The Birthday I'll Always Remember

Today is my birthday.  I've had some memorable ones, but the photo above, which I took 45 years ago, on April 4, 1980, will always remind me of the best one.  

I sent this photo to my girlfriends back in Seattle in late March, 2006, about two months after Mark and I reunited (after over 21 years apart).  Here is some of what I told them:  

He says it's the best photo ever taken of him.  Of course he was 38 in this photo and I kid him about looking like a rock star in this one!  Turn the hair white/gray and add more wrinkles and you pretty much have how he looks now.  He still has the same smile and smile lines. ...

I thought you might want to see part of what attracted me to him in the first place.  It was never looks though, I was attracted more by the fact that he admired my mind, we could have intelligent conversations, and he was very loving and attentive.  Still is all of the above. ...

I forgot to add that when I look at him now, what I SEE is the guy on the boat I fell in love with 26 years ago.

And to Mark:  "...the photo is what I see when I look at you even today...an incredibly sexy man."

--------

Mark and I went out on Corpus Christi Bay in his sailboat, The Wagon, on April 4, 1980, along with his best friends Tom Utter (who co-owned the sailboat) and Sarah Cole.  It was a Friday (just like it is this year) and I'm pretty sure it was after work.  

Now I'm the only one left.  In a week, I will be in Corpus Christi on a sailboat, to place his ashes in the Bay he loved so much.  The next day, some family and friends will gather in his honor and he'll pick up the tab one last time:   

The invitation above is based on a card Mark must have carried in his wallet for a long time.  I think Tom ("Utterly") and Sarah ("Cold") must have made it for him.  It's based on the logo for Cooper's Alley, a restaurant and bar where many city employees would hang out after work, and where Mark was often known to pick up the tab (or at least buy a round) for the entire table.  (I don't remember ever having to pay for a drink there.)

If any of Mark's old friends are reading this on or before April 12, 2025 - it's not too late!  Just come - don't worry about an RSVP.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

April 2, 2006 - Mark and the Ducks

I was extremely busy in April 2006, with finishing my library school classes, practicum, and assistantship job, and with job hunting and interviewing.  I did spend a quiet Sunday, April 2, 2006, with Mark at his apartment in Granbury, and took this photo of him feeding the ducks that would actually peck at his door to get him to come out and feed them pieces of tortillas.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

March 25, 2006: Another Early Birthday Present

After a busy week with work and school after Spring Break, I finally saw Mark again on Saturday, March 25, 2006, in Granbury.  This time, he gave me a brand new Trek bicycle.  I described it in an e-mail to a friend as having "mountain bike wheels but a more comfortable seat/handlebar arrangement."

As I wrote to a friend, "This is the second birthday gift; I got a digital camera last week.  He has a bike too and wants me to ride with him.  I used to ride in Seattle until I had a nasty downhill accident (still have gravel embedded in my knee) but would love to ride again on some of the trails around here.  I've got roses too; I get them every time I go to Granbury."  This time I actually have a picture of the roses.

And as I told another friend, "Mark said he would rather surprise me with early gifts than take a chance on being late."

Mark kept the bike at his apartment so we could ride together.  While I was in library school in the spring of 2006, there really wasn't time to ride it other than during my visits to Granbury.

I still have that bike, and I still ride it.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

March 18, 2006: I Meet Drew for the First Time

I finally got to meet Drew, Mark's youngest child and only son, on Saturday, March 18, 2006.  Mark and I picked him up at Dallas Love Field when he returned from his Spring Break trip.  He'd just turned 33 earlier that month and taught 8th grade U.S. history in Lewisville public schools.  As I wrote to a friend the next day, "His son's plane was an hour and a half late, arriving at 8 PM instead of 6:30 PM, and then we had a late dinner.  His son is really nice and looks (and acts) a lot like Mark."

I wrote to Mark the next day, "I really enjoyed meeting Drew yesterday.  He's very much like you, you know - handsome, funny, charming.  (Too bad I am not about 20 years younger ;-0 ).  I just hope he was favorably impressed with his dad's current taste in women."

I also wrote to another friend, "Very nice guy, looks a lot like his dad and just as charming.  Mark says he can tell that Drew liked me but I am not so sure." *

* I believe we ate at a Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen on I-35 near Dallas Love Field, and I think the following exchange happened then (or it could have been the next month, after Easter, when we picked up Drew at the airport once again).  At one point, Mark got up to go to the restroom, and Drew turned to me and said something to the effect, "You know he's never going to marry you."  I think I responded with something like, "Who says I want to get married?"

We were both wrong.

