Category: Every car is a story.
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EL FUSILADO POLARA
Last Sunday I was at the Grounds for Divorce when Lucinda unlocked the doors. First one in. In fact, only one in. Had to wait for her to make the first pot of Folgers. “This is early. Even for you. Surprised to see you here on a Sunday,” she said as I sat in the booth over in the corner. “You…
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SQUINTING AT THE SUNLINER
The heat had finally broken, making the sun less of an enemy. As a result, I decided to take the long way to town and enjoy a little more of the morning than I’d been able to in the several months since the Heat Dome planted itself over Fort Stockton. Despite water bills that bordered…
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PITCH BLACK
“Likable, but not exceptional.” That’s what Edwin Black’s third grade teacher wrote on his report card. Kind of an odd observation, Edwin thought to himself when he read it after his mother had left it lying on the kitchen table. But, his teacher was one with a fairly vast level of experience, so both Edwin and his mother took…
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MISSING THE BOAT
“My grandmother had a boyfriend for a while that had a Chris-Craft 21’ Triple -Cockpit Runabout. Kept it out at Lake Leon,,” Lucinda said as she refilled all the CMC mugs around the big table in the middle of the cafe. She said it is nonchalantly, like it was something anyone in the Grounds for Divorce could…
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DODGING MORNINGWOOD
Nobody at the Grounds for Divorce had seen much of Chad since he got the big promotion to Assistant Manager at the Piggly Wiggly last fall and started putting in a lot more hours. Shortly thereafter he and Prudence bought a faux French Country Farmhouse ranchette out in Morningwood, the tract development south of town…
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JUST LIKE THAT
Nobody buys a 1959 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer to fly under the radar. Ordering one in Grey Rose Poly and Black assures anything but anonymity. When just such a new automobile pulled through Fort Stockton and into the parking lot of the Cattle Baron Hotel in November of 1958, people took notice more than if it…
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GRABBING THE TILLER
About the last place you’d expect to see a 1951 Nelco Solocar would be Fort Stockton, but damned if there wasn’t one parked outside the post office back from ’51 all the way up to about the mid-80s. Lieutenant Jim, folks all called him LT for short, moved to town in late ’51 and moved…
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GRINDING IT OUT AT THE GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE
Most days the Grounds for Divorce is home to witty banter and the steady repartee of old guys debating Chevy engines in Fords and changing the color from original, or whether Lucinda looks better in the tight sweaters of fall or the halter tops of summer. In other words, debating things that can never be proven…
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THE MORE THINGS CHANGE
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Back in nineteen and twelve, the Lucky Lady was on the exact same spot, in the exact same building, but there wasn’t much around it. Nothing like now, of course. There was a blacksmith just down the street, and a big open stockade next to it where…
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FINDING THE SWEET SPOT
In one of his last acts at Westward Ho Dairy in Fort Stockton, before accepting the presidency of the Bon Bon Division for Carnation in Los Angeles, Rex Phleming hatched a scheme they still talk about over at the Piggly Wiggly when it gets hot outside. Taking the after-tax profits from the the third and…