The Bess Factor

Yesterday I had an extremely varied selection of visitors in Blues Alley, from a bum on the streets to a 91 year old west Texas philosopher... and John Echols, who lies somewhere in between.:) Like many conversations in recent days, these individuals found themselves discussing with me the obsession of most people I run into: The slippery slope our civilization is descending on.

The elderly gentleman had done something about the problem, and had a calling card plastered with wonderful wisdoms, like: "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." (the Apostle Paul)

And something much more intriguing... "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from great courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependence back again to bondage." (Alex Tyler)

Everyone seems to agree. We have gone too far, and it started way before the current Administration in Washington, who has the honor of heaping on the last straws. But we cannot blame the President or the current Congress for most of the mistakes we made which have us now sliding into an abyss like crushed aluminum cans into a recycling vat.

More than our economy, which is a total scandal but could be resolved, we are even more concerned for our children. The ones who, seemingly in mass, are moving back home, broke, jobless, divorced, often with children in tow, to take refuge in our largess. I dare not take stock of how many of my friend's daughters are living with their parents, struggling with life, usually raising their babies without benefit of a male bread winner. These are beautiful young women from good families, the kind that used to make their daddies proud.

One of the better preachers I ever knew, Dr. Jim W. Adams, once coined the phrase that has stuck with me... when he said (twenty years ago!) our children are like hot-house tomatoes. They looked like people, acted like people, but they had been raised in a false environment, and like hot-house tomatoes, would be tasteless and useless... raised in a "hot-house" they would shrivel if ever exposed to the real sun. They would never survive. Adams explained that it was the sun... the heat, the rain, that made a vine-ripened tomato taste so good. Same with grapes. It was the conditioning that the elements provided through wind and temperature changes that made hardy plants, and good fruit.

Conditioning. Yet we worked like hell to save our children any suffering... as if that was a bad thing. We gave them everything we never had. We never made them do any kind of chores, like we had to do. We indulged them far beyond what our parents would ever approve. We never required that they get part time jobs while in high school, you know those kind of jobs where a kid is paid what he is really worth (it would have been illegal!) ... or do anything like work. We let them while away their childhoods staring into computer screens and jabbing buttons on games that we did not understand. And we wonder why they have no coping skills, no people skills. No survival skills; Hot house tomatoes.

Even sadder, we had fewer chidren, so they had less opportunities to learn about sharing, teamwork, anger management, and reconciliation. So they are getting married later and later, and... in turn they are having even fewer children, until.. our culture just goes extinct in an orgy of selfish fulfillment. All while others from impoverished cultures flood in to enjoy this wonderful country we created. We are handing it over in bulk, while we watch our culture fade, our influence in this Nation be trivialized, as our numbers diminish.

So what went wrong? I call it the Bess Factor. We completely abandoned it. For centuries, families functioned as a work unit. Most of that work was agricultural, but the "Bess factor" still worked in cities where young people contributed to the family welfare and even the community; Paper routes, grass mowing, baby sitting. I did all of those, but I like to point to Bess for my most effective "conditioning." Bess was our Guernsey cow, she had to be milked twice a day, and produced around three gallons of milk per day. We raised two teen-aged boys and numerous suckling calves on her.

The Bess Factor; Bess had to be fed, watered, sheltered, milked and yes, LOVED. Having a living organism dependent on me to make sure she stayed alive and healthy and content was life-changing. Life-giving. And for that she gave my family milk. That was a relationship. My first reciprocal relationship. If I came out and cussed her or threw the buckets around, she hunched her back and refused to be milked. She would kick the milk bucket into the next county. If a talked nice to her, she dropped that milk like I was her firstborn. I learned responsibilty to something bigger than my selfish teen interests. Something real-life; To negotiate, to bring in the milk, every morning, day after relentless day. When it was freaking 16 degrees, sleeting, or amidst hurricanes, or just hot as Texas can be. And to share that duty with my brother. To churn butter, crank ice cream, shoot skunks in the feed bin, scoop cowpies, and even more eductional things; To understand the powers of Nature when the cow was in heat. Suddenly she could jump a barbed wire fence like a wildebeast! I learned how to wrestle a beligerent, gluttonous calf who did not want to be taken off the cow. And I drank a lot of wonderful fresh milk. The milking gave me large powerful hands. My handshake was quite firm for a skinny kid. I could bring bigger men to the ground. Many complained that I hurt them; All those hours in the milkshed, sweet-talking Bess.

I rolled my sleeves up so my bulging forearms could be seen, looked like Popeye. I wore the red wing boots that I wore in the barnyard with pride to school. Other kids were fluffing their heifers in 4H, while I was selling milk to the neighborhood. I dreamed of my own dairy someday. I had part time jobs... sacking groceries, bartending, cedar cutting, hay hauling. When I went to college, I could, and did work my way through school. Until my art professors told me to get lost. By the time I was twenty, I had my own remodeling business, worked at a restaurant, worked as a projectionist on campus, sold my artwork, whatever it took. There was not net to catch me. And I made it because of the Bess Factor.

So when your children move back home... start over... buy a milk cow...

See how long they stay!

Clay and Me and Human Proclivity

When I was in Kindergarten... really, when they handed out the clay, the kids automatically passed theirs to me. Insisting that I do what I did. Whatever you called it. I took requests but mostly made some things just for myself, and really played in the clay, but always with fascinating results. So it was when I was five years old that I knew I had something other people did not. Whatever it is.

It is kind of hard to describe the feeling, when someone like me sinks his hands into the clay. It's like grabbing ahold of... infinity. The whole Universe. You think for a moment, that you could just about make a facsimile of anything, if you had enough clay. It is a natural high, to hold the clay and press it between your palms and begin to imagine what you might make with it. When I was five it was horses and Indians and cars and monsters. That was the Universe as far as I was concerned.

The bear above was my first clay object that actually got fired in a kiln. I was thirteen years old. Later when I was enrolled as an art major I was told by my professors in art school that I was not an artist, but an illustrator and not to come back to major in art at NTS the next semester. So I have been trying to give it a name, whatever it is, ever since. I finally forgot semantics, and decided that I liked to do it, and other people wanted to own it, so I would continue, whatever it was.

Some stoneware I "threw" on the wheel while at SHSU.

Later when I finally got my art degree at Sam Houston State, I was required to take "Ceramics." Begrudgingly I paid my tuition and bit at the bullet, the very idea of requiring me to.. plaaaayyy! In the claaaaay! Seemed like such silly thing... I loved it so much I took it again happily. I had forgotten how much I loved forming and shaping and creating. I finally learned to throw on the potter's wheel. Learned to mix glazes, fire in a Raku kiln. Had a blast. Later my younger brother married a real potter, Titia Arledge at Mudpie's Pottery, and I have worked in her studio in Salado long enough to create my own line of sculpted stoneware. These whimsies are just some of the fun I've had.

There is such a fine line between a potter, and whatever it is you call what I am, that I feel like I really understand potters and pottery. But I am just a novice with throwing stoneware. You can see from these examples, some of my efforts on the wheel, that help me appreciate the wheel and what it can produce. But the wheel is only that half of it.

