The Rock Wall

Finally, the explanation I have been looking for about the run on TP. I just got an email that says, “

Diarrhea May Be an Early Sign of COVID-19, According to Doctors

One study found that nearly 20% of people reported it as their first symptom.

– Saw a neat idea on TV Monday morning – RVs for MDs. Voluntreers park a travel trailer in the driveway of heath care workers possibly exposed to Covid 19 free for as long as they need so they won’t expose their family.

-Kimball’s lifelong bet friend, Camille Greive Dent Thrasher, sent me this tid bt. “I don’t need terapy. I just need to see my grandkids.”

The sarvis (aka service berry) bloom is over. Kinda hit between issues.  But the red budds are in full bloom and the biggest and brightest we have ever seen. Take a drive anywhere around town or out in the country. And enjoy.

– About seven or eight years ago, Adrian and Davis wanted to try raising some calves to make some extra money.  Our neighbor, Carl Taylor, goes to the sale barns so he bought about 25 one at a time.

The kids weren’t raised around cattle but soon got accustomed to the calves crowding around them at the trough.

I told them, “Don’t pet those little calves. They’ll grow up.” Even so, Adrian made a pet out of No 8, a black Angus. She’d ruffle his top knot and he’d beller a little.

Adrian was back out there with me one day after No. 8 got to weighing about 800 lbs. He remembered his friend. I waited until No. 8 was about six feet behind Adrian and told her to look behind her. He came up to Adrian, dropped his head and wanted to play. He shook his head and let out a full-grown bellow.

Adrian jumped behind me and said breathlessly, “Dad, I’ll never doubt you again.”

When she was getting ready to go to collete, she applied a MU where I went to school and they offered her one tiny scholarship.

She applied at Centenary where her grandpa, Adrian, graduated, also where Kimball’s best friend, Camille, has family on the board, and was offered a bunch of scholarships.

She got a degree in Art and Visual Culture with an emphasis on museum management. I asked Kimball, “Where in the world is she going to get a job with a degree like that?”

She graduated on Saturday and went to work on Monday with her good friend working for the good friend’s mother abstracting – locating property oil companies had leased to drill for gas in the Haynesville Shale layer about two miles deep.

Because she was in Shreveport., she met a nice young man and brought him up for the Picnic. We approved.

That fall, as I was driving down through the timber going to my deer stand, my cell phone rang. It was that nice young man. We chit chatted awhile then he told me why he had called. He asked my permission to ask Adrian to marry him. Without hesitation, I said, “Will you let her go to church?” he said he would. Than I asked, “Will you go with her?” He said he would.

I said, “It’s Ok with me. Would you call her mother? She’s at the house.” He got her approval probably easier than he got mine.

We even put his proposal in a full page ad in the Sun newspaper. We had Lalan Cole print the first version and inserted it in the paper we mailed to Adrian because we just knew one of her friends up here would see it and rat us out. The next week we put it in the regular paper for everybody to read.

We never once asked them for a grandchild or even hinted at it. But when they moved to a bigger house, we figured we knew what would happen.

On April 17, three years ago, I got a phone call from Adrian telling me I was going to be a grandpa, but I couldn’t tell anybody. Finally she gave us permission to tell it. Van was supposed to get here on Nov. 28. On Saturday, Oct. 28, the phone rang way early. As I went to answer, I said, “This had better be good.”

It was. Adrian said she was in the hospital and the doctor told her she’d have a baby before she went home.  A little after six that evening, Cain called to tell us Momma and Van were OK.

No. 4 didn’t take as long. They told us another one was on the way and Snider (Kimball’s maiden name) arrived on Sept. 9 before Van’s second birthday on Oct. 28.  Adrian is one busy momma. Some days Cain stays home to help.

Meanwhile Davis told me on a Tuesday he and Erica were getting marred that weekend.  For the second time in my life, I knew what to say in a surprise situation, “Congratulations.” A little over a year later, Kimball and I went through security at Nevada Regional Medical Center and got to hold our hours old third grandchild, Reese. Our second grandchild, Ben, was already almost 11 when we got to know him. He and I have a date to go fishing this spring, several times I hope.

KL