Doing Time At Cousins Camp

Guest Blogger: Debbie Stamps

The Cousins Camp crew headed to West Texas last week for a few days in Knox County where Abby, Charlie, Reese & Landry did some time in the county jail. (Charlie joked with us before we left that he'd probably have trouble getting a job when he grows up when he has to tell them he spent a night in jail!)  We started our drive with lots of stories, fun & music, enjoying the Cousins Camp CD Poppa put together for us.  Of course, it included "Jail House Rock."  He probably should have had to do a little extra time for adding "Funny Chicken" & leading unsanctioned bed time "Funny Chicken" dances!  ("Funny Chicken" was actually a favorite, coming in second to "Awesome God.")

Knox County is where I (MawMaw, Deb) was born & raised in Knox City & where Poppa (Jerry) spent several years of his growing up years in Benjamin & Knox City, where he & MawMaw met.  Abby, Charlie, Reese & Landry each received their pedigree sheets showing their family history in Knox County, which goes back 7 generations, including pictures of the ancestors.  We enjoyed learning stories about some of those family members. 

We stayed in Benjamin at the original county jail, built in 1887 & remodeled by Wyman Meinzer.  That was a great adventure in itself.  Sylinda, Wyman's wife, "booked" us & was the most gracious jailer we could ever have hoped for! The place is decorated with traps & skins of lots of kinds of animals, as well as some of Wyman's incredible photography.  (Some of you Fort Worth friends have seen some of those in our home & Jerry's office.)  The pictures & the experience in Benjamin was especially meaningful because Poppa lived & worked on the League Ranch there as a third & fourth grader when his dad worked there with Wyman's & Rick's dad, Pate.  Poppa has told us lots of memories & good lessons from that period when he spent days off from school working full days as a ranch hand.  Wyman & Sylinda also have 2 beautiful wolves.  They were really fun to watch & the cousins enjoyed petting them.

We visited the cemetery where Grandpa Reese (Charles) & other relatives are buried, including the cousins' great-great-great-great-grandfather.  They saw some of their heritage at the First Baptist Church in Knox City where their great-great-great grandfather, Charles James Reese, is listed on the cornerstone of the church's first building, having served on the building committee.  They made chalk rubbings of the corner stone.  They've slept under a picture of this great-great-great Grandpa Reese & his wife Ida at our house & were glad to find out that they were a lot nicer than they look in that picture!   We also saw homes & other places with family connections.  They did great on the scavenger hunt, finding all the decorated tractors & murals around town.  We played a while at the Knox City Greyhound/Houndette football field & track.  We visited a favorite place that belonged to my family near the Brazos River & had fun wading in the Brazos.

We took a long hike through the rugged Breaks out east of Benjamin.  The dirt & rock colors & formations are beautiful there & the cousins were thoroughly "wowed"!  As they ran to the top of one hill we heard, "Wow!  It's just like the movies!"  "I can see the whole valley from here!"  "I can see the whole WORLD from here!"  "Y'all are so lucky that you got to grow up around this!"  And lots of "Look at that!"  We hauled home our share of pretty & interesting rocks & a couple of cow bones.

We did a little leather tooling, making flash light holsters, played at the playground at the Benjamin school--complete with merry-go-round & see-saws, took a night time walk through Benjamin & enjoyed the bright "Super Moon" & "so many stars"!  One night we called coyotes--they didn't oblige us this time.  We played chase & were locked up when we got caught.

Once we heard, "I'm glad MawMaw & Poppa met each other in the principal's office!"  Maybe I should explain that one: At the beginning of Jerry's sophomore year, he'd spent 2-a-days, & the first week of school at Benjamin, then transferred to Knox City HS.  As I walked in the front door of the high school with my friend Mandy, he was looking pretty cute in the office!  I mentioned that to Mandy, who happened to know him from some rodeo events as "one of the Stamps boys from Benjamin" so she introduced us.  THAT'S really why I was in the office, regardless of what he says!

Stated highlights of our trip were "the wolves," "the breaks," "the traps" & "the skins" "the hiking."   I have to agree that with all of those--& then, coming home, as I looked in the rear view mirror at Poppa & the cousins working on aluminum foil sculptings & singing "Our God is an Awesome God," I picked that out as another of my "favorites."   Poppa, the cousins, hikes, stars & pretty rocks--yep, our God is an awesome God!  It just doesn't get better than this!