Saturday, July 16, 2016

Love's Lookout

Love's Lookout, Jacksonville, TexasJoe and I grew up in the same small East Texas town.  Jacksonville is located in Cherokee County surrounded by rolling hills and pine trees. The scenic overlook in the photograph (not mine, one I found online) is called Love's Lookout. The scenic bluff was used for the location of a large ampitheatre formed from  red rock, a WPA project. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Depression-era Works Progress Administration came to the hill in the 1930s and, using red rock mined from Cherokee County, built a park, picnic grounds and an amphitheater.

The ampitheatre was named to honor Wesley Love who in 1904 bought much of the surrounding area and planted a 600-acre peach farm. After Love's death in 1925, his wife donated 22 acres to the state for a state park. The state, however, failed to create the park and in 1934 the City of Jacksonville purchased an additional 20 acres and developed the two tracts as a city park. That's when the Works Progress Administration began its project.

In the Spring, dogwoods and other spring flowers are in bloom, making the setting even more beautiful. When I was a child, we often drove on the highway between Jacksonville and Tyler because both sets of my grandparents lived in Bullard, about halfway between those towns. Typically, scenes that are so familiar and frequently seen tend to be taken for granted.  Not until you are far away do you remember those sights and realize just how lovely they were.

There is yet another fond connection for our family with this place and its name. In 1982, we bought the home built by John Wesley Love and lived there long enough to research and write its history, receiving a designation for the significance of the home with a State Historical marker. By that time all acreage but the 3 acres where the house was located had been sold (or donated, as the land for Love's lookout is located), but the oaks and magnolias and pines that were there were  lovely reminders. When I did the research for the historical commission I learned that there were earlier connections between our family and the Loves.  My father and uncle once worked in John Wesley Love's peach orchards picking peaches.  Joe's father had done work inside the home as a painter.

When we do go back to Jacksonville, our itinerary usually includes a trip to the Bullard cemetery where so many of my ancestors were laid to rest. The highway is bigger and better, but the sides of the road are still lined with red dirt and pine trees.  There are still remnants of the watermelon colored crepe myrtles which were always full of summertime blooms.  And Love's Lookout still beckons us to stop and look across  a green valley.

Saturday, July 9, 2016

Porch Time

When we have moved into various houses over the years, I always like finding spots that become favorites, places in or near our home that I return to frequently for quiet times or just because it is a joy to be there. In our new house, one of those places is our back porch, a wide tiled area with a cedar roof and ceiling fans that extends almost the width of the house. After we spent our first night here, I went out to this porch early the next morning in time to watch the sunrise, which has become a habit.
There are rocking chairs and places to perch my coffee cup. The view is an entirely different one from our previous back porch, which led onto a wooded back garden with our herb beds, rose arbor, and fish pond.  This house sits near the edge of a small lake, fenced only by open wrought iron, and the few trees only break the skyline slightly. Since the back of the house faces north, I have an expansive view of sunrises and sunsets, both reflected over the water, changing daily and by the hour. I never tire of being there, but our Texas heat does drive me inside. All our gardening is done right now in our front flower beds, or in containers, but soon we will add some raised beds for a kitchen and herb garden and a few other green growing things like roses to clamber on the fence. I look forward to welcoming new garden friends. But even more, I look forward to sharing our porch with others.  Already, family gathers and we hope that soon friends and new neighbors will join us as well. Porches have a history of being good gathering places, and this one is just waiting for others to discover it as a favorite spot!




Saturday, July 2, 2016

July 4th Flags 2016


 Fourth of July in our new home means bringing out flags and finding new places to put them.  Nora calls them kites, so we have many kites in many places. I love seeing our big flags waving in the breeze of this summer weekend. Today there are even clear blue skies and fluffy white clouds for their background. We also have tiny flags that for years have lined our front sidewalk and in this home, Nora and Kristen lined the edges of our front flower bed with them after Nora had her own parade with one.
We also have some new ones, crafted one evening last week with a group of friends from our church.  A dozen or more women, young and old, gathered for good conversation, good food, and fun with scraps of denim, ribbons, lace, and torn strips of fabric.  Every single flag was different, all were lovely.  Kristen and I both made one. The most beautiful I saw was being crafted by a young woman from the Congo who with her husband and 2 small children has only been in our country a few weeks. I watched her as she chose ribbons and lace and deftly attached them to create a flag for a country that must not yet feel like her own. I thought how she must feel, the refuge she has sought here, and what freedom looks like to her. 




As the night skies fill with bursts of fireworks, we hear patriotic songs that we have sung since childhood, and as we pray for our country and its leaders, I am thankful for our flags, and the freedom to proudly wave them.

                                 AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL
O beautiful for spacious skies,
   For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
   Above the fruited plain!
      America!  America!
   God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
   From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
   Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
   Across the wilderness!
      America! America!
   God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
   Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved
   In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
   And mercy more than life!
      America!  America!
   May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
   And every gain divine!
O beautiful for patriot dream
   That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
   Undimmed by human tears!
      America!  America!
   God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
   From sea to shining sea!