RichEisbrouch

I've ridden bikes almost all my life but was only on a motor bike once, and that's far from a motorcycle. I was probably going all of ten miles an hour, which is what I used to average in my long distance riding. But I hated it. I felt I was going too fast and had no control. Still, I've been curious to try one of these new electric bikes and haven't only because they would give me any exercise. In fact, it's time to go ride my bike now.

As hard as it was when Eddie died riding his motorcycle, it was harder when it happened all over again to Rodney. Pat called first. She’d been working at the hospital, and someone phoned her even before they called Joann. “I had to tell her,” Pat said. “I had to tell my own sister that she no longer had a husband.” “I can’t believe it,” I said. “It’s horrible.” “He went very fast,” Pat went on. “It wasn’t like Eddie at all. With Eddie, there was always a chance

Thanks. It's mostly in Addie's voice, though occasionally I slip. And, as I've pointed out before, there's a lot of Harper Lee and Lillian Hellman in there.

As usual, thanks. As mentioned, the book is in a series of serious chapters, but there are lighter ones ahead.

We hardly buried Rosalind when suddenly Martin was taken from us. He’d been complaining for a while. Or really, he’d been not complaining, but I’d been quietly noticing his troubles. The biggest was he was having a problem breathing. He’d get halfway up our stairs, and it was like he’d climbed to the top of our highest barn. I wanted to ask, “Are you all right?” But Martin never liked people pointing out his weaknesses, so I didn’t. Not that he would have talked about them anyway.

It's a strange series of chapters and an odd part of the book and this family's life. In a way, it's harder than the World War II deaths because we didn't know the young men who died all that well. Here, we've learned a lot about Addy's sister, brothers, and children, so the losses seem more personal.

But other than my new grandsons, it was just a bad time. A year after Eddie died, Dock told me that Rosalind was dying of lung cancer. “She doesn’t know it,” he went on. “The doctor said there’s nothing he can do. And that all we can do is keep her comfortable. So I figured it’s best not to tell her.” “That’s not fair,” I told Dock. “If it was me, I’d want to know.” “Well, you’re not your sister. And I think I know her a little better.” He proba

And then something terrible happened to Pat’s husband Eddie. He was riding his motorcycle in town. That meant he wasn’t going very fast. Though Pat told me Eddie never rode fast. “It just seems that way because his motorcycle’s so noisy.” “And unprotected,” Dock put in. “It’s not that bad,” Eddie insisted. “And I can always maneuver ‘cause it’s so small. I can get around almost anything.” Except he hit a pothole just down the street from the cou

A little follow-up history, from the East Texas Historical Association – Bonham Cotton Mills – by Beverly Christian Although nothing remains of it but a pile of rubble, Bonham Cotton Mills can hardly be said to have been cut down in its prime. Its life spanned the biblical three score years and ten. Its products served the nation in two world wars, and they were essential to Texas tomato farmers for nearly half a century. At its peak, the mill required 170 bales of Texas cotton every week in order to meet its required production of 325,000 yards of cloth. That is quite a record, but it omits a vital ingredient: Bonham's people invested in the mill, Bonham people operated it, and Bonham people were employed by it. The story of the mill began on May 12, 1900. On that day, the 192 local residents who had subscribed all of the stock elected nine directors to charter Bonham Cotton Mills as a Texas corporation. Capital stock was set at $150,000, divided into 1500 shares at $100 each. In retrospect, it was an auspicious occasion, but at the time, the announcement that major industry would be brought to Bonham probably caused little stir. Not even the naming of a drugstore owner to manage the textile mill was extraordinary, since the publisher of the local newspaper had been a practicing physician. Construction of the two-story cotton mill was begun immediately and required a full year. Local masons were hired, and the brick was handmade with sand hauled in from the northern portion of Fannin County and fired at the site. Floors were of tongue-and-groove maple, designed to withstand the vibration of the heavy, belt-driven machinery. A high smokestack was built to vent the smoke from coal, which was used for fuel until 1912, when Texas Power & Light Company brought its transmission lines to Bonham. Additional water power was available from Powder Creek which traverses the mill property. Steam was forced through jets from the engine room into the manufacturing departments to maintain the high humidity required in textile operations. Sixteen tracts of building lots, ranging from several acres to one or two lots, were acquired in the first years with most of them purchased in 1900. Foot bridges connected the east and west entrances of the mill to nearby streets. The tenant houses, which ranged in size from three rooms to six and featured steep-pitched roofs, were of boxed, or single-wall wood construction. A Surveyor's Plat of "properties formerly belonging to Bonham Cotton Mills" filed in 1958 shows the discontinuous location of the lots. Just how many of the houses were ready for occupancy when the mill opened for business in the spring of 1901 is not known, but operations began with 1500 spindles and150 looms. John C. Saunders, mill manager, had spent the months while the mill was under construction studying textile mills in the southeastern United States. So far as is known, neither he nor any of the investors had prior experience with textile milling.

