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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TRAX AT THE PROVING GROUNDS
Trax Travis was already at the Proving Grounds when the sky was still arguing with itself about whether it wanted to be morning yet. That pale West Texas gray hung low over the flats, the kind that makes a man question his life choices right up until the sun burns it off like it never…
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A GOOD TIME FOR A BAD DECISION
“Dad bought Mom a 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass Brougham Sedan Diesel right after he retired.” Rex Hall dropped that line into the middle of breakfast at Grounds for Divorce like a lug nut rolling off a workbench. No warning. No context. Just clattered out there between a plate of huevos rancheros and Lucinda’s second round of…
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A MARATHON, NOT A SPRINT
On September 13, 1971, a Hawker Siddeley Trident 1E fell out of the sky over Mongolia and came to rest in the Gobi Desert like a secret too heavy to carry any farther. All nine people aboard were killed, among them Lin Biao, vice chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, defense minister, marshal of the…
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KITTY MAKES HER PLAY, Part II
PART II OF A TWO PART STORY Kitty woke Chuck up in a way that reached back ten years and tapped him on the shoulder like an old friend who still knew all the good stories. It had been Amarillo the first time. Honeymoon suite. Curtains that didn’t quite close and a bed that squeaked…
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KITTY MAKES HER PLAY, Part I
PART ONE OF A TWO PART STORY Kitty and Chuck Childress were the Rob and Laura Petrie of Road Runner Estates in 1964, which in Fort Stockton was about the highest compliment you could give a couple without inviting a visit from the Baptists. Chuck wasn’t writing jokes for television, but he did something arguably…
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ALMA HAYDEN ’S PACKARD
The Machine Itself If memory serves—and around Fort Stockton memory is half history, half courtroom testimony—this is the exact same make, model, and color combination Alma Hayden drove back when the world still believed a handshake meant something and a pickle could ruin a man. A 1949 Packard Super Eight Victoria convertible. Not just any…
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UNWRITTEN RULES
(Fort Stockton, Texas — 1975) Carl Woodbern had never intended to fall in love with an automobile. Cars, to Carl, had always been tools. Like a printing press, a stapler, or a well-sharpened pencil kept behind his ear. They got you where you needed to go and, if properly maintained, didn’t embarrass you along the…
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ALL IT TAKES IS ONE
Back in ’56, Fort Stockton kept its money quiet, but it didn’t keep it small. And there wasn’t a man in town who had more of it—or spent it with less concern for consequences—than Davis Collins. You could measure a man by his handshake, his hat, or his herd, depending on who was doing the…
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RACK ’EM UP
Axel Ackerly was never the sharpest tool in the shed. Not dull enough to be dangerous, just soft around the edges like a well-worn bar of Ivory. A sweet kid. The kind you root for even while you’re quietly locking up anything with moving parts. At Jim Bowie High, Class of ’06, Axel never threatened…
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JUST PLANE CRAZY
By the time Gladys Roy came to Fort Stockton, she had already done enough foolishness in the sky to make ordinary sin look lazy. Folks in town did not know what to make of her at first, which is saying something, because Fort Stockton had already survived cattle booms, dust, dry years, wet lies, and…