CELEBRATING MY FIRST 85 YEARS

After a fun celebration with family and friends, on my 85th birthday, I  realized how blessed my life has been (and how fast those years went by). I often wonder what did I do to deserve such a wonderful life.   Was it with Gods help?  Was it my inherited genes?  This writing is  about what I think influenced my first 85 years.  Note, I said my first 85 years, I am somewhat optimistic.

                                                      

                                               “Life is good, it is just that simple”

While growing up I attended the First Baptist Church in Enid, Oklahoma.  It as a “Southern Baptist Church” where we were taught  fear of God sermons, which was scary to this six year old. I was not always the most faithful in attending church, however my folks gave me  little choice.  I once got caught leaving the service to meet my friends at the local ice cream parlor, to spend my nickel for an ice cram cone rather than the church offering.  Also, caught taking a deck of cards and a few cigars to Falls Creek Baptist Church Camp,(both no-no’s for Baptist youth).  Not a very impressive early start in the church. 

                                                  

                                 I was not even invited to sing in the children’s youth choir ???

Hearing Mrs. Montgomery’s Sunday School lessons on the Ten Commandments, I realize today how important they were to my up-bringing.  So Yes, I must have been in God’s hands, thanks to my early church years and Mrs. Montgomery.

                  JUST WHERE DID THOSE INHERITED GENES COME FROM?

Looking back, the family genes may have lead to my interest in art.  When I was 5 years old, living in Hennessey, Oklahoma, my mother told me she wanted me to take dance lessons.   I told her NO, I was going to be and artist!  I must have told her that to get out of dance lessons, it was many years later before I even thought about art.

In high school they offered an art class.  My friends and I elected to take this class because if you finished the class project you were given an “A” and we really needed that grade.  My friend, Bud Nicholas, and I were kicked out of their Palette Club because of our pranks.

We learned how to make snakes out of clay.  I did pass this wonderful gene on to my                              grandchildren.

Forty years later, I needed a hobby for relief from the 24/7 days in the restaurant.   Choices were limited, golf took many hours away from my business. However, one day my daughter asked to help draw an elephant for her class assignment.  I took the task on and realized how fun it was to draw.  The light turned on , so I took an art class at Phillips University under Jim Bray and my search for a hobby was over (“No mother I am going to be an artist”).

So where did the art genes come from?  Maybe from my ggg grandmother, Elizabeth Hondrick.  I learned that she was an accomplished artist from Kansas City.

                                          Elizabeth Hondrick, 1839-1924. Oil painting

Her gene must have passed on to my grandson, Hayden Lee Shaw.  His interesting style of painting and knowledge of colors show a rare talent.  Below is a painting for his grandmother.

    

“Janie”

I am hoping that my grandmother Elizabeth’s genes will kick in someday.  Anyway, it has been a fun and relaxing hobby for me. Below is my  snow painting from the same landscape used in Elizabeths painting, over 100 years ago.

 

                          WHERE DID THE COWBOY GENES COME FROM?

From my earliest recollections, I wanted to be a cowboy.  Perhaps those genes came from four generations of Anderson and Guernsey ranchers.

   On my way to see a double feature cowboy movie.

I earned a Hereford calf for hoeing cotton one summer for my Aunt and Uncle Sullins.  This experience, at the age of 12, taught me that I never wanted to be a cotton farmer!

                                                         

                                                           The painting of my first calf. 

When I enrolled in college those genes appeared again, I decided to enroll in Animal Science.  My dream was to be a big rancher with lots of Hereford cattle.  That dream was crushed after graduation, from Oklahoma A&M College, with only a small savings account to buy that ranch.

While in college I was honored to be on their team that groomed and showed OSU prize cattle.  We traveled by rail box cars.   We loaded  steers at Perry, Oklahoma  for a trip to the Livestock Show in Fort Worth, Texas.  It was night and in middle of a snow storm. The doors to the box car were left open ( a couple boards to keep cattle in). I asked the Herdsman if I could close the doors, as the snow was blowing in.  He said NO, it would cause the steers to sweat and would damage their hair coat!  That night, in a box car, in a snow storm, with the sliding door open, I slept between two steers.

I helped Hal Hackleman groom his bull, Zato Heir, for an up coming Hereford show.  The bull won a Grand Prize for the HWH Ranch.

While living in Enid, Oklahoma, they decided to have a 100 year celebration of the Cherokee Strip Land Run. A Longhorn cattle drive was to be between Waynoka  and Enid and take seven days.  I signed up to be a chuck wagon cook (my cooking genes?). I traveled in a chuck wagon full of food and utensils for the drive.  At night we slept on the really hard ground.  Just like my grandfather, Wm. “Black Bill” Anderson, did in the 1800’s when driving Longhorn cattle from west Texas along the Chisholm Trail to Kansas.  Sleeping on the hard ground dampened my ambition to be a cowboy.

          Plenty of Garfield County cowboys keeping the Longhorns from wandering off.

      Here is how you cook beans.

I do believe that the Good Lord has guided me along life’s trails, blessed me with loving parents, wonderful wife of 64 years, three beautiful daughters, six great grandchildren and as of now, one  precious great-great granddaughter.  

Celebrating Adam and Olivia Mitchell’s wedding.  Top row grandchildren Madeline Mitchell, Andy Shaw, Elliot Mitchell, Hayden Shaw.   Sitting — left a  really happy Adam Mitchell,  Jane & Jim Anderson and Kathleen Cabrera.

As for my genes, my grandmother Tommie Lee Anderson once told me I was Scotch, Irish and Indian.  My DNA test has proven her right. My English teacher said I did NOT inherit spelling and writing genes??