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Thank you
from San Francisco for your website!
I
just stumbled on your website. I was
born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area (looking out at the
Pacific and the Golden Gate Strait as I write -- it's about 59 with
a cold breeze -- yep, summer's coming in!)
But my mother was born in the Texas
Panhandle town of Petersburg
in 1917 and raised in Lockney,
TX
I have never been there—she moved to San Francisco in 1938 and
has been dead for 10 years.
But I remember the name of every town she ever mentioned to me: Plainview
and Littlefield
(where she taught art and penmanship for two years), Tulia,
"the Breaks," and Canyon
(where she went to college) and Palo
Duro Canyon and Floydada...
I have been reading about the history of the area—I was always
the kid who was interested in hearing her stories and thought I knew
a lot about the area. I am surprised that I never heard of Clarendon
or Quitaque...
Her family, I now realize came into Texas
very early—were in Commerce,
Tx north of Ft. Worth
in the 1850s... (J.H. Lindley was her grandfather, Charlie Graves
was her father, Godfreys and Ballards from Hopkins, Co -- Cumby and
Commerce -- were her
grandparents... just mention this, because it's a smaller world than
we think and you never know...)
Anyway, Google maps just amazes me— to be able to see the streets,
etc. And it was wonderful to see your photos... I love it that you
are doing this. I sat and looked at them— the old post office,
the old buildings... and could almost feel my mother at my shoulder
saying "Oh! Why that was Old Mr. so-and-so's place...!"
Nanci Griffith, the great singer/songwriter, recorded a live album
a number of years ago... and between songs, she's talking, and she
says "My great-uncle Tootie, who was from a little bitty town called
Lockney and
lived through the Great Depression..."
Well, I almost drove off the freeway when I heard that. I came home
and played it for mom, then in her late 70s. And she said "What was
the name? Tootie? Tootie Griffin.... why, that must be ARTHUR!" And
then she went on to say "remember how I told you that we weren't poor—because
no one had any more than we had? Well, the Griffiths were poor. They
lived wayyyyy out on the edge of town and had a whole messa kids..."
Thanks for bringing her back into the room for a moment... I do have
to visit the Panhandle
some day. My mother said it was awful—yet all her life she had
an affection for the people and the culture... she never lost that.
And, reading about the place now, I realize how enormously who she
was had to do with where she was from. Polite, hard-working big-hearted,
generous, spoke the unvarnished truth—not a snobby bone in her
body and (what always surprised me)— no prejudice, either. Looked
everyone in the eye and accorded them the respect they deserve as
human beings. When I think of West Texans -- that's how I think of
them.
Well, this was an unexpected little essay! Hope you don't mind...
Hopefully it will remind you of why you have your
website and why you do the work and why it's valuable.
Blessings,
Susan Fry, June 01, 2011
They Shoe Horses, Don't They?
June 2, 2011
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