It was just short of twenty years ago now, at least to best of my recollection, that I drove up from Hondo, Texas (the sign as you enter this small Texas town says, "This is God's Country, so please don't drive through it like Hell!") to Leakey, Texas. Leakey is a place near and dear to my heart. The thought of this sleepy little hill country town, nestled along the banks of the Frio River, awakens many fond, all be they slumbering memories from my childhood. On this particularly beautiful Sunday morning my family and I were enjoying the scenic drive along the winding narrow road through the hills and valleys with their multi-color hues. However, this day we were out just for "a Sunday drive" this journey had purpose beyond seeing Pop, Auntie, Doyle, Kathy and their family. I was going to preach for the Leakey Church of Christ. It is a church whose story and history intersects time and time again with the story of our family. This church and our family share a rich and common history, its story and many from our family's past are yet to be told. I hope with the help of family record these before they are lost in the black hole of time. Because of the historical significance and connections this small hill country church has for our family it was an honor for me to even be invited much less to be invited back numerous times.
This Sunday morning I told a story from the Phillips family past to illustrate my major point. I had heard the story several times from both my father and my uncle Orville. It seems that when Orville and his brother Norvel were younger they wanted to go into town on Saturday. Going to town on Saturday back in the early 1900's was a major event usually something that the entire family did together. When you lived out in the country miles and miles from nearest neighbors much less the closest town it was like going to a circus or carnival. People would load up in their wagons, hitch up their teams and make the long arduous journey along lonely, dusty, sometimes muddy section line roads. Upon arrival they would park in wagon yards, where the small children would play in the dirt, maybe be able to buy some penny candy or a nickel soda while the men traded, whittled, told stories, played dominos and played music. The women did their shopping at the general store buying their staples like flour, sugar and corn meal and sometimes when they had some extra money a hat or special fabric for a dress because usually dresses were made from flour and feed sacks. This was a special time not something that families did every week. A time to stay late, have a Saturday night dance, maybe camp over night, go to church on Sunday morning, eat dinner on the grounds and return home that afternoon. This is not to say that these activities did not go on every weekend but not all families went every week.
One weekend Norvel (the oldest) and Orville (who was 10 years older than my dad) wanted to go into town. The entire family was not going that weekend and my grandfather (John Andrew) was not sure he wanted his two older boys to go into town alone. John (John Henry was my father's name, family members called him Doc or Henry, the reason is a story better left for another day) was a "crusty" old character whom I only knew late in his life, sometimes during his life he was a lawman other times he was an outlaw, but he was not a man to be disobeyed and his older son knew this well. I am not sure what the boys had planned for that Saturday but having been a young man once I have my own ideas and it does not take a fertile imagination to assume it had something to do with girls. After some time the boys convinced Grandpa to let them go. He had one rule, be home before to late, I don't know what time that was but they knew and they knew what the consequences would be of breaking that one rule.
They got busy, hurriedly hitched the mule to the family wagon and headed out into to town. They were having a great time, as one might imagine two unsupervised young men on the town might. They were having so much fun in fact that they completely lost track of time (at least that's what I was told). It was late, after dark when they started the wagon toward home. One thing they knew was that they were going to be in trouble and Grandpa was not an overly forgiving man, a man that even in his eighties, when I knew him carried his pistol in his overalls. It would not surprise me in the least if they had to forcibly take it from him the last time he went to the hospital (but I digress and those are stories better left for another time). The boys were in a hurry, trying to make it down the rugged wagon ruts that passed for a road (great fun for your off road 4 X 4’s these days but not so much then) and they were making good time, for a while.
That old mule would just take a notion to balk (just stop and refuse to move) at the most inconvenient times, in fact he was famous for it. Ok, so you probably figured out by now where I am going with this, but I am going to tell you any way. He balked right in the middle of the road and absolutely would not budge. Orville bit his ear trying to get him to move. Norvel stuck his pocket knife in is flank. They hit him with a big tree limb that they broke off a tree beside the road. They tried dragging and pushing without success. No matter what they did the mule would not move. Now by this time it was getting real late and they were in deep trouble. One of them (Uncle Orville wouldn't tell me which) came up with the idea of building a fire under the mule. They heard some place that this would make a balking mule move. So they gathered leaves, twigs, tree limbs anything flammable from beside the road and started a fire right under the belly of that old mule. To their surprise it worked the mule jumped forward just far enough to get the wagon over the fire. They caught the wagon on fire and had to beat the fire out with their shirts. For them it was just one more thing that old John A. Phillips was not going to be happy about when and if the mule decided to move and they arrived home, very, very late.
I used this story in the sermon in an attempt to illustrate how sometimes when we try to motivate people, to get them to move or change that they often move just far enough to catch the wagon on fire. Or let me express it in another way, just far enough to create a whole new set of problems. After the sermon, Auntie (Aunt Opal) came up to me with this big smile on her face, looked up (because she was also affectionately called "Shorty") at me and said, “I remember that mule, his name was Ball, and he would balk whenever he wanted." That's all she said to me. My family and I went to her house for Sunday dinner, where she fixed corn for my youngest son Jordan because she knew how much he loved it. Auntie always set a great table with plenty of food and family around to enjoy its bounty and the love of a wonderful Christian woman. I sure miss, Pop and Auntie.
p.s. There are also stories about Auntie's table that, well I choose to share at a later time.
Bob Phillips
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