures with my narration.

The parade route, looking north toward the courthouse (out of view to the left)

Tami and I waiting for the show to start!

Still waiting....

Hooray! The beginning of the parade, looking south from in front of the AG church.

Christmas at the Deer Camp!

And you thought Santa drove a sleigh?...Nope!  He drives a Farmall Tractor!!....

Ole Santy has a boat too!!!

 This was just too neat!  We saw this canoe coming down the street and because it was so dark, you couldn't really see the man sitting inside.

 And Finally...This was the best part of the whole parade for Tami and I.  There was a parade entry for a local fuel company that was real ingenious.  Blue plastic oil barrels fixed up as little "train" cars, pulled by a four-wheeler!  The little kids in the barrels were too cute!
 

Christmas Memories...

I've had several people ask me, "What is your Favorite Christmas memory?"  It always catches me off guard and I stutter and stammer around and usually say "Wow! that's a hard one.  I'll hafta think about that."

This morning, I've had a some time to think.  The memory that I cherish most, was not on Christmas, but on Christmas Eve.  And...I'm not gonna relate that in this post.  You'll just hafta stay tuned in!  Here are a couple though, that you may enjoy.

I always wanted to give Mom and Dad good Christmas gifts.  I was always pretty frugal with my money (the Ozark term is "tight as the bark on a tree") but one Christmas, the funds ran low.  It was when we lived in the Farley House and I was around nine or ten years old.  We had went downtown to Richards Brothers Supermarket for groceries, so I just sauntered on up the avenue to Wilke Drugstore.  In the basement of Wilke's, there were all kinds of neat toys and knick-knacks.  After I looked around awhile, I found the perfect gifts for Mom and Dad!...the problem was...no money.  I had to go borrow the money from Mom to get their Christmas presents!

For Dad, I bought a box of plastic toothpicks.  He used a lot of toothpicks and he had this habit of chewing on the toothpick while he was using it.  Beside his chair, on a coaster, you would usually find a couple of toothpicks, chewed up in little splintery balls. (and I have inherited this habit...)  Plastic toothpicks were the answer!  They wouldn't get chewed up and you could wash and reuse them!  Perfect!

Mom's gift...even today, this is somewhat embarrassing.  I was a kid and what I was thinking is still a puzzle.  My Christmas gift to Mom that year was...a Yo-yo.  Yep...a Yo-Yo!  Now not just any yo-yo.  This one was really tiny, plastic, two-tone (yellow and green) with a little plastic ring for your finger attached to the string!  I was probably too busy opening my gifts to notice when Mom opened her's but THAT would most likely have been a sight to see!  Through the years, that was a story that Mom would relate as one of the best gifts she ever received.  As a matter of fact, when we were cleaning out her house after she had passed, we found the little Yo-Yo, tucked away in one of her chest-of-drawers...

It was kinda like this one..I don't seem to recall what happened to Mom's.

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 Sometimes, it's the smallest memories that really stick in your mind.  Years ago, we were working on a U.S. Forest Service job in Douglas County and it was just a couple days before Christmas.  We were surveying the boundary between Forest Service land and private land, and one of the boundaries went right across the top of Red Mountain.

The red line is Highway 14, "19" is the Section number and the black line between Red and Mountain is the line we were marking

Before lunch, we had worked our way up the east side of the mountain, almost to the top.  It was cold and cloudy so we walked back to the truck to eat and warm up.  Back then, as now, I like to listen to NPR radio.  The (liberal) news programs keep my blood pressure healthy and I like classical music.  I turned the radio on when we got settled in the truck and they had Christmas music playing!  We warmed up, talked, ate and listened for awhile and then a song came on that quieted us all down.  Actually, it wasn't really a song...It was orchestral music with a narration by a young boy.   It related what the young lad would have done if he would have been in Bethlehem on the first Christmas night.  No stable for Jesus if he would have been there! No manger full of hay or smelly animals if he had his way!  It was really a moment of enlightenment for all of us in the truck.  It made us ask the question,  "What would I have done?"  When my mind wanders back to Christmas, this memory always surfaces somehow....

I have searched high and low for this song and never have been able to locate it.  The narration was a poem by Robert Frost (I think).  I even called the radio station (KSMU) to see if I could get their playlist for that day.  No luck...it was streamed in from another station and they couldn't get the information.  If anyone has heard this song and knows the name, I would really appreciate a comment.  Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving 2014

Don't you just love Thanksgiving!  A truly American celebration of God's wonderful blessings to us throughout the year!  The words of the song "Old Hundredth" or more commonly known as "Doxology" come to mind...

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Praise Him all creatures here below!
Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts!
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!

