Month: July 2024
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SUMMER ’53, PART III, Feels Like Home
Coming from Southern California to Fort Stockton, Texas was like starring in Rebel Without a Cause, and then taking a bit part in High Noon. Nobody inside the Ranch Wagon said anything as they made their way through town, checked into the Naughty Pine Motel and then made their way over to the Dairy Twin for dinner. “It’s…
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SUMMER ’53, PART II: Fort Stockton Just Ahead
Moving day came without celebration a few weeks later. Francis and Don went into Matthew’s room and threw open the drapes like Satan throws open the gates of Hell to welcome a new recruit. The brightness of the sunshine on his face caused Mathew to recoil under the sheets like a snake under a rock. Francis was…
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SUMMER ’53, PART I: Godforsaken Bakersfield
“Godforsaken Bakersfield,” Matthew thought to himself as he lay in his room at the end of the hall. “It there’s a worse place on earth, I’d like to know where it is.” Across the hall, his mother and her husband tried to stifle the sounds of their activities, but his mother was a verbal processor and…
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FROM THE BACK OF THE BERMUDA, 7/28/2024
Well, it’s been a busy week in Fort Stockton. Buttercup continues to heal from knee replacement. We’ve been sleeping in separate rooms since the surgery for obvious reasons. She’s walking without a walker or cane . . . good progress for two and a half weeks out. However, she’s dealing with a considerable amount of pain from the…
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NELDA’S NEW NEW YORKER
Back in ’78, Nelda worked over at the Klip-N-Dye doing permanents on some of Fort Stockton’s finest females when she slumped over and collapsed right in the middle of the linoleum while finishing up the coif on Mrs. Tatlock. Trixie, the owner of the shop, and Mable over at the manicure table, thought she was…
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ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE
Everyone was gathered around the big table in the middle of the Grounds for Divorce when this thing drove by. Well, if it wasn’t this one, it was one just like it. Sunny Sommerville drives it, and has for more years than anyone can remember. Sunny sticks out like a turd in the punchbowl in Fort Stockton, even…
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AS CHANCE WOULD HAVE IT
The physical wounds Chance Collinsworth suffered healed more quickly than the psychological ones. The smell of burning jet fuel stayed in his nostrils for months as a result of the Eastern plane crash. The sound of a car backfiring or a firecracker going off took him back to the pavement under a rented Dodge Coronet,…
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BEAR NECESSITIES
Ed Jasper was a man’s man. If there was ever any doubt about the matter, Ed was the first one to clarify the fact. Fort Stockton has no shortage of men who take bravado to an art form, but Ed stood out even amongst that distinguished group. He was famous for having a couple too many in the…
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KICK ASS JEEP
I swear this looks better than the one Vern Vandervort bought brand new off the showroom floor of Jackrabbit Jeep back in January of 1960. The darn thing reminded Vern so much of his wife, Velma, that he knew it was the one for him. The ‘face’ on the front of it was a dead…
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RIDING THE CLOUD
Nobody in town was really surprised when Mayor Goodman presented a custom Cadillac to his consort, Cloudy Dimmitt. We all knew she’d earned it. In fact, if he was really going to present her with a ride equal to her efforts, he should have bought her a new Lamborghini. But of course that was never going to happen. The…