52 Stories

My parents were a generation marked by the Great Depression and as a result I was taught not to waste anything.  My dad, Ben Dale Cox, was born at home in Star, Texas and my mom, Ina Florence Rickel, was also born at home but on the family farm, but not in the house currently on the property.  I've been told that the Coxes were very poor, my grandfather Cox had heart problems and spent most days in bed.  My grandmother Cox had a garden behind their house and raised most of what they ate supplemented by the chickens roaming around the back yard.  My dad told me once that it was a real treat when a neighbor would stop by delivering a bit of beef or pork just slaughtered. Neighbors looked out for each other in those days.   My mom on the other hand does not remember having hard times because they had an acre garden, raised cows, pigs, chicken, turkeys, goats and sheep.  They would set up road-side stands selling surplus vegetables to neighbors passing through ...

I have been very fortunate to have married a man who loved to travel so we have had many memorable vacations.  The first family vacation with all the family, children and grandchildren would be a trip to Estes Park, Colorado.  I loved being together in that big cabin, playing games and taking hikes together.  However it did not end well for me since I fell on the stairs and broke 2 bones in my ankle!    I'll let that one go and talk about our National Geographic trip to the Galapagoes Islands.  The entire family was to go but Amy came down with Covid so that branch had to stay home.  I especially loved that trip because it was self contained in that when we motored in zodiacs to an island we were the only people there surrounded by beautiful, relatively untouched beaches, nature and animals specific to each island.  The zodiac rides were an adventure.  Sometimes we would stop short of the beach and have to slide over the craft side into the w...

I was one of those fortunate kids who had a very positive experience in my middle school years.  We were living in San Angelo, my dad was stationed at Goodfellow Airforce Base, and I was attending the local, junior high school which, I discovered later,  educated kids from "the wrong side of the track," actually the river in my case.   To get there each morning I walked with my neighborhood friends to the city bus stop on the main road.  We took the bus into town center, transferred to the bus going to  the 8th-9th grade school.  I always took my violin with me because I was in the orchestra with my good friend Kathy Mollish.  We had started lessons in 6th grade but when we advanced to 7th there was no orchestra so we had to wait out a year.  I don't remember much about any academic classes except that I had an English teacher who you didn't want to ask a question unless you had the time to listen to him drone on with the answer!  We did stud...

New Years...there have been 77 of them and none of them stood out in memory so I resorted to reading through my journals which I started in 1998.  My conclusion is that we were not the types to frequent clubs or huge gatherings but instead enjoyed spending time with family or friends.  When spending New Years in Burleson, we usually enjoyed a dinner out with our "Cruise Group" ending with games and fellowship at one of our homes.  We even managed to stay up to welcome the new year on occasion!   If in Boise, we usually stayed with the boys so Austin and Amalia could have some time out with their friends and we could enjoy private time with our grandboys.  The best part of those earlier celebrations is that I shared them with Steve, the love of my life.   New Years 2024 was the first one I was on my own, meaning without Steve,  Realizing things would be different this year I decided it was up to me to create new traditions, so I asked my single friends ...