If I ever knew his real first name it is long abandoned in lonely deserted place in the deepest recesses of my increasingly feeble mind. I only knew him as “crybaby Henderson" because that is my father and uncles always called him. They would at times imitate his whiney, squeaky voice that made him sound like he was crying when he talked. I can remember Otis, Jimmy and Doc all taking turns at imitating the man to whom they all sold cedar post. He owned several cedar yards (a place where they stacked and sold cedar post) throughout the hill country in the 1950's and the Phillips boys, among other things were cedar choppers.
Chopping cedar is hot, hard back breaking and dirty work. The cedar brake is not the place of the lazy, weak and timid souls too accustom to living and working under an air conditioner. Mountain cedar grows on the hills among the rocks and prickly pears, in thickets that block the wind but never the sun. The Phillips boys did not cut their cedar with chain saws, they were much to poor for that and besides there were not many dealers in such "high tech" gadgets. These men were from the old school they used their axes sharpened and honed to a fine edge, sharp enough to shave with, not that I ever saw them try. The cedar brake a place where men chopped, trimmed, measured and stacked cedar fence post for a few dollars a day. A place where what you made was determined by how hard you worked, how many and what size post you cut. But in the final analysis what you made was determined by the market, and by market I mean how good of a deal you could get from "crybaby Henderson." He also cried about how much he had to pay for the post, their price was too high and he could not make any money. He was in daddy's words, "tighter than Dick’s hat band." I will be completely honest with you I have no idea what that means, but it must be pretty tight.
In the cedar brake they always made a camping area. It was a place where they built a fire to cook their meals. There were two things that were always on the fire, a pot of coffee and a pot of beans. They were hot and sweaty but always took coffee brakes throughout the day; people of the "greatest generation" drank coffee all day and into the night. Not that low test decaffeinated stuff or some kind of "mamby pamby mocha decaf soy latte." My oldest brother Danny who is five years older than I am was old enough to go to cedar brake with the men. He was in what we would call Middle School today, but back then we had never heard of such a thing as Middle School. His only job was to make sure there was hot coffee on the fire and the beans were cooking. To say the least his only job was not a daunting task for a bright, curious and hard working young man.
One day Dan got distracted, not sure by what, but we all know how short boys of that age attention span can be, well let's be honest boys of any age. Daddy came in to camp sometime during that day to take a break and get a cup of coffee. He poured a big cup of that steamy brew hot and black; he took one sip, made a strange face but never said a word. He just looked over at the coffee pot crooked his index finger with that universally known come here motion, and if the pot had been a person it would have understood his meaning, coffee come over here. Danny told me the other day he knew exactly what daddy meant. The coffee was strong enough to get up and stand by itself. A simple lesson learned and mistake never repeated.
It is easy to get distracted and side tracked in life, often we realize the mistake without anyone ever saying a word.
The key to a successful life is learning the simple lessons and not repeating the same mistakes (easier said than done, I realize). But when we learn to master ourselves it becomes much easier to master the “things” around us.
Bob Phillips
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