He was a young farm hand born in Blanco, Texas, in 1922. His family had only been in the U.S. a couple of generations–German was his first language and his English would always carry that accent.
He’d never really been out of the Texas Hill Country until the Army drafted him in the fall of 1942, assigned him to the Ordnance Corps and put him on a troopship bound for China.
He was a truck mechanic for the 23rd Fighter Group, as Gen Claire Chennault’s “Flying Tigers” were designated upon America’s entry into the war; and his horizons were forever broadened by his time in that strange, exotic land, with a people torn by war against the Japanese and among themselves.
He came home from the war in December 1945 and like many of his fellow veterans put his wartime experience behind him, picking up civilian life where he left off. He went to work on a ranch in Mason County, Texas, where he eventually married the farmer’s daughter and raised two sons.
When his wife passed, he took stewardship of the ranch until his sons were old enough to run it. A few years later, he married my grandmother.
He helped raise her four children, giving them a place they could always call home.
George Nebgen, my Opa, turns 100 next week.
I learned he was not a blood relation the same time I got “the talk” about the birds and the bees. It explained a lot: whereas the rest of my father’s family was loud, raucous, thin-skinned and quarrelsome, somewhat prone to panic in emergencies, Opa was calmer–almost stoic.
He could be indulgent with other people’s children, but extremely strict with his own and those he felt responsible for. He raised my cousin when the boy’s parent’s troubles prevented them from doing so–under Opa’s strict tutelage he dodged the jinx that led his siblings to bad ends.
As military brats, my brothers and I also benefited from his generosity: although we moved every few years, he always made us feel like that ranch in the Texas Hill Country was home.
We visited year-round and enjoyed longer stays every summer. We were always put to work, but in retrospect I wonder if we weren’t more hindrance than help.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Opa was a consummate hunter. He kept the freezer full of meat and sent packages home with us when we visited. My brother eventually beguiled him into sharing his venison sausage recipe–or “receipt,” as my dad took to calling it in later years–so I look forward to that treat for years to come.
I learned as a boy to “hold a leg” while Opa cleaned and skinned the food we ate, whether deer from the fields or goats from the pen. I remember gagging as the internal bits were cut from the carcasses–but I don’t remember it harming my appetite when the meat finally arrived on the table.
For a while Opa owned a lake house on Lake Travis, 60 miles from his birthplace.
As best I recall, this tiny cottage boasted one bathroom, two bedrooms and a couch. How then, one might wonder, could Opa and my grandmother play host to three or four families, each with numerous hyperactive young children?
I have no idea–but we loved it.
The cabin had an easement to the lakeshore. Riding in Opa’s aluminum runabout I learned to run a trotline and to handle catfish without getting finned, to waterski–but never to slalom on a single ski, my innate lack of coordination having manifested itself early on–and the fundamentals of small boat handling.
I also learned how to clean and scale fish (and to skin catfish). Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, back before the technique of filleting made that chore obsolete. At the end of each lake visit Opa fried enough fish, potatoes–sliced into “silver dollars”–and hushpuppies to feed the visiting army of relatives to repletion.
I don’t know if I’ve ever eaten anything better.
The mechanical skills he perfected in the Army stood him in good stead as a rancher: I don’t think there was anything he couldn’t fix. When I was about ten, he fabricated a minibike from some metal tubing and a lawnmower engine for the visiting grandchildren to ride.
We were so excited!
One of my little brothers was insistent that he get a turn, despite being much too young, as was an equally drippy young cousin. Sadly, the fathers in question agreed and overruled my (sensible) objections.
My brother climbed on, excited beyond speech, and absorbed absolutely none of the prelaunch safety briefing.
He twisted the throttle to max RPM and shot off like a scalded cat. Panicked, he dragged his sneakers in the dirt, disregarding throttle and brake, as he hurtled toward the blades of a parked disk harrow.
He roared off the dirt road, crashing the minibike and obscuring himself, the minibike, and the harrow blades in a cloud of dust.
“Oh, no–Jed!!” shrieked the adults.
“Oh, no–the minibike!!” shrieked us kids.
I’m pleased to report that the minibike was fine (so was my brother). Even if it hadn’t been, Opa could’ve fixed it. He could change a tractor tire, fix a windmill, grow a garden, dynamite post holes into solid rock, wire a house for electricity, shear sheep, brand calves, dredge a pond, break a horse, set a broken bone–you name it.
A lifetime of skilled labor, quietly passed on to his sons and their children.
Eventually Opa retired from the ranch business. He and Oma moved to town, but he commuted the 40 miles back and forth to work for years before retiring for good.
Oma passed in her nineties, leaving Opa alone. He never understood the modern penchant for divorce, telling me: “I loved two women in my life and lost them both.”
His neighbors kept an eye on him, calling his daughter-in-law to tattle when they spied him on his roof, 95 years young, clearing branches after a storm.
He admitted that getting old was hard: “Can’t see, can’t hear, got no strength, Gott dernit!”
When he was 98 even the laid-back, small-town Texas Department of Motor Vehicle clerks refused to renew his driver’s license. He was furious.
As was his way, he soon calmed down and made the best of things. He was cleaning the engine of his SUV in the garage, prior to selling it, when it caught fire. He tried to fight the fire but called the fire department when it grew out of control.
He was unhurt but the car and the house were destroyed.
In a way the family was relieved: it was time. Opa moved to an assisted living facility down the street. He hated the loss of independence, but the food was good–and many of the young ladies he’d grown up with were in residence there as well.
The years roll on.
Next week I’ll fly back to Texas to help celebrate the man’s 100th birthday. He’s affected a lot of lives for the better, and it promises to be a capacity crowd. If you happen to be in Fredericksburg, Texas, mark your calendar:
Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 is officially “George Nebgen Day.”
My mom, who’s still close to my dad’s family, got a call recently: apparently Opa has a new girlfriend.
I wish them every happiness.
Thank you, Opa.
Note: George Nebgen passed on 7 Apr 2024–the world is a better place for his having lived.
May they one day say the same of us.