Stoneware "Temperance" jug made by John L. Stone

It turns out that potters, and people like me, whatever that is, have been playing with the clay for eons. A fellow named John L. Stone in Limestone County, Texas made the vessel you see above... not so different from the results I had when I let it fly. Thanks to Brandt Zipp, and his wonderful website article, we know that Stone was a master potter, trained in the "Anna" Pottery school in Illinois, throwing for the Firebrick & Tile Company, who had the talent of a sculptor, and who ocassionally allowed his gift for form to trump his knack for function. There were probably lots of potters just like him, but perhaps they never gave themselves permission to play in the clay. And that's why one of Stone's plain jugs bring around $50.00, (unidentified) while the one here sold for an astronomical amount. People seem to recognize the difference, whatever it is.

It is "high craft" to some, called folk art by experts, but it is much more... this human proclivity with clay. That only a minority can do.

If not some form of art...

Then what?

Texas Treasure Hunting!

OK, so it's not gold or diamonds. But antique hunting, (I am not talking about shopping) especially bottle digging and other such endeavors have been some of my most favorite pastimes. The idea that I could acquire something, absolutely free, that some people were actively looking for, and would give me money for it if I found it, was planted in me very young. When we used to go deer hunting in far central Texas, we would hunt for geodes in the afternoons between hunts. We never found a good one, but that was just the start.

When we decided to move to Plantersville, we purchased an old parsonage in the Heights in Houston and were preparing it for relocation when I discovered my first real good find. Underneath the old house somebody, perhaps the parson, had rolled and an old whiskey jug about ten feet from the back door step. As I was loosening the plumbing, something was in my way, a muddy mass of something .. looked like a stoneware or glass jug but it was hard to tell in the dark...

Soon I heard the whoops of my father and brother as they reported that I had slung them a one gallon Henke & Pillot jug, in excellent condition. Henke and Pillot later became Henke & Kroger... Of course we argued about who found it... I had just found a lump of mud. My brother washed it and found the old whiskey/wine jug within. Needless to say, I have the jug today. Texas advertising jugs are a very big deal. For the record I have sold some just like it for $250-$300 wholesale and I know they have sold for much more.

We soon learned to examine grown-over dumpgrounds, old wells and cisterns, outhouse holes (if they were old enough) and rotted, abandoned out-buildings. Attics often produce cool things, if the heat hasn't destroyed them. Often, the nearest depression in the ground near an old homestead is a dump, where old bottles and metals survived.

Brad Seigler has sent me this photo of a very early Texas pitcher he dug up in an old dump near Rusk, Texas. He collects old medicine bottles. Thank goodness he did not just chunk the old clunky clay vessel, as it may be one of the earliest I have ever seen. My guess it is an early Leopard or Cogburn, but it could be an experiment... and not even a potter we know about. He has been offered quite a bit for it, probably because it was dug up, and very near a known early pottery producing area.

When we moved to Grimes County, it was not long until I knew where the good digs were... or had been. Great finds had been found behind downtown Navasota, where the old Cedar Creek had been filled in during the Depression era. There had been a fantastic deposit in a lot adjacent to the old Horlock Bottling Works. Hundreds of collectible bottles had been found there during City construction projects, as the City owned that lot and used it for various water treatment processes. They were always digging up another stash of old bottles. And it seemed everybody used to be a bottle collector. Many of the old guys in Navasota had great collections, and would show them off from time to time. Still, there are many bottles we know existed that we have no complete specimans of.

Some of my buddies used to walk the creeks looking for old dumps. And sometimes we would actually just wade in the creek and sometimes kick up an old bottle that had worked free from some ancient dump along some old backwater. Just the other day, one of my bottle digging buds found a Horlock "slug" bottle, Coca Cola logo in script embossed on the back side, in great condition. They used to bring around $100.00. The guy with him had just said he was looking for one... and what he supposed they were worth. Then my friend pulled it out of the creek. "How much do you want for it?" The guy asked.

Having just established a price, you can imagine what my bottle-noodling buddy said!

“Thanksgiving”: A Civil War Tradition!

We Cushmans were raised on Pilgrim lore... That's my brother Ralph in that authentic Seventeenth Century posterboard hat... and me as Squashtoe...

The Legacy of the Mayflower pilgrims is stepping out in Faith, even in the worst of situations, in a spirit of gratitude.

Most Americans think they know what Thanksgiving is all about… and that includes it beginnings. I can assure them right now they don’t. And you’ll be surprised, hearing this from a Pilgrim descendant, what this National holiday is or was really about. You may know of my Pilgrim lineage, out of Robert Cushman, one of the men who chartered the Mayflower... but our celebration of Thanksgiving is only indirectly related to him or his fellow Pilgrims

The year is 1863. President Abraham Lincoln has watched as his happy marriage, his Army, even his beloved Country has gradually fallen apart. In the throes of the American Civil War, which is not going well for his side, he received news in late September of the bloodiest and deadliest two days in American History. A total of thirty-five thousand men from both sides of the conflict were either wounded or killed at the Battle of Chickamauga. Lincoln’s brother-in-law, Confederate General Ben Hardin Helms is found among the dead.

A couple of days later, Union General Sibley led a victorious attack against the Sioux Nation, ending the “Great Sioux Uprising.”
The blood of red and white, blue and gray, dried comingled on the war-torn soil, from North to South.

President Lincoln had gotten a plea from a woman with a passion for national unity, one Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s Ladies Book, and an all around National do-gooder, who wanted to unify all the various annual observations of thanksgiving throughout the Country. Finally after a fifteen year campaign, she convinced President Lincoln to make a Presidential Proclamation, establishing an official National Day of Thanksgiving and Praise. On October 3, 1863, he did just that. Here is the proclamation that William Seward, his Secretary of State, wrote for him:

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

But what about the Pilgrims? You ask. The Pilgrims had a “harvest feast” every October at the end of the harvest season and celebrated it with a big banquet. They invited some of their Indian friends and everybody brought something to share. The first Harvest Feast was a bit sparse, as their crops had not done well and their efforts to raise wheat and barley and peas went unrewarded. But there was lots of corn! The adopted Indian Squanto, their farming mentor had helped them with the native plant, so there could be fresh corn, hominy, cornbread and yes, grits.

But other Indians brought in some deer, and the pilgrims shot some ducks and geese, and the pilgrim women found some clams, wild plums and leeks and watercress to round out the meal. Somebody had made some good old homemade wine from the plentiful wild grapes in the area, which was a big hit.

As far as we know, no turkey. No pumpkin pie. They had cranberries but historians are pretty sure they had not figured out yet what to do with them. So our Thanksgiving traditions do not come from… the first thanksgiving… Those are things more likely representative of the Victorian (Civil War period) palate.

Whatever it was, the Pilgrims of old, the first thanks-givers, had a great time and did it for generations, every year, to remember what they had all been through… and what God had delivered them out of.