In 1999, when I saw the north Texas town Bodark Creek is modeled on, the family house -- the one Rosalind, Dock, and Albie eventually lived in for so long -- still had people living in it, and we took a picture. That's fortunate because when I did a map search a few years ago, the house and the other mill houses that used to be around it were gone. There were very small, so it makes sense that few people would want to live in them. I haven't checked to see if the area has been redeveloped, but the area along the river that serviced the mill was a park. I should look again.

Dougie died almost eleven months to the day after Walter, just before Christmas. I was just saying to someone at church that it was almost a year since we were all out at the cemetery, and then we were right back again. Dougie had a heart attack, like Walter. And like Walter, he died before anyone could get the doctor. “He was there, and then he wasn’t,” Leona said. “It was like I watched the life going out of his eyes.” She was pretty sick for a while after tha

As, I've told you before, Tony, the story is pretty well posted for you here, though I appreciate the other readers. But on this piece, you've been the one the story seems to have touched the most. Again, thanks, Rich

No one expected Walter to die before Dougie. It was true that Walter was seventy-five. But he was in good health, and Dougie was already eighty. He was in good health, too, but we all used to kid about how much longer he could last. “You better let me have that last bit of ham,” he’d say at a Sunday dinner. “Never know how much longer I’ll be here with you.” “You’ll outlast us all,” his wife would joke. “Well, I’ve outlived Daddy, I know that mu

Or at least the changes in one family. But you're right: they seem to be mirrored by those in a lot of America. Again, thanks for reading and commenting.

“This is like the old days,” I told Martin one morning. “Except instead of me having babies and our nieces getting married, our sons’ wives are having the babies and our daughters are finding husbands.” “Someone’s always finding a husband around here,” Martin said. “Pat and Joann shouldn’t be any different.” Maybe not, but Joann still surprised us. First, she started dating Rodney. Then she kept dating him. “How can you be serious about someone

I don't think I was even in Lawrence. I lived in a town about a third its size, but southwest of Boston rather than northwest. But there was nothing in this town, so I was in Boston almost every weekend from Friday to Sunday nights.

Yep, I have several other books set in one of those comfortable, western Massachusetts former mill towns. The most recent, Recycle, a very short one, is posted here, and its companion short piece is still being written so will be here eventually. GWM, Tall Man Down, and Quabbin -- all here -- are also set in that area, and The Pendleton Omens starts and ends there but spends the bulk of its time in Los Angeles. Oddly, I only spent seven years, total, living in the two small towns in Massachusetts that serve as the town's source, and only four in the main one. But that's become one of the main bases for my writing. The other -- for the Alan Damshroeder E-Mail books -- is Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where I only spent two years, several years apart. The main character in Mexico comes from that area, too. That's incidental to the story, but shapes his low-key personality. I've only been to the town that's Bodark Creek once, for an afternoon, but, fortunately, the Internet filled out some research and my early fiction reading the rest -- as I mentioned, Hellman, Lee, and Capote. The story's mainly about family anyway, so, as with Mexico, the place shapes their personalities. The things writers leave out of their stories is probably best left out, but that's a little of their backgrounds.

When the mill closed, everyone was surprised, and nobody was surprised. “I never thought it would happen,” Dougie said. “I can’t imagine the town without it,” Rosalind agreed. “It’s just always been there.” “It’s not like the building’s going away,” I told them. “And maybe it will only be closed for a year, like the last time.” “That would be great,” Dougie admitted. “Maybe someone will buy the place and get it really going agai

Yes, it was a really strange weekend, and, in its way, it matched the day of his inauguration three years earlier, when we'd had snow in New York City, the schools were closed, people couldn't get to work, so everyone stayed home and watched the snowy inauguration in DC.

It wasn’t just that President Kennedy was killed in Dallas. It would have made us feel awful no matter where it happened. But the fact that it happened so close to us made it seem worse. I’m not sure I even knew he was coming to Texas. Del insisted that he said something about it that morning at breakfast. “I told you that if I had the day free, I might’ve gone and waved to the president. Just so I could say I’d seen him once.” Del really liked President Kennedy

That's too bad. My hometown is technically New York City, where I was born and lived full-time till I was six-and-a-half. Then my family moved to the nearby suburbs. But although I lived all over the country, I was in and out of the city frequently until my early forties. I always felt comfortable in New York and, for that matter its suburbs. You just need a lot of money to live in the City.

Thanks. And as long as I'm in your kitchen, can I have a snack?

Fortunately, the town that Bodark Creek is loosely based on has done pretty well. But that may be because, with faster cars, the town became closer to Dallas, and people could commute to there for city jobs. Do you ever visit your old home town?

Yep, Albie would definitely have been on the Autism spectrum had it existed. I'm not sure the word Autism had even been developed. But he couldn't have gotten any more support then as the kids do now. He simply had very understanding parents.

Joann’s marriage was fine, showing us that Martin and I didn’t know what we should be worried about. She and Bobby found an apartment near the college. He got a job working at Kraft, and she started at school. They even bought a used car, so we saw them almost every weekend. Sometimes, we saw Joann more than that, when she had some time off between classes and just decided to stop out and see us. After a year, she got pregnant, but she was excited about that, too. “You’re going to be grandparent