This Ole House . . .

5/29/1912 - 4/4/1984

This post is a bit long - skip down past the lyrics to the memories if you need to. 

This Ole House
 

This was one of my Dad's favorite songs. He used to say that was our house. Growing up in a three bedroom house with thirteen, that's 13, in the family was interesting to say the least.

Children these days often don't know what it is to share a bedroom. We shared BIG TIME!! The boys room had my four brothers in it and the girls room housed me and my SIX sisters. - the boys had it good!!

The worst part was the bathroom - the ONE bathroom! ! !

There was a small room just off the kitchen, called the breakfast room but not large enough for OUR family. Being the second child, the oldest girl, I asked if I could have it for my room. I wish I had a picture of it. I had the top of a trundle bed - we had to sit the headboard on top the baseboard to make it fit and underneath was where Mom stored all the foods she canned. There will be another blog about some of what was stored under there! I did have a chest of drawers but my closet consisted of a broom handle across the corners of the room. My "door" was terrycloth curtains hung on a rod with canning jar rings at each end holding the rod up. I didn't care, IT WAS ALL MINE! !

That house is filled with so many memories and each time we visit Mom, they come flooding back to me. They bought the house in 1956 and I know it holds many memories for Mom of Dad, who passed away in 1984.

So many more stories can be told about "this ole house".

This Old House

words and music by Stuart Hamblen also recorded by Rosemary Clooney

1. This ole house once knew my children

This ole house once knew my wife

This ole house was home and comfort

as we fought the storms of life

This ole house once rang with laughter

This ole house heard many shouts

Now she trembles in the darkness

When the lightnin' walks about

CH: Ain't a-gonna need this house no longer

Ain't a-gonna need this house no more

Ain't got time to fix the shingles

Ain't got time to fix the floor

Ain't got time to oil the hinges

Nor to mend the window pane

Ain't a-gonna need this house no longer

I'm a-gettin' ready to meet the saints

2. This ole house is a-gettin' shaky

This ole house is a-gettin' old

This ole house lets in the rain

This ole house lets in the cold

On my knees I'm gettin' chilly

But I feel no fear nor pain

'Cause I see an angel peekin'

Through a broken window pane

3. This ole house is afraid of thunder

This ole house is afraid of storms

This ole house just groans and trembles

When the night wind flings its arms

This old house is gettin' feeble

This ole house is needin' paint

Just like me its tuckered out

But I'm a-gettin' ready to meet the saints

4. This ole house dog lies a-sleepin'

He don't know I'm gonna leave

Else he'd wake up by the fireplace

And he'd sit there and howl and grieve

But my huntin' days are over

Ain't gonna hunt the coon no more

Gabriel done brought in my chariot

When the wind blew down the door

---------

Always keep your fond memories . . . my Daddy . . .

These memories are some I put on our family calendar about 10 years ago. They are about our Dad, who passed away in 1984 from my siblings – 6 sisters and 4 brothers, myself and the final paragraph is memories from our children of their Grandpa.

. . . always had a treat for the youngest in his pocket after a road trip.

. . . took us to work sponsored picnics and Christmas parties.

. . . walked me down the aisle at my wedding, shaking as badly as I was.

. . . took our little boys to get haircuts, when we visited.

. . . always reminded me to check the oil and tires in my car.

. . . brought chocolates and big peppermint sticks, chicken sticks and ribbon candy from the candy factory at Christmas time.

. . . loved peanut butter fudge.

. . . tanned except under his shirt

. . . loved all animals. . . Baby crows, raccoons, Cindy, the terrier mix

. . . the mischievous twinkle in his eye, especially at Christmas

. . . taking us to pick wild plums

. . . picking up potato and carrot culls

. . . catching armadillos in Sherman and taking them home

. . . being caught in a hailstorm in the ‘53 Plymouth

. . . trip to Arkansas—just the two of us in my new ‘66 Chevy—getting a Christmas tree & mistletoe from an uncle's farm

. . . the visit in Garland and trip to the JFK Memorial in downtown Dallas

. . . waiting out tornados on the highway

. . . the roast he cooked when Mom was in the hospital—brother’s comment - “It’s so hard it makes my ears hurt”

. . . helping update his logbook and making out receipts

. . . and his baseball games

. . . his favorite show—Gunsmoke, with Chester and Matt “Drill ‘em”

. . . sitting on my motorcycle

. . . Tossing the little ones up in the air with a “KBOOM”

. . . fixing the dining room floor after the washing machine leaked all over the oak boards and they all curled up.