Perhaps that was Lincoln’s Thanksgiving intention as well; Probably inspired by the Pilgrims, he was determined to be grateful, and lead his nation in gratitude, even though his heart was broken and he could not see any light at the end of the tunnel. Just days after the beleaguered President made the proclamation for Thanksgiving and Praise, he was invited to make remarks at the dedication of a battlefield cemetery where thousands of Americans had died, and the battlefield had been tidied up so they could pray over it. At Gettysburg. Lincoln gave his short address, thinking that it had been a big failure. Just like the war… Just like that silly proclamation about Thanksgiving. And sadly he was assassinated before he ever saw the Country healed from his war, or blacks truly enfranchised, or the tradition of giving thanks practiced all over the United states of America. All 50 of them.

But according to Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving is something you do as a matter of Faith, even when you cannot find much to be thankful for. True Faith starts with gratitude. .. Unconditional gratitude.

You thank the Almighty, and put the ball in His court… you plant the seed, and you wait upon Him for it to grow. You never give up. You hold on, in fact you do greater things than you ever thought possible. Lincoln knew, it is when we are at the end of our ability, the end of our rope, and we admit it, when God steps in and does the rest.

That way we know who and what we are, and who and what God is. Lincoln knew God was waiting for somebody down there to acknowledge Him (not just ask Him for victory in battle!), and that had to start with being grateful for whatever God in His mercy had allowed, in His wisdom, for each and all of us. And as it turns out, that is something we need to do quite often, and as a Nation, every year.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin Pie: A Thanksgiving Essential

Ma’s Pumpkin Pie Recipe

Mmmmmm, Mmmmmmm!

While checking out at the grocery counter, the cashier flippantly remarked that he was amazed at our purchase of two small pumpkins. Pie pumpkins. For making pumpkin pie. He went on to explain that he would be afraid to eat anything made like that… My wife retorted that it was the only way to go. And it sure is if you are on the eating end of it.

The kid at the grocery counter is the product of a lesser race, that eats everything if it is packaged at some factory, where they put some kind of blessing on it I suppose, which makes it edible. But you are of my race, that appreciates real stuff, good tasting food, the best in life, and I know because you are reading this blog!

This blog is dedicated to my grandmother, Bertha Spraggins, who always made a big Thanksgiving meal for her family, and always made the best pumpkin pie.


After considerable haranguing, my wife agreed to let me post her (my grandmother’s) recipe for pumpkin pie… it is very basic, almost impossible to mess up.

For two pies… (the first one always just disappears) you need:

Ingredients
One pie pumpkin, which after butchering and boiling should yield around 5-6 cups of pumpkin meat.
6 eggs
2 cups of sugar
1/2 stick of real butter
TEAspoon of Cinnamon (or a little more!) & Teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice.
2 deep dish pie shells

Directions:
Cut pumpkins into wedges that you can handle… it takes a sharp knife, a thin blade works better. Remove the fibers and seeds from inside the pumpkin and skin the outside rind with a potato peeler.

Boil the pumpkin meat for around 25 minutes… do not overcook. Check and pull the chunks when they are soft like a baked potato. They should be a beautiful light orange, and basically mushy.

Blend ½ stick of butter with the sugar thoroughly in a mixer till it is a cream. Then add 6 eggs, and spices and mix well.

Fold by hand the pumpkin meat into the mixture, it should be runny like pancake batter.

Ready to bake!

Pour mixture into shells, fill back and forth until each is about the same.
Place pies on cookie sheet (they might bubble up a bit) and in oven at 350 degrees. Bake for about an hour. Check after about 45 minutes, and watch for them to turn that pumpkin brown and for the pies to firm up considerably. The crust should be a light golden brown.

Save and freeze any excess pumpkin meat for pies at Christmas!

We eat them without topping but I’ve heard Yankees put stuff like whipped cream or as my wife says, “that canned crap” and that is where you lose us, but at least you know the pie was made right!

NOTE: Leave comments so I know how it turned out!

My current project! For Blinn College in Brenham, Texas.

I have been commissioned by Blinn College to sculpt a ten-foot tall steel sculpture to be placed in front of the Blinn Band Hall. Working with the Music Department, especially Larry Campbell, the Music Director there for many years, I designed a contemporary form that says music... and if all goes well it will also make music!

What you are looking at is the maquette for this project, a tin miniature.

The shiny windy silvery part will be made to be like keys, that can be struck to make different "notes." Construction is to begin very soon on this, the first sculpture for that campus!

The moment of truth... final maquette of young Marshal Frank Hamer

These are photographs showing the progress from the model and the drawing concept to the final proposal of my Marshal Frank Hamer monument. If all goes well the City of Navasota will approve of the design and I will get started on the life-sized sculpture to be placed in front of the new City Hall. I'm getting pretty excited. This sculpture will also be cast in bronze, for anybody interested in a two footer, of one of the greatest Texas Rangers of all!

Perhaps the hardest thing in the beginning was to find a model... somebody to BE the famous Texas Ranger and Navasota City Marshal Frank Hamer for me, so I could get the concept rolling. Hamer was every bit of six foot three inches... This former Navy SEAL graciously posed for me, and I knew the rest would be easy. Thank you J_. M_.! In a big way, this sculpture is a tribute to all the brave men and women who make the world a safer place for us as Americans.

I started the proposal with one of artist Payne Lara's new armatures, now on the market, and WOW what a great product it is. Payne is a highly recognized and sought after Western and wildlife sculptor here in Navasota, and has used his vast experience in creating bronze sculptures to design these commercial armatures for the sculpture profession. He has thought of every possible requirement for a sculptor to get a sound start on sculpting a human form, in several different sizes. This armature saves the professional artist days of prep work. Yet if he cannot sculpt, it gives him no unfair advantage.

As you can see, when the actual clay form is created, there is no longer any trace of the armature. Here young Frank comes to life... without all the accessories of a Western lawman...

Now armed and ready, topped with his big hat, Marshal Frank Hamer steps out of history into the art world, ready for the City monument committee to see him.

When a maquette design is approved, I will go to one of my favorite places, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame in Waco to see if they have any artifacts there to help make this sculpture as authnetic as possible. That ought to make a great blog!

Who let the dogs out!

A hoghuntin' buddy of mine running his catahoulas.

I know you are out there! At way over 16,000 pages now turned on this blog, a full one quarter of them have been turned this past month! Thank you for the hits, and please let me know what your areas of interest are by making comments! Either way, whether you join and become a follower, or leave anonymous verbal abuse, your participation is important and appreciated!

Merry Christmas... in The Woodlands, Texas

The Woodlands, Texas became a wild throng of seasonal joy Saturday. These folks know how to put on a festival!

For one special evening, all disbelief is suspended, as myth and artistry join together.

Santa brings Christmas cheer via the waterway between the Marriott and the park.

When it comes to beating Houston traffic, Santa has his ways...

This year The Woodlands added a spectacular laser light show to the evening's attractions.

The kids can even have snowball fights. Just like the days we used to... never have.

A new twist on Santa

They call it “The Lighting of the Doves.”

