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PatchWork |
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PatchWork |
Last Updated 09/06/05
Email: joy@our-town.com
Darrell
The picture on the front page of a
wrecked bike, wheels and handlebars resting at crazy angles, wire basket crumpled, metal frame twisted, brought tears
to many eyes this past week. To hundreds and hundreds of young and old
throughout the county, that picture triggered recent memories of the boy/man that was
Darrell Blankenship.
Darrell was the final
member of a pioneer family that had been in Erath County since 1900. Once they lived in a big two-story house that sat at the
mouth of the Pigeon Road, a home that was filled with adults and children in the beginning
and then as most married and left home to raise their families, only on holidays like
Easter and Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was
in that house and that yard that Darrell played with his cousins as he grew up and it was from a room in that
house that his Aunt Loma drew
“picture” letters to mail to her nephew at the blind school where his parents
sent him for awhile. When that house burned
suddenly in the late ‘70’s, the two maiden aunts who lived there escaped with
very few of their possessions.
Bryant and Ruth
Blankenship had a farm about five miles out toward Johnsville on 67 and one chilly day
in the winter of ‘51, they brought home
a newborn baby boy to share their lives. “The
doctor took one look at Darrell and told us that he would never walk or talk and most
probably he would die before he was a year old,” Ruth told me once. Then she leaned back in her rocker and smiled a proud
mother’s smile. Leaning forward she
laughed, “Well, he cooks breakfast for his daddy and me most every morning!”
The Blankenships had
adopted the frail little boy who was born the final day of 1951, when he was only a few
hours old. They knew he was a child with
special needs, and they wanted to care for those needs. As long as they were alive, Darrell’s parents did
their best to provide for him and to teach him to take care of himself. His father built a long, low pitched roof barn and there
he and his son raised parakeets, swift flying, noise-making little birds that sailed
around the pens in swirls of blue, green, and yellow.
Besides the birds there were small dogs, rat terriers and Chihuahuas and then
Shar-pies and Cockers.
Darrell began buying
and selling the animals, his father guiding him and teaching him to manage money. Soon cattle and horses and chickens were added to the
farm.
When first his
mother and then his father died, most folks thought he would be placed in a managed care
situation. The little boy who wasn’t supposed to live this long and perform this
well, couldn’t survive on his own, they thought.
As the years went by
most were somewhat surprised to see him
living alone out on his farm with his multitude of animals and peddling and walking the
four or five miles into Stephenville almost every day.
The fact is, when his relatives suggested it to him, Darrell would not talk about
leaving his home and his animals and living in town.
Many times his uncles, aunts, and cousins tried to persuade him to move but
he always refused saying, “I can do it.
I can do it. I can take care of myself.”
And he did, with the help of a caring community.
Darrell had a business to run and it kept him busy.
His business was his animals and feeding them and caring for them was a daily chore. His familiar adult-size tricycle with the orange
“caution” flag waving happily from the rear was seen at every livestock sale and
flea market around Stephenville. Feed stores
were a regular stop where the employees loaded up his order in their own pickups and took
the heavy sacks out to his farm since he couldn’t carry them on his bike. Farmers and ranchers traveling the same roads
that Darrell traveled, often stopped and gave him a lift, putting his vehicle in the back.
He enjoyed visiting and making friends. Among his regular stops were Troy and Cheryl
Moore’s Stephenville Cattle Company and Taylor Feed.
On the day of his funeral, friends from the sale barn asked to have the honor of carrying
Darrell’s casket and others remembered how Gene Forbes, who works at Taylor’s had often cooked meals for Darrell and
would take him places like a rodeo in town.
I first met Darrell in the early ‘70’s over a little mixed breed dog. A few of us “animal lovers” would
spend part of our Saturday mornings cleaning the pens and feeding the impounded
dogs and cats. That morning I was the only
one there, when
I looked up and a kid who looked to be
about 18
was walking through the pipe gate. He
had a slight limp and walked a little sideways, arms pumping, intent on where he was going
and obviously he was coming toward me. I
didn’t know him and wondered what he had in mind as I stood my ground and watched him
approach.
He stopped, leaned close to my face( because of his poor eyesight) and shouted something
like, “Need any help out here?”
His deafness had made his speech a little
hard to understand but I did need his help and was grateful that he came when he did. A small dog
needed help and it took two strong people.
Someone had threaded a metal rabies tag on a thin wire and twisted it around the dog’s neck instead of buying a collar.
The dog had grown and the wire now cut into
its neck. Darrell held the dog while I cut
the wire with pliers. He patted the smooth
head of the little guy and set it back inside the pen.
“Nobody should do that to a dog,” he said.
I agreed and from that day we were locked in friendship.