Angel Wheeler

My life. My thoughts. My faith. My family

Well today is Sunday, and those who may have been looking for it, might have missed my “in memory of my dad story” yesterday. I’ve been a little busy, which is no excuse.

I’ve been:

sleeping (today anyway)
trying to revive a dead front yard from a serious drought
cleaning out a junk room of boxes and inessentials to make room for a crib and diapers
scouring baby books and the internet for the perfect little girl name
guarding my red toenails from pecking chickens
gathering 5-6 fresh eggs a day
enjoying the beautiful fall days
teaching a class of 22 darling second graders
cleaning, washing, drying, sweeping, mopping
attempting to bring my husband back to reality from our recent visit to Colorado
Oh, and building a baby

I went to Lubbock, Texas this weekend to listen to one of my most beloved Bible teachers, Beth Moore. Some church friends and I spent the day knee deep in the book of Luke and Acts and reveling in the reminder of how awesome our God is, and I wasn’t able to get to a computer to post my dad’s story and did not have the wherewithall to post earlier. I’m sorry, but I’ll make it up shortly.

While my dad was living, he spent some time writing commentaries and sports for his hometown newspapers, The Tahlequah Times. My sister brought me a basketful of old newspaper clippings, so each Saturday I post one. I will post them until I run out of stories or until I run out of Saturdays, whichever comes first. I chose Saturday because that was the day he died. A Saturday afternoon. Just a normal, unsuspecting one. Much like this day 10 years ago when our country was attacked. Much like the day when Jesus will return. Normal. Unsuspecting.

I had spoken with him back and forth on his facebook wall that morning, and was planning a visit in July for a family reunion. That afternoon, I was home alone standing in my kitchen with a cardboard box and newspaper pages scattered on the kitchen counters, wrapping drinking glasses in preparation for a move to a new place when my phone rang. I almost didn’t answer it because the number was bizarre. I’m glad I did. It was my dad’s friend, Jane, on the other end tearfully explaining to me “we’ve lost your daddy.” I had to call my sister, my mom, and my brother. It was a difficult day, as is days that come and go still. My dad has been gone a little over six months and my goodness, so much has happened in that short time. I miss him, and I so wish he was here to share what is happening in my life now.

When I first shared with my family that Jason and I would be having a baby, both my mom and my sister remarked how they wished my dad was here. How he would have loved to know the baby. And it made me sad for a split second. But then I remembered something my friend had told me and I had an epiphany. We all come from different backgrounds and beliefs and sometimes we get stuck thinking ours is “right” and everyone else is wrong. I have a very dear friend who, when speaking about babies, she would often mention “spirit children” in heaven waiting for a body in order to come to earth. I had never heard of this from anyone before. Although it was her belief, it was one I didn’t share. I hadn’t been taught this idea, I hadn’t ever read about this idea, so I dismissed it, quite frankly, as cuckoo. Until the day I needed desperately to believe that.

I believe that our spirits live forever. When we die our spirits live on, either in heaven or in hell. And it came to me clearly, if our spirits live forever after our earthly body is gone, then how narrow-minded of me to think our spirits only begin when our human bodies form in the womb. Of course they exist before our earthly body and of course they exist after our earthly body. Of course there are “spirit children”. And of course my dad’s spirit, who lives in heaven, and my baby’s spirit who lived in heaven, have met one another. My dad is not missing out on knowing my baby. I believe they have met one another. In the heavenly realm of which we know very little about, they’ve become acquainted. They are well acquainted.

I let my imagination run wild with this idea. Not only have they met, and shook hands, and said hello, I’m your grandpa, but perhaps they’ve played together. Maybe he’s already given her horsey back rides and swung her around in his arms. Could it be possible that he’s sat her in his lap, hugged her close, kissed her cheek and stroked her hair. Have they’ve splashed in crystal seas digging for the perfect skipping rocks ? Have they held hands and played ring around the rosey on a golden street?
Is it unfathomable?
Not to me.
Is it cuckoo?
Not to me. Not anymore.

