Henrietta, Texas: When I was a teen, I worked at the A&P grocery store on Monday mornings and on Saturdays. Monday mornings because the weekly truck came from Dallas, and we had to unload endless boxes of canned peas. Saturdays because, in our farming community, the folks living out in the county came to town to buy groceries on Saturdays.

I served my apprenticeship at the A&P. The butcher came to me one day and told me that his bacon-stretchers had broken and he sent me to Garrison’s grocery to borrow theirs. The Garrison’s butcher said his were in the shop and sent me to Nolen’s Grocery. Nolen’s butcher sent me to Harry Harder’s store, and Harry swore that our butcher already had his.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

On Saturdays, most of the day was bagging groceries and carrying them to people’s cars. However, there was a lady, call her Madame X, who came walking to the store. She had a little cart, and her groceries went into the cart.

Her life had stopped one day, though she went on.

She was elderly, and wore a black dress, and a long black coat from the 30s. Her hat was large, with a veil, from the same era. She was the owner of a clothing store that, fully stocked and doing business, had been closed one day in the 30’s. The window displays remained exactly as they were, the counters inside displaying the same stylish fashions of the 30’s. Just no people, after that particular day.

As far as I know, she left her house, a once-grand two-story home on a quarter-block, only on Saturday. Summer, Winter made no difference in her clothing. Once a week to buy groceries.

She could have driven instead of walked, but the new Packard locked in her garage — you could see it through the dusty window — had not been moved since that day.

The house had seen no paint nor maintenance. The grasses were never cut.

One day, the store was opened up, and townfolk went in and purchased things. From whom, I now wonder. I bought a pair of those pants that end beneath your knees. I had the oportunity to wear them years later when I drove a Morgan Motor Car. These pants, aside from being thirty years dusty, were new.

The woman eventually died. I was grown and lived far away. A friend still living near, hearing the news, spoke to the attorney in charge, claiming that he had an interest in purchasing the property. He smooth-talked his way to see the inside of that house. We knew of no person who had set foot inside during all those years.

He said that the kitchen, the bath, and the woman’s bedroom were the only rooms showing habitation. All others had a thick coating of dust, and nothing in those rooms had been touched for many years. A single trail ran between the bedroom, kitchen, and bath.

Meals had been made from cans, apparently. The bathroom, dishevelled. In her bedroom, everything was spotless. There was her bed, there was a radio. The clothes in the closet, all from the 30’s, were identical, black. On a bureau of drawers, there was a japanese doll in a glass case.

Here’s what happened:

Once upon the time, this woman was young. She had inherited the store and the house, but she herself was interested in society, in going to dances and parties. She often drove the Packard to Wichita Falls, and even to Dallas. She had met a nice boy, a society boy, and it was announced that they would marry.

But something went wrong. The marriage was called off.

She put on black. She garaged the Packard. She laid-off all the store employees, and closed the doors. She went into her house, and, in one sense, she never came out again.

One Fall day, a Saturday — I no longer worked at the grocery store — I loitered in our back yard. I saw her walking on the next street over, in her long black coat and hat, with her cart. That day I had been reading the book ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker; it was spooky.

I thought, as I watched her walking, how like a ghost she seemed.

Henrietta, Texas: In our town, perhaps the grandest house belonged to Paul Hawkins, where he lived with his wife and three pretty daughters: Paula, Shara, and Kay.

The house was grand because Paul was the town’s Undertaker.

Much of that grand house was for storing bodies, preparing bodies, and holding services for bodies. At my grandmother’s service, my stern-faced grandfather broke down. “Maud! Maud!” He called her name over and over, reaching out for her. It was wrenching, having to draw him away. His mind had been addled by a fall from the horse; that was a part of her death, but that’s another story.

With compassion and with grace, Paul Hawkins dealt with such things. A thin, hyper-active fellow, he’d also turned the extensive once-stables behind the house into a shop, and restored antique furniture. I don’t think he needed the money; I think he needed to always stay busy.

And so, his entry in the Pioneer Reunion …

The Pioneer Reunion, in October, that’s rodeo season in Texas, and the biggest event in Henrietta. We schoolkids loved it, already chafing from the schooldays. A parade every day, rodeo every night, dances afterward, and during the days, free barbeque, art shows, and fiddling contests on the courthouse lawn.

On the first day, the parade is just the ‘Horse Parade’. That is, the parade consists of different groups of ‘riding clubs’, riding through our town’s streets, on horses. Who are these riding clubs? Why did they have a club to ride horses?

I wish I’d thought to ask these questions then, long ago. But then, the fish probably never thinks to question the water.

The horse parade always left horse poop on the street, which gave the marching bands something to consider on the next morning. Usually our own high-school band and two or three others from neighboring townships, plus officials waving from cars from the dealership, and … floats!

