HERE'S WHERE WE START

If you’re going to write a story of your life, you need to start at the beginning.  Well the beginning of what?  Surely you don’t expect me to trace my ancestry back to Adam.  I’m not a genealogy buff, but I would like to be reasonably accurate.  I invite others who have this kind of information to sign up on the blog and offer appropriate comments. 

My cousin, Bob Hodges, who has done genealogy work, says he can go trace the Bales side of the family back a few generations to Tennessee, but then he loses the trail.  He’s obviously gone farther down the trail than I have.

Charles McKinley Bales was my paternal grandfather and he’s not my problem.   Of that I’m certain. I knew him well.   He is listed in the Stephens County, Texas census of 1880.   His father was named Earley Bales.  I don’t know too much about my great grandfather other than from stories my father told me.  According to my father, Earley Bales was a teamster who ran a freight wagon from Fort Griffin to Fort Worth. 

It must have been a somewhat dangerous occupation.  Comanche Indians still roamed the area, and they could get nasty once in awhile.  After all Fort Griffin existed to protect the settlers - those of European descent, who believed that it was their Manifest Destiny to occupy all the territory from the shores of the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific.    Most of the early white settlers probably didn’t think too much about Manifest Destiny.  They were looking to better themselves, and the Indians stood in the way

James K. Polk, was one of the strongest advocates of Manifest Destiny.  It was during his administration that Texas was annexed to the union.  For that reason, those  who proceeded westward had no compunction of conscious about forming treaties with indigenous people and then breaking those same treaties.

Of course the Comanches were not farmers. They survived by hunting, and they needed to roam widely to find their food.  The population influx in the West threatened their way of life, so conflict was inevitable.  That’s why places like Fort Griffin existed.

We can only imagine what Charley’s early life was like.  We do know that his father died when he was yet a young boy.

How I Want to Be Remembered

Ever since I started this project, I wondered what kind of title I might want to put on it.  One day I was watching Sherri Easter on one of the Gaither shows.  She talked about a song she wrote, titled, “He Loves.”   She said that she had started thinking about how she wanted to be remembered.  The more she thought about it, the more she thought she would like two words inscribed on her tombstone – “She Loved.”

That set me to thinking, not about what I want on my tombstone, but how I might be best remembered by those who have known me.  That took me to the subject of nicknames.  Of course I went through my share of embarrassing nicknames during adolescence.   I’m glad to leave most of those behind.  Some of them have been made obsolescent by changes in appearance.   I doubt if anyone would remember that I was once called, “Cotton” and “Slim.”  Neither one of those seem to fit anymore.  In early childhood, my cousin, Noma, gave me the name “Nor-Nor” but that didn’t last beyond childhood.

I was probably in my late teens, when a young man named Gerald Ball stuck a nickname on me.  Gerald was about my age and we participated in youth activities at church.  Gerald went to a different school, so he didn’t get involved the competitive cruelties that life seems to impose on people when they’re growing up.   Gerald named me “Smiley.”   That stuck, at least through my college years.  It’s one of the nicknames I liked.  

I think Gerald named me that because I smile a lot – always have, always will as long as I live.  People today don’t know me as “Smiley,” but they do comment on my smile. I think a lot of people remember that about me.  I’m not asking to have it engraved on my tombstone, but I think I would be very pleased to know that people remember me as the man with a smile.  So I decided to name my memoir, “Smiley.”

Smiley - Life and Times of Norman Bales

Welcome to my "memoir" blog.  It's a risky undertaking.   Will Rogers once said,  

“There ain't nothing that breaks up homes, country and nations like somebody publishing their memoirs.” 

I'm not arrogant enough to think that something I might say about my life is going to break up homes, countries and nations.   I don't even think what I have to say will break up churches, and that isn't terribly hard to accomplish these days.   

I suppose it's a little presumptuous to think that you're important enough to want to leave behind a memoir.  I'm not even sure if anyone will read these postings, but I’m going to risk it any way.  I don’t promise a posting every day, but I do hope to post several times a week.

I started writing this stuff a few years ago because I realized I'm a bridge person between generations. I have information that I want preserved for my family.  Years ago I uprooted my family from the geographical area in which the last several generations have been rooted.  I thought this might be one way to share were we came from and how we got here. You don’t have to be family to take a look, but I think family will probably be the ones who are most interested .

I haven't studied genealogy, so my facts could be off.  I invite others who know more than I do to contribute corrections.