. . . taking the boys camping and taking a New Mexico dirt road from the ranch over to a highway that eventually ended up at Mosquero, NM.

. . . taking a short cut back from Clayton one time and we ended up on a bad road in a bad thunderstorm.

. . . working on a lawnmower engine for me and filing down the ends of the rod cap to take the slack out of the connection of the piston rod to the crankshaft to keep it from knocking. He said they used that technique in working on Model T engines.

. . . keeping chickens in the garage. The flock kept getting smaller and we seemed to be eating a lot of fried chicken.

. . . taking one load of junk to the dump and coming back with a different load of somebody else's junk. Of course we helped a bit.

. . . taking one load of junk to the auction and coming back with a different load of somebody else's junk.

. . . using the end of a broomstick to seal the end of a rocker arm shaft on the '57 Ford station wagon.

. . . propping up the radio in the GMC pickup with a stick to keep it from flopping up and down.

. . . laying a broomstick against an old TV speaker to make it work for a while longer.

. . . going after a cat with bad manners with a broom.

. . . bringing home orphaned crows.

. . . bringing home orphaned raccoons.

. . . bringing home a dead Mountain Lion he hit with the truck and showing brothers how to skin it.

. . . bringing home a black and white rabbit from one of his trips, and FOR A brother who then sold it to another brother for a quarter!

. . . bringing home his "vacation savings" before we went on a trip to St. Louis and threw it up in the air in the living room.

. . . taking grandchildren on his walks to check on the "old people".

. . . taking us out to get fresh fruits and vegetables.

. . . and our vacation in “old Betsy” when it caught on fire and he and brother had to walk to Uncles’s at Conway.

. . . doing a back float at the lake.

. . . teaching me to drive.

. . . and enjoying a Sunday Dallas Cowboy football game on neighbor’s color TV.

. . . bringing home an old wire haired mutt named Rusty, who stayed with us for awhile.

. . . was always dressed in his nicely pressed gray uniform with his policeman hat, except for one time he wore a Farrah Faucett T-shirt.

. . . always seemed to make it in from work for the holidays, even if he had to drive a long load.

. . . taking Dustin for walks by the railroad tracks and coming back with treasures.

. . . stopping at Dairy Queen on vacation and getting us all banana splits.

. . . letting me shine and buff his shoes for a nickel to buy a lemon at Dixie Food Store.

. . . helped me find my first car.

. . . not getting too mad when I backed his car into a pole at King Burger and caved in the back of it.

. . . bringing home little cakes of soap from his trips

. . . one year he brought home his vacation check in $1.00 bills -$701 and scattered them all over the living room. We had to pick them all up and count them

. . . he scratched on the wall at the ranch house to make us think there were mice crawling in the walls after we had gone to bed upstairs

. . . refused to answer the phone when we got ready to leave for a vacation

. . . he brought his truck tractor home occasionally and let us kids check it out

. . . you never knew what he would bring home next—always finding things on the road and at auctions. Boxes of miscellaneous were like Christmas.

. . . came home one time with the back of the red/white GMC truck filled with apples.

. . . his short story . . . Drove a nail into the wall & that’s all

. . . he could rig just about anything to make it work (we all learned this)

. . . got a ticket for speeding and beat it because the shop mechanic said there was no way his truck would go that fast!

I remember Grandpa Joe —
I remember taking walks with my Grandpa out through the field and down along the railroad tracks. I do not remember talking a lot I remember just walking and wondering about life.

We caught a rabbit once and took it to a gas station that had a bunch of different animals. Grandpa said the rabbit would be safe there.

I also remember once Grandma made Grandpa a grilled cheese sandwich and she had smashed it so flat that Grandpa thought it was toast and asked for some jelly to go on it.

I remember a big reddish orange truck with a camper on the back but the one memory about my Grandpa was sitting in his lap watching the Chicago Cubs make a triple play. At the time I really did not understand the game but I knew it was good because Grandpa tried to stand up (with me in his lap) and almost threw me on the floor.

My Grandpa the first big loss to the family that I can remember but these memories I will Never forget.

Grandpa said “coffee makes your ears fall off”.

Grandpa said “It's bad luck for cereal to be on the sides of your bowl”.

Grandpa said “Chocolate milk comes from Brown cows.”