The floats are a big competition. For about three weeks before the event, volunteers from civic groups build frameworks around jeeps, then put in flooring, then cover the whole thing in crepe paper. Add children or girls in costumes, bingo bango bongo, a float!

Paul Hawkins was Henrietta’s foremost float-builder. He always offered space and shop tools for some float, I think maybe Kiwanis Club, but he also built his own, invariably named Paul’s Sweethearts, and upon this float rode the three daughters Paula, Shara, and Kay, waving like queens.

Paul Hawkins had design theories. Some worker worries about there being too-little crepe-paper fringe. Paul shakes his head, saying, “You’ll never notice fringe on the saddle of a galloping horse.” Meaning not to worry, it needn’t look perfect. I wonder, now I think about it, about how he prepared the bodies for the open-casket ceremonies.

Except when professionally grave, so to speak, he was always jovial. Always a smile, always sharp-witted, often joking and joshing, and good friends with most everybody. Maybe he had to be. But even so, it amazed me then and now that everybody liked Paul Hawkins. He was especially great pals with our dentist, and my uncle, the long-time town doctor.

Doctor Hurn, my uncle was called. As a child I never called him “Uncle Robert.” Nor did any of my cousins. Growing up, we knew him as Uncle Doc.

Uncle Doc and Paul Hawkins were great friends. Maybe they worked on floats together. Maybe it was from being in the Minstral Show all those years. Maybe it was from Uncle Doc passing off former clients to become Paul’s new clients.

So when Paul needed some serious surgery, he asked Uncle Doc to do it. Uncle Doc hesitantly agreed. And then, on the day of the surgery, as they wheeled Paul in a wheelchair down the hall, to show his appreciation, as they neared the surgery door he started yelling — so that everybody in the hospital could hear — yelling at my Uncle Doc.

“I’ve changed my mind!” yelled Paul. “I’m not going! Don’t wheel me in there! You’ll kill me!”

He paused, and then, with an evil grin, as they wheeled him through the doorway, he called out once again.

“Our partnership is off! You hear me? Our partnership is off!”

Henrietta, Texas. Summer, 1956. My cousin Dan and I were helping my grandfather, Frank Hurn, on his farm near Hurnville, named after his father. He’d just had the hay baled.

I don’t know how it’s done; some machine cuts the grasses, and packs them into large rectangles. Somehow two wires are fastened around. Now you’ve got these large rectangles of bound hay. Heavy rectangles of bound hay.

Stern-faced, my grandfather had the tractor pulling a flat-bed wagon. Our job was to pick up the bales and heave them onto the wagon. Once loaded, some went to the animal’s shed for storage. The rest we stacked in one corner of the west field, because every farm must have a haystack.

In the hot, Texas summer, the straw hat helps, but not much. The fine splinters of hay work up your sleeves and down your collar, stinging like needles.

I thought we were doing a great job. My grandfather, usually taciturn, said little. My cousin and I worked and chattered, sweated, chattered and worked.

A cloud floated lazily across the sky. The patch of shade gliding across the field toward us, and then- Heaven! Oh, that felt good.

But now it’s gone, and the sun like a hammer. Even through the tough leather gloves, the wires dig into the fingers, and even teen muscles ache. A slow, hot afternoon.

Finally it was done.

We boys rode back on the empty wagon, bone-jarring on its metal-bound wooden wheels. Oh, it felt good!

At the feedlot, using the metal dipper that hung from the fence, we took deep drinks from the horse trough. My grandfather went last. I pushed my hat back, an old ranch hand.

“So how did we do?” I asked him.

He finished his drink of water, and thought a while. He said, “One boy is half a man. Two boys is half a boy.” He paused. “And three boys is no boy at all.”

In consternation, we looked at each other.

He went on. “You did pretty good.”

He looked off into the distance, far away. There may have been a faint trace of a smile there.

I am reminded of a story. This monk, call him Joshu, always had difficulty being serious like a monk is supposed to be. And so every morning he would wake up and say to himself, “Joshu! Today … be serious!”

And then he would answer, “Yes, sir! Yes, sir!”

This is a simple law of nature, but one which is very handy:

A human can comprehend approximately two numbers.

That’s it.

Don’t ever offer a bunch of numbers to a human at the same time. Try to offer only two numbers at any one time. Feel like a wild, risk-taking kind of guy? OK, offer three numbers at a time. Beyond that? A waste of time.

Knowing this important secret of the universe, go forth and prosper.

This is a simple law of nature, but one which is very handy:

A human will find it easy to believe what the human would like to believe.

That’s it.

In others, when presenting an idea, if you want it accepted, then express it in a way that they would like it to be true. “Now this snake oil may not make you look like Robert Redford, but it will help to bring out the handsome devil you really are inside.”

In yourself, always be chary of thinking you’ve got it right, just because you’d like it to be that way. And if you’d really, really like it to be that way, check your facts twice!

Knowing this important secret of the universe, go forth and prosper.