Pastel Days In Texas
September 7, 2020
ALAN writes:
One reason older people look back as often as they do is because they know “the sands of time” are running out and they want to remember the best moments and people in their lives before it is too late to remember anything.
In my case, that involves moments and people in the old railroad town of Denison, Texas.
In the years 1958-’62, my aunt and I exchanged dozens of letters. At ages 8-12, I had an impulse to write to her and my uncle every week or so, doubtless partly because I was an only child, but also because Aunt Rose always responded promptly to my letters with detailed, informative letters of her own. I wrote to tell them about the ordinary events in our lives, and she told me about their lives in Denison.
If I could do it all over again and get it right the second time, I would have saved all of her letters. But alas, they are long gone. My mother was not a saver, and I was too young to understand what those letters would mean many decades later.
The last letter I received from Aunt Rose was in 1967. A year or so later, they moved back to St. Louis after Uncle Lawrence retired from his job with the Katy Railroad. I remember that they were with us in our living room on Christmas Eve night in 1968 when we listened to astronaut Frank Borman reading a passage from the Bible during the flight of Apollo 8. Read More »