Category: gifts

Books and Memories

Yesterday’s Wordle word was “gruff” and I started thinking about the first time I remember the word “gruff.” It was being read the story “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” by my mother when I was very young.

We always had books in the house. I remember many trips to the library in Shreveport and in Austin. Books were often given as gifts in my family, and still are. There are bookshelves in every room of the house except the bathrooms. I often purge books…some go to friends…some to the Goodwill…because more books always come into the house.

And like many of you readers, I have a stack of books in progress. I usually only have one fiction going at a time, but read bits of several non-fiction books at the same time. Here is the current bedside stack:

When I got my hair cut yesterday afternoon, I expected to talk to my hairdresser about what we did for Thanksgiving, the weather, etc. We ended up talking about books. I had my eyes closed most of the time as clippers neared my face and bits of my hair floated down around my shoulders. She talked about Jane Austen’s books and her current interest in Roman history, sparked by a book a client and professor gave her.

Driving home, the radio featured an interview with a British author (I didn’t catch his name) who said that he recently read that the number of people reading for pleasure is down 40%.

I remember a drive home from the library when I was in my teens. I had a brief bout of depression as I came to the realization that I would never be able to read all the books in the world.

I do admit to lots of screen use these days, but always find time to sit and read a book, even if it is only for 20 minutes…sometimes in a chair and sometimes in the tub.

Here is a photo of one of the bibliophiles in my family:

This is my late father. Note the pen in his right hand. He was always marking books with comments in the margins and underlines and exclamation points…as if he were still a young man in college. He always had a book with him. I know he had at least one book in his pack going into combat in Korea. He took books with him on canoe trips and into hospital waiting rooms. On road trips my mother drove while he read.

There is another photo that only exists in my mind’s eye. It was taken many years before his portrait. It shows the front of a ranch style house. On one side of the house is a driveway leading to a carport. In the carport a station wagon is parked. The back of the station wagon is open. There are two human figures in this shot. One is me at 9 years old. I have straight blonde hair to my shoulders and am wearing shorts and have an arm full of books that I am putting into the back of the station wagon. The other figure is my 8 year old brother. He is shorter and rounder than me and has a short crewcut. He also has an armload of books he is placing in the back of the station wagon. We are loading my father’s books into the station wagon for him to take to his new rental house. My parents were separating after 10 years of marriage and my father was giving us the privilege of loading up his books. Many, many books will be left behind with my brother and I and my mother.

We are a book family and always will be a book family.

*Today is Mark Twain’s birthday.

*Photos by B. McCreary

Good Ground

The first time my husband proposed to me I was stopped at a red light while driving him to the airport to fly off to a work conference. I said “Yes!” and managed to drive the rest of the way to the airport (we were only about a mile away when he proposed) and drop him off.

The second time my husband proposed a bit differently. We were out on a drive through the Hill Country outside of Austin. He was doing the driving this time and after we had been driving for awhile, he pulled over at a State Historical marker near Pack Saddle Mountain. The marker says that at said mountain in 1873, the last “Indian battle in this region” was fought when a group of 8 white men (I am assuming they were white) “routed a band of Indians thrice their number.”

I had been here before with my brother and Dad on one of my Dad’s long Hill Country drives, where he would point out various Texas landmarks and tell about the history.

Here is the historical marker:

Here is Pack Saddle Mountain:

On this occasion, my husband got out of the car, walked around and opened the passenger door, rummaged around in a brown paper bag, got on one knee, and asked me to marry him while holding out a toy ring. At least this is how we have remembered it all these years later. I again said “Yes” and we did eventually get married after I got a proper engagement ring.

Recently, on our way to San Angelo, we again stopped at this marker and took a few photos and reminisced.

Here are some flowers near the marker:

I wrote about our trip in my May and June blog posts, but didn’t tell about something that happened on this trip. On the way back to Austin, we stopped again at the pullout for this roadside marker and view of the mountain. We stretched our legs and I got back in the car. My husband comes up to my window and presents me with a pretty little flower! How sweet.

Here is the flower:

I thanked him and we did a little kiss. Then, while I was proceeding to put the flower in the center console area to take back home, I noticed some webbing. And then a little spider was dropping down out of the flower on it’s spinneret thread. I didn’t want a spider in the car with us and I didn’t want to hurt the spider. So, I scooped the spider up in the flower and put the flower at the base of a nearby tree to protect it and the spider from the wind.

Below is a photo of the replaced flower (circled in blue):

Talking about this recently…about the second proposal…he mentioned that it seemed like “good ground” when describing the place by the mountain. He said that was an old army term when they were looking at topographical maps. It meant a good place to be in terms of a being able to have the advantage in a battle. I don’t know who had the advantage in the 1873 battle…maybe the white guys since they won. The marker was defaced a few years back with grafitti reading “White history celebrates genocide.” It did get cleaned up and no trace of those words remain as of the last time I saw it this spring.

My husband and I will celebrate our 28th anniversary next month. Our marriage is on good ground and we have both worked at defending it over the years. Many small battles after which we both emerge with a stronger marriage bond. Happy Anniversary Honey!

