Oct. 19 ---- Tejas
Texas brings out the cowboy in me to be sure. Heck, I still have the cowboy hat I bought way back in ’78 when I first settled in La Grange, Tejas (yes, that La Grange of ZZ Top fame---complete with bumper stickers that pronounced “I’m a friend of Sheriff Jim,” who was an almost stereotypical lawman at 6 foot plus; an older gentleman who wore a western cut suit and a hat as big as the Texas sky---he was the man who bitch slapped the Houston TV eyewitness reporter, Marvin Zindler, after Zindler’s story helped closed the famed Chicken Ranch brothel for good. The good folks of La Grange and other neighboring towns kinda liked (and so did Sheriff Jim it was rumored) that there was a place that the young cowpokes could go to poke around other than around their fine young daughters.)
I may be a wannbe cowboy, but remember, I am from Western NY.
Getting to Wayland, Tejas means that one goes from the elevation of about 440 feet in Hannibal, MO to about 1,300 feet. Since it is a slow rise over the 1,000 miles, it is almost imperceptible, but when you get there you can tell that you are on a plateau of sorts and just a little bit closer to the big sky of this big state (sorry my Texas friends, but Alaska is still the biggest).
I was happier than a mouse in an outhouse, a warm place to sleep and all you can eat, (just one of the too many sayings complements of Charles Motley, my foreman when I was on the ironworker (bolt up crew) at the power plant I worked at while in La Grange----yes, I am one of the few that can honestly say I was part of a Motley crew) when I pulled onto FM 576 (farm road) and was less than 18 or so miles from Wayland.
It is the tertiary roads I love the best, and this was to my liking immediately as it narrowed down and started to curve hither and yon(der) betwixt a few older abandoned ranch buildings and other signs of human purpose.
I stopped to read a mile marker that told of the Texas Company (Texaco)’s founding of Parks Camp in 1918, a typical oil boom town that held about 15,000 oil workers and their families. It disappeared totally by the end of World War II when the oil ran out for the most part (rigs are still a pumpin’ here and there).
As with Parks Camp, so grew Wayland, once a simple town that was held together by the ranching thereabouts, but which also saw a boom in population once the shout when out that “there’s gold in them thar locations that once held massive amounts of dinosaurs and serious vegetation that over the vast span of time became a recipe of flora/fauna go juice.”
A smile as big as Rhode Island (my head isn’t Texas big yet----we’ll see what happens if I in fact write enough good stuff to get a book published) spread across my face as I came up on the green, reflective sign (mile 2,820) that signified I was home again, moniker-wise.
There was only one resident stirring (headed out in his pick ‘em up truck) and a covey, bevy, or drift (your choice) of quail to greet me (sorry about the fuzzy feathers shot). I rode (hey, this is horse country – you don’t drive anymore, your ride/rode) to the edge of town, (a three sneezer of a distance) and back again to get a feel of the boundaries. I got shots of the cemetery and the old school; the only sense of community one could get from a town of about 15 or so buildings (including out buildings), for if during your initial sneeze through town you missed the town sign, you would think you simply happened upon a smallish cluster of houses that shared FM 1852 as a mail destination only.
I didn’t hang long since I had to get to Eastland to get my room for the night. But, I knew when to get back to town since Brian Rogers, after neglecting my pre-trip email about my coming to his fair area and where I should stay the night, called me out of the blue one night on the road. He was excited about visit and said he had emailed or let known I was coming and there was a meeting planned for me at the Community Center (the old school) that we agreed would happen Tuesday night.
As we talked, which quickly became jovial in nature, about fire departments (they had recently started up one) my love of the National beer of Texas, Lone Star, I almost became embarrassed by Brian’s level of excitement for my visit. My status as a celebrity is ant-like in nature, but Brian said that folks were happy to come talk to the goofball who put Wayland above all others.