Santa and Mrs. Claus with several elves, float along and greet their fans.

Jingling as they go, the jolly entourage scoots by as families with their children wave with love and affection.

You can tell what a hit Santa was by all the cell phones that lit up as he came on stage.

When I first heard of this, being a redneck, and being from a place where rednecks and guns and fireworks and defenseless creatures are often mixed in various configurations, I was not sure how much I wanted to see this popular extravaganza. But given its prestigous location and my special host, I gave it a shot.

I had the pleasure of volunteering as auxiliary elf for Santa at this event in the Woodlands, Saturday on the 19th, where Santa Claus was of course the star attraction and was the honored guest who switched on the Christmas lights that illuminate giant doves who fly over the river walk there... It is a grand event in the American league of neighborhood pageantry.

When Santa flicked a giant light switch, all... hell broke loose with loud music and laser beams shooting in every direction, for a moment feeling more like an alien invasion, until we all just stood and gaped at the simple, primitive beauty of smoke and lights and artistry.

I had to remind myself where I was. As a kid I used to roam near these woods as a Boy Scout, always thinking of this area as total wilderness. When they began to break through the forest and lay roads, it seemed so absurd. The Woodlands always looked like a modernistic experiment in the beginning, not even real.

But The Woodlands finally wears a patina, it no longer feels like something just fabricated, and has become and sustained… what it was always conceived to be; A wonderful, idyllic community, where life happens like we all think it should, and seasonal festivals have been masterfully laid out, complete with live entertainment, vendor booths, children’s activities, and yes, magnificent beauty. After decades of doing this, by Saturday it had completely evolved into its self-projection, as a thoughtfully designed hometown, decorated to the nines in Christmas glory, with Santa floating down a flickering golden river-walk. And as he and Mrs. Claus stepped out into a crowd of tens of thousands, young couples, little children on their daddy’s shoulders, Christmas music blaring and bouncing off of the water, it made me suddenly appreciate this place I live in.

No, I do not live in the Woodlands. I, like most of you can only admire it from afar. But for that moment The Woodlands became something more than itself, as it so powerfully personifies who we are as a people. As Americans.

Only in a self-realized community like this, in the United States of America, can we Americans see who we are, or at least who we all want to be… if we only could. We often complain because we have so few cultural traditions… That we are such a melting pot of different peoples, we have no cultural identity.

Santa read The Night Before Christmas to a spellbound crowd, as his huge countenance was televised on a movie screen.

The laser light show was quite stunning, and the children's expressions were all shades of joy.

But look at this… this Lighting of the Doves; Santa,(a glorious one, if I must say so) is brought to the masses in the most dramatic and tasteful fanfare possible, to bring cheer and delight to all the little ones who still don’t know what a terrorist or a super committee is, and remind all of us of the wonder and bliss we had as children… and the kind we want to preserve for our innocents, for as long as we can. That is the kind of world we want… if we only could; Throngs cheer on Santa as if he were a conquering General. He is escorted to the stage with the diplomatic hustle of a worldwide celebrity… and he is. Families clutch one another as he engages with them, one at a time, in clusters, in mass. He is somebody we all know, trust, and love. People of all ages, religions, and cultures can enjoy him… because he is after all an agent of our collective identity, our national conscience. He is our alter-ego.

When you compare him to his equivalent in other cultures, you see how lucky we are. Mythical and folk heroes require centuries to create and are hard to expunge. Just think, we could have dreamed up a selfish, spiteful leprechaun, or been stuck with the Native American trickster, who kept his victims perplexed and frustrated. South American natives had a giant boa constrictor who made them murder and plunder. A review of the gods of India leaves us with no desire to trade our jolly St. Nick for any of their multi-headed, multi appendaged personages. And Santa is real, because he really represents our answer to all the weird, scary, paranormal freaks the world has provided to upset little children.

Santa is good, industrious, benevolent, and loves children all over the world. And that is who we are too… as long as we believe.

So I’m through trashing our old, reliable elf, through complaining about the lack of Christ in Christmas, since after much study, I realize that Christmas is not really Jesus’ birthday, it is and always has been a convenient time to make a tribute to his birth. That is all. There is nothing in the Bible about December 25th. And Santa, the old loveable elf, is an amalgamation of all the Christian values about loving our children, family and giving that Christ inspired.

For people who cannot wrap their brain around Jesus of Nazareth, perhaps they can understand the wonder in a child’s eye, as he or she looks upon love in action. And that is a good start.

A recent visit to MCKITTRICK!

No, I did not get to go... but I am proud and pleased to introduce my brother Reynolds Cushman to you. (We think and write a lot alike, but he has hair and a bigger... vocabulary) He did visit the Canyon just days ago, but since he does not blog, I asked him to start contributing to this one, and he graciously sent us this missive...


November 16, 2011 -- Pecos, Texas

If you know anyone that has worked in oil and gas, then you probably recollect that they travel a fair bit for work. That is a look down the drinking straw at the image of my life. I’m on the exploration end of the oil and gas business, and you are likely on the gas pump end of the oil and gas business. A lot goes into getting it found, up to the surface, through the pipes and into your Toyota or Ford, or to your gas stove. And like that little girl in the Shake And Bake commercials on tv in the 1970s, “and I helped!”

Travel for work is what I do, but that enables me to see a lot of fine country between Texas and Montana. My passion is photography. It gets me out chasing storms, sunsets, blue jays, aoudad (wild sheep), mountain peaks, horned toads, slivers of a river 1800 feet below shimmering in the setting sun -- and the occasional person worth photographing. Maybe they’ve got panache, or just got it, whatever “it” is, going on. I can go for weeks without taking a photo of a person. But when the right one steps into your life for that instant, it can be incomparable, so you shoot 30-50 shots then.

So go with me. Explore. Savor the tasty morsels of day trips I get to make every week in West Texas. I really like the long shadows of sunset and the light which often veritably explodes through the clouds just moments before the sun ducks away for the night.

This past year I’ve been to Alaska for a ptarmigan hunt, and spent months touring around Glacier National Park exploring and chronicling the park’s grandeur. Yes, Glacier is the crown jewel of the national parks. Then, after Alaska, I came to West Texas and got to explore the Davis Mountains during the colossal fires, and catch the powerful storms that mount and spill their fury on the parched landscape.

So come on! Get in, let’s go for a ride. We’ll find something that will just make you shake your head and smile big, and make you wonder why you never found this place before. I’m Reynolds, and I’ll be driving this herd across green pastures and chilly mountain streams.

West Texas is not only big but it is beautiful. Outsiders think they know what West Texas is about because they made a trip on I-10 once driving to Arizona -- and then they think they’ve seen West Texas. Not quite so fast. Reconsider: It is just breath taking and staggeringly beautiful at times and in places. Not all the time or in all the places, but it keeps offering up entrancing vistas to the interested sojourner. One just needs to look.

