Vacation: Table Talk

TABLE TALK. Food will always be an important element of all Minton gatherings. I’ve been in the family 47 year and with the exception of one family portrait made in 1974 the family snapshots are usually at the table—and almost without exception someone has a fork full of food halfway to the mouth! Even after the meal is finished and our bellies are full we sit and talk and laugh and, sometimes, we even shed a tear. This gathering is no exception.

Thursday night we were all together for the first time since the summer of 2004, so we caught up on kids and grandkids—work, school, graduations, accomplishments, difficulties, joys…. Those who had photos shared them. And, of course, Thomas or I shared our photos from our laptop when we found an interested party, flipping through last summer’s Grandparent Camp, our home and woods, and our trip to Switzerland two years ago.

The subjects of our table talks after a meal is finished can be almost any topic. One morning the honored sibs began to tell tales about their childhood in Snyder, TX. After a fairly detailed geography of the town, some observations about the town’s growth over the years, the four of them traced their family moves from Avenue S to 25th Street and Avenue M. The next move was a little further out Avenue M toward the rodeo grounds.

Bob remembered that was where he had the mumps when he was in high school—and how his mother had reluctantly let him go to the Friday night football game when the team bus stopped by the house on the way to an out of town game, to see if he could ride along. Her last remark as her teen-aged son got on the team bus, “Be careful when you get off the bus so that you don’t make the mumps fall.” Then after a slight pause, Bob adds, “I played the whole game!”

This is probably one of those stories he never told in his mother’s hearing. (There seem to be more and more of those stories surfacing…)

From Avenue M they moved to Avenue G, over by the football field. While they lived there Bob joined the army and Frank began traveling with the high school football team. As they recalled this move I made a mental note of just how significant this time was for them. The army sent Bob to Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey where he met Rose. After his discharge he remained in New Jersey and continued to work for the government doing what he had done in the military. In December he and Rose will celebrate their 55th Wedding Anniversary.

Frank’s interest in football that began there on Avenue M continued and he excelled in it, went to college on a foot ball scholarship and eventually coached both high school and college football. In one of those positions he met his Barbara—and the rest is history. He and Barbara have been married almost 50 years and have the honor of being the only great-grand parents in the lot.

Frank declares that he is a walking, talking miracle because brother Bob (four years his senior) and their uncle, Donald Jack, (just a year older than Bob) would think up risky adventures and encourage Frank to try them out first. Frank remembers that the two of them dared him to pee on an electric fence. [Pause for rib-splitting laughter.] He also remembers that the two of them hid a snake in a jar and put it in the cellar where Mama Jones (grandmother & mother) stored her jars of jelly. When she discovered the snake (while reaching for a jar of jelly) she screamed and cleared the shelf of jars in one fell swoop! Then in the midst of the broken jars and jelly she killed the snake. Of course, Bob and Donald Jack said Frank did it.

Jeanie was born while the family lived on 25th Street. Thomas was 4 3/4 year old when she was born. As the youngest of the sibs she spent a lot of time listening to the tales of her brothers antics.




Friday night’s table talk went in an odd direction: snakes, lizards, alligators, bobcats, turtles, rabbits, and squirrels, in no particular order. The Sweetwater Rattlesnake Round-up led to lengthy discussions about that experience. Frank had one rattlesnake college prank he remembered.

Then Bob and Rose told tales of the little alligator they found in their back yard and the alligators spotted on a regular basis at Jeff’s golf course in South Carolina! Thomas related our bobcat story and Bob added their bobcat and javelina experiences in AZ. To wind down we heard about turtles and rabbits and squirrels, oh my!