Serendipity alert: As I was came close to Wayland the radio station (Texas Heritage Radio?) brought forth the song “Streets of Laredo” and I caught the lyric “I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy.” Way back, I can’t remember, I picked up a travel book “I See By My Outfit” by Peter S. Beagle which tells the tale of two budhros who took a ‘60s mad dash across the continent on Vespa Scooters and never quite knew how Beagle came up with the title (he might have said it in the book that I read it long ago that stirred up the wanderlust in me). Made me tingle with the joy bumps that only serendipity can bring that I now knew and by happenstance was on another mad dash like the too many others before me. Sorry---had to share.
I pulled back to town at the appointed hour and he showed up in the newest fire apparatus shortly thereafter with a big grin and a welcoming handshake one might receive from a long lost friend. Before long others showed up, including the promised Miss Eloise (Fambro) Guerrant, 84, who was born and raised there and came back in 1985 to live at the family ranch.
The thing that made talking to Miss Eloise more poignant was that we were sitting in the four room school house (two or three classes per room per teacher) she attended with my hope that the spirits of the past would bring back all the good things she lived through.
She had grown up during the oil boom and told of the fact that where the tumbled in building stands now (an old general store), was about where the intersection of the sort of Main Street was. No trace that Brian could tell of was apparent that the Post Office, a bank, a couple of stores, churches and the few other establishments that define a Main Street had ever existed. No foundations stood amongst the landscape that had returned to a grassy high prairie state. We all figured that it must have been the case back when frugality ruled more completely, that folks had torn down the frame buildings as she called them, to reuse the materials in other dwellings.
She had a bit a document of two that spoke of 1896 as a date of substance that was backed up by a framed document in one of the rooms that said the
There was only one boy in her class (at this point, 1938, the town held maybe 100 or so) and the two went north to Breckinridge to finish school, she then went to college and went to Dallas to work at Neiman-Marcus, yes, that Neiman-Marcus when it was only in Texas.
In an adjoining room, there hung an original framed proclamation of sorts, presented to the then muckities (among them one Dr. D.J. Hodges) of Wayland by the “Grand State Farmers Alliance of Texas” and “this charter for a subordinate alliance to be known and designated as Wayland … Alliance #332.” It was signed by the Alliance muckities March 20, 1885. Whether this dates the founding of the town is beyond the ken of those in the school, but I do not buy the Handbook of Texas Online that “It was named for being ‘on the way’ to more important towns …” Too easy and cheesy and I don’t buy it because where does “way” and “land” come together in this hack formula? It’s way off. Way station, midway, same way, anyway, another way, safe way, way beyond, waylaid, wayward, way out yonder in the paw paw patch, all are way out there as well, but way closer than “way” “land” as a name idea grab.
Besides Brian and Miss Eloise, Ty Allgood, volunteer firefighter (how’d you like to live up to that name) and Cecil Ramsaier, Fire Chief, attended.
Cecil is a lifelong native, who traces his roots to some of the first families of the area. He works for a interesting gentleman, John Ed Connor, about 94 or so, who hit it big way back in the wildcat days and still pumps about 30 wells or so. And talk about how tough frontier women were, they still are if his grandmother’s story was to be told. Cecil told me that the house she lived in until here passing in 1982, didn’t have water on the day she passed.
Desperate housewives outside of Stephens County Texas my buttocks!
He said he is one of the few remaining natives, with more than not, the current town residents are all transplants drawn to relatively cheap land prices.
Young Ty, early 20s, and Army brat, moved there when he was about 8 and said his was a great childhood of running wild and shooting at things up for fun. When asked if he was going to find a good woman to settle down, eh said that he was getting married Friday
Congrats Ty.
I rode back to the motel in what was becoming a full moon full of the happiness that only comes from meeting, sharing and laughing with folks who I could easily call friends and neighbors in a very short time.
Where once a town boomed for a while and then slowly came to grips with its smaller identity and relative isolation, it now is coming back to a fuller community feel because of the coming together to start up a fire department.
