Sixtieth High School Reunion

What a trip ! Filled with nostalgia ! John, Moselle, and I set out for the West bright and early Friday morning, a beautiful day. We checked into the Holiday Inn at San Angelo about 3 p.m. and began our tour westward, where Moselle and I had lived many years ago.
First we searched for Tankersly, 15 miles west where Mother, Aunt Lura, and I lived for a few years. -about 1930 to 1933, more or less. The brick building that was the school building is still standing and being used for something—storage of some kind. The tiny, four-room teacherage is gone and so are the outhouses, but I was amazed to find that old brick building. Aunt Lura was the principal of the school, and she built the coal stove fires in the three school rooms before school on cold days.
Down the road on the left, the old church building was gone. It was used by the Methodists one Sunday and the Baptist the next.
Farther down on the right the old Church of Christ building was gone, but we continued to the river, Spring Creek and there was a beautiful part -Foster Park now.
When I was a child there was nothing but a dry water crossing that dammed up enough water for swimming. I learned to swim in that little pool of water. A large bridge was built and the park was full of beautiful pecan trees. In that small river, water cress used to grow, and in the early spring before veggies were available, we picked the delicious cress for salad.
We drove on west for about 15 miles to Mertzon where Moselle and her family had lived. Her father, Uncle Dan went to West Texas first because the economy was better out there. The next year he sent for Mother to teach at Arden, and the next year Aunt Lura came out and Mother and I moved to Tankersly.
The old Mertzon school building was still being used. It is beautiful—two and a half stories, built of some kind of masonry and in excellent condition. It is the center of a good school complex for Irion County High School.
Uncle Dan named their school mascot the Hornets, and that is still used.
We saw the tall mountains where we used to roam for hours and hours, and somehow they had shrunk. As we drove along we saw two deer in the pastures beside the road and lots of goats grazing. There were also oil wells pumping. Oil had not been discovered when we lived there.
Then we drove toward Arden, remembering how it was in 1929 or 30. We had no car. There was no public transportation. Twenty miles from Mertzon, twenty-eight miles from San Angelo.
Uncle Dan had a Model T Ford and he took us over the mountains to that wild and woolly new place. The mountains were too steep for the old Model T. As we went up one or two of them, Uncle Dan drove the car up as far as it would go and it would stall. U. Dan yelled, "Everybody out and get a rock to put under the wheels" We all fell out and did as we were told.
Then he would turn around and back up the mountain. Evidently the rear gear worked better than the forward. Then he'd drive on to the next mountain and repeat the drill. I could hear him yet on that hillside yelling, "Everybody Out!” I could imagine a snake under every rock, but no one was too young to help. He and Aunt Velma, his wife, rescued us like that many week-ends.
On Friday we saw there was nothing left to mark the Arden school except two old gate turn around fixture that were broken, and it was all fenced in. But there was a roadside marker telling of the old two-story building that served as a school and a church for the community of Arden.
The reunion of classes 1936, ‘37, and ‘38 was held in the renovated old Cactus Hotel. The hotel is not in use, but the Mezzanine and ballroom were beautiful as they were long ago, but somehow they had grown smaller. The chandeliers were shiny and bright, and I could almost see the Big Bands what used to play there.
I visited with lots of old friends and that was great. They told me all about their ailments and who all was dead. I looked around that room and wondered, "What in the world am I doing here with all of these OLD PEOPLE." I carefully didn't look in the mirrors. Ha!
My friend, Nelle Taylor Shipley, took us to lunch and on a tour of the old haunts, what few were left there in San Angelo. We talked and talked and talked and remembered and remembered.
My rememberer was all worn out afterward, and I needed to rest for days.