How wonderful the cooler weather was for a few days and when it left it zoomed off. The humidity was to swim in if you could breathe. I managed to get some chores done that had gotten sidelined due to the heat and humidity, but now the list will remain unfinished until cooler air returns.

Beamon’s okra plants stopped producing when the cloudy rainy days came and each day there’s sunshine or hot sticky days, the okra pods grow. It is understandable why the okra grows so well in the Deep South. The soil in the one spot on this place is fine for growing the green pods that have been great for early fall meals.

* * *

We went to the funeral for our Aunt Ethel Pate near Texarkana. The little country church was out in the middle of nowhere. Across in front of it was the healthiest muscadine vineyard. The owner was mowing under the vines and a sign stated they were picking to sell. There was three ages of the vines and evidently they had been good producers. I imagined lots of jelly being made for winter eating.

One of our Uncles, the late Leslie Denman planted muscadine cuttings one year and he worked diligently at the hobby until he had a fir sized vineyard. He had planted the purple kind and white ones also. Whenever we picked some for a few jars of jelly, I just wanted the purple ones. They reminded me of when we were kids and picked them in the woods. Now with the clearing of so much of the countryside, there are not as many growing wild. But now blackberries, mayhaws, nor huckleberries grow as abundantly as they once did. It’s a wee bit harder to live off the land now.

* * *

Gladys Russell reminded me that she and Cletus celebrated their 65th anniversary this week. That is a long time with the same person! They have two daughters, Janice Brooks and Nancy Allen of Lufkin. Congratulations.

* * *

Happy Birthday to Johnny Garrett, Barbara Charanza, Tina Hutson, and Rob Reynolds share the same day, Rachelle Ebarb, Mary Jung Hiers, Barry Bruno, W.J. Morehead, Neal Shaw, Neal Denman and Brent Adams. Happy late Birthday to two of our classmates Charles Morgan and Betty Burnette Chudleigh of Waller.

* * * Beamon and I were in Garrison this week to visit Reba and Henry Moore. She is Beamon’s only living sister and was celebrating her 85th birthday. She and Henry live in Garrison Health Care Center and the folks just moved into a new facility not long ago. The last time we were off to see them Henry was in the old building in Garrison while Reba lived in the health care facility in Nacogdoches. Now they are together and everybody who works at the center is thrilled to be in a different location.

Rarely am I depressed by being at the old one was indeed downright worse than depressing. I’m not sure how old the original building was, but Randy and I visited his greatgrandmother, Alice Birch, when she was alive and it was OLD then and that was 50 years ago. I’m sure those folks had a happy moving day even though it might well have been the hardest working day they had in a while.

* * *

Back in the Spring of Huntington Baptist Church senior Sunday school class had gone over to eat in Nacogdoches. They were there for lunch and had come back with nothing but compliments so when we got near Appleby I directed Beamon to turn on the Appleby Sand Road. Having been born and brought up in that area, he was only too happy to be back in his old stomping grounds. He knew more about the location than I did and we stopped at the Mercantile Café for lunch. The folks were delighted to see us and during the week they serve from a steam table or you can get steak, fish or hamburgers. On Thursday and Friday nights they have all you can eat buffet plus those two nights the band Buffalo Grass plays bluegrass and country music. They are open those two nights from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. The owner said they have lots of folks from our area who come over on those two evenings especially. They have a large dining area and I noticed their Christmas tree was up but even though I was not so nosy that I asked I assumed they had not taken it down from last year. It made me think that if I were responsible for getting our’s up, I would just leave it up all year. Thank goodness Beamon enjoys decorating ours each time. It will not be very long until Christmas will be here.