A Quilt of Valor, a time honored piece
While the organization “Quilts of Valor” is a recent entity, roughly a decade old, its effects are poignant in Howard County and the Big Spring region. If being in the right place, at the right time, plus knowing the right people, wondrous things can transpire. It happened to me by sheer luck and happenstance.
Even our branch of service was a disassociated brotherhood. Amos Crider was a Marine fighting the Korean War, while I was still in elementary school watching the Army’s series “The Big Picture” on a Philadelphia TV station.
Our locales were far flung. I from the wetter more humid Atlantic Coast area, while Amos haled from the arid semi desert of Seminole, Texas. There he and his wife raised nine children. Three girls and six sons. One girl retained her colloquial accent and local twang of her West Texas up bringing. Ne Cee a registered nurse employed at Permian Basin Assisted Living Facility. The other eight Crider children moved away because of marriage and of job offers elsewhere.
Nearly weekly Ne Cee would traverse highway between Andrews and Big Spring to visit her dad. The featureless terrain along the 176 highway spurred the counting of telephone poles or scorpions on the asphalt road to keep from boredom. Sisters Maxine and Faye made severeal trips a year to visit dad and the old stomping grounds. The sons were seldom ever seen.
Amos and I had a junction in our roads when I was assigned to the same wing of Lamun, Lusk, Sanchez Texas State Veterans Home. Daily we saw each other in the lounge area by the nurses’ desk. In the dining room we sat at neighboring tables.
Amos advanced maturity restricted his movements. I still had the agility and dexterity to expedite simple chores. Getting a cup of coffee from the beverages area, I could get my wheelchair over and back before Amos could leave his table. Rather than him twitching a finger to and fro. I could wave my entire hand and arm to get the attention of a CNA that help was requested and the motif for shaking the hand. Simple things would beget benefits.
Once I saw the ambulance crew taking Amost ot the hospital twice within a 10 day time frame. Ne Cee corrected me; by telling me he had been to the hospital a total of 13 times that year alone. His deteriorating health required for him to be transferred to an advanced wheelchair, a Geri-chair. This chair has three positions elect with feet on the floor or up right position. A notch for elevated feet and relaxed head and a horizontal position for sleeping. Movements in a Ger-chair can be counted in inches per hour compared to a wheelchair where movement can be measured in yards per minutes
When Ne Cee invited me to Amos February birthday party I envisioned a dozen family members eating cake and punch while singing Happy Birthday. Believing the aforementioned I ate supper in the dining room.
To my dismay only three wheelchairs were present, Lupe’s, Cloud’s and mine. More befuddling was all nine Crider children, the phantom men were all present. The activities room of Lamun, Lusk, Sanchez that holds about 30 people was super saturated with by count 85 people. Others were at the restroom and at the front door to escort late comers to the event.
The Crider men were easy to identify. All had the same facial features, resembling the elder Crider. All had big bone structure and squared shoulders. Their physiquees resembled the patriarch’s. The vice-grip hand shakes identified their gene pool. Their baritone voices emulated dad’s sound.