CHAPTER 18
BACK AT ROYSTON, WORKED AT GIN AND FOR NEIGHBORS
Throughout all these years, as our children were growing up, we tried to train them to work out their own problems, answer their own questions, and make their own decisions. One Sunday afternoon when the Willinghams were visiting us, Mary and Anita came skipping around the house to ask me if they could go to Hamlin in our car and get some ice to make ice cream. Anita was probably fifteen years old and Mary fourteen. I asked Anita if she had a driver's license. Of course she didn't have, but she could drive on back streets and be okay. Then I asked her, "And where is the ice plant?"
"It's on Main street, but we could walk and carry the ice to a back street."
"It's 14 miles there and 14 back. You still think it's all right?"
"Sure, that's not far."
"What if you have a flat? Can you put the spare on?"
"Oooh, I hadn't thought of that. We better not try it."
Now, if Anita had known at that time about the traveling I had done alone when I was not much older than 15, I think she might have argued that Hamlin was not nearly as far away as McCamey or the Gulf of Mexico or Denver. And if she had brought up that argument, I think I would have handed her the keys and said, "Good luck Be careful."
At that age Anita hadn't yet mastered the art of arguing. But she was willing and practicing. Dennis was going to town one night to a show or something and he asked Anita if she wanted to go. But she said, "No, Vera and Coy are coming over here tonight and I want to stay home and listen to Vera and Daddy argue."