--------

The photo at the beginning of the post is one of the few of Mark and Drew together, this one from the summer of 1995 when Mark was living in California.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

March 15, 2006: A New Camera

Late in the day on Wednesday, March 15, 2006, while we were having dinner at the On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina in Lewisville, Texas, Mark gave me an early birthday present - a Canon PowerShot ELPH SD450 digital camera.  This little camera, in its fabric zippered case, was small enough to fit in my purse, and I used it regularly for the next nine-plus years, until we bought a new digital single lens reflex Canon EOS Rebel T5 camera in November 2015.  I kept it in my purse and still used it when I didn't have the bigger camera, until I finally got my first smartphone in December 2017.

Immediately after getting the camera, I started using it (of course without reading the user manual) and the photo above of Mark was the fourth picture I took that night (images #1 through #3 must have been so bad that I didn't keep them).  Too blurry, but I love the smile on his face and the love in his eyes.

Back at my cousin's home in Grapevine, later that night - actually at 1am the next day, Thursday, March 16, 2006 - I took what I think is the best selfie ever of me.

As for the rest of the day on March 16 - I think we went shopping.  When I was in Fredericksburg visiting my parents the previous weekend, I picked up some Lands' End gift cards I'd ordered with my Discover Card cashback bonus - $275 worth, for which I only paid $220 in bonus.  I'd suggested to Mark about a week earlier that we "go to the Sears in Lewisville and you can help me pick out some stuff."  (Sears owned Lands' End at the time and carried a lot of their clothing.)  We got a LOT of Lands' End short-sleeve cotton tops in a variety of colors with those gift cards - maybe some cardigan sweaters to go with some of them too (although I may have gotten those later - hey, librarians are supposed to wear cardigans!). 

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

March 15, 2006: On The Wagon Again, After 22+ Years

Way back in 2006, March 15 was smack in the middle of Spring Break for most schools in Texas.  I was on Spring Break from library graduate school at the University of North Texas, and Mark's son Drew was on Spring Break from his job as a high school social studies teacher in the Lewisville School District in Texas.

Drew was flying somewhere for a vacation, and asked Mark to stay at his Lewisville apartment to take care of his dog, a boxer named Cana.  Drew's apartment was only 30 minutes from my cousin's home in Grapevine (where I was staying while finishing up my degree), a lot closer than the hour drive to Mark's apartment in Granbury - so that gave me an extra hour a day to spend with him!

On this day, we decided to go check out Mark's former sailboat, The Wagon, in the nearby Eagle Point Marina.  We'd thought about taking it out for a sail, but the weather was not conducive to that during Spring Break.  We did eat at the nearby Sneaky Pete's.

In 2002, Mark had bought out his best friend Tom Utter's half-interest in the 22-foot Catalina that they'd purchased together about 1978.  Mark gave the sailboat to Drew, and helped him move it from Corpus Christi to Lewisville in 2002.  Mark had been living in California since early 1994 and was going to Corpus Christi to sail even less than he had during the time he was in Grand Prairie (1985-1993).  

The last time I'd seen The Wagon was in 1984, the year I moved away from Corpus Christi.  It was so cool to see it again!

Above:  Mark Gresham opening up The Wagon, Eagle Point Marina, Lewisville, Texas, 15 March 2006.

Below:  The Wagon in Eagle Point Marina, Lewisville, Texas, 15 March 2006.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

March 11, 2006: A Morning at Clark Gardens

Way back in 2006, when I was in my last semester of library graduate school at the University of North Texas, Spring Break was the week of March 13-17 - so it really started Saturday, March 11.  That morning, Mark and I went to Clark Gardens, which is between Mineral Wells and Weatherford, Texas.  Clark Gardens is about 40 miles northwest of Granbury, where Mark was living at the time.

Here are some photos from that day.  Mine were taken with a simple autofocus camera that used print film; Mark's with a digital Canon PowerShot S50 he'd gotten at least a year and a half earlier, which he is holding/using in the two photos below.  I still hadn't succeeded in getting a good photo of Mark.

Above and below:  Mark Gresham at Clark Gardens, Texas, 11 March 2006.  Photos by Amanda Pape

It wasn't quite spring in North Texas yet, and there was very little in bloom other than some potted azaleas like those Mark is photographing above.  Probably the most interesting thing we saw in the gardens were a small flock of guineafowl, pictured below.

Above:  Guineafowl at Clark Gardens, Texas, 11 March 2006 / Mark Gresham / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Below: Part of the G-scale model trains at Clark Gardens, Texas, 11 March 2006 / Mark Gresham / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

We spent the most time viewing the three G-scale model trains that run "on 700 feet of track that meander through a landscape of natural vegetation, trestles and small streams. Paths weave under seven foot high willow trestles next to a six foot waterfall and over little bridges in the Garden Train area."