For you firefighters out there who might be reading this, they encompass all the pride that larger departments have with larger numbers. But these 20 or so men and women who now stand behind their to be envious of motto “Kicking Ashes and Taking Flames,” cover 406 square miles with all the tenacity that serving others evokes.
This posting took a little longer to get to than I had planned, but that comes from a real sense of ahhh that has taken hold of me as I let drop the stuff of the daily grind. Not bragging about it, just saying it is nice to have the wonderful feel of the moment that this kind of not-for-hire lifestyle brings.
I may be a wannbe cowboy, but remember, I am from Western NY.
Getting to Wayland, Tejas means that one goes from the elevation of about 440 feet in Hannibal, MO to about 1,300 feet. Since it is a slow rise over the 1,000 miles, it is almost imperceptible, but when you get there you can tell that you are on a plateau of sorts and just a little bit closer to the big sky of this big state (sorry my Texas friends, but Alaska is still the biggest).
I was happier than a mouse in an outhouse, a warm place to sleep and all you can eat, (just one of the too many sayings complements of Charles Motley, my foreman when I was on the ironworker (bolt up crew) at the power plant I worked at while in La Grange----yes, I am one of the few that can honestly say I was part of a Motley crew) when I pulled onto FM 576 (farm road) and was less than 18 or so miles from Wayland.
It is the tertiary roads I love the best, and this was to my liking immediately as it narrowed down and started to curve hither and yon(der) betwixt a few older abandoned ranch buildings and other signs of human purpose.
I stopped to read a mile marker that told of the Texas Company (Texaco)’s founding of Parks Camp in 1918, a typical oil boom town that held about 15,000 oil workers and their families. It disappeared totally by the end of World War II when the oil ran out for the most part (rigs are still a pumpin’ here and there).
As with Parks Camp, so grew Wayland, once a simple town that was held together by the ranching thereabouts, but which also saw a boom in population once the shout when out that “there’s gold in them thar locations that once held massive amounts of dinosaurs and serious vegetation that over the vast span of time became a recipe of flora/fauna go juice.”
A smile as big as Rhode Island (my head isn’t Texas big yet----we’ll see what happens if I in fact write enough good stuff to get a book published) spread across my face as I came up on the green, reflective sign (mile 2,820) that signified I was home again, moniker-wise.
There was only one resident stirring (headed out in his pick ‘em up truck) and a covey, bevy, or drift (your choice) of quail to greet me (sorry about the fuzzy feathers shot). I rode (hey, this is horse country – you don’t drive anymore, your ride/rode) to the edge of town, (a three sneezer of a distance) and back again to get a feel of the boundaries. I got shots of the cemetery and the old school; the only sense of community one could get from a town of about 15 or so buildings (including out buildings), for if during your initial sneeze through town you missed the town sign, you would think you simply happened upon a smallish cluster of houses that shared FM 1852 as a mail destination only.
I didn’t hang long since I had to get to Eastland to get my room for the night. But, I knew when to get back to town since Brian Rogers, after neglecting my pre-trip email about my coming to his fair area and where I should stay the night, called me out of the blue one night on the road. He was excited about visit and said he had emailed or let known I was coming and there was a meeting planned for me at the Community Center (the old school) that we agreed would happen Tuesday night.
As we talked, which quickly became jovial in nature, about fire departments (they had recently started up one) my love of the National beer of Texas, Lone Star, I almost became embarrassed by Brian’s level of excitement for my visit. My status as a celebrity is ant-like in nature, but Brian said that folks were happy to come talk to the goofball who put Wayland above all others.
Serendipity alert: As I was came close to Wayland the radio station (Texas Heritage Radio?) brought forth the song “Streets of Laredo” and I caught the lyric “I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy.” Way back, I can’t remember, I picked up a travel book “I See By My Outfit” by Peter S. Beagle which tells the tale of two budhros who took a ‘60s mad dash across the continent on Vespa Scooters and never quite knew how Beagle came up with the title (he might have said it in the book that I read it long ago that stirred up the wanderlust in me). Made me tingle with the joy bumps that only serendipity can bring that I now knew and by happenstance was on another mad dash like the too many others before me. Sorry---had to share.
