Plenty is saluted at Belle Plaine
....By Bill Whitaker
On Memorial Day, it sure doesn't hurt to recall the pursuits
of happiness so worth fighting for.
If you buy that notion, the Belle Plaine Cemetery Association's
annual Memorial Day event was right up your holiday alley. By
mid-day Monday, attendants had not only commemorated but thoroughly
celebrated good humor, vivid storytelling, light song, barbecued
brisket, homemade food, a sense of place and a respect for history.
That's pretty good considering the little rural cemetery and some
nearby ruins are all that remain of Belle Plaine, once proud county
seat of Callahan County and today a quiet testament to pioneer
courage.
Even so, in the minds of those who gather there each year, Belle
Plaine is very much alive.
As Abilene High history teacher and local historian Lee Abernathy
told folks assembled beneath stately post oaks in the picturesque,
119-year-old cemetery, Belle Plain was "one of the fair daughters
of the Texas Plain" - and still is.
The very best of Memorial Day in Belle Plaine was on view just
outside the cemetery about 2 p.m.
Guitarists Jim Sadler and Kerry Skinner played away while the
most faithful celebrants sang along, having their way with various
folk, country and western tunes.
Even cattle in the distance joined in, temporarily forgetting
the drought.
Songs were dedicated to various folks, ranging from the late Bill
Skinner, once the "Singing Sheriff of Callahan County,"
to the late Jack Flores, who rescued Belle Plaine Cemetery from
neglect, to the Confederate Air Force's Big Country Squadron,
which does a traditional flyover every year.
One song, "Crazy," was dedicated to a somewhat iconoclastic
fellow who died under mysterious circumstances recently and now
resides in Belle Plaine Cemetery.
Granted, lots of humor was on parade during the day. Veteran and
rancher Jerry Roden, for instance, took ribbing aplenty for a
rather sticky situation: He waited till the one and only weekend
when people frequent the cemetery to paint the sole outhouse toilet
seat.
He in turn blamed cemetery association member Fred Foy for not
painting it during any of the other 51 weekends since Memorial
Day '95.
This didn't dampen all the storytelling that began at the cemetery
the night before and continued well through Memorial Day. A substantial
amount of time was spent talking about memorable outhouses over
the years.
For instance, discussion of WPA-built outhouses prompted hefty
Tom Ivey, local veterans service officer and beekeeper, to recall
years ago when he and his dad went to Putnam to look at an outhouse
very much in distress.
Problem: Bees flew down the outhouse exhaust pipe and built a
hive right under the "throne."
Pal Fred Foy's reaction to this stinging outhouse tale: "Well,
I sure hope you and your dad sold that honey and didn't eat any!"
Veteran rodeo producer and Wild West showman Bobby Estes, 75,
showed up, only to find aviation writer Nancy Robinson had beaten
him to the biggest leftover barbecued rib bones this year.
However, Bobby did haul off most every other sort of leftover,
on the grounds he needed it all for 28 cats he watches over.
"I feed cats in three locations," he said. "I even
got one that looks like Elizabeth Taylor."
When you have a cat that looks like Liz Taylor, you apparently
have to keep that feline pretty happy.
There was also a fair bit of moseying about the cemetery. Bobby
Estes briefly looked for the grave of a good-natured old plumber
he and I chatted with a year or so ago, "but his wife may
have buried him in another cemetery."
There was official business, too, but that was dispensed with
fast. Most important: Re-election of cemetery association member
Felix Manion, who also cooks up brisket for the Memorial Day event
each and every year.
Reason for such a hasty re-election?
"We don't want to lose the cook," somebody deadpanned.
Now you can e-mail Bill Whitaker at WTWARN@aol.com.
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1997, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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