How I Love My Grandfather's Texas
One of my favorite TV shows was Davy Crockett that first
aired about the time we as an Army
family moved to Fort Devens, Massachusetts from Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. At age
7 or 8, I had all the “official items I needed to be Davy Crockett: a “pressboard
‘coonskin hat, the twin holsters (authentic enough for a kid) and of course,
Betsy! My friends and I, if we didn’t play baseball, would engage in play wars made
realistic by our guns. We fought the British, the Indians, the bad cowboys and
WWII by fanning the hammer on our flintlock play pistols.
When my dad was sent to Korea, the family moved to that
small Texas town of my grandparents and I loved it. We had already spend some great
summers there and now I had my Grandmother and Grandfather and family almost
full time, while my Dad was away. I could walk to school like kids in the Little
Rascals the movies and during that first winter, I would walk to school wearing
a short sleeve shirt, even in the couple of snowfalls we had. After school, I
went home or to see my grandparents and my uncle Charles who is six years my
senior.
My special person was my Granddaddy. He was a veteran of the
sea in World War I & II. He was retired by the time I came along. In most summers
we would visit from distant places where my Dad was stationed in the army and enjoy
about a month each time. It didn’t take
long to learn that chasing his chickens had the consequences of meeting up with
his almost rabid rooster. I learned how to collect eggs from the hen house for
breakfast and I learned with eggs, like Newton with the apple, that gravity is
everywhere, especially for a butter fingered kid on a wooden porch!
I was probably 10 when we went through the gate that
separated his home from the Shelton Farm and into the woods a quarter mile
away. Our goal was firewood for the winter and wood to build a smokehouse. Mr.
Shelton didn’t live on the farm as he owned the only two story house in town.
An added touch was the big “S” cut out of each shutter all the way around. We
arrived in the clearing he had previously cut and after working awhile, he sat
down and for the first time, let me use his double blade axe. Swinging that axe
with a little less authority, I gave it all I had and when finished, it looked
like the tree grew out of a huge pinecone about 2 feet up the trunk. In my
mind, this 4” “redwood” had tough bark, but my grandfather dropped it in just a
few swings and used that tree in his smokehouse. I was proud of my part of his
smokehouse, but I was more proud of my grandfather. You don’t need stories of
Paul Bunyan or other fabled lumberjacks when you had a grandfather like mine.
After a year, my dad returned and to my surprise, we moved
to San Antonio and onto a path that would lead to high school graduation at Thomas
Jefferson and the many chances to walk where my hero Davy Crockett walked years
ago, inside the walls of the Alamo. I wondered how many times I stepped where
Bowie, Travis, Dickinson had walked.
Years later, I learned that this small town of my grandparents
had a hidden history. It was a stop on Davy Crockett’s journey in the winter of
1835-36. After having gained fame in Congress, he was asked to name that small
patch of land. He called it “DeKalb”. In my youth, I had already walked many
places in this town and am certain that I crossed the path taken by Crockett in
his brief respite on his way into history. I just wonder how many times I stood
where he did, away from his most courageous stand alongside nearly 200 others
who believed that freedom was worth fighting for
At 25 years of age, my Alabama-born, great-grandfather who had
moved to Red River County, enlisted in the 23rd Texas Cavalry on 12 Sep 1861 and
served until Texas was cut off from the rest of the south. My grandfather came
along 25 years later. My grandfather passed away while I was in my sophomore
year of high school. After both grandparents had passed on, my uncle moved that
smokehouse to his own land.
I sometimes wonder how much he knew of his ancestry. I am
certain he knew of the Crockett visit, but I didn’t know to ask at the time. I wonder
if he knew of his famous ancestry, or the places where they lived just over an
hour’s drive from that Massachusetts military post where we lived. I could
almost imagine that great, great….great grandfather who saw this land from a
distance then stepped onto its shore as he departed the Mayflower.
Did he know he was a related to one of the first civilian
POWs of the American Revolution who with his young daughter, Abigail were
captured by Indians; turned over to the British in 1776 and not released for 6
years. Could he have known about John Alden of Plymouth Colony who landed in
this nation 156 year earlier? Could he have imagined as far as a king?
Over the years, my Mom said I was more like my grandfather
than anyone else in the family. I don’t know what my grandfather would say to
that, but for me, being said to be like my grandfather, is a medal of honor I
wear with pride!
Larry W. Mayes
