Mr. Allred, Mama looks different, the garden

As I was sitting in the tire shop in Amarillo waiting on completion of some service work being done to the company vehicle I was driving an elderly gentleman came in and sat near me. He was carrying an oxygen bottle and sporting a nasal cannula. He did not seem to be having any trouble breathing or getting around. He immediately struck up a conversation with me.


He was in the shop there almost every day. He did not drive, did not own a car. He simply waited in the shop for the bus to come to the stop across the street. Everyone in the shop knew him. He was Mr. Allred. He told me a little about himself and asked me some questions about me; where I was born, where I worked, what I did in that work, etc. He will be ninety two years old next month. He has three living siblings – all of them younger that himself.

As we talked we got to talking about growing up and how things were so different now. He told me that his daddy’s grandfather had walked with his brother from Kentucky to join the forces of Sam Houston as he sought to fight the Mexican army to free Texas from Santa Anna’ s rule over them. “They walked, mind you.” He said. “From Kentucky. Now a days you can’t get a teenager to walk to the bathroom.”

He watched his watch pretty closely and soon left the shop to meet the bus scheduled to arrive soon. As he said goodbye and walked away I thought about all the stories a person like that could tell. He will not be around long and all he does know will go to the grave with him. It seemed sad. He is not saved. I know because I asked him. That is even sadder.

The Fisher’s boys are almost two years older now than the last time Mama had seen them – or the last time they had seen her. Eric and Ethan were talking to their mommy as they studied Mama Kim the other night. It was finally decided that, to them, Mama Kim looked different. So Mama and mommy began to ask the questions of the two boys to discover what they were seeing in Mama that struck them as different. I think it came down to her hair having grayed over the last two years and the fact that she is tanning because Eric remarked that her skin was dark.

The next morning Ethan was peeking at the doorway that leads down to the basement at the Fisher’s house. Chase has been staying down there through the time he has been in New Jersey but Mama is a new resident. Obviously he had been given instructions to remain upstairs to keep from disturbing Mama but that did not mean he could not keep vigil for her.

Mama played “peek a boo” with him as soon as she discovered him watching and as she came upstairs he happily announced. “Mama Kim you don’t look different now.” She is having a ball; Jake, not so much. The two of them have not been able to get together since she arrived and Jake is giving his mama fits about it. They are hoping to work that out today but Melissa (Jake’s mama) is worried that as soon as Jake is with Mama that he will not want to go back to his normal schedule. She could be right since Jake is already anticipating coming to Texas with Mama. That is still a week away and we know how interminably long a week is.

I did go ahead and come to Bowie yesterday afternoon since I needed to be in the Decatur office today. I got to the farm about 6:30 p.m. After we unloaded the truck I got to look around at the buildings that had been damaged by the storm last week and indeed, the entire roof was gone from the pig building. The cover I built over the log kit was mangled pretty badly. Some of the two by fours from that structure are actually in the tops of nearby trees. The tin is somewhere in the next county. It will be a chore to do the repairs. When we looked at the garden it was obvious that we needed to do some harvesting.

Grandpa, Victoria and I picked about a half bushel of green beans. I picked several dozen okra that may already be past ripe. The tomato plants are almost breaking under the load of ripening tomatoes. If it were not for the wire cages surrounding them we would have trouble keeping the fruit off of the ground. Grandpa plucked an ear of corn to see how that crop was doing. It needs some more time but the “peaches and cream” ears are getting close to ready. All in all, the garden is doing well in spite of the dry conditions and the strong winds.

Next year we will do things differently, but for now we are enjoying our little successes.