First Encounter with a Politician
May 23, 2023 21:00:52 #
When I was a teenager, my family went to the annual homecoming at Dye Mound. This was now a ghost town and was where my father had been born, went to school and raised.
At this Dye Mount homecoming, there would be assembled families who had been raised there, their ancestors having been buried in the nearby cemetery. Folks would come to see their relatives and friends and have dinner outside under a shelter top. There would usually be a short business meeting. It would be held on the first Sunday in October every year.
Since the oil production had tapered off, a significant number of the families who had inherited this production from their parents, a number of these families had donated their royalties to the 501C3 charity that was supporting the Dye Mound building that had once been a church, but there was no longer a congregation meeting there. By a twist of fate, George Mitchell, owner of Mitchell Energy had after many years of experimentation, had finally and successfully been able to drill through the Barnett shale, returning old fields to big royalty checks for many in the area. So, many folks now probably regretted giving away this source of income. But it did keep the former church building in tip top shape.
An unexpected visitor showed up, I supposed to campaign for votes as a Texas State Representative for Montague County. He was ‘jaw boning’ with several of my uncles, my father, who saw me hanging back, introduced me to the Representative, even though I was only around seventeen at the time, when I reached out to shake the Representative’s hand, he pulled me almost off balance. I don’t know what he was thinking, or doing, but I felt quite insulted by his behavior and lack of respect. Perhaps he knew I was too young to vote and was wasting his time. While we were mostly Baptists and lived on the East side of the county and he was Italian Catholic living on the West side, it seemed like an insult to me.
While Dye Mound is a ghost town now, and has a very small population, it the 1800’s it was a thriving community with a U.S. Post Office, two cotton gins, and several stores. Ned’s peak was said to have been a hill close by that regular lookouts were posted to warn against raiding Comanche and other hostile Indian tribes. It was also a point of reference for trail herds of Longhorns being driven to Kansas.
Just Sayin...RJS
At this Dye Mount homecoming, there would be assembled families who had been raised there, their ancestors having been buried in the nearby cemetery. Folks would come to see their relatives and friends and have dinner outside under a shelter top. There would usually be a short business meeting. It would be held on the first Sunday in October every year.
Since the oil production had tapered off, a significant number of the families who had inherited this production from their parents, a number of these families had donated their royalties to the 501C3 charity that was supporting the Dye Mound building that had once been a church, but there was no longer a congregation meeting there. By a twist of fate, George Mitchell, owner of Mitchell Energy had after many years of experimentation, had finally and successfully been able to drill through the Barnett shale, returning old fields to big royalty checks for many in the area. So, many folks now probably regretted giving away this source of income. But it did keep the former church building in tip top shape.
An unexpected visitor showed up, I supposed to campaign for votes as a Texas State Representative for Montague County. He was ‘jaw boning’ with several of my uncles, my father, who saw me hanging back, introduced me to the Representative, even though I was only around seventeen at the time, when I reached out to shake the Representative’s hand, he pulled me almost off balance. I don’t know what he was thinking, or doing, but I felt quite insulted by his behavior and lack of respect. Perhaps he knew I was too young to vote and was wasting his time. While we were mostly Baptists and lived on the East side of the county and he was Italian Catholic living on the West side, it seemed like an insult to me.
While Dye Mound is a ghost town now, and has a very small population, it the 1800’s it was a thriving community with a U.S. Post Office, two cotton gins, and several stores. Ned’s peak was said to have been a hill close by that regular lookouts were posted to warn against raiding Comanche and other hostile Indian tribes. It was also a point of reference for trail herds of Longhorns being driven to Kansas.
Just Sayin...RJS
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