I enjoy Saturdays with my dad’s stories because I get to hear from him again. I’ve never read all his stories, there were only a select few that he mailed to me. I’m so glad I have them, and I’m honored to share them. Granted, some are better than others, as are all of mine as well. But we live on with our words. We can impact people years later with our writings. Last week his story told about a blue and white seersucker jacket he had that served him well for both weddings and funerals. My sister commented and said I should have posted this picture of him wearing that jacket.

That’s us in 1993. I’m the one with the big hair. Take your hands off your gaping mouths. Yes, that hair is real. Yes, I left the house with hair that big. Yes, that hair was sort-of in style. And that’s my handsome dad standing proudly beside me. He was always proud of me, and told me often.

I thank God he was my dad. I thank God for the time we had together. I thank God He prepared a place for him. And for me. We will see him again. And we will laugh. And hug. And he will give me his sloppy kisses as he always did.

He loved much, and is loved and sorely missed by many.

Pics from the Reveal Partay!

This past Friday, some friends and loved ones joined us for a gender reveal party.

Some wore pink, thinking it would be a girl. Some wore blue, thinking it would be a boy.

Some wore black, thinking it would be…….uh, nevermind, I guess they hadn’t had time to do their laundry.

J-Dub and I were both decked out in blue. No doubt in my mind it was a boy. No doubt.

There were more folks dressed in blue than pink.

The survey from my blog predicted boy over girl.

We began with a little game of “What do the Old Wives Say?” where different old wives questions were thrown at us, and the majority of our answers revealed boy.

Boy, Boy, Boy.

The contents of this box would reveal the truth. Would it be blue or would it be pink?

The moment of truth arrived with hearts all a’flutter. Anticipation hung heavy in the air.

The florist was the one who received the sealed envelope. He was the one who first saw the ultrasound picture. He was the one who packaged the box. We were the ones to open it with the ones we love.

Pink and white balloons drifted out, screams and cheers lifted up, and tears flowed down. Happy tears of course.

It was a day of love, happiness, celebration.

Hugs.

Congratulations.

And smiles.

Lots and lots of smiles.

In Memory of My Dad #28

A greenish color tinged the edge of the low-hanging storm clouds, and thinking back to what my cowboy friends all said, I knew we were in for one kinghell hail storm.
I had just pulled into Clearwater, just over the Texas line, and decided to seek shelter from the storm. It was getting dark, and I almost didn’t see the one business that was open in town. So driving past, I pulled a u-turn and parked underneath the awning of a deserted D-X station. Lightning was beginning to flash now many miles to the west, and secoonds later the thunder rolled and grumbled like a drunken sergeant in his sleep as the storm made its way toward Oklahoma.

It was downright cold for the last week in May, and the light golf shirt that I had on didn’t do much to stop the wind as it swirled and eddied the wheat chaff and dust there on Main Street.

I was on my way to a wedding of one of the Durees’ twin daughters and the only thing that I had in the way of outer wear was a light blue seersucker jacket that serves me well—both weddings and funerals.

No one looked up at my entrance. The room was overheated as most places where old men hang out are. Ahead of me was a little short bar with three or four stools. It was a typical beer bar with racks of potato chips and pretzels on top. There were also big jars of beer sausage soaking in vinegar and pig’s feet and boiled eggs.

A couple of guys were sitting at the bar, working men from the cotton gin, I could tell from the little fluffs of lint that clung to their clothes.

Around the room were scattered a number of tables—some of them regular cafe tables and some the slate-topped kind that you see in domino halls. They’re slate topped because the players like to keep score with chalk on the slate. Hell, in my travels around the oilfields and with the pipeline I’d been in a hundred such places. I could speak the language.

I sat down at the bar and the old boy down the row from me never paid the slightest attention, just went on sipping his Falstaff. The bartender got up from a corner table where he had been entertaining a pair of aging snuff queens.

“What’ll you have?” he asked.
“Bud Light,” I answered, thinking that a beer bottle makes a fine weapon if needed.

The bartender was a big, beefy type, the kind you see every day swaggering, blustering, usually with a pack of Camels rolled in the sleeve of a T-shirt that must be the uniform of the day for this type.

