While I angst over the children still illegally separated from their families in my home state of Texas and begin to plan another series on letters my father wrote me while I was in college at the University of Texas in Austin in the 1960s, I looked through hundreds more photographs and came across a few that brought back words from an old gospel song we sang at church: precious memories…how they linger…how they ever flood my soul.

little me, my grandmother, family dog Scooter

This picture was taken by my mother who captured a definitive moment in my life which she surely imagined at the time she snapped it was simply “cute.” Now 70 years later if ever there were one image I could say conjured up my entire childhood, it would be this.

My grandmother was clearly on her way home from work because she held two packages in her arms which meant she had brought something we needed, but she stopped to hug me outside our house before she went in. She may have been on her 30-minute lunch break from the general store where she worked as the only clerk 10 hours a day six days every week. Since she had no car and didn’t know how to drive, she walked the short distance down the dirt road from our home to work. Her lunch breaks were always too short, she said.

Or she was home after standing 10 hours on her feet at the end of her work day at 6 o’clock. Regardless, she must have been exhausted as she stopped to show me some love. Now what I was doing with a golf club that was as tall as I was remains a mystery to my memory, but my grandmother Dude’s love for me will always be crystal clear for as long as I have memories.

Here’s another one of my favorites, but no explanation is necessary, right?

the hat has been with me from the beginning 

(not sure who the little boy is)

Stay tuned.