McBride At Rest

McBride At Rest

Sunday, August 9, 2020

A Rooster, A Bathing Lady, & A Church Window

 

This blog is all about one of my favorite, and most visited, tiny pieces of my world. Yes, it’s the corner of our master bedroom bathroom where the toilet resides. Over the years it’s grown into a little mini-shrine of my life. 


Fittingly, since I’m a southpaw, from left to right:  The stained glass in the wooden frame was salvaged from Urban Park Methodist Church in Dallas where Nita and I were hitched back in 1972. The church faded away and the building was razed some years back. Nita’s sister, who was also married there, talked her way into buying or being given several of the small stained glass windows. Our son Ben reframed the window, making a maple frame to fit.  It’s colorful and every day reminds me how lucky I am that Nitabird married me.

Next is a late 1980’s poster of an art museum exhibit of Edgar Degas paintings in Washington DC.  I like hot baths and bathing women, with and without strategically draped towels, and this particular painting is modest for the French impressionist Degas. So, I bought the poster and hung it near our bathtub. Some years later, perhaps owing to my daily encounter with Degas’ bathing beauty, his fictional brother became a character in Whittled Away, my first Civil War novel.  The historical French artist’s mother was in fact an American Creole, so I created a plausible link in my story which includes an ink drawing of a naked bathing lady drawn by Edgar Degas and mailed to his fictional brother who was campaigning in the Confederate army. Maybe it’s a stretch, but I like it and the teenage Texas soldiers in Whittled Away really liked the bathing lady drawing. I mean, what's not to like?

Last is the art deco-ish shelf over the toilet. On top is a bunch of miniature wargaming soldiers I painted, and which carry the banner of the 17th Texas Infantry, the Confederate regiment about which my most recent Civil War novel, With Might & Main, is written.

Behind the little soldiers stands a giant rooster playing a guitar. No, he is not Foghorn Leghorn or his cousin. This colorful bird arrived when Nita was being a troubadour at several Methodist Church retreats called Walks to Emmaus.  Somehow, the rooster just fits and makes me smile.

On the bottom shelf stand two big blue plastic Civil War soldier toys, both painted by son Ben back when he was a little guy and wanted to do what daddy was doing that morning—painting toy soldiers.

In front of the clock that came from my dad is another wargaming figure—a Carthaginian war elephant I painted over 30 years ago.  And flanking the elephant are two antique lead toys, likely from England, a gift from my good neighbor Wayne.

The final gee-gaw on the shelf is the tall blue Egyptian cat. I don’t why it’s there, I don’t even like cats. I’m a dog guy. We did go to Dallas to see a travelling King Tut exhibit way back in time, so maybe we bought it there because a mummy wouldn’t fit in the car trunk. Who knows.

If this silly post merits a big raspberry, go ahead and toot. I won’t care. I think I just needed to write something light-hearted and goofy to move past my last post about my dad passing away.  Thanks for reading it.

 

 

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

On Monday We Buried My Dad

We buried my dad, Frank McBride, last Monday. He lived a hundred years, less a week-1920 to 2020. He was a boy during the Roaring Twenties, a scrambling teenager during the Great Depression when his family moved time and again as my grandfather hustled jobs. When World War II started, Pop enlisted and became a soldier for four years, spending two and a half years in Europe as a bomber ground crewman.


 Back home in Longview, Texas, he worked forty years for LeTourneau Inc, a manufacturer of heavy earth moving equipment and steel. His hobby was woodworking, making toys for his grandkids and all manner of smallish things.


Pop was a Christian with a servant’s heart who delivered Meals on Wheels well into his ‘80’s, volunteered at Good Shephard Hospital for decades, ran a woodworking class for elementary schools kids at his church’s after-school program, and oversaw the youth leadership training programs for the local Boy Scouts for years.  He was a Methodist Lay Speaker who preached at country churches, led a men’s Bible study, and went to the gym religiously.

He won a bout with double pneumonia when he was 97, and last week when his strong good heart finally had no more to give, my stepmother Della, my sister, my wife, and I were by his side.  It was a peaceful ending to a long and remarkable life.


Yesterday we were home again, and I was lost in my thoughts about Pop and the funeral.  I glanced out the back window and caught sight of two woodpeckers on a big oak tree in our back yard. The male had a fiery red head. I called for five-year-old grandson Jackson who was spending the day with us. We watched the birds working the tree trunk pecking for food, until they flew away, likely headed to their hidden nest. Then Jackson and I went to the computer to look at photos of woodpeckers and printed a drawing of one so he could color it to show his mom and dad when they got home.  I was thankful for the distraction of the birds and for Jackson’s happiness at seeing them.


I know it’s corny, but the woodpeckers reminded me that Pop is through feeding his family, through working the tree trunk, pecking at things trying to make his piece of the world a little better. His soul has flown away, and his remains lie inside a beautiful cedar casket, his earthbound nest for a long, long time. God is good.