Family - grace grits and gardening

T is for Texas!

April 23, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

As a child, Texas held a certain mystique for me. Larger than life and certainly larger than our corner of Northeast Arkansas, the Lone Star State was home to giant belt-buckle-wearing cowboys, gun-toting Texas Rangers and ♫♫Davy, Davy Crockett… King of the Wild Frontier♫♫♫.

Texas was the place of tall tales where crude oil flowed like the Mississippi River.

historic White Elephant Saloon, Ft. Worth, Tx

Papa Creecy shot a wild boar while hunting in Texas. Like any proud hunter, he stuffed it and hung the beast on the wall of his den. The hog’s sharp teeth and wild eyes scared most of my friends but not me. I thought it was neat, just like Texas.

I was planning to live there someday.

When Daddy gassed up the Oldsmobile and announced we were headed to Mexico for summer vacation, the drive through Texas took DAYS, as though we traveled by covered wagon. Our first night was always spent in Texarkana, a town that straddled both Arkansas and Texas.

Do you want to sleep on the Arkansas side or the Texas side, Daddy asked? TEXAS, we cheered! The air was different at the motel on the Texas side.

photo courtesy of bizjournal

Don’t say a word until we get through Houston, Momma warned us the second afternoon of our journey. Daddy was crazy-nervous driving in all that bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic underneath tangled overpasses that reached high into the hot Texas sky. My little sister and I sat quietly in the back seat coloring. We barely moved or breathed until we came out on the other side of the city.

Queuing up to drive across the border into Mexico, I was sure we would be arrested for smuggling. What we might have been smuggling, I wasn’t sure, but I felt certain we were guilty of something. After a lengthly wait and inspection by border agents waaaaay scarier than Papa Creecy’s wild boar, we entered and exited with no problema.

Texas always held a certain mystique for me. Someday I was planning to live there.

And then I did.

talya

“You can all go to hell; I will go to Texas”
― David Crockett

Musical Pairing:

The Yellow Rose of Texas, c 1836-1858, became popular during the Civil War

Blogging my way through the alphabet. T is for Texas!

Q is for Quilt

April 19, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

quilted by John’s Grandmother Siebenmorgen

Our home is filled with vintage quilts,

each a beautiful piece of artwork,

each as unique as the woman behind the craft.

Within the tight stitches, family history lives,

thoughts and feelings woven into cotton,

conversations trapped between layers of fabric.

Blankets of love to keep us warm.

Old and frayed, more precious than gold.

quilted by Pauline Boerner (my mother-in-law)

quilted by my aunts –
Virgie Johnson Stubbs & Rena Johnson Kennedy

Turtle Quilt
quilted by Nana (Frances Johnson Creecy)

talya

When we make something it holds more than just the materials we use. – Miss Henrietta, Flights of Fancy by Crow Johnson Evan
Musical Pairing:

I’ll Be Seeing You, Rosemary Clooney

P.S. all these quilts were made in Arkansas:)

Blogging my way through the alphabet…
A to Z April Blog Challenge. Q is for Quilt.

N is for Nana ❤❤❤

April 16, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

Nana and Me

“Do you have any gum, Nana?” The pew was hard, the sermon dull, my right foot dead asleep.

Digging in her pocketbook, Nana pulled out sticks of Spearmint gum to occupy my sister and me for a few moments. I tried not to smack.

“Draw.A.Duck.” I mouthed the words silently and handed her an offering envelope from the pew in front of me. Offering envelopes were stored beside the hymnals and made good scrap paper in a pinch.

With one sweep of a pencil, Nana had this silly way of drawing a duck. Her signature artwork looked more swan or turkey-like than duck-like, which amplified the funny factor ten-fold during preaching, or during any serious occasion when laughing was frowned upon.

“That doesn’t look like a duck, Nana,” my sister murmured, trying to stifle her laugh which sent us, Nana included, head first into a fit of silent giggles, shoulder-shaking giggles, the sort often mistaken for sobbing—as though we could be wholly moved by Brother Brown’s boring message…

From the piano bench, Momma shot us the stink-eye, but she wanted to laugh too. Nana had that effect on everyone.