Janice Williams Loves Austin

I just had a great dinner with a “new” cousin. Tim M. found me a month or two ago through the “family project” page of my website (which has been woefully untouched since summer). He and I share the same great-great-grandfather Hood, who was a Williamson County, Texas, pioneer. Finally, with the holidays and obligations over, we met up in Georgetown tonight for a great dinner at the Monument Cafe and two hours of scintillating conversation.

I am not going to put Tim’s full name here. He apparently has stalkers and I’d hate for them to Google him. He’s famous in his industry and has been on TV promoting his business and doing some very interesting things and has found out that “friends” come out of the woodwork.

His mother and my grandmother were first cousins. I wish Mamma were alive today so I could tell her all about Tim and ask her about his family. It was fun to get together with him personally. Email is great, but you sometimes can’t tell people’s tone or opinions. In person we were both fully able to confess to the fact that we think our family reunion is boring and maybe there are one or two people that we both know within the family that are pompous.

Tim has met many famous people and had some wild stories about so many of them. Imagine David Allan Coe standing in his boxer shorts at the hotel door that joins your suite to his, asking if you want to come party with him and his “ol’ lady.”

He also had great stories related to the radio personalities that I’ve worked with for years that he has known through his business. We tended to agree on our opinions of most of them, as well.

Tim loves classic country music and you know how I feel about it so we talked music through all of this, too.

One interesting theme of the night seemed to be how things happen for a reason. How events occur that turn our lives in completely different directions. Tim’s ancestors from the other side of his family came to this part of Texas and got off the train in Granger. Their ultimate destination was San Angelo where other members of the family had already settled. But there was a saloon in Granger and one thing led to another and now the family remains near Granger almost 100 years later.

Or the story about Tim being a pilot. To be a pilot, there are required physical check-ups on an every-six-month basis. Tim, hale and hearty, went for his semi-yearly physical. The doctor poked and prodded and asked if he was in pain. No, no pain, he was fine. The doctor sent him for a CT scan. The radiologist asked how long Tim had been sick. Sick? He’s not sick, he told them. The radiologist wouldn’t let him leave the clinic and then the doctor called, informing Tim he had a very large tumor on his kidney. Tim had to drive straight to Seton Hospital to have it removed the next day. If he had not had that physical and that diagnosis, he would have probably died in six months. Wow. Makes you not want to put off that annual exam, right? He said his mother was always worried that flying would get him killed, yet flying saved his life.

Since he was a pilot, I got to tell about my brush with death while flying as a traffic reporter in Dallas. He had all the appropriate reactions and understood how close and how serious that near hit was.

Tonight was pure delight and I had expected it to be, based on the liveliness of his emails. I had a flash of concern this afternoon, though, when I thought back to another cousin I met and spent an afternoon with back in the 1990s. I don’t remember how much communication we had had prior to his visit, but he was odd and deadly dull. I guess he was too distantly related to be fun-loving like everyone within most of my family tree is. He must have had some dull blood mix in somewhere along the way.

Tim also brought me a chart he made outlining how he and I are cousins with Elvis. He and Elvis are sixth cousins twice removed, I think, so I am three times removed. Elvis made the movie “Kissin’ Cousins.” I believe sixth cousins three times removed counts, right?

I am a very lucky person in that I truly get to enjoy the holiday season without the stress of overspending and having to find a perfect gift. At least mostly. Several years ago, probably during the recession of 2001, my family agreed  not to give gifts to one another. We would give to the boys, but we didn’t need to worry about anyone else. It made for the nicest Christmas we had ever had. It was more fun to watch the boys enjoy their toys and excitement without having to worry about the delicate balance of equality of gifts we gave and accepted. It was such a hit, we haven’t gone back to gifts since then. Oh, we still may give a little “thank you for having us to dinner” gift and maybe another one or two, but there is not the big worry and long list each year. We haven’t quite broken Mark’s family of it yet, but we are working on it. And his mother and brother give us lovely things, so I can’t complain, but I can feel guilty.

But what I started to write about…. It is a darn good thing we don’t give gifts because I do not understand the gifts that are given these days. There is an ad on TV or in every flyer constantly for cell phones. Yes, I would love to give Mark a new cell phone since he continues to dislike his iPhone, but what good would that do? He has a contract on the iPhone until October so giving him another phone just means added expense. And do you go and give cell phones to co-workers? relatives? casual friends? They make it look like everyone wants to get a cell phone so you may as well put it down for everyone on your gift list. So does that mean you will pick up the tab for the monthly service, too? Okay, put me down and I’ll be happy to accept your gift of a cell phone. I think the same thing with all the 2-for-1 deals on cell phones. You have to get service on each of them to get the good deal and who does that? Sure, a couple may end up getting new phones at the same time (but if it is like Mark and I we would never agree on the phone that we both need or could afford). You might get yourself and your teenager a phone, but does that truly justify ALL of the ads for cell phones? I guess they are making money hand over fist so there must be something in the equation I just don’t get.