I’m a big fan of going back and shooting places I’ve enjoyed shooting before. It can be the gift that keeps on giving. I met a photographer’s wife in Montana last year staffing his booth at a fair in Kalispell. Magnficent photographic work. One was a late afternoon shot of jagged peaks bathed in orange, reflecting back into a lake absolutely still and reflecting the mountains wonderfully. The reeds in the grass were great, the sky was great, the exposure was superb, it was just awesome. Quick to chat a shopper up, she told me her husband had been going to that spot for over a year trying to get the right light, the right sky, the right water all at that one brief epoch that lingers just before sunset. It is a glorious time, and almost other worldly on occasion. He invested the time, over and over again, and it paid off. It just took months and months for him to hit a payday. But he did, and in spades. So don't be scared to take your camera back to a spot you've photographed three times before. Maybe the fourth time will be the jackpot you were chasing after the first three times and didn't catch.

This is a series of shots from McKittrick Canyon, on the east side of Guadalupe Mountains National Park right west of the elbow where Texas meets New Mexico, taken on November 6, 2011. The hordes go 40 miles up the road to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, but for the few, the intrepid, McKittrick in late October each year is, well, out of this state kinda weird.

Eleven thousand years ago when the Wisconsin glaciation period retreated back into Canada, part of what it left behind was a small ecosystem -- isolated as deep canyons are -- which holds onto its plant life much more successfully that most anywhere else in Texas. A stand of maples has held onto the canyon, and annual gives a eye-feast to those willing to hike three miles out of the Chihuahuan desert into the nestled wonder called McKittrick Canyon. Just seeing the maples go through their madrigal dance any year is special.

Very special. They put off all the yellows and oranges and reds you could never imagine seeing in Texas, much less in a Texas framed by mountains. But it happens. Enjoy.

Reynolds Cushman aka Pecos Bill

Editor's Note: Yes, he is my little brother, and he is for real!

East Texas Pottery: Potters of the Republic

NOTE: you can read this and the whole series on my new page for just Texas stoneware. Go to the top right of the main page, and click on Texas Stoneware Series.

Large storage jars attributed to James Prothro.

As Western migration poured into Texas in the 1830’sand 40’s, many southern potters made the journey, bringing their trades with them. So as Texas pottery became a small industry, it was an extension of traditions from pottery producing states such as South Carolina and Alabama. For this reason, there are great similarities between Texas stoneware and stoneware from other Southern states. In some cases, the only clue as to origin is the type of clay, or a subtle shade of color in the glaze.

Bob Helberg did extensive research to track down most early Texas potters. He found by the 1840’s there were still only a few potters operating in east Texas, and almost none elsewhere. Here is a partial list:

Taylor Brown and slave Elix; Rusk Co.
James & Lewis Kirbee; Montgomery Co.
James Prothro; Rusk Co.
Cyrus & Jackson Cogburn; Rusk Co.

Since this was the Republic era of Texas, these potters share a distinction as the young and short-lived Nation’s only stoneware manufacturers, who we have record of. You can find my extensive rant on Taylor and Elix Brown in another blog, so I want to focus here on the others.

A Kirbee vessel on display at UT San Antonio.

The Kirbee family of Montgomery County came around 1848, and went to work making pottery for the people of Montgomery County and the surrounding area. Few other towns existed. There was Anderson to the northwest, and Huntsville to the northeast, and Harrisburg and Houston and Galveston to the south. There must have been great pressure to produce stoneware, and the Kirbees had a great opportunity, as this was the only way to store food. A large stoneware jar was the equivalent to a refrigerator today. After extensive study, the University of Texas archeologists found a few broken shards at the Kirbee site, and they managed to reconstruct a few vessels.

Kirbee shards found by UT archeologists.

I have lived near the Kirbee site most of my life, and its existence is part of the reason I started collecting Texas stoneware twenty years ago. But I have never seen any of these vessels outside of a museum. When I finally saw some of them, it was a great disappointment. Kirbee stoneware aptly illustrates what the primitive lifestyle in early pioneer Texas was like.

The only way the Kirbees survived as potters was the absence of competition. They apparently experimented with ash glazes, as the shards reveal, but their pottery was crude, plain, poorly glazed with salt, and made of inferior clay, that was porous and fragile. And that is why they were out of business by the time Texas seceded from the Union in 1861.

A handsome Prothro Jar showing that light golden glow.

James Prothro was everything that the Kirbees were not. He came to Rusk County and started producing pottery in 1846 and later Newton Prothro joined him. They made exquisite stoneware for almost twenty years. The Prothro Pottery Company made a variety of forms, artistically thrown, thin walled, masterfully glazed with ash; they are considered some of the best stoneware makers in east Texas. Ash glazed Prothro forms glow with a golden hue that makes them stand out in any collection.

There can be no doubt that the Prothros set the standard of excellence for the other potters in the region, and that led to a vigorous pottery market in the region, with many potters following suit.

Cyrus and Jackson Cogburn came to Rusk County a year later and started Cogburn Pottery Company. Ultimately they operated kilns in Henderson County as well. Although they only lasted around ten years, Joseph Cogburn kept up production until 1870. Like the other early potters, they made a lot of ash glazed churns and jars for food storage.

Note: If anybody reading this has a decent picture of a Cogburn vessel, we would all appreciate it if they would send it to me! I’ll post it and give you the credit! Send it to: rcush403@aol.com

Quanah Parker, Comanche halfbreed, chief of two worlds: TOP TEN of TEXAS

This is my artist's conception illustrating what a wide-eyed cavalryman described the night he and his bunkies attacked the King of the Southern Plains.

Who knows how many centuries the Comanches had used this gaping hole in the earth in far northwest Texas to hide from their pursuers?

In my younger days I wanted to be a western artist, and I especially loved drawing and painting Native Americans... and my favorite Indians were Comanches.

They were from Texas, and they had as titular head of their nation, a very unusual, very extraordinary man. A man we know as Quanah Parker, born to a captive white woman, who became the greatest Comanche War Chief, at the very end of the "wild Indian," Wild West era. His mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, had been captured by Indians where her famly had established a frontier outpost on the farthest reaches of the Navasota River, in east Texas. Several of her family were killed and little Cynthia was traded around until she was far from home, never to be rescued until she was a grown woman. Quanah was just one of the offspring from the union between Cynthia and Chief Peta Nokona, who ruled and raided the far west Texas plains. Named "fragrance," or stink! as some would translate it, the young halfbreed prince had seen very few white people besides his mother, until he was of fighting age, and he faced them heroically in battle.

As a young war chief, he led hundreds of Comanches and Kiowas and Cheyennes in a seige at Adobe Walls, a trading post in the far northern Texas panhandle, where he showed extraordinary bravery and confidence against the buffalo hunters within the walls. But his people were outgunned and many were killed, and Quanah learned that day that he had to be better, stronger, smarter than this enemy to match him. That may have been when he began to study the white man, and that led to his someday being a ruler in their world as well.

