Just when I think everyone I must have ever known has forgotten I was once young and/or cute, my sister manages to reintroduce the notion. I love her for that and numerous other traits, but I was hardly prepared for one of her most recent efforts.
She posted a Cooksey family portrait from 1967 on Facebook. Of course I remembered the picture, along with numerous particulars involved with our posing and preparing for the portrait sitting. I guess most families have similar pictures and stories – pleasant enough smiles, peaceful enough countenances, but things weren’t exactly as they seemed.
My dad used to say the most unholy time in the Cooksey family household was Sunday morning getting ready for church. Getting ready for that photo session rivaled any Sunday morning.
Anyway there we were. Sitting on the raised hearth in front of our rock fireplace in Sanderson are the three oldest children, Eric, a senior in high school, me, a sophomore and Billie a seventh-grader. Our mother, holding 4-year-old brother Terrell, was seated in a cushioned chair to our left and our father, holding our sister Leslie, just 2, sat in the rocking chair to our right.
Truth be told, at some point leading up to the sitting each of the five children had been begged or pleaded with, consoled, reasoned with and finally threatened with some unimaginable punishment if we didn’t “straighten up and fly right.” The portrait of our whole family was something our mother wanted very badly and we needed to change our selfish attitudes to make it happen for her. Look closely at our almost smiling faces, and you might think we each thought we were making a huge sacrifice.
And anyway, Mom should have known better. In December of 1968, when Eric was a freshman in college, the baby brother Wayland was born, rendering the family portrait forever obsolete.
It had been I don’t know how long since I’d last seen the picture, and to be surprised by it on Facebook was an almost out-of-body experience. I felt very 1967ish again, more 1967ish in fact than 2013. In our Facebook comments, my sister pointed out a skinned knee from a recent bicycle wreck. I proudly shared I was wearing a hand-me-down dress that was coincidentally Sanderson Eagle orange and usually worn on Fridays.
The déjà vu the picture invoked wasn’t just because of the way we were and my vivid memory of that, it was the setting, the landmarks of our home and hearth I would have thought I would have forgotten by now. On the mantle among the odd collection of relics and antiques was my dad’s boxing trophy, awarded to him in the 1940s either when he was in highway patrol school, or when he came home after World War II and fought in matches at the old Soldiers and Sailors Hall in Brownwood. I’m embarrassed that I never asked and now may never know.
Behind us, to the right of the mantle, was the police radio, a despised interruption to our daily lives, necessary because Dad was the Terrell County sheriff. All things are silent in the picture, but, in my mind I can still hear the squawks and screeches of the machine and the almost constant chatter of the dispatch guys. From them we learned most of the 10-codes, a bonus a decade or so later when CB radios were all the rage.
I can’t help myself, I keep pulling up the picture and looking at it, comforted and dismayed that at one time I hoped it wouldn’t be shown to too many people, because, I thought, I was too skinny. Too skinny? I’d “like” to get 40 million “likes” for that.
Finally, though, I am glad, so very glad, our teenage snarkiness and adolescent attitudes didn’t make our mom “10-22” (cancel) the “shoot.” I wonder if she knew or believed in such a thing as karma; if she knew one day we would understand because one day we would have children of our own and too few of the just right, everyone in the picture, everybody happy photographs to show for it.
If I could, I’d tell her “thanks” for loving us and making us “toe the straight and narrow.” And if she could, Mom would seize the moment and say, “Didn’t I tell you that some day it would all work out.”
Editor’s note: Candace Cooksey Fulton, formerly of Brownwood, is a freelance writer and columnist living in San Angelo. She may be contacted by email at ccfulton2002@yahoo.com. This column was originally published in the San Angelo Standard-Times on Thursday, July 11, 2013, and Brownwoodnews.com has permission to republish it.
This 1967 family portrait was taken in the Cooksey family’s home on Cargile Road in Sanderson, Texas. Family members pictured are, from left, Bernice Mills Cooksey holding Terrell Cooksey, Eric Cooksey, Candace Cooksey Fulton, Billie Cooksey Brandenburg, and Bill C. Cooksey, holding Leslie Cooksey Sparkman.