True, I am not the target audience for a cell ad. I have had a cheap little Nokia phone that has worked moderately well for years and years now. I’m sure it is at least 4 or 5 years old. When I was doing radio endorsements for AT&T (and they were and are my carrier) they loaned me a nice Samsung flip phone to use. I liked a lot of things about it a lot. Big numbers. Easy to read. Louder calls. More ring tones. But, dang it, it wouldn’t receive or place phone calls in the building I worked in, even though the Nokia, using the exact same SIM card, would. So I abandoned the Samsung and stuck with my Nokia. It’s not that I don’t like change, I just want an iron-clad guarantee that the change will be all good and no hassles.

And that’s what I’m asking for for Christmas…  A new year with an iron-clad guarantee that it will be all good and no hassles.

Nothing like starting the day creating a little panic. I mentioned to Mark that 17 years ago today he put a ring on my finger and the sheer terror in his eyes was unmistakable. Pretty funny, too. It isn’t the anniversary of our wedding, it is the anniversary of our engagement. Or at least the anniversary of our engagement RING. We got engaged, seriously, one week after we met. It just took a few months to afford the ring.

I knew Mark had the engagement ring. It wasn’t a surprise like with many couples. Even couples who pick out rings together, like we did, the bride usually doesn’t know when the final product is ready. But we bought our rings from my brother, a diamond dealer in Dallas. When he couldn’t get Mark on the phone to let him know the rings were finished, he called and told me. Later my sister “skinned him alive” for having done that, since the bride isn’t supposed to know. But is was me! His sister-in-law. Different situation. So I called and left Mark a message, but I didn’t think about whether he went to get them or not.

It was a cold, rainy December day and I was flying and reporting on traffic back then. It had been a miserable cold Monday and when I got through I didn’t feel well at all. I dropped by Mark’s house and told him I felt miserable and just needed to go to bed with some Nyquil. No, he insisted, he wanted to take me to dinner! He had a place we hadn’t eaten before that he wanted me to experience. I realized then that this was going to be my big engagement night, though I still thought Nyquil and bed sounded like the best option.

Mark took me to a lovely Italian restaurant and we had a really nice dinner. But I waited and waited and my nervous boyfriend was slow to pop the question. And he never did really pop the question. No, he didn’t get on his knee and make a grand gesture. I finally said, “Is there something you want to ask me?” and he produced a ring, but was too choked up to say a word. It was all a blur, really, after that because of course I was excited and blubbery and glad to have that beautiful diamond on my finger. We bought an antique set of white gold rings somewhat similar to the rings my Mother had and had a new diamond set in the engagement band.

Suddenly, my cold and the Nyquil were the furthest thing from my mind. We were ready to show off and we went and visited Mrs. Stone, a dear friend that loved us both like her own kids. We visited friends Zinda and Frank, too, a couple I’ve long lost touch with. I called my parents and sister and told them the news, too.

Mark claims we have about 100 anniversaries. I don’t believe it is quite that many because I do not usually make note of the true anniversary of our deciding we would get married–the day I proposed to him. I do usually comment on the day we met, but don’t expect fanfare, just acknowledgment. I’m still pretty much in awe and shock that it all happened exactly like it did and happened as quickly as it did. I wasn’t certain I was going to be an old maid, but I sure didn’t expect to fall head-over-hills in love with such a perfect guy so easily. I am ever grateful that it was all pretty easy and no debate whether I should or worry whether he would… It was a done deal fast and easy and 17 years later it is even more perfect than I could have imagined.

With a kitten sitting in front of my monitor this morning, I will try to blog on this cold, wet, winter morning. Good, now he has moved to be able to read along as I write (and bat at the cursor as it goes by, too).

My thoughts are on my cousin Larry this week. Today is his 56th birthday and, coincidentally, the birthday of his twin brother Garry, too! Last Wednesday, just before  Thanksgiving, he was in an accident.

