The Closest I've Been to Him

Today was an amazing day. I was able to touch the very papers that Great-Granddaddy wrote. Our family is immensely lucky that there are boxes and boxes of Roy Bedichek’s notes, letters, and other documents stored and cared for at The Briscoe Center for American History (part of the LBJ Library campus). What a gift!

I really had no idea what to expect. I guess I was thinking most of the documents would be letters. NOPE! Hallelujah for digital cameras! I was able to take photos of documents for later perusing and rereading.

The items I found today that really stuck out:

• A journal he started at the beginning of the bike ride to El Paso – which actually took place in March 1909 (unlike summer of 1908 as Great-Grandmother reported and I noted in an earlier blog post).

• Notes he took on a bus ride from Texas to New York at the age of 78. He notes he met a "motion picture theater owner and operator who talked all way from Chatanooga to Knoxville -- never met anyone who held as many views opposite to mine."

• Field notes he took while camping around the state. Very copious notes. He noted everything from conversation dialogue to reflections and philosophizing to phonetic representations of bird calls.

• The beginning of an autobiography that was never finished.

First two pages of the four-page bicycle ride journal. He seems to indicate he never finished it.

The Start of the Bicycle Trip: In His Own Words

Mar 22 – started from home about quarter of five. Ena, Oat, Pauline, Hoss, Moma Imogene & Papa saw me out the back way. A propitious starting—wind against me but not hard – roads excellent – caught leggin string(?) as I mounted once on dirt and came near getting a fall. Bolt which fastens chain together came out in front of farm house Repaired it shortly with aid of screwdriver borrowed from fat farm lady who was milking.

Pg 2

Sky cloudless except for bank in west & northwest. Sunset(?) flared red awhile through a small rift in the bank and I discovered new, a very new moon. It occurred to me that it looked like the curled golden hair of some goddess. It soon sank into the cloud.

Birth of a First-Time Father

I enjoyed his retelling of the birth of his first child (my grandmother) in Deming, New Mexico:

Lillian was in labor and the doctor and nurse had arrived at the house for the birth. During one of Lillian’s contractions, he recalls: “While she was in one of these spasms of pain, she said, ’Oh,’ and then, ‘The water broke.’ I but vaguely understood what that meant and was fearful something terrible had happened. My fears were allayed, however, by the matter of fact way in which the doctor and the nurse received this information.”

He then describes how “Lillian lay on her back with her feet drawn up thus elevating her knees. Across her knees the doctor and nurse gossiped amiable about Mrs. Jones’ and Mrs. Smiths’ and Mrs. Andersons’ confinements, about such and such a baby, about the woman not being able to nurse her child and whatnot until I wanted to stuff something into the mouth of each and stop their chatter.”

The birth went fine and the baby arrived safely. He writes, “I saw a little hairy head…The nurse determined that it was a girl, whereupon I agreed to pay Lillian a dollar having wagered that amount upon it being a boy.”

Artificial Sounds

Another piece I read today that was so timely – having just written something similar myself a few days ago -- was his description of being in the woods camping and away from man-made sounds.

“I wonder if people, psychiatrists included, realize the effect of sound on human psychology. I sleep ordinarily in a quiet part of the city, but there is hardly a time of the night when I do not hear an artificial sound. The radio of a late-to-bed neighbor, the whizzing of traffic on an expressway a few blocks off, a truck laboring up a hill, and of course the hours after 3 am the delivery gentry along the alley. Hardly a moment when there is not a man-made sound. Here how different. I listened for a long time before I heard a poor will, another spell of [illegible bird name] and a screech owl __anered(?) — both birds distant, then there was a soft scraping of sound [but it’s time to quit this. It’s daylight and the birds are about there [sic] early morning chores.]

Sober Reflections on Aging

Lastly, I read several pieces he wrote about growing old that were moving and showed a side of him I hadn't experienced. At age 78, he noted on his cross-country bus trip the "animated conversation of a younger group. Made me jealous until I got within earshot and jealousy [was] replaced by the mere uneasiness of being left out[,] common to aging folk." :(

In a draft of a never-published autobiography entitled "My Life through the Eyes of My Old Age," he starts, "Some days ago I was eighty. No other birthday that I remember had such a profound effect upon me. My sense of being young in spite of my years, an illusion encouraged by every friend you meet after 75, suddenly collapsed and I realized as the soldiers say in the "moment of truth" that this was it. Old age had overtaken me. From now on out time was really not mine. I am fudging. Probably I ought to be dead. Reinforcing this sense of age something accidental occurred that very morning of my 80th birthday -- incident of garden photos in strong light by a very candid, nay a remorseless camera."

I'm not sure what the final bit means. Perhaps it was a note to himself about a photo to accompany this passage. What incident? Perhaps I'll find out later on in my research.

He died just before his 81st birthday.

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Our Second Picnic

We had lunch again, today, on the street where they lived -- which is now under the exact library where his documents are kept.

University of Texas Old Main tower in the background. The car is traveling on what was 23rd Street (their street). Until the LBJ Library was built, it continued straight and would have gone about where the fountain is. I ate my lunch in the shade next to the fountain.