Since I have been writing these little minute thoughts, I have come to one realization: one should never go very far in creative story writing without spending some time trying to interpret his own feelings. If I cannot write about my own inner reactions, how can I expect to make true characterizations?
I wonder if I were far away from home and anything I could even call home, would not the nearest thing I could find to fill the vacant place be the tenderness of a church of the same denomination I had known at home.
A queer quirk of my own nature –and incidentally that of others my own age here – is that attachment one acquires for one’s own chair and place in the dining hall. [1] Each table has four places on each side and one on each end, and unless I have my customary place, the meal does not taste the same. Fortunately, however, it does not take long for me to become used to a place. I say “fortunately,” because in the two summers I have spent here, I have usually been the “odd man” and have been forced to eat at first one place and then another. The discomfort of making a change is usually very vexing and results in digestive disturbance (mild) and loss of appetite. In all my changes I have sat in the various side positions and at both ends of the table, finding it an easy task to become accustomed to any position – whether flanked closely on either side or both, or free of elbow at the end of the table. It merely takes time. My conclusion is that the “becoming accustomed” is not in relation to the particular place but to the company and one’s relative position among its members. One learns to resent the presence of a newcomer – even when the newcomer displaces a particularly irritable member of the usual company.
Mile posts for future reckoning of time which has gone by:
B – Fiesta in S.A. April 21, 1932 – Xmas in Valley, December, 1933 – Pledge, July 24, 1932 – First anniversary and first of a series of unusual events, July 23rd 1933.
K. – Trip to Mier, July 4, 1931 – Left for S.I. Sept., 1931 – Visited K. in S.A. hospital, Dec., 1931. – Visited Kerrville Feb 22, 1932 (with H.B.) – returned ring about June 1, 1932 in McAllen
L. Law. – Mid-Winter Fair at Harlingen (Dec. 1930?) – Trip to Raymondville with family. – Snapshot trip with Mynott and I. along river (also J.G. and Mag. Wms.)
L Lock. – J.G. in’st’d and left school Sept, ‘31
D.L. – Latter part graduation yr. ‘28
F.A. – Time J.G. had gone S.I. (his time ’30-’31)
Also with L.Law while J.G. at S.I.
L.S, O.M., interests in period 1929-31.
Was with L.Law in 1930 when folks gave me Indian blanket – suggested as lap robe. Lost on New Year’s ever or Christmas night trip to Reynosa in family car (terrible!) and had to make special trip to Edinburg to buy another.
Born Oct. 26, 1911 – McAllen.
James March 9, 1915
Dorothy Feb. 13, 1918
Father died Feb. 14, 1919
Jan 23, 1923.
Went to live with uncle and aunt. [2]
Freshman McAllen High 1924-25.
9th grade Main Ave High (S.A.) 1925-26.
10th grade Main Ave High (S.A.) 1926-27.
11th grade and Grad McAllen High 1927-28.
Truck driver, Taylor Lbr. Co., June, 1928.
McAllen Monitor, June, 1928, to Sept, 1931.
Schreiner Inst. Sept 1931. to June 1933.
St. Louis via New Orleans, Memphis, summer of 1930.
Summer work office S.I. June, 1933-Sept 28, 1933.
S.A. Y.M.C.A Sept 28-Oct 14, 1933
Mountain Sun, Kerrville, Oct 1933 –
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