Old Settler Days

Sharon from Toledo called. She’s one of those I help, a survivor of brain injury caused by being beat with a pipe by her ex. We moved her after she was attacked by a crackhead when she lived at the same apartments we moved Wayne from. She wanted to let us know how happy Wayne is with his new place. She said he is much more at ease and lighthearted. The Zeph Center is setting him up with a home health aid who will assist Wayne with things like laundry and getting groceries. This is a big big relief for us. Wayne was the person who was most dependant on me and my biggest concern because of our moving to Texas. I know that the permanent move may be a few months away but still wanted to tie up these loose ends.

7/8/06 Saturday
This morning we are going to attend the “Old Settler’s Days” event at Stanton. This is an annual event that has been going on since at least the 50’s. At one time lots of people would dress up in period costumes from the 1800’s. I was told that they don’t do that as much as they used to. It has turned into a reunion event in addition to a town celebration that includes a parade, music, dancing, and food done Texas style.

Yesterday we met with Virginia for dinner at a nice restaurant that Cherie tells me we have eaten at several times. I don’t remember but that’s one of the things Cherie helps me with. We talked for a long time after we had all finished eating. Among the things she told us was that she had just gotten a phone call from my brother Larry.

He was evidently ranting and raving about my forcing him to pay the $3000 he had promised. Virginia said he was running things down to her like “you add this and subtract that” to prove that he didn’t owe me anything. He also said that I had taken the Peruvian “artifacts” (They are mostly things made to scam tourists).




Larry seems to have forgotten that I told him they were all boxed up and ready to be sent to him. Besides that, if they were real artifacts they are subject to seizure under federal law if they were brought into the country after 1966. I told him I wanted nothing to do with them.

It just confused Virginia as he rattled off this practiced litany. The more she told the more I realized that this was the same story he is telling my father and family. No wonder dad won’t talk to me. I think I will have to deal with this by publishing his E-mails and my side of the story. The truth is always a good thing though rare with my brother. Virginia said he was cooking for a party while they talked and was drinking. Nothing unusual there. Virginia also told of Larry’s visits to uncle Delmer. He would drink lots of beer and then drank whole bottle of wine by himself telling Delmer he needed it to go to sleep. And he says he doesn’t have a drinking problem.

Here's a picture of Virginia with Minnie Lee. Virginia was the one who took the responsibility of caring for Minnie Lee before she died.

We thanked Virginia again for her taking on the task of being the executor of the will. What a pain that was as she had to try and mediate between my brother and I. She told us how, because she is a notary public, Larry had tried to get her to notarize the titles to the two trucks he had taken from our mothers possessions when she died. Virginia refused because it is not only illegal but a felony that can result in going to prison. Evidently Larry found someone to do it.

Virginia released a thousand dollars from the estate bank account to us. This will help greatly as we have nearly exhausted our resources with this trip. Just the hotel room will run us $700 for the two weeks we will stay. I just renewed our room for another week. Jeff, a friend who owns the temporary service Cherie works through, sent an E mail. He has been following the blog as many now are (Our audience has grown with this trip to Texas). He asked about the school bus and had some suggestions for it’s use such as giving tours of the farm and killer bees along with cutting the top off and using it for a greenhouse.

Yesterday we stopped by the farm. It was a restful day as we stayed at the motel for a good part of it. I wanted to check on the bee’s that I had sprayed the day before. It didn’t seem to phase them. The dumpster was empty so we will fill it up again, perhaps after the Old Settler’s Days thing.

Cherie and I watched our first sunset from the farm together. That was when we took these pictures of our back yard. It takes some imagination to see how it will look in the future. I’ve got a good imagination. After the sunset I wrapped myself in a blanket with my hat on and sprayed the bee nest from close up where hopefully it reached the hive somewhere under the house. These guys will be hard to get rid of.

Time to get going.
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3:00 - We are back at the hotel room. I guess we missed part of the Old Settler Days. They had a parade at 10:00 which included wagons for each class that had representatives there. This is when the high school reunions happen. When we got into town we drove around looking for where this event was happening. What we found was separate groups gathered at a variety of spots in the downtown area. There was one spot that offered food and had tables under a tent to sit at so that’s where we went. We sat next to two women, one was pretty old and the other in her fifties. As we talked the older lady began to remember Minnie Lee. She was in her nineties and took a while to recollect. The lady next to her was her daughter I think. They welcomed us to the community as everyone else has.

After we ate our hamburgers we went across the street to the Stanton Museum. It wasn’t big but neither is Stanton. As we looked through the displays that covered the early ranch pioneers and the first oil well drilled we ran across a series of displays of high school classes. After searching I found the senior year picture of my mom. Here it is.

We went to the farm after this, intending to get back to work on the house. Pulling into the driveway we realized that we had forgotten to bring the cooler of Gaterade that we usually have. Out here in 96 degree heat fluids are a must so I pulled out and came back to the hotel. I am tired as I often am around 2:00 so we are just relaxing a bit. Cherie went online to check the news about the big hassle at her parents house. There is a news video on channel 13’s website that she pulled up. It is sad to see this but there may be some good that comes from it. Her parents now appear to understand they need to find another place to live where they can get some of the help they need. Hopefully this will help Nate wake up and understand he needs to be more responsible. Time to grow up. We’ll see how this plays out.

I think we will head back out to the farm now. I am curious to see what’s going on with the bees. If I am lucky they took off to find a new home but I doubt it’ll be that easy. I will stuff something in the hole they move in and out of tonight. They will probably find another way to get out and I hope it will not be into the house. There are a number of dead bees in the house so they got in somehow.