April 17
My Sister
I am thankful for my sister Mary Beth Tulley Martin. Today is Mary Beth's birthday. It was also my mother's birthday - Mom always said Mary Beth was the BEST birthday present she ever got. Mary Beth and Mom were very close and I was always very happy about that. Since Mom's passing in April, 2010, Mary Beth and I have been calling each other fairly regularly and she calls me at times she would have called Mom. She calls me her mother brother and I call her my mother sister. We like to go on photographic field trips together and have been to several of them in the past few years. I hope we can have many more.
Mary Beth is a very talented artist whose specialty is painting with pastels but she is a creative crafts person with any kind of craft you can imagine. She even makes and binds her own books. A year or so ago she carved and painted a golf ball into an authentic looking LSU football helmet with a player's head inside as a gift for me. It was one of my favorite posessions until the dog chewed it up, although I still have the fragments. Her art website is http://marybethmartin.com/marybethmartin.com. You should check it out. Her site shows many of the paintings that have won awards for her art. She was also a professional clown by the name of Dr. Pokum, who appeared locally in Baton Rouge on the Buckskin Bill show for many years. She is a very devout Christian and a great friend. Happy birthday Mary Beth!
LSU Golf Ball Football Helmet in Our Christmas Tree Minutes Before Being Devoured by the Dog
I took the top picture above in Georgetown, Texas, where she and her husband Mike lived before recently moving to Buda, a little bit to the south of Austin, Texas. The window is a storefront on the town square in Georgetown that she painted for their Red Poppy Festival. The photo below is one that I took in 1971 of Mary Beth and Mom. Mary Beth was just 19 and Mom 48 at the time. My how time flies.
mother sister
there are many things in this world
that leave us frazzled
there are multitudes of times
to be bedazzled
it’s nice to have a friend
of someone such as you
my mother sister extraordinaire
to step into mom’s shoe
not fill it but wear it, complement it
in a most singular way
so we go, marching onward
but together, you could say.
© rt tulley