As this day comes around, I can't help but reminisce about past Thanksgivings.  We usually went to Grandma and Grandpa Fox's house.  Somehow though, we made it to Momo and Popo Riggs' house also.  With all the scheduling we have to do with our families now, I just wonder how Mom and Dad did it.  There were not a lot of cousins my age at the Fox's farm but there were plenty of places to play and if we wanted to, we could watch the football games with Dad, Grandpa and the Uncles.  There were "dozens of cousins" at the Riggs' to play with so it worked out pretty good.  I sure miss those times but I hope my nieces, nephews, great nieces and great nephews and (soon to be) grandchild(ren) will remember Thanksgivings with Uncle Ray.

I have scanned some pictures today so I will just let them speak for themselves.....

I don't know the exact year on this(can't read the calendar) but it may have been the Thanksgiving after Grandpa Fox passed away in May 1970.  From the left, Aunt Mary, Grandma (Parzettie) Fox, Me!!, Ralph, Mom (Helen), Dad (Leamon).  I haven't said a lot about my Aunt Mary but she was a wonderful person.  Her mind was affected by a high fever when she was a child but she had plenty of personality!  I loved my Aunt Mary...

I think this was actually Christmas of the same year (1970).  Why do I think this?  Well now...EVERYBODY knows you have turkey on Thanksgiving and ham at Christmas!  We also added Aunt Ella Williams (Mom's sister) and Uncle "Curly" Burl Williams to the table.

I really miss Mom and Dad on days like today...

I think this was Mother's Day, early 80's but I found it when I was scanning pictures.

My Old Friend...

Do you remember when Paul Harvey advertised the "Aladdin Stanley Steel Thermos?"  He also plugged for Wells-Lamont gloves and I can still remember his tag line..."Wells-Lamont is Stuuuuborn about Quality!"  Ole Paul could have been advertising the Aladdin Thermos.  I posted a few days ago about my Dad insisting on buying quality.  My "Old Friend", an Aladdin Thermos, is quality and has been with me through thick and thin, cold and hot, deer seasons, long distance trips and tags along every day to keep "Hot Stuff Hot and Cold Stuff Cold!"

If I'm not mistaken, Mom and Dad got this for me, for Christmas, back in 1982 or 1983.  You can see by the shape it's in, it hasn't been mollycoddled.  This isn't the original cup.  I dropped it out of the truck one day and ran over the "cup" end of the thermos.  The stopper is the original and you can see it has been used and abused.  The handle...well....when we lived on Fifth Street in West Plains, we had a gas hot water heater.  I would put my thermos in the water heater closet out of the way and one day...the plastic handle was turned toward the bottom of the heater....Yep, kinda melted and dripped off!

Last night I decided to try out the quality of old "Therm".  I have said for years that I could leave it in my truck, full of hot coffee, in freezing temperatures, all night, and in the morning the coffee was still hot.  I filled the thermos with hot water from the tap, then made a pot of hot water in my Bunn Coffee Maker.  I poured the tap water out after a few minutes and filled it with the hot "coffee" and set it outside in the 22° weather.  By morning the temperature was 34° but still cold enough for a test.  I brought it in this morning, poured a cup, and (according to Tami) it was as hot as when I filled it up.  Experiment successful!

So...my best friend Tami and my old friend "Therm" are headed out, in the snow, to Silver Dollar City!

"Putting one over" on my Dad!

Most folks thought that my Dad was a pretty serious person.  He didn't ever get really excited but he joked around and had a mischievous side to him.  Before Ralph and I got really hard and heavy into hunting, Dad had killed a nice buck.  It was an eight point and had a small but nicely-formed rack.  He mounted the horns and put them in his office, right beside the mounted Chipmunk and Screech Owl.  When we got old enough to hunt, Dad would tell us, "When you boys get a bigger buck than mine, I'll take those horns off the wall!"

Ralph killed his first deer on the "Coon Forty" down by the government pond.  I killed my first deer on the "Old Bob Thompson place", out of Dad's truck, while leaving the deer woods to go to school.  They were both smaller than Dad's buck.  In fact, mine only had one horn! We rocked on a few years with the horns still hanging on the wall.  Until 1982....

