Tommy said that he started to school at Loyd. Now you have to be an old timer to have gone to school at Loyd. We are old timers now, but we were recalling how we used to run around when we were teenagers.

Tommy’s grandfather was a pioneer settler in the Loyd community. Tommy mentioned that the Loyd baseball team, Little Elm and Aubrey were all friendly rivals during this period.

Tommy agreed that the people of Loyd are the same people as the folks are at Aubrey, since they all have about the same environment, and the pioneers were of the same mind since the needs to exist were all about the same in both places.

For you readers who don’t know where Loyd is, then you are in for a bracing; because that area is growing so fast that the officials don’t have time to get the people off the farm to market trials that were built back in the fifties. This area is so crowded now that a red light is so far from it and the area then around Little Elm is about as industrious as the Loyd Community.

Back when I had a job in Dallas, in the late sixties, I worked with Foy Caruthers who was from the Loyd community. He was always reminding me of how Loyd used to beat Aubrey in baseball. There were also two brothers, Wesley and Leland Morrow, working with me who were from Little Elm – they were also always reminding me of out Little Elm could always beat Aubrey in baseball.

I never did play baseball against Tommy when he was in the Loyd school, because I moved to Denton when I was about fourteen years old. I attended school at the North Texas High Lab School. Tommy and his brother Garland also moved to the North Texas Lab School

While we were high school students at the Lab School, we had a thirty minute lunch break. Lunch was about 3 or 4 blocks to the west and up the hill from the high school. We would have to run all of the way up the hill for lunch and then run back down the hill to the old men’s gym where we were allowed to dance the remainder of thirty minute lunch break. Ramona Martin and Wanda McNitsky were my high school teacher and classmate that taught me to dance the jitterbug.

Tommy Toomer laughed rather heartily when I reminded him about how we ran so hard and fast to dance. Tommy is suffering from a voice box problem which requires him to use an instrument to help him talk and be heard.

He says that Garland is living in Florida. I enjoyed the talk with Tommy very much and look forward to hearing more from him about Loyd since it was only a stone’s throw from Sandtown.

My belated Happy New Year wishes to everyone. (Note: I wrote this article the last week of December, 3002, and just now finishing).

I have an old annual from Aubrey High school in 1918. I would like to share with Tommy Toomer that there were several ads in the book from businesses in Loyd. There is also an ad for the George Button general store. The Buttons were early day pioneers in that area as well as the Aubrey area. The Buttons ran a laundry and washing machine business back during the 1940's. They also ran a keepers inn at the "Zilly Boy Mountain", just north of the old Plunk place. The keepers inn was on top of the hill and the trail is still there. The stage coaches traveled from the settlements out west through this area up on top of the "Zilly Boy Mountain." The Buttons’ inn was on top of this hill. It was a place for the passengers to get off the stage coach to rest and eat before they started on their way to the old Coaches Inn in the Pilot Point settlement, which was several hours apart.

Back in my early days, all of us Indians and half-breeds called it "Zilly Boy Mountain." It was a french settlement with the name of Isle du Bois, but that didn’t last long, before the natives began calling it Zilly Boy. Zilly Boy was a prominent place where Sam Bass hid out in a small cave. The cave was popular for explorers, who were always looking for gold that Sam Bass supposedly had hid in the area.

There were also many Cherokee initials carved on the huge iron ore sand stones. This was a popular place for us to hide out and play when we were growing up.

My brother Giles and I owned the farm next to the Zilly Boy Mountain. We also discovered wild life, rattlesnakes, copperheads, wildcats, panthers, fox, wolves and black racer snakes, a white bear, deer and many other animals in this area. The rattlesnakes would coil up and strike anywhere he could while the black racers would artfully glide along the top of the tall grass and chase us out to where we lost out desire to explore.

Dean Flick and his family who live on Wildcat road was telling me that he has had to fight the rattlesnakes and copperheads on his farm. He says the snakes have a purpose here, and that the rattlesnakes sense the heart from the human body when they are preparing to strike.

You will have to ask Deborah and Onor, our daughters, about the white bear, because they are the only ones that ever saw them. Every time I would look after the white bears, they would scream and scare the bears away.

I will write more about the residence of Sam Bass later, we are very acquainted with that neighborhood before the lake was built.

The photo I am including this week, is from the 1918 Aubrey High School annual. It is of the boys basketball team. Included on the team were Will Graham Mullins, Len Henderson, E. Hunter, coach, Gene Tobin, Chris Tipps, Neil Smith, Marvin Stewart and Sam Coberly. The team was undefeated the school year of 1917-1918.

Marvin Stewart is in the top row left, and Len Henderson is third and standing by coach Hunter while Will Graham Mullins is in the front and extreme right.