My Texas trip, Edwards Mississippi to Wylie Texas and back....

Diane and Joe on the Dart Train.....

Down Town Dallas...

The white curls are pickled pork rind...yum!

My Texas Trip

Sometimes I surprise myself, as to just how clever I am… without intending to be. Come to think about it… I am far more clever by accident, then I ever am by intention.

Yesterday I returned from a long weekend, 4 days 3 nights…Well! To keep from going to the hot attic to retrieve traveling cases for the trip….I packed up the bright yellow, (I call it Doris Day yellow and it is from that era,) Samsonite luggage, Barbara Pennebaker gave me, a while back, from her attic. The bright yellow cases are so decorative, they live in one of my bedrooms and are out on display all the time…therefore saving me from an expedition to the hot attic.
For me packing a suitcase is not fun…but in the unpacking there are even less opportunities for hilarity. I have not unpacked,…… I just brought the bags in, and sat them down in their normal location, and they are not bothering me one bit. Clever Huh?

I will eventually get around to unpacking, but it won’t be today. Because I want to tell you about my trip ….and I am waiting for friends, we are going to go to Learned, to Gibb’s Grocery for lunch…. we have been hearing how yummy it is. So if I cut this off in mid sentence it is because I heard the horn honk…I do hope they are open on Mondays.

Before I get to my trip, I want to tell you what Doris Stubblefield said about growing pineapple from the green part…It will root and it will produce pineapples, it takes two years….Doris and a friend each rooted a top, Doris got tired of fooling with hers, but her friend persevered and was actually able to harvest pineapples. So…there you go………

My best friend from high school , Diane and her husband Joe, live over in Texas, close to Dallas, I drove over for the weekend, we had a grand time. We took the Dart train to downtown Dallas, did the tourist thing down there, got back on it and went to what they call the West End, ate lunch and walked around, lots of cute shops and restaurants. It was 99 or 100 degrees but the humidity was so low it was not disagreeability miserable seeing the sights. ….just walk on the shady side of the street.

Then Saturday morning we got up and went on the hunt for Mexican vanilla, like my buddy Paula used to bring us back from Mexico…didn’t find any…. but I sure enjoyed going in and out of the Mexican markets looking for it….seeing all of the different foods. I became fascinated by what the lady selling it called fried flour…It was thin and curled like pork rinds, but bigger like 6x4 inch rectangle. So I ordered one, she asked me what I wanted on it, I told her what ever was the traditional. She started with lettuce, and pico de gallo, then with her gloved hand she reached in to a jar and pulled out two big handfuls of nearly white, short pieces of something resembling worms…it was pickled pork rind….then she topped it off with sour cream and jalapeno peppers. Well, I thought it was tasty, Diane and Joe opted ham and cheese sandwiches.

I do not like interstate driving and besides you see more on the little two lane roads. I took old Highway 80 most of the way going to Texas. On the way back I crossed north Louisiana on LA 2, then took 65,to 80 they had signs calling them “scenic bypasses” …what a pleasant drive.

Love to all Call if you need me…

GloriaChristiansen@gmail.com

The Burial of Hobbs Freeman

The phone rang……I picked up the phone when saw the name on the caller ID…I knew it was the call I had been expecting for days ….the voice on the other end of the line said, “Hobbs has died.” I felt both sadness and relief, in mid May Hobbs had been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas…he never left the hospital…much of that time he was not conscious.

Into the phone I heard myself say “I didn’t know him long enough…” I got to know Hobbs through his neighbor and best friend Gordon Cotton…and the hymn singings and dinners on the grounds they held down at Campbell’s Swamp, at Jordon’s Chapel .

Hobbs was a rare man…His pastor referred to Hobbs as a renaissance man….Hobbs was a man of many talents he was an artist, a sculptor, a builder, jewelry maker, a cook, a gardener…God gifted the hands of Hobbs Freeman…Hobbs’s hands could create what ever his mind could imagine…..

But, the quality Hobbs possessed that I admired most was he never tried to be anybody but Hobbs Freeman…he was the same everyday…he didn’t change according to who he was with… he treated all people the same….everybody was important to Hobbs….If you stop to think about it that is a very rare quality indeed.

Hobbs was buried at Campbell’s swamp…we arrived a head of the processional. When we step out of the car an uncommonly large butterfly came down and buzzed past our ears. I wondered a loud if that butterfly could have been Hobbs…I know there are folks who think that is not possible even sac religious …but I am of the mind that God is almighty and would have no trouble what so ever letting Hobbs spirit go into butterfly, so he could sit on the limb of a blooming hydrangea and see his friends on earth one last time..

