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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MANY THANKS FROM THE FORT
Fall had finally arrived in Fort Stockton, that brief and glorious window between “too hot to think” and “hope the pipes don’t freeze.” The courthouse lawn was littered with brown mesquite leaves, the air smelled faintly of diesel and cinnamon, and somewhere, someone was frying something that didn’t strictly need to be fried. Over at…
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THE GREAT TEACHER RETIREMENT BAIL-OUT
Fort Stockton had seen stranger weeks, but not by much. It all started when it came to light that Mayor Goodman—acting under what he later called “a visionary investment strategy”—had lost most of the Fort Stockton Independent School District’s Teacher Retirement Fund. The scheme involved wagering heavily on the outcome of the Carrera Panamericana, a…
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A GROUNDSWELL AT THE GFD
The bell above the door of Grounds for Divorce gave a half-hearted jingle, as if even it was feeling lazy this morning. The regulars—Rusty Hammer, Rex Hall, Pastor Peterson, Sister Thelma, and New Guy—were huddled around the big round table near the window. Mugs half-empty, conversation half-baked. Rusty tapped his spoon against his cup like…
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MOVIE REVIEW: McQ
Jimmy Don Ventura’s Monthly Movie Review: McQ (1974) Stockton Telegram-Dispatch | Captain My Captain Blog You can’t spell “John Wayne” without “JW,” and you can’t spell “JW” without thinking of whiskey, wide-brimmed hats, and a face carved out of a sandstone bluff. But in 1974, the Duke holstered his six-shooters, parked the horse at the hitchin’…
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BURNING DOWN THE PANAMERICANA, Chapter 5 — Ashes to Asphalt, Dust to Dust
The final chapter of a five-part series. By dawn, Parral was stirring like a hangover in the sun. Vendors dragged out their stalls, chickens clucked their complaints, and the last of the racers were checking tire pressure and faith. The air smelled like dust, tortillas, and bad decisions. Rex Hall stretched his back beside the…
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BURNING DOWN THE PANAMERICANA, Chapter 4 – The Falcon Takes Flight
The fourth chapter of a five-part series. By the time the race reached León, the roadbooks were dog-eared, the cars were running on borrowed grace, and half the drivers were looking at their co-pilots like bad investments. Dust lay over everything like a fine layer of consequence. The Falcon, however, looked alive—if by alive you…
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BURNING DOWN THE PANAMERICANA, Chapter Three — A Little Bit of Heaven Raising Hell
The third chapter of a five-part series. They said the Lincoln Capri looked like it had already seen the future, then driven back through a dust storm to tell about it. The two-tone coupe squatted on the plaza outside the Puebla hotel, wide-shouldered and slightly worn, but still proud in its curves. Its yellow tailfins…
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BURNING DOWN THE PANAMERICANA, Chapter Two — Hope and Horsepower Under the Hood
The second chapter of a five-part series. They said the Lincoln carried dignity like a steeple; the Ford carried defiance like a barn door held on with two screws and a prayer. By dawn, Oaxaca smelled like bread and spent incense. The city had not yet forgotten the tremors from Lucinda and Delgado’s Room 203…
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BURNING DOWN THE PANAMERICANA, Chapter One — A Tequila Inspired Challenge
The first chapter of a five-part series. The Lucky Lady Lounge was not where sensible ideas went to be born; it was where they went to be dared. Over the years it had incubated innovations such as Rusty Hammer’s Hammer-Hatchet-Bottle-Opener (two injuries, three ruined fence posts), the Goat Roping Indoors Experiment (do not ask about…
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HOG HEAVEN ON FOUR WHEELS
Only in Fort Stockton would a Depression-era Dodge converted into a Hawaiian beach cruiser wind up as the centerpiece of an economic development plan. And only under the watchful squint of Mayor Goodman could it have happened with federal grant money, a loan from the Optimistic Rotarians, and a mysterious stack of seed cash funneled…