STORIES
If our lives are a book, the cars we drive define the chapters.
These are stories featuring cars, trucks, and even RVs that played a role in the lives of the people who owned or drove them. Many are set in Fort Stockton, Texas and involve a cast of characters in and around the dusty southwest Texas town. A lot of the stories are shared around the table at The Grounds for Divorce, where the ‘regulars’ meet.
Pull up a chair and let Lucinda pour you a hot cuppa joe and enjoy.
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DRIVING THE DECISION
Part 1 of a trilogy. Part 2 will be posted tomorrow. When he was released from Huntsville Prison, officials presented Glen Roberts with twenty bucks and a bus ticket to Fort Stockton. The suit he wore walking out the front gate was the same one he’d had on when he’d been driven in, August of 1959. …
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GUNNIN’ FOR BIGGER THINGS
The ravages of war are not enough to dim the power of passion. Case in point: the affair between Hans Richter and his buxom blonde paramour that stretched over two continents, several careers, and multiple decades. Hans was patrolling the countryside on his Ketternrad near the German border with Austria when he passed a young…
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STARS & STRIPES FOREVER
Francesco was but a lad during World War II, doing all he could just to survive. By 1949 the young boy of 17 had lost both parents and became part of a program run by Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern to relocate war-orphans to Fort Stockton for a second chance. The long boat trip over…
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THE FLAG MAN
Back in the early summer of ’54 a guy came through town driving a Chevrolet two door sedan in these exact colors. Both he and the car seemed to reflect a sense of optimism. There’s no way to look at the combination of cream and green and think your best days still lie ahead. He…
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OKAY, FINE
Okay, fine. No argument that this is an incredible car, with a magnificent history, photographed through the lens of God’s Hawkeye Brownie. Throw in the connection to Hitchcock, Tippi Hedren, and The Birds, and it takes it up a notch or two because, Damn. And I’m going to concede that the British can do certain…
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CRESTFALLEN
Back in the day, there were identical twin brothers here in Fort Stockton. As happens, one became a success, while the other went through life a ne’er-do-well, never able to hold a steady job. Rather than pursue a career and make a contribution, he laid around the house watching Oprah and contemplating his belly button. One Saturday…
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THE ROYAL PRINCESS
Everyone on the job site knew she was coming when they heard Frank Sinatra blaring on the Highway Hi-Fi at full blast. Who the hell else had a record player in their car? But if anyone in Fort Stockton would, it’d be Jaydee Dalton-Douglas. The gals at the Piggly Wiggly sneered, “She just married John…
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OTMAR’S PACKARD 8
Beautiful Packard. Not unlike the one Otmar Holbien drove back when Fort Stockton had its own philharmonic orchestra. He bought it new at Pecos Packard when he first got the gig at the FSPO and drove it the whole time he lived in town. Nobody could ever remember seeing him dressed in anything but black,…
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ROUGH AROUND THE EDGES
Harlan Beaucamp showed up at the Grounds for Divorce this morning. Drove into town in his old ’59 Dodge W300 Power Wagon. Harlan and his Dodge were both cut from the same cloth, or sheet metal, as it were. Tough as a boot, as few repairs as possible, both in need of several more that…
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THE TALL COTTON SUPPER CLUB
Everybody who was anybody in Fort Stockton back in the day had a membership at the Tall Cotton Yacht and Supper Club out on the shores of Lake Leon. There seemed to be competition between the more well heeled as to who could outdo whom in those heady days after the war where everyone was…