Photos by B. McCreary

Check out a web page about the marker at The Historical Marker Database:

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=20643

Embracing Joy And Grief

As March progressed, I anticipated and looked for signs of Spring. I saw many and knew more would be coming…more flowers blooming…birds singing and nesting. But, there was also a gnawing at my soul in the background of the beauty. My mother’s death date approached, March 25th. It has been 15 years since her death and the pain of grief has lessened. But, I want to hug her and share my life with her and I want her to see the physical beauty she left the world. The tears are coming as I write this even though I have been thinking about writing about it for quite a while.

On the other hand, I am glad my mother is not here to see the destruction of our country. She who supported civil rights with her body and soul…she who always rooted for the underdog. She was a proud American and she voted. I’m sure that if she saw the video of the woman being taken away by unidentified men to be locked up and silenced, she would have felt that woman’s fear in empathy.

A couple of days ago, March 29th, I attended a Birthday party for my friend Joan who was turning 80 that very day. This was also my Mother’s birthday. As we sang Happy Birthday to Joan, I was also singing to my mother. My mother’s death was just 4 days before her birthday and as she lay comatose on life support, we had sung Happy Birthday to her.

Okay! Enough grief for now! Here comes the Joy. In my blog posts of April 2019 and March 2021 I shared photos and a few words on one of my mother’s legacies, the lovely purple spiderworts she transplanted from her yard to mine over 20 years ago. From a literal handful of plants to the current abundance of them is one of nature’s miracles. What started as one purple clump in the backyard has now spread all over the yard and into the front yard. And both my brother and my friend Laura have transplanted some from my yard into their yards, where they are now flourishing.

As you look at these photos, remember that a small, positive action can take hold and grow. This is something to remember as we navigate our way through the coming months.

Beauty Among The Rocks

At The Trunk Of The Bur Oak

Near The Rotting Hackberry Stump

Near Philosopher’s Rock

Growing Low To The Ground

Pink Colored With Bee Gathering Pollen

With A Tiny Bee

With A Big Bee

So Pretty!

And there are many more photos of the flowers that I will not publish here…the flowers next to yellow dandelions …some next to orange crossvine blooms…the ones I can see in the front yard outside my office window…the view of them through my kitchen window…

May the natural world give you peace and strength each day. And remember that each positive act you take may grow and spread

Photos by B. McCreary taken in 2025

Hello To A River And More

(original photo by Jerry Larson and used with permission of Jerry Larson and the Waco Tribune-Herald)

Who is this sun glassed adventurer?

He is my baby brother, Robert Richard Downes, kayaking on the Brazos River. The photo also adorns the cover of one of Robert’s books entitled Hello to a River, which chronicles his canoe and kayaking trips.

Texas is home to some wonderful rivers that have inspired many adventurers. My brother is one of those. He drew inspiration from several generations of outdoorsmen and women in our family. I remember canoe trips we took in my father’s canoe starting when I was 5 and my brother was 4. That canoe was inherited from my dad’s grandfather and currently sits on saw horses in my back yard. Robert tells of his journeys on Texas waterways (and a few others). His book includes the writings of our father, John Richard Downes, who kept notes about the canoe trips he took on the Texas Colorado river. I contributed one short piece about me meeting my father at the end of his last canoe trip to bring him and canoe home.

Each trip down a river will be different. The traveler might encounter sudden storms, miserable heat, mosquitos and unexpected currents. But, along with the unpleasant, there is the pleasant: the helpful people met along the way; the sightings of birds and other creatures; the time spent with one’s own thoughts. The lone traveler becomes the philosopher.

This book is a fun and readable true story that will fit nicely on the bookshelf next to Robert Graves classic Goodbye To A River. And this is a good gift for lovers of Texas rivers and nature.

Here are Robert’s Other Books:

A collection of essays about the author’s adventures in Texas, Mexico and other Latin American countries. Gift this to anyone with an interest in foreign travel and Texas.

This is a true crime mystery about a case my brother worked on when he was employed by the U. S. State Department in Mexico. It is about the disappearance of American professor Nicholas Schrock while he was traveling to a summer teaching job in Guadalajara. Great details about the investigation and a good look inside of the everyday work of our government employees.

This latest book is a departure from Robert’s past work and is a fictional spy tale. Here is the opening line: “It all started innocently enough, at least to an outside observer, but appearances can be deceiving.”

These books are available at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. (search for his full name “Robert Richard Downes” because there is another author with a similar name)

Here is the “About The Author” bio at the back of his latest book:

Robert Richard Downes is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer with over 37 years of federal service, the majority served overseas with the U. S. State Department. He lived and worked in Australia, Germany, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Thailand, and Venezuela as well as studying in Austria, Germany, and Hungary. After leaving the State Department, he returned to his native Texas where he fills his time reading, writing, kayaking, and volunteering for local charities and international organizations.

He can be reached at Longhornbarbooks@gmail.com.

Gift a book to someone you love!