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 MOTEL ON THE ROOF — Part III: The Feast
“Ghosts in the woodgrain, wine on the table, and gratitude found in the mess.” By the time the Hollisters wheezed into Aunt Sissy’s driveway in Greensboro, the Ford Country Sedan sounded like a man gargling gravel. The Tote Motel Camper leaned sideways, bolts creaking, the whole contraption sagging like it wanted to quit before the…
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THE MOTEL ON THE ROOF — Part II: The Pilgrim’s Progress
“When families collide, all bets are off—especially after Jello shots and Ding Dongs.” The KOA sign rose out of the dusk like salvation in neon, buzzing faintly against a sky bruised with thunderheads. The Hollisters’ 1971 Ford Country Sedan had been dragging the Tote Motel Camper across Louisiana’s backroads all day, and the wagon was…
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THE MOTEL ON THE ROOF — Part I: The Promise
“Every great holiday disaster starts with a promise… and a station wagon stacked too high.” Every Thanksgiving, families load up the car and head off in search of turkey, togetherness, and a little grace. The Hollisters of Fort Stockton aimed for all three. What they got instead was a cross-country odyssey in a wagon with…
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BRICK SCHTICK IN WEST TEXAS
It was slow at the Grounds for Divorce this morning—the kind of slow where it had been at least twelve hours since Mayor Goodman said something stupid, leaving the regulars to endure a conversational drought. Talk drifted to Christmas. “I only want three things this year,” Chad from the Piggly Wiggly announced. “A million dollars…
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SCRAPING THE SKY, AND THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL
They said J.D. McMahon could sell a comb to a bald man and a ticket to heaven to a Baptist. That might have been exaggeration, but only slightly. By 1919, he was walking tall through Wichita Falls, Texas — a man with patent leather shoes, a silver tongue, and a knack for finding gullible people…
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WHEN HISTORY DENTS A FENDER
Oil Patch Cadillac–John Deere sat on the east side of Fort Stockton where the desert gave up pretending to be anything but dust. The place smelled of rubber, axle grease, and ambition. Inside, chrome glinted brighter than a televangelist’s smile, and a big sign over the service bay promised A Good Deal in Every Field—a…
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MOVIE REVIEW, NOVEMBER EDITION: Planes, Trains & Automobiles
By Jimmy Don Ventura, Movie Reviewer of the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch and Special Contributor to the CMC Blog Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Jimmy Don, this is a Thanksgiving movie, not a car movie.” And you’d be right—except for the fact that every single beat of John Hughes’ 1987 classic depends on cars either breaking…
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THE BOY WHO BORROWED A WAR, Part II
Part II of a two part tale of fate by mistake. The road to Saint-Martin-du-Pin was marked by hedgerows that looked like sleeping giants. Somewhere, a cow bell clonked once, then decided against it. The blackout lights were little moons in their own right, enough to keep him between the ditches. He shifted the way…
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THE BOY WHO BORROWED A WAR, Part I
Part I of a two part tale of fate by mistake. On the afternoon the Japs hit Pearl Harbor, Fort Stockton gathered on the courthouse lawn like the wind had pushed them all into one corner of the world. The radios hissed and popped, and Pastor Peterson prayed loud enough to make the pigeons crouch…
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THE BOX BEHIND THE HUMP
The Car That Outlived Her Clarice had been gone three months. Heart gave out in her sleep, quietly, without fanfare. The mail still came, the wind still blew, and the Continental sat there, bearing witness like it always had. Her nephew, Travis, came down from Midland to settle the estate. He was the kind of…