We arrived in Texarkana at 8:15, only two hours late on Amtrak (which is really pretty good, considering we spent so much time sitting on sidings “waiting for freight traffic to clear.”) Betty and Keith had left the car at the station before Keith went fishing for the morning, so we retrieved it, and went to their house for a nap and to get cleaned up, since we couldn’t get into the motel until after 3:00 pm.
By noon or so we were ready to face the world. I had made a lunch date with Sue Ellen Hall, one of my girlhood friends, so we had a nice time catching up. Then we went by to see her parents, elderly and I’m not sure they knew who I was, but we visited a while. While I was out, Big Al went shopping for some jeans that would fit him – the cowboy store is about the only place that carries them. He was able to get two pairs, so he was a happy camper. I had tried to start my wash at Betty’s, but apparently I don’t understand her new, state-of-the-art washer, because it just sat there and looked at me. Anyway, she came home and finished the wash while we went and checked in at the motel.
Dinner at Bryce’s again (never pass up that opportunity).
Saturday morning I wanted to take some pictures around Texarkana, so we went to the cemetery to get pictures of the family graves for me to include in the genealogy.
My grandparents’ gravestone – and also the final resting place of my parents. My folks didn’t want us to spend a bunch of money on markers for them, since they were both cremated, so we sprinkled their ashes on Nannie and Gankie’s grave. Big Al thinks we ought to have their names added to the stone for future generations to know where they were, particularly since he’s seen me obsessing over birth and death dates when I’m trying to do the genealogy.
Uncle Stuart had enough space for all of his children and all of their husbands.
Uncle Jim and Aunt Mary are buried near all the rest of them, so three of the Eakin girls with their husbands are together in the Texarkana cemetery.
After the cemetery, Big Al and I went down to the Post Office for the obligatory picture with a foot in two states.
And finally we had Betty come take our picture together (NOTE, I’m in Arkansas, and Big Al is in Texas.)
We stopped by the houses my grandparents and parents lived in.
2017 Laurel,, where I was born and lived off and on until it burned when I was in college.
1924 Laurel, where my grandparents moved to after 2017 burned, and which my parents bought from them when they retired.
Sunday was a day spent in the car as we drove from Texarkana to Burns, TN, where my cousin Anne and her husband, Jeff, live. It was a very uneventful trip (TBTG) and we arrived in time to visit a while before supper. They live on a farm in the rolling hills of Tennessee between Nashville and Jackson. They have two daughters and have built them both houses on the farm. Both girls are away for the Memorial Day weekend, so we are staying in Ellen’s house.
I’m sitting on the porch in a rocking chair drinking my tea and looking out over the woods and fields.
An Aging Liberal Hippy from the Left Coast 