Category: Every car is a story.
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FAILURE TO LAUNCH
Paul Dillon was stopping by The Grounds for Divorce for a cuppa coffee. It was early on a Saturday. Most people in Fort Stockton were still asleep, except the paperboy delivering the weekend edition of the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch. Paul had waited for the kid to drive by on his red Schwinn Panther III and toss…
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BOBBY TOMMY WINS THE LOTTERY
When Bobby Tommy and his girlfriend, Tammy, won the lottery they swore they were going to maintain exactly the same lifestyle they’d had before. They’d get married. Bobby was going to keep his job out at the Gripper Urinal Factory turning raw kaolinite, mined just outside Fort Stockton, into the finest urinals made west of…
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KODACHROME
Old pictures. Boxes of old pictures. Crates of boxes of old pictures. An attic full of crates of boxes of old pictures. So many of them taken in front of cars, or beside cars, or in cars. New cars being photographed for the ‘official record’. Vacations. Trips to the beach. Most of the time, when…
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MAGIC BULLET THEORY
“There’s just too much to love about this ’55 Studebaker President,” Rusty said, holding up his iPhone. “There hasn’t been anything to love about a President since Reagan,” Rex noted. About then Lucinda stopped by to see if anyone was going to actually order anything, or if it was just another morning of maximum Maxwell…
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JUST LIKE OLDS TIMES
Part III of a Trilogy. When his secretary dropped the mail on his desk, she was sure to place what looked like the most interesting correspondence on the very top of the stack. It was addressed to ‘Bobby’ rather than ‘Robert’ or ‘Mr. Hardin’. In her years of working for him, she had never heard…
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SMALL TOWN COSMOPOLITAN
Part II of a trilogy. Part I was posted yesterday. Part III will be posted tomorrow. Bobby threw his duffle bag into the backseat of the new Ford convertible, grabbed the letter Jo Ellen had put under the windshield wiper, and crawled in behind the wheel to read it. It said she couldn’t leave North…
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A SOLDIER’S DREAM
This is Part I of a Trilogy. Part II will be posted tomorrow, Part III the following day. Bobby Hardin was barely 18 when he enlisted in ’43. Prior to that, he’d never been further than 50 miles outside Fort Stockton. After 13 weeks of basic training he found himself on a train heading from…
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L.A. BY WAY OF MONTEREY
“Sorry for all the interviews we put you through,” the suit on the other side of the grey metal desk said. “I’m sure you can understand how critical it is for us to get a new hire like this just right. Everybody and their dog has to sign off on it.” “I understand. That’s why…
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THE VIEW FROM THE FRONT PORCH
Spring’s got to be the best season. Except for maybe fall, what with Texas football and all. Summer is pretty good, but the damn heat can be stifling. But spring is pretty special. Everything turning green, the crisp air in the morning. The smell of barbecue grills getting cranked up for the first time since…
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SUNSET ACRES ROAD-TRIPPER
Back in ’77 Studer Tuglow special ordered one just like this from Pecos GMC / International Harvester for his business. He owned the Sunset Acres Retirement Home here in Fort Stockton and figured it would be one more amenity he could offer residents. If memory serves, his was yellow and purple also – always made…