Above and below:  G-scale model trains at Clark Gardens, Texas, 11 March 2006 / Amanda Pape / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

You can see the waterfall in the background of the photo below.

Above and below:  G-scale model trains at Clark Gardens, Texas, 11 March 2006 / Amanda Pape / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

The trains surround "Clark Station," an octagonal building that, according to the Clark Gardens website, houses "incredible towns of scaled-down building[s] made of plant materials such as poppy seeds, acorns, grapevine tendrils, cinnamon sticks and pinecone scales."

Signs inside and outside indicate the towns inside Clark Station represent nearby Mineral Wells and Weatherford, but there's also a representation of Garner, an unincorporated community between the two that is close to Clark Gardens.

Visible below in the Mineral Wells station are the famous Baker Hotel (the tall building at the left), and the Hexagon Hotel (the white building just to the right of the Baker Hotel).

Above and below:  Models in the Mineral Wells station inside Clark Station at Clark Gardens, Texas, 11 March 2006 / Mark Gresham / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

The image above appears to be of "The Beach" in Mineral Wells, as it looked in 1910 and 1911.  Sanborn maps for Mineral Wells show a "Beach Hotel" that was a two-story frame structure across from the Hexagon Hotel on the 1907 and 1912 maps, but not on the 1904 or 1921 maps.

Above:  Models in the Garner station inside Clark Station at Clark Gardens, Texas, 11 March 2006 / Mark Gresham / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 

Below:  Model of the Parker County Courthouse at the Weatherford station inside Clark Station at Clark Gardens, Texas, 11 March 2006 / Mark Gresham / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Clark Gardens also has a number of rental facilities, including a lovely little chapel (seats 80) with this beautiful rose window over the altar.  I'll never forget Mark grabbing my hands inside here and requesting me to "say I do."  I did.  I guess we were married at that point. - we'd been soulmates for a long time.

Above:  Rose Window in the Chapel at Clark Gardens, Texas, 11 March 2006 / Mark Gresham / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

March 6, 2006: A Day at Dinosaur Valley State Park

Nineteen years ago today, Mark and I went to Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas (not far from Mark's home at the time in Granbury) for a wonderful "Capstone-debriefing" day for me. 

Capstone was the culminating experience for graduating from the University of North Texas library school, and involved writing three 1500-word essays (choosing from a set of ten topics), with in-text citations and a reference list, over a one-week period when classes were also in session.  Needless to say, it was a rather stressful experience that consumed the previous week, so I took that Monday off to have some fun with Mark.

As I wrote to a friend, it "was a lovely day.  I did not get to Granbury until around 10:30 AM.  We had an early lunch and went to Dinosaur Valley State Park.  He let me drive his SUV which was fun.  The park is pretty; the Paluxy river that runs through it is spring fed so the water is rather clear.  I did a little wading as it was a warm day (80+).  We had dinner and then just did our own things for a while; me working on schoolwork while he fiddled with his bike and the computer and did some reading.  It's nice to be with someone where you can just do comfortable stuff like that.  He gave me another dozen roses (these were multicolored and some quite fragrant) and I'm now wearing his old high school ring (which was just sitting in a box).  Yeah, I know - mushy and silly."

Above:  good photo of Amanda Pape by Mark Gresham at Dinosaur Valley State Park.

Below:  bad photo of Mark Gresham by Amanda Pape at Dinosaur Valley State Park.

Above and below:  Paluxy River at Dinosaur Valley State Park, Glen Rose, Texas, 6 March 2006 / Amanda Pape / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Above and below:  Dinosaur tracks in the Paluxy River at Dinosaur Valley State Park, Glen Rose, Texas, 6 March 2006 / Mark Gresham / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Above:  Paluxy River at Dinosaur Valley State Park, Glen Rose, Texas, 6 March 2006 / Mark Gresham / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Below:  Roses Mark Gresham gave Amanda Pape on 6 March 2006.

As pictured above, Mark gave me a dozen gorgeous roses, this time pinks and peaches and whites and salmons, some of which were fragrant. Oh, and an interesting piece of jewelry.

In the photo at the beginning of this post, I am wearing earrings he gave me, and the necklace is made from an earring he bought me on our first date (I LOST the other one within an hour - stupid post backs! - so he bought me the ones I am wearing, and I turned the leftover earring into a necklace).  

I am also wearing his old high school ring (which is an unusual design - he graduated from high school in Guam).  He would often play with the rings on my fingers when he held my hands, and earlier that day, he noticed my high school ring was similar to his, showed me his (didn't fit him any more), and then asked me if I'd like to wear it.  The ring is visible in the photo on my ring finger.  I still wear it today.