We were hunting in the East Woods or Big Woods, on the north side of Mount Prairie Hollow, near the Butyne Ranch, when Ralph killed a big 11 point on opening morning.  I shot at a 10 point that morning also but missed him.  I didn't get any more shots until Monday when I went hunting with Popo (this is what we called my Grandpa Elmer Riggs).  We had left the woods and were just driving the back roads "road hunting."  We pulled out on E Highway to start home and Popo spied a big buck and some does, across Gunter's Valley, heading toward the creek.  Well...Popo, being the excitable person he was, stops the truck in the middle of the highway, rolls the window down and shower's down on the old buck with a shot or two!!  The deer started makin' tracks for the creek and Popo proceeds to make a 17-point turn in the middle of the highway to get back to the creek so we can headem' off!  We made it to the creek, where it crossed the dirt road and started up it, wading water at times, to get to where the deer should cross.  When we were close, Popo said "I'll go up and see if I can see'em".  His head had no more than cleared the top of the bank when two does ran down into the creek and up on the other side...And right behind them was a huge buck!  I didn't even have a shell in the barrel!  When the buck started off the bank, I levered a shell into the barrel of my 30-30 and threw the gun to my shoulder.  By this time he was half-way across the creek and when I got a sight on him, he was just topping out on the opposite bank.  I cut drive at him and he fell like he had been pole-axed!  Popo and I climbed the bank and there he lay, with his nose under a field fence...a big 9-point buck!  Popo walked back and drove the truck up the field and we pulled the deer under the fence to gut it out...but...Popo was just too excited.  He couldn't wait to show off the deer that his grandson had killed!  "We don't have time to gut it now..."!!  We loaded it up, drove home to show it off to everybody and gutted it out at the house (which is a whole nuther story!!!)  However...Dad was not at home and wherever he was, we couldn't take the deer to show him.

We hung the deer up in the shop to cool and waited for Dad to get home.  I took his deer horns off the office wall and put them in the center of the kitchen table.  I was so hoping he wouldn't go into the shop when he got home...and he didn't.  He parked his truck and walked up to the back door, into the house and into the kitchen.  I was sitting at the table just waitin' for him!  When he saw his trophy antlers on the table, a big ole grin came on his face and he said "Well, what happened?"  I said "Come on down to the shop and I'll show ya!"

We went to the shop and examined the deer and I can tell you, he was some proud!  We took a few pictures and after awhile, when Ralph came out, proceeded to process the deer.  Ralph and I were real nice to Dad though and didn't rub it in too bad...We even allowed him to put his trophy antlers back on the wall!!

Quality, Sentimentality and the Billfold.....

My Dad always said "When you buy, buy the best quality you can afford."  In other words, if you can afford a thirty dollar hammer that will last you ten years, that's better than a ten dollar hammer that will last you three.  So, with that in mind, how long should a good quality billfold last?  If you look at the billfold below, you could say that it's ready to be retired.  And you are right!

On the first day of deer season in 1985, my Dad didn't go hunting with Ralph and I.  He said he didn't really feel like it and when we came in around noon there was a note on the table that Mom had taken him to the hospital with chest pains.  Later that night, he had a massive heart attack which eventually caused his death three weeks later.

In Ralph's growing up years, he had been quite involved in leather-craft, so he had bought a billfold kit from Tandy Leather and was going to make a new billfold for Dad for Christmas.  Well, he went ahead and crafted the billfold and gave it to me for Christmas that year.  I have carried the billfold ever since and just recently, it has literally "came apart at the seams."  I really hated to give it up because of it's sentimental value...But...after twenty-nine years....I think it's time for a new one!

Ralph made the design of a Transit on one side

And my name with a North Arrow on the other side.  The "R" and the North Arrow are pretty well worn off!

This is where it was coming apart at the seams

I decided to try my hand at making myself a new billfold.  I bought a kit from Tandy Leather in the same design as the old one.  I followed the instructions (almost) exactly and it turned out pretty good!  Not tooled like Ralph's, and not as smoothly stitched but good enough to carry all my money around!

 

If this one lasts twenty-nine years, that will put me at eighty years old, senile, toothless, in the nursing home and with no need for a billfold!

Tri-State Corner

I was traveling home from Kansas the other day on US166 and when I came through Baxter Springs, I decided to make a little detour.  Just after I crossed into Missouri, I went through the roundabout and headed right toward the Downstream Casino!  Hold it! Hold it!  I didn't go to the casino...I have better sense than that.  Just a few hundred feet from the roundabout, there is a gravel road leading south with a little sign on the stop-sign which says, "3 State Marker".  I headed down this gravel road to the monument shown below.  As shown on this monument, it represents the point at the southeast corner of Kansas and the northeast corner of Oklahoma, on the west line of Missouri.  The next few pictures are self explanatory.

Looking west between Oklahoma (on the left) and Kansas (on the right)

This was the only sign left on the stone marker.  Vandals had torn the other off.

Looking north along the line between Missouri and Kansas.  Missouri on the right and Kansas on the left...Hmmmm...

The photographers were taking too long so I had to sit down.

The Photographers...

These buffalo are in a field with a pipe fence, along the south side of the entrance to the casino.  The ones in this picture were in a corral on the west side of the gravel road to the "3 State Marker".

Looking south between Missouri (on the left) and Oklahoma (on the right)

Another shot looking straight north between Kansas and Missouri.