HUNTER'S WELCOME

well, I'd thought I was going to see my Aunt Bette's dolls, and well, yes, I did that, (those below are her favorites of the 135 BREAKABLE dolls). She'd poured, sculpted, and crafted each piece of clothing or any other part that was visible to the persons walking into the museum for her show. Then, the next day, I found her FAMOUS in the Abilene Reporter News... my 81 year old aunt... creative and looking so like my Dad, her younger brother... both from the same root stock of creative genius..... although the mediums might be different,

the results come from the same place (I was blessed that Aunt Bette gave the LORD credit!).

This grouping is the King Arthur grouping.....

As I said, I THOUGHT I'd gone to see the museum showing, but as I left Aunt Bette with the bevy of school kids wanting pictures with the artist, I passed some old vaguely familiar places and I stopped.... Do you ever wonder what would be said if inanimate things became vocal? Well, today, I wondered about this sidewalk in front of the old Coleman High School. I remember, as a child seeing a brilliantly blue, shiny satin jacket in my Dad's closet. There was a really big, and fiercely growling bluecat on the back. (not leather like the ones today)... it always captured my childhood imagination... sorta like a superman cape unsuspectingly hiding in the back of YOUR OWN Father's closet... I wondered, what did this say about John Hunter. Could these sidewalks tell me tales of him walking my mom to class?
or, did they sit on these steps leading up to the front doors of the school. I'd heard the stories of the "girlfriend" with whom my Dad had been involved before he was completely ambushed by my mother's winsome beauty. (when Elvis came out with Frankie and Johnny, I understood the story from my little girl's romantic heart for her mom and dad's story).... Elly Mae Clampet had nothing on my mother's black haired beauty!!!!, and my Dad was smitten. Did they sit on these steps and talk about my Dad graduating and my mom finishing 2 years in 1 so they could be together? She was the young cheerleader and he, the dashing Mr. Everything athlete who'd take on the world with the charm of the middle child winning from either end of the deals he'd negotiate on or off the fields of competition.
The I walked behind the school, and I saw another building that I'd never noticed... I wondered... "could this be the old basketball gym"... like in Hoosiers... old wooden floors and bleachers that were only 4 seats tall on either side... A big crumbling, yet still growling bluecat painted on the walls of the gym now used for police training. Interesting change of venue I thought.
Did my Mom wait in this gym for the entrance of her hero in satin gym shorts and wearing the traditional Coleman Bluecat blue. Yes, I can see her cheering for him, Nemo, and my "uncle" Mac... lifelong friends who really had no time for girls and all the time in the world for fishing, hunting or other sorts of boyhood adventuring available to country boys in the 1940's. They were the epitome of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. (my Dad even told me that they used to "tickle" fish right out from under the rocks of the river where they knew every nook and cranny). Girls wouldn't be found there, but then there was my mom... she won his heart and holds it still as tightly as ever.

So, when I went to Coleman on Friday, I thought it was just to see my Aunt Bette's show, but it was more. It was to hear sidewalks and old gymnasiums tell tales of long ago that started a story that continues still.

It's sometimes good to check our roots, and know..... the places from where we start, can be worth seeing. Maybe later I can tell some of the stories I've heard and I've lived, but for now... I just wish walls and sidewalks could talk!

WELCOME........HUNTERS (and allllllllllll that come after them!)