Rambling Back with Rip
June 6, 2003
There are two events that happened quite a few years ago that I’ve just got to comment on. They were both high lights in my life and one of them was the most important event in my life so far.
Forty seven years ago about the 25th or 26th of May the 1954 graduating class of the Eads High School marched across the stage of the old gym and we received our high school diplomas. We were all anxious to get out in the world and make our mark. Those of us who remain are pretty well scattered across this country, if not the world. I'm afraid I haven't made much of a mark so far. Along towards the end of that summer Delmar Patterson and I made our way over to Western State Collage in Gunnison where we enrolled for the winter. I was going to go into Forestry school so I could be a forest ranger. I don't remember what Delmar was going to be. We stayed the first semester but money was tight and yours truly didn't take to the higher education so we caught the bus and came back to Eads rather unexpected. Our parents were sorta up set but my dad took me into the Smith Dry Good and bought me a pair of work shoes and a pair of leather gloves. My days of higher education were over and I joined the School Of Hard Knocks, which I'm still waiting to get my diploma from.
Now to go on down the road a year or so later. On June 3rd 1955 the most important event in my life took place. At 8:00 that night ,at the First Methodist Church ,Barbara Welsh marched down the aisle and I came in through the side door, we joined hands and Reverend Joe Baer stepped in front of us and two young, nervous and a little frightened, kids were joined in holy matrimony. It was a very nice candle light ceremony which was attended by many of our friends. There was a nice wedding reception down in the church basement. Of course we tried to slip away as soon as we could but Barbara had taken off her shoes and some one hid them and to this day they haven't been found. I had saved up $90.00 for the honey moon so we stayed gone for a whole week and I had money left when we got back. A few months before we were to be married we went down to Tidwell's furniture store and picked out enough furniture to start married life with. We bought it on the time payment plan. The payments were $27.50 per month. It's just been the last few years that we haven't been making payments on some thing or other.
I must say that Barbara has made a wonderful wife. We were quite young when we married but she knew how to cook and was a good house keeper. There hasn't been very many times in the last 48 years that I came home for dinner or supper that a hot meal hasn't been waiting for me. She has kept our house spick and span and kept out family in clean clothes. Much of what we have today she has been the driving force behind.
We worked for my dad that summer and along toward winter there wasn't much to do so I went up to the Climax Molybdenum Company Metal Mine North of Leadville and took a job. In a couple of weeks I came home to get Barbara. We bought a Chevrolet car from Wayne Jones and went to Lamar where we bought a 28 ft. house trailer, all on time, with very little money down. Bill and my dad welded on a trailer hitch and we were on our way to the mountains. We wound up in a trailer park half way between Leadville and the mine on Fremont Pass. Before spring and farming time the snow was over six feet deep on the level so we sold the trailer and moved back to Eads. I worked for Leonard Fischer for awhile and we lived in the back of his station located west of the court house. The farming picked up so I went back to farming with my dad. In my spare time I drove a school bus and worked for Stanley Chriswell when he had Stan's 66 service station. I thought, I was having to work too hard holding down two jobs plus farming and running cattle so I was looking for some thing easier. Alfred Holland took Ann down to see her folks in the hills of Arkansas and he came back with such a glowing report of that country we just had to go check it out. It was just what I was looking for, a place where you grew a big truck patch or garden and ran a few cows and hogs. In your spare time all you did was fish and hunt. I guess I would have bought the Brooklyn Bridge too. To make a long story short we loaded up and moved to Arkansas and we have been here 42 years. We never did starve to death but we came close a few times.
As Paul Harvey says "Now You Know The Rest Of The Story," the story of the last 48 years of our life. I invite your comment! ripteal@arkansas.net.