Reunion in Amarillo

Lonesome for people I had not seen for ten years, September was the time to return to my mother country. That’s the term our houseguest from Russia applied in 1997, when I hurried to my 35th High school reunion shortly before his departure. “Ah, it’s important to return to the Mother Country,” he said. “Yes!” I replied. My cousin Julia O’Dell met my flight from Denver in Amarillo at noon on September 22, and took me first to beautiful Llano Cemetery in Amarillo, where her husband Sammy, a COVID victim, was buried almost two years ago.

Julia teaches piano and is active in the Amarillo Music Teachers Association and in her church, Grace Communion International. What fun we had catching up on our kids, grandkids, and music! Her daughter Christy is a pension administrator in El Paso and is married to Nick Lopez, a school orchestra director. Their children are Timothy, Dominic, and Zoe. Karen and her husband Scott Strovas are professors at Waylon Baptist College in Plainview TX and parents of Sammy & Sally.

Julia knows I like museums. She took me to the Amarillo Art Museum, where we saw works by Native American artist Cannupa Hanska Luger. There were seven of the mixed-media wearable regalia shown below. They are made of repurposed materials and were displayed with seven looped videos showing dancers wearing them. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen. We found the music energizing and enjoyed chatting with Amy Von Lintel, a professor of art history at West Texas A&M University, who had just conducted a tour of the exhibit with her students.

Julia also took me to see the house my mother had lived in with her second husband, Hugh Cooper, from their marriage in 1972 until her death in 1989. The house was built in 1926 by Hugh’s parents, who had moved to Amarillo from Houston. where his father had been a lawyer with Vinson & Elkins. Hugh was a tax accountant, who died in 1986. My brothers and I sold this house in 1989 to Kevin Locke and David Torres. I was glad to meet Kevin, who was gardening there that morning.

My post on Route 66 tells what Amarillo meant to me when I lived in the Panhandle. It was great to return and see what a wonderful place it still is.