The setting down there is like out of a movie…at the edge of the woods sits Jordon’s chapel, a cemetery to the side and a bit behind it, flowers in bloom all around and the scent of gardenias in the air. his burial was so appropriate, so simple. His casket was handmade by a friend out of an old walnut tree that had fallen on the property.

In the cemetery, there were six stones marking the graves of fallen confederate soldiers and a hand dug grave awaiting Hobbs. The hearse pulled up, the pall bears carried the walnut box up the hill and placed it beside the opening in the ground…The preacher said a few words…Then the pall bears and young men call out from the gathered mourners to lend a hand…began to slowly lower Hobbs body in to the ground.

Accompanied by the sounds of nature a young lady sang, while we in turns, beginning with the pall bears, took shovels of dirt and began to cover the box in the ground holding to body of Hobbs Freeman.

We walked away clapping hands……

GloriaChristiansen@gmail.com

Hinds County Gazette, Christiansen's Comments

Charles Rather Alderman at large


Gaddis McLaurin Hardware Store
Bolton Mississippi



Jack the Hardware Cat

It is calm around Edwards. The heat and humidity are on the rise, so life here in mid Mississippi has changed, it is still proceeding, but the tempo is a bit slower…and the rains have stopped. The rains stopping that is disquieting.

We do have new aldermen, Charles Rather, is our alderman at large, Leon Goldsberry won the race in ward 3 and Marty Green will be taking the seat for ward 2.

Our Mayor RL Perkins, will be serving another term, as will Ira L Thompson and Wilson Larry Jones, aldermen wards 1 and 4, all were unopposed. I understand the swearing in ceremony for the board will be Monday July 6.

Thank you, all of you who ran, I am grateful there are those who are willing give up their time and sanity in the effort to make our town, Edwards, Mississippi a quality place to live.

Last week, I was in the Gaddis McLaurin… the day Jack, the hardware cat, was having to get his flea medicine on his back….it was quite a show, Joyce was slipping around trying to keep Jack from knowing what was fixing to happen…there were a couple of false starts…Joyce had a bit of trouble getting the container open, then she had to go back and read the directions one more time. Of course us on lookers were captivated by the drama, causing us to be very quiet…Jack not being a stupid cat, he knew something was up, when it went to silence at the Gaddis McLaurin…If there are folks in the store, it is not quiet at the Gaddis McLaurin….

Jack was laying in his drawer, but when he became suspicious, he got up, turned around , sat down and looked straight at Joyce, and calm as anything, watched Joyce fumbling and bumbling with that tube of medicine.

Nettie shook a few cat treats on to the counter…in an attempt to distract Jack. It worked he turned around and commenced to eating….when Joyce finally got it all together, she came over to the drawer, put the medicine between Jacks shoulder blades….Jack did not care…granted he was momentary preoccupied by the treats…but he really did not seem to give a hoot. My cats after they get their meds…they scatter, and any bits and pieces in their way get tossed Up, Down, East and west….leaving a path of fallen and up tipped objects in their wake, and I don’t see the cats again until they get hungry…Real hungry….My cats hold a grudge. Jack just kept on eating.

Saturday, I was back at the Gaddis and the folks standing around the west counter were studying on growing pineapples…wondering if when you cut that green top off , if you set it down in dirt would it root? I wasn’t there when the discussion began, apparently it had been going on awhile…they had computer print outs of pineapple plants spread out in front of them…I really didn’t get the feeling anybody was going to go home and try it….I don’t know what it was all about…Maybe just keeping a conversation going …allowing them to stay out of the heat a bit longer.

I gotta go now….I was in the Gaddis buying stuff to work on my back porch…caulk and a caulk gun. well….I have caulk strung all over the back yard and on the back steps…I tried to wipe it off the steps…I just smeared it and made it worse…so I am going out now, to see if can I cover the smears with potted plants…like in those beautiful photographs of places in Italy….…..we’ll see.

Call if you need me

I am always conflicted when it comes to praying for rain….Just because I want rain…doesn’t mean that everybody needs rain…I commence to wonder…. is there some old person with a hole in the roof and the repair man can’t get there right now?…or a single mother who has to wait until her next paycheck to her roof fixed? A farmer trying to get a crop in the bin. Or a job, a project that would be ruined by rain?Prayer is a duty and obligation and a privilege and a great comfort…..but still not without it’s struggles. Not that God would do what I asked…. Against His will or the prayers of others…but he might want me to be more mindful of the consequences, if he did answer every one of my long list of whinny prayers ……