But when the rest of his people gave in and went willingly to the Reservation in Oklahoma, Quanah held out, and spit on the idea of losing his freedom. He was the last wild king of the southern plains. The soldiers hunted him month after month and could not find him... General Ranald S. Mackenzie finally ran him down, finding his secret hiding place... a giant hole in the earth. Today we call it Palo Duro Canyon. I have always found the place to be inspiring, even mystical. There are so many footprints and echoes in the canyon, that speak of the Conquistadores, Quanah, Goodnight and his herds. I always find it hard to leave.

And Quanah did not want to leave either, and fought for his life, and gave amazing resistance. He and a few warriors managed to slip from the Army's grasp. Then finally, after weeks of flight, beaten and hungry, his small group gave in and joined their kinsmen at the reservation. And in most cases, that was the end of the story.

But not Quanah. Quanah contacted his white relatives in Texas. He was no longer treated like a ferocious enemy, but a celebrity. The Governor wrote him a letter giving him passage anywhere he wanted to go. When he found the Parker's, his cousins, he wanted a picture of his mother, then deceased. [Ironically, she was "rescued" and his father killed, by another of my top ten, Texas Ranger Sul Ross] Later the Chief proudly, sentimentally posed with her picture in his home in Oklahoma. Quanah Parker was determined to bridge himself into his new world. He learned some English, and studied the white man's ways. He amassed a fortune on any man's terms. He had many wives, and many children and grandchildren. Amazingly, and only in America, where we nurture our former enemies, authorities saw in him the qualities of leadership useful to any culture.

Quanah Parker was appointed as District Court Judge. He built a massive mansion with many rooms, with giant stars on the roof. He served in this capacity as all powerful judge without fanfare, until somebody noticed... he was a polygamist. When told he had to obey the LAW, and downsize, and send the rest packing.. he pointed to his harem of sad-eyed lovelies and told the authorities... "You tell 'em!"

Never-the-less, he put up tipis in the backyard, for all but Tonarcy, his foremost wife.

When President Teddy Roosevelt and his entourage wanted to go wolf hunting, it was not considered complete without Quanah to ride along. They met at the train station where Roosevelt complimented the Chief on his beautiful daughters who stood proudly behind him. Someone corrected the President... (Ahem) these were not his daughters...

Roosevelt howled, and complimented him again, how did an old man like him keep up with such young wives?

Quanah was not shy about his girls, "Young woman, old woman, ANY woman good for young man... Only young woman good for old man!"

Quanah Parker lived and died, still king of the southern plains, Chief of two worlds, in any man's estimation. And the only man I know of to have ever risen as high as you could go, in two opposing cultures.

That's what makes him one of my "Top Ten in Texas." You can read about Cabeza de Vaca, Frank Hamer, Sam Houston, Michael Murphy, Joe Tex, and Sul Ross in other articles in this blog. I am proud to put Quanah on that list.

There will be more, floating down the Navasota Current.

Hard lessons in antiquing… The 7up List

Every kid once pretended he was a pirate. Pirates were the traffickers of buried treasure, and that was an exotic and sensational prize. When I first started collecting, it had that mystique about it; Searching all over, learning to read clues, absorbed in the hunt, you were focused, and determined. The prize was out there. You had to find it. And the fun part about the search was that not everybody was aware of the value of your prize. They might be using it for a door stop, or a dog bowl. It might have been thrown away in some dry gulch, waiting for someone to retrieve it. It might be put up for sale in a garage sale by uninformed and thus unworthy owners. Better yet, it might be on a shelf of a country junk shop, dusty and neglected and begging for recognition. Often covered under a bunch of worthless rubble, it often felt like a treasure hunt when you dug around some old and time-forgotten place.

And there were so many different kinds of treasure. There was the obvious gold and silver coins, and old money, and things made of precious metals; watches, jewelry, serving sets. But more exciting to me were things that told stories. Old guns and tools, and arrowheads. We bought metal detectors and spent countless hours methodically searching likely areas for buried artifacts. But that was often hard work, requiring some hefty digging to recover an … old rusty bath tub leg or a bent horseshoe. Soon we learned more profitable ventures, like rifling through old dumps. Every settlement, large or small had a dumping ground, where people disposed of their unwanted glass and crockery for perhaps fifty or a hundred years. We found promising places very near our home in Satsuma, and kept an eye open for promising looking gulches.

Once we found a great little dump on Malcomson Road, south of Tomball, where we found one of the all time great stashes. My brother and I had already gone over the spot, dug here and there, and were convinced there was nothing of value. When our dad heard we had given up, he became disgusted and made us go back. He guaranteed we would find something. He was like that. So we went back and looked again. Still, we dug around in a spot we thought the loot might be, with no luck. Then our dad got out of the car and began to kick around on the very top of a sea of rusty cans. We had gone too deep, to the layer that might cough up pre-turn of the Century bottles. The cans were almost fifty years old, and never disturbed again since they had been dumped, and now soft and fragile, they disintegrated in our hands as we dug. Suddenly old brown, squatty 7-up bottles began to show up. Some were like new and were from the 1930’s. We had a field day, thrashing through the old rotted cans like bulldozers, and ultimately found a whole case of the bottles. Some of them still had all the paint, and were worth fifty bucks apiece, even then.

That was our first lesson in this collecting adventure. Never make assumptions, never quit looking, never leave a stone unturned. When you enter a building, look down, look up, look underneath things, up in closet, in the attic… You never know.

My brother Reynolds and I went to Canton's First Monday Trade Days the next month and put out the bottles on the table. Suddenly we were big shots. I must have been sixteen and he was thirteen. The sharks swooped in and out- foxed us pretty quickly. They begged and begged to trade with us, perhaps we would like some nice colorful medicines or bitters bottles... The collectors at Canton Trade Days were the worst about squirming and begging, almost like you owed them to let them beat you in an unfair trade. They kept offering junk we did not want. We just wanted the money. But we did not find many collectors there that used money unless you put a gun their head. I saw what was coming, so I divided up the bottles, telling Reynolds to do what he wanted with his half. Soon many were gone and he was looking blankly at some old “stomachic bitters” bottle, and other unimpressive glass medicine bottles. After they got all of his, they swooped on me like a vengeance. By now the word was out. The booth became Custer’s last stand, as we grew tired of the eager interest in our old 7-up bottles. They relentlessly hounded us until we coughed them up, for less than wholesale prices. That was a hard lesson, and it was not easy to say NO to grown-ups, who keep pressuring you. But it sure was fun being a big shot for a few hours.

Easy come, easy go.

That brought up the second big lesson; Time is your friend. If you keep it, it will only be worth more. Use time to your advantage. Antiques are not fruit or vegetables, they will not rot or go bad. Make the collector sweat. After all, his whole existence depends on getting your stuff. The show might end and he has not gotten what he wanted. Make him be the one who breaks down.

But I had not learned my lesson very well. While in college I ran upon a trunk load of old antique Texas license plates. 1938-1955. Mint, never issued, still had the paper between the plates. I swaggered out to Canton like I was a big shot, unloaded my boxes of treasures, and had them strewn across the grass like a real operator. Suddenly they converged on me. Will you take a check? Can you break a hundred? What will you take for them all? I ran to get some change, and while I was gone, somebody lifted all the 1944 War tags. That was worth around five bills. Disgusted, I sold off the remainder and only brought home some damaged ones. I made around four hundred dollars, but I lost more than I made.