The earrings (including the one that is now a necklace) cost all of $13 total at a crafts store.  It's the fact that he gave them to me that makes them special.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

Old Hood County, Texas Records

My high school boyfriend is a landman, and he contacted me last week trying to locate a particular type of land-related record for my county of residence that could help him in a recent project he was assigned.  He was looking for what is sometimes called "Assessor's Abstracts of Land," and everyone he talked to in the Hood County Clerk's office and county Tax Assessor-Collector's office either had no idea of what he was talking about, or no idea where such records - going back to the establishment of the county (in November 1866, from portions of adjacent Johnson County) - were.  Other counties my landman friend had worked with typically had the records he was looking for in one of those two offices.

I used to manage the Regional Historical Resource Depository (RHRD) at Tarleton State University, and have some familiarity with records in old bindings like the ones pictured below.  I hadn't seen the type of record my friend was looking for among our holdings (counties decide which records, if any, they want the depositories to store), but I had a feeling that if they existed, they'd either be at the RHRD for Hood County (which is University of Texas at Arlington, which doesn't even have a listing online of what their holdings are), OR they'd be at the Hood County Genealogical / Historical Society.

Above and below:  The first and second shelves of volumes of Hood County Assessor's Abstracts of Land at the Hood County Genealogical / Historical Society headquarters at the Granbury Depot.

The local story goes that somewhere back in time - the late 1970s, I think - these old records were being thrown out at the courthouse.  Local people interested in genealogy and history rescued the volumes and papers from the dumpster, and in 1983, the local society was granted a lease of the old Granbury train depot, which is where the records are stored and are available for use most Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday afternoons.  That's where I went today.

Above:  The last four of the 25 volumes of the Hood County Assessor's Abstracts of Land at the Hood County Genealogical / Historical Society headquarters at the Granbury Depot.

Below:  Sample page from the first volume of the Hood County Assessor's Abstracts of Land at the Hood County Genealogical / Historical Society headquarters at the Granbury Depot.

I wasn't quite sure if I had the right records, so I took the photo just above and sent it to my friend, who verified I'd found them.  I then photographed all the records he needed from 1880 through 1972.

According to page 42 of Inventory of county records, Hood County Courthouse, Granbury, Texas, published in 1974, here is a description of these records:

"ASSESSOR'S ABSTRACTS OF LAND. 1880-current.  29 vols., 18" x 12" x 3".

Register of assessor's abstract of surveys showing abstract number; county; number of land certificate or land patent issued; class, character, and acreage of land; to whom issued; year rendered; by whom rendered; and value. Arranged by section number, thereunder by block number, and thereunder by year.  SPF-handwritten.   Not indexed."

To "render" property for taxation means to list it with the tax assessor-collector of the taxing district in question. The "by whom rendered" is generally the property owner.  SPF is an abbreviation for standard printed form - counties could purchase blank volumes with the appropriate headings for this type of record.  The standard printed forms have been filled out by hand as opposed to typewritten.

These types of records can help a landman run title in reverse (the chain of ownership) on a particular piece of property.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

Nineteen Years Ago Today: Luke's First Birthday Party

On Saturday, February 25, 2006, Mark went to the first birthday party for his youngest grandchild, Luke, in Allen, Texas.  Here are a few pictures from that day.

Above:  Luke with his uncle Drew Gresham and mom Kim Gresham Williams.

Below:  Mark holding Luke.

Mark e-mailed me copies of these photos, and I wrote back, "I really like the ones of you and Luke.  You photograph really well, you know?  And please wear that blue sweater for me next time it is cold."

Still have that sweater.  I wore it on some cold days this past month.  It kept me warm and made me feel like he was wrapping his arms around me, but it definitely looked better on him.

So where was I that day?  I had volunteered to help with a children's program at the Emily Fowler Branch of the Denton Public Library, where I was doing my library school practicum.  However, it was cancelled because no one signed up. Unfortunately I had only talked to the head children's librarian about helping and not the librarian who was actually going to do the program, so I did not find out ahead of time. Since I'd already gone there from Grapevine (where I was living at the time, with my cousin Tom and his wife Karen), I stayed the whole day and put in some more of my practicum hours. 

I don't think Mark had told his children about me before this point, anyway.  I certainly wasn't expecting to be invited along to this event.  I met his son Drew for the first time three weeks later (on March 18, 2006).  I met his daughter Kim and her family I met his daughter Kim and her family on Easter, April 16, 2006.  I met his daughter Noel and her family on Memorial Day, May 29, 2006.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!