My Neck Of The Woods

That would be anywhere in the Lone Star State! I talk about Texas all the time (and always on Saturdays). Hope y'all enjoy. Thanks for stopping to "set a spell!"

Who Do You Want To Be?

July 28, 2010

As a child I always envied our neighbor, Ruthie Walkendorfer. She was, in truth, an unlikely source of envy. As I remember her she was a small, very self assured child with dark hair that framed her face like a bubble. Her black eyeglasses were almost as big as she was, with lenses as thick [...]

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Long Gone

July 12, 2010

Perhaps I expected to see remnants of my Grandfather’s farm in Styx … although I knew it couldn’t look as it did in the pictures that have survived. This photograph of Granddaddy and his oldest children must have been taken in the summer of 1924, since my mother is not in the picture. She came [...]

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Calaboose

July 7, 2010

If you don’t know what a “calaboose” is, then you are lucky! It’s also known as “The Slammer,” “The Brig,” “The Coop,” “The Jug,” “The Pokey,” “The Clink,” “The Joint,” “The Big House.” It’s a jail! This building is in Kemp, Texas … so you might want to mind your manners when you pass through [...]

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Bridge To Nowhere

July 3, 2010

No, it doesn’t have anything to do with Gravina Island in Alaska. It’s a decrepit old bridge that the highway department “parked” in a meadow near Kemp, Texas. It called my inner child to come and play. If you click it, you can see a larger version. My inner child squealed, “Let’s play!” while my [...]

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Mixed Media

June 1, 2010

The ruins of what must have been a gasoline service station long ago beckoned us to stop as we drove down U.S. Highway 81 in Montague County. The “town” was called Stoneburg, and this building seemed fitting. Its charred walls seemed to reach plaintively for the sky. Those walls intrigued us; we could see from [...]

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Cosmic Café Is An Out Of This World Restaurant

May 1, 2010

Now, y’all know that I was born and raised in The Lone Star State. I am 5th generation Texan, and with roots so deep in my native soil there are some things that you can automatically assume about me. No, you can not assume I ride a horse, tote a gun, and am a redneck [...]

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Flaming Fajitas At La Familia

April 25, 2010

You might think that it is absolutely a coincidence that the Fort Worth Fire Department showed up at La Familia Restaurant this last weekend. Is it? Perhaps they know that La Familia has the hottest fajitas in town! Right at the table, the waiters pour tequila over the meat and flames it. This is just [...]

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Good Golly, Miss Molly’s Is Haunted!

April 24, 2010

When we arrived at Miss Molly’s Bed and Breakfast, on Exchange Street in Fort Worth, I told the innkeeper that we wanted to seek the ghosts that haunt the place. “Oh,” she chirped. “Then, we need to close all the Bibles. I keep an open Bible in every room to tell the ghosts who is [...]

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D.M.V. Means: Darned Masterful Virtuoso

April 22, 2010

Y’all probably think that it’s no fun at all to stand in the line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, don’t you? If you think that, you aren’t doing something right. You probably stand there with a scowl on your face, tapping your foot, and checking your watch. Every now and then you heave a [...]

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I’m Too Jaded For The Fort Worth Stockyards

April 21, 2010

When people visit from out of town, the Fort Worth Stockyards is NOT the first place I want to take them. In fact, I avoid taking them there unless they whine … and bribe me with bacon … chocolate … money. I know that if you aren’t from Texas you think that this place is [...]

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Intoxicating Iris At Argyle Acres

April 17, 2010

My Grandmommy’s irises were “Plain Jane.” In her garden, she had many of these lovely plants, but they were only in four colors: white, yellow, and two shades of purple. While I always admired them (and have some of each in my own gardens), I had no clue that I would ever fall in love [...]

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The Cave

March 21, 2010

Your lungs feel as if they might explode, if your heart doesn’t give out first. You stumble on rocks you can’t see in the darkness. You can taste the fear at the back of your mouth. Fear is all you have eaten for days as you stumbled across this unfamiliar terrain. But, there is not [...]

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It’s A Storytelling Festival

March 10, 2010

It’s happening this weekend: The 25th Annual Texas Storytelling Festival! And, it’s right here in Denton, Texas from March 11-14, 2010. It hardly seems possible that it was twenty-five years ago, when a friend of mine had a dream. Finley Stewart, about whom I have posted before, wanted to bring together storytellers and story listeners [...]

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Reflecting on Caldwell County Courthouse

March 10, 2010

I adore old courthouses. I marvel at the care that was taken a century or more ago to build the government seat. Courthouses built in the late 1800s, even those built in tiny towns, often have lovely architectural embellishments. Have you noticed that most government offices we build these days are sterile, antiseptic structures (with [...]

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You Could Smell Their Pits A Mile Away

March 7, 2010

Not their armpits … their barbecue pits. Our noses told us that Smitty’s Market was near long before we spotted the place. Although the town of Lockhart has four barbecue joints, and calls itself “The Barbecue Capitol of Texas,” we were in search of “Smitty’s.” It had been named one of the top five barbecue [...]

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Suspended In Time

March 2, 2010

I stood on the wooden planks of this suspension bridge in Waco and closed my eyes, trying to conjure days long ago. On a quiet Sunday afternoon, it wasn’t hard to imagine a herd of Texas cattle, with their eyes rolling in fear, jostling and shoving each other on this bridge as they crossed the [...]

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Outlaws in Pilot Point

February 17, 2010

I forgot to tell you the Bonnie and Clyde connection to Pilot Point, Texas. I showed you a picture of the Farmer’s and Merchants Bank (which is now an art gallery), but I didn’t tell you its historical highlight. You didn’t see the bank? Check out the post about “bare nekkid ladies.” It’s not pornographic! [...]

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Snow Art is Ephemeral

February 13, 2010

I couldn’t resist heading out to take more pictures of snow. Once it is a day or two old, it loses much of its magic, but perhaps you can still imagine it. This is what it looks like in my neck of the woods. I wish I had taken a night picture of the courthouse, [...]

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Tough Times in Tioga, Texas

February 9, 2010

The tiny town of Tioga, Texas squats on Highway 377 in Grayson County one town north of Pilot Point, where I showed you the bare nekkid ladies on the mural. Tioga was established back in 1881 and was famed for its mineral water. Today, it seems like it is holding its breath and waiting for [...]

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Bare Nekkid Ladies in Pilot Point, Texas

February 8, 2010

Pilot Point is a tiny town in Grayson County, Texas on Highway 377, which is my neck of the woods. In 2003, a local business commissioned a mural for the side of his business that caused a pretty big stink across the country. Not that one, of course. Nobody in this town would object to [...]

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