Larry manages an RV park in the Valley where the snowbirds go to winter. Someone had a minibike that wasn’t working. Larry has loved motorcycles since he was old enough to make a motor sound with his mouth and was happy to jump in and help make this minibike run. They got it running, I hear, and Larry hopped on it and took it down the way for a spin, out of sight. The folks he was with heard the engine on the motorbike stop. They waited for Larry to get it started again or walk it back, but he didn’t show up. So they went looking for him and found him unconscious on a large paved lot and a woman close by that had stopped and was calling 911. He was airlifted to a Harlingen hospital.

Larry is still in the neurological ICU this morning and still on a ventilator. They have taken him off the sedation that kept him in a coma, but he hasn’t woken up yet. We are waiting for good news. There has been precious little of it in the last 7 days.

But I wanted to write about Larry, not about the injury. Larry and Garry are five years older than me. The word I have heard about their growing up days was, “If one of them didn’t think of it, the other one did.” Those little boys were into everything.

Aunt Louie took the boys with her to Colorado one summer while she was working on her Master’s degree. They lived in a house that had a large ditch in front of the houses that was there for snow melt and rain to drain away. Larry and Garry — while just still toddlers — got out there and dammed up the ditch and created irrigation for the front yard. They were farmers from the start.

As older cousins, they were FUN! We got into all sorts of things together. We used to play with BB guns and chase bandits or be bandits. We threw chickens down into the storm shelter. I think our intention there was to see how long they could live down there. Of course, we checked on them two minutes later, soon got bored and let them out. Most vividly, I remember that they had bunk beds in their room. Larry, Garry, and I were on the top bunk and my sister was a lion on the bottom bunk. Her job was to terrorize us on the top bunk. Larry and Garry set mousetraps around the perimeter of the bed for her to reach up and be trapped by. We knew how to have fun as kids!

Larry and Garry were 9 when their little brother Ronny was born. Ronny had an easy childhood because there was no way he could cause the trouble that the twins had gotten into. He was their biggest fan as they got motorcycles and would take him for rides.

As a farming family, all of the boys farmed from birth. They always seemed to know how to drive a tractor and a pick-up and handle cows and stock tanks and haul hay. Larry was ordained as a minister at one point. I was there for the service and I guess that’s the only ordination I’ve ever seen. I remember that it was very cool that they called for other ministers to come and “lay on the hands” while Larry knelt at the front of their church. My grandfather was there and he was an ordained minister, too, so he did that. I was about 13 at the time, but I already had that love of genealogy and really liked the continuing of a family tradition. As it turns out, Larry didn’t ever become a preacher, but his little brother Ronny did.

Larry was a great salesman. He sold groceries for a big grocery distributor at one time. I remember him telling me about his job and you could tell he was good at it because he was easy-going and easy to talk to and never needed to sell you something you didn’t want. My dad’s name was Durward and Larry said he used “Uncle Durward” a lot in his sales pitch. He would be with a customer and say, “Well, as my ol’ Uncle Durward used to say . . . ” and that always got a laugh. And I’m sure he had lots of things my dad truly said, because Daddy, Uncle Jay, and Larry and Garry were frequently together at family gatherings and the old men pontificated and told the boys how it was.

My friends called Larry “the fun one.” I don’t like to tell this story much because I don’t want Garry to think he is NOT fun, because he is. They are just different and my friends made the judgment on one meeting. We had a family gathering for July 4 at our house in Canyon in the 1980s. My friends Sandy and Beth came out to the house for it and my aunts and cousins were all with us, too. We were in our mid-20s, so Larry and Garry were at least 30 at that point. I think Larry had already married and had a little girl Aubrey by then, too. But, in the spirit of a a summertime holiday, Mom had fun things for us to play with and there were water pistols. While Garry sat with Daddy and Uncle Jay and pontificated, Larry filled his water gun and chased after us all and we had a ball. Therefore, he became “the fun one” when my friends try to clarify my cousins.

Mark and I had our first Christmas together in 1992. We drove from Dallas to Canyon on Christmas Eve and stopped by Eldorado, Oklahoma, so see the White family. Larry kept us in stitches with his stories as he always had. It was important for me to show off Mark and let him get to know these close cousins.

Larry and his daughters and granddaughter

I haven’t seen as much of Larry over the last 15 years or so. He was at Uncle Jay’s 80th birthday party in 2006 and then last year when Uncle Jay died he was at the funeral, of course. Through those last few months of Uncle Jay’s life, he was home and did everything he could to take care of him and to take care of their farm and cows, too. That meant a lot to his family.

So with Christmas on the way, his mom and brothers wait at the hospital and his daughters are finishing college finals or  taking care of his granddaughter, I’m thinking about Larry on his birthday, hoping a Christmas miracle is in the works.

My Mother with Garry and Larry in 1954