Lesson number three, four and five: Never underestimate your success. Treat it like a business. BE PREPARED. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Don’t squander your great treasure finds. Watch your stuff like a hawk, the first thing that will happen is somebody will take advantage of you. Do your homework, and know enough about your product to fake it BEFORE you set up.

Years later I had a booth at Canton and I had a really nice pair of old Kelly spurs for sale; early Kellys, before they were marked with the famous stamp. All weekend the cowboy collectors came jingling by, looking at my spurs, tight-lipped, grunting to each other, indignant that someone like me had such treasures. I wasn’t even a real cowboy guy. They did not know me. I must be stupid. So they made ridiculous offers, trades and whatever. They questioned the maker. Complained about the mark. If they keep coming back, berating you and your merchandise, that is a good sign! And there was whining and gnashing of teeth. Some guys made several visits to my booth, unable to hide their eager interest. They were trying to use time as their weapon. But I knew, at the very worst, I would go home and hang those great old spurs on my cowboy wall, until I found somebody smart enough to pay me for them.

Good old Walt Rambo, a spur maker and spur expert happened to be showing nearby, so I took them down for his opinion. He did not want to make things any harder for his friends, as the spurs had been a topic for discussion at his both as well. But he told me they were probably good old “honest” (good original condition, not repaired or cleaned) spurs as he liked to call them. That was all I needed to know.

You can never know it all, so always welcome an opinion you trust.

Come about 4:30 that evening, as everybody was starting to pack up, one of my cowboy guys, the biggest whiner of all, came back and made me a fair offer. Time had been my best friend. And when it comes to antiques, it always will be.

That’s the 7up List. Made by learning the hard way. I’ll always keep one of those bottles around to remind me. Antiques often make good object lessons as well!

Texas Antiques

The old plantation bell on the Moore Farm, an important "antique" with intrinsic value.

If you watch The Antique Roadshow which we watch every week, you probably know that Texas Antiques are barely on the radar, unless you are in Texas. Texans are so wrapped up in their own world, and humorously compete, quite aggressively for things totally unknown to the rest of the world. One time I stood in line at the Roadshow with a couple of items, both belonging in a Texas museum somewhere, (one had been on exhibit at WashoBrazos)only to get fairly flat responses from the appraisers. In fact I had to get a reference book they had on a table and point out the maker of the rocking chair I was dragging along, only to be told I should contact Bayou Bend, a house museum in Houston, as they might have an interest in it. But they knew nothing about it and did not seem interested to learn.

I KNEW WHAT IT WAS! I just wanted to show off and be on television. But the Keno brothers would probably not know a Steinhagen rocking chair if one rocked on their toe. (That's right, they not only share a show they share a toe;) As in politics and wealth and jobs and growth and many other areas where Texas shines, the rest of the Country is... jealous and kind of indignant. We were a Country once, we have a distinct character and attitude and pride in our State, and we have our own antiques. And by and large, we don't care about the rest of the Country either.

So this series is gojng to be about the material culture that sets Texas apart. Whether it is reasonable or not, when I go to bid on early Texas blues records, or handmade spurs, or primitive furniture, or soda water trays, or stoneware, they cost more than others. There is nothing made in Texas that is inferior in price in the antique market. Texans care more and pay more, and because they do, others do as well. We call it Texas chauvenism.

So I want the next generation to know what the names McChesney, Steinhagen, Dunkin, Onderdonk, and Dance and many others mean to our state, our Texas culture, that make us so special and the envy of everybody else. Even if the Antique Roadshow has no clue.

Texas, like California, has a very diverse mix of peoples and topography and thus an exciting tradition of material culture. But you cannot name an Indian tribe from California. Texas had Comanches, Apaches, Kiowas, Cherokees and all those Hollywood words. You can't name a famous real cowboy from California... but Texas had Charlie Goodnight, John Chism, Bill Pickett, and tons more, and a healthy dose of the Hollywood cowboys, like Tex Ritter, Ben Johnson and Audie Murphy. When it comes to collecting Western Americana, Texas born items are at the top of "the most coveted list." But that is also true about many other things. The world loves Texas.

And they should.

So where to start? I want you to really appreciate the things made by Texans; things made by hand, hand carved, hand forged, hand thrown, hand woven, and hand painted. These are the rare, evocative cultural items that will never be made again, never be needed again, and yet symbolize this great State. So I made a list of names you can look forward to, for starters... in no particular order.

Texas Stoneware: Kirbee, Meyer, Stoker, Saenger, Suttles, Leopard, McDade, Prothro.

Native American Pottery & Basketry: Coushatta, Tigua, Caddo

Hand Wrought Spurs & Bits: Boone, Crockett, McChesney, Kelly

Handmade Furniture: Steinhagen, Bedemeier

Texas Originated Brands: Dr. Pepper, Borden's, Lone Star, Pearl, Shiner, Bright & Early

Highly Collectible Music: Scott Joplin, Texas Alexander, Blind Willie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Leadbelly, Bob Wills, Buddy Holly

Texas Landscape Painters: Onderdonk, Wood, Salinas

Texas Firearms: Dance Bros, Tyler

Starting soon... on the Navasota Current.

Collecting and collectors Part I

After well over three hundred blogs, I guess I can start to reveal my true self. Sure you can read about my interests, my delusions, and glean from some of my useful nuggets, but up until now I have refrained from getting real deep. I don’t preach that much at you, even though you may not think so, yet I am a natural born, insufferable preacher. Just ask my brother or wife or daughter. I haven’t tried to sell you my art, and that is my lifelong passion and profession. And I haven’t really talked much about collecting antiques. So you don’t really know the first thing about me.

You see I was almost born into the antique business. My father was a historian and a habitual packrat, and my mother was an artist, craftsperson and an instinctive decorator, so it was only a matter of time until they discovered antiques as a family pastime. Thinking back, it must have been Hurricane Carla that provided the impetus for this evolution. For months after the great storm we used to patrol the beaches on Galveston Island looking for interesting driftwood, weathered boards, old door panels, shutters, anything that could be transformed into Americana. Many a trip I remember, our sun-charred shoulders aching, headed back to Houston with that stuff sticking out of the station wagon windows while we rolled our eyes in male skepticism. Mom would take an old slab of salty pine and paint flowers or a cornucopia on it, and sold it as fast as she could paint it.

That soon turned into larger projects; old trunks, cupboards and wrought iron beds. By the time I was ten years old I was handed a sanding block or a stripping scraper and told this was what we did for fun. Weekend after weekend, we scoured the countryside hunting for antiques, bringing home truckloads of junk to fix up and sell at my mother’s rent house, turned workshop cum antique shop in a residential neighborhood in Houston’s Park Place.

