Birthday Celebrations

I was born into a family full of September birthdays.  My dad’s birthday is Sept. 11, my mom’s is Sept. 12, my sister’s is Sept. 20, and my ex-husband’s is Sept. 13, so at one time I was inundated with birthday celebrations this month.  And the fact that at one point three of them were three days in a row was an amazing coincidence..LOL.

With the passage of time, some of these birthdays have slipped off the radar.  My dad died in 1986, and I divorced my ex in 1999, so that leaves my mom’s and sister’s birthdays to celebrate.  Eric and I took my mom out for an early birthday celebration last Saturday.  One of my mom’s favorite towns is Woodville, TX, so we went out for lunch at The Pickett House, part of the Heritage Village complex, a replica of an East Texas town’s main street from the 1800′s.

The cool thing about the Picket House is that it serves good ole’ southern comfort food like fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, black-eyed peas, watermelon rind pickles, etc., family boarding house style.  What that means is that everyone is seated at a big table and they bring big bowls of food out to be passed around the table for an all-you-can-eat affair.  And, just like the boarding houses of 100 years ago, you bus your own table by taking all of your plates, bowls, and utensils to a deposit window at the kitchen.  Actually, that reminds me more of my college dining hall days than anything else..<g>.

We did a little shopping in downtown Woodville at Sullivan’s Hardware, which has all kinds of cool stuff in addition to the hardware (I’ve never actually bought any hardware-related items here — only the cool “non-hardware” stuff <g>).  Eric liked a unique wooden sculpture of a dogwood flower and butterfly that we found at the Tyler County Art League Gallery across the street, so I bought it for him for a birthday gift (his birthday is just around the corner in October).

Because downtown business is scarce in small East Texas towns these days, the shop owners/clerks killed us with kindness and were extraordinarily helpful in hopes of getting us to buy from them.  Eric said he’s never been given as much attention as we had when we visited the shops around the Courthouse Square in Woodville. Salespeople who can help and want to help will definitely aid those stores in standing out among all the Wal-Mart’s that dot the rural Texas landscape.  When’s the last time you were offered assistance in a big box store??