 The LBJ Ranch fall, 1953. The flood has come and gone. There's Linden out in the blue-panic grass with a bull with a delightful name, a friendly mixbord. It's been some mighty dry years. And we ought to be proud of this little grass. I was not so sure of my welcome as Linden was. Lindenburg, rather plump, was going to school at Johnson City from September until Christmas. And Lucy Bain, in first grade at Johnson City, there's Beagle, a ham as always, and Lucy's dog, Lattie. And there is Linden, putting the cattle in the pen. A.W., a slimmer A.W., our great advisor in all ranch affairs. The foreman, the lending boy, doctoring one of the calves. There's Ernie Stubbs, the banker from Johnson City. And that's the joy of the whole business, the calves. So there is Melvin Winters, our good friend. At his house, we stayed all the fall of 1951 when we were working on the ranch till we finally moved in. In July of 1952, there is Beagle. That dog always wanted the whole show in Congressman Homer Thornberry. He and Eloise used to come out and he's probably talking about how he painted the side of the house. He's looking up at the side of the house. He was so good at painting his own house that we provided him with a bucket and some paint. And those days, we all did everything around the house. There's Ernest Thompson of the Texas Railroad Commission. He was the father of conservation and Jean Lasseter. Everything that happened in the oil industry about conservation is likely to have originated in the head of Ernest Thompson. There's Herman Brown and Mary Rapper. He used to sit out under the live oak trees and those chairs, which had begun their life in the backyard of Delman. And we had the loveliest morning glories out behind the dining room. We always had, each year from the beginning on, some lovely zinnias, there's Mary and Marjorie and Eloise Thornberry. This is the old part of the house, the field stone. Jean is by the hitching post that Warren Woodward and all the staff gave Linden for his birthday when he first moved into the ranch. And there's a view of the little valley of the Perdon Alice from up at the top by one of the tanks. You look down into a slope of land, gray-green, our own little piece of the hill country with the hills beyond. There's Homer Thornberry with Linden out in the, what I believe is blue panic. Linden's having a meeting of his district men in the front yard of the ranch. There's Jay Taylor of Amarilla and Adrian Spears. Bob Clark and Milton Potts will be somewhere around in the crowd. And there's Mack DeGarrion and Sherman Birdwell who was his first secretary when he went to Congress. And there's Jake Pickle. In these meetings, he got sort of a sampling of how he was measuring up all around the state and everybody's opinion. There's Blake Gillian on the right, I think. And Elmo Parrish of Wichita Falls is somewhere there. And there's Earl Rutter and Fennel Roth and Doug Singleton will be in the crowd and Hunter McClean, that old reliable from Fort Worth and Cecil Bernie of Corpus Christi. We couldn't have gotten along without him. And there's Venter Bird, she was always around when there was politics being talked. And George Reed right behind her, Sam Houston's there, Doug Singleton, children of Brian and his wife, Lucy. And here's Lucy and there's Beagle. We were having visitors from East Texas. Ricky, his brother. The back seat of the pickup. Tailgate of it was their favorite place for Linda and Lucy and all the children who came to visit. And here it is, Thanksgiving 1953. At the Aspera in the Red Blouse in Montana, I'm getting ready to summer peace for Thanksgiving table. With the windmill in the background. Tony and Martiana and Daddy and Ruth, there they are. And Tommy and Sarah came to spend several days with us and my brothers went hunting and each one got an eight point book and there they are, string up in the backyard. And the very slim little Lucy, age six is watching. And there's my daddy, Thomas Jefferson Taylor, my two brothers. What a big man Tommy was and that ubiquitous cigar, he was never without it. And then they're out in the field with blonde, monathon berry and Lucy. There's what it's all about. The white face happens, the delight of every rancher. Lyndon can tell every one of them from every other one. A cigarette will sell them out of his mouth in those days. This was just the second year we'd own the ranch and the ranch like the children have grown and changed since then. Buffalo grass and KR blue stem with a popular grasses of the day. And one of my main interests was working on the trees in the grove with a tree surgeon and a little experimenting in planting blue bonnet. I remember those, it's very dry years. And there is Linda Bird on peach beauty with her bracken veal clothes on under the big live oak at the front entrance. And there's Lyndon on the Tennessee Walker. Right, I have some Western gentlemen. What a good gate that Tennessee Walker has. That's old Beagle getting out of the way for once. Christmas 1953, our second Christmas at the ranch. Ah, and what pretty doll beds and doll furniture those girls got that near. We always hung the stockings in the big room. Love that fireplace. This must be Christmas morning because they're already emptying the stockings. They've already found everything. Linda nine is already plump. Lucy six is having her first year in school at Johnson City. And there's the tree. That was the spot that it always stayed. Finger paint. One of Lucy's favorite Christmas presents over and over at about that time. Lucy minus the two for two. And there is Aunt Frank whose house it was for 50 years, we bought it from her. Sitting with Aunt Kitty and there is Lyndon's sister Rebecca, his brother Sam Houston, his brother-in-law, Bobbitt. And Mrs. Johnson and always Oreo. And there's Mrs. Johnson with all her grandchildren, little Becky Alexander, Linda Bird in her Christmas present shawl, Rodney in the red hat and Philip in a jacket. And this time we have a new foreman, Lyndon's little cousin, Corky Cox. That was his wife in the white. And here's Aunt Kitty, Uncle Tom's widow. And then sister Rebecca and Bobbitt, her husband. Lyndon kissing his mother. And there's his sister Lucia in the background. Christmas was always a gathering of the clan. His kin folks in mind. Here's a little more numerous. His two sisters, his brother. And there is Ava Johnson Cox who taught Lyndon and Lucy both when they were at Johnson City. Here we all are, all lined up. Probably just before we go in for the Christmas dinner. We had a scenic wallpaper on in those days.