My mom mentioned a name today that brought back many, many memories for me. She said she talked to a long-time family friend named Esther Cronin. They had both attended a funeral for a lifelong member of our community and my heart goes out to the Selensky Family who lost a family patriarch this past week.

When Mom told me she saw Esther it brought back many, many memories for me all the way back to my Lutheran Grade School days when Esther and her brother, Douglas, used to ride the bus with me. They also had a little sister, but she was younger than me and you know how it is when someone is in the third grade and you may have been in the fifth grade you don’t remember the “little ones” as much. As I have always said, as we age, age means nothing between people anymore cause we’re all in this world together.

I used to have the ability to keep up with more of my friends from the past when my friend Delbert Springer was alive. Delbert would always keep me up to date on the parents of my friends and then, in turn, he could catch me up on the younger generation, too. So it was with Delbert. He would always tell me stories of the goings on between himself, Jack Cronin and Fred Pate. He acted like they were always arguing about something between themselves, but really and truly they were all the end of one generation, and me and their kids were the beginnings of another.

Unbeknownst to any of them (until now), I would call Delbert and tell him some kind of bull corn story about one of them saying something about the other and then Delbert would carry the story back to the one being talked about and they would get riled up at each other. It kept them busy and gave me a good laugh when Delbert would finally figure out I had planted the story just to aggravate.

We guys aggravate those we care for.

Even though Delbert’s time in this world has passed, I just can’t help myself because this story was one of my favorite, but sad memories. I have told parts of it before about ten years ago, but when my mom told me about Esther, I just had to mention this one again.

“Hey, lookey here,” Delbert exclaimed as he stood in the doorway. “What is it?” I said as Delbert raised his arms and fist toward the ceiling. My sleepy eyes strained to focus on Delbert’s arms that pre-dawn morning when we both busted into a gut wrenching laughter.

Delbert and I had spent the night at our ranch in Independence, Texas. One of the projects I was working on was re-painting the interior of the house. Delbert and I hit the sack around 9 p.m. the night before. He was in the back bedroom and I slept in the front room. He apparently fell asleep right away, but I struggled, tossed and turned till 10:30 when I decided to get up and do some more painting. I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. painting the remainder of the bathroom.

Unbeknownst to Delbert of the fresh paint in the bathroom, he had awakened around 3:30 a.m. to go to the bathroom. As he placed each of his arms against a wall to support himself, he soon found out the walls had been freshly painted with a real good, solid coat of oil based, semi-gloss, enamel paint! He also realized soap and water wouldn’t wash it off, so he simply went back to bed resting his freshly painted arms on his dirty shirt while lying in the bed waiting on the paint to dry.

This memory of Delbert was unfortunately my last time with him at the ranch. My good and faithful friend passed away a couple of weeks ago. The guy in my life who was a family lifetime friend left this world with the same jolly character by which he lived. Just a few hours before he quietly slipped into a deep coma, he and I called my Uncle Marvin and told him a bull corn story.

While Delbert was in the hospital room we called and left a voice message on my uncle’s phone recorder that Delbert had been thrown in jail and we needed to borrow some money to get him out. I acted all down and distraught while leaving the message. Delbert lay on the bed with a grin on his face and his belly jiggling with laughter because of the bull corn we had started together again.

My next visit to see Delbert was painful as I saw him in a deep, deep almost peaceful sleep, snoring away but I knew his time here was over. As I stood next to his bed I remembered his children whom I grew up with and I thought about their hurt and pain.

They buried their mother a few days earlier and now their dad was critical. I remembered all the jokes we had played on people. My mind went back to the time he was running across the pasture towards our house with kids and a Radio Flyer wagon in tow because his car was on fire and he didn’t have a telephone. I thought about the dirty sausage links we washed off and threw back on the pit.

I reflected on his collection of junk he sold me and I keep asking myself why I bought it. I reminded myself of the two service stations he owned in Hufsmith and on FM 149. I listened to his long, tall tales about my mom and dad. He always related the story of him and his wife and my mom and dad sharing the old homestead house separated by the dog run down the middle.

He also always reminded me about the work he did at my grandpa’s dairy. I remembered the birthday joke I played on him and I always allowed him to bend my ear about his problems. We always agreed to be disagreeable when he talked about many things and I would always remind him he was to be an example and not a complainer. We disagreed, but were real close friends. I thought of the many, many lives he touched with both good and bad memories and wondered why he was like he was. There was only one of a kind in Delbert.

Now I stand at his bedside reminding myself and laughing between the tears about his painted white arms. I pat those arms with my hand and between his labored breaths I relate the story to him once again about his painted arms. I told him I loved him. I asked God to make it easy on my friend. I knew he probably couldn’t hear me, nor could he respond. To some, Delbert’s daily phone calls seemed a bother. Someone rightly said the town rooster won’t crow any more because many of us in town would not receive those familiar daily phone calls from Delbert.

I wish that my phone would ring one more time with his voice on the other end.

Clifford

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed