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.

  • VALIANT EFFORTS

    Judy, Joyce, and Justine had gone through all twelve years of school together at Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern and graduated as a group in 1964. Joyce and Justine had gone off to college, Joyce at Texas Tech and Justine at UT. Each of them had found husbands and not returned to Fort Stockton. Only…

  • LINCOLN RUNS WITH THE STARS

    What a big bowl of ripe red cherries with a dollop of Cool-Whip on top this new offering appears to be. Without too much effort and no more than two Gibson cocktails, one can imagine this burgundy beast gliding past the HOLLYWOOD sign and heading up Sunset Boulevard. Behind the wheel is George Reeves, fresh…

  • COOTER’S COURIER

    While these are rarer than hen’s teeth these days, back in ’59 they were actually a fairly common sight in small Texas towns like Lefors. Fort Stockton had one that saw a fair amount of duty back in the day. Probably the most infamous story of its service in town was the day Cooter, Leroy,…

  • MORE. NO, MORE. I WANT MORE!

    Dateline:  Late 1956, Detroit, MI “Have you seen what those bastards over at Chrysler have done?” Albert Clawson yelled as he lit one cigar off the glowing remains of an old one and chopped on it like it was  a hot dog. Of course, all the other executives around the mahogany table had seen exactly…

  • BROOKWOOD

    Hunter Richardson washed the dust of Fort Stockton off once he left and never really looked back.  He made his move to Houston and then his fortune.  The place he’d grown up became like an old yellowed newspaper.  He’d read the all stories and there was no point in re-reading any of them. He’d returned…

  • SCOOP CLANCEY’S JEEP LOADER

    Ol’ Scoops Clancey got a hold of one of these right after he bought the old Hart place north of town.  It was an unusual choice for a ranch implement, but then Scoops was not one to worship at the alter of convention.  He’d just shrug it off when folks around Fort Stockton   suggested…

  • CATCH A FALLING STARLINER

    Back in late summer of ’56 Big Jim Tuttlebaum sent his only daughter, Talia, off to college at Southwest Texas State Teachers College in San Marcos.  She was a beautiful girl, Texas born and bred with every advantage a man of wealth can offer a child, the spitting image of her gorgeous mother but with…

  • CLIFFORD AND EARNEST TAKE A TRIP

    Back in January of ’51 Clifford and Earnest, best friends since their time together in junior high at Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern, packed up Cliff’s old Plymouth Cranbrook and headed to New Mexico for an extended weekend ski trip. It started snowing outside Lubbock. By Amarillo it was a full blown blizzard and Cliff could…

  • REX HALL’S BAD DAY

    It’s true that these were known as “Doctors’ Cars” back before imported cars owned the market. However, they were known to be popular with other areas of the medical profession, as well. Back in ‘64 Rex Hall, the pharmacist here in Fort Stockton went down to Pecos Buick/GMC/International Harvester and ordered a new Wildcat convertible…