Being 6 Years Old …

 

Six is not Five and Six is not Seven.

Now you’re Six you realise you really ought to look out for your little Sister.

Now you’re Six you realise that your older brother may just not be the fount of all wisdom.

Turns out that being indisputably taller is not the same as being smarter.

Now you’re Six you see all kinds of things about the family and the town and yourself that went by in a blur before.

Late afternoon on a hot Texas day …

Nothing hotter than a hot Texas day.

Least that’s what everybody says as they sit around sipping drinks and settin’ the world to rights – starting right here in town.

The sun is so bright it hurts your eyes just keepin’ them open.

Trick is to do everything real slow.

Real slow.

Mama always says nothin’ improved by rushing around.

And, of course, she’s right.

Slow and easy gets it done.

Plenty of hours in the day and most everything can wait a little while and all the better for the waiting.

Old man Wileman ..

Lots of old men in town.

Not a one as old as old man Wileman.

Someone said he was born before the Civil War.

Some say he lost that arm at Five Forks and that’s why every April 1st he gets real quiet and drinks all day.

Mind you it seems to me he pretty near drinks all day every day.

But, he does tell a good story.

And, there’s nothing I love more than a good story.

Now, when you’re Six it turns out that if you keep real quiet that the old men forget you’re there as they play Dominos and tell story after story your mama wouldn’t want you listenin’ to.

You learn a lot more from old men’s stories than you do at school.

Trains are big and black and smokin’, louder than July 4 …

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I love to go to the Depot just to watch the trains roll by.

Trains always been somewhere and they are always going somewhere.

Every train tells a story.

At home, on the radio, there’s different kinds of trains.

Train songs.

Jimmy Rodgers, Frank Hutchinson, Charlie Poole and the new guy, Hank Williams, tell stories in song about trains.

Gonna tell my own story in song one of these days.

One of these days.

Look out here she comes, she’s comin’, look out there she goes she’s gone …

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Now you’re Six you realise that you can’t stop time you can just hold it in your memory.

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Maybe that’s the whole point of songs and stories.

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Always gonna keep that nickel and every time I look at it I’m gonna remember the day a red and silver streamliner barrelled right through the town I grew up in.

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Gonna label that memory Texas 1947.

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Might even be a song there.

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And, in my mind, she’s still rollin’.

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