We kind of became a friendly scourge of the earth. It seemed there was cool stuff lurking in every old shack and barn down every dirt road, and some old guy was glad to get rid of it. When we went to visit relatives in rural Arkansas, we always came home with a car packed with old farm implements and milk cans and churns and other things cast off by my cousins. They still talk about us today.

We made hasty trips to raid Mrs. Winslow’s sprawling shop in Montgomery, where the legendary old dealer greeted everybody with a toothless smile as she petted her pistol and money bag in her lap, forbidding all comers to dare come into her unkempt compound wearing shorts. Large signs on her dilapidated building blared crudely NO SHORTS! In her mind, she was running a high class place. My dad would stand outside looking dejected and then finally confess he was wearing shorts… UNDERNEATH! She would cackle and wave him in, and would melt and give him all kinds of “bargains,” as my brother and I wandered around the jungle in the backyard; an infinite, tangled, rotting bone yard of old farm trucks, tractors, lawn mower parts, and mysterious objects smothered under twenty years of vines and fallen pine needles. We were American pickers before we knew what that meant. But whatever you called it, we loved it. After awhile our little antique cottage in Houston looked like a genuine junk yard, and that’s when we moved out to the country in the northwest Houston suburbs to get more room to operate.

In the meantime, my mother had discovered Texas “primitives.” In the beginning we thought she had lost her mind, preferring that old pine slapstick furniture to beautiful, hand-carved Victorian masterpieces. But she proved she was on to something as she got to know the main Texas collectors and antique moguls, and she began to get invited to some of the most prestigious shows in Texas.

By the time we took up residence at Satsuma (Champions area), we were doing at least half a dozen shows annually and Canton Trade Days or the Common Market on the Southwest Freeway on weekends in between. It was at one of these convention center antique shows where I met Les Beitz of Austin, a Western author and illustrator who sort of gave me the blessing for my life’s calling. He was the one who assured my father, that yes, I had what it took, and he began to send me his own original pen & ink illustrations, published in Old West magazine to inspire and encourage me. I began to decorate my room with cowboy memorabilia, and collected spurs and skulls and animal traps. Suddenly antiques and history and art seemed like one big thing to me.

And Les taught me something else, something with eternal value. The idea of planting a seed in a young person, with nothing more than a hunch, no strings attached, giving them a larger vision of themselves, merely by assuring them they CAN. Les was not in it for the money. He was in it for the history, the love of creativity and storytelling. He understood that it was the people who made the business, not the stuff.

We did antique shows in Columbus, Pasadena, Chappell Hill, Richmond-Rosenberg, La Grange and finally in the early seventies we were invited to do the famous show in Round Top, Texas at Rifle Hall. That was the cat’s meow. Emma Lee Turney had established a real Texas tradition at Round Top, and everybody in the Antique world came to or wanted to be an exhibitor at her stellar show at the old Rifle Hall. You had to pay to even get in to look. As you parked your car, you smelled barbeque and heard German polka musicians echoing in the live oak trees. Sweet country greeters sold you homemade bread and pies at the front door, and inside was a veritable Smithsonian of Texana, with fabulous New England antiquities salted around for good measure. And Texas primitives were IN!

It was not unusual for Texas dignitaries to be seen walking amongst the crowd. This is where I saw my first Houston “Gay” antique dealer. Several of them became good friends of the family and lifetime sources for rarities. Faith Bybee, antique collector and author extraordinaire, and Ima Hogg, legendary Texas preservationist and founder of the Winedale Historical Center were occasionally seen perusing the booths. My mother took great pride when attendants rolled Ms. Hogg, probably in her eighties by then, into our booth. She was even more thrilled when she complemented her on her things, and sometimes purchased something. Meanwhile, my little brother and I ran with the other antique dealer’s kids, exploring the nearby creeks and pastures and enjoying the local food and hospitality.

I was oblivious of what was being instilled in me, and could never have imagined that all those weekends would in many ways set my course for life. Now it is obvious, but at the time it was just having something to do. We were “antiquers,” “junkers” as my dad called it. What little my dad knew about antiques, he more than made up with his skill in merchandising. Whenever mom could not sell something, he always suggested for her to go UP on the price. It was always good counsel, and worked so often that my mom became almost indignant.

My father recognized there was more going on than bargain hunting for a certain group, who needed something even more important to them; status. And to an amazingly sizable group, things only had value when they were difficult to attain, and were priced accordingly.

To be a good dealer, you have to be at least half mercenary. As another old dealer who has known and counseled me since childhood has always preached… “You can’t be in love with the stuff.” If you love it too much, then you will pay too much for it, not leaving enough room for profit, and you will not care whether you sell it or not, and thus not ever make any money. And even though my mother enjoyed antiques, she never loved things so much she would not turn them, and she made plenty of money that way. My old friend also has always told me I was too generous, giving away trade secrets. “Your knowledge is your stock and trade,” he would say. But Les Beitz got a hold of me first. So I am about half mercenary, after all. But it was the Les in me that has started several pickers in the antique pickin’ business.

This was the beginning of my education about collecting, and a more ugly topic; collectors. I grew up with half a dozen collectors hovering around my house, like sharks amongst the fishes, always finding some pretense to come in and “talk” to my mother, who was all too aware of the game. She used her reputation and “home field advantage” like a black widow. She just grinned sweetly, innocently, but now I know she understood these folks, mostly women, were driven by greed and covetousness. They were far beyond wanting what was in her shop, but wanted to get at those things she did not wish to sell. And nearly everything had its price. That was the challenge. Soon it became clear that for the passionate collector, collecting was about winning. About wanting and getting the best, most coveted, most protected treasures, from those who had them. Sometimes these were totally clueless hoarders, other times they might be someone like my mother who was “in the know.” It was an added plus to be able to say, “I got this from Margaret… from her own collection.” This was the ultimate honey hole.

In other words, “I have access to the real stuff, but you can’t even get in the door”. Often, as soon as they “conquered” her, they were calling back, wanting to relive the experience; “What else you got?” Sometimes, as the thrill would wane, they came back, even wanting to trade something back in. It was a collecting “fix” they hungered for; A shallow, materialistic, covetous game, and my mom was the ambivalent pusher. I can’t tell you how many times one of these “customers” would buy something out of our dining room while in competition with the others, only to call the next day with buyer’s remorse. The things themselves had no magic, they only represented a false promise that things always make… “If you have me, you can be satisfied.” But the collectors never were.

That illustration has recreated itself multiple times over the years as I have watched the same demons drive the collectors of my generation. And that has made me love the whole “collecting thing” less and less. I have always told myself I collected for a kind of altruistic purpose, to save the material culture of my community for future generations, so they will care and understand more about our and our forefather’s time and place. I’m worried that we are losing our identity and our story, and I want to help preserve it. The way Ms. Ima Hogg did.

So my family began to dream of living where the antiques grew on trees... out in the hinterland of Texas.. someplace in Austin or Montgomery County. We would drive on weekends and look over the landscape... Taking note of for sale signs. And then we discovered Washington County when we did an antique show there. Soon a picker for my mom said he had a place for sale...

Next time on the Navasota Current.