“What’re they playing?” I asked the bartender.
“Moon,” he answered in a hurry to get back to the girls. Dismissing the bartender as a lost cause, I drank my beer, halfway watching the game over my shoulder. Finally I wandered over and sat at a table all by myself, but next to the moon players.

Two old men and a young guy were playing. The old man that I sat beside was called Amos by the other two, and he wore a flannel shirt that was buttoned up to the collar, a grey sweater with a windbreaker covering the whole affair. Underneath it all I was sure that he had on long underwear. He was old and weathered with a bristle of white covering his cheeks. He had the cold butt of a cigar jammed in his mouth.

They took no notice of me when I sat daown. Finally I asked, “Are sweaters allowed if they keep their mouth shut?”
“Not if you do like you say,” said the old man giving me a gruff look.

“I can handle that.” I replied.

After watching the game for a half hour or so, the conversation turned to cable tool rigs. It turned out Amos was a retired cable tool driller, and I’d worked around the rigs for most of my adult life. So Amos and I became fast friends in the mode of the oil field.

Shortly after that, I had commenting rights, which I soon exercised when Amos went set on a five bid.

“If you’d have come little, led your deuce ace, you could have knocked down his calf and that throws him in a bind over his cow. If he goes small you’ve got him. If he holds you, you trump back in and lead your trump double and knock out his cow. Then all you’ve lost is your one trump and your off rock and you’ve made your five,” I said.

“You’re mighty late with that advice,” said Amos giving me a hard look.

“I thought I’d better wait until the hand was over,” I said.

They laughed.

I was enjoying myself. Sitting in an overheated bar in Clearwater, Texas sweating a two-bit moon game. Life is full of strange propositions, indeed.

After a while the younger man left, saying he had to get home for supper, and they invited me into the game. We played for two hours. I won a little but was certain to give it back by buying the beer. I didn’t do it in an overbearing manner, just casual like, a stranger glad for the company on a cold west Texs night.

I felt good. I was a little drunk, but very mellow, perhaps I’d even feel better if I could have struck up a conversation with one of the snuff queens, but I doubt it.

So I just hung around digging the party.

The beefy bartender was half drunk by now also, and the place had filled up considerably over the last two hours. People were trying to two-step to Hank Jr. and Merle and having quite a time of it. It was small town Friday night at its best. The bartender was bellowing out ths manhood to anyone that would listen.

It was about that time that the stranger and the bartender started having a heated discussion that I couldn’t quite make out.

The stranger was dressed in the style of the ’50s, black vest, shirt and jeans. He wore black boots that had little silver tips on their pointy toes, and the vest was adorned with silver conchos on the back.

Without a word the stranger took three measured steps down the bar, turned and with a great hawking cough spat up a great gob of phlegm down the bar at a Coors ashtray about ten feet away.

The bartender called out, “That’s one” and cheerfully wiped the bar clean. The cowboy tried to spit in the ashtray twice more brefore walking over to the bartender and handing him a ten-dollar bill and promptly leaving the saloon.

The bartender yelled out something about winning and teaching the cowboy not to bet with him and promptly bought the snuff queens another beer.

“Yeah, that’s right Harley. You really taught him a lesson,” said the old man that had been playing moon with Amos and me. “The only trouble was that he bet me $25 that he could spit on your bar three times, and you’d smile while cleaning it up.”

Life is full of strange propositions indeed.

written by Bob Briggs

It’s A ……….

Good News!

I’m on top of the world. I’m just on top of this beautiful, dadgum world. It’s as if scales have fallen from my eyes and I see things in a new light.

In case you haven’t been following my life, first off, I’m pregnant. With my first child. At age 36. With this came a scary test that informed us that our baby was at an increased risk for Down’s Syndrome. A 1:75 possibility. I stewed and fretted and cried, then I prayed, and others prayed, and the Holy Spirit granted me a peace that passes all understanding.

Today, we had a consultation and an ultrasound that looked for certain “markers” of Down Syndrome that the baby may display. If any of these markers were found, it increased the risk for the disorder, and if they weren’t noted, it decreased it. Some markers they look for and measure are the thickness of the skin at the base of the neck, the length of the bones, the amount of fluid around the baby, the veins and arteries in the umbilical cord, certain spots in the heart, and others.

