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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THE SILVER SPEEDSTER, PART II: The Cost of a Shine
Part II of a Two Part Story Cody didn’t sleep. He sat at the kitchen table with the lights off, staring at nothing while the house made its quiet nighttime noises: the fridge humming, the walls settling, the distant sound of a truck on I-10 like someone else’s life moving along just fine. Marissa sat…
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THE SILVER SPEEDSTER, PART I: Borrowed Shine
Part I of a Two Part Story Fort Stockton had a way of making a man feel like he was standing still while the world drove past at seventy-five, windows up, A/C on, and no intention of stopping for gas or gossip. That was especially true in late spring, when the wind came off the…
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MOVIE REVIEW, The French Connection
By Jimmy Don Ventura Movie Critic, Stockton Telegram-DispatchGuest Reviewer — CMC Blog There are movies you watch on purpose.There are movies you catch halfway through because the remote fell behind the couch.And then there are movies that don’t so much begin as ambush you—grab you by the collar, shove you down a stairwell, and make…
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LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE (AND A DRAWER)
They first noticed it behind the feed store, which is where Fort Stockton notices most things that don’t belong. It sat there like a spent bullet someone had thoughtfully polished before tossing aside—long, silver, low, and pointed at nothing in particular. The railroad tracks ran behind it, boxcars drifting past in no hurry, the kind…
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CRUSHED LESSONS
In the fall of 1975, Fort Stockton taught a person the way a windstorm teaches a screen door: loudly, without asking permission, and with a little bit of damage you didn’t notice until later. The freshman walked out of Jim Bowie High School—Home of the Fighting Knives—with a Health & Human Anatomy worksheet folded in…
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THE WILD BLUE YONDER
The old red 1972 Grumman AA-1A Trainer sat in Bay 3 at the Fort Stockton Regional Airport and Feed Lot like a fire ant that had learned to mind its manners. Bubble canopy closed, nose pointed toward the runway, it looked small but certain of itself—the kind of airplane that didn’t brag yet expected attention…
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WHO GOT PUMPED?
There are machines that inspire confidence, and then there are machines that make you deeply aware of your own posture, vocabulary, and place in the universe. This 1994 Ford F-350 XL Mini Pumper fell squarely into the second category. It was the kind of truck that made men stand straighter, women cross their arms, and…
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THE DEVIL’S LAZY SUSAN
The Grounds for Divorce never really opened so much as it resumed consciousness. By the time the sun hit the limestone courthouse and bounced its way down Dickinson Boulevard, the regulars were already assembled at the big round table near the front window—the one with the wobble nobody ever fixed because Rusty Hammer claimed it…
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BAND OF BUICKS, CHAPTER IV
THE FINAL CHAPTER OF A FOUR PART SERIES If you were keeping an unofficial census of Fort Stockton’s early morning population, the Grounds for Divorce would’ve given you a good sample. Lucinda was behind the counter pouring Folgers from the Bunn-O-Matic the way she’d poured it since the Lord called her to the fine art…
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BAND OF BUICKS, CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III OF A FOUR PART STORY If you happened to be standing on Main Street the morning Lillie Mae rolled into Muleshoe, you might’ve thought you were seeing a movie star who’d gotten lost east of Amarillo. Folks in that part of Texas didn’t see many woodie wagons to begin with, much less one…