I pulled back to town at the appointed hour and he showed up in the newest fire apparatus shortly thereafter with a big grin and a welcoming handshake one might receive from a long lost friend. Before long others showed up, including the promised Miss Eloise (Fambro) Guerrant, 84, who was born and raised there and came back in 1985 to live at the family ranch.
The thing that made talking to Miss Eloise more poignant was that we were sitting in the four room school house (two or three classes per room per teacher) she attended with my hope that the spirits of the past would bring back all the good things she lived through.
She had grown up during the oil boom and told of the fact that where the tumbled in building stands now (an old general store), was about where the intersection of the sort of Main Street was. No trace that Brian could tell of was apparent that the Post Office, a bank, a couple of stores, churches and the few other establishments that define a Main Street had ever existed. No foundations stood amongst the landscape that had returned to a grassy high prairie state. We all figured that it must have been the case back when frugality ruled more completely, that folks had torn down the frame buildings as she called them, to reuse the materials in other dwellings.
She had a bit a document of two that spoke of 1896 as a date of substance that was backed up by a framed document in one of the rooms that said the
There was only one boy in her class (at this point, 1938, the town held maybe 100 or so) and the two went north to Breckinridge to finish school, she then went to college and went to Dallas to work at Neiman-Marcus, yes, that Neiman-Marcus when it was only in Texas.
In an adjoining room, there hung an original framed proclamation of sorts, presented to the then muckities (among them one Dr. D.J. Hodges) of Wayland by the “Grand State Farmers Alliance of Texas” and “this charter for a subordinate alliance to be known and designated as Wayland … Alliance #332.” It was signed by the Alliance muckities March 20, 1885. Whether this dates the founding of the town is beyond the ken of those in the school, but I do not buy the Handbook of Texas Online that “It was named for being ‘on the way’ to more important towns …” Too easy and cheesy and I don’t buy it because where does “way” and “land” come together in this hack formula? It’s way off. Way station, midway, same way, anyway, another way, safe way, way beyond, waylaid, wayward, way out yonder in the paw paw patch, all are way out there as well, but way closer than “way” “land” as a name idea grab.
Besides Brian and Miss Eloise, Ty Allgood, volunteer firefighter (how’d you like to live up to that name) and Cecil Ramsaier, Fire Chief, attended.
Cecil is a lifelong native, who traces his roots to some of the first families of the area. He works for a interesting gentleman, John Ed Connor, about 94 or so, who hit it big way back in the wildcat days and still pumps about 30 wells or so. And talk about how tough frontier women were, they still are if his grandmother’s story was to be told. Cecil told me that the house she lived in until here passing in 1982, didn’t have water on the day she passed.
Desperate housewives outside of Stephens County Texas my buttocks!
He said he is one of the few remaining natives, with more than not, the current town residents are all transplants drawn to relatively cheap land prices.
Young Ty, early 20s, and Army brat, moved there when he was about 8 and said his was a great childhood of running wild and shooting at things up for fun. When asked if he was going to find a good woman to settle down, eh said that he was getting married Friday
Congrats Ty.
I rode back to the motel in what was becoming a full moon full of the happiness that only comes from meeting, sharing and laughing with folks who I could easily call friends and neighbors in a very short time.
Where once a town boomed for a while and then slowly came to grips with its smaller identity and relative isolation, it now is coming back to a fuller community feel because of the coming together to start up a fire department.
For you firefighters out there who might be reading this, they encompass all the pride that larger departments have with larger numbers. But these 20 or so men and women who now stand behind their to be envious of motto “Kicking Ashes and Taking Flames,” cover 406 square miles with all the tenacity that serving others evokes.
This posting took a little longer to get to than I had planned, but that comes from a real sense of ahhh that has taken hold of me as I let drop the stuff of the daily grind. Not bragging about it, just saying it is nice to have the wonderful feel of the moment that this kind of not-for-hire lifestyle brings.