God is good, and if you don’t already know that, well, you need to. There were not any markers found! I praised Jesus out loud right there lying on that table. The absence of markers does not mean our baby does not have anything wrong with it, but it does mean that the chances went down 50%. So now the odds are about 1:150. And that sounds pretty dadgum good to me. We were offered an amniocentisis to determine 100% for a yes or no answer, but we declined. Our faith is in God, not in medicine. You know I’ve never been the “one”. I’ve never won the lottery, I’ve never been struck by lightening, and I know that I know that I know my baby is normal (as normal as can be expected with the parents it’s been given).

I am praising God to day for His goodness. His mercy. His grace. His gifts. He has given me something that I never dreamed I could ever need. And I’m thrilled to become a mother.

I’d like to believe that even if the test hadn’t turned out positively for us, I would still be praising God. I’m just so thankful and relieved I am not experiencing the other end of the spectrum right now. Praise the Lord with me today!

On a different note, during this ultrasound they were able to determine the sex of the child. I have some wonderful, caring, loving people who are throwing a reveal party for me. I had never heard of a reveal party before my principal approached me with the idea. It can be done several different ways, but generally speaking it works like this: the ultrasound technician puts the gender in an envelope keeping it a secret, even from the parents. People are invited over, and in some way the sex of the child is revealed to everyone during the party, including the parents!! Yes, you are reading that right. We do not even know the sex of our baby.

Our baby was VERY uncooperative today. It decided to stay sleep with it’s little legs crossed. The technician was getting frustrated, but she perservered. Finally she was able to get a good view. She told us to turn our heads from the screen, while she took the picture. It was then stuffed and sealed in an envelope and hand delivered to my principal by me. It was much harder than I ever imagined it would be driving home with that envelope in the car! But we didn’t peek. I do admit I held it to the light, but still couldn’t see anything!

Tomorrow we will be finding out whether we need a blue nursery or a pink one. I can hardly wait.

I wish you all could be there, but since I feel like you are all experiencing this with me, please join me in spirit and cast your vote.

The result will be announced tomorrow!

Chicken Drowning Averted

The fourteen chickens who run this ranch have full reign of the place. At times, they may be found perched on the hood of a truck, sitting on a tractor wheel, or stealing the horse’s feed. They do as they please, when they please, which is just fine with me. I can’t bear to coop them up. They deserve to free birds.

As long as chickens roam free, there is risk involved. The chicken hawks, the snakes, the speeding cars on the adjacent highway. And then there’s the horse trough.

There is a debate in the poultry world as to whether chickens can swim or not. I didn’t know this until the other day when I was forced to.

J-Dub was tending to the animals one evening when he noticed the water in one of the drinking tubs for the horses was rather low. As he drew near to put the water hose in, he discovered a Barred Plymouth Rock in the water. That’s a breed of chicken for you laypersons. The dear fowl was soaked to the skin, feathers drenched, exhausted, and very stressed.

He rescued her from the drinking tub where she couldn’t fly out either because a) the water was too low and she couldn’t scale the top or B)because the trough is narrow and she couldn’t spread her wings fully to fly out. We don’t know how long she treaded (is that a word) water. But we know she was sure glad to get out of there. I’m positive my husband coddled her and spoke soft and tender reassuring words to her. He put he in the chicken coop where she sat dripping in a state of shock emitting a long sad whimper. If you can imagine a chicken whimpering.

And then he came in and told me about it.

It could’ve been bad if he had not found her. I worried for my sweet chicken all night, well at least until I fell asleep. The next morning, her feathers were badly ruffled, she seemed a little tired and perhaps a bit stove up, but was no worse for the wear. She has made a full recovery and hopefully learned a good lesson.

I might have to put some floaties on her wings just in case.

Not really my chicken — image found at dogswhotwitter.com

In Memory of My Dad #27

written by my dad, Bob Briggs 1943-2011

“Of course we’re going to Oklahoma City for Derby Day,” declared Val vehemently. “Haven’t we always gone for the past several years? It’s imperative that we go. It’s our sworn duty! I’ll call Doc for some cash tonight. What ‘da ya think? About 500 bucks sound right for this gig?”

