OLD BUSINESS
Well, finally, I stumped Ruth the Republican--or should she be Ruth the Researcher?
Colonel E. M. House called President Woodrow Wilson "Governor" even after WW reached the White House in 1913. Wilson had been Governor of New Jersey, so I suppose House didn't want to find a new name for him. House did indeed write the Phillip Dru book about Wilson, but he would never have called Wilson by that name.
TWO NEW QUESTIONS
1. When I came to Texas half a century ago, someone said, "The Baptists and the Johnson grass are taking over Texas." Which came first, the Baptists or the Johnson grass?
2. Who rented the house next door to Colonel House, who lived at 1704 West Avenue in Austin?
THE KING IS ALIVE AND STILL A REPUBLICAN
Everyone remembers when Richard Milhous Nixon was president and entertained Elvis Aaron Presley in the White House. If you don't, the photo below will refresh your memory.
But everyone also knows that "the King" didn't really die and is often seen at Dairy Queens and 7-11s. Elvis just disappeared in order to give himself some peace. However, Elvis did show up for a quick visit with George W. Bush just after the forty-third president was elected. Elvis has picked up a few pounds and has grown a beard, but the King still lives!
LITTLE SKETCH: SARAH GREENE
Last year, the Texas Folklore Society honored Joyce Roach and me by making us Fellows of the Texas Folklore Society. Joyce was honored because of her wonderful works. I was honored because only four members of this society (founded 1909) have been in longer than I have. At the induction in Galveston, Sarah Greene very graciously read my "obituary of induction." She volunteered because she and I have been in on many folklore and semi-folklore events for years and years. In fact, she and I preached the funeral for James W. Byrd of East Texas State University (now A&M-Commerce) a few years ago.* Sarah and I were always invited to East Texas to speak at Byrd's annual summer seminar, and he always had us on the same day. (The Great Byrd always brought in friends to speak so that he would not have to teach the class very much. He had people like Paul Patterson, Martha Emmons, F. E. Abernethy, Ben K. Green, and Elmer Kelton to do the work. After J. Mason Brewer joined the ET faculty, Byrd renamed the summer seminar the J. Mason Brewer Seminar.)
That was a rambling introduction. Sarah Greene is the voice of Northeast Texas. For years, she was owner/operator/publisher/editor of The Gilmer Mirror, which covers Upshur County like the dew. She has turned over the operation of the Mirror to her son, Russ, but she still writes "Sideglances in the Mirror" and is always either folksy or learned or informative. (Her most recent column was on bird watching in East Texas, but she often tells of the many trips she makes around the world.
Sarah has been everywhere. China, Europe, Egypt—even probably "far-flung Cambodia."** Some of her travel is for pleasure, and some of it is in her various capacities as a newswoman. She has been president of every press organization you can imagine—even the Texas Press Association. She loves to travel, and now that Russ and her daughter Sally are grown and Sarah is a widow, she is free to roam the world. Every time I see her or she emails me, she is "just back from XXXXXX." I used to be startled at her wide range, but now I take it for granted.
*Actually, it wasn't a funeral; it was a memorial service held at Texas A&M at Commerce after Byrd was buried. I just like the idea of saying I preached a funeral. I have done a lot of those in recent years, and I am weary of such work.
** I often use the phrase "far-flung Cambodia." I heard it in an old play once. It could have been Charley's Aunt. The aunt, who, as everyone knows, came from "Brazil, where the nuts come from." I think the aunt—the real one and the imagined one—visited "far-flung Cambodia." I am sure Ruth the Republican can set me straight if she will take the trouble to read Charley's Aunt.)
End of that particular digression and back to Sarah. I first met Sarah when she attended her first Texas Folklore Society meeting in "far-flung Alpine" in 1962. She became a regular, and I have missed very few meetings over these many years. So we manage to see each other a couple of times a year. Then I taught Sally when she was a student at UNT (I won't say when in case Sally sees this). If I remember, I directed Sally's MA thesis on the British novelist Colin Wilson. Sally went on to get two doctorates—one in jurisprudence and one in literature. She is married to Paul Jones, the well-known North Carolina poet and is the mother of Tucker Jones, who must be ten or twelve by now. Sarah burns up the airlines between Gilmer and NC to see her "far-flung family." Actually, Sarah does not fly out of Gilmer proper, but has to drive a ways to hear "the big jet engines whine." (Ruth the Republican, where does that line appear?)
Sarah grew up in a newspaper family. She must be the third generation at the Mirror. Sarah went to Stephens College in Missouri, where all debs went to "finish" back in the day. And then she went to the University of Texas. She worked on The Daily Texan, and then moved to Dallas to work on the Dallas Morning News. That is when she married Ray Greene, whom she had known at UT. After a time, Sarah moved to Fort Worth and worked at Convair writing and editing material on the B-36. Ray was at the Star-Telegram then. When her parents decided to retire, Ray and Sarah moved back to Gilmer and The Mirror.
Sarah knows more about Texas fiction than most college professors who teach the subject. She has over 700 books in her Texas collection, and she is always telling me about writers I have not read and whose work she knows entire.
I am sorry to include this picture of me with Sarah Greene. She deserves better, but I don't have a photo of her standing alone, and I won't see her to take one until next week when the Texas Folklore Society meets in San Antonio. I hope Sarah outlives me, for I don't think I can bear to preach her funeral. But we both plan to hang on for most of the rest of this century.
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