Handmade gift showcases artist's vision of world
JERRY AULDS

The afterglow of the Season of Gifts lingers even as once-gaily-decorated Christmas trees, along with crushed boxes and crumpled festive wrapping paper rest beneath a landfill's compacted soil.

Whether for Christmas, birthday or anniversary, gifts elicit joy in any season, and a gift out of the blue, from the heart, with an "I made this for you" gift tag earns a place of honor in anyone's Hall of Treasured Memories.

Since Oct. 1, 2007, Czech Catholic Home for the Aged resident Frankie Harbus' gift to me of a watercolor drawing of a stagecoach, embellished with his hand-written commentary has held first place in my personal hall.

The drawing depicts a dark red, trimmed-in-yellow, horse-drawn stagecoach charging down the trail under a red sun blazing out of a pale blue sky. The coach driver holds the reins tight on just one slightly smiling white horse. Inside the coach, two be-hatted male passengers, each holding a book, face one another.

Spelled out in three lines on the stagecoach door, the title proclaims "Jerry Aulds" on one line, "KULP" under that and "1390" on the third line, providing the clue that Harbus created this work for me.

But what prompted his gift?

Two of the nicely handwritten notes on the back of his watercolor hint both at Frankie's generous heart and his pride of accomplishment.

"I started to draw when I was 40 years old and now I am 72 years old and still drawing," he writes proudly.

Later in his careful script, "Jerry Aulds, please show this picture I draw and color to your friends."

I have, and I will.

Frankie's sister, Virginia Barosh, praised her brother's generosity.

"He has always had a giving heart," she said.

He also possesses a droll sense of humor.

"In case gas gets to $4.00 a gallon, we will be riding these," he wrote in his notes about the stagecoach.

Frankie was badly injured in a childhood accident and lived on the family's home place most of his life, but the injury did not keep him from being a hard-working, generous man. That work included a stint in the oil field and long-time employment two different times for Wharton County Precinct 3, first for Commissioner Ed Malek, later for Commissioner Arvid Schoeneberg.

Remember the two passengers in the stagecoach drawing? In one of the commentaries, Frankie writes, "Riding inside are a preacher and a lawyer."

Did I mention both have books in their hands? I believe it's obvious: One is a law book and one's the Good Book.

Picture this. I know which book best describes Frankie's life, heart and art.