My travels as a storyteller have taken me far and wide. I’ve been to Paris, Dublin, Italy, Palestine, Turkey, Athens and Rhome. That is the correct spelling for Rhome. They are all in Texas.

I have traveled outside of the Lone Star State. But, amazingly, some of the small towns right here in Texas afford interesting experiences. Turkey, Texas is one of those.

Many years ago, the Turkey-Quitaque ISD invited me to tell stories to all of their students (less than 300 for all of K-12). I jumped at the chance, because I love kids in small towns. They always seem less jaded. Turkey is about 250 miles northwest of Dallas. It’s situated between Amarillo and Lubbock.

The distance from home base meant I would have to stay overnight. I did grimace inwardly when my patrons told me they would put me up at “a nice little place here in town.” I imagined a neon-lit, strip motel with cockroaches carrying my bags inside. I was pretty certain there would be a sign over the sink that said, “Hunters, Do Not Clean The Birds In The Room.” Chances were good that six drunken hunters would be carrying on loudly in the parking lot all night. But, I figured I could stand it for just one night.

What a surprise I got! The Hotel Turkey is, indeed, a “nice little place!” It was built in 1927 to serve the needs of travelers and salesmen on the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad who were passing through on their way to Lubbock or Estelline. The railroad is gone now and probably so are most of the travelers, though I could believe that a few ghosts might linger here to enjoy the charming atmosphere. No one has said anything about ghosts, but I can imagine it, can’t I?

Between 1989 and 1996, it was refurbished and decorated with period antiques. It now operates as a bed & breakfast hotel with 14 rooms “most” having private bathrooms. When I was there, they didn’t have television. It didn’t matter, because I just wanted to sit out on the back patio and gaze up at the stars. They looked like diamonds sparkling in the Heavens. Now the rooms have cable television, and the dining room has wireless internet access.

The rates are reasonable (from $55 to $85 for a room with a Jacuzzi). Heck you can rent the entire hotel for the night for $1200! Bring your friends and have a party.

I know you are wondering why else you would go to Turkey. It’s only 30 miles or so from Hwy 287, and if you are passing through that part of Texas, it would be worth the detour to view a little history and relax in the ambience the hotel affords. If you like peace and quiet, you will find plenty of it there. You can find many hunting and fishing opportunities, if that’s what floats your boat. While you are in the area, you don’t want to miss the Caprock Canyon State Park. It’s a smaller version of Palo Duro Canyon State Park. You can hike or ride horses there.

Turkey itself has the Bob Wills (The King of Western Swing) Museum and it hosts the annual Bob Wills Day Celebration on the last Saturday in April. I can’t vouch for how exciting this small town celebration would be, but you can probably bet that if there are any of Bob Will’s Texas Playboys still living, they will be there.

But, be forewarned. If you want an evening meal, your choices in town are Mexican food, a meal from the Turkey Drive In, a snack from Allsup’s, or a picnic that you import. There isn’t much food to gobble in Turkey.

If you are in the area, drop by Turkey, Texas for a visit. Population: 500. Salute!

If I were a cat, I’d look like this at the moment.

OK, it’s really not that bad.

I realize that my misfortunes are small compared to those of many people right now. But, there is a jackhammer ripping out my dining room floor as I write. My teeth are rattling in my head (and there is a fine layer of dust over every surface of the house). The plumber has to expose the plumbing leak to repair it. I would wish that he wouldn’t also expose his backside, but I’m not ungrateful enough to make any cracks about it. At least it’s not a “full moon,” so that’s one blessing. If the noise ever stops, I’ll try to count some more blessings.

In Ambrose Bierce’s book, The Devil’s Dictionary, he offers this definition:

MISFORTUNE, n.
The kind of fortune that never misses.

Word up!

Blogging is a new experience for me. I’m learning interesting things as I try to build this site. Although I’ve built a website before, I’m discovering I still have a lot to learn. Unfortunately, no one else in my circle of friends is a blogger, so I learn through trial and error.

I wanted to put a “counter” on my blog so I could see if I was getting any traffic. Because Bravenet is affiliated with the program I use to build my website, I decided to take advantage of their “free” hit counter. With no technological skills to my credit, I was able to cut and paste the html code to my Blogger page with no difficulty at all. So far, so good.

Being a lazy person, I didn’t bother to log into the account to check my statistics. I simply double clicked on the counter at the bottom of my page each morning. I was annoyed that there was a floating pop-up in the middle of the page, and I had to close it to view the statistics. But, I decided to live with it.

A few nights ago, I did an AdAware scan on my computer before I went to bed to clean out the traffic cookies. There were an unusually large number of them, but I ascribed that to the fact that I’ve been surfing the net a lot more lately.

The next morning I sat down with my cup of coffee and my bleary eyes to post on my blog. I double clicked the hit counter and there was that irritating pop-up. I didn’t aim correctly when I tried to close it and inadvertently opened the ad that was hidden behind it. It opened my eyes in a hurry! A pornographic ad with a woman’s bare breasts was on my screen. Ahem!

I went to the Bravenet site to register an abuse complaint, which took a little bit of clicking around on their site. I then removed the counter from my blog. For some reason unknown to me, I decided to run another AdAware scan. More than 100 traffic cookies registered. The only site I had visited other than Blogger was Bravenet. I’ve had no reply from Bravenet.

Now I have a new hit counter from Site Meter. It was “free,” too, so you can bet I’ll be monitoring it closely. I apologize if you clicked on my previous hit counter and saw a pornographic ad—unless that was what you wanted to see.