JACKIE LYNN KNIGHT: POST #34

Well, we had to stop at the Ashlocks' again on January 30, 1951 and when we got home sure enough there was another baby! When is this going to stop? I knew that people would come down to the Big Bay Ditch and leave their dogs and cats and they would make their way to our house, but where in the world are these babies coming from?

When we got home there was Jackie Lynn Knight. Do you know what? My Lady's mother, Edna Earls had come down there and brought him into the world! Did Edna bring that baby and leave it? If so, that would make me and Barbara brother and sister I guess! No, the Dr. didn't make it in time and Edna and Margie Woods helped Mom with the birth.

When Jack was about 6 years old I went away for two months to work in the harvest in Illinois for the Del Monte food company. When I came home I will never forget sitting in the house and Jack came walking in from another room. He had on a pair of short pants and no shirt and it looked like he had grown six inches in those two months. I was really surprised. I was really glad to see him and will always remember that hug from such a tall boy.

I was not around home much as Jack was growing up either. I missed a lot things with him. I have some vivid memories of him though that I cherish. When he was about 10 years old he came to visit us in LaPorte, Indiana. He must have stayed two or three weeks and he made some friends there and had a good time. He asked me one day to keep a quarter for him and I did. The rest of the time that he was there, every time he would want something I would buy it for him and then he would say, "Now, that wasn't my quarter we spent!" I guess that he must still have that quarter.

Years later I kept up some with his baseball playing exploits and have been told by several that if he had been given some guidance and discipline he could have probably played Major League Baseball as a pitcher. But, he had rather play with some independent team there around home than to go off somewhere.

My next experience with Jack came in 1974. Both of us had gone away from Herman Junction and I was living in Oklahoma City, Okla. When he turned 21 I wrote him a letter and told him that it was time for him to straighten out his life and quit doing some of the things that he was doing and just grow up and live right. A few weeks later we had been to church services on Sunday night and then gone home with some people for fellowship and to eat and just have a good time. About half way through the visit someone from the church building called and said that some of our kinfolks had come there looking for us and asking where we lived. So, we jumped in the car and took off for home and me growling the entire way about Barbara's brother coming to visit and never calls and gives a notice that he's coming or anything. Here I had to miss my supper and the good time that I was having because her brother had decided to drop in on us. I mean I was really pouring it on her.

When we drove up to our house there was the biggest motorcycle that I had ever seen sitting cross-wise of our driveway so that I couldn't get in. Lying out in the middle of our beautiful lawn was a mountain of a man with a little vest on and he was as brown as any indian that I had ever seen. He had hair down to his rear end, a long beard, and a mustache and big old black boots on his size 14 feet. That was MY baby brother, Jack! And, he had not dropped in for a day or two, he had come to live with us! After all I had told him to straighten up and live a better life so he had come to live it with ME!

Jack got a job and lived in Oklahoma City for ten years. Then he moved on to Katy, Texas to live near our brother Ray and his family. Ray had befriended him too and we learned that he was like feeding a cat, if you fed him he would keep coming back.

Several years ago Jack moved back near Herman Junction to Bay. Not long after he moved back there he called and told me that there was some property for sale at a real good price. It was the old Cochran home place just outside of Bay. I went up there and we went to the bank to see about buying it and all the time I just knew that the bank at Truman was not going to loan me some money when I lived in Conway, Ark. A couple of days later I came home and found a message on the answering machine. Jack said, "Hey, Bobby, this is J.R. and the bank approved our loan to buy the ranch!" I could have fallen over. So, we bought the property and not long after we sold it to Ronnie Davis and since Jack and Gina wanted to buy a house I gave him my part of the money for a down payment on the house where they live today. Jack and I are very close. But, I am afraid to say a lot of good things that I might otherwise say because the dude might just jump up and come to live with me again! He and Gina help Linda to make sure that all is well at Herman Junction.