Val was still feeding off his victory earlier that day when he and his long-suffering partner had taken the retired marine flyer and the long-knocking kid out on the ninth hole of the Sequoyah Golf club, and Val was bouncing around like a ping-pong ball.

Of course the twelve pack I brought along for the peace offering was down to the last two beers and that wasn’t helping matters much either.

But Val is like a clam. Open his head and put an idea in and watch it grow into a gem of an idea. All I had done to bring forth this idea was to ask Val if we were going to OKC for the running of the Kentucky Derby.

Doc is an old friend from our younger days. But not wanting to bore you with the details of his misspent youth, I’ll just say that Doc listened to his body and slowed his activities (both legal and illegal) way down. Doc is a song writer par excellence, and his trilogy about the outlaw Ned Christie is worth traveling many miles to hear.

It has been several years since I have been to the Kentucky Derby. I believe it was the year that Dust Commander, the 16 to 1 shot, won the run for the roses. Silent Screen, the horse that I had bet heavily on was leading the race coming into the final turn faded badly and finished the fifth hole.

On Saturday morning of race day, the infield at Louisville will resemble a huge outdoor looney bin. The whole grass meadow will be covered with people from all walks of life. The cheap seats. That slice of life that would invariably draw me to its confines like a moth to an open flame.

Fifty thousand people, most of them stumbling drunk, jammed backside to belly button. It’s a fantastic scene. What with people laughing, crying, fainting, copulating, and trampling each other.

People from all walks of life, getting angrier and angrier as they lose more and more money. By mid afternoon they’ll be swilling Mint Juleps with both hands and vomiting on each other between races.

The regulars at Churchill Downs, serious betters included, spend most of the day in the paddock area. They can hunker down with a tall glass of Old Fitzgerald, while watching the flashing lights and the many changing odds of the huge tote boards.

But I have seen the whiskey gentry in action. Buy the ticket, take the ride. The Age of Aquarius is over, now for seven years of healing and mending while the country gets back in shape. To get quietly and pleasantly drunk and try not to offend anyone. To get along, go along.

I sure need to break even over at Okie City this weekend, because I need the money.

Baby

There comes a time in a blogger’s life, when she must decide if something is too personal to share. It’s easy to share chicken stories and recipes, possum deaths, and classroom funnies, but not so easy to tell others when you’re falling apart. Not for me anyway. There is an occurrence in my life and something on my heart that I want to write down. I want to be able to reflect back on this season. And I must decide. Do I want everyone who happens upon this blog to know my struggles? But then again, there may even be the wild chance that it might help someone else. Or even there might be someone who can help me. Who knows.

I’m a very private person really, although it may be hard to believe. A lot of the things I write are simply stories and day-to-day happenings that really are just for entertainment purposes and possibly posterity., I keep myself tightly guarded for the most part, but sometimes I find myself wanting to share my emotions. Today is one of those times. This leap leaves me wide open. Open to criticism, open to judgement, open to pity. Today I’m deciding to share something very personal and something that I’ve only shared with my closest loved ones. But I’m sharing it for a few reasons.

1) Prayer: It allows people to pray for me, which is all I’ve got.

2) Humility: It’s very humbling to admit when I’m in the valley. I don’t want to sin by being proud, and it is something I struggle with.

3) Support: By sharing, I hope to hear stories that will comfot and rest my heart.

4) Friends: I know I have enemies, but I like to believe I have friends too. I know that people care about me and I am overwhelmed by the love of friends and even strangers who I only know through this computer screen.

My pregnancy was unplanned and the shock of my life. It also has been a piece of cake so far. At times, I’ve even felt guilty when I see and know of pregnant women who are struggling with sickness, puking their guts up, hooked to IV’s, dehydrated because they can’t keep anything down. I know that God has granted me good health during this time.

I enjoy being pregnant. After I passed through the initial shock and the acceptance stage, I have discovered that being pregnant is an awesome experience. When people ask me how I am feeling, I tell them I feel great, but what I really want to say, but don’t for fear of sounding hokey is, “I feel honored”. And I do. This is truly an honor to be chosen to carry a baby. To know that I am working with God to create a miracle, if for only a short time. To look at the night sky, at the vast expanse of stars, aware that the planet I live on is a tiny mass in a small galaxy in a huge universe. And I, an insignificant, minute speck, have been chosen to carry this one little being, this little combination of me and my dear husband, to nurture it, and sustain it. Sappy, sappy, sappy, I know. But it’s true.

I am beginning to get a little more excited each week. My belly is starting to noticeably grow, and I love to lay on my back and press on my abdomen and feel that hard little ball of cells and organs, and imagine it slowly and miraculously developing into this being with fingers and toes and a little button nose whom I already absolutely adore. I can’t wait to meet him. Or her.

Yesterday, however, I received a call from the doctor’s office and it rattled me to the core. At my last appointment, I had an optional blood test done called an AFPTetra. It screens for certain abnormalities like Spina Bifida, Down’s Syndrome, and Trisomy 18, and tests to see if I’m a carrier of cystic fibrosis. All the screens came back negative, except one. Down’s Syndrome. This does NOT mean our sweet baby has Down’s Syndrome. It is only an indication that it is at an increased risk. I’m sitting at the “advanced maternal age” of 36, and based on that, it appears I have a 1:198 possibility it could have Down Syndrome. Based on the test, however, I have a 1:75 chance. This test has been known to worry and fret a lot of women, all for naught. It’s only an indicator of risk, not a confirmation. The test is notorious for false positives and more often than not, the baby is just fine. But even knowing all that, I experienced my first tearful, worrisome night as a mother. I cried, I fretted, I imagined, I planned, I prayed and prayed and prayed.

Next Thursday I will visit a genetic specialist who will give me a consultation and an ultrasound. The way I understand it, they will look for certain “markers” of Down Syndrome during the ultrasound. It also can not confirm the baby has it, only an amniocentisis can do that.

It’s an extremely scary, uncertain time for us all. My loved ones are praying and reassuring me that everything will be fine, and I desperately want to believe that. My heart, my hope, and my faith is shaken right now. But one thing I know: God is good, all the time. All good things come from Him. I know that this precious baby is fearfully and wonderfully made, knit together, with all his days ordained. I know that God will never give us more than we can bear. I know that this baby may not have been planned by Jason and I, but it was planned by Him, and is loved immensely already, no matter.

We will hold tight to our faith and not allow the devil to cause fear and panic into our hearts.

The scriptures I’ve been focusing on are:

Proverbs 3:5—Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all thine ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.

Isaiah 41:10—Do not fear for I am with you, do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

2 Timothy 1:7 For you have not been given a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.

Psalm 121—I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
² My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
⁶ the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

⁷ The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
⁸ the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

~Angel

School Days

The posters are hung, the pencils are sharpened, and the acetaminophen is stocked. Although there isn’t the slightest nip of fall in the air, the calendar confirms that school begins tomorrow here in West Texas.
Elementary Teachers all around my area have laminated, cut, pasted, and labeled until their fingertips bleed.
Although the calendar confirms it, and the preparations have been made, somehow it just hasn’t felt real for me.

I haven’t had the nightmares. Each year I have them. They come to me in the few nights before school begins. The terrifying night terrors of unpreparedness for the first day of school, filled with a room full of uncontrollable children, monsters you might call them. The empty stack of uncopied papers haunts me, the incomplete lesson plan book stares blankly at me. The sheer feeling of panic and inadequateness that accompanies these nightmares almost undoes me.

Despite the early morning alarms, the week long inservice, and the ever growing class list, it hasn’t felt like the beginning of school until last night. Last night I was visited in my dreams by children who are too old for my grade, too many students, not enough desks, and what’s with the boy playing the electric drumset in the middle of the classroom who won’t listen to me screaming at him to stop?

And then there’s my feet. Even without the nightmares, they are the tell-tale sign that it is the start of school. No matter how comfy the tennis shoes are, when you go from sitting around swatting flies all summer to actual work, you just can’t help but catch a little flack from the old dogs.

Nightmares and throbbing feet. There is no more denying that the first day of school is upon me.

Thank goodness for my husband. He’s cooking burgers tonight, bless his heart. My feet are propped mightily on the couch pillows, bless their hearts.

Multifunction Foot Spa Massager And my dreams tonight will be filled with the longings of foot baths with bubbling hot water and lavender bath salts combined with massaging action in three different intensities. I might even invent an Asian man named Dong who possesses great hands.

What? A girl can dream can’t she?

In Memory of My Dad #26

On a languid winter afternoon, hound dogs howl a mournful alarm at a visitors casual intrusion upon the Atkins Antiques barn a few miles south of Archer City, Texas.

The dogs take their afternoon nap under the porch of the fading paint flecked building, and are often called upon to sound the call to arms which includes a lot of barking and then an apologetic wagging tail before returning to their slumber.

Atkins Antiques was a ramshackle place that could sell you an Amarillo city bus that made its last run down Polk street, or an ice cream wagon made from an abandoned golf cart, or a bulldozer or a bent horseshoe.

Bud Atkins, 68, who owns the shop doesn’t mind all the modern intrusions, he is a man of all seasons. Wearing starched Levi’s and a pearlsnap western shirt, he stands amid all the record albums, racks of old books and magazines, stacks of eight track tapes, old leather footballs, spurs that date back to the eighteenth century, mannequins, old paintings and a plethora of heavy iron tools.

“One time I had an old anchor here, it was probably two, three hundred years old, weighed about 700 pounds, some college boys from South Carolina bought it. Don’t know how they got it home,” says Atkins. People call me a junker, but every time I buy something, it becomes valuable. Funny, ain’t it?”

The place sits on three acres of land, the Texas flatland. The flatland stretches endlessly to the far horizon and this 90’s version of Sanford and Son hardly seems big enough to hold all the treasures accumulated over 35 years of junking.

Winter Texans browse through the property in search of items that symbolize Texas. They come from Oklahoma, New York, Nebraska, New Jersey and elsewhere. “I’ve been coming to this place since the early 80’s,” says one elderly man. “There’s more mysteries here than the Holy Bible.”

The shop is awash with quirky items, like a small ceramic monkey perching atop a stack of books and holding a human skull and while scratching his head as if to ponder his very existence. A caged light fixture near the front door with strangely stuffed rodents adorning the inside and outside of the cage and a rat with an extraordinary long tail.

Atkins, wears a black cowboy hat with a bigfoot logo pinned to the side. He speaks slowly and laughs readily, as if sitting on a good joke. He has a mental Rolodex of his own jokes, if others fail.

Atkins recalls when he and his brother inherited the house moving business from his father. The brothers decided to expand the business into buying and selling furniture and antiques from estate sales. The brothers split up in 1969—they weren’t mad or anything, they just decided they wanted to own their own separate businesses.

Cynthia Speer, an elderly lady from Oklahoma City, and her husband have come to the Antique Barn for the past twenty years. They never fail to be amazed at what they find in the shoppe.

“One time I found an old campaign button here—about 15 years ago. It was an old FDR button. I bought it for about $5, and this friend of mine said it was actually worth several hundred dollars, but I wouldn’t sell it for anything,” she said. “You can’t find things like that anywhere, it’s amazing.”

Among the items at the Atkins Antique Shop is a February 30, 1936 issue of Collier’s Magazine that sold for forty cents and a first volume edition of the music of Jerome Kern, with his legendary rendition of hits like “On Top of Old Smokey” and a song that the Platters made famous in the late fifties, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”

Record albums of long ago sport icons of yesterday. There’s Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” and a collection of recordings from a native of the big bend country, Freddy Fender.

“You never know what you’re going to find here in this crazy place,” says Atkins, fielding a question from another winter Texas. “We’ll buy anything just so long as it’s old and interesting.”

Atkins pointed to a display case that had an empty bottle with the letters “OJ” embossed on the outside, “that doesn’t have anything at all to do with O.J. Simpson, I just recently found the bottle, I do have his football card and a book on Simpson though. By the way have you been watching the trial?” Just goes to show you, you can’t get away from the trial even in central Texas.